Beezus’s little sister Ramona was hopping around on the grass. Pinned to the seat of her coveralls was one end of a piece of old jumping rope. “I’m a monkey,” she announced, as Beezus pulled the red wagon out of the garage. “That’s my wagon,” she said.
“I know,” answered Beezus, “but we are going to borrow it.”
“No,” said Ramona. “I need it.”
“Oh, Ramona, don’t be silly,” said Beezus impatiently. “We’ll bring it back.”
“No!” screamed Ramona. “I need it now!”
Mrs. Quimby came out on the back porch. “Girls! What is the trouble?” she asked.
“We want to use the wagon to get some papers, and now Ramona says she wants it,” Beezus told her mother.
“It’s my wagon,” insisted Ramona.
“Why don’t you take Ramona with you?” suggested Mrs. Quimby. “Then I’m sure she’ll let you use the wagon, won’t you, Ramona?”
“Yes,” agreed Ramona happily, because she always liked to be included in whatever the older boys and girls were doing.
“Oh, Mother,” protested Beezus. “She’ll just get in the way.”
“But it is her wagon, too,” Mrs. Quimby reminded Beezus.
“All right, Ramona,” said Beezus crossly. “Come on. Let me unpin your tail.”
“I’m a monkey, and I can’t take off my tail,” said Ramona, as she bounced down the driveway with her tail dragging on the cement.
Henry wished he could think of some other way to get hold of a wagon. He was embarrassed to be seen on the street with Ramona and her jumping-rope tail.
“Let her go ahead of us, and just pretend you don’t know her,” advised Beezus. “That’s what I do.”
“I want to pull my wagon,” said Ramona, bouncing back to Beezus and Henry.
“All right,” agreed Beezus, giving her sister the wagon handle. “Turn at the next corner. We’re going to the Ostwalds’.”
When they turned the corner they saw a moving van backed up to a house. The painted letters on the side of the van read: “Tucker’s Motor Transit. Let Tucker Take It.”
“Hey!” exclaimed Henry. “The Pumphreys must be moving today. Their cat is Nosy’s mother.”
“I know somebody who has a seven-toed cat,” said Beezus.
Ramona stood beside the truck, watching two men in white coveralls carry a set of bedsprings out of the house and push them up a plank into the moving van. “Hello,” she said, twitching her jumping-rope tail. It was easy to see that she wanted the movers to notice her tail. There was never anything shy about Ramona.
“Why, hello there,” said one of the men, grinning at Ramona. “What’s this?”
“Looks to me like a little girl with a tail like a monkey,” remarked the other man, and Ramona beamed with pleasure.
“Come on, Ramona,” said Beezus. “We’ve got a lot of papers to pick up.”
“Yes, come on,” said Henry impatiently. The list in his pocket was a long one.
“I want to watch,” said Ramona flatly without moving.
“OK, you watch,” agreed Henry, “and we’ll take the wagon and pick up the papers.”
This strategy did not work. “It’s my wagon,” said Ramona. She did, however, let go of the handle in order to walk up the plank to explore the inside of the moving van.
Henry was tempted to grab the wagon and run. It had occurred to him that his advertisement might have been too successful. Picking up a lot of papers and magazines with a little wagon would not be easy. “Hi, Mr. Pumphrey,” Henry said to the owner of the furniture, who came out of the house with a lamp in his hands.
“Ramona, come out of that van this instant!” ordered Beezus. “You’re in the way.”
“I don’t want to come out,” answered Ramona. “I want to see what’s in here.”
“You’d better run along,” one of the movers said. “You might get hurt.”
“No, I won’t,” said Ramona, as she stood on tiptoe and tried to peep into a barrel.
“Come on, Ramona,” pleaded Beezus, but Ramona ignored her.
“Say, Mr. Pumphrey,” one of the movers called from inside the van, where he was stacking the bedsprings, “how would you like a little girl with a tail like a monkey to take with you to Walla Walla, Washington?”
Ramona stopped trying to peer into the barrel and smiled at the man who was paying her so much attention.
