4 THE ROAD TO DISASTERVILLE

THE ROAD TO DISASTERVILLE Bean tried to warn her. Sisters were no good. They tattled on you if you did the tiniest thing a little bit wrong, and then you had to go sit outside. They bossed you. They got mad if you took one measly glass animal out of their rooms. They laughed at you. They completely freaked out about small problems, even if you were just about to clean them up. They told you your drawings were weird looking, your hair smelled, and there was a big scary secret that no one would ever tell you, not in a million years. And then they smiled at you in a grown-uppy way, just to remind you that they knew it and you didn't. All day long, sisters did that. And then, right before bed, they said, "I was just kidding."

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Ivy said that was older sisters. Younger sisters weren't like that. Younger sisters were perfectly okay. Especially very small ones. A baby sister, for instance, would be only half as annoying as Nancy, maybe even less. Just annoying enough to keep Ivy from getting spoiled. A baby sister was what she needed. "Trust me, you don't," said Bean. "I do!" said Ivy.

Bean shook her head. "Next stop, Disasterville." But Ivy was already zipping toward the gate. She stopped and looked back at Bean. "Come on!" she said. "Let's go tell my mom." "Tell her what?" said Bean, getting up. "Tell her to have a baby." Wow. Bean didn't know how that was going to work, but she was interested to find out. Once she was at Ivy's house, though, she decided it would be more polite to wait in Ivy's room during the telling part. It didn't take very long. Three minutes, maybe. "What did she say?" asked Bean. "She said HA!" Ivy answered, flopping down on her bed. "And then she sang a song about the old gray mare just ain't what she used to be. And then she said Absolutely not, no with a capital N." "Sounds like she means it," said Bean. "You'd better just give me the jiggly man."

"No," said Ivy. "I'm going to brainstorm." Ms. Aruba-Tate was nuts about brainstorming. She was always doing it. When she brainstormed, Ms. Aruba-Tate wrote down words and drew circles around them with her big purple pen. She called this an Idea Map. Bean didn't really get why brainstorming was different than regular thinking, so she just watched while Ivy brainstormed. First, Ivy slid to the floor. Then, she put her hands over her eyes. After that, she rolled around and grunted.

It wasn't very interesting, watching Ivy brainstorm. Bean wandered over to Ivy's doll tenement. Ivy's room was divided into five little sections. There was an art studio, a sleeping area, a living room, a magic lab, and a doll tenement, where all of Ivy's dolls lived. Ivy had scads of dolls. She had regular plastic dolls, china dolls dressed like old-fashioned girls, dolls in fancy costumes, wooden dolls, stuffed dolls, Barbies, and even a rock in a nightgown. Bean poked around, looking for the jiggly man. Ivy stopped rolling around the floor and put her feet up on the wall. That way the blood would slosh to her brain and make it storm.