12 CRACK!

CRACK! Bean rubbed her face, for real this time. There had to be a way to keep them from telling a grown-up about the rope, and she needed to think of it in the next three seconds. Ivy sniffed. Bean wondered what would happen if she tied herself up in the rope. They wouldn't blow it up if she were inside it. Or would they? Ivy sniffed louder. Bean gave her the bug-eyed look. What? Ivy tapped herself with one finger. Bean pointed at Ivy. You? Ivy nodded. Bean lifted her eyebrows. Really? Ivy nodded again. Go ahead.

Ivy was the most amazing person in the world. Bean smiled. Okay. She tried to remember exactly what Al Seven had said. "The end isn't always pretty," she began. Everyone looked confused. "What?" said Ruby. Bean sighed. She shook her head. "Friends. They break your heart, I guess." "Whose heart?" said Sophie S. "What are you talking about?" Bean grabbed Ivy's arm and said loudly, "Crime doesn't pay, pal!" Ivy fell to her knees. "You got me!" she wailed, covering her face with her hands. "It was me! I did it!" "Did what?" yelled Dino. Ivy looked between her fingers. "I am Mr. Whoever! I tied the rope!" "You are?" said Sophie S. and Prairie and Ruby and Trevor together. "You did?"

Ivy nodded and covered her face again. "I did it. I'm sorry!" "No way," said Dino. "Yes way," sniffed Ivy. "How'd you get up on my roof?" Dino asked, looking at her with narrow eyes. "Um—I—uh—" Bean could tell Ivy was going to say something about flying, so quickly she interrupted, "Ivy has a super-long ladder at her house." This was true, too. "I do!" said Ivy. "The painter left it by mistake. It's in the backyard." "Didn't you say she was on the porch with you last night?" asked Ruby. "How could she add a new piece of rope when you were sitting right there?" "When she fell asleep, I snuck off the porch and tied a new piece onto the end. I lied! I lied to my friend!" Ivy buried her face in her hands

again. Bean said sternly, "I hope you've learned something from this, young lady." Her parents said that to her all the time. "I sure did," Ivy said. She lifted her face and looked into the distance in a learning sort of way. "I'll never do it again." "Okay," said Bean. "I guess that's that." She looked at Trevor and Ruby and Prairie and Sophie S. and Dino. "So we're done!" she said loudly. "The end! Case cracked! Mystery solved!" There was a pause. Then Dino said, "But why? Why did you do it?" "To scare you," said Ivy. "To terrify you. Sorry." There was another pause. "I wasn't scared," said Ruby. "Me neither," said Dino and Sophie S. together. They made snorty sounds.

"Like I'd be scared of a yellow rope!" said Prairie. "Yeah, it was dumb," said Trevor. He got up. "I'm going. I've got stuff to do." "Me too." "Yeah." "Rope! Ha! Who's scared of a rope?" One by one, they walked away. Ivy and Bean watched them go.

When they were finally alone, they looked at each other. "That was good," said Bean. "That was really good." Ivy nodded. "We saved a magical creature from doom. We are friends of magic," she called loudly, just in case the magical creature was listening. Bean leaned over her desk to take another peek at the yellow rope. "You know what? I think I'd better take this desk and stuff down. I don't want the rope to feel crowded." "Right," said Ivy. "That was a close one." "Yeah," said Bean. "I don't want to be a P. I. anymore. I think I'll go back to being the person who makes up fortunes for fortune cookies." "That's a good job," said Ivy. "I'm still going to be a witch." "I'll write a fortune that says You will soon meet a witch, and then you can come out from under the table, and the fortune will be true,"