Bean was a spy. Pressing her back against the wall, she moved down the hall without making a sound. It was harder to be a spy on the stairs because the handrail poked her in the back. Still, she was pretty quiet.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she edged silently toward the living room and peeked around the door. But Nancy wasn’t there. Hmm. Maybe the kitchen. She slithered toward the door. Empty. Where was Nancy? Bean got a little bit of a funny feeling. What if Nancy was gone? “Nancy?” she said softly.
There was no answer.
“Nancy?” she said in a regular voice. Nothing. “Nancy?”
“I’m in here.” Nancy was in the bathroom. “Don’t come in.”
Bean went down the hall and stood outside the bathroom door. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing. None of your business. Don’t come in.” Nancy’s voice was tight. She didn’t sound like a camp counselor anymore.
“Are you going to throw up?” Bean asked sympathetically. She knew what that was like.
“No! Go away!” Nancy clicked the lock on the door.
What happened to Miss Peppy-Pants? wondered Bean. What was Nancy doing in there? Quietly Bean pressed her ear to the door. She could hear water running, but she could also hear other sounds. Click. Click. Rattle.
“Bean? Is that you?” said Nancy from inside the bathroom.
Bean didn’t say anything. She was perfectly quiet.
Click. Swish. Spray. The sound of a glass bottle being put down.
All of a sudden, Bean knew. This bathroom was where Bean’s mom kept her makeup. Nancy was not supposed to mess around with her mother’s makeup. Bean’s mother had told Nancy about a thousand times that she was too young to wear makeup. Nancy always said that everyone wore it. Then Bean’s mom said that if everyone put their head in the fire, that still wouldn’t make it a good idea. Then Nancy usually cried. They had this conversation a lot.
Now Nancy was in the bathroom putting on makeup.
Some babysitter. She was supposed to be keeping Bean safe and good, and instead she was in the bathroom being bad herself. Bean was just about to point this out when she heard a squeaky meow on the back porch.
Ivy had arrived. Since Nancy was locked in the bathroom, she probably couldn’t hear Ivy come in. But they sneaked anyway. Ivy took off her shoes, and they slid silently across the kitchen and through the hall. Without a word, they tiptoed upstairs and into Bean’s room, closing the door behind them.
“Well?” said Bean. “Did you get the rope?”
“Sort of,” said Ivy. She looked worried. “It’s not exactly rope.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bundle of string. It was thick string, but it was definitely string.
They both stared at it.
“It was all I could find,” Ivy said.
“I guess I could try it,” said Bean. But she knew she wouldn’t. It was string. If she made a ladder out of it, it would snap in two, and she would plunge to the ground and break both her legs. Dang. A perfectly good idea down the drain.
“We could throw your mattress out the window and then try to land on it,” Ivy suggested.
“We’d miss,” said Bean gloomily.
They were quiet for a minute.
“Where is Nancy, anyway?” asked Ivy.
“She’s in the bathroom,”said Bean.
“She’s putting on my mom’s makeup.” Bean flopped down on her bed and looked at the ceiling. “She told me to go away.”
“My babysitters aren’t allowed to do that,” said Ivy. “They’re supposed to play with me, even though I usually don’t want them to.”
“Oh, she’s only doing it because my mom’s not here,” said Bean. “My mom doesn’t let her wear makeup.”
“Gee. Nancy’s pretty sneaky,” said Ivy.
“Yeah. I bet she’s been planning it for a million years. The second my mom leaves— boom! She’s in the bathroom rubbing eye shadow all over her face.”
“That’s stupid. Eye shadow’s goony,” said Ivy.
“Yeah. If I could do anything I wanted, it wouldn’t be dumb old eye shadow,” said Bean.
“What would you do?” asked Ivy.
“Easy. I’d go in the attic.”
“You have an attic?” asked Ivy.
“Yeah, but I’ve never been in it. My parents won’t let me up there,” said Bean. “They say it’s not really an attic and there’s nothing up there and it’s too dangerous.”
There was a pause.
“Bean?”
“What?”
“Your parents aren’t here.”
Bean sat up. She pictured the attic, dark, unknown, secret. “If they aren’t here, they can’t say no!”
“And Nancy did tell you to go away,” added Ivy.
“The attic is definitely away.” said Bean.
Ivy smiled. “She practically ordered us to go there. Come on!”