Henry saw Mr. Pumphrey wink as he said, “Sure. Know where I can find one?”
“It just happens that I have a little girl with a tail like a monkey right here,” answered the mover.
“How much do you want for her?” asked Mr. Pumphrey, going along with the joke.
“You don’t often see a little girl with a tail like a monkey,” the moving man remarked, as he walked down the plank and up the Pumphreys’ steps, “especially in this part of the country.”
“I know it,” said Mr. Pumphrey, “and I understand they’re even scarcer in Walla Walla.”
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the moving man. “This little girl with a tail is in pretty good condition, so I’ll let you have her for a nickel. How would that be?”
“It’s a bargain,” agreed Mr. Pumphrey, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a handful of change. Ramona watched with big eyes while he selected a nickel and handed it to the mover.
“You’re getting a good buy,” said the man, as he put the coin in his pocket. “She has an extra-long tail.”
At that Ramona ran out of the moving van and down the plank, grabbed the handle of her wagon, and began to run toward home as fast as her legs would carry her.
“Ramona, wait!” Beezus called, but Ramona only ran faster. The handle of her jumping-rope tail clattered and her feet pounded on the sidewalk as fast as she could make them go.
Well, there goes our wagon, thought Henry. Now what am I going to do?
“Come on, Henry,” said Beezus. “We’ll have to go get her. She thought they meant it.”
“Hey, Ramona, come back here!” called Henry in a disgusted tone of voice, as he joined Beezus in running after her sister. Leave it to Ramona to spoil his plans! Now how was he going to collect all those papers, without a wagon?
With the wagon rattling after her, Ramona turned the corner and was halfway down the block before Henry and Beezus caught up with her. Beezus grabbed her sister by the arm. “Ramona, wait,” she said. “It’s all right. The men were only joking.”
“No!” screamed Ramona, jerking away from Beezus. “I don’t want to go to—to that place!”
“But Ramona,” pleaded Beezus, “he was just pretending. He did it to get you to come out of the moving van.” Then she added crossly, “If you had come out when I told you to, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“Say, Ramona,” said Henry in desperation, “how about letting me take the wagon while you go on home with Beezus?” He had to get those papers, or the people who had answered his advertisement would be annoyed.
Ramona stopped in her tracks. “No,” she said, with a scowl. “It’s my wagon.”
Henry was disgusted with himself. He should have known better than to have anything to do with Ramona at a time like this. But the trouble was, he couldn’t think of any other way to move all those papers and magazines. He did not know anyone else in the neighborhood who owned a wagon, and his father had driven the car to work that morning, so his mother could not haul the bundles for him. He thought of using a wheelbarrow, but he was not sure he could lift a wheelbarrow filled with heavy magazines. Maybe if he took one handle and Beezus took the other…But they would have to get rid of Ramona first, and that would not be easy.
Henry scowled at Ramona, who had climbed into her wagon. “Pull me,” she ordered.
“Oh, all right,” said Beezus crossly.
As Henry looked at Ramona sitting in her wagon, with her tail hanging over the edge, a thought came to him. He wondered why it had not come to him before. There was a chance it might work,
too, he decided. You never could tell about Ramona.
“Say, Ramona,” Henry began, “why don’t you take off your tail?”
Ramona scowled. The surest way to make her want to wear her tail was for someone to ask her to take it off.
“Mr. Pumphrey said he wanted a girl with a tail like a monkey to take to Walla Walla, Washington,” Henry pointed out. “He didn’t say anything about a plain girl.”
As Ramona stopped scowling and looked thoughtful, Beezus flashed a hopeful smile at Henry. This might work.
“That’s right, Ramona,” agreed Beezus. “Mr. Pumphrey didn’t say anything about a plain girl. He wanted a girl with a tail, because you don’t often see one. He said so himself.”
Ramona put her hand on her tail, as if she were thinking it over.
“Without your tail, he probably wouldn’t even know you,” added Henry.
“Of course he wouldn’t,” said Beezus firmly. “He would think you were somebody else, an ordinary girl.”
