Beezus and Ramona (8 page)

“The best birthday cake I could find. And that isn't all I brought. Here, help me carry these packages while I carry the cake. We mustn't let anything happen to
this
cake!”

And the way Aunt Beatrice laughed made Beezus laugh too. Her aunt gave her three packages, two large and one small, to carry.

“The little package is for Ramona,” explained Aunt Beatrice. “So she won't feel left out.”

Mother came out of the house and hugged her sister. “Hello, Bea,” she said. “I'm so glad you could come. What would I ever do without you?”

“It's good to see you, Dorothy,” answered Aunt Beatrice. “And what's an aunt for if she can't come to the rescue with a birthday cake once in a while?”

As Beezus watched her mother and her
aunt, arm in arm, go into the house, she thought how different they were—Mother so tall and comfortable-looking and Aunt Beatrice so small and gay—and yet how happy they looked together. Smiling, Beezus carried the gifts into the house. Aunt Beatrice always brought such beautiful packages, wrapped in fancy paper and tied with big, fluffy bows.

Aunt Beatrice handed the cake box to Mother. “Be sure you put it in a safe place,” she said, and laughed again.

“May I open the packages now?” Beezus asked eagerly, although she felt it was almost too bad to untie such beautiful bows.

“Of course you may,” answered Aunt Beatrice.

“Where's Ramona?”

A subdued Ramona came out of the bedroom to receive her present. She tore off the wrapping, but Beezus painstakingly
untied the ribbon on one of her presents and removed the paper carefully so she wouldn't tear it. Her new book,
202 Things to Do on a Rainy Afternoon
, suggested pasting pretty paper on a gallon ice-cream carton to make a wastebasket.

“Oh, Aunt Beatrice,” exclaimed Beezus, as she opened her first package. It was a real grown-up sewing box. It had two sizes of scissors, a fat red pincushion that looked like a tomato, an emery bag that looked like a ripe strawberry, and a tape measure that pulled out of a shiny box. When Beezus pushed the button on the box, the tape measure snapped back inside. The box also had needles, pins, and a thimble. Beezus never wore a thimble, but she thought it would be nice to have one in case she ever wanted to use one. “Oh, Aunt Beatrice,” she said, “it's the most wonderful sewing box in the whole world. I'll make you two pot
holders for Christmas!” Then, as Aunt Beatrice laughed, Beezus clapped her hand over her mouth. The pot holder was supposed to be a surprise.

Ramona had unwrapped a little steam shovel made of red and yellow plastic, which she was now pushing happily around the rug.

Breathlessly Beezus lifted the lid of the second box. “Oh, Aunt Beatrice!” she exclaimed, as she lifted out a dress that was a lovely shade of blue.

“It's just the right shade of blue to match your eyes,” explained Aunt Beatrice.

“Is it really?” asked Beezus, delighted that her pretty young aunt liked blue eyes. She was about to tell her about being Sacajawea for the P.T.A. when Father came home from work, and before long dinner was on the table. Mother lit the candles and turned off the dining-room light. How pretty everything looks, thought Beezus. I wish we had
candles on the table every night.

After Father had served the chicken and mashed potatoes and peas and Mother had passed the hot rolls, Beezus decided the time had come to tell Aunt Beatrice about being Sacajawea. “Do you know what I did last week?” she began.

“I want some jelly,” said Ramona.

“You mean, ‘Please pass the jelly,'” corrected Mother, while Beezus waited patiently.

“No, what did you do last week?” asked Aunt Beatrice.

“Well, last week I—” Beezus began again.

“I like purple jelly better than red jelly,” said Ramona.

“Ramona, stop interrupting your sister,” said Father.

“Well, I
do
like purple jelly better than red jelly,” insisted Ramona.

“Never mind,” said Mother. “Go on, Beezus.”

“Last week—” said Beezus, looking at her aunt, who smiled as if she understood.

