“Hello,” said Ramona through a bite of apple.
“Ramona Geraldine Quimby!” exclaimed Beezus, when she had found her voice.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“Playing hide-and-seek,” answered Ramona.
“Well, I’m not!” snapped Beezus. “It takes two to play hide-and-seek.”
“You found me,” Ramona pointed out.
“Oh…” Once again Beezus couldn’t find any words. To think she had worried so, when all the time Ramona was sitting in the basement listening to her call. And eating an apple, too!
As she stood in front of Ramona, Beezus’s eyes began to grow accustomed to the dim light and she realized what Ramona was doing. She stared, horrified at what she saw. As if hiding were not enough! What would Mother say when she came home and found what Ramona had been up to this time?
Ramona was sitting on the floor beside a box of apples. Lying around her on the cement floor were a number of apples—each with one bite out of it. While Beezus stared, Ramona reached into the box, selected an apple, took one big bite out of the reddest part, and tossed the rest of the apple onto the floor. While she noisily chewed that bite, she reached into the apple box again.
“Ramona!” cried Beezus, horrified. “You can’t do that.”
“I can, too,” said Ramona through her mouthful.
“Stop it,” ordered Beezus. “Stop it this instant! You can’t eat one bite and then throw the rest away.”
“But the first bite tastes best,” explained Ramona reasonably, as she reached into the box again.
Beezus had to admit that Ramona was right. The first bite of an apple always did taste best. Ramona’s sharp little teeth were about to sink into another apple when Beezus snatched it from her.
“That’s my apple,” screamed Ramona.
“It is not!” said Beezus angrily, stamping her foot. “One apple is all you’re supposed to have. Just wait till Mother finds out!”
Ramona stopped screaming and watched Beezus. Then, seeing how angry Beezus was, she smiled and offered her an apple. “I want to share the apples,” she said sweetly.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” said Beezus. “And don’t try to work that sharing business on me!” That was one of the difficult things about Ramona. When she had done something wrong, she often tried to get out of it by offering to share something. She heard a lot about sharing at nursery school.
Now what am I going to do, Beezus wondered. I promised Mother I would keep an eye on Ramona, and look what she’s gone and done. How am I going to explain this to Mother? I’ll get scolded too. And all the apples. What can we do with them?
Beezus was sure about one thing. She no longer felt mixed up about Ramona. Ramona was perfectly impossible. She snatched Ramona’s hand. “You come upstairs with me and be good until Mother gets back,” she ordered, pulling her sister up the basement stairs.
Ramona broke away from her and ran into the living room. She climbed onto a chair, where she sat with her legs sticking straight out in front of her. She folded her hands in her lap and said in a little voice, “Don’t bother me. This is my quiet time. I’m supposed to be resting.”
Quiet times were something else Ramona had learned about at nursery school. When she didn’t want to do something, she often insisted she was supposed to be having a quiet time. Beezus was about to say that Ramona didn’t need a quiet time, because she hadn’t been playing hard and Mother had said she had already had a nap, but then she thought better of it. If Ramona wanted to sit in a chair and be quiet, let her. She might stay out of mischief until Mother came home.
Beezus had no sooner sat down to work on her pot holders, planning to keep an eye on Ramona at the same time, when the telephone rang. It must be Aunt Beatrice, she thought, before she answered. Mother and Aunt Beatrice almost always talked to each other about this time of day.
“Hello, darling, how are you?” asked Aunt Beatrice.
“Oh, Aunt Beatrice,” cried Beezus,
“Ramona has just done something awful, and I was supposed to be looking after her. I don’t know what to do.” She told about Ramona’s hiding in the cellar and biting into half a box of apples.
Aunt Beatrice laughed. “Leave it to Ramona to think up something new,” she said. “Do you know what I’d do if I were you?”
“What?” asked Beezus eagerly, already feeling better because she had confided her troubles to her aunt.
“I wouldn’t say anything more about it,” said Aunt Beatrice. “Lots of times little children are naughty because they want to attract attention. I have an idea that saying nothing about her naughtiness will worry Ramona more than a scolding.”
