Ramona and Her Father (2 page)

“Maybe I could baby-sit,” volunteered Beezus.

As she laid out knives and forks, Ramona wondered how she could earn money, too. She could have a lemonade stand in front of the house, except nobody ever bought lemonade but her father and her friend Howie. She thought about pounding rose petals and soaking them in water to make perfume to sell. Unfortunately, the perfume she tried to make always smelled like rotten rose petals, and anyway the roses were almost gone.

“And girls,” said Mrs. Quimby, lowering her voice as if she was about to share a secret, “you mustn't do anything to annoy your father. He is worried enough right now.”

But he remembered to bring gummybears, thought Ramona, who never wanted too annoy her father or her mother either, just Beezus, although sometimes, without even trying, she succeeded in annoying her whole family. Ramona felt sad and somehow lonely, as if she were left out of something important, because her family was in trouble and there was nothing she could do to help. When she had finished setting the table, she returned to the list she had begun, it now seemed, a long time ago. “But what about Christmas?” she asked her mother.

“Right now Christmas is the least of our worries.” Mrs. Quimby looked sadder than Ramona had ever seen her look. “Taxes are due in November. And we have to buy groceries and make car payments and a lot of other things.”

“Don't we have any money in the bank?” asked Beezus.

“Not much,” admitted Mrs. Quimby, “but your father was given two weeks' pay.”

Ramona looked at the list she had begun so happily and wondered how much the presents she had listed would cost. Too much, she knew. Mice were free if you knew the right person, the owner of a mother mouse, so she might get some mice.

Slowly Ramona crossed out
ginny pig
and the other presents she had listed. As she made black lines through each item, she thought about her family. She did not want her father to be worried, her mother sad, or her sister cross. She wanted her whole family, including Picky-picky, to be happy.

Ramona studied her crayons, chose a pinky-red one because it seemed the happiest color, and printed one more item on her Christmas list to make up for all she had crossed out.
One happy family
. Beside the words she drew four smiling faces and beside them, the face of a yellow cat, also smiling.

R
amona wished she had a million dollars so her father would be fun again. There had been many changes in the Quimby household since Mr. Quimby had lost his job, but the biggest change was in Mr. Quimby himself.

First of all, Mrs. Quimby found a fulltime job working for another doctor, which was good news. However, even a second grader could understand that one paycheck would not stretch as far as two paychecks, especially when there was so much talk of taxes, whatever they were. Mrs. Quimby's new job meant that Mr. Quimby had to be home when Ramona returned from school.

Ramona and her father saw a lot of one another. At first she thought having her father to herself for an hour or two every day would be fun, but when she came home, she found him running the vacuum cleaner, filling out job applications, or sitting on the couch, smoking and staring into space. He could not take her to the park because he had to stay near the telephone. Someone might call to offer him a job. Ramona grew uneasy. Maybe he was too worried to love her anymore.

One day Ramona came home to find her father in the living room drinking warmed-over coffee, smoking, and staring at the television set. On the screen a boy a couple of years younger than Ramona was singing:

Forget your pots, forget your pans.

It's not too late to change your plans.

Spend a little, eat a lot,

Big fat burgers, nice and hot

At your nearest Whopperburger!

Ramona watched him open his mouth wide to bite into a fat cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato spilling out of the bun and thought wistfully of the good old days when the family used to go to the restaurant on payday and when her mother used to bring home little treats—stuffed olives, cinnamon buns for Sunday breakfast, a bag of potato chips.

“That kid must be earning a million dollars.” Mr. Quimby snuffed out his cigarette in a loaded ashtray. “He's singing that commercial every time I turn on the television.”

A boy Ramona's age earning a million dollars? Ramona was all interest. “How's he earning a million dollars?” she asked. She had often thought of all the things they could do if they had a million dollars, beginning with turning up the thermostat so they wouldn't have to wear sweaters in the house to save fuel oil.

Mr. Quimby explained. “They make a movie of him singing the commercial, and every time the movie is shown on television he gets paid. It all adds up.”

Well! This was a new idea to Ramona. She thought it over as she got out her crayons and paper and knelt on a chair at the kitchen table. Singing a song about hamburgers would not be hard to do. She could do it herself. Maybe she could earn a million dollars like that boy so her father would be fun again, and everyone at school would watch her on television and say, “There's Ramona Quimby. She goes to our school.” A million dollars would buy a cuckoo clock for every room in the house, her father wouldn't need a job, the family could go to Disneyland….

“Forget your pots, forget your pans,” Ramona began to sing, as she drew a picture of a hamburger and stabbed yellow dots across the top of the bun for sesame seeds. With a million dollars the Quimbys could eat in a restaurant every day if they wanted to.

After that Ramona began to watch for children on television commercials. She saw a boy eating bread and margarine when a crown suddenly appeared on his head with a fanfare—ta-
da
!—of music. She saw a girl who asked, “Mommy, wouldn't it be nice if caramel apples grew on trees?” and another girl who took a bite of cereal said, “It's good, hm-um,” and giggled. There was a boy who asked at the end of a weiner commercial, “Dad, how do you tell a boy hot dog from a girl hot dog?” and a girl who tipped her head to one side and said, “Pop-pop-pop,” as she listened to her cereal. Children crunched potato chips, chomped on pickles, gnawed at fried chicken. Ramona grew particularly fond of the curly-haired little girl saying to her mother at the zoo, “Look, Mommy, the elephant's legs are wrinkled just like your pantyhose.” Ramona could say all those things.