“Excuse me, Beezus,” Mother cut in.

“Ramona, we do not put jelly on our mashed potatoes.”

“I like jelly on my mashed potatoes.” Ramona stirred potato and jelly around with her fork.

“Ramona, you heard what your mother
said.” Father looked stern.

“If I can put butter on my mashed potatoes, why can't I put jelly? I put butter and jelly on toast,” said Ramona.

Father couldn't help laughing. “That's a hard question to answer.”

“But Mother—” Beezus began.

“I
like
jelly on my mashed potatoes,” interrupted Ramona, looking sulky.

“You can't have jelly on your mashed potatoes, because you aren't supposed to,” said Beezus crossly, forgetting Sacajawea for the moment.

“That's as good an answer as any,” agreed Father. “There are some things we don't do, because we aren't supposed to.”

Ramona looked even more sulky.

“Where is my Merry Sunshine?” Mother asked.

Ramona scowled. “I am
too
a Merry Sunshine!” she shouted angrily.

“Ramona,” said Mother quietly, “you may go to your room until you can behave yourself.”

And serves you right, too, thought Beezus.

“I am
too
a Merry Sunshine,” insisted Ramona, but she got down from the table and ran out of the room.

Everyone was silent for a moment. “Beezus, what was it you were trying to tell me?” Aunt Beatrice asked.

And finally Beezus got to tell about leading Lewis and Clark to Oregon, with a doll tied to Mother's breadboard for a papoose, and how her teacher told her what a clever girl she was to think of using a breadboard for a papoose board. Somehow she did not feel the same about telling the story after all Ramona's interruptions. Being Sacajawea for the P.T.A. did not seem very important now. No matter what she did, Ramona
always managed to spoil it. Unhappily, Beezus went on eating her chicken and peas. It was another one of those terrible times when she did not love her little sister.

“You mustn't let Ramona get you down,” whispered Mother.

Beezus did not answer. What a terrible girl she was not to love her little sister! How shocked and surprised Mother would be if she knew.

“Beezus, you look as if something is bothering you,” remarked Aunt Beatrice.

Beezus looked down at her plate. How could she ever tell such an awful thing?

“Why don't you tell us what is wrong?” Aunt Beatrice suggested. “Perhaps we could help.”

She sounded so interested and so understanding that Beezus discovered she really wanted to tell what was on her mind. “Sometimes I just don't love Ramona!” she
blurted out, to get it over with. There! She had said it right out loud. And on her birthday, too. Now everyone would know what a terrible girl she was.

“My goodness, is that all that bothers you?” Mother sounded surprised.

Beezus nodded miserably.

“Why, there's no reason why you
should
love Ramona all the time,” Mother went on. “After all, there are probably lots of times when she doesn't love you.”

Now it was Beezus's turn to be surprised—surprised and relieved at the same time. She wondered why she hadn't thought of it that way before.

Aunt Beatrice smiled. “Dorothy,” she said to Mother, “do you remember the time I—” She began to laugh so hard she couldn't finish the sentence.

“You took my doll with the beautiful yellow curls and dyed her hair with black
shoe dye,” finished Mother, and the two grown-up sisters went into gales of laughter. “I didn't love you a bit that time,” admitted Mother. “I was mad at you for days.”

“And you were always so bossy, because you were older,” said Aunt Beatrice. “I'm sure I didn't love you at all when you were supposed to take me to school and made me walk about six feet behind you, because you didn't want people to know you had to look after me.”

“Mother!” exclaimed Beezus in shocked delight.

“Did I do that?” laughed Mother. “I had forgotten all about it.”

“What else did Mother do?” Beezus asked eagerly.

“She was terribly fussy,” said Aunt Beatrice.

“We had to share a room and she used to get mad because I was untidy. Once she threw all my paper dolls into the wastebasket, because I
had left them on her side of the dresser. That was another time we didn't love each other.”

