Ramona and Her Mother (9 page)

Ramona did not know what to say. No one knew what to say except Robert. “You look lovely, dear,” he said, but no one answered. Beezus's face looked as stiff as her hair.

Ramona thought of the allowance Beezus had saved and wanted to shout at Robert, “She does not look lovely! My sister looks terrible!” For once she kept still. She felt sorry for her sister and sad about the allowance she had saved for so long, but deep inside, where she was ashamed of her feeling, she felt a tiny triumph. Ramona looked nicer than Beezus.

Ramona walked carefully to the car, not wanting to disturb her hair by running and hopping. Beezus walked in stony silence. When all three had buckled their seat belts, Beezus could no longer hold back her feelings. “Well, go ahead and say it!” she burst out in anger and in tears. “Tell me my hair looks terrible. Tell me my hair looks stiff and horrible, like a wig. A
cheap
wig!”

“Now Beezus.” Mrs. Quimby spoke gently.

“Well, it
does
! You know it does,” Beezus went on. “I tried to tell the man I didn't want my hair to stand up, but he said I would be pleased when he finished, and now I've wasted your whole morning and all my allowance. I look terrible and can't go to school because everyone will laugh at me.” She began to sob.

“Dear girl—” Mrs. Quimby took Beezus in her arms and let her weep against her shoulder.

Tears came into Ramona's eyes. She felt she could not bear her sister's unhappiness even if she did look nicer than Beezus. That awful stiff hair, the wasted allowance . . . Ramona no longer triumphed in looking nicer. She did not want to look nicer. She wanted them to look the same so people would say, There goes that nice-looking Beatrice Quimby and her nice-looking little sister.

“I j-just wanted to look nice.” Beezus's voice was muffled by her mother's coat. “I know th-that what I do is more important than how I look, but I just wanted to look nice.”

“Of course you do,” soothed Mrs. Quimby. “No matter what we say, we all want to look nice.”

Ramona sniffed, she felt so sad.

“And you will look nice,” Mrs. Quimby continued, “once you wash out all that hair spray and comb your hair. Don't forget Lester cut your hair, and that's what counts.”

Beezus raised her soggy tearstained face. “Do you really think it will look all right when it's washed?”

“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Quimby. “It just needs to be washed and combed.”

Beezus sat up and let out an exhausted sigh.

Mother and daughter had forgotten their adorable pixie buckled down in the corner of the back seat. Ramona hoped she could make it home without upchucking. She did not want to muss her hair.

A
s Mrs. Quimby had predicted, once Beezus washed her hair she looked like Beezus again. Because they were so glad to see her looking like a seventh grader, Ramona and her mother did not point out that her new haircut did not look much different from the cuts her mother had given her.

As for Ramona, for a few days grown-ups said, “Why, how nice your hair looks,” as if they were surprised that her hair could look nice.

Children asked, “How come your bangs are longer in the middle?”

“Because I'm a pixie,” Ramona answered, or sometimes, “because I'm a valentine.” In a few days everyone forgot about her hair, including Ramona.

Clearly Ramona's parents had something more important on their minds. At first Ramona did not know what it was. She heard long, serious conversations coming from their bedroom, and when she knelt by the furnace outlet to try to catch what they were saying, she could make out only a few words. “I don't . . . school . . . why don't . . . we could . . . teacher . . . school.” They sounded as if they might be arguing.

“I told you not to fight anymore!” Ramona yelled through the furnace pipes. There was a startled silence, then laughter from the bedroom. Afterward Ramona could hear only whispers.

Ramona decided her parents must be talking about her. What could they say about Beezus and school? Nothing. What could they say about Ramona and school? To begin with, there was her spelling. . . .

For a while Ramona expected her parents to have one of those little talks with her about really working at her spelling or being a better girl. When they did not, she put their conversations out of her mind and went back to twitching her nose, pretending she was her mother's little rabbit, warm and snug and loved like little bears and bunnies in the books her mother read to her at bedtime when she was little.

One evening, when Ramona had turned from a pixie into a rabbit, she held her feet close together and, twitching her nose, went hopping down the hall.
Thud. Thud. Thud
.

“Ramona, do you have to do that?” asked her mother, who was watching the evening news on television while she let down a hem on a dress for Beezus.

Ramona stopped being her mother's little rabbit, but she did not answer. Of course she did not have to hop. She wanted to. Her mother should know that.

Mrs. Quimby glanced up from her sewing. “Why, Ramona,” she remarked, “those pajamas are way too small for you.”

And so they were. Ramona, who had been outgrowing clothes all her life, discovered that the sleeves reached only halfway to her wrists, the legs halfway to her ankles, and the seat was too tight. Her pajamas had been washed so often that the fuzz had worn off the flannel.

“I have another pair put away for you,” said Mrs. Quimby. “I'll get them and you can change.”

“Did Beezus outgrow them?” Ramona was all too familiar with her mother's habit of putting away for Ramona the clothes that Beezus had outgrown several years before.

Mrs. Quimby went to the linen closet. “Not this time. I bought them on sale.” She handed Ramona a pair of white pajamas printed with colored balloons. They were so new they were still folded and pinned together.

Ramona quickly pulled out the pins and changed from too-small pajamas into too-big pajamas. The sleeves covered her hands, the legs rumpled around her ankles, and the seat bagged, but oh, how soft and warm and cozy they felt, like the fur of a baby rabbit.

