Beatrice More and the Perfect Party Read online

  “Wow. Really?” Her mother looked impressed. “Want to show me?”

  On the door to Beatrice’s room there was a small, square sign with neat purple letters.

  “Ah, here’s your room,” said her mother, smiling at the sign. She looked down at her grubby hands and rubbed them on her jeans.

  “Now, if I let you in, you can’t touch anything,” warned Beatrice. “Nothing. You can’t wrinkle the bed or rumple the carpet or touch anything at all.”

  “Got it. I won’t even breathe.”

  Beatrice opened the door.

  The purple quilt on the bed was perfectly smooth. Not one wrinkle or ripple. The pillow was perfectly plumped. A square purple-and-white rug sat exactly in the center of the room.

  The small white desk was perfectly clean. All of Beatrice’s lists were stacked neatly in the top drawer. Each book in the bookcase had a special place—tallest to shortest. The stuffed animals on the bed were lined up alphabetically, from Annabelle (a duck) to Zeke (a horse).

  “Well, you’re right, Bee,” sighed her mother. “It’s perfect. But don’t you want it to look a little lived-in? Maybe a little less perfect?”

  Beatrice wasn’t listening.

  “Check out my closet,” Beatrice said. She swung open the door. “Ta-daaaah!”

  Beatrice’s closet was, if possible, even neater than the rest of the room.

  “Note the matching purple hangers,” she said, “and the way I’ve hung all the clothes by color—blue, red, white, yellow and, of course, my favorite color, purple.”

  Her mother leaned against the doorjamb.

  “How on earth do you live in the rest of our house?” she asked softly, shaking her head.

  Beatrice didn’t hear her. She was carefully shutting her closet door.

  “Well, kiddo, your room looks great. Perfect, in fact,” her mom said. “I guess I better start on the rest of this house. Why don’t you see how Sophie’s doing with her new room?”

  “Good idea,” Beatrice said.

  Her little sister should have unpacked at least some of her boxes by now. But Beatrice didn’t expect much. Sophie was only four years old, after all. Four years younger than Beatrice.

  Beatrice looked over at Sophie’s room. There was a torn scrap of paper taped crookedly to the door.

  Sophie had taped the paper to the door first, then written on it. The long tail of the y went down off the paper onto the white door.

  Beatrice licked her finger and scrubbed at the smudge on the door. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. It didn’t come off.

  “Permanent marker,” Beatrice said through gritted teeth. She made a mental note to include Sophie’s door on her list of Things That Are Annoyingly Hard to Clean.

  She sighed and knocked at the door.

  “Sophie? Are you in there? Are you all right?”

  There was a muffled giggle and some shuffly sounds. Beatrice tried to open the door. It opened a tiny bit, then stopped.

  It was stuck.

  Stuck, Beatrice thought grimly, in a huge pile of Sophie-mess.