More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
November 1 - November 4, 2020
“Conceal a knot as you would a secret,” Grandmother always said.
Bendix was Ramona’s favorite doll. Ramona thought Bendix was the most beautiful name in the world.
Father came right out and said he was fed up with frustrated steam shovels and he would not read that book to Ramona and, furthermore, no one else was to read it to her while he was in the house. And that was that.
Then the librarian asked Ramona what her father’s occupation was. When Ramona didn’t understand, she asked, “What kind of work does your father do?” “He mows the lawn,” said Ramona promptly.
Somehow Beezus did not like to have Miss Greever laugh at her little sister. After all, how could Ramona be expected to know what Father did?
“I’m a bad girl,” interrupted Ramona, smiling winningly at the librarian.
Ramona was busy pulling graham-cracker crumbs out of the pocket of her overalls and sprinkling them across the rug. “I’m Hänsel leaving a trail of crumbs through the woods,” she said, digging more crumbs out of her pocket. “My father is a poor woodcutter.”
“Miss Binney, I want to know—how did Mike Mulligan go to the bathroom when he was digging the basement of the town hall?” Miss Binney’s smile seemed to last longer than smiles usually last.
Words were so puzzling. Present should mean a present just as attack should mean to stick tacks in people.
Next door to the kindergarten two little girls, about two and four years old, peered solemnly through the fence at Ramona. “See that girl,” said the older girl to her little sister. “She’s sitting there because she’s been bad.” The two-year-old looked awed to be in the presence of such wickedness. Ramona stared at the ground, she felt so ashamed.
“That’s enough, Howie!” Miss Binney spoke the way mothers sometimes speak just before dinnertime.
Ramona had to put up with being called a pest by older boys and girls, but she did not have to put up with being called a pest by a girl her own age. “I’m not a pest,” said Ramona indignantly, and to get even she stretched one of Susan’s curls and whispered, “Boing!”
“Ramona Quimby!” her father said sternly, and Ramona knew that she was about to be ordered back to pick up her crayons. Well, her father could order all he wanted to. She was not going to pick up her crayons. Nobody could make her pick up her crayons. Nobody. Not her father nor her mother. Not even the principal. Not even God.
“You mustn’t mind her,” whispered Mrs. Quimby. “She’s reached a difficult age.” Ramona thought such an all-purpose excuse for bad behavior would be a handy thing to have. “So have I,” she confided to her mother.
“My mother could make me a sheep costume,” she said. “She’s made me lots of costumes.” Maybe “lots” was stretching the truth a bit. Mrs. Quimby had made Ramona a witch costume that had lasted three Halloweens, and when Ramona was in nursery school she had made her a little red devil suit.
Ramona gave her sister a you-shut-up look. Beezus smiled serenely.
“See me!” Willa Jean ordered the grown-ups as she ran around pulling and flinging Kleenex all over the room. Guests grabbed their coffee mugs and held them high for safety.
Ramona was filled with indignation. Willa Jean is not me all over again, she thought fiercely. I was never such a pest.
She fled to that haven of anyone in the family who had tears to shed, the bathroom, where she sat on the edge of the tub sniffling miserably.
After a thoughtful moment, Mrs. Quimby spoke. “So am I tired of being sensible all the time.” Both sisters were surprised, Ramona most of all. Mothers were supposed to be sensible. That was what mothers were for. Mrs. Quimby continued. “Once in a while I would like to do something that isn’t sensible.” “Like what?” asked Beezus. “Oh—I don’t know.” Mrs. Quimby looked at the breakfast dishes in the sink and at the rain spattering against the windows. “Sit on a cushion in the sunshine, I guess, and blow the fluff off dandelions.” Beezus looked as if she did not quite believe her mother. “Weeds
...more
Children asked, “How come your bangs are longer in the middle?” “Because I’m a pixie,” Ramona answered, or sometimes, “because I’m a valentine.”
The sound of her teacher’s name gave Ramona a strange feeling, as if she were in an elevator that had suddenly gone down when she expected it to go up.
“Nobody likes me. Nobody in the whole world,” said Ramona, warming to her subject as the cat walked disdainfully through the room on his way to peace on Beezus’s bed. “Not even my own mother and father. Not even the cat. Beezus gets all the attention around here. Even Picky-picky likes Beezus more than he likes me!” She was pleased that her father stayed in the living room and she didn’t lose any of her audience. “You’ll be sorry someday when I’m rich and famous.” “I didn’t know you were planning to be rich and famous,” said Mr. Quimby. Neither had Ramona until that moment.
“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.
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.
“You have to be the dog,” said Willa Jean. “Why?” Ramona kept an eye on Mrs. Kemp as she wondered how far she dared go in resisting Willa Jean’s orders. “Because I’m a beautiful rich lady and I say so,” Willa Jean informed her. “I’m a bigger, beautifuler, richer lady,” said Ramona, who felt neither beautiful nor rich, but certainly did not want to crawl around on her hands and knees barking.
“Bruce who?” asked Ramona, hoping Willa Jean and Bruce would play together and leave her alone to read. “Bruce who doesn’t wee-wee in the sandbox,” was Willa Jean’s prompt answer. “Willa Jean!” Mrs. Kemp was shocked. “What a thing to say about your little friend.” Ramona was not shocked. She understood that there must be a second Bruce at Willa Jean’s nursery school, a Bruce who did wee-wee in the sandbox.
