8 BEAN’S BACKYARD

BEAN'S BACKYARD "You peek over. See if Nancy's there," said Bean. "She might be in the yard looking for me." Ivy nodded and stood up. She could just see over the fence. "I don't see anyone," she said. "Then they're probably out looking for me," said Bean. She pictured her mom and Nancy with worried faces. "I've been gone for a long time." "Let's go get the worms," said Ivy, pulling herself over the fence. Bean's backyard was a big rectangle. There was a nice part, with flowers and neat grass. And then there was a messy part, with lumpy grass and a trampoline and a playhouse that Bean had had since she was little. She could barely fit inside it

anymore. There was stuff lying all over the messy part: hula hoops, balls, arrows, shovels, buckets, and a broken stilt (Bean had really hurt herself that time). The worms were in the messy part, over next to the playhouse, where the ground was wet.

Ivy and Bean grabbed shovels and a bucket and got to work. At first, there was just a lot of mud. Then there was mud and a few worms. But the more they dug, the more worms they found. Six. Ten. Thirteen worms. The worms oozed and curled through the mud. Bean liked the way they

were fat one second and stretched out and skinny the next. She and Ivy dug deeper and deeper, until they had made a big muddy pit in the ground. It was almost two feet across, and water dribbled down the sides. Worms were squirming at the bottom of the pit, trying to get away. Bean felt a little sorry for them. But Ivy just picked them up and dumped them into the bucket. Bean thought of Nancy kicking and waggling, and she began dumping them into the bucket too., "How many do we need?" asked Bean. The worms were piled on top of one another on the bottom of the bucket. Ivy looked "Only ten. But the more worms we have, the harder she'll dance". "This is enough," said Bean. "Poor

worms." "All right," said Ivy. She looked toward Bean's house. "Let's go see if your sister is home." "Okay, but we'd better sneak," said Bean. Bean's house was good for sneaking. At the back, there was a porch. If you crawled like a bug across the porch, you could look through a big window into the kitchen. The girls ran toward the bushes that grew next to Bean's porch and ducked down, hiding. Quietly, they began to creep up the stairs that led to the porch. Very quietly, they crawled across the floor. And then—Bean heard a sound. She froze.

There it was again. A sob. It was someone crying. Bean listened. It sounded like Nancy. Bean put her hand on Ivy's arm and pointed to the window. They crawled to it and peered in like spies.