Ivy and Bean Take the Case Read online

  To Victoria Rock, mentor, strategist,

  and fellow subversive, with gratitude.

  —A. B. + S. B.

  Text © 2013 by Annie Barrows.

  Illustrations © 2013 by Sophie Blackall.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-4521-2847-4

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the previous edition as follows: Barrows, Annie.

  Ivy + Bean take the case / written by Annie Barrows ; illustrated by Sophie Blackall.

  p. cm. — (Ivy + Bean ; bk. 10)

  Summary: After watching a movie about a detective on the television, Bean decides to set up shop as a private investigator—and she and Ivy start looking for mysteries to solve.

  ISBN 978-1-4521-0699-1 (alk. paper)

  1. Bean (Fictitious character : Barrows)—Juvenile fiction. 2. Ivy (Fictitious character: Barrows)—Juvenile fiction. 3. Private investigators—Juvenile fiction. 4. Best friends— Juvenile fiction. 5. Humorous stories. [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. 3. Best friends—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I. Blackall, Sophie. ill. II. Title. III. Title: Ivy and Bean take the case. IV. Series: Barrows, Annie. Ivy + Bean ; bk. 10.

  PZ7.B27576Iys 2013

  813.6—dc23

  2012046876

  Book design by Sara Gillingham Studio.

  Typeset in Blockhead and Candida.

  The illustrations in this book were rendered in Chinese ink.

  Chronicle Books LLC

  680 Second Street, San Francisco, California 94107

  Chronicle Books—we see things differently.

  Become part of our community at www.chroniclekids.com.

  CONTENTS

  BLACK AND WHITE AND TOUGH ALL OVER

  PIRVATE INSTEVIGATOR

  UNDER COVER JOB

  SPECIAL DELIVERY

  WHAT’S UP?

  PANCAKE FALLS

  HOUSE CALLS

  PLAN AHEAD!

  THE BIG NAB

  DANGER MAKES THEM YAWN

  AT THE END OF THEIR ROPE

  CRACK!

  BLACK AND WHITE AND TOUGH ALL OVER

  Bean wasn’t allowed to watch television. Or music videos. Bean’s mom said she could watch two movies a week, but they had to be movies where everyone was good. There couldn’t be any bad words. There couldn’t be any mean people. There couldn’t be anyone smoking a cigarette or wearing tiny clothes. There were only about ten movies that followed all these rules. Luckily, Bean liked all ten of them. She watched them over and over.

  Bean’s mom said ten movies were plenty. She said kids Bean’s age should be using their imaginations instead of watching TV. She said fresh air was more important than movies.

  And then what did she do?

  She made Bean watch a movie. It was her favorite movie, she said. Everyone should see it at least once, she said. The movie was called Seven Falls, but it wasn’t about waterfalls or even the leaf-falling kind of fall, which is what Bean had guessed. It was about a guy named Al Seven. Boy, was he tough! He was so tough he talked without moving his lips, and some of it was bad words.

  He was also kind of mean. Everyone in the movie was kind of mean, plus they all smoked cigarettes. They didn’t wear tiny clothes, but that was the only rule they didn’t break.

  “I can’t believe you’re letting me watch this,” said Bean.

  “Seven Falls is a classic,” said Bean’s mom. “It’s one of the greatest movies ever made.”

  “Don’t be a stooge,” said Al Seven to another movie guy. That was pretty mean, but Bean pretended not to notice, because this was one of the greatest movies ever made. Al Seven was also in black and white, but Bean knew she was supposed to imagine he was in color. “What is it about dames?” asked Al Seven, walking slowly down a rainy street. “They break your heart, I guess,” he answered himself.

  That was the end.

  Bean’s mom let out a big, happy sigh. “Wasn’t that amazing? Did you get it?”

  Get what? Bean wasn’t sure, but she nodded. “I’m going to be just like Al Seven when I grow up.”

  Her mother raised one eyebrow. “You’d better not be.”