“Yes,” agreed Henry, “and there are plenty of those around. He probably wouldn’t even take you to Walla Walla if you wanted to go. Not even if you begged him.”
That did it. Ramona climbed out of the wagon and backed up to Beezus. “Unpin me,” she requested, and Beezus unpinned the piece of jumping rope and put it into her pocket.
The wagon was Henry’s to use at last! Now they could really go to work, and about time, too. Henry could not help feeling pleased with himself. That was the way to handle Ramona—outwit her.
“Say, Beezus,” said Henry suddenly, when they were finally headed for the Ostwalds’ house and their first load of papers, “somebody will be moving into the Pumphreys’ house before long. I hope there is a boy about my age.” He felt that a new boy would be especially welcome now that Scooter was mad at him.
“I hope there is a girl,” said Beezus, “a girl who doesn’t have a little sister.”
Mrs. Ostwald not only had piles of the Journal and the Shopping News, Henry found when they called on her; she also had piles of Life. Henry and Beezus had to make four trips with the wagon to remove all the papers and magazines from Mrs. Ostwald’s basement. It was hard work, because Life was slippery as well as heavy. No matter how carefully they piled it on the wagon, it slipped and slid and slithered. Henry was in such a hurry that he threw the papers and magazines into his garage. He would stack and tie them later.
The second lady had old newspapers and The Saturday Evening Post, which was not as heavy as Life, but still pretty heavy. It was more slippery, though. The papers were dusty, and printer’s ink rubbed off on their hands. Henry felt hot and dirty by the time he and Beezus had finished dumping the second lady’s papers into his garage.
“Goodness, Henry, just look at you!” exclaimed Mrs. Huggins, when he went into the house. “You’ll have to take a bath and put on a clean shirt before dinner.”
“Sure, Mom,” answered Henry. “Any calls for me?”
“Yes, several,” said Mrs. Huggins. “The addresses are on the pad by the telephone.”
At dinner Henry told his father about the success of his advertisements. Mr. Huggins laughed and said what Henry had hoped he would say. He said that after dinner he would take the car and help Henry pick up some papers.
Henry and his father worked hard that evening. It seemed as if all the neighbors had been collecting old papers and magazines for months. Some people gave them big piles of heavy magazines, like Life and House Beautiful. Others gave them small stacks of lightweight magazines, like Reader’s Digest. Some people gave them magazines of all sizes, that were hard to stack. Henry decided he liked best the people who gave them National Geographic, because it was thick, an easy size to handle, and did not slip and slide. Henry and his father took everything that was given to them and tossed it into the Hugginses’ garage. Mr. Huggins said he would leave the car in the driveway that night. Mrs. Huggins said Henry had to take another bath.
Henry and Beezus, who had been joined by Robert, worked hard every day after school and on Saturday. They were slowed down somewhat by Ramona, who still insisted on going along with her wagon. Instead of a tail, she now wore a pair of her mother’s old high-heeled shoes over her sandals so that she made clonking noises when she walked. Ribsy and Nosy romped along, too. Wagonload after wagonload of papers and magazines went into the Hugginses’ garage. When the garage was knee-deep in paper, the children dumped their loads on the driveway. Each evening Mr. Huggins had to park his car closer to the street.
Once Mr. Capper, who was driving down the street, stopped his old convertible by the curb, and asked, “How’s the advertising man?”
“Fine,” answered Henry, turning red to the tips of his ears. He did not feel that he looked businesslike at all, with a dog and a kitten romping beside him and Ramona clonking along in her mother’s high-heeled shoes.
One night Henry was awakened by gusts of rain blowing against the house. My papers! he thought. They’ll be sopping. Then he went back to sleep. By morning the rain had subsided to a drizzle, and when Henry rushed out to inspect his papers, the whole world seemed soggy. The lawn was soggy, the leaves in the gutter were soggy, and the newspapers on top of his heap were soggiest of all.
