Ivy and Bean Take the Case (7 page)

“I'd do it with you, except my mom would freak,” said Trevor.

“Ha,” said Ruby. “
You'd
freak.”

“I would not!”

“Who has three night-lights?” said Ruby.

“I don't have three!” yelled Trevor. “I do not!”

After they yelled at each other for a while, Bean interrupted. “It's okay, I'll do it myself. Danger makes me laugh.”

She hoped it would, anyway.

+ + + + + +

“Guess I'll go to bed now!” said Bean.

“What?” Her mom looked up from her book. “It's only eight.”

“Remember? I hardly slept last night.” Bean tried to droop.

“Oh, right,” said her mom. “You want me to come up and tuck you in?”

Bean opened her mouth wide. She hoped it looked like a yawn. “That's okay. I don't want to bother you.”

Her mother seemed surprised. “Wow. Okay. Nighty-night.”

Bean went upstairs. The real reason she didn't want her mother to tuck her in was under her pillow. It was a timer shaped like a tomato. Bean didn't know how to set an alarm clock, but she did know how to set a timer: You twisted it all the way around. It would tick off an hour, and then a really loud bell would ring. That's why it was under Bean's pillow. Actually, it was under Bean's pillow plus two other pillows. Bean could still hear it from under three pillows, but she didn't think her parents would.

Bean turned out her light and jumped into bed. She needed to go to sleep right away, because she only had an hour before the timer would ring. Then she would twist it again, for another hour. She would twist it four times, and then it would be midnight, and she would get up and go outside.

Bean kicked her sheets, thinking about big and mean rope-tying people, about the timer waking her parents up, about sitting on her porch in the dark. She thought so much that when the timer rang, she had only been asleep for a few minutes. She twisted it again, and went back to sleep.

She twisted it again, and went back to sleep.

She twisted it again, and went back to sleep.

She twisted it again—No! Midnight! Time to get up!

Very quietly, Bean put on her clothes. She stood still and listened to make sure no one was awake. The only sound was her own breathing. Danger makes me laugh, she reminded herself. But she was too tired to laugh, and anyway, if she laughed, her mom might wake up. Bean slipped out of her room and went downstairs. She stopped in her mom's office to borrow her phone, the one with the camera, and then she got the flashlight, and finally there was nothing else to do except go outside.

In the front hallway, Bean took a deep breath. She got ready for the dark and the cold and maybe a big and mean person. Everyone else was cozy in their warm beds. Nobody knew what she was doing. She was all alone. Al Seven never seemed lonely. There was something weird about him, Bean decided. She opened the door.

The porch looked regular, but the rest of Pancake Court was blueish-blackish and empty. Bean sat down on her top step, and looked out over the nighttime world, with its looming, dark houses and rustling, dark trees. The yellow rope glowed in the light of the streetlamp,
from Dino's chimney to Ruby and Trevor's grass. She had made it in time. It hadn't grown, not yet. The nighttime world reminded her of Al Seven's black-and-white world. Even though she wasn't cold, Bean shivered. It wasn't the rope. It was the alone.

Click
. As Bean watched, Ivy came quietly out her front door. She looked over at Bean's house and waved. Then she ran down her front stairs to the sidewalk and around Pancake Court, all the way to Bean's house.

To heck with Al Seven, Bean thought as she watched Ivy run. To heck with laughing at danger. To heck with being tough. Ivy was the greatest. “Hi!” she whispered, as Ivy came up the driveway. “How'd you get up?”

“Timer,” whispered Ivy, sitting down beside Bean.

“Me too! Is yours a tomato?”

“Nope, an egg,” said Ivy. She looked at the rope. “It hasn't gotten longer.”

Bean scooted close to her. “I'm glad you came.”

“I want to see Mr. Whoever-tied-the-rope,” said Ivy.

“You do? What if he's big and mean?” asked Bean.

“Maybe he'll be little and nice.”

Bean hoped so.

They did some waiting. They did some more waiting.
They did some huddling. Then some more waiting. Then their tushes fell asleep. They got to their feet and did some stand-up waiting. They sat down and waited some more.

Nothing happened.

Bean put her head down on her knees for a while. The while stretched on. She might have closed her eyes.

She opened them and looked across the street. The rope had grown again. Bright and yellow, it crossed the street and went under
Jake the Teenager's car, which was parked at the curb. Then it went up Jake the Teenager's lawn and over his driveway and up to Kalia's mailbox.

Bean nudged Ivy. “Wake up. It happened.”

“I'm awake,” said Ivy, even though she wasn't. She opened her eyes. “Wow,” she said after a minute. “He must be pretty quiet, Mr. Whoever.”

“Yeah,” said Bean. Mr. Whoever was quiet. He wasn't big and mean. That was an idea that came from being scared. And being scared came from not understanding why anyone would stretch rope all over Pancake Court. Bean didn't understand why either, but she was sure, now, that it wasn't a mean person who had done it. Suddenly, she thought maybe it wasn't even a person. Maybe it was a creature from another world. She pictured a soft thing with long, white, rubbery fingers, tying knots. Then she pictured a tiny man, like a gnome, carrying a rope as big as he was. Then, for some reason, she pictured a rabbit in a cowboy hat with a yellow rope lasso. “It could be anything tying that rope,” she said.

Ivy nodded happily. “I know! Isn't it great? It could be an invisible being.”

“It could be a creature from another world,” Bean said. “With long, white, rubbery fingers.”