Ivy and Bean Doomed to Dance

by Annie Barrows

  “I’ve got twenty-six and some coins,” said Ivy. “But I don’t want to spend it. I’m saving for a glass doll.”

  “There will be plenty of money in the fountain,” Bean decided.

  “And we’ll get clean at the same time,” said Ivy.

  “Boy,” Bean said, shaking her head. “It’s too bad I wasted all that time worrying.”

  Somehow, knowing that they were going to run away made ballet class better. “Still not good,” said Bean. “But better.”

  “I don’t know,” said Ivy. She was watching Dulcie do an arabesque. An arabesque was when you stretched out one arm and one leg at the same time. Arabesques made Ivy fall over. Dulcie could arabesque all day long. “Bet she puts glue on her shoes,” muttered Ivy.

  “Very nice, Dulcie,” said Madame Joy.

  “Thank you, Madame Jwah!” said Dulcie.

  Now instead of being butterflies at the end of ballet class, they practiced “Wedding Beneath the Sea.” Dulcie swayed and kitty-jumped and fluttered her fingers. Two starfish girls twirled with their arms out. Two seahorse girls galloped in and out of the starfish. Two tuna girls glided together across the floor. Ivy and Bean, the friendly squids, stayed in one place and waved their arms.

  “Call this dancing?” Bean whispered. “This is standing.”

  “Enter the prince!” cried Madame Joy.

  The prince was a girl wearing a black leotard and a red hat that looked like a tiny pillowcase. The prince was the second-crummiest part in “Wedding Beneath the Sea,” but it was way better than being a friendly squid. The prince at least got to leap. The prince-girl leaped toward Dulcie while Dulcie fluttered away. Then the prince got down on one knee and waved her arms at Dulcie. Then Dulcie nodded, and all the other fishy things got in a circle and danced around them. Except the two friendly squids. Madame Joy said they were like doormen. They guarded the entrance to the mermaid palace.

  Finally Madame Joy clapped her hands. Class was over. For Ivy and Bean, it was especially over. Next week they’d be living at the aquarium.

  Ivy grinned at Bean. “Bye-bye, ballet,” she whispered.

  “Down with squids!” Bean whispered back. The night before the field trip Bean filled her backpack with useful items. Band-Aids? Check. Pencil? Check. String? Check. Underwear? Check. Bag of salt? Check. Nancy had told her once that all you needed to stay alive was salt and water. Bean figured there would be plenty of water at the aquarium.

  Bean zipped her backpack closed. She looked around her room. It seemed like she should be discussing important things with Ivy. She couldn’t think of any important things, but she called Ivy anyway.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Who’s this?” said Ivy.

  “Bean!”

  “Oh. Hi, Bean,” said Ivy. She didn’t like talking on the phone. “What do you want?”

  “Are you ready? Say ten-four if you are.”

  “Say what?” asked Ivy.

  “Ten-four,” said Bean.

  “Fourteen,” said Ivy.

  “No! It means yes,” said Bean.

  “Yes what?”

  “Ivy! Yes, I’m ready!” yelled Bean.

  “Oh. I’m ready, too. Good-bye.” Ivy hung up.

  Forget it. Bean went back to her room. It was almost bedtime, which meant it was almost morning, which meant it was almost running-away time. Bean could hardly wait.

  VERY FISHY

  Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class swarmed off the bus. They were proud. Their bus behavior had been excellent, if you didn’t count Marga-Lee and Dusit.

  They stampeded up the stairs toward the aquarium’s front door. Who would get there first? Who would be the best?

  “Boys and girls! Stop!” hollered Ms. Aruba-Tate. They stopped. Ms. Aruba-Tate didn’t holler very often. “Boys and girls! Stay where you are! Don’t move! Stay with your buddy! Try to stay together!”

  The white marble patio outside the aquarium was full of hollering teachers and wandering kids. There were kids sliding down the handrail on the stairs. There were boys throwing their backpacks at each other. There were girls walking along the rim of the fountain. All the teachers were trying to get all the kids to stand still. What a nuthouse, thought Bean.

