7 THE POTION SOLUTION

THE POTION SOLUTION "This is going to be great!" said Bean happily. She just loved potions. The two girls were in Ivy's magic lab. The magic lab was one of the five little rooms that Ivy had made inside her bedroom. Chalk lines on the floor showed where one room ended and another began. There was an art studio, a living room, a doll room, a sleeping area, and the lab.

Bean's favorite was the art studio, with its little white table and the stack of bins filled with markers, glitter glue, pipe cleaners, beads, colored paper, feathers, and paint. The magic lab was Ivy's favorite. In it was a bookshelf that held a shiny black rock, four fossils, a real snake skin, lots of bottles in all shapes and sizes, and jars of herbs and ingredients. Ivy loved to say "ingredients." There was another table, which Ivy had covered in tinfoil. On top was a plastic tub of water. Ivy had wanted a sink but her mother had said no, way, so Ivy filled the plastic tub in the bathroom and carried it back to her lab. It spilled a lot. Ivy took her magic book from its special hiding place and began flipping through the pages. "There's got to be a potion in here somewhere," she said, frowning. Then she giggled. "Here's one for making

someone fall in love with you." Bean made a throwing-up sound. "Here's one for getting your money back after it's stolen." "That's not it," said Bean, sticking her hand in the water tub. Some water spilled onto the floor. "I know," said Ivy, still flipping pages, "but I don't see—here's another one for making someone fall in love with you.

That's dumb. How come there's nothing for returning a ghost to its grave?" "There should, said Bean. "Most people don't want ghosts hanging around the house." Ivy looked up from her book. "I wouldn't mind." "What if it creaked open your closet door in the middle of the night," asked Bean, "and you could hear it breathing?" Ivy thought. "I'd talk to it. My grandma's cousin lived in a house with a ghost that whistled. My grandma said that when she was a girl, she always heard the ghost whistling upstairs when she went to play at her cousin's."

"I'd freak. Was she scared?" asked Bean. "Grandma says the only thing she's scared of is chickens, but I think she's joking. I wish I'd been there," said Ivy. "I would have asked it why it was haunting the house." Bean stared at her hand in the water tub. It looked ghostly. "I bet ghosts are scared of themselves. It must be weird to look down and see through yourself." Ivy looked at her. "Maybe. Maybe Grandma's ghost whistled because it was trying to cheer itself up." She went back to looking at her book, and the magic lab was

quiet for a minute or two. "Hey!" she said suddenly. "Here's something that could work. It's a potion that you pour in front of your house to keep evil spirits away." Bean was feeling sorry for the ghost now. "But it's not an evil spirit," she argued. "It just wants the school to get off its grave. The ghost was there first. First come, first served." "Yeah. You're right," Ivy agreed. "But the ghost has got to go. Ms. Aruba-Tate said. And besides, we'll be doing a good deed for the ghost, in a way. Don't you think it would rather be in its grave?" Bean thought. "I guess so. That bathroom is nasty." "Right. So here's what we'll do," Ivy leaned over the tinfoil, "we'll make a ceremony. We'll tell it that we know it's not evil. We'll tell it that we just want it to rest peacefully. We'll tell it—"