“I’ll go first,” Annie says.

She holds a folder with one hand. She drops the books she has in her other hand on one of the beach chairs. The chair folds and collapses.

“Good start,” Douglas says.

“George Washington was the first president of the United States. He was inaugurated in New York City on April 30, 1789.”

That’s how she starts.

Boring!

She tells us the population of the United States and how many of them were men, women, children, and slaves. She tells us how many people lived in each state. She goes on and on with names and dates and numbers. While Annie talks, I look at the magazines on the floor. They’re mostly gossip magazines. On the cover of each one is a picture of some famous person.

Pictures!

I look at the photographs on the table. There are pictures of Calvin and his mother. I look again. There are only pictures of Calvin and his mother. There is no picture of a man, someone who might be Calvin’s father.

“Samuel Osgood was Washington’s first Postmaster General,” Annie says. “He was born in Andover, Massachusetts.”

Maybe Calvin’s father really is a spy and it wouldn’t be safe to have his picture where anyone could see it. Maybe his father died or ran off. Maybe Calvin never met him.

I don’t like to be nosy. Calvin’s father is really none of my business.

Annie says, “Timothy Pickering was the second Postmaster General. He was from Salem, Massachusetts.”

But I’m curious.

“Joseph Habersham was Washington’s third Postmaster General. He was from Savannah, Georgia.”

A bathroom is a good place to find out about someone. I decide to check out the Waffle family bathroom.

“That’s it,” Annie says. She closes her folder. “Who’s next?”

Not me, I think. My report is nothing like Annie’s, and since we’re partners she’ll tell me it’s no good, that I have to do it over. She’ll want me to put in all kinds of names and numbers.

Douglas stands.

“My report is about Benjamin Franklin, about his years as a statesman.”

He opens his folder. He looks at his papers and then looks up.

“I’ve got lots of interesting stuff here, but I don’t want to read it. I want to eat.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Let’s eat.”

We follow Calvin into the kitchen. His mom is there.

“Who wants ice cream?” she asks. “It’s pink.”

“It’s strawberry,” Calvin explains.

We have juice, milk, and ice cream. Annie asks about the jelly beans.

Calvin opens a cabinet and takes out a large pot. It’s filled with beans.

“Me first,” Annie says. “I want the green ones.”

She reaches in the pot and picks out several green beans.

“Yuck! These are dirty. There’s thread and lint on them.”

The ones with thread must have been in my shirt pocket.

“Put them back and I’ll wash them,” Calvin says.

Annie puts her green beans back, and Calvin puts the pot in the sink. He fills the pot with water.

“Did you tally the results? Do you have the statistics?” I ask. “Why did you fill my pockets with beans?”

“It was a social experiment,” Calvin says as he drains the water out of the pot. He puts it in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Smell the beans.”

Douglas takes a deep breath.

“Ah!”

Annie stands. She leans forward. She sticks her nose in the pot. She has long blond hair. It falls in the pot.

Annie takes a deep breath.

“Ah! I love that sweet smell.”

“That’s it! The sweet smell,” Calvin tells us. “I wanted to see if people would be attracted to Danny if he smelled like jelly beans.”

“Who wants brown and yellow cake?” Calvin’s mother asks.

“It’s chocolate with buttercream,” Calvin explains.

“It’s good,” Calvin’s mother says. “When it was in the oven, I licked the batter bowl and that was real good. If you have a good batter, you’ll have a good cake. I was a good batter. When I was younger I played little league and I could really hit. I had two home runs in one game.”

I bet if Mrs. Waffle was our age, she would join the Eagles. Maybe she can bring Calvin to a game.

Mrs. Waffle gives each of us a piece of cake. She’s right. It is good.

Calvin tells us about his experiment.

“I watched him for one week when he smelled like Danny.”

Smelled like Danny! What does that mean?

“Then I watched him with the beans. And do you know what? Kids liked the bean smell. Twelve percent more people spoke to him during the jelly bean week. And they talked to him longer.”

“They did?”

“I’m going to make jelly bean perfume—JBP. That’s what I’ll call it. You spray it on in the morning and you’ll be popular all day.”

“Could you make it in different flavors?” Annie asks. “I want green bean perfume.”