  “Boys and girls! Follow me!” shouted Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Stay with your buddy!”

  Linking arms, Ivy and Bean climbed the stairs toward the big golden doors.

  “Our new home,” Bean whispered.

  They went inside. The aquarium was big and dim, with dark hallways like arms leading off in many directions. It was sort of greenish all over, and even with hundreds of kids wandering around, it was quiet.

  “Okay,” said Ivy, pulling out a list. “The first thing we do is find a good hiding place.”

  But they couldn’t find a good hiding place because Ms. Aruba-Tate was calling them over to the alligator pit. The second-graders clustered around the pit and stared down at the alligators.

  “Look!” Bean nudged Ivy. “There’s money in there!” Bright coins sparkled in the slimy alligator water.

  Ivy looked. “No way am I going in an alligator pit to get money,” she said.

  “Oh. Right.” Bean stared at the money. What a waste. The alligators seemed dead anyway. They didn’t even move. Maybe she could just slip in and out.

  One of the alligators spread its mouth wide in a yawn.

  Maybe not.

  “Stay together!” called Ms. Aruba-Tate, leading them from the alligator pit to a dark hallway. “Now we will see Coastal Zones.”

  Ivy nodded at Bean. Coastal Zones sounded like a good place to make a getaway.

  “When do we eat lunch?” yelled Paul. “I’m starving to death.”

  “Now,” whispered Ivy. She and Bean started to walk backward.

  “There will be no eating inside the aquarium,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Ivy! Bean! Stay with the group!”

  “Boy, does she have sharp eyes,” Bean muttered.

  Coastal Zones turned out to be tide pools. Tide pools were good because you got to stick your hands in them. Ivy and Bean decided to run away later. Ivy held an orange starfish, which was really called a sea star and had eyes at the ends of its arms. Pretty neat.

  A sea anemone wrapped its soft tentacles around Bean’s finger. She hoped it didn’t hurt when she pulled her finger away.

  After Coastal Zones, there were penguins. Bean and Ivy liked penguins, but Zuzu loved them. She cried when it was time to go. Eric said he was going to freak if they didn’t get to sharks soon, so Ms. Aruba-Tate let them skip shrimp and move straight to sharks.

  “I want to see sharks,” said Bean. “Then we’ll go.”

  Ivy nodded. She wanted to see sharks, too.

  As it turned out, sharks were not that exciting. For one, they were small. And they swam around in circles, zip, zip. They didn’t care if the second grade wanted to see them or not. They just zipped around.

  “Come along, boys and girls,” called Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Let’s investigate the Kelp Forest.”

  The Kelp Forest. Boringsville. Bean nodded to Ivy. Ivy nodded to Bean. They waited beside the shark glass while the rest of the class surged forward. Ms. Aruba-Tate was listening to Emma tell about the time she was seasick. She didn’t notice Ivy and Bean.

  No one noticed.

  In a minute, they were all alone with the sharks.

  Now that Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class was gone, Bean and Ivy could hear the sharks. They could hear them move through the water.

  “Come on.” Ivy pulled on Bean’s sleeve.

  “Wait a second.” Bean leaned close to the glass wall. Bean wondered if they could hear her. “Hi,” she said. The sharks swam around, their black eyes empty. They didn’t care. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to Ivy.

  They turned and scurried down a hall lined with little tanks of fish.

  When they got to the end of that hall, they turned down another.

  And then another. They had done it.

  They
were runaways.

  OCEAN LIFE GONE BAD

  Ivy and Bean came to a gray room. It didn’t have any ocean life in it. What it did have in it were a lot of dishes.

  “We must be near the cafeteria,” said Ivy.

  A man walked into the room pushing a cart. He didn’t look surprised to see them, but he didn’t look happy either. “No kids in here,” he said. “Cafeteria’s that way.” He pointed to a door.

  “Okay,” said Bean. She and Ivy went through a different door.

  Now they were in a dark hallway. A dark, small hallway. They could just barely see the sign on the wall. It said, “Life without Light: Creatures of the Deep Sea.”

  “Perfect!” said Ivy.

