Ramona and Her Father (4 page)

Beezus was in no mood to be reasonable. “Then how come Daddy can afford to smoke?” she demanded to know.

Ramona was astonished to hear her sister speak this way to her mother.

Mr. Quimby looked angry. “Young lady,” he said, and when he called Beezus young lady, Ramona knew her sister had better watch out. “Young lady, I've heard enough about that old tom cat and his food. My cigarettes are none of your business.”

Ramona expected Beezus to say she was sorry or maybe burst into tears and run to her room. Instead she pulled Picky-picky out from under the table and held him to her chest as if she were shielding him from danger. “They are too my business,” she informed her father. “Cigarettes can kill you. Your lungs will turn black and you'll
die
! We made posters about it at school. And besides, cigarettes pollute the air!”

Ramona was horrified by her sister's daring, and at the same time she was a tiny bit pleased. Beezus was usually well-behaved while Ramona was the one who had tantrums. Then she was struck by the meaning of her sister's angry words and was frightened.

“That's enough out of you,” Mr. Quimby told Beezus, “and let me remind you that if you had shut that cat in the basement as you were supposed to, this would never have happened.”

Mrs. Quimby quietly stowed the remains of the jack-o'-lantern in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.

Beezus opened the basement door and gently set Picky-picky on the top step. “Nighty-night,” she said tenderly.

“Young lady,” began Mr. Quimby. Young lady again! Now Beezus was really going to catch it. “You are getting altogether too big for your britches lately. Just be careful how you talk around this house.”

Still Beezus did not say she was sorry. She did not burst into tears. She simply stalked off to her room.

Ramona was the one who burst into tears. She didn't mind when she and Beezus quarreled. She even enjoyed a good fight now and then to clear the air, but she could not bear it when anyone else in the family quarreled, and those awful things Beezus said—were they true?

“Don't cry, Ramona.” Mrs. Quimby put her arm around her younger daughter. “We'll get another pumpkin.”

“B-but it won't be as big,” sobbed Ramona, who wasn't crying about the pumpkin at all. She was crying about important things like her father being cross so much now that he wasn't working and his lungs turning black and Beezus being so disagreeable when before she had always been so polite (to grown-ups) and anxious to do the right thing.

“Come on, let's all go to bed and things will look brighter in the morning,” said Mrs. Quimby.

“In a few minutes.” Mr. Quimby picked up a package of cigarettes he had left on the kitchen table, shook one out, lit it, and sat down, still looking angry.

Were his lungs turning black this very minute? Ramona wondered. How would anybody know, when his lungs were inside him? She let her mother guide her to her room and tuck her in bed.

“Now don't worry about your jack-o'lantern. We'll get another pumpkin. It won't be as big, but you'll have your jack-o'-lantern.” Mrs. Quimby kissed Ramona good-night.

“Nighty-night,” said Ramona in a muffled voice. As soon as her mother left, she hopped out of bed and pulled her old panda bear out from under the bed and tucked it under the covers beside her for comfort. The bear must have been dusty because Ramona sneezed.

“Gesundheit!”
said Mr. Quimby, passing by her door. “We'll carve another jack-o'-lantern tomorrow. Don't worry.” He was not angry with Ramona.

Ramona snuggled down with her dusty bear. Didn't grown-ups think children worried about anything but jack-o'-lanterns? Didn't they know children worried about grown-ups?

T
he Quimbys said very little at breakfast the next morning. Beezus was moody and silent. Mrs. Quimby, in her white uniform, was in a hurry to leave for work. Picky-picky resentfully ate a few bites of Puss-puddy. Mr. Quimby did not say, “I told you he would eat it when he was really hungry,” but the whole family was thinking it. He might as well have said it.

Ramona wished her family would cheer up. When they had finished eating, she found herself alone with her father.

“Bring me an ashtray, please,” said Mr. Quimby. “That's a good girl.”

Reluctantly Ramona brought the ashtray and, with her face rigid with disapproval, watched her father light his after-breakfast cigarette.

“Why so solemn?” he asked as he shook out the flame of the match.

“Is it true what Beezus said?” Ramona demanded.

“About what?” asked Mr. Quimby.

Ramona had a feeling her father really knew what she meant. “About smoking will make your lungs turn black,” she answered.

