Beezus and Ramona

by Beverly Cleary

  “Hey, quit peeking,” said Wayne in a loud voice.

  “I’m not peeking,” said Beezus, hastily trying to look as if she had been interested in Ramona’s paper all the time.

  Ramona had dipped her brush into blue paint and had painted a blue stripe across the top of her paper. “That’s the sky,” she said happily.

  “But that’s not the way the sky is.” Beezus was trying to be helpful. She felt better, because Ramona had not plunged in and painted a picture full of imagination. “Skies should come farther down on the paper.”

  “The sky is up,” said Ramona firmly.

  Beezus decided she couldn’t waste time explaining about skies, not when she still hadn’t thought of an imaginary animal. Maybe she could take a real animal and sort of change it around. Let’s see, she thought, I could take a horse and put feathers on it. No, all those feathers would be too hard to paint. Wings? That was it! A horse with wings was an imaginary animal—a real imaginary animal—because Mother had once read aloud a story about Pegasus, the winged horse, out of a library book. In the story Pegasus had been white, which was a real horse color. Beezus decided to be extra-imaginative. She would make her horse green—a green horse against a blue sky. Miss Robbins ought to like that. Beezus did not think blue and green looked very pretty together, but Miss Robbins often liked colors that Beezus thought did not really go together.

  Beezus dipped her brush into green paint and outlined a wing against the sky. Next she outlined the body of the horse and a long tail that hung down. It was a magnificent horse. At least, Beezus hoped it would look magnificent when she finished it. Anyway, it was big, because Miss Robbins liked her artists to cover the whole paper. Quickly and neatly Beezus filled in the outline of the horse, because Miss Robbins, who was looking at Celia’s picture, would look at hers next. Somehow the horse was not exactly what Beezus had in her mind’s eye, but even so, compared to whatever Celia was painting, a green horse with wings was really a very good imaginary animal. And except for a few soggy places in the sky, her work was much neater than Celia’s. Beezus waited for Miss Robbins to point this out.

  Instead, Miss Robbins said, “Celia, your picture is work to be proud of. It is a difficult thing to get to be as free as this.”

  Then Miss Robbins moved on to Beezus, her long earrings swinging forward as she leaned over the drawing board. Beezus waited anxiously. Maybe her picture wasn’t so good, after all. If Miss Robbins liked a gray line winding around a lot of purple dots, maybe she wouldn’t like a flying horse. Maybe she liked things with no special shape, like those earrings.

  “You have a good sky even if it is a little wet,” said Miss Robbins.

  Beezus was disappointed. Anybody could have a good sky.

  Miss Robbins continued to study the picture. “Try to think how a horse would look if it were really flying.”

  Beezus tried to think.

  “What about the tail?” asked Miss Robbins. “Wouldn’t the tail fly out behind instead of hanging down?”

  “Especially if the wind blew real hard,” said Wayne.

  “Can’t you make the horse look rounder?” asked Miss Robbins. “Think how a horse looks with the sun shining on him. Part of him would be in shadow.”

  “Not that horse,” said Wayne. “She just copied it off a Mobilgas billboard, only she made it green instead of red.”

  “I did not!” said Beezus indignantly. Then she stared at her painting again. Now that Wayne pointed it out, she could see her horse did look like the one on the Mobilgas billboard at the service station where her father bought gasoline. He was a flat cardboard horse, not a magnificent horse at all. Her horse wasn’t even as good as the horse on the billboard, because instead of a flying tail he had a tail that hung down like…well, like a mop.

  “All right, Wayne,” said Miss Robbins.

  “I’m sure Beezus did not mean to copy anything from a billboard.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Beezus mournfully. “I was only trying to change a real animal around to make it imaginary, but I just don’t have imagination, is all.”

  “Why, Beezus, of course you have imagination!”

  Miss Robbins sounded shocked at the idea of anyone’s not having imagination.

  “My little sister has lots of imagination,” said Beezus. “Everybody says so.”

  Miss Robbins smiled reassuringly. “That doesn’t mean that you don’t have any. I think your trouble is that you work too hard. You don’t have to be so neat. Why don’t you start another painting and just try to have a good time with your paints?”