Beezus thought this over and decided her aunt was right. If there was one thing Ramona couldn’t stand, it was being ignored. “I’ll try it,” she said.
“And about the apples,” Aunt Beatrice went on. “All I can suggest is that your mother might make applesauce.”
This struck Beezus as being funny, and as she and her aunt laughed together over the telephone she felt much better.
“Tell your mother I phoned,” said Aunt Beatrice.
“I will,” promised Beezus. “And please come over soon.”
When Beezus heard her mother drive up, she rushed out to meet her and tell her the story of what Ramona had done. She also told her Aunt Beatrice’s suggestion.
“Oh, dear, leave it to Ramona,” sighed Mother. “Your aunt is right. We won’t say a word about it.”
Beezus helped her mother carry the groceries into the house. Ramona came into the kitchen to see if there were any animal crackers among the packages. She waited a few minutes for her sister to tattle on her. Then, when Beezus did not say anything, she announced, “I was bad this afternoon.” She sounded pleased with herself.
“Were you?” remarked Mother calmly.
“Beezus, I think applesauce would be good for dessert tonight. Will you run down and bring up some apples?”
When Ramona looked disappointed at having failed to arouse any interest, Beezus and her mother exchanged smiles. “I want to help,” said Ramona, rather than be left out.
Beezus and Ramona made four trips to the basement to bring up all the bitten apples. Mother said nothing about their appearance, but spent the rest of the afternoon peeling and cooking apples. After she had finished, she filled her two largest mixing bowls, a casserole, and the bowl of her electric mixer with applesauce. It took her quite a while to rearrange the contents of the refrigerator to make room for all the applesauce.
When Beezus saw her father coming home she ran out on the front walk to tell him what had happened. He, too, agreed that Aunt Beatrice’s suggestion was a good one.
“Daddy!” shrieked Ramona when her father came in.
“How’s my girl?” asked Father as he picked Ramona up and kissed her.
“Oh, I was bad today,” said Ramona.
“Were you?” said Father as he put her down. “Was there any mail today?”
Ramona looked crestfallen. “I was very bad,” she persisted. “I was awful.”
Father sat down and picked up the evening paper.
“I hid from Beezus and I bit lots and lots of apples,” Ramona went on insistently.
“Mmm,” remarked Father from behind the paper. “I see they’re going to raise bus fares again.”
“Lots and lots of apples,” repeated Ramona in a loud voice.
“They raised bus fares last year,” Father went on, winking at Beezus from behind the paper. “The public isn’t going to stand for this.”
Ramona looked puzzled and then disappointed, but she did not say anything.
Father dropped his paper. “Something certainly smells good,” he said. “It smells like applesauce. I hope so. There’s nothing I like better than a big dish of applesauce for dessert.”
Because Mother had been so busy making applesauce, dinner was a little late that night. At the table Ramona was unusually well behaved. She did not interrupt a
nd she did not try to share her carrots, the way she usually did because she did not like carrots.
As Beezus cleared the table and Mother served dessert—which was fig Newtons and, of course, applesauce—Ramona’s good behavior continued. Beezus found she was not very hungry for applesauce, but the rest of the family appeared to enjoy it. After Beezus had wiped the dishes for Mother she sat down to embroider her pot holders. She had decided to give Aunt Beatrice the pot holder with the dancing knife and fork on it instead of the one with the laughing teakettle.
Ramona approached her with Big Steve the Steam Shovel in her hand. “Beezus, will you read to me?” she asked.
She thinks I’ll say no and then she can make a fuss, thought Beezus. Well, I won’t give her a chance. “All right,” she said, putting down her pot holder and taking the book, while Ramona climbed into the chair beside her.
“Big Steve was a steam shovel. He was the biggest steam shovel in the whole city,” Beezus read. “‘Gr-r-r,’ growled Big Steve when he moved the earth to make way for the new highway.”