Mr. Quimby blew a puff of smoke toward the ceiling. “I expect to be one of those old men with a long gray beard who has his picture in the paper on his hundredth birthday and who tells reporters he owes his long life to cigarettes and whiskey.”

Ramona was not amused. “Daddy”—her voice was stern—“you are just being silly again.”

Her father took a deep breath and blew three smoke rings across the table, a most unsatisfactory answer to Ramona.

 

On the way to school Ramona cut across the lawn for the pleasure of leaving footprints in the dew and then did not bother to look back to see where she had walked. Instead of running or skipping, she trudged. Nothing was much fun anymore when her family quarreled and then was silent at breakfast and her father's lungs were turning black from smoke.

Even though Mrs. Rogers announced, “Today our second grade is going to have fun learning,” as she wrote the date on the black-board, school turned out to be dreary because the class was having Review again. Review meant boredom for some, like Ramona, because they had to repeat what they already knew, and worry for others, like Davy, because they had to try again what they could not do in the first place. Review was the worst part of school. Ramona passed the morning looking through her workbook for words with double
o
's like
book
and
cook
. She carefully drew eyebrows over the
o
's and dots within, making the
o
's look like crossed eyes. Then she drew mouths with the ends turned down under the eyes. When she finished, she had a cross-looking workbook that matched her feelings.

She was in no hurry to leave the building at recess, but when she did, Davy yelled, “Look out! Here comes Ramona!” and began to run, so of course Ramona had to chase him around and around the playground until time to go inside again.

Running until she was hot and panting made Ramona feel so much better that she was filled with sudden determination. Her father's lungs were not going to turn black. She would not let them. Ramona made up her mind, right then and there in the middle of arithmetic, that she was going to save her father's life.

That afternoon after school Ramona gathered up her crayons and papers from the kitchen table, took them into her room, and shut the door. She got down on her hands and knees and went to work on the bedroom floor, printing a sign in big letters. Unfortunately, she did not plan ahead and soon reached the edge of the paper. She could not find the Scotch tape to fasten two pieces of paper together, so she had to continue on another line. When she finished, her sign read:

It would do. Ramona found a pin and fastened her sign to the living-room curtains, where her father could not miss it. Then she waited, frightened by her daring.

Mr. Quimby, although he must have seen the sign, said nothing until after dinner when he had finished his pumpkin pie. He asked for an ashtray and then inquired, “Say, who is this Mr. King?”

“What Mr. King?” asked Ramona, walking into his trap.

“Nosmo King,” answered her father without cracking a smile.

Chagrined, Ramona tore down her sign, crumpled it, threw it into the fireplace, and stalked out of the room, resolving to do better the next time.

The next day after school Ramona found the Scotch tape and disappeared into her room to continue work on her plan to save her father's life. While she was working, she heard the phone ring and waited, tense, as the whole family now waited whenever the telephone rang. She heard her father clear his throat before he answered. “Hello?” After a pause he said, “Just a minute, Howie. I'll call her.” There was disappointment in his voice. No one was calling to offer him a job after all.

“Ramona, can you come over and play?” Howie asked, when Ramona went to the telephone.

Ramona considered. Of course they would have to put up with Howie's messy little sister, Willa Jean, but she and Howie would have fun building things if they could think of something to build. Yes, she would like to play with Howie, but saving her father's life was more important. “No, thank you. Not today,” she said. “I have important work to do.”

Just before dinner she taped to the refrigerator door a picture of a cigarette so long she had to fasten three pieces of paper together to draw it. After drawing the cigarette, she had crossed it out with a big black
X
and under it she had printed in big letters the word
BAD
. Beezus giggled when she saw it, and Mrs. Quimby smiled as if she were trying not to smile. Ramona was filled with fresh courage. She had allies. Her father had better watch out.

When Mr. Quimby saw the picture, he stopped and looked while Ramona waited. “Hmm,” he said, backing away for a better view. “An excellent likeness. The artist shows talent.” And that was all he said.

Ramona felt let down, although she was not sure what she had expected. Anger, perhaps? Punishment? A promise to give up smoking?

The next morning the sign was gone, and that afternoon Ramona had to wait until Beezus came home from school to ask, “How do you spell
pollution
?” When Beezus printed it out on a piece of paper, Ramona went to work making a sign that said,
Stop Air Pollution
.

“Let me help,” said Beezus, and the two girls, kneeling on the floor, printed a dozen signs.
Smoking Stinks. Cigarettes Start Forest Fires. Smoking Is Hazardous to Your Health
. Ramona learned new words that afternoon.

Fortunately Mr. Quimby went out to examine the car, which was still making the
tappety-tappety
noise. This gave the girls a chance to tape the signs to the mantel, the refrigerator, the dining-room curtains, the door of the hall closet, and every other conspicuous place they could think of.

This time Mr. Quimby simply ignored the signs. Ramona and Beezus might as well have saved themselves a lot of work for all he seemed to notice. But how could he miss so many signs? He must be pretending. He had to be pretending. Obviously the girls would have to step up their campaign. By now they were running out of big pieces of paper, and they knew better than to ask their parents to buy more, not when the family was so short of money.

“We can make little signs on scraps of paper,” said Ramona, and that was what they did. Together they made tiny signs that said,
No Smoking, Stop Air Pollution, Smoking Is Bad for Your Health
, and
Stamp Out Cigarettes
. On some Ramona drew stick figures of people stretched out flat and dead, and on one, a cat on his back with his feet in the air. These they hid wherever their father was sure to find them—in his bathrobe pocket, fastened around the handle of his toothbrush with a rubber band, inside his shoes, under his electric razor.

Then they waited. And waited. Mr. Quimby said nothing while he continued to smoke. Ramona held her nose whenever she saw her father with a cigarette. He appeared not to notice. The girls felt discouraged and let down.

Once more Ramona and Beezus devised a plan, the most daring plan of all because they had to get hold of their father's cigarettes just before dinner. Fortunately he had tinkered with the car, still trying to find the reason for the
tappety-tappety-tap
, and had to take a shower before dinner, which gave the girls barely enough time to carry out their plan.

All through dinner the girls exchanged excited glances, and by the time her father asked her to fetch an ashtray, Ramona could hardly sit still she was so excited.

As usual her father pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. As usual he tapped the package against his hand, and as usual a cigarette, or what appeared to be a cigarette, slid out. Mr. Quimby must have sensed that what he thought was a cigarette was lighter than it should be, because he paused to look at it. While Ramona held her breath, he frowned, looked more closely, unrolled the paper, and discovered it was a tiny sign that said,
Smoking Is Bad!
Without a word, he crumpled it and pulled out another—he thought—cigarette, which turned out to be a sign saying,
Stamp Out Cigarettes!
Mr. Quimby crumpled it and tossed it onto the table along with the first sign.

“Ramona.” Mr. Quimby's voice was stern. “My grandmother used to say, ‘First time is funny, second time is silly—'” Mr. Quimby's grandmother's wisdom was interrupted by a fit of coughing.

Ramona was frightened. Maybe her father's lungs already had begun to turn black.

Beezus looked triumphant. See, we told you smoking was bad for you, she was clearly thinking.

Mrs. Quimby looked both amused and concerned.

Mr. Quimby looked embarrassed, pounded himself on the chest with his fist, took a sip of coffee, and said, “Something must have caught in my throat.” When his family remained silent, he said, “All right, Ramona. As I was saying, enough is enough.”

Ramona scowled and slid down in her chair. Nothing was ever fair for second graders. Beezus helped, but Ramona was getting all the blame. She also felt defeated. Nobody ever paid any attention to second graders except to scold them. No matter how hard she tried to save her father's life, he was not going to let her save it.

Ramona gave up, and soon found she missed the excitement of planning the next step in her campaign against her father's smoking. Her afternoons after school seemed empty. Howie was home with tonsillitis, and she had no one to play with. She wished there were more children her age in her neighborhood. She was so lonely she picked up the telephone and dialed the Quimbys' telephone number to see if she could answer herself. All she got was a busy signal and a reprimand from her father for playing with the telephone when someone might be trying to reach him about a job.

On top of all this, the family had pumpkin pie for dinner.

“Not
again
!” protested Beezus. The family had eaten pumpkin pie and pumpkin custard since the night the cat ate part of the jack-o'-lantern. Beezus had once told Ramona that she thought her mother had tried to hide pumpkin in the meat loaf, but she wasn't sure because everything was all ground up together.