Ramona the Brave (6 page)

“Mama!” cried Ramona. “Do I
have
to?”

“Yes, Ramona, you do.” Mrs. Quimby leaned over and kissed Ramona good-night.

“But, Mama, it isn't fair! Susan is a copycat and a tattletale.”

Mrs. Quimby sighed again. “Maybe so, but that does not give you the right to destroy her property.”

Mr. Quimby kissed Ramona good-night. “Chin up, old girl,” he said. “It will all come out in the wash.”

As her family left her room, Ramona heard Beezus say, “Mrs. Griggs always was big on apologies.”

Ramona lay in bed with her thoughts as jumbled as a bag of jacks. Susan's property was just an old paper bag, and who cared about an old paper bag. Susan cared, that's who cared. Ramona could not escape the truth. Why was everything so mixed up? When school had started, Ramona was friends with Susan, and now look at what happened. Ramona had spoiled everything. Ramona always spoiled everything. Ramona, finding gloomy comfort in thinking how bad she was, fell asleep.

The next morning as Ramona left for school, she asked her mother what she could say to Susan.

“Just say ‘I'm sorry I spoiled your owl,'” said Mrs. Quimby. “And Ramona—try to stay out of mix-ups after this.”

The wind had changed in the night, some rain had fallen, and the air was clean and cool. Ramona's feet felt heavy as she walked through soggy leaves. How could she stay out of mix-ups when she never knew what would suddenly turn into a mix-up? She plodded on, as if she were wading through glue, and when she reached the schoolyard, she stood quietly watching Miss Binney's carefree kindergartners chase one another. How young and lighthearted she had been a year ago! Miss Binney waved, and Ramona waved back without smiling.

When the bell rang, Ramona walked in dread to Room One, where she took her seat without looking at Susan. Perhaps Mrs. Griggs was so busy with her plans for seat work that she would forget about the owl.

Ramona should have known better. Quite unexpectedly, in the midst of Show and Tell, Mrs. Griggs said, “Ramona has something to say to us.”

Ramona was startled. “But I didn't bring anything to show today,” she said.

“You have something to say to Susan,” Mrs. Griggs reminded her. “Come to the front of the room.”

Ramona was horrified. Now? In front of the whole class? Room One turned and looked at Ramona.

“We're waiting,” said Mrs. Griggs.

Ramona felt as if she were walking on someone else's feet. They carried her to the front of the room, even though she did not want them to. There she stood thinking, I won't! I won't! while trapped by twenty-five pairs of eyes. Twenty-six, counting Mrs. Griggs. Her cheeks were hot. Her eyes were too dry for tears, and her mouth too dry for words. The silence was terrible. The click of the electric clock finishing off a minute. Ramona looked desperately at Mrs. Griggs, who smiled an encouraging but unyielding smile. There was no way out.

Ramona looked at the toes of her sandals, noticed that the new had worn off, and after swallowing managed to speak in a small, unhappy voice. “I'm sorry I scrunched Susan's owl.”

“Thank you, Ramona,” said Mrs. Griggs gently.

Ramona returned to her seat. The look on Susan's face was too much to bear. Old goody-goody Susan. Ramona glared and added to her apology in a furious whisper, “Even if you are a copycat who—
stinks
!”

Mrs. Griggs did not notice because she was saying, “Class, open your arithmetic workbooks to page ten. Who can tell me how many mittens are in the picture at the top of the page?”

The room hummed with whispers as mittens were counted. Susan's cheeks were red beneath her
boing-boing
curls. She was not counting mittens.

Ramona was fiercely glad she had upset Susan so much she was unable to count mittens.

“Seven mittens.” Several people spoke at the same time.

“Seven is correct,” said Mrs. Griggs. “But let's remember to raise our hands. Now pretend three mittens are lost. How many are left?”

Ramona was not counting mittens either. She looked at Mrs. Griggs, standing there in her pale green sweater with a wisp of hair hanging in front of each ear. She was always so calm. Ramona liked people who got excited. She would rather have a teacher angry with her than one who stood there being calm.

Mrs. Griggs, finished with mittens, had the class counting balloons. Unexcited Mrs. Griggs. Mrs. Griggs who did not understand. Mrs. Griggs who went on and on about counting and adding and taking away, and on and on about Tom and Becky and their dog Pal and their cat Fluff, who could run, run, run and come, come, come. Mrs. Griggs, always calm, never raising her voice, everything neat, everything orderly with no paste wasted.

Ramona wished she could run, run, run out of that classroom as she had the day before and never come back.

R
amona did not run away. Where could she run to? She had no place to go. Each of her days seemed to plod along more slowly than the day before. Every morning Mrs. Quimby looked out the window at the rain dripping from the trees and said, “Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day.” The weather paid no attention. Ramona, who could not wear sandals in such weather, now had to wear oxfords and a pair of Beezus's old boots to school, because she had outgrown her red boots during the summer. Mrs. Griggs wore the same sweater, the color of split-pea soup, day after day. Ramona did not like split-pea soup. Ramona never got to lead the flag salute or be scissors monitor. Number combinations. Reading circles. Bologna sandwiches and chocolate-chip cookies from the store in her lunch three times in one week.

One day the reading workbook showed a picture of a chair with a wrinkled slipcover. Beneath the picture were two sentences. “This is for Pal.” “This is not for Pal.” Ramona circled “This is for Pal,” because she decided Tom and Becky's mother had put a slipcover on the chair so that Pal could lie on it without getting the chair dirty. Mrs. Griggs came along and put a big red check mark over her answer. “Read every word, Ramona,” she said, which Ramona thought was unfair. She
had
read every word.

Ramona dreaded school because she felt Mrs. Griggs did not like her, and she did not enjoy spending the whole day in a room with someone who did not like her, especially when that person was in charge.

Ramona's days were bad, but her nights were worse. At eight o'clock she sat very, very still on a chair in the corner of the living room with an open book, one that Beezus had read, on her lap. If she did not move, if she did not make a sound, her mother might forget to tell her to go to bed, and more than anything in the world Ramona did not want to go to bed. She pretended to read, she even tried to read, but she could not understand the story, because she had to skip some of the most important words. She was bored and uncomfortable from sitting so still, but anything was better than going off alone to her new room. The nights her father went bowling were worst of all, and this was one of those nights.

“Isn't it time for Ramona to go to bed?” asked Beezus.

Ramona would not allow herself to say, Shut up, Beezus, because doing so would call attention to herself. She lifted her eyes to the clock on the mantel. Eight sixteen. Eight seventeen.

Beezus, always her mother's girl, went into the kitchen to help prepare lunches for the next day. Ramona wanted something besides a bologna sandwich in her lunch, but she knew that if she spoke, she risked being sent to bed. