“I thought this was supposed to keep us off the streets,” Bean yelled at the door.
Her father didn’t answer. He didn’t open the door, either.
“Sheesh.” Bean and Ivy walked down the front path to the sidewalk. They looked in one direction. Trees and houses. They looked in the other direction. Trees and houses and a cat.
Ivy sighed and sat down on the sidewalk. “This could take days.”
“Months,” said Bean. “Years.”
The cat walked to the middle of Pancake Court and sat down.
“Cat in Danger?” suggested Ivy. “Is that a story?” She took out her notebook.
The cat licked its leg.
“Clean Cat in Danger,” said Bean. She took out her notebook, too.
The cat stood up, gave them an annoyed look, and crossed the street.
Bean shook her head. “Boring. This is going to be the worst newspaper in the world.”
“What if they ask for their money back?” Ivy said gloomily.
“I guess we could give them cheese,” said Bean, even more gloomily.
“But it’s ours!” said Ivy.
“Not until we write the ding-dang newspaper,” said Bean.
They sat some more. Mr. Columbi came out of his house, waved at Ivy and Bean, took a leaf off his car, and went back inside his house.
“Cleanest Car on the Court?” asked Ivy.
“That’s not news,” said Bean. “His car is always the cleanest.”
“Have you ever been in his house?” Ivy asked.
“I wonder if it’s as clean as his car,” Ivy said.
“Bet it’s not,” said Bean. She imagined Mr. Columbi’s house. “I bet it’s really dirty and disgusting. With moldy sandwiches lying on the floor.”
“And rats in the sofa,” added Ivy.
“Eeeww!” Bean giggled. “He probably eats food out of his shoes because all his plates are dirty.”
“There’s never a speck of dirt on his car,” said Ivy, “because he wants everyone to think he’s clean.”
“His dirty house is his secret,” Bean said.
“Mr. Columbi’s Dirty Secret,” said Ivy.
Bean looked at Ivy. “Now that’s news.”
Ivy smiled. “We’ll have to sneak.”
“Easy-peasy,” said Bean. “If we get caught, we’ll say my dad made us do it.”
Looking into Mr. Columbi’s house really was easy-peasy. It was Ivy who found the wheelbarrow in the backyard, and it was Bean who found the wooden box next to the garage. Put the box in the wheelbarrow, and ta-da! A perfect view into Mr. Columbi’s living room. Oh look, there was his kitchen, too.
“No rats in the sofa,” whispered Ivy, holding tight to the windowsill.
“Maybe they’re inside the pillows,” hissed Bean below.
“Well, he’s sleeping on the sofa,” Ivy hissed back. “He wouldn’t do that if there were rats, would he?”
“You never know,” said Bean. “What about moldy sandwiches?”
“There’s a sandwich,” said Ivy. “It could be moldy.”
“Is it on the floor or in a shoe?”
“It’s on a plate,” Ivy said. “But there are crumbs everywhere. And, yuck, there’s a lot of salami on the floor.”
“Salami?”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“What about the kitchen?” asked Bean.
“I see some plates in the sink,” Ivy reported. “And a jar without a lid. He left his oven door open. That’s kind of dirty, I think.”
“It’s dirty enough for me,” said Bean. “And he’s probably sleeping on the sofa because his bed is full of rats.” She wrote “Mr. Columbi’s Dirty Secret” in her notebook.
Ivy climbed down from the box and the wheelbarrow. Her eyes were shining. “So that’s how you get the story,” she said. “This is going to be fun!”
