“Hi, Bee!” said Jill. Sue was just behind her, eating a popsicle.
“Hi Jill! Hi Sue! Come on in.”
“Hiya, Bee!” said Sue. She came in and kicked off her sandals. They landed in a messy heap. Beatrice itched to tidy them, but that would possibly not be polite.
“Actually,” said Beatrice, “my name is Beatrice. Just so you know.”
“That’s just so long,” sighed Sue. “I never go by Susannah. I can’t even remember how to spell it half the time. So I’m just Sue.”
“I think Bee is totally cute,” said Jill. “Like the letter. Or a fuzzy little bumblebee.”
Beatrice smiled.
Maybe Bee wasn’t so bad.
“Well,” she said, “come in. We finished unpacking a long time ago. Yep, we’re a pretty organized family,” she said nervously. “Every last box put away.”
Edison snorted and rolled onto his back, belly up to the sunbeam.
“Eddie!” cried Sue, rushing over to Edison. “How ya doing, buddy?” Edison’s tail thumped while Sue rubbed his belly. Dog hair danced in the sunbeam, and a trickle of drool slid out the side of his mouth.
Beatrice’s mother and father plodded down the stairs. They looked very, very tired.
Beatrice introduced them to Sue and Jill.
“Who wants cookies?” Beatrice’s mom said.
“Oh, yes, please,” said Sue. “I’m so hungry.”
Over cookies and milk, the girls talked.
“We have three cats, Peewee and a hamster,” said Sue. “I love animals. And food,” she said, reaching for another cookie. “I love food.”
“I play piano and tennis,” said Jill. “And I’ve just started swimming lessons and gymnastics!”
Beatrice would have liked to look professional in front of her new friends. But they had just moved, and she wasn’t in any lessons at all.
That’s going to change, thought Beatrice, making a quick mental list of All the Many Activities I Plan to Do. In the blink of an eye, she got from one (Art) to twelve (Cliff diving).
“I plan to do lots of activities,” said Beatrice. “But because of the move, I mainly do puzzles, make lists and organize things,” she blurted.
“Cool,” said Sue.
“This house is very organized and tidy,” said Jill, looking around.
“It’s way cleaner than our house,” said Sue. “I have three brothers who mess the place up. Actually, come to think of it, I’m the messiest of the bunch.”
“My twin brother is super neat. Annoyingly neat,” said Jill.
“Hey, can we see your room?” asked Sue.
“Sure!” Beatrice jumped up. She was very confident about her room.
The girls went upstairs. Beatrice threw open the door to her room.
“Wow. Nice!” said Sue. She walked into the room and flopped on the perfect, wrinkle-free bed.
Sue looked up and saw Beatrice’s face. She saw her frown and her twitching left eye.
She sprang up.
“Oh, sorry. I probably messed up your quilt,” she said. She tried to smooth it but ended up rumpling the cover even more.
“Here, let me help,” offered Jill. She pulled at the sheet and knocked over Beatrice’s neat row of stuffed animals. “Whoops!” she said, shoving them back in the wrong order. “There.”
Sue and Jill backed away from the rumpled bed.
Beatrice racked her brain for a clean, organized, quiet activity they could all enjoy. She couldn’t think of anything!
I should have made a list of Fun, Non-Messy Things to Do on a Perfect Playdate, she thought in a panic. Now it’s going to be a disaster!
Jill looked across the hallway.
“Hey, whose room is that?” she asked.
“That’s my sister Sophie’s room,” said Beatrice.
“What does that cute sign say?” asked Jill, crossing the hall to Sophie’s door. Sue and Beatrice joined her.
“Aww, it’s adorable,” said Sue. “You sure are lucky to have a little sister.”
Beatrice smiled. But she felt a little guilty. Sophie was in the top three on her list of Things That Make My Left Eye Twitch.
Then Beatrice got an idea.
She knocked on Sophie’s door.
“Hey, Sophie, want to meet my new friends?” she called.
The door crashed open. Sophie stood there, smiling. Her hair was sticking up in all directions. She had pulled on a dinosaur costume from two Halloweens ago. The dino jaws sat on top of her tangled hair.
My little sister looks like a little weirdo, thought Beatrice.
The other girls didn’t seem to notice.
“Hiya, Sophie! I’m Sue. That’s Jill. Cool outfit.”
“I hope you’re a plant-eating dinosaur,” said Jill with a smile, pretending to be afraid.
“I’m a bery friendly dinosaur. I’m a play-o-saurus! You guys gonna com’n play?” asked Sophie hopefully. She opened the door of her messy room.
Beatrice looked nervously at her new friends.
Jill smiled.
Sue looked amazed.
“Wow!” Sue said. “Check out all the boxes! Let’s play hide-and-seek, play-o-saurus!”
They shrieked with laughter playing hide-and-seek in the messy little dinosaur’s messy little room.
They toppled boxes.
They slithered through books.
They rolled in toys.
They made a lot of noise.
They made a complete, utter, total mess.
And it was perfect.