  Beezus looked uncertain. It was a nice change to have a grown-up tell her she didn’t have to be neat, but she didn’t understand how she could paint a good picture unless she worked at it. If only she had some imagination, like Ramona—but no, Miss Robbins said everybody had imagination. Well, if she had imagination, where was it? Why wasn’t it helping her with her imaginary animal? All she could think of was that cardboard horse on the billboard.

  Beezus glanced at Ramona, who had been surprisingly quiet for a long time, to see how she was coming along with her picture of Ralph. Except for the stripe of sky at the top, Ramona’s paper was blank. Now she dipped her brush in yellow paint, divided the hairs of the brush into three tufts, and pressed them on the paper, leaving a mark like the track of a bird.

  “That’s not the way to use a paint brush,” said Beezus. “Besides, you’re getting paint on your fingers.”

  “Look—Ralph’s feet marks,” exclaimed Ramona, paying no attention to Beezus.

  “You mean footprints,” corrected Beezus.

  “Now go on and paint the rest of Ralph.”

  “Feet marks,” said Ramona stubbornly, making more footprints across the paper.

  “And I can’t paint him, because he’s just pretend.”

  Oh, well, thought Beezus, maybe making footprints isn’t good for the brush, but it keeps her quiet. She dabbled her own brush in green paint and tried to stir up her imagination. She felt a little encouraged because Ramona was having trouble too.

  “Hey!” interrupted Wayne in a loud voice. “She’s licking my sucker!”

  “Ramona!” Beezus was horrified to see Ramona, no longer interested in footprints, calmly sucking Wayne’s grape-flavored lollipop. “Ramona, put that down this instant! You’re not supposed to lick other people’s suckers.”

  “You give me that!” Wayne made a grab for his lollipop.

  “No!” screamed Ramona, trying to hold it out of his reach. “I want it!”

  “Ramona, give it to him,” ordered Beezus. “It’s all germy.”

  “You mean she’s getting germs on it,” said Wayne. “Give it to me!”

  The rest of the class stopped painting to watch. Wayne made another grab for his lollipop. This time he grabbed Ramona by the wrist.

  “Let go of her!” said Beezus angrily.

  Ramona howled as Wayne tried to pry her fingers loose from the lollipop stick. He knocked against his muffin tin, which flipped into the air spattering paint over the table, the drawing boards, and the floor. Ramona was splashed with red and yellow paint. Blue and green ran down Wayne’s jeans onto his sneakers. A pool of brown paint dripped off the table onto the floor.

  “Now see what you did,” said Wayne, after he had pried his sucker out of Ramona’s fist.

  “See what you did,” contradicted Beezus.

  “Picking on my little sister like that!” She picked up the paper towel the sucker had been resting on and began to wipe the spatters off Ramona, who continued to howl.

  “Boys and girls!” Miss Robbins raised her voice. “Let’s be quiet. When the room is quiet I know you are thinking. Lots of people don’t know you have to think while you paint.” Then she turned to Wayne. “All right, Wayne, you may get a damp cloth and wipe up the paint.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Robbins,” said Beezus.

  “I want the sucker!” screamed Ramona.

  Suddenly Beezus decided she had h
ad enough. This art class was one place where Ramona was not supposed to be. She was supposed to play in the sand pile. Mother had said so. She was not supposed to upset the class and spoil everything with one of her tantrums. Beezus made up her mind she was going to do something about it and right now, too, though she didn’t know what.

  “Ramona, stop that this instant,” Beezus ordered. “Go out and play in the sand pile, where you belong, or I’ll…I’ll…” Frantically Beezus tried to think what she could do. Then she had an inspiration. “Or I’ll tickle you!” she finished. I guess I do have some imagination, after all, she thought triumphantly.

  Instantly Ramona stopped crying. She hugged herself and stared at Beezus. “Don’t tickle, Beezus,” she begged. “Please don’t tickle.”

  “Then go out and play in the sand pile, like Mother says you’re supposed to,” said Beezus.

