Annie Barrows - Ivy + Bean: Whats the Big Idea?

Ivy + Bean
Book 7

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WHATS THE BIG IDEA?

written by annie barrows + illustrated by sophie blackall

For all childrens librarians everywhere,
but especially for Mrs. Jean Merian A. B.
For Leah Brunski, a remarkable teacher S. B.

Special thanks to Sean Fottrell for information about the science of global warming.

Text 2010 by Annie Barrows.
Illustrations 2010 by Sophie Blackall.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barrows, Annie.
Ivy + Bean whats the big idea? / written by Annie Barrows ; illustrated by Sophie Blackall.
p. cm. (Ivy + Bean ; bk. 7)
Summary: When all the second grade students must enter the science fair, which has global warming as its theme, best friends Ivy and Bean team up to create an unusual project. eISBN 978-0-8118-7976-7
[1. Science projectsFiction. 2. Science fairsFiction. 3. SchoolsFiction.] I. Blackall, Sophie, ill. II. Title. III. Title: Ivy and Bean whats the big idea? IV. Series.
PZ7.B27576Iwbh 2010
[Fic]dc22
2010008258

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

http://www.chroniclekids.com

There had been a problem in Beans house. The problem was staples. Bean loved staples. She loved them so much that she had stapled things that werent supposed to be stapled. The things looked better stapled, but her mother didnt think so, and now Bean was outside.

She was going to be outside for a long time.

She looked at her backyard. Same old yard, same old trampoline, same old dinky plastic playhouse, same old pile of buckets and ropes and stilts. None of them was any fun. Maybe she could play junkyard crash. Junkyard crash was when you stacked up all the stuff you could find and then drove the toy car into the stack. But it was no fun alone. Bean got up and scuffed across the nice green lawn until she reached the not-so-nice green lawn. This part of Beans lawn had holes and lumps in it. The lumps were mostly places where Bean had buried treasure for kids of the future.

Bean picked up a shovel. To heck with kids of the future. She was bored now. And maybe a secret admirer had added something interesting to her treasure, like a ruby skull or a dinosaur egg.

Bean didnt bury her treasure very deep, so it was easy to dig up. This treasure was inside a paper bag, but the paper bag wasnt doing so well. It wasnt really a paper bag anymore. Holy moly! Bean said loudly. Ive found treasure! She pulled the clumps of paper apart. What a disappointment. No ruby skull. No dinosaur egg. Just the same stuff she had buried two weeks ago: dental floss, tweezers, and a magnifying glass. Some treasure.

Bean flopped over on her stomach. Im dying of boredom, she moaned, hoping her mother would hear, Im dyyy-ing. She coughed in a dying sort of way, huh-ACK! and then lay still. Anyone looking from the porch would think she was dead. And then that person would feel bad.

Bean lay still.

Very still.

She could hear her heart thumping.

She could feel the hairs on her arm moving.

Bean opened her eyes. There was an ant scurrying over her arm. Bean pulled the magnifying glass over and peered at the ant. Her arm was like a mountain, and the little ant was like a mountain climber, stumbling along with a tired expression on his face. Poor, hardworking ant. She knew how he felt because sometimes her parents made her go hiking. She watched as he dodged between hairs and charged down the other side of her arm toward the ground. She offered him a blade of grass to use as a slide, but that seemed to confuse him. He paused, looked anxiously right and left, and then continued on her arm. He had a plan, and he was going to stick to it. Bean watched through the magnifying glass as he scuttled into the grass, rushing along the ground between blades. He was in a big hurry. He met another ant by banging into him, but they didnt even stop to talk. They zipped off in opposite directions.

Bean followed her ant to a patch of dry dirt. There he plunged down a hole.

Come back, whispered Bean. She liked her ant. Maybe he would come out if she poked his house. She found a thin stick and touched the top of the hole. Four ants streamed out and raced in four different directions. Bean didnt think any of them was her ant.

Bean watched the ant hole for a long time. Ants came and went. They all seemed to know where they were going. They all seemed to have important jobs. None of them seemed to notice that they were puny little nothings compared to Bean.

Bean dragged the hose toward the ant hole. She didnt turn the hose on. That would be mean. But she let a little bit of water dribble into the hole, and watched as the dirt erupted with ants. Thousands of ants flung themselves this way and that, racing to safety.

Help, help, whispered Bean. Flood!

The ants ran in lines away from the water. Some were holding little grains above their heads. They were the hero ants. But even the nonhero ants were busy. They were all far too busy to notice Bean watching them through the magnifying glass. To them, she was like a planet. She wasnt part of their world. She was too big and too far away for them to see.