Fascinated, Beezus hoped this interesting conversation would continue. Imagine Mother and Aunt Beatrice quarreling!

“Oh, but the worst thing of all!” said Mother. “Remember—”

“I'll never forget!” exclaimed Aunt Beatrice, as if she knew what Mother was talking about. “Wasn't I awful?”

“Perfectly terrible,” agreed Mother, wiping her eyes because she was laughing so hard.

“What happened?” begged Beezus, who could not wait to find out what dreadful thing Aunt Beatrice had done when she was a girl. “Mother, tell what happened.”

“It all began when the girls began to take autograph albums to school,” began Mother and then went off into another fit of laughter. “Oh, Beatrice, you tell it.”

“Of course I wanted an autograph album
too,” continued Aunt Beatrice. Beezus nodded, because she, too, had an autograph album. “Well, your mother, who was always very sensible, saved her allowance and bought a beautiful album with a red cover stamped in gold. How I envied her!”

“As soon as your Aunt Beatrice got her allowance she always ran right over to the school store and spent it,” added Mother.

“Yes, and on the most awful junk,” agreed Aunt Beatrice. “Licorice whips, and pencils that were square instead of round, and I don't know what all.”

“Yes, but what about the autograph album?” Beezus asked.

“Well, when I—oh, I'm almost ashamed to tell it,” said Aunt Beatrice.

“Oh, go on,” urged Mother. “It's priceless.”

“Well, when I saw your mother with that brand-new autograph album that she bought, because she was so sensible, I was annoyed,
because I wanted one too and I hadn't saved my allowance. And then she asked me if I'd like to sign my name in it.”

“It was my night to set the table,” added Mother. “I never should have left her alone with it.”

“But what happened?” Beezus could hardly wait to find out.

“I sat down at the desk and picked up a pen, planning to write on the last page, ‘By hook or by crook I'll be the last in your book,'” said Aunt Beatrice.

“Oh, did people write that in those days, too?” Beezus was surprised, because she had thought this was something very new to write in an autograph album.

“But I didn't write it,” continued Aunt Beatrice. “I just sat there wishing I had an autograph album, and then I took the pen and wrote my name on every single page in the book!”

“Aunt Beatrice! You didn't! Not in Mother's brand-new autograph album!” Beezus was horrified and delighted at the same time. What a terrible thing to do!

“She certainly did,” said Mother, “and not just plain Beatrice Haswell, either. She wrote Beatrice Ann Haswell, Miss Bea Haswell, B. A. Haswell, Esquire, and everything she could think of. When she couldn't think of any more ways to write her name she started all over again.”

“Oh, Aunt Beatrice, how perfectly awful,” exclaimed Beezus, with a touch of admiration in her voice.

“Yes, wasn't it?” agreed Aunt Beatrice. “I don't know what got into me.”

“And what did Mother do?” inquired Beezus, eager for the whole story.

“We had a dreadful quarrel and I got spanked,” said Aunt Beatrice. “Your mother didn't love me one little bit for a long, long
time. And I wouldn't admit it, but I felt terrible because I had spoiled her autograph album. Fortunately Christmas came along about that time and we were both given albums and that put an end to the whole thing.”

Why, thought Beezus, Aunt Beatrice used to be every bit as awful as Ramona. And yet look how nice she is now. Beezus could scarcely believe it. And now Mother and Aunt Beatrice, who had quarreled when they were girls, loved each other and thought the things they had done were funny! They actually laughed about it. Well, maybe when she was grown up she would think it was funny that Ramona had put eggshells in one birthday cake and baked her rubber doll with another. Maybe she wouldn't think Ramona was so exasperating, after all. Maybe that was just the way things were with sisters. A lovely feeling of relief came
over Beezus. What if she
didn't
love Ramona all the time? It didn't matter at all. She was just like any other sister.

“Mother,” whispered Beezus, happier than she had felt in a long time, “I hope Ramona comes back before we have my birthday cake.”