  “Don’t tickle,” shrieked Ramona, as she scrambled down from her stool and ran out the door.

  Well! thought Beezus. It worked! It really worked!

  Feeling suddenly lighthearted, she tacked a fresh sheet of paper to her drawing board and sat staring at it. Maybe Ramona didn’t have so much imagination after all, if she couldn’t draw a picture of an imaginary green lizard. Well, if Ramona couldn’t paint a picture of Ralph, she could. Ramona was not the only one in the family with imagination. So there!

  Beezus seized her brush and painted in another sky with bold, free strokes. Then she dipped her brush into green paint and started to outline a lizard on her paper. Let’s see, what did a lizard look like? She could not remember. It didn’t matter much, anyway—not for an imaginary animal. She had started the lizard with such brave, bold strokes that it took up most of the paper and looked more like a dragon.

  Beezus promptly decided the animal was a dragon. Dragons breathed fire, but she did not have any orange paint, and she was so late in starting this picture that she didn’t want to take time to mix any. She dipped her brush into pink paint instead and made flames come out of the dragon’s mouth. Only they didn’t look like flames. They looked more like the spun-sugar candy Beezus had once eaten at the circus. And a dragon breathing clouds of pink candy was more fun than an ordinary flame-breathing dragon.

  Forgetting everyone around her, Beezus made the pink clouds bigger and fluffier. Dragons had pointed things down their backs, so Beezus made a row of spines down the back. They did not look quite right—more like slanting sticks than spines. Lollipop sticks, of course!

  At that Beezus laughed to herself. Naturally a dragon that breathed pink spun sugar would have lollipops down its back. Eagerly she dipped her brush into red paint and put a strawberry lollipop on one of the sticks. She painted a different flavor on each stick, finishing with a grape-flavored lollipop like the one Wayne and Ramona had shared.

  Then she held her drawing board at arm’s length. She was pleased with her dragon. It was funny and colorful and really imaginary. Beezus wondered what she should do next. Then she remembered that Miss Robbins often said it was important for an artist to know when to stop painting. Maybe she’d spoil her picture if she added anything. No, just one more touch. She dipped her brush in yellow paint and gave the dragon an eye—a lemon-drop eye. There! Her imaginary animal was finished!

  By that time it was four-thirty and most of the boys and girls had put away their drawing boards and washed their muffin tins. Several mothers who had come for their children were wandering around the room looking at the paintings.

  “Those who have finished, wash your hands clean,” said Miss Robbins. “And I mean clean.” Then she came across the room to Beezus. “Why, Beezus!” she exclaimed.

  “This is a picture to be proud of!”

  “I didn’t know whether a dragon should have lollipops down his back or not, but they were fun to paint,” said Beezus.

  “Of course he can have lollipops down his back. It’s a splendid idea. After all, no one has ever seen a dragon, so no one knows how one should look.” Miss Robbins turned to several of the mothers and said, with admiration in her voice, “Here’s a girl with real imagination.”

  Beezus smiled modestly at her toes while the mothers admired her picture.

  “We’ll tack this in the very center of the wall for next week’s classes to see,” said Miss Robbins.

  “It was fun to paint,” confided Beezus, her face flushed with pleasure.

  “Of course it was,” said Miss Robbins, as she carefully placed the picture in the center of the wall. “Didn’t I tell you you worked too hard at painting before?”

  Beezus nodded. That was the wonderful thing about it, she thought, as she scrubbed out her muffin tins. Her dragon had been fun, while her flying horse had been work. And she had imagination. Maybe not as much as Ramona, but real imagination just the same. “Here’s a girl with real imagination,” Miss Robbins had said.

  A girl with real imagination, a girl with real imagination, Beezus thought as she left the building and ran across the park to the sand pile. “Come on, Ramona, it’s time to go home,” she called to her little sister, who was happily sprinkling sand on a sleeping dog. “And let’s not forget Ralph!” Good old Ralph!

