Ida B Read online

  Ida B

  . . . and Her Plans to Maximize Fun,

  Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World

  Katherine Hannigan

  For the hills and the trees, the wind,

  the rivers, and the stars.

  And for Victor.

  Always—K.H.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise for Ida B

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  “Ida B,” Mama said to me on one of those days that start right and just keep heading toward perfect until you go to sleep, “when you’re done with the dishes, you can go play. Daddy and I are going to be working till dinner.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said back, but I said it like this, “Yes, MAY-uhm!” because I couldn’t wait to get on with my business. I could already hear the brook calling to me through the back door screen. “C’mon out and play, Ida B. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.” I had three places I wanted to visit, six things I wanted to make, and two conversations I hoped to have before dinnertime.

  Mama was washing, Daddy was drying, and I was putting away the dishes from lunch. And I knew that the moment I set the last pan in its place, I was free. But the way those two were chatting and laughing and acting like we had till next week to finish up, I could see it was going to be a while.

  My insides started itching and my feet started hopping, one then the other, because they were ten minutes past being ready to go. So I decided to speed things up a bit.

  Daddy’d hand me a dish, I’d sprint to the cupboard and put it away, race back again, and put my hand out for the next one, with my right foot tap, tap, tapping the seconds that were ticking by.

  “Hold your horses, Ida B,” Daddy told me. “There’s plenty of time to do whatever you’re planning.” And he passed me a plate, slow and easy.

  Well, that stopped me in my tracks. Because what Daddy said might have seemed all right to him, but it was sitting about two miles beyond wrong with me. I wasn’t going to be able to put away another tiny teaspoon till I set things straight.

  “Daddy,” I said, and I waited till he was looking at me before I went on.

  “Yes, Ida B,” he answered, turning toward me.

  And staring right into his eyeballs I told him, “There is never enough time for fun.”

  Daddy’s eyes opened wide, and for a half second I wondered if I was in for something close to trouble. But then the two ends of his mouth turned up, just a little.

  “Ida B,” he told the ceiling while he shook his head.

  “Hmmmmm,” Mama said, like a smile would sound if it could.

  And as soon as Daddy handed me the big frying pan, I set it in the drawer next to the oven, and I was on my way.

  “Come on, Rufus,” I called to Daddy’s old floppy-eared dog, who was napping under the table. “You can come, too, so you’ll have some company.”

  Now, a school of goldfish could go swimming in the pool of drool that dog makes while he’s sleeping. But as soon as he heard his name and saw me heading for outside he jumped up, cleaned up the extra slobber around his mouth, and in two and one-half seconds’ time, he was waiting for me at the back door.

  Chapter 2

  On my way out of the house, I grabbed a pencil and enough paper to make four good drawings and one mistake. And in my right pants pocket, I stuffed some string to tie the sticks together for the rafts I build and send down the brook with notes attached to them saying things like:

  What is life like in Canada?

  Please respond.

  Ida B. Applewood

  P.O. Box 42

  Lawson’s Grove, Wisconsin 55500

  or

  If this raft reaches the ocean,

  will you please let us know?

  Thank you very much.

  Applewood Raft

  Construction Company

  P.O. Box 42

  Lawson’s Grove, Wisconsin 55500

  It is my belief that the brook ends up at one of those two places, but I haven’t heard anything back yet to prove that. The best I’ve gotten so far is some old man from way up in Roaring Forks called up Mama and Daddy and told them I was sending out notes with my name and address on them and they might want to discourage that.

  And a teacher from Myers Falls, which is the next town over, got ahold of one of my notes and made her whole class find out things about Canada. Boring things like, “There are thirty-two million people,” and “Some of Canada’s main exports are timber and aluminum,” and they sent all those facts and figures to me in an envelope.

  Mama made me write a thank-you note back, so I drew a picture of a Canadian Mountie holding the Queen of England in his arms and they’re going over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel, waving aluminum maple leaves, just screaming with glee. “Thank you very much for the information,” I wrote. “Let’s all hope they’re having some fun over in Canada, too. Yours truly, Ida B. Applewood.”

  So I had my string, my paper, Daddy’s dog, and three pieces of bubble gum so I could blow a bubble as big as my face while being careful to keep it away from Rufus, because the last time he got near one of those, we were cutting pink gum out of his fur for about a month after. And I headed out to the apple orchard.

  “Hello, Beulah. Hello, Charlie. Hello, Pastel,” I said, which are some of the names I’ve given those trees. All of the apple trees were full of blossoms, and when you stood right in the middle of them you could smell their prettiness, but not so much it’d bother you.

