Ivy and Bean Doomed to Dance

Aruba-Tate. They stopped. Ms. Aruba-Tate didn’t holler very often. “Boys and girls! Stay where you are! Don’t move! Stay with your buddy! Try to stay together!”
    The white marble patio outside the aquarium was full of hollering teachers and wandering kids. There were kids sliding down the handrail on the stairs. There were boys throwing their backpacks at each other. There were girls walking along the rim of the fountain. All the teachers were trying to get all the kids to stand still. What a nuthouse, thought Bean.
    “Boys and girls! Follow me!” shouted Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Stay with your buddy!”
    Linking arms, Ivy and Bean climbed the stairs toward the big golden doors.
    “Our new home,” Bean whispered.
    They went inside. The aquarium was big and dim, with dark hallways like arms leading off in many directions. It was sort of greenish all over, and even with hundreds of kids wandering around, it was quiet.

    “Okay,” said Ivy, pulling out a list. “The first thing we do is find a good hiding place.”
    But they couldn’t find a good hiding place because Ms. Aruba-Tate was calling them over to the alligator pit. The second-graders clustered around the pit and stared down at the alligators.

    “Look!” Bean nudged Ivy. “There’s money in there!” Bright coins sparkled in the slimy alligator water.
    Ivy looked. “No way am I going in an alligator pit to get money,” she said.
    “Oh. Right.” Bean stared at the money. What a waste. The alligators seemed dead anyway. They didn’t even move. Maybe she could just slip in and out.
    One of the alligators spread its mouth wide in a yawn.
    Maybe not.
    “Stay together!” called Ms. Aruba-Tate, leading them from the alligator pit to a dark hallway. “Now we will see Coastal Zones.”
    Ivy nodded at Bean. Coastal Zones sounded like a good place to make a getaway.
    “When do we eat lunch?” yelled Paul. “I’m starving to death.”
    “Now,” whispered Ivy. She and Bean started to walk backward.
    “There will be no eating inside the aquarium,” said Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Ivy! Bean! Stay with the group!”
    “Boy, does she have sharp eyes,” Bean muttered.
    Coastal Zones turned out to be tide pools. Tide pools were good because you got to stick your hands in them. Ivy and Bean decided to run away later. Ivy held an orange starfish, which was really called a sea star and had eyes at the ends of its arms. Pretty neat.
    A sea anemone wrapped its soft tentacles around Bean’s finger. She hoped it didn’t hurt when she pulled her finger away.

    After Coastal Zones, there were penguins. Bean and Ivy liked penguins, but Zuzu loved them. She cried when it was time to go. Eric said he was going to freak if they didn’t get to sharks soon, so Ms. Aruba-Tate let them skip shrimp and move straight to sharks.
    “I want to see sharks,” said Bean. “Then we’ll go.”
    Ivy nodded. She wanted to see sharks, too.
    As it turned out, sharks were not that exciting. For one, they were small. And they swam around in circles, zip, zip. They didn’t care if the second grade wanted to see them or not. They just zipped around.
    “Come along, boys and girls,” called Ms. Aruba-Tate. “Let’s investigate the Kelp Forest.”
    The Kelp Forest. Boringsville. Bean nodded to Ivy. Ivy nodded to Bean. They waited beside the shark glass while the rest of the class surged forward. Ms. Aruba-Tate was listening to Emma tell about the time she was seasick. She didn’t notice Ivy and Bean.
    No one noticed.
    In a minute, they were all alone with the sharks.
    Now that Ms. Aruba-Tate’s class was gone, Bean and Ivy could hear the sharks. They could hear them move through the water.

    “Come on.” Ivy pulled on Bean’s sleeve.
    “Wait a second.” Bean leaned close to the glass wall. Bean wondered if they could hear her. “Hi,” she said. The sharks swam around, their black eyes empty. They didn’t care. “Let’s get out of here,” she said to Ivy.
    They turned and scurried down a hall lined with little tanks of fish.
    When they got to the end of that hall, they turned down another.
    And then another. They had done it.
    They were runaways.

OCEAN LIFE GONE BAD
    Ivy and Bean came to a gray room. It didn’t have any ocean life in it. What it did have in it were a lot of dishes.
    “We must be near the cafeteria,” said Ivy.
    A man walked into the room pushing a cart. He didn’t look surprised to see them, but he didn’t look happy either. “No kids in