Free Ivy and Bean Take the Case by Annie Barrows Page A

and What’s the matter with the mailman? When she asked these questions, her parents usually said something like It’s none of your business. That meant that there was an answer, but they didn’t want her to know it.
    Bean smiled toughly at her dark ceiling. They didn’t want her to know things. Just like Sammy La Barba didn’t want Al Seven to know where he was on the night of May twelfth. But Al Seven had figured it out, because he was a private investigator. Private investigators got to the bottom of mysteries. They solved them. They snuck around. They spied. They asked the hard questions. They sat in their cars andrubbed their faces until they came up with the answers. Then they walked down alleys in the rain.
    That’s what Bean was going to do. First thing tomorrow morning. “None of your business!” she muttered. “Ha!”



PIRVATE INSTEVIGATOR
    Al Seven had a cool office with his name on the door. Bean could do that, easy-peasy. She began with the desk. Bean had a good board, and she had two triangle things that were called sawhorses even though they didn’t look anything like horses. She put the sawhorses on the front lawn, and then she put the board on top of the sawhorses. Desk! The spinny chair was a little harder. Bean had to yank it up the basement stairs, yank, yank, yank. And just when she got to the top, it fell back down most of the stairs. It was already broken, but it was more broken after it fell down the stairs.

    â€œWhat the heck are you doing, Bean?” called her father from the kitchen.
    â€œI’m trying to get this chair up the stairs!” shouted Bean.
    â€œDo you want help?”
    Bean thought about that. Al Seven had a helper, a lady named Dolly. Mostly, Dolly lit Al’s cigarette, but Bean figured she would have carried a chair if Al had asked her to. “Yes, please.”
    Her dad came down to the basement and carried the spinny chair up the stairs. He even carried it out to the front yard.

    â€œThanks, pal,” said Bean.
    Her dad said, “Don’t call me pal. You’re welcome.”
    Bean put the chair behind the desk and sat in it. She spun around. Pretty good. But she wasn’t done yet. She needed to look tough enough to solve a mystery. She needed a hat. She was pretty sure there was one upstairs, in the closet of things no one wanted.
    She was right! On the highest shelf of things no one wanted, covered with dust, was a hat. It was sort of grayish, sort of brownish. It smelled funny. When Bean put it on, she could hardly see. It was a little dangerous, walking around in that hat, but Al Seven said, “Danger makes me laugh.”

    While Bean was climbing down from the shelf, she found something she hadn’t expected, something great. It was a telephone, an old one with two parts and a cord. Perfect! Al Seven was always slamming the phone down on people. Bean slammed the phone down a few times to test it. “So long, pal,” she whispered. With the hat on her headand the phone under her arm, Bean went downstairs to her mom’s recycling bin.

    Bean’s mom’s recycling bin was always full of important-looking papers. Papers with rubber stampings all over them. Papers with typing in three different colors. Papers with sticky notes. Today was a good day in the bin. Papers were spilling out the sides. Also big envelopes. And file folders! What a haul! Since she was already down on the floor, Bean took a look in her mom’s wastebasket. Five thousand lipstick tissues and a plastic picture of an alligator lying on a log. Words coming out of the alligator’s mouth said, “Sure I’m working. I’m working so fast you can’t see it.”
    Bean stared at the plastic picture for a long time. Was the alligator working or was it supposed to be funny? Did grown-ups think it was funny? If they did, why? It was a mystery. But, Bean decided, not a very interesting one. With her hat,