Ramona felt she could run away without her old baby teeth, and she was hurt that her mother did not want to keep them to remember her by. She stood watching while her mother packed briskly and efficiently.
“You will want Ella Funt in case you get lonely,” said Mrs. Quimby.
When Ramona said her mother did not love her, she had no idea her mother would do a terrible thing like this. And her father. Didn’t he care either? Apparently not. He was too busy scrubbing the bathroom to care that Ramona was in despair. And what about Beezus? She was probably secretly glad Ramona was going to run away because she could have her parents all to herself. Even Picky-picky would be glad to see the last of her.
As Ramona watched her mother fold underwear for her to take away, she began to understand that deep down inside in the place where her secret thoughts were hidden, she had never really doubted her mother’s love for her. Not until now. . . . She thought of all the things her mother had done for her, the way she had sat up most of the night when Ramona had an earache, the birthday cake she had made in the shape of a cowboy boot all frosted with chocolate with lines of white icing that looked like stitching. That was the year she was four and had wanted cowboy boots more than anything, and her parents had given her real ones as well. She thought of the way her mother reminded her to brush her teeth. Her mother would not do that unless she cared about her teeth, would she? She thought of the time her mother let her get her hair cut at the beauty school, even though they had to scrimp and pinch. She thought of the gentle books about bears and bunnies her mother had read at bedtime when she was little.
“There.” Mrs. Quimby closed the suitcase, snapped the latches, and set it on the floor. “Now you are all packed.” She sat down on the bed.
Ramona pulled her car coat out of the closet and slowly put it on, one arm and then the other. She looked at her mother with sad eyes as she grasped the handle of her suitcase and lifted. The suitcase would not budge. Ramona grasped it with both hands. Still she could not lift it.
Hope flowed into Ramona’s heart. Had her mother made the suitcase too heavy on purpose? She looked closely at her mother, who was watching her. She saw—didn’t she?—a tiny smile in her mother’s eyes.
“You tricked me!” cried Ramona. “You made the suitcase too heavy on purpose. You don’t want me to run away!”
“I couldn’t get along without my Ramona,” said Ramona’s mother. She held out her arms. Ramona ran into them. Her mother had said the words she had longed to hear. Her mother could not get along without her. She felt warm and safe and comforted and oh, how good her mother smelled, so clean and sweet like flowers. Better than any mother in the whole world. Ramona’s tears dampened her mother’s blouse. After a moment Mrs. Quimby handed Ramona a Kleenex. When Ramona had wiped her eyes and nose, she was surprised to discover that her mother had tears in her eyes, too.
“Mama,” said Ramona, using a word she had given up as babyish, “why did you do that?”
“Because I could see I couldn’t get anyplace arguing with you,” answered her mother. “You wouldn’t listen.”
The truth made Ramona uncomfortable. “Why did Mrs. Rudge phone?” she asked, to change the subject.
Mrs. Quimby looked concerned. “She called to say that she had noticed you twitching your nose a lot—Daddy and I have noticed it, too—and she wondered if something was making you nervous. She wondered if you perhaps needed a shorter day in school.”
And a longer day with Howie’s grandmother? What a terrible idea. “School is easy,” said Ramona, not mentioning spelling, which, after all, might be easy if she paid more attention to it.
“Have you any idea what makes you twitch your nose?” asked Mrs. Quimby gently. “I noticed you twitch it three times during breakfast.”
Ramona was surprised. Maybe she had twitched so much she could twitch without knowing it. “Of course I know why,” she said. “I was pretending I was a rabbit, a baby rabbit, because you call me a little rabbit sometimes.”
This time Ramona did not mind when her mother laughed. She laughed a bit, too, to show that she now thought pretending to be a baby rabbit seemed silly, as if it were something she had done a long time ago when she was little.
“Rabbits are nice,” said Mrs. Quimby, “but I prefer a little girl. My little girl.”
“Really?” said Ramona, even though she knew her mother spoke the truth.
