Ivy and Bean No News Is Good News (5 page)

“Boy, I thought I knew everything that happened on Pancake Court,” said Bean as they walked away from Sophie W.’s house.

“You know how Ms. Aruba-Tate is always saying how important it is to understand other people?” Ivy said. “I think I understand people a lot more after I look in their windows.”

Sophie W.’s mom had had blue goo all over her face. Also, most of her hair was inside a bag, except for some strings poking out the top. She was painting the strings with a paintbrush. It was very interesting.

Bean leaned the box up against Trevor and Ruby’s house. Ivy held it there so she wouldn’t fall again. Bean stood on top of the box and peered in the window. “It’s just their living room,” she said, looking at the empty chairs and sofa. “Pretty boring.”

“Let’s go around back,” suggested Ivy.

Ruby and Trevor were twins. They were eight. They didn’t go to school. Their mother taught them at home, which meant they did whatever they wanted and then they had to write about it. Ivy and Bean thought the whole thing was completely unfair.

“Bean!” yelled Ruby and Trevor together when they saw Bean’s face peeking over their back fence. “Whatcha doing? Come on over!” they yelled.

“We can’t,” said Bean. “We’re working.”

“Who’s we?”

“Ivy’s down here, holding the box,” said Bean.

“Hi!” called Ivy.

“Hi, Ivy!” yelled Ruby.

“We’ll help you work,” said Trevor. “We’re going to croak if something doesn’t happen soon.”

“You can’t help. We’re making a newspaper and we have to do it ourselves,” said Bean.

“Why’d you come over, then?” asked Ruby.

“We were hoping to find something exciting to put in the newspaper,” said Bean.

“There’s no news here,” said Ruby glumly. “Nothing exciting ever happens around here.”

“Okay,” said Bean. She started to lower herself off the box.

“No! Wait!” yelled Trevor. “Don’t go!” He looked around his backyard. “I’ll make something exciting happen. Something you can put in your newspaper.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. “Dream on.”

“No! Watch!” Trevor jumped up and yanked a leaf off a bush. “I can set this leaf on fire without a match.” He pulled a magnifying glass out of his pocket and held it over the leaf. “It’s magic!” he said.

“No, it’s not. It’s a magnifying glass,” Bean said.

“Still, I’m starting a fire. That’s news,” Trevor insisted. The sun’s rays collected on the glass and shone down on the leaf.

Bean looked down at Ivy. Ivy shrugged. “It’s just a leaf.”

The leaf began to smoke.

“I don’t think that counts as news,” Bean told Trevor.

Trevor looked up at Bean. “What if I light the whole bush on fire?” he asked.

“Then there’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight,” Bean said. That was a line from a famous song about a fire, but she couldn’t remember what came next.

“Fire! Fire! Fire!” yelled Ruby.

Oh yeah, thought Bean. That’s the next line.

Except that’s not what Ruby meant. Trevor had dropped the smoking leaf on the lawn and now a little bit of grass was smoking, too. Yikes!

“Fire!” yelled Bean.

“Really?” asked Ivy. “Let me see!” She stopped holding the box and jumped up on it.

“Fire!” shouted Ruby.

“Told you I’d make something happen!” yelled Trevor. “Ha!”

“Put it out!” cried Ruby. She ran to get the hose.

“No! It’s my fire!” Trevor shouted. “Leave it alone!”

Ruby twisted the faucet and whirled around, drenching the grass, the fence, and Trevor with water.

“HEY! YOU RUINED MY FIRE!” screeched Trevor. “It was news!” He grabbed the hose from Ruby’s hand and sprayed her right in the face.

“AAAAAAaaaaaah!” shrieked Ruby.

“Firefighters on Pancake Court?” suggested Ivy, watching Ruby hit Trevor over the head with the hose.

“That’s pretty good,” said Bean. “Now we have Mr. Columbi’s dirt, Sophie’s mom, Trevor and Ruby, and”—she giggled—”Crummy Matt!”

Trevor was stuffing wet grass down Ruby’s T-shirt. She was kicking his shin.

“That’s only four,” said Ivy. “I think we should get one more. Five seems more like a real newspaper.”

“Okay,” said Bean. “Let’s go see what Jake the Teenager is doing.”

Trevor and Ruby’s mother charged down the back stairs, shouting, “STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!”

Ivy and Bean quietly climbed down from their box and walked down the driveway as
the shouting continued behind them.

“I wish I were homeschooled,” Ivy said. “Don’t you?”

It was hard to tell which of the teenagers in the garage was Jake the Teenager. They were all big, they were all wearing sunglasses, and they were all yelling and kicking each other. They were a band. The name of their band was Ball Control.

Pretty stupid name, Ivy and Bean thought.

“I think Jake’s the one in the red shirt,” said Bean. The one in the red shirt was telling everyone else to be quiet, only he didn’t say be quiet. He said something else. A lot.

Finally, the other teenagers stopped kicking each other and yelling. Jake the Teenager stood in front of a microphone. “Ah-one, ah-two, ah-three, ah-four!” he said, and then he began to scream.

All the other teenagers began to scream, too. They pounded on their instruments and screamed and screamed.

It was the loudest thing in the world.

Ivy and Bean plugged their ears. They scrunched their eyes. They hunched their shoulders. No matter what they did, it was still the loudest thing in the world.

Then it stopped.

Slowly, Bean unplugged her ears. She unscrunched her eyes. Then she unhunched her shoulders.

Oops. Jake the Teenager was standing on the other side of the window, looking at them.

“Hi,” said Bean.

“Hi,” he said. After a second, he asked, “What are you doing?”

Bean thought fast. “Listening to your cool band!” she said enthusiastically.

Jake the Teenager took his sunglasses off. “Not bad, huh?” he said.

“Totally!” said Bean.

He nodded. He seemed to be waiting for more.

“Totally awesome!” said Bean.

“But you were plugging your ears,” he said.

“It was loud, but it was great,” Bean explained.

“What was the name of that great song?” asked Ivy.

“They liked it!” Jake the Teenager yelled over his shoulder. “That one was ‘Lizard Hurricane.’”

“Oh boy, we sure liked that song,” Bean said. She shook her head as if she were amazed at how much she liked the song.

“Wanna hear the rest?” asked Jake. “We got six songs.”

“We would for sure, except we’re working,” said Bean. “We’re writing a newspaper about Pancake Court.”

“Dude!” said Jake the Teenager. “Write about our band! Write, like, a music review, you know, about how awesome we are!”

“Sure,” said Ivy. “No problem.”

“Sure,” repeated Bean.

“The next one’s called ‘Nebulizer,’” he said. “You’re gonna love it.”

“We have to get writing,” said Ivy.

“Deadlines,” said Bean, trying to look like she wished she could hear his song. “Got to go!”

“Say we’ll play for parties,” he yelled after them as they went down the driveway.

“Dude! Trust me!” said Bean, waving.

“Wow, you can really talk teenager,” said Ivy.

“Anyone can do it,” said Bean modestly. “You just have to practice.”

It was getting late. “We’d better go to your house and get started,” Ivy said to Bean. She thought for a moment. “You don’t think your dad ate the cheese, do you?”

Bean shook her head. “He wouldn’t do that.” She looked worried. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Grown-ups like cheese,” Ivy said.

“We’d better work fast.”