“Just fold up the bottoms so you won't trip,” said Mrs. Quimby. “They'll shrink when they're washed, and you'll grow into them before you know it.”

Ramona did as she was told and discovered that, now that her pajamas were no longer tight, she could stoop lower and jump higher. Twitching her nose, she became a rabbit once more and
thump, thump, thumped
down the hall to bed, where she snuggled down, warm and cozy as a little rabbit in a nest, in the pajamas that had never been worn by her sister.

The next morning she awoke still feeling warm and cozy. She lay in bed, not wanting to take off the pajamas, they felt so good.

“Ramona, come along and eat your oatmeal while it's still hot,” her mother called to her.

Reluctantly Ramona got out of bed, dabbed a damp washcloth in the middle of her face, and, still in her pajamas, went to breakfast.

“Why, Ramona, you aren't even dressed.” Mrs. Quimby, having finished her breakfast, was rinsing her dishes. Mr. Quimby and Beezus were carrying theirs to the sink.

“Don't worry, Mother,” said Ramona. “I'm not going to school in my pajamas.” As soon as she had spoken Ramona thought how pleasant it would be if she could go to school in her pajamas and feel the soft fuzz against her skin all day.

“Don't dawdle.” Mr. Quimby kissed the top of Ramona's head and left for work. Ramona twitched her nose.

Ramona quickly ate her oatmeal—this was easy because oatmeal did not require much chewing—and as she ate she thought about wearing her pajamas to school. Suddenly she recalled seeing the kindergarten class in their red plastic fire hats trooping back from a visit to the fire station, which made her think of her own visit to the firehouse when she was in kindergarten and how she had loved her fire hat. For days afterward, whenever she found even two newspapers piled together, she had called her parents' attention to a fire hazard. She also recalled how astonished she had been to learn that firemen slept in their underwear so that they could jump out of bed and into their clothes if they were called out in the night. Of course, Ramona did not sleep in her underwear, but if she put her clothes on over her pajamas she could pretend to be a fireman anyway.

As Ramona rinsed her dishes she stopped being a rabbit and became a fireman. She raced down the hall and pulled her slacks on over her pajama bottoms. Fortunately, she was not really on her way to fight a fire because she had a hard time stuffing the folded-up legs into her slacks. Then she jerked on her turtleneck sweater over the pajama top. The knitted neck and wristbands hid the flannel nicely. Ramona felt stuffed, but cozy and warm. She remembered to brush her teeth and was ready for school. Like a fireman she pulled on her boots, grabbed her raincoat and hat, and raced into the kitchen for her lunch box.

“Bye, Mother,” she called out as she ran out the back door.

“Where's the fire?” her mother called after her.

How did she guess? Ramona wondered as she ran toward school. Then she decided her mother had not really guessed because she often asked where the fire was when Ramona was in a hurry.

A warm, misty spring rain was falling. Bits of green tipped the black branches of trees. Ramona slowed down to investigate crocus buds like tiny yellow and blue Easter eggs that were pushing up through a neighbor's lawn. Then she ran on as fast as she could in her stuffed condition, her mouth open, wailing like a fire engine, her boots clomping on the sidewalk. She paid no attention to the people walking to the bus stop who looked at her in surprise. Firemen must get awfully hot, thought Ramona, when she arrived panting and sweating at Glenwood School.

Ramona was glad to sit down on the floor of the cloakroom and pull off her boots. At least her feet felt cooler. She flopped down at her desk. Her face was flushed, and her pajamas no longer felt as soft as a baby rabbit. They were damp with sweat. Maybe pretending to be a fireman wasn't such a good idea after all, thought Ramona, and wondered if anyone would think she looked different. As it turned out, only Davy noticed because Davy always kept an eye on Ramona, who had been chasing him ever since kindergarten. “You look fat,” he said.

“I ate a big breakfast,” answered Ramona. Then she added, “Davy-in-the-gravy” to keep Davy quiet. She knew he did not like to be called Davy-in-the-gravy.

The classroom seemed unbearably hot, and her clothes felt as tight as the skin on a sausage. As Ramona stood for the flag salute, she wished she had something to unbutton. Later, as she bent over her workbook, she could not help trying to squirm inside her damp clothes.

Mrs. Rudge walked slowly up and down between the desks, looking over shoulders at workbooks. Ramona, finding it difficult to think about her work when she was so uncomfortable, noticed that Davy crooked his arm around his page and bent his head low to hide his work while Becky sat up straight so Mrs. Rudge would be sure to see how perfect her work was. “I like the way Davy keeps his eyes on his own work,” said Mrs. Rudge. Davy's ears turned pink with pleasure.

Ramona quickly lowered her eyes to her workbook and remembered that her parents had had more serious talks in their bedroom about school. What was wrong? she wondered again. Mrs. Rudge paused beside her desk to look, not at Ramona's workbook, but at Ramona whose pajamas felt so damp she thought they might be shrinking.

“Ramona, how do you feel this morning?” whispered Mrs. Rudge.

“Fine,” answered Ramona, trying to sound as if she spoke the truth.

“Your cheeks are very pink,” said Mrs. Rudge. “I think you had better go to the office and ask Mrs. Miller to take your temperature.”

“Now?” asked Ramona.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Rudge. “Run along.”

Ramona laid down her pencil and tried to look thin as she walked out of the room to a rustle of whispers from the class. What was the matter with Ramona? Was she sick? Would she have to be sent home?