“I am glad to know you were a little rabbit,” said Ramona’s mother. “I was afraid my working full time might be too much for you, and just when we have decided Daddy will quit his job at the market and go back to school.”
Ramona was astonished. “School! You mean do homework and stuff like that? Daddy?”
“I expect so,” answered Mrs. Quimby.
“Why does he want to go and do a thing like that?” Ramona could not understand.
“To finish college,” her mother explained. “So he can get a better job, he hopes. One that he likes.”
So this was what her parents had been talking about at night in their room. “Will he have to go away?” asked Ramona.
“No. He can go to Portland State right here in town,” explained Mrs. Quimby. “But I will have to go on working full time, which I want to do anyway because I like my job. Do you think you can manage to get along with Mrs. Kemp?”
Ramona thought how much happier her family would be if her father never came home tired from working in the express line again. “Of course I can,” she agreed with courage. “I’ve gotten along—sort of—so far.” After this she would stay away from pinking shears and bluing. As for Willa Jean—maybe she would go to nursery school and learn to shape up. Yes, Ramona could manage. “And I guess we’ll have to scrimp and pinch some more,” she said.
“That’s right. Scrimp and pinch and save as much money as we can while Daddy is studying, even though he hopes to find part-time work after school starts,” said Mrs. Quimby. “And by the way, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I am curious. Why are your pajamas at school?”
“Oh.” Ramona made a face; it all seemed so ridiculous now. She gave her mother the shortest possible explanation.
Mrs. Quimby did not seem upset. She merely said, “What next?” and laughed.
“Did Mrs. Rudge say anything about my spelling?” Ramona hesitated to ask the question, but she did want to know the answer.
“Why, no,” said Mrs. Quimby. “She didn’t even mention spelling, but she did say you were one of her little sparklers who made teaching interesting.” And with that Ramona’s mother left the room.
A little sparkler! Ramona liked that. She thought of the last Fourth of July when she had twirled through the dusk, a sparkler fizzing and spitting in each hand and leaving circles of light and figure eights as she had spun across the front yard until she had fallen to the grass with dizziness. And now she was one of Mrs. Rudge’s little sparklers!
Ramona held out her arms and twirled across the room, pretending she was holding sparklers. Then she seized a pencil and paper that were lying on her bureau and wrote her name in good, bold cursive:
There. A girl who was a sparkler needed a name that looked like a sparkler. And that was the way Ramona Quimby was going to write her name.
Ching-chong, ching-chong went the roller skates out on the sidewalk. Ramona opened the suitcase and pulled out her skates.
EXCERPT FROM RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8
Visit
RAMONA QUIMBY
and all of her friends in
The World of Beverly Cleary
at www.beverlycleary.com
And turn the page
for a SNEAK PEEK at
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 8
1
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL
Ramona Quimby hoped her parents would forget to give her a little talking-to. She did not want anything to spoil this exciting day.
“Ha-ha, I get to ride the bus to school all by myself,” Ramona bragged to her big sister, Beatric
e, at breakfast. Her stomach felt quivery with excitement at the day ahead, a day that would begin with a bus ride just the right length to make her feel a long way from home but not long enough—she hoped—to make her feel carsick. Ramona was going to ride the bus, because changes had been made in the schools in the Quimbys’ part of the city during the summer. Glenwood, the girls’ old school, had become an intermediate school, which meant Ramona had to go to Cedarhurst Primary School.
“Ha-ha yourself.” Beezus was too excited to be annoyed with her little sister. “Today I start high school.”
“Junior high school,” corrected Ramona, who was not going to let her sister get away with acting older than she really was. “Rosemont Junior High School is not the same as high school, and besides you have to walk.”
Ramona had reached the age of demanding accuracy from everyone, even herself. All summer, whenever a grown-up asked what grade she was in, she felt as if she were fibbing when she answered, “third,” because she had not actually started the third grade. Still, she could not say she was in the second grade since she had finished that grade last June. Grown-ups did not understand that summers were free from grades.