  But then again, why wait, thought Bean. She could start being like Al Seven now. She slumped over and put her feet on the coffee table. “Whaddaya say we watch it again, pal?” she said.

  Her mom raised both eyebrows. “What I say is don’t call me pal and take your feet off the table.”

  That hadn’t worked. Bean took her feet off the table. “Dames,” she said sadly. “They break your heart.”

  Her mom’s eyebrows were almost inside her hair. “Oh dear,” she said.

  + + + + +

  It took Bean a long time to go to sleep that night. She couldn’t stop thinking about Al Seven and his black-and-white world. It didn’t seem like the real world, the world on Pancake Court that Bean lived in. People in Al Seven’s world were tough, and they didn’t laugh very much. They didn’t do normal stuff like go to school and the grocery store. They walked down alleys and wore hats. But the most un-normal thing about Al Seven’s world was the mysteries. There were mysteries all over the place.

  Bean untwisted her pajamas and thought about that. A mystery was a question you couldn’t find the answer to. In Al Seven’s world, the mysteries were things like Who took Hester’s jewels? or Where was Sammy La Barba on the night of May twelfth? Bean didn’t have any jewels and she sure as heck didn’t know anyone named Sammy La Barba, but there were plenty of questions that she didn’t have answers to. Millions of them. For instance, Who thought of money? Not even grown-ups knew the answer to that question. But Bean had other questions, too, like What’s inside the cement thing in the front yard? What’s behind the Tengs’ fence and why do they lock it up? and What’s the matter with the mailman? When she asked these questions, her parents usually said something like It’s none of your business. That meant that there was an answer, but they didn’t want her to know it.

  Bean smiled toughly at her dark ceiling. They didn’t want her to know things. Just like Sammy La Barba didn’t want Al Seven to know where he was on the night of May twelfth. But Al Seven had figured it out, because he was a private investigator. Private investigators got to the bottom of mysteries. They solved them. They snuck around. They spied. They asked the hard questions. They sat in their cars and rubbed their faces until they came up with the answers. Then they walked down alleys in the rain.

  That’s what Bean was going to do. First thing tomorrow morning. “None of your business!” she muttered. “Ha!”

  PIRVATE INSTEVIGATOR

  Al Seven had a cool office with his name on the door. Bean could do that, easy-peasy. She began with the desk. Bean had a good board, and she had two triangle things that were called sawhorses even though they didn’t look anything like horses. She put the sawhorses on the front lawn, and then she put the board on top of the sawhorses. Desk! The spinny chair was a little harder. Bean had to yank it up the basement stairs, yank, yank, yank. And just when she got to the top, it fell back down most of the stairs. It was already broken, but it was more broken after it fell down the stairs.

  “What the heck are you doing, Bean?” called her father from the kitchen.

  “I’m trying to get this chair up the stairs!” shouted Bean.

  “Do you want help?”

  Bean thought about that. Al Seven had a helper, a lady named Dolly. Mostly, Dolly lit Al’s cigarette, but Bean figured she would have carried a chair if Al had asked her to. “Yes, please.”

  Her dad came down to the basement and carried the spinny chair up the
stairs. He even carried it out to the front yard.

  “Thanks, pal,” said Bean.

  Her dad said, “Don’t call me pal. You’re welcome.”

  Bean put the chair behind the desk and sat in it. She spun around. Pretty good. But she wasn’t done yet. She needed to look tough enough to solve a mystery. She needed a hat. She was pretty sure there was one upstairs, in the closet of things no one wanted.

  She was right! On the highest shelf of things no one wanted, covered with dust, was a hat. It was sort of grayish, sort of brownish. It smelled funny. When Bean put it on, she could hardly see. It was a little dangerous, walking around in that hat, but Al Seven said, “Danger makes me laugh.”

  While Bean was climbing down from the shelf, she found something she hadn’t expected, something great. It was a telephone, an old one with two parts and a cord. Perfect! Al Seven was always slamming the phone down on people. Bean slammed the phone down a few times to test it. “So long, pal,” she whispered. With the hat on her head and the phone under her arm, Bean went downstairs to her mom’s recycling bin.

