They all stood there watching Katy run away. Suddenly, Dino slapped his hand against his forehead. “Oh no!” he groaned. “Now I’ve got it, too!” He looked sideways at Bean. “I think I’ve got it bad!”
Sophie W. smiled. “Me, too,” she said. “I’ve got it worse.”
“Now wait a second,” began Ivy.
“I’m the bad one around here!” said Bean.
“You wish,” said Liana. She glanced at the row of front yards that lined the street. “First dibs on all the mailboxes,” she said.
Kids were swarming around Pancake Court.
Dino stole one of Mrs. Trantz’s white rocks. Ivy begged him to stop, but he just stuck the rock in the exhaust pipe of Jake the Teenager’s car.
Sophie W. ripped a bunch of grass out of her lawn.
“Stop it,” Ivy pleaded, and Sophie obeyed. But a minute later she hid her baby sister’s shovel and pail in a bush.
“Look at me!” Bean hollered. She took off her sneakers and tried to throw them onto Mrs. Trantz’s roof. One bounced off the living room window and the other landed in the camellia bush. Bean was glad she hadn’t broken the window, but she turned to Ivy and said, “Dang! I was trying to break the window.”
“Bean! Breaking windows is really bad!” cried Ivy. “You can’t do that! Reform!”
But Bean wasn’t listening. She whirled around, looking for another bad thing to do.
Ivy dropped down on her front lawn. She had been running back and forth between badnesses, but nobody was getting any better. Dino was stepping on ants. Sophie S. was rubbing dirt into her shirt. Liana was tying her mother’s hose in a knot. Bean was hanging upside down from the handrail on her front stairs. Sophie W. had swallowed her gum.
Ivy glanced up into the trees. Still no birds. Even the crows had flown away.
Bean sat down beside her. “I can’t think of anything else. Can you?”
“No.” Ivy looked around the yard for ideas. “Hey! A squirrel!” Ivy whispered, pointing at her hedge. “He’s looking at me!”
Inside the hedge, a little brown squirrel was sitting among the leaves. He was holding a strawberry in his tiny claws. Every few moments he lifted the berry to his mouth and tore it to bits with his chattering teeth. Little pieces of strawberry flew through the air, but he paid no attention. His bulging brown eyes were fixed on Ivy.
“He’s trying to tell me something with his eyes,” whispered Ivy, staring at the squirrel.
Bean nodded. “Cool.”
“He’s saying, ‘O pure one, I will follow you till the end of time because your heart is like a squirrel’s.’” Ivy stood and stepped toward the squirrel. “Greetings,” she whispered.
The squirrel leaped to its feet as though it had been stuck with a pin. Stuffing the rest of the berry in its mouth, it scampered away.
Ivy frowned. She turned to Bean. “I’ve got it. Let’s pick a bunch of strawberries and squash them. That would be pretty bad.”
“Great idea!” said Bean.
Dino ran by, dragging a big branch behind him. “I’m worse than you!” he hollered over his shoulder at Bean.
“We’re going to touch Mr. Columbi’s car!” shrieked Sophie S. and Sophie W. Mr. Columbi was always telling them not to touch his car. He washed it two times a week with special soap. The two Sophies bounded toward Mr. Columbi’s driveway.
Liana was stuffing her mother’s welcome mat into her mailbox.
Bean looked up and down Pancake Court. What more could she do? The strawberries were squished, her sneakers were gone, she was sick to her stomach from candy, she had spit on Mrs. Trantz’s rose, and she had said the worst word in the world. She was pooped.
“These guys are ruining everything,” said Ivy, watching Dino scamper by with another branch.
“Ha-ha!” he shouted. “You’re just a good little girl.”
“Who asked you?” yelled Bean.
“You’re not even close to bad!” he yelled. “You don’t even know how to be bad! You’re GOOD!” Off he ran.
“You’re a stinky face!” Ivy hollered after him.
Then she turned to Bean. “Come on, Bean,” she urged. “Show him how bad you are.”
“I have an idea,” Bean said slowly.
Ivy smiled. “What is it?”
“It’s not enough to be bad myself,” Bean explained. “I think I have to do something bad to someone else.” She looked at Dino tearing around with his branch, and then she looked back at Ivy. “Where do you keep your hose?”