Father dropped his newspaper and looked at his two daughters sitting side by side. “I wonder,” he said, “exactly how long this is going to last.”
“Just enjoy it while it does,” said Mother, who was basting patches on the knees of a pair of Ramona’s overalls.
“Gr-r-r,” growled Ramona. “Gr-r-r.”
Beezus also wondered just how long this would go on. She didn’t enjoy growling like a steam shovel and she felt that perhaps Ramona was getting her own way after all. I’m trying to like her like I’m supposed to, anyhow, Beezus thought, and I do like her more than I did this afternoon when I found her in the basement. But what on earth will Mother ever do with all that applesauce?
5
A Party at
the Quimbys’
Saturday morning turned out to be cold and rainy. Beezus wiped the breakfast dishes for her mother and listened to Ramona, who was riding her tricycle around the house, singing, “Copycat, cappycot, copycat, cappycot,” over and over at the top of her voice, because she liked the sound of the words.
Beezus and her mother finished the dishes and went into the bedroom to put clean sheets on the beds. “Copycat, cappycot,” droned Ramona’s singsong.
“Ramona, why don’t you sing something else?” Mother asked at last. “We’ve been listening to that for a long time.”
“O.K.,” agreed Ramona. “I’m going to have a par-tee,” she sang. “I’m going to have a par-tee.”
“Thank you, Ramona. That’s better.” Mother held one end of a pillow under her chin while she slipped the other end into a fresh case. “You know, that reminds me,” she said to Beezus. “What would you like to do to celebrate your birthday next week?”
Beezus thought a minute. “Well…I’d like to have Aunt Beatrice over for dinner. She hasn’t been here for such a long time. And I’d like to have a birthday cake with pink frosting.” Beezus smoothed a fresh sheet over the bed. She almost enjoyed helping Mother when they could talk without Ramona’s interrupting all the time. The rain beating on the windows and Ramona’s happy singsong made the day seem cozy and peaceful.
“All right, that’s exactly what we’ll do.” Mother seemed really pleased with Beezus’s suggestions. “It’s a long time since we’ve seen Aunt Beatrice, but of course teachers always have a lot to do when school starts.” Beezus noticed that Mother gave a little sigh as she smoothed her side of the sheet. “She’ll probably have more time now that the semester has started and it really isn’t long before Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations. We’ll see a lot of her then.”
Why, Mother misses Aunt Beatrice too, thought Beezus. I believe she misses her as much as I do, even though she never says so.
Leaving Beezus with the new and surprising thought that grown-ups sometimes missed each other, Mother gathered up the sheets and pillowcases that had been removed from the beds and carried them to the basement. While she was downstairs the telephone rang. “Answer it, will you, Beezus,” Mother called.
When Beezus picked up the telephone, a hurried voice said, “This is Mrs. Kemp. Do you mind if I leave Willa Jean when I bring Howie over this afternoon?”
“Just a minute. I’ll ask Mother.” Beezus called down the basement stairs, repeating the question.
“Why, no, I guess not,” Mother replied.
“Mother says it’s all right,” Beezus said into the telephone.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Kemp. “Now I’ll (Howie, stop banging!) have a chance to do some shopping.”
Well, thought Beezus when she had hung up, things won’t be quiet around here much longer. Howie, who was in Ramona’s class at nursery school, was the noisiest little boy she knew, and he and Ramona often quarreled. Willa Jean was at the awkward age—too big to be a baby and not big enough to be out of diapers.
“You know,” said Mother, when she came up from the basement, “I don’t remember telling Mrs. Kemp that Howie could come over this afternoon, but maybe I did. I’ve had so much on my mind lately, trying to get the nursery-school rummage sale organized.”
After an early lunch Mother decided there would be enough time to wash everybody’s hair before Howie and Willa Jean arrived. She put on her oldest dress, because Ramona always squirmed and got soap all over her. Then she stood Ramona on a chair, made her lean over the kitchen sink, and went to work. Ramona howled, as she always did when her hair was washed. When Mother finished she rubbed Ramona’s hair with a bath towel, turned up the furnace thermostat so the house would be extra-warm, and gave Ramona two graham crackers to make up for the indignity of having her hair washed.