  Bean’s mom’s recycling bin was always full of important-looking papers. Papers with rubber stampings all over them. Papers with typing in three different colors. Papers with sticky notes. Today was a good day in the bin. Papers were spilling out the sides. Also big envelopes. And file folders! What a haul! Since she was already down on the floor, Bean took a look in her mom’s wastebasket. Five thousand lipstick tissues and a plastic picture of an alligator lying on a log. Words coming out of the alligator’s mouth said, “Sure I’m working. I’m working so fast you can’t see it.”

  Bean stared at the plastic picture for a long time. Was the alligator working or was it supposed to be funny? Did grown-ups think it was funny? If they did, why? It was a mystery. But, Bean decided, not a very interesting one. With her hat, her phone, and an armful of paper, Bean went outside.

  + + + + +

  Bean was a good artist. She could draw nice stuff like flowers and cute bugs and dancing bagels, but she could also draw serious stuff like science pictures and pyramids. Her sign was serious. She wanted it to look like a real, grown-up sign. Al Seven’s sign said Al Seven, Private Investigator. Bean wanted a sign like that. She began to write in big, serious letters.

  Bean’s last name was really long. It was so long that sometimes she mixed up the letters.

  She mixed up the letters.

  Bean got another piece of paper. Bean, she wrote in big, serious letters. Good.

  Private. Good.

  Investigator. Oops. Instevigator.

  Bean got another piece of paper.

  Bean. Good.

  Pirvate. Oops.

  Bean got another piece of paper.

  Bean. Good.

  Prva—oops. Bean crumpled the paper and threw it on the ground.

  She got another piece of paper. Bean. Good.

  P. Good.

  I. Good.

  Done. Whew.

  Bean taped her sign to the plum tree. She put her hat on her head. She put the papers and file folders on the desk. She made her eyes into slits and looked around Pancake Court. She watched Jake the Teenager walk out of his house with a gigantic shopping bag. “So long, pal,” she muttered. She picked up the phone and slammed it down. She was tough. She was ready. She was ready for her first mystery.

  UNDER COVER JOB

  In front of every house on Pancake Court, there was a yard. Then there was a sidewalk. After that came the curb, and then came the street. At the front of every yard, near the sidewalk, there was a little cement rectangle. Every house on Pancake Court had one of these little cement rectangles in front of it, and every little cement rectangle had a small hole in it. Bean had known this for years.

  But what was under the rectangle? Bean didn’t know. It could be a tunnel that led to the center of the Earth. It could be anything!

  Bean crouched over the little cement rectangle in front of her house and peered into the hole. No good. She couldn’t see anything. She lay down on the grass and put her eye over the hole. Nothing but darkness.

  “What’s down there?” said a voice.

  “Yikes!” squawked Bean, flopping over like a pancake.

  It was Ivy, leaning over her. “What’re you doing?”

  It’s hard to be tough while you’re lying flat on your back, but Bean tried. “I’m cracking a case.”

  “You’re what?” asked Ivy.

  “It means solving a mystery,” Bean said. She sat up. “I’m practicing to be a private investigator. P. I. for short.”

  “Pi?” Ivy said. “3.1415—”

  “No, not that one. P. I. stands for private investigator. You know, someone who solves mysteries. Like Al Seven.”

  “Al who?” asked Ivy.

  So Bean explained everything about Al Seven and Seven Falls. For a while, Ivy thought Al Seven was seven, but soon she understood.

  Bean told her about how Al Seven found clues and rubbed his face. She told Ivy about how Al Seven snuck after people and spied on them and asked them the hard questions. How Al Seven spied on Sammy La Barba and saw him put money in a mailbox. And then about how Al Seven gave all the money to a girl named Lola.

  “Why’d he do that?” asked Ivy.