“Ha-ha to both of you,” said Mr. Quimby, as he carried his breakfast dishes into the kitchen. “You’re not the only ones going to school today.” Yesterday had been his last day working at the checkout counter of the ShopRite Market. Today he was returning to college to become what he called “a real, live school teacher.” He was also going to work one day a week in the frozen-food warehouse of the chain of ShopRite Markets to help the family “squeak by,” as the grown-ups put it, until he finished his schooling.
“Ha-ha to all of you if you don’t hurry up,” said Mrs. Quimby, as she swished suds in the dishpan. She stood back from the sink so she would not spatter the white uniform she wore in the doctor’s office where she worked as a receptionist.
“Daddy, will you have to do homework?” Ramona wiped off her milk moustache and gathered up her dishes.
“That’s right.” Mr. Quimby flicked a dish towel at Ramona as she passed him. She giggled and dodged, happy because he was happy. Never again would he stand all day at a cash register, ringing up groceries for a long line of people who were always in a hurry.
Ramona slid her plate into the dishwater. “And will Mother have to sign your progress reports?”
Mrs. Quimby laughed. “I hope so.”
Beezus was last to bring her dishes into the kitchen. “Daddy, what do you have to study to learn to be a teacher?” she asked.
Ramona had been wondering the same thing. Her father knew how to read and do arithmetic. He also knew about Oregon pioneers and about two pints making one quart.
Mr. Quimby wiped a plate and stacked it in the cupboard. “I’m taking an art course, because I want to teach art. And I’ll study child development—”
Ramona interrupted. “What’s child development?”
“How kids grow,” answered her father.
Why does anyone have to go to school to study a thing like that? wondered Ramona. All her life she had been told that the way to grow was to eat good food, usually food she did not like, and get plenty of sleep, usually when she had more interesting things to do than go to bed.
Mrs. Quimby hung up the dishcloth, scooped up Picky-picky, the Quimbys’ old yellow cat, and dropped him at the top of the basement steps. “Scat, all of you,” she said, “or you’ll be late for school.”
After the family’s rush to brush teeth, Mr. Quimby said to his daughters, “Hold out your hands,” and into each waiting pair he dropped a new pink eraser. “Just for luck,” he said, “not because I expect you to make mistakes.”
“Thank you,” said the girls. Even a small present was appreciated, because presents of any kind had been scarce while the family tried to save money so Mr. Quimby could return to school. Ramona, who liked to draw as much as her father, especially treasured the new eraser, smooth, pearly pink, smelling softly of rubber, and just right for erasing pencil lines.
Mrs. Quimby handed each member of her family a lunch, two in paper bags and one in a lunch box for Ramona. “Now, Ramona—” she began.
Ramona sighed. Here it was, that little talking-to she always dreaded.
“Please remember,” said her mother, “you really must be nice to Willa Jean.”
Ramona made a face. “I try, but it’s awfully hard.”
Being nice to Willa Jean was the part of Ramona’s life that was not changing, the part she wished would change. Every day after school she had to go to her friend Howie Kemp’s house, where her parents paid Howie’s grandmother to look after her until one of them could come for her. Both of Howie’s parents, too, went off to work each day. She liked Howie, but after spending most of the summer, except for swimming lessons in the park, at the Kemps’ house, she was tired of having to play with four-year-old Willa Jean. She was also tired of apple juice and graham crackers for a snack every single day.
“No matter what Willa Jean does,” complained Ramona, “her grandmother thinks it’s my fault because I’m bigger. Like the time Willa Jean wore her flippers when she ran under the sprinkler, pretending she was the mermaid on the tuna-fish can, and then left big wet footprints on the kitchen floor. Mrs. Kemp said I should have stopped her because Willa Jean didn’t know any better!”
Mrs. Quimby gave Ramona a quick hug. “I know it isn’t easy, but keep trying.”