  “Perfect? For what?” asked Bean. It didn’t look perfect to her. It looked dark.

  “Life without Light.” said Ivy. “It’s great for sleeping. Plus, no one will be able to see us.”

  Bean looked around the little hall. “We’re going to sleep in here?”

  “No. This is just where they put the sign. The fish and stuff are in there.” She pointed to a doorway.

  Together they walked into a long, narrow room. At least Bean thought it was a long, narrow room. She couldn’t really tell because it was so dark. It was even darker than the hall.

  “Why don’t they turn on some lights?” whispered Bean. It seemed like a whispering place.

  “It’s showing what it’s like in the deep sea. The sun doesn’t get all the way down there,” whispered Ivy.

  “So that’s all? Just a dark room?” Bean shook her head.

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell. Do you see fish tanks anywhere?”

  Bean looked hard into the darkness. She could see some glimmering on the wall. Maybe it was glass. Or something else. Bean started to get a worried feeling. “Why aren’t there any people in here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ivy said again. Bean could see the outline of Ivy’s head as she looked from side to side. “Maybe the sign was old. Maybe there’s nothing in here.”

  For a moment, they stood there in the dark. It was so quiet that they heard the sound of the quiet. Bean began to think of all the things that might be slithering silently toward them.

  “Ivy? I’m not liking this so much,” she said.

  Ivy linked her arm into Bean’s. That was better. A little. “There’s got to be a light switch in here somewhere,” said Ivy. “If we walk around, I bet we’ll find one. And once we turn on the light, we’ll figure out where to hide our backpacks.”

  Slowly, with their arms out, they walked toward the wall. Bean’s hands brushed against cool glass. No light switches there. She felt around its edges.

  “Hey,” said Ivy. “Here’s a button thing. Should I push it?”

  “Um,” said Bean. “What if it opens a trapdoor and water gushes out?”

  Too late. Ivy had pushed the button. The wall in front of them began to glow with red light. For a second, they blinked at the brightness. And then they saw. Behind the glass was black water rising high above their heads. They pressed their faces to the window. Was it just empty water?

  “I don’t see any fish,” Bean began to say—and then a massive mouth came hurtling toward them, shining with thousands of needle teeth. “YIKES!” Bean took an enormous leap backward, dragging Ivy behind her.

  “Holy moly cannoli!” she squeaked. “What the heck is that?”

  Ivy didn’t say anything, but her hand held tight to Bean’s. The giant mouth was attached to a long snaky creature that glared at them with tiny bright eyes.

  “I guess this is what it’s like at the bottom of the sea,” whispered Ivy.

  Bean shivered.

  On the other side of the glass wall, a fish swam by, a thin arm sprouting from its head. At the end of the arm was a glowing lump. The fish swished its head from side to side, and the glowing lump swung like a lantern.

  Slowly the two girls made their way around the room. Long white worms poked from tubes. See-through fish wiggled along, trailing other fish with glowing eyeballs. Shining blobs with no heads or tails rolled on the floor of the tank. Were they alive?

  “Could we turn the lights off again?” Ivy asked in a small voice. “I can’t stop looking at those blobs.”

  Bean reached over to the button under the glass and pressed it. The red light faded into darkness. Thick nighttime darkness. With worms and giant mouths in it.

  “Ivy?” said Bean. “I don’t think I can live in here for two weeks.”

  “Sure you can,” said Ivy, but her voice didn’t sound sure. “They’re inside tanks. Tank glass is super-strong.”

  There was a pause.

  “I keep thinking they’re watching us,” said Bean.

  “I keep thinking the glass is going to break,” said Ivy.

  Bean pictured the giant mouth whizzing toward her. She jumped up and pressed the button again.

  But it was a different button. The red light did not begin to glow. Instead, a serious voice began to talk.

  “The most famous creature of the deep sea can’t be seen in an aquarium because it has never been captured alive. The giant squid, which may reach a length of forty feet, is shown here in a rare video….”

  The voice went on talking, but Bean and Ivy didn’t hear it.