  Bean shrugged. “Don’t know. But then he sits in his car for a long time and then the police come and some newspaper guys, and he’s a big hero. But he doesn’t care, and he walks off alone in an alley.”

  “Wow.” Ivy was impressed.

  “So,” Bean said. “I’m going to be a P. I. and I’m going to solve mysteries.”

  Ivy looked around Bean’s front yard. “What mystery are you solving now?”

  “The Mystery of What’s Under the Cement Rectangle,” Bean answered.

  “Hey!” Ivy said. “I’ve always wondered about that!”

  “That’s what makes it a mystery,” said Bean. She rolled over and looked into the hole again. “I was trying to see into it, but it was too dark, so now—” She hooked her finger into the hole. “Ew. It’s slimy.” But Al Seven wouldn’t let a little slime stop him, and neither would Bean. She pulled. The cement rectangle made a scraping sound. Just as she thought: It was a lid. She pulled harder. More scraping. She pulled really hard. The cement rectangle popped upward.

  “Wow,” said Ivy, bending over the rectangle in the grass.

  Underneath the cement lid, down below the grass, there was a rectangular space full of slime. In the middle of the space stood a gray machine with a dial on it. Pipes came from its sides and disappeared into the ground.

  “Hey, look at that!” It was Sophie S. from down the street, bending over Bean. “I always wanted to know what was under there.”

  “The Mystery of What’s Under the Cement Rectangle has now been solved,” Bean said. It felt good to have an answer.

  Sophie S. peered down into the hole. “You think the same thing is inside all of them?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said Bean the P. I.

  SPECIAL DELIVERY

  All around Pancake Court, rectangular cement lids lay beside slimy cement holes.

  “I don’t think it counts as a mystery,” said Prairie. She was nine. She argued a lot.

  “Sure it does,” said Bean. “It was the Mystery of What’s Under the Cement Rectangle. I solved it.”

  “I feel a lot better now that I know for sure there aren’t monsters in there,” said Sophie S.

  “It’s not mysterious,” argued Prairie. “It’s just pipes in the dirt.”

  The nerve! Bean made her eyes into slits. “Look, I’m almost a private investigator, so I know about what’s a mystery and what’s not.”

  Prairie made a snorty sound. “Hey, Dino!” she called as he zipped by on his skateboard. “Guess what Bean and Ivy are doing?!”

  He skidded into the grass. “What?”

  “We’re solving mysteries,” said Bean firmly.

  Dino looked around. “What mysteries?”

 
; Bean looked at Prairie. “The Mystery of the Sleeping Mailman.”

  + + + + + +

  “Shh!” whispered Ivy.

  They tiptoed down Ivy’s driveway and stuffed themselves behind a bush. Very carefully, they leaned out and looked toward the mail truck parked at the curb. Inside, the mailman was lying across the two front seats. His eyes were closed. His mouth was open. He had earphones in his ears.

  “I don’t see what’s so mysterious about him,” said Prairie. “He’s just sleeping.”

  “He does it every day,” whispered Bean. “He whizzes around Pancake Court, parks in front of Ivy’s house, and falls asleep for two hours. Why does he sleep in the middle of the day? It’s a mystery.”

  Prairie looked doubtful, but Bean didn’t wait for her to argue. She moved silently to a tree near the mail truck and beckoned for Ivy to follow her. One by one, Ivy and Sophie S. and Dino and Prairie came to her side. Together, they watched the mailman breathe in and out.

  Bean remembered how Al Seven had given a big sigh and walked toward Sammy La Barba. Bean pulled down her hat, gave a big sigh, and walked toward the mail truck.

  Silently, she stood at the open door of the truck.

  The mailman breathed in and out.

  Silently, the other kids gathered around her.

  The mailman breathed in and out.

  Silently, Bean bent down to look at the mailman. What was the matter with him?

  The mailman breathed in and out.

  Silently, the other kids bent down to look at the mailman. What was the matter with him?

  The mailman’s eyes clicked open. He screamed.

  + + + + + +