  I was already sitting down under Henry VIII, getting to work on a drawing I’d started the day before. It was the orchard after the harvest, with bushels of apples under all of the trees. There were Mama and Daddy, me, Lulu the cat, and Rufus, each sitting in our own tree, eating slices of apple pie. I was working on Rufus, who had a mix of slobber and crumbs all over him, and Lulu was giving him a look of the utmost revulsion, when I realized that not one of those trees had said anything back to me.

  Now, some people might stop me right there and say, “Ida B, you could wait for eternity and a day and you’re not going to hear one of those trees talking to you, let alone a brook. Trees don’t have mouths, and they don’t speak, and you might want to take yourself to the doctor’s and get a very thorough check-up real soon.”

  And after I took a minute to give my patience and forbearance a chance to recover my mouth from the rudeness that was itching to jump out of it, I would just say this: “There’s more than one way to tell each other things, and there’s more than one way to listen, too. And if you’ve never heard a tree telling you something, then I’d say you don’t really know how to listen just yet. But I’d be happy to give you a few pointers sometime.”

  So I gave those trees another chance to reply and hollered, “I said, ‘Hello,’ everybody. Didn’t you hear me?”


  But instead of the usual chorus of “Hi”s and “Hey there”s, only Viola said, “How are you doing today, Ida B?”

  “I’m just fine on such a getting-to-perfect day,” I said. “What’s the matter with everybody? Why are you all so quiet?”

  But they stayed silent. Even the loud ones. Especially the rude ones.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” I yelled.

  Finally I heard Gertrude whisper, “You tell her, Viola.”

  “All right,” Viola whispered back, very discreetly.

  Viola hemmed and hawed for a bit, though. “Well ...” she started, and “Hmmm . . . ahhh . . . ummm . . . ” she tried again until she finally got something out. “Ida B, how’s everything going at home? How’s your fam—”

  But before she could finish, that punk Paulie T. was interrupting. “We heard a rumor that something bad’s headed your way, Ida B.” And if trees could grin like jack-o’-lanterns with bad intentions, that’s what Paulie T. would have been doing right then.

  “And who told you that, Paulie T.?” I asked, because I didn’t trust him with a thimbleful of water, let alone the truth.

  “I’m not revealing my sources,” he said.

  “Did you hear something, Viola? How about you, Beatrice? Or is Paulie T. just talking out of his branches?”

  “Ida B, don’t pay him any mind,” Viola told me. “We heard something on the wind about a storm headed your way, and we were all settling in and hoping you were okay, too. That’s all.”

  “There’s no storm coming today,” I said. “Can’t you feel how beautiful it is?”

  “You take care of yourself now, Ida B,” said Viola. And then they all just stood there, like they were sleeping standing up.

  Well, I got tired of feeling like I was alone in that particular crowd, and I was peeved about Paulie T.’s pleasure at my expense. “All right then, I’m headed off to have some fun somewhere else,” I said.

  And none of them said a word back.

  Once Rufus and I got to the brook, I asked right off, “Did you hear something about me and some trouble?”

  “Did you bring the rafts? Are you ready to play? Get ’em ready and get ’em in so we can play, Ida B,” said the brook, ignoring my question.

  “In a minute. First I want to know if you heard something about trouble heading my way.”

  “My-oh-my, and will you look at that,” the brook replied. “I’m late for an appointment, Ida B. Gotta go, gotta go.

  “Better talk to the old tree,” the brook went on as it rolled away. “Yep, yep, that’s a good idea,” it called as it tumbled over the rocks and around the mountain and was gone.

  Now, by that time I’d just about lost my patience with the bunch of them. But talking to the old tree was a good piece of advice, so I didn’t mind the brook’s rudeness too much.

  Rufus and I hiked up the mountain—which isn’t really a mountain, but “hill” is just too tiny a word for it—till we got to the old tree that has no leaves and hardly any bark. That tree’s bare and white, and people think it’s dead but it’s not; it’s just older than old. It hardly ever speaks, and even if it does you often have to wait awhile. But when it does you want to listen, because it’s also wiser than wise. And it always tells the truth, unlike some of the young trees that tell you what they think you want to hear or are just too, too clever.

  When we got in front of the old tree I said, “There’s a rumor around that I’m in for some trouble. Now that’s from Paulie T., and you and I both know that his word’s worth about two fake pennies. But I was wondering if there’s something I need to know?”

  Then I climbed up into the tree’s branches, and Rufus settled in down at the bottom of the trunk. I rested my head on one of the limbs, closed my eyes, and got ready to listen with my insides, because that’s what you have to do with that particular tree.

  I was sitting there for quite a while, and not minding a bit. The branch against my face was warm and smooth, and it still felt like a nothing-could-go-wrong day. I was ready to believe that Paulie T. had just been working his mischief, when all of a sudden I got a cold feeling inside of me and I saw a dark cloud at the front of my closed eyes.