Ramona began to practice. Maybe someone would see her and offer her a million dollars to make a television commercial. On her way to school, if her friend Howie did not walk with her, she tipped her head to one side and said, “Pop-pop-pop.” She said to herself, “M-m-m, it's good,” and giggled. Giggling wasn't easy when she didn't have anything to giggle about, but she worked at it. Once she practiced on her mother by asking, “Mommy, wouldn't it be nice if caramel apples grew on trees?” She had taken to calling her mother Mommy lately, because children on commercials always called their mothers Mommy.

Mrs. Quimby's absentminded answer was, “Not really. Caramel is bad for your teeth.” She was wearing slacks so Ramona could not say the line about pantyhose.

Since the Quimbys no longer bought potato chips or pickles, Ramona found other foods—toast and apples and carrot sticks—to practice good loud crunching on. When they had chicken for dinner, she smacked and licked her fingers.

“Ramona,” said Mr. Quimby, “your table manners grow worse and worse. Don't eat so noisily. My grandmother used to say, ‘A smack at the table is worth a smack on the bottom.'”

Ramona, who did not think she would have liked her father's grandmother, was embarrassed. She had been practicing to be on television, and she had forgotten her family could hear.

Ramona continued to practice until she began to feel as if a television camera was watching her wherever she went. She smiled a lot and skipped, feeling that she was cute and lovable. She felt as if she had fluffy blond curls, even though in real life her hair was brown and straight.

One morning, smiling prettily, she thought, and swinging her lunch box, Ramona skipped to school. Today someone might notice her because she was wearing her red tights. She was happy because this was a special day, the day of Ramona's parent-teacher conference. Since Mrs. Quimby was at work, Mr. Quimby was going to meet with Mrs. Rogers, her second-grade teacher. Ramona was proud to have a father who would come to school.

Feeling dainty, curly-haired, and adorable, Ramona skipped into her classroom, and what did she see but Mrs. Rogers with wrinkles around her ankles. Ramona did not hesitate. She skipped right over to her teacher and, since there did not happen to be an elephant in Room 2, turned the words around and said, “Mrs. Rogers, your pantyhose are wrinkled like an elephant's legs.”

Mrs. Rogers looked surprised, and the boys and girls who had already taken their seats giggled. All the teacher said was, “Thank you, Ramona, for telling me. And remember, we do not skip inside the school building.”

Ramona had an uneasy feeling she had displeased her teacher.

She was sure of it when Howie said, “Ramona, you sure weren't very polite to Mrs. Rogers.” Howie, a serious thinker, was usually right.

Suddenly Ramona was no longer an adorable little fluffy-haired girl on television. She was plain old Ramona, a second grader whose own red tights bagged at the knee and wrinkled at the ankle. This wasn't the way things turned out on television. On television grown-ups always smiled at everything children said.

During recess Ramona went to the girls' bathroom and rolled her tights up at the waist to stretch them up at the knee and ankle. Mrs. Rogers must have done the same thing to her pantyhose, because after recess her ankles were smooth. Ramona felt better.

That afternoon, when the lower grades had been dismissed from their classrooms, Ramona found her father, along with Davy's mother, waiting outside the door of Room 2 for their conferences with Mrs. Rogers. Davy's mother's appointment was first, so Mr. Quimby sat down on a chair outside the door with a folder of Ramona's schoolwork to look over. Davy stood close to the door, hoping to hear what his teacher was saying about him. Everybody in Room 2 was anxious to learn what the teacher said.

Mr. Quimby opened Ramona's folder. “Run along and play on the playground until I'm through,” he told his daughter.

“Promise you'll tell me what Mrs. Rogers says about me,” said Ramona.

Mr. Quimby understood. He smiled and gave his promise.

Outside, the playground was chilly and damp. The only children who lingered were those whose parents had conferences, and they were more interested in what was going on inside the building than outside. Bored, Ramona looked around for something to do, and because she could find nothing better, she followed a traffic boy across the street. On the opposite side, near the market that had been built when she was in kindergarten, she decided she had time to explore. In a weedy space at the side of the market building, she discovered several burdock plants that bore a prickly crop of brown burs, each covered with sharp, little hooks.

Ramona saw at once that burs had all sorts of interesting possibilities. She picked two and stuck them together. She added another and another. They were better than Tinker-toys. She would have to tell Howie about them. When she had a string of burs, each clinging to the next, she bent it into a circle and stuck the ends together. A crown! She could make a crown. She picked more burs and built up the circle by making peaks all the way around like the crown the boy wore in the magarine commercial. There was only one thing to do with a crown like that. Ramona crowned herself—ta-
da
!—like the boy on television.

Prickly though it was, Ramona enjoyed wearing the crown. She practiced looking surprised, like the boy who ate the margarine, and pretended she was rich and famous and about to meet her father, who would be driving a big shiny car bought with the million dollars she had earned.

The traffic boys had gone off duty. Ramona remembered to look both ways before she crossed the street, and as she crossed she pretended people were saying, “There goes that rich girl. She earned a million dollars eating margarine on TV.”

Mr. Quimby was standing on the playground, looking for Ramona. Forgetting all she had been pretending, Ramona ran to him. “What did Mrs. Rogers say about me?” she demanded.

“That's some crown you've got there,” Mr. Quimby remarked.

“Daddy, what did she
say?
” Ramona could not contain her impatience.

Mr. Quimby grinned. “She said you were impatient.”

Oh, that. People were always telling Ramona not to be so impatient. “What else?” asked Ramona, as she and her father walked toward home.

“You are a good reader, but you are careless about spelling.”

Ramona knew this. Unlike Beezus, who was an excellent speller, Ramona could not believe spelling was important as long as people could understand what she meant. “What else?”

“She said you draw unusually well for a second grader and your printing is the best in the class.”

“What else?”

Mr. Quimby raised one eyebrow as he looked down at Ramona. “She said you were inclined to show off and you sometimes forget your manners.”