When Ramona sighed, her father hugged her and said, “Remember, kid, we’re counting on you.” Then he began to sing, “We’ve got high hopes, try hopes, buy cherry pie-in-July hopes—”
Ramona enjoyed her father’s making up new words for the song about the little old ant moving the rubber tree plant, and she liked being big enough to be counted on, but sometimes when she went to the Kemps’ she felt as if everything depended on her. If Howie’s grandmother did not look after her, her mother could not work full time. If her mother did not work full time, her father could not go to school. If her father did not go to school, he might have to go back to being a checker, the work that made him tired and cross.
Still, Ramona had too many interesting things to think about to let her responsibility worry her as she walked through the autumn sunshine toward her school bus stop, her new eraser in hand, new sandals on her feet, that quivery feeling of excitement in her stomach, and the song about high hopes running through her head.
She thought about her father’s new part-time job zipping around in a warehouse on a fork-lift truck, filling orders for orange juice, peas, fish sticks, and all the other frozen items the markets carried. He called himself Santa’s Little Helper, because the temperature of the warehouse was way below zero, and he would have to wear heavy padded clothing to keep from freezing. The job sounded like fun to Ramona. She wondered how she was going to feel about her father’s teaching art to other people’s children and decided not to think about that for a while.
Instead, Ramona thought about Beezus going off to another school, where she would get to take a cooking class and where she could not come to the rescue if her little sister got into trouble. As Ramona approached her bus stop, she thought about one of the best parts of her new school: none of her teachers in her new school would know she was Beatrice’s little sister. Teachers always like Beezus; she was so prompt and neat. When both girls had gone to Glenwood School, Ramona often felt as if teachers were thinking, I wonder why Ramona Quimby isn’t more like her big sister.
When Ramona reached the bus stop, she found Howie Kemp already waiting with his grandmother and Willa Jean, who had come to wave good-bye.
Howie looked up from his lunch box, which he had opened to see what he was going to have for lunch, and said to Ramona, “Those new sandals make your feet look awfully big.”
“Why, Howie,” said his grandmother, “that’s not a nice thing to say.”
Ramona studied her feet. Howie was right, but why shouldn’t her new sandals make her feet look big? Her feet had grown
since her last pair. She was not offended.
“Today I’m going to kidnergarten,” boasted Willa Jean, who was wearing new coveralls and T-shirt and a pair of her mother’s old earrings. Willa Jean was convinced she was beautiful, because her grandmother said so. Ramona’s mother said Mrs. Kemp was right. Willa Jean was beautiful when she was clean, because she was a healthy child. Willa Jean did not feel she was beautiful like a healthy child. She felt she was beautiful like a grown-up lady on TV.
Ramona tried to act kindly toward little Willa Jean. After all, her family was depending on her. “Not kidnergarten, Willa Jean,” she said. “You mean nursery school.”
Willa Jean gave Ramona a cross, stubborn look that Ramona knew too well. “I am too going to kidnergarten,” she said. “Kidnergarten is where the kids are.”
“Bless her little heart,” said her grandmother, admiring as always.
The bus, the little yellow school bus Ramona had waited all summer to ride, pulled up at the curb. Ramona and Howie climbed aboard as if they were used to getting on buses by themselves. I did it just like a grown-up, thought Ramona.
“Good morning. I am Mrs. Hanna, your bus aide,” said a woman sitting behind the driver. “Take the first empty seats toward the back.” Ramona and Howie took window seats on opposite sides of the bus, which had a reassuring new smell. Ramona always dreaded the people-and-fumes smell of the big city buses.
“Bye-byee,” called Mrs. Kemp and Willa Jean, waving as if Ramona and Howie were going on a long, long journey. “Bye-byee.” Howie pretended not to know them.
As soon as the bus pulled away from the curb, Ramona felt someone kick the back of her seat. She turned and faced a sturdy boy wearing a baseball cap with the visor turned up and a white T-shirt with a long word printed across the front. She studied the word to see if she could find short words in it, as she had learned to do in second grade. Earth. Quakes. Earthquakes. Some kind of team. Yes, he looked like the sort of boy whose father would take him to ball games. He did not have a lunch box, which meant he was going to buy his lunch in the cafeteria.
Ramona and Her Mother Page 8