“Henry,” said Mr. Huggins at breakfast, “hadn’t you better stop collecting papers and start tying them up? You’re going to have quite a job getting them all made up into bundles. And you still have to get them to school, you know.”
When the last name was crossed off the list, Henry, Robert, and Beezus, in their slickers and rain hats, started gathering the soggy papers into bundles and tying them with twine. It was not nearly so much fun as collecting papers.
Mrs. Huggins went to the dime store to buy several balls of twine. When she returned she put on an old raincoat, tied a bandanna over her hair, and joined the boys and Beezus. “I hope we can get these tied up by the Fourth of July,” she remarked, and began to stack the soggy papers.
When Mr. Huggins came home from work, he looked the situation over, changed into an old pair of pants and a mackinaw he usually wore on fishing trips, and went to work. They stacked and tied and stacked and tied. Still the soggy papers stretched ahead of them down the driveway. Henry wished his advertisement had not been so successful.
Mrs. Huggins asked Robert and Beezus to stay for supper, because, she said, if they went home they might not come back. After a hasty meal of string beans, salmon, corn, and applesauce, all out of cans, the five went back to work and tied bundles by the light of a bulb on the back porch. By the time Beezus’s and Robert’s mothers telephoned to say they had to come home, they had worked their way to the garage. Beezus and Robert did not seem sorry to leave.
Mrs. Huggins sat down on a bundle of papers. “I am too tired to pick up another Reader’s Digest,” she said. “Or even a comic book.”
“I think we’d better call it a day,” said Mr. Huggins.
Henry sneezed.
“Any idea how you’re going to get all these papers to school?” Mr. Huggins asked Friday night, as they knotted the twine on the last bundle.
Henry looked down and kicked at a pile of papers. “We can take some of them in Beezus’s wagon and I…Well, I sort of thought maybe you’d take some of them in the car.”
“Oh, you did,” said Mr. Huggins dryly.
On Saturday morning Mr. Huggins and Henry piled both the backseat of the car and the luggage compartment with bundles, which, as Henry found out, were heavier to lift than loose papers and magazines. When the back of the car began to sag, Mr. Huggins said they could not take any more that trip. They drove to Glenwood School, and there they unloaded the car near the auditorium, where the members of the P.T.A. were measuring bundles and recording the amount brought by each room. Mr. Huggins was not the only father helping out.
The second time Henry and his father loaded the car, the bundles seemed even heavier. Henry looked back at the remaining papers and wondered how many trips they would have to make. Quite a few,
he decided. Probably they would have to work all day. He felt tired and his muscles ached. He no longer cared about winning the paper drive. He only wanted to get rid of all that paper.
This time, as Henry and his father unloaded the car, they met Scooter with a bundle of papers he had brought to school in the basket of his bicycle.
“Hi, Scooter,” said Henry, because he did not want Scooter to go on being angry with him. “Say…there are still a lot of papers in our garage, if you would like a couple of bundles for your room.”
“No, thanks,” said Scooter coldly.
Well, that’s that, thought Henry, disappointed that his peace offering had been rejected. Scooter was mad, and he was going to stay mad. Well, let him, if that was the way he felt. Henry had done his part in trying to make up. It wasn’t as though he hoped to fold Scooter’s papers again. He was through hanging around.
All day Henry and his father worked, lifting, loading, unloading, stacking, while Mrs. Huggins stayed at school and measured bundles for the P.T.A. Henry was more tired than he had ever been before, but he knew better than to complain. “Maybe we could save some papers for next year’s drive,” he suggested to his mother, after delivering still another bundle at the school.
“Oh, no, you can’t,” said Mrs. Huggins promptly, even though she was busy measuring a stack of papers.
Henry stood looking at the piles of paper that had been collected by the boys and girls of Glenwood School. And more was arriving every minute. He had never before seen so much paper in one place in his whole life. Just about every kind of magazine in the whole United States was piled there. And newspapers! Stacks and stacks of papers. And every one of those papers had been delivered to someone’s house by a boy—some other boy.
Henry and the Paper Route Page 5
