8 GRAND SLAM

Grand Slam Bean thought her mom might not be happy if they hammered rice on the dining room table, so she and Ivy went outside. They found a board in the garage and laid it down on the grass.

Bean and Ivy each took a grain of rice and set it on the wood. Then they slammed it with their hammers as hard as they could. Cool. Rice dust. They set out two more grains of rice. Slam! More rice dust. Slam! Slam! Slam! The board leaped up and flipped over, spilling rice dust into the lawn. "Hey! Did you see that board jump?" said Bean. "That's energy for sure!" "And no pollution," said Ivy. "Let's do it again!" "It's a science experiment! We have to do it again," yelled Bean, lifting her hammer over her head. "Don't tell me this is another dorky solution for global warming," said Nancy. She and Mischa stood over them in the grass. "None of your beeswax," said Bean.

"We're making clean energy," Ivy said at the same time. Bean shook her head. Now they were in for it. "No offense, but you guys are totally lame," giggled Mischa. Bean could have banged Mischa's toe with the hammer, but she didn't. Ivy was talking. "Don't you care about global warming?" she asked Mischa.

"Bor-ing!" said Mischa. "I'm, like, if I hear about global warming one more time, I'm gonna scream." "Don't you care about the polar bears?" asked Bean. Mischa shrugged. "Not really." "Don't you care about nature?" asked Ivy. Mischa rolled her eyes. "Bor-ing," she said.

"What?" asked Ivy. "Camping and all that," said Mischa, shaking her head. "Totally boring." "What do you like?" asked Ivy. "Shopping!" said Mischa. "And Harky," added Nancy, giggling. Mischa screamed and hit Nancy with her backpack, and they went inside. Ivy stared after them. "What a couple of weirdos." Bean dropped her hammer into the grass and went to look at her ant friends in the dirt patch. They were still very busy, zipping to and fro on ant business. They still didn't notice her at all. "Look," she said to Ivy. Ivy came over and knelt next to her. "Watch these guys. They have no idea that we're here." Ivy put her finger down in front of an ant. For a moment he stopped, and then, looking

annoyed, he climbed over her finger and bustled away. Ivy and Bean lay on their stomachs, watching the ants. After a while, Ivy said, "I think they know we're here, but they don't like to think about it. We make them nervous." "Yeah. We're so big." Ivy was quiet for a moment. "Do you think that Mushie girl is just pretending to hate nature? I mean, how can anyone hate nature?" "Well," Bean thought. "Maybe she's scared of it. Have you ever been camping and you wake up in the middle of the night and it's more