Marsha, a tall girl who always tried to be motherly, said, “It’s all right, Ramona. I’ll take you to the bathroom and help you wash off the egg.”
Poor us. Ramona included Howie and Willa Jean in her pity as she wished that someday, just once, she too could sit on an accordion. She knew she never would, even if she had the chance. She had grown past Willa Jean’s kind of behavior, which had been fun while it lasted.
“Other kids don’t watch themselves, they watch TV,” said Beezus as she cleared the table. “I wouldn’t watch TV,” was Ramona’s reckless promise.
Ramona chewed a hangnail as painful as her thoughts.
“Hi,” answered Ramona as her father quickly turned over his page of doodles, but not before she had a glimpse of dollar signs and babies, doodles that must mean he was thinking about a baby. “You have me to be your little girl,” Ramona reminded her father.
Then Mr. Quimby brought home a pamphlet from the drugstore, called A Name for Your Baby, which listed names and their meanings. Ramona immediately found her own name and discovered that Ramona meant “wise helper.” How boring, she thought, and hoped this did not mean that she would be expected to change It’s diapers or anything like that.
“Ramona?” It was Willa Jean. “Willa Jean!” Ramona was astonished. “I didn’t know you knew how to dial.” “Uncle Hobart showed me,” explained Willa Jean. “Ramona, come back and play with me. Please. It’s lonesome here with Grandma.” Ramona felt sad and guilty. “I’m sorry, Willa Jean, I can’t. Maybe your Uncle Hobart will play with you.” “He’s not around much,” said Willa Jean. “He has a girlfriend, and anyway, he’s a grown-up.” “I know,” said Ramona, meaning she knew he was a grown-up, not that he had a girlfriend. “Good-bye.” Willa Jean, who had nothing more to say, hung up.
“Good evening, Ramona.” Uncle Hobart, who had grown a neat beard and was wearing a jacket and tie, spoke to Ramona as if they were the same age. Ramona was blunt. “Mr. Kemp, how come you’re still here?”
Willa Jean slipped her fingers into Ramona’s hand, an act that Ramona found touching and made her feel protective, even though the little girl’s fingers were sticky.
Ramona licked a drip of ice cream. “I thought you said you dreamed of your mother’s apple pie.” “That too,” said Uncle Hobart. “A man can have more than one dream in life.”
Ramona was proud of her work. She glanced around to see what her classmates had written about themselves. She leaned forward to look over Susan’s shoulder. Susan had written half a page in neat cursive and was busy coloring dinosaurs, neatly of course, with crayons. Ramona read, “My name is Susan. My favorite color is blue. My favorite food is . . .” Ramona did not need to read any further. She half rose from her seat to look across the aisle toward Yard Ape and read in his neat uphill cursive, “My name is Daniel. Call me Yard Ape. I am nine years old. I am not married. I am a kid and proud of
...more
Mrs. Meacham is about a million years old, but she’s nice.”
“Mother, guess what! Mrs. Lucas wants me to baby-sit with Benjamin Saturday evening. They won’t be out late, and they’ll pay me and everything!” And stuff, thought Ramona. Beezus continued. “And Mrs. Lucas says she wants me because she knows I’m responsible. Oh, please, please—” “I don’t see why not,” said Mrs. Quimby. “We’ll be home, so we could help if there is an emergency, which I’m sure there won’t be.” Not with good old Beezus being so responsible all over the place, thought Ramona as Beezus danced off to the telephone.
“Don’t you think you should play with Susan once in a while?” Ramona picked at the one callus that had not peeled off since school started before she said, “Do I have to? I see her at Sunday school.” Mrs. Quimby said, “You could ask her to come here or you could go to Susan’s house. Her mother was saying just the other day that you girls should get together more often.” Ramona made a face. She wished grown-ups would stay out of their children’s affairs. Mrs. Quimby was curious. “Don’t you like Susan?” she asked. “Well—not really,” confessed Ramona. “She’s the kind of girl who gets mad, really
...more
Then she pulled off her shoes (her nice shoes!) and stuck her feet into high-heeled sandals, which made her glamorous, she felt, even if they were too big. “Look! I’m a star!” Ramona lifted her arms as if she were a dancer before she clonked across the room to look at herself in the mirror. “I’m gorgeous,” she announced, pretending she had long blond hair. “I’m beautiful. I’m me, gorgeous, beautiful me!” “I’m Miss America.” Daisy twirled around. “I’m so beautiful all the other girls in the competition went home.”
Then Ramona discovered a long pink dress and because she was already gorgeous and beautiful decided to promote herself to princess.
Mrs. Quimby was saying, “I really enjoy our book club. Now that I am no longer working—not that looking after my daughters isn’t work—I enjoy exercising my brain.” Ramona was surprised and a little hurt that her mother found her daughters work.
“You look very nice today, Ramona.” “I know,” answered Ramona modestly.
“You’re all dressed up like you think you’re somebody,” said Susan. “I am somebody,” said Ramona with a toss of her head.
“Just a teeny tiny short week.” Mrs. Quimby’s smile returned. “There is no such thing as a short week. A week is seven days, no more, no less.