Then Beezus stepped onto the stool and bent over the sink for her turn. After Mother had washed her own hair and before she went into the bathroom to put it up in pin curls, she said to Beezus, “Would you mind getting out the vacuum cleaner and picking up those graham-cracker crumbs Ramona spilled on the rug?”
Beezus did not mind. She rather liked running the vacuum cleaner if her mother didn’t make a regular chore of it.
“I’m going to have a par-tee,” sang Ramona above the roar of the vacuum cleaner. Then she changed her song. “Here comes my par-tee!” she chanted.
Beezus glanced out the window and quickly switched off the vacuum cleaner. Four small children were coming up the front walk through the rain. A car stopped in front of the house and three children climbed out. Two more were splashing across the street.
“Mother!” cried Beezus. “Come here, quick. Ramona wasn’t pretending!”
Mother appeared in the living room just as the doorbell rang. One side of her hair was up in pin curls and the other side hung wet and dripping on the towel around her neck. “Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed when she understood the situation. “That explains Mrs. Kemp’s phone call. Ramona, how could you?”
“I wanted to have a party,” explained Ramona. “I invited everybody yesterday.”
The doorbell rang again, this time long and hard. There was the sound of many rubber boots jumping up and down on the porch.
“Mother, we just can’t have a party with our hair wet,” wailed Beezus.
“What else can we do?” Mother sounded desperate. “They’re here and we can’t very well send them home. Their mothers have probably planned to shop or something while we look after them.”
Ramona struggled with the doorknob and managed to open the heavy front door. Mrs. Kemp stopped her car in front of the Quimbys’, and Howie and Willa Jean hopped out. “I’ll pick them up at four,” she called gaily. “I’m so glad to have a chance to get out and do some shopping.”
Mother smiled weakly and looked at all the children on the porch.
“Where do you suppose she found them all?” whispered Beezus. “I don’t even know some of them.”
“All right, children.” Mother spoke firmly. “Leave your wet boots and raincoats on the porch.”
“I’ve got a par-tee,” sang Ramona happily.
Beezus, wh
o had plenty of experience with Ramona and her boots, knew where she was needed. She started pulling off boots and unbuttoning raincoats.
“What on earth shall we do with them on a day like this?” whispered Mother.
Beezus grabbed a muddy boot. “Hold still,” she said firmly to its owner. “They’ll expect refreshments,” she said.
“I know,” sighed Mother. “You’ll have to put on your coat and run down to the market—Oh, no, you can’t go out in this rain with your hair wet.” Mother tugged at another boot. “I’ll have to see what I can find in the kitchen.”
Beezus and her mother herded the wiggling, squealing crowd into the front bedroom and went to work removing sweaters, jackets, caps, and mittens. In between Beezus pulled three children out of the closet, dragged one out from under the bed, and snatched her mother’s bottle of best perfume from another.
“All right, everybody out of here,” Beezus ordered, when the last mitten was removed and her mother had hurried into the kitchen. “We’ll go into the living room and…and do something,” she finished lamely. “Ramona, bring some of your toys out of your room.”
“Bingle-bongle-by!” shouted Howie, just to make some noise.
“Bingle-bongle-by!” The others joined in with great delight. It was such a nice noisy thing to yell. “Bingle-bongle-by,” they screamed at the tops of their voices as they scampered into the living room. “Bingle-bongle-by.”
Howie grabbed the vacuum cleaner, turned on the switch, and charged across the room. “I’ll suck you up!” he shouted. “I’ll suck everybody up in the vacuum cleaner!”
“Bingle-bongle-by!” shouted the others above the roar of the vacuum cleaner.
One little girl began to cry. “I don’t want to be sucked up in the vacuum cleaner,” she sobbed. Willa Jean, looking bulgy because of the diapers and plastic pants under her overalls, clung to a chair and wept.
Beezus and Ramona Page 5