Ivy and Bean Doomed to Dance

BALLET OR BUST
    It was a book that started all the trouble. “Read, read, read! That’s all grown-ups ever say to me,” said Bean, “but when I finally do read, I get in trouble.” She slumped in her chair. “And then the grown-ups take the book away.”
    Ivy nodded. “It’s totally not fair,” she agreed. “And they shouldn’t blame us anyway. It’s all Grandma’s fault.”
    Ivy’s grandma had sent her the book. It was called The Royal Book of the Ballet . Each chapter told the story of a different ballet, with pictures of fancy girls in feathery tutus and satin toe shoes.
    Bean was at Ivy’s house on the day it arrived. They were supposed to be subtracting, but they were tired of that so they ripped open the package and sat down side by side on Ivy’s couch to look at The Royal Book of the Ballet .
    “I heard that sometimes their toes bleed when they’re dancing,” said Bean. “The blood leaks right through the satin part.”
    “That’s gross,” said Ivy, turning the pages. Suddenly she stopped.

    “Whoa, Nellie,” murmured Bean, staring.
    “Is she kicking his head off?” asked Ivy in a whisper.
    “That’s what it looks like,” said Bean. “What’s this one called, anyway?”
    Ivy flipped back a few pages. “ Giselle ,” she said, reading quickly. “It’s about a girl named Giselle who, um, dances with this duke guy, but he’s going to marry a princess, not Giselle, so she takes his sword and stabs herself.” Ivy and Bean found the picture of that.
    “Ew,” said Bean. “But interesting.”
    “Yeah, and then she turns into a ghost with all these other girls. They’re called the Wilis.”
    The picture showed a troop of beautiful women dressed in white. They had very long fingernails.
    “And then,” Ivy read on, “the duke goes to see Giselle’s grave, and she comes out with the Wilis, and they decide to dance him to death.” Ivy stared at the picture. “To death .”
    Bean leaned over for a closer look. It was pretty amazing. Giselle’s pointed toe had snapped the duke’s head up so that his chin pointed straight up to the sky. It would fall off in a moment. The Wilis stood in a circle, waving their long fingernails admiringly.
    Bean lifted the page, wishing that she could see more of the picture, but there was no more. There never was. “Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “She showed him.”
    For a few minutes, Ivy and Bean sat in silence, thinking.

    “Okay,” Ivy said finally. “I’m Giselle, and you’re the duke.”
    “All right,” said Bean. “But next time, I get to be Giselle.”
    It was fun playing Giselle, even though Ivy’s mom wouldn’t let them dance with a knife and they had to use a Wiffle bat instead. After they had each been Giselle a couple of times, they were Wilis, waving long Scotch-tape fingernails as they danced various people to death.
    “Mrs. Noble!” shrieked Bean. “I’m dancing Mrs. Noble to death.” Ivy ran to get a pair of her mother’s high heels and pretended to be Mrs. Noble, a fifth-grade teacher who had once given Ivy and Bean a lot of trouble.

    Bean the Wili chased Mrs. Noble around the house, waggling her fingernails and screaming. Finally, when they were both laughing so hard they couldn’t dance any more, they rushed into the kitchen and fell over on the floor.
    “Well, look who’s here,” said Ivy’s mom. She was making dinner.
    “Mom,” Ivy said when she got her breath back, “I have to take ballet class.”
    Ivy’s mom stirred something into something else. “You had to take ice-skating, too.”
    Ivy wiggled her toes. “Yeah, but that was a mistake.”
    “How do you know ballet isn’t a mistake, too? Those skates were expensive.”

    “Ballet is different,” Ivy explained. “Ballet isn’t freezing and dumb. Ballet is pretty. And it’s good for you.”
    “I’m going to take it, too,” Bean said. “That way, we can help each other during the hard parts.”
    Ivy’s mom looked at Bean in a surprised sort of way. “You’re going to take ballet?”
    “Sure.” Bean’s mom would be happy to let her take ballet. Bean was certain of it. After all, Bean thought, her mother liked nice stuff. And ballet was nice. Except for the part where you danced people to death.

    The funny thing was, Bean’s mother wasn’t happy to let her take ballet. Not at all.
    “You’ll start it, and then you’ll decide you hate it and want to quit.”
    “No, I won’t. I’ll love it,” Bean