  They were watching the video. An enormous white blob flapped in empty black water, its long, blubbery white arms trailing behind. Around and around it spun and ruffled and circled, dancing in the water. It was like a horrible Wili, Bean thought. Its legs flailed and waved. Then, with a giant flap and whirl, the squid shot toward them. Its head, huge and soft, turned, and suddenly a single monster eye, an eye the size of a plate, stared right into theirs. It could see them.

  For a second, Ivy and Bean stood frozen.

  And then they began to run.

  IN HOT WATER

  Bean couldn’t stop running. She was gasping for air and her backpack was slamming into her shoulders, but she couldn’t stop running.

  Ivy slammed into a kid. “Excuse me,” she gasped.

  “Watch out!” yelled a teacher as they pounded by. “No running in the aquarium!”

  They couldn’t stop. The squid was back there, waiting for them. They had to get out.

  They tore up a dark hallway filled with sardines and down a dark hallway filled with jellyfish.

  They flashed past the sharks, past the penguins, past the alligator pit, and exploded through the heavy golden doors into the outside world.

  Air instead of water. Light instead of darkness. People instead of fish.

  They were safe.

  For a moment, they stood there, panting and gasping. I love light, thought Bean. I love air. I love this white marble patio—

  “BEAN! IVY! WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU BEEN?” Ms. Aruba-Tate rushed toward them with her arms open. “Did you get lost? We were looking everywhere! Oh dear, I was so worried!” She gathered them up in a giant hug. “Oh dear,” she said, “oh, honeys!”

  Ivy and Bean let themselves be hugged. It felt nice, after that squid, to be hugged.

  “We’re okay,” said Bean.

  “We got lost,” Ivy said quickly. That was kind of true.

  “Oh, sweeties!” Ms. Aruba-Tate hugged them again. “Why didn’t you go to one of the guards? Didn’t I tell you to go to a guard if you got lost?”

  “There weren’t any guards,” said Bean. That was completely true.

  Now the rest of Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class was clustering around.

  “There you are!” said Emma. “See, Ms. Aruba-Tate, I told you they weren’t dead.”

  “We got to see the eels and you didn’t,” said Eric. “They’re hecka gross.”

  “I can’t believe you got lost,” said Vanessa. “Where’d you go?”

  “Into a part of the aquarium that no one has ever seen before,” said Ivy.

  “There was this squid with eyes this big,” said Bean, holding her hands apart.

  “You’re making that up,” said Vane
ssa.

  “We’re not!” said Ivy. “There were white worms and this mouth with teeth—”

  “Girls!” interrupted Ms. Aruba-Tate. She looked very serious. “Girls, are you telling me that you were wandering around the aquarium having a good time? That you didn’t even try to find us?”

  Ivy and Bean looked at each other. “Um,” said Bean.

  “We were trying to find you, Ms. Aruba-Tate,” said Ivy. “We just happened to see a few worms and things while we were trying.”

  “Ivy and Bean, I am very disappointed in you,” Ms. Aruba-Tate began. “Our class has discussed safety rules many times, and I was counting on you being mature enough to understand that a field trip is an educational experience, not an excuse for bad behavior.”

  All the way to the bus Ms. Aruba-Tate talked about disappointment and safety and bad behavior. Ivy and Bean nodded. They said she was right and they were wrong. They said they were sorry.

  She was going to have to tell their parents, Ms. Aruba-Tate said.

  Ivy and Bean nodded. They knew she had to.

  They also knew that their parents were going to be mad. And that they were going to get in trouble.

  But Ivy and Bean didn’t care as long as each of them could hold one of Ms. Aruba-Tate’s hands on the bus ride home. As long as they never had to go back to that aquarium and see that squid again in their whole lives.

  SQUIDARINAS

  They were right. Bean’s mother was mad. “This is not what I expect from you, Bernice Blue. When you go on a trip of any kind, I expect you to listen to the grown-up in charge. This is something we’ve discussed a thousand times.” Bean’s mother folded her arms and glared at Bean.

  Bean could tell she was supposed to say something. “I’m sorry,” she said.