  3

  Ramona and Ribsy

  One day after school Henry Huggins, who lived in the next block, came over to play checkers with Beezus. His dog Ribsy came with him, because Henry never went anywhere without Ribsy. Beezus liked Henry, because she knew he thought she had more sense than most girls, and the two often played checkers together. So far Beezus had won forty-eight games and Henry had won forty-nine, not counting the games Ramona had spoiled by tipping over the checkerboard.

  This afternoon Beezus and Henry knelt on either side of the coffee table with the checkerboard between them. Ribsy lay on the rug near Henry and warily watched Ramona, who was wearing her rabbit ears and riding her tricycle around the living room.

  “Your move,” said Henry to Beezus.

  “I want to play,” said Ramona, riding her tricycle up to the coffee table and shaking her head to make her ears flop. Ribsy got up and moved to a corner, where he lay down with his nose on his paws to watch Ramona.

  “You’re too little,” said Beezus, as she moved a checker. “Besides, only two can play checkers.”

  “We could play tiddlywinks,” said Ramona.

  “I know how to play tiddlywinks.”

  Beezus did not answer. Her mind was on the game as she watched Henry’s move very carefully.

  “I said we could play tiddlywinks,” yelled Ramona.

  Beezus looked up from the checkerboard. “Ramona, you stop bothering us,” she said in her severest voice.

  Ramona scowled and pedaled backwards away from the coffee table while Beezus returned to her game and studied the board. She had to be careful, because Henry had already captured half of her checkers. Let’s see, she thought, I could move from here to there—no, that wouldn’t work, because then he could—but if I move from there to there—yes, that was it! Beezus lifted her hand to pick up the checker.

  At that instant Ramona pedaled as fast as she could toward the coffee table. Crash! The front wheel of Ramona’s tricycle rammed into the table. Checkers bounced into the air and showered over the table, falling to the floor and rolling across the rug.

  “There!” said Ramona, and calmly pedaled away.

  “Hey!” protested Henry.

  “Mother!” Beezus called. “Ramona’s bothering us!”

  Wiping her hands on her apron, Mother came out of the kitchen. “Ramona, you know you’re not supposed to bother Henry and Beezus when they’re playing checkers. Now go to your room and stay there until you are able to behave yourself.”

  “No,” said Ramona. “I don’t have anybody to play with me and I want Beezus and Henry to play with me.”

  “You heard me.” Mother lifted Ramona off the tricycle.

  I’ll bet she has a tantrum, thought Beezus, as she picked up the checkers.

  “No!” screamed Ramona.


  “Ramona,” said Mother in a warning voice, “I’m going to count to ten.”

  Ramona threw herself on the floor and kicked and screamed.

  “One…two…” began Mother.

  Ramona went on kicking and screaming until Mother counted to seven. Then she lay still on the floor, watching to see if Mother really meant what she said.

  “Eight…nine,” said Mother.

  Ramona got to her feet, ran into the bedroom, and slammed the door. Mother returned to the kitchen, and Beezus and Henry started a new game as if nothing had happened. Tantrums were not unusual in the Quimby household. Even Henry knew that.

  In a few minutes Beezus heard Ramona open the bedroom door. “Now can I come out?” she called.

  “Can you stop bothering Beezus and Henry?” Mother asked from the kitchen.

  “No,” said Ramona, and shut the door.

  Not more than one minute later Ramona opened the door again and came into the living room. “I can stop bothering,” she said with a sulky look on her face, and Beezus could see she was still cross because she had been punished.

  “That’s good,” called Mother. “Come here, and I’ll give you a cookie.”

  Seeing Ramona go into the kitchen, Ribsy sat up, scratched, and trotted after her. Although Ribsy did not trust Ramona, he was always interested in what went on in a kitchen.

  I hope she stays in the kitchen, thought Beezus, as she picked up a checker and skipped from here to there to there and captured two of Henry’s men. The game became so exciting that Beezus almost forgot about Ramona. At the same time she was vaguely aware of scuffling sounds in the hall. Then she heard the jingle of Ribsy’s license tags and the click of his claws on the hardwood floor. Ribsy gave a short bark. Then the bathroom door slammed. I wonder what Ramona is doing, thought Beezus, as she captured another checker, but she did not much care so long as Ramona did not interrupt the game.