“This is all too weird,” Douglas says. “Whoever heard of people smelling like jelly beans?”

“Weird? Is that what people said to Alexander Graham Bell when he invented the telephone? Is that what they said to Thomas Edison when he invented the light bulb?”

“Those things changed people’s lives,” I say.

“JBP will change people’s lives. Kids who keep moving to different schools will spray on JBP and have lots of friends.”

Now Calvin is talking about himself.

Douglas holds his half-eaten slice of chocolate cake to his nose. He takes a deep breath.

“This smells so good,” he says. “How about making chocolate cake perfume?”

“You could call it CCP, Chocolate Cake Perfume,” Annie says. “You could advertise it in magazines and on the Web. I’ll be the model.”

Annie walks slowly around the kitchen like she’s a fashion model. And then I see them.

“Annie,” I say. “You’ve got jelly beans in your hair.”

“What?”

A red bean and a yellow are stuck to her. That must have happened when she put her nose in the pot.

She grabs the ends of her hair and looks at the beans.

“Yuck! I’ve got to go to the bathroom and wash these out.”

“The bathroom,” I say. “I’ve got to go there too.”

“Come with me,” Mrs. Waffle tells us. “I’ll show you where it is.”

We walk with her through the large room by the front door.

“I’m changing the bathroom wallpaper,” she says. “It’s not hard. You just have to brush on the paste, smooth out the paper, and match the seams. But things are not always what they seem. This town seems like a good place to live. What do you think?”

“It’s nice here,” Annie tells her.

“Here’s the bathroom,” Mrs. Waffle says. “But there’s no bath. It’s really a shower room.”

“You go first,” Annie tells me. “I can wait and maybe you can’t.”

I go in and close the door. Taped to the wall above the sink are a few squares of wallpaper. I guess Mrs. Waffle hasn’t decided which one she likes.

I open the medicine cabinet and look for some evidence that a man lives in the house. There are tubes of weird colors of lipstick, face powder, a jar of roll-on deodorant, and lilac room spray. There is no shaver and no shaving cream.

There are a few pill jars.

I look at the labels. Three are for Alice Waffle. One is for Calvin.

There are just two towels by the shower, a red and a blue.

I open the shower door. I see the same stuff Mom has in her shower, shampoo and conditioner that smells like flowers, but none of the stuff Dad has.

“What are you doing in there?” Annie asks.

“I’m done,” I say.

I flush the toilet, turn on the cold water faucet, wash my hands, and dry them. Then I open the door.

“It’s all yours,” I say.

Annie leans into the bathroom. She takes a deep breath.

“Good,” she says. “You didn’t smell it up.”

She goes in and closes the door.

I think about the no shaver and no shaving cream. I’m not sure what that proves. Maybe that means there is no Mr. Waffle. Or maybe it means Mr. Waffle is a clever spy and took out any evidence that he lives in this house.

I go back to the kitchen. Calvin and Douglas are talking. Calvin has made a friend without spraying on any JBP.

Mrs. Waffle is standing by the sink. She’s eating cake.

We never eat the jelly beans. After Calvin washed them, they became just a sticky multicolored lump. We just talk.

Calvin stands by the kitchen table and says, “Guess who I am.”

He looks right at Annie and tells her, “Sit straight.”

Annie sits up.

“Straight,” Calvin says and holds up a pencil. “This is straight. Sit like this. Sit like a pencil.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can’t or you won’t? The pencil can do it. My ruler can do it. The door can do it.”

Annie, Douglas, and I laugh. Mrs. Waffle doesn’t.

“How can someone sit like a pencil?” she asks.

“Look at that sign,” Calvin says and points to the refrigerator. “Sit straight like a pencil. Be quiet like a book. No talking. No mumbling. No chewing. No breathing.”

“What sign?” Mrs. Waffle asks.

“He’s pretending to be Mrs. Cakel,” I tell her. “She’s our teacher and she has a big NO sign in our classroom.”

“Just watch,” Calvin says. “I’ll be chewing gum tomorrow when I give my report.”

“No,” Douglas says. “It’s not your report. It’s our report. I worked hard on it. I want a good grade.”

“We’ll get a good grade, and she’ll never know I’m chewing.” Calvin smiles and adds, “I have my ways.”