Funny / Clarice Bean

Utterly me, Clarice Bean

• Clarice is told by her mother to ask her grandfather to launder her cardigan for her, as she's too busy to do it herself. It doesn't go well.
  [text looping around the window of a washing machine] So that is what I do, and like magic, when I take my cardigan out of the washing-machine, it is the size of a midge.
• Noah and Suzie Woo's book exhibit for the school open night includes sushi and some bananas, which are actually plantains and "are more like a potato pretending to be a banana."
• Clarice's dad gets out of work early to attend the school open night by having his assistant tell his boss he has food poisoning. He then gets food poisoning for real after eating Noah and Suzie Woo's sushi.

Clarice Bean Spells Trouble

• Clarice has a dim view about testing because they mainly test for what the testers think is important rather than interesting things you know.
  But would you rather know someone who knows how to jump out of a moving helicopter without getting a twisted ankle or someone who can spell grapefruit?
• Clarice would like to know someone who knows how to get green marker out of a white carpet. Her friend Betty Moody said to put a chair on top of it until she figures it out; Clarice hopes her mother doesn't move the chairs before then.
• Clarice references a classmate named Grace Grapello who's good in testing situations, giving the example of asking Grace to multiply fractions together: "she will get a huge check mark and I will get a headache."
• Mrs. Wilberton likens Clarice's penmanship to a spider struggling across the page after it got dipped in ink. Clarice privately wishes that someone would dip Mrs. Wilberton in ink.
• Grace tells on Karl Wrenbury and Toby Hawkling for throwing water balloons around after she's caught in the crossfire and her rain jacket gets wet, even though (as Clarice points out) rain jackets are supposed to get wet.
• Clarice thinking about how eggplants are called aubergines in French leads her to think about how the word for zucchini is different in that language as well, which she can't quite remember but knows that it sounds something like the car brand Corvette^note The word Clarice is looking for is "courgette"
• Clarice isn't entirely sure what organic actually means, but decides that calling such food "with bugs" is a more accurate descriptor of what's going on with it.
• Clarice's sister Marcie is currently participating in a foreign exchange program in France to learn the language. Meanwhile, Clarice is learning that "you are much more likely to get a turn in the bathroom if your older sister is in France."
• Clarice is hoping for a good part in the school play this year. She played a carrot in the previous year's play and only had two lines, one of which was "I am a carrot."
  Clarice: I have no interest in playing a speaking vegetable. It's not realistic.
• Karl gets in trouble for writing "Mrs. Wilberton has trotters" on the school notice board, then claims it wasn't him even though she saw him do it. When Mrs. Wilberton comments that he must think she's either blind or stupid to believe he can get away with that lie, Karl says that he knows she isn't blind. It's then mentioned that Mrs. Wilberton is spending the weekend coming up with a suitable punishment for him, "as she has run out of all the good ones."
• Clarice's dad loathes The Sound of Music, as he always finds an excuse to do the dishes whenever it starts and says he'd rather spend the film's runtime in a dark room with a rabid dog than actually watch it.
• Karl is forced to participate in the school play as punishment for the "trotters" message and is unenthused about having to play the boyfriend of Grace's character, who happens to be the class Teacher's Pet. After balking at holding Grace's hand during rehearsal, he finally snaps when he's told he'll have to kiss her as well and licks her hand, which gets him sent to the principal's office.
  Mrs. Wilberton: Mr. Pickering's office, NOW! We do not lick other people's hands in The Sound of Music.
• Karl gets moved to providing the play's sound design after the hand-licking incident, which he's much happier about. He proceeds to get banned from the job within a week after playing rude noises whenever Captain Von Trapp/Robert Granger walks onstage.

Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now

• The original first worry listed in Clarice's worst worry notebook was how to stop her younger brother from eating all the chocolate cookies before she could get any. She doesn't count this worry as having been resolved, as their mother made it a non-issue by not buying cookies anymore.
• The plot of the book kicks off when Marcie forgets she's left the water running for a bath, which overflows and gets water everywhere. Their grandfather doesn't even realize he got wet until he wakes up from his nap, then comments he was dreaming about being in India during the monsoon season.
• The kid's father eventually cuts Marcie's panicked explanation of what happened by telling her that accidents happen and asking "who cannot put up their hand and say 'I have overflowed a bath'?". Clarice wants to put up her hand and comment that she hasn't overflowed a bath, but decides not to because the phrasing's confused her about what putting one's hand up is supposed to mean.
  Clarice: I want to put my hand up and say "I have never overflowed a bath" but am confused as to whether putting up my hand means I have or means I haven't — so I keep quiet.
• Everyone pitches in to mop up the water, including Clarice's grandfather. When he says that all the mopping reminds him of scrubbing decks in the Navy, his son reminds him he was never actually in the Navy; he then comments that he must have been thinking of a movie he saw the previous week.
• Clarice's mother arrives home to take in the mess just before part of the ceiling falls in due to water damage. Clarice calmly points out it's fortunate that the part that fell wasn't the bit directly above everyone, else "we would all be knocked out and possibly squashed and dead."
• Clarice is informed that Minal is playing with her Ruby Redfort flashlight and rushes in to find he's trying to use "that glue tiny children use for sticking paper" to glue it back together. She is not convinced that he'll succeed in repairing it.
  (The glue) can't even stick a tissue, so I don't know why he thinks it will be able to stick an actual flashlight.
• Clarice is annoyed that people will assume her face going red means she's been up to mischief or is embarrassed, when it could actually mean that she's choking on a cough drop or she's annoyed about seeing the person who always comments about her face going red.
• Clarice uses information gleaned from a Ruby Redfort guide to figure out where Minal hid some mini donuts despite him refusing to say where they are. He retaliates to being figured out by putting a worm in Clarice's bed, which she responds to by flushing Minal's pajamas down the toilet and inadvertently flooding the house again. This frustrates their mother, which prompts Marcie to run her a bath in an effort to help her calm down; unfortunately, the situation gets worse because the bathroom door falls off its hinges. Their mother decides to go see a friend to get some breathing room, leaving the kids to eat cheese for dinner.
• Clarice's mother tells her kids that they'll have to learn how to make their own dinner, as the stove got damaged when the ceiling fell and she's swamped in work at the nursing home because of a resident who constantly asks for herring. She suggests making toast, prompting Clarice to worry about having to eat nothing but toast for the rest of her life.
  WORRY no. 11: Can one live off toast alone?
• The next morning, Clarice's parents have a discussion that consists of the mother saying she's fed up about things and the father responding "So am I".
  Mom: I am fed up with you working late all the time.
  Dad: So am I.
  Mom: I am fed up with this rotten house
  Dad: So am I.
  Mom: I am fed up with everybody arguing all the time.
  Dad: So am I.
  Mom: I am fed up with you saying "So am I."
  Dad: So am I, but I can't help agreeing with you.
• The Ruby Redfort guide talks about the difference between plants in the desert that are full of nutrients and those that are incredibly poisonous. This is contrasted with Clarice looking inside the fridge to find a tomato so overgrown with mold that it just looks like a white furry blob.