Ramona and Her Mother (8 page)

“Yes, Mother,” said Beezus.

Ramona felt like yelling, Stop it, both of you! She tried to think of interesting things to talk about at the dinner table to make her family forget about hair.

One evening, to distract her family from hair, Ramona was telling how her teacher had explained that the class should not be afraid of big words because big words were often made up of little words:
dishcloth
meant a cloth for washing dishes and
pancake
meant a cake cooked in a pan.

“But I bake cakes in pans—or used to—and this does not make them pancakes,” Mrs. Quimby pointed out. “If I bake an angelfood cake in a pan, it is not a pancake.”

“I know,” said Ramona. “I don't understand it because
carpet
does not mean a pet that rides in a car. Picky-picky is not a carpet when we take him to the vet.” At this example her parents laughed, which pleased Ramona until she noticed that Beezus was neither laughing nor listening.

Beezus took a deep breath. “Mother,” she said in a determined way that told Ramona her sister was about to say something her mother might not like. The words came out in a rush. “Some of the girls at school get their hair cut at Robert's School of Hair Design. People who are learning to cut hair do the work, but a teacher watches to see that they do it right. It doesn't cost as much as a regular beauty shop. I've saved my allowance, and there's this lady named Dawna who is really good and can cut hair so it looks like that girl who ice skates on TV. You know, the one with the hair that sort of floats when she twirls around and then falls in place when she stops. Please, Mother, I have enough money saved.” When Beezus had finished this speech she sat back in her chair with an anxious, pleading expression on her face.

Mrs. Quimby, who had looked tense when Beezus first began to speak, relaxed. “That seems reasonable. Where is Robert's School of Hair Design?”

“In that new shopping center on the other side of town,” Beezus explained. “Please, Mother, I'll do anything you want if you'll let me go.”

Ramona did not take this promise seriously.

In the interests of family peace, Mrs. Quimby relented. “All right,” she said with a small sigh. “But I'll have to drive you over. If you can hold out until Saturday, we'll go see what Dawna can do about your hair after I drive your father to work.”

“Oh, thank you, Mother!” Beezus looked happier than she had since the beginning of the great hair argument.

Ramona was pleased, too, even though she knew she would have to be dragged along. Peace in the family was worth a boring morning.

Saturday turned out to be cold, raw, and wet. Ramona despaired of ever using her roller skates. The Quimbys hurried through breakfast, stacked the dishes in the sink, piled into the car and drove off, windshield wipers flopping furiously, to deliver Mr. Quimby to the ShopRite Market. Ramona, resigned to a tiresome morning, could feel Beezus's excitement and see how tightly she clutched her allowance in the drawstring bag she had crocheted.

When Mr. Quimby had been dropped off at the market, Beezus joined her mother in the front seat. She always gets to sit in the front seat, thought Ramona.

Mrs. Quimby started up the on-ramp to the freeway that cut the city in two. “Beezus, watch for the signs. I have to keep my eyes on my driving,” she directed.

Ramona thought, I can read, too, if the words aren't too long.

Mrs. Quimby looked back over her shoulder for a space in which to merge with the heavy morning traffic. A space came down the freeway, and Mrs. Quimby managed to fit the car into it. In no time they were crossing the river, which looked cold and gray between the black girders of the bridge. Green signs spanned the freeway.

“Do I turn left?” asked Mrs. Quimby, uncertain of the way to the shopping center.

“Right,” said Beezus.

Mrs. Quimby turned right onto the off-ramp.

“Mother,” cried Beezus. “You were supposed to turn left.”

“Then why did you tell me to turn right?” Mrs. Quimby sounded angry.

“You asked if you should turn left,” said Beezus, “and I meant, ‘Right, you should turn left.'”

“After this, use your head,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Now how do I get back on the freeway?” She drove through a maze of unfamiliar one-way streets looking for an on-ramp sign. Finally she asked for directions from a man at a service station. He looked disagreeable because he had to come out in the rain.

Ramona sighed. The whole world seemed gray and cross, and it was most unfair that she should have to be dragged along on a dreary ride just because Beezus wanted her hair cut by Dawna. Her mother would never go to all this trouble for Ramona's hair. Huddled in the back seat, she began to feel carsick. The Quimby car, which they had bought from someone who had owned a large dog, began to smell like a dog. “Oh-h,” moaned Ramona, feeling sick. She thought about the oatmeal she had eaten for breakfast and quickly tried not to think about it.

Mrs. Quimby glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Are you all right, Ramona?” Her voice was anxious.

Ramona did not answer. She was afraid to open her mouth.

“I think she's going to upchuck,” said Beezus, who, since she was in the seventh grade, said
upchuck
instead of
throw up
. She felt the new word was more sophisticated.

“Hang on, Ramona!” said Mrs. Quimby. “I can't stop on the freeway, and there's no way to get off.”

“Mother!” cried Beezus. “She's turning green!”

“Ramona, open the window and hang on!” ordered Mrs. Quimby.

Ramona was too miserable to move. Beezus understood. She unbuckled her seat belt, which buzzed angrily. “Oh, shut up,” she said to her seat belt as she leaned over and lowered a window for Ramona.

Cold air swept away the doggy smell, and drops of rain against her face made Ramona feel better, but she kept her mouth shut and did not move. Hanging on was not easy.

“How did I ever get into this?” Mrs. Quimby wondered aloud as she turned onto the off-ramp that led from the freeway.

When the haircut expedition finally reached the shopping center and parked near Robert's School of Hair Design, the three Quimbys splashed through the rain. Ramona, who had quickly recovered when the car stopped, found a certain grim pleasure in stomping in puddles with her boots.

After the cold, the air inside the beauty school seemed too warm and too fragrant. Pee-you, thought Ramona as she listened to running water, snipping scissors, and the hushed roar of hair dryers.

A man, probably Robert himself, asked, “What can I do to help you ladies?” as perspiring Ramona began to wiggle out of her car coat.

Beezus was suddenly shy. “I—I would like Dawna to cut my hair,” she said in almost a whisper.

“Dawna graduated last week,” said Robert, glancing behind the screen that hid the activity of the school, “but Lester can take you.”

“Go ahead,” said Mrs. Quimby, answering Beezus's questioning eyes. “You want your hair cut.”

When Robert asked for payment in advance, Beezus pulled open her crocheted bag and unfolded the bills she had saved. As Robert led her behind the screen, Mrs. Quimby sank with a little sigh into one of the plastic chairs and picked up a shabby magazine. Ramona tried to amuse herself by drawing pictures with her toe in the damp and muddy spots their boots had left on the linoleum.

“Ramona, please don't do that,” said Mrs. Quimby, glancing up from her magazine.

Ramona flopped back in a chair and sighed. Her booted feet were beginning to feel hot. To pass the time, she studied pictures of hair styles mounted on the wall. “Is Beezus going to look like
that
?” she whispered.

Mrs. Quimby glanced up again. “I hope not,” she whispered back.

Ramona peeked behind the screen and reported to her mother. “A man is washing Beezus's hair, and she's lying back with her head in a sink. He's using gobs of shampoo. He's wasting it.”

“Mm-mm.” Mrs. Quimby did not raise her eyes from the magazine. Ramona twisted her head to see what her mother found so interesting. Recipes.

Ramona returned for another look. “He's rubbing her hair with a towel,” she reported.

“Mm-mm.” Ramona disliked her mother's mm-mming. She walked quietly behind the screen to watch. Lester was studying Beezus's hair, one lock at a time, while a woman, probably a teacher, watched.

“Ramona, come back here,” Mrs. Quimby whispered from the edge of the screen.

Once more Ramona flopped down in the plastic chair and swung her legs back and forth. How nice it would be if she could have her hair shampooed, too. She raised her eyebrows as high as she could to make her bangs look longer and thought of her quarter, two nickels, and eight pennies at home in a Q-tip box.

“Little girl, would you like to have your hair cut?” asked Robert, as if he had read her mind—or was tired of watching her swing her legs.

Ramona stopped swinging her legs and answered politely, “No, thank you. We are scrimping and pinching to make ends meet.” Using “scrimping and pinching” made her feel grown up.

An exasperated sigh escaped Mrs. Quimby. She glanced at her watch. Beezus's haircut was taking longer than she had planned.

“Haircuts for children under ten are half price,” said Robert, “and no waiting. We aren't very busy on a wet morning like this.”

Mrs. Quimby studied Ramona's hair while Ramona tried to push her eyebrows still higher. “All right, Ramona,” she said. “Your hair does need cutting again, and it will help to have one more Saturday chore out of the way.”

In a moment Ramona found herself draped with a poodle-printed plastic sheet and lying back with her hair buried under mounds of lather while a young woman named Denise rubbed her scalp. Such bliss! Washing hair at home was never like this. No soap in her eyes, no having to complain that the water was too hot or too cold, no bumping her head on the kitchen faucet while her knees ached from kneeling on a chair, no one telling her to stop wiggling, no water dribbling down her neck. The shampoo was over much too soon. Denise rubbed Ramona's hair with a towel and guided her to a chair in front of a mirror. On the other side of the row of mirrors, she could hear Beezus's hair being snipped with long pauses between snips.

“She's definitely the pixie type,” said the teacher to Denise.

Me? thought Ramona, surprised and pleased. Ramona the pixie sounded much nicer than Ramona the pest as she had so often been called by Beezus and her friends.

“A little off the bangs,” said the teacher, “and the ends tapered.”

Denise went to work. Her scissors flashed and snipped. Unlike Lester on the other side of the mirror, Denise was sure of what she was doing. Perhaps she had studied longer.

Ramona closed her eyes.
Snip-snip-snip
went her bangs. When she opened her eyes she was surprised to discover they were a tiny bit longer in the center of her forehead. Like the top of a heart, thought Ramona, like a valentine.

Denise lifted locks of wet hair between her fingers and snipped with flying scissors. Lift and snip, all the way around Ramona's head. Flicks of a comb, and Denise aimed a hand-held hair dryer at Ramona's head with one hand while she guided Ramona's hair into place with a brush held in the other. In no time Ramona's hair was dry. More flicks of the comb, the plastic sheet was whisked away, and there sat Ramona with shining hair neatly shaped to her head.

“Excellent,” said the teacher to Denise. “She looks adorable.”

Students who had no customers gathered around. Ramona could not believe the words she was hearing. “Darling.” “Cute as a bug.” “A real little pixie.” The dryer was humming on the other side of the mirror.

Ramona felt light and happy when she returned to her mother.

“Why, Ramona!” said Mrs. Quimby, laying aside her magazine. “Your hair looks lovely. So neat and shiny.”

Ramona couldn't stop smiling, she was so happy. She twitched her nose with joy.

But something made the smile on Mrs. Quimby's face fade. Ramona turned and stared at Beezus standing beside the screen. Her sister's hair had been teased and sprayed until it stood up three inches above her face. Her bangs were plastered in a curve across her forehead. Beezus did not look like an ice skater on television. She looked like an unhappy seventh-grade girl with forty-year-old hair.