“They’ll never figure it out. Not in a million years,” Bean was saying. “We’ll just disappear and then—ta-da!—we’ll come back a few hours later, and they’ll have no idea where we’ve been.” She put the door back into its hole and turned to Ivy. “It’ll be our secret fort.”
Ivy was moving into the shadows. “We’ll fix it up so it’s all comfy and cozy. With silk curtains and rugs and poofy pillows.”
Bean walked carefully across the boards. “Right over here we could put a little stove, so we could make hot chocolate,” Bean said. “We could have a cat, too. And maybe one of those tiny monkeys.”
“We could get beds and have secret sleepovers,” Ivy went on. Her mother didn’t let her have sleepovers yet. “I could sneak out of my house and come over here—”
“And I’ll tie a string to my toe and dangle the string out the window. You pull on the string to wake me up, and I’ll let you in, and we’ll come up here. Oh, I know! Instead of beds, we could put up hammocks, like a ship.” Bean hugged herself. It was such a great idea. “And they’ll never know. They’ll say, ‘Where have you been?’ and we’ll say, ‘Us? We were right here.’ And it won’t be a lie!”
“And when we grow up and they think we’re in college, we’ll live here,” said Ivy. “We’ll go out at night to gather food.”
“We’ll cut a hole in the wall and go out on the roof,” said Bean. “After the attic, the thing I want most is to go on the roof.”
Ivy got up and knocked on the wall. She could hear outside sounds through the wood. “We could make a balcony,” she said. “Our own secret balcony on our own secret house.”
“It’s going to make Nancy wacko,” Bean giggled. “She’s going to explode from jealousy when she finds out.”
“But you aren’t going to tell her, right?”
“Oh. Right. Maybe when we’re really old.”
Ivy put her hands on her hips. “The first thing we need is silk curtains,” she said.
“I don’t think we have any silk curtains,” Bean said. “But how about some sheets? We’ve got plenty of extra sheets.”
“Sure. For now, we’ll use sheets,” Ivy agreed.
“Okay. They’re in the closet. I’ll get them.” Bean jumped up and moved away through the shadows.
Ivy thought about rugs and poofy pillows. A lamp would be nice, too.
“Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” asked Ivy.
“There’s no handle on this door.”
“I know,” said Ivy. “You just push it.”
“Not from this side,” said Bean. “Only from the outside.”
Uh-oh. Bean had put the door back into the hole. “Can you pull it?” Ivy asked.
“There’s nothing to pull.”
Ivy stepped carefully across the floorboards and squatted next to Bean. Bean was trying to dig her fingernails around the edge of the door so she could lift it up. But that didn’t work because she always chewed her fingernails right down to the skin. Even though Ivy didn’t chew her nails, they were still too short to lift the door.
Bean kicked it, but that didn’t do anything.
Ivy looked for a stick to pry it up with. But there weren’t any sticks.
There was no way to open the door.
Bean looked up at the little window things. It was late. Pretty soon, the attic would be completely dark. Nobody knew where they were. They would never figure it out. Not in a million years. She looked around at the empty space with its bare floorboards. It didn’t look like a fort anymore. It looked like an attic. Or maybe a jail.
She poked Ivy’s arm. “At least you’re here, too.”
Ivy and Bean sat down side by side and began to wait.