  And I got a message, but not in words. That tree lets you know things, those things go into your heart, then they find their way up to your head, and once they get there they turn into words. At least that’s how I think it works. So, if I had to give it words, this is what I’d say the tree was telling me:

  “Hard times are coming.”

  Well, my eyes flipped open so I wouldn’t have to look at that darkness anymore. I jumped out of the tree, almost landing on Rufus the Saliva Factory, because I felt like I’d gotten a shock right through me.

  “What?” I asked. “What did you tell me?”

  But the old tree is slow to speak, and it doesn’t repeat itself. It just stood there, like those apple trees had before.

  “Are you telling me that Paulie T. is right? Is trouble heading my way?”

  But I knew I wouldn’t hear anything back. And on a day like that, with the sun shining, four hours till dinner, and seven more items on my List of Fun Stuff to Do, I did the only sensible thing. I decided that the old tree might not be thinking as well as it had a few years ago. Agreeing with Paulie T. was a sure sign that something was wrong. But I wanted to be respectful and not say anything insulting.

  “Well, thanks for helping me out,” I yelled as I started running—down the hill, over the brook, through the orchard, and all the way home. I finished my drawings in my room, safe and out of the way, just in case a storm did blow through.

  Except for a dinner that included lima beans and brussels sprouts, nothing bad happened that night or the next day. We did have a storm, with thunder and lightning, a couple of days later. It was a wild ruckus outside with leaves and branches blowing by and Lulu hiding under the bed trying to pretend she wasn’t scared, just curious about those dust balls.

  And that, I believed, was what all those trees were talking about. No need, I figured, to bother my head about it again.

  Chapter 3

  “Eyedabee.” This is how Mama and Daddy and anybody who knows me particularly well say my name. My mama’s name is Ida, and even though our names are near-to-identical, my daddy says them real different.

  Most of the time when Daddy says “Ida B,” it’s fast and it’s smiling and goes up and down real quick, like tapping your feet to some happy music.

  But when he says “Ida,” that name stretches on and on, with no rough edges or sharp turns. “Eyhhh-dah,” he says, and his breath travels around the room, slips across Mama’s shoulders, then her waist, and it keeps going out and about so that everybody gets wrapped in its warm softness. You can still hear it in your head after the sound has stopped, and you’re smiling just because somebody said the word “Ida,” which isn’t even the prettiest name in the world.

  The only time I’m anything other than “Ida B” at home is if I’m in trouble. If that’s the case—and it has occurred on an occasion or two—and my folks are yelling for me, it’s “IDA B. APPLE-WOOD.” All the words are broken up, like they’re getting hammered out: “IDA . . . B . . . APPLEWOOD . . . Where are you? You come on home!”

  Then, wherever I am, sitting in the old tree up on the mountain or building a dam in the brook, I’ll say, “Well, that’s me. Guess I’ll get going.”

  If I’m in the orchard, the older apple trees will tell me, “You’d better get a move on, Ida B” or “Go on now and see what your daddy wants.”

  But the brook always whines and wheedles: “Don’t go, Ida B, don’t go. Nobody’s callin’ and they can wait, anyway. Stay, Ida B. Stay and play.”

  I don’t get in trouble for too much. Most of the time it’s just little things: it was my turn to put the dishes away and I forgot, or I fed the leftover succotash to the poor and starving wild animals in the neighborhood.

  Once I made a house for Lulu out of a whole bunch of books and boxes. I
started in the middle of the living room with the biggest box for Lulu’s Private Quarters. It had a whisk for a TV antenna and a cushion from the sofa for a bed, and I cut out windows with the big, sharp knife. I built a library, a playroom, and a dining room with some of the other boxes. I made apartments under the chairs and tables with sheets and blankets covering them up like tents so all of her friends-that-she-might-have-someday-when-she-improves-her-attitude could come and visit. It got so big it took up almost the whole living room and was spilling into the hallway.

  And Lulu was so pleased she almost purred.

  But then Lulu got bored and went outside and I went with her, and pretty soon I heard “IDA B. APPLEWOOD!” down by the brook.

  So I got on home and put everything away. But it was a sad thing to have to close up the Lulu and Her Someday Friends’ Big City High-Rise and Exotic Resort.

  Another time I caused a stir and got Mama and Daddy upset but not too mad was when I invented The Soap Mask.

  Now, you probably know that for every world-famous, history-changing invention ever created, first there was a problem that needed to be solved. My problem was this: too much washing up, of my face in particular.

  When I got up in the morning, I’d have to wash my face and hands. And before I could eat my supper or go to the store or go visiting, I’d have to wash them again. It seemed like just about every time I’d get excited and want to get on with life I’d have to stop and wash up. And by the time I was done with it, who knows what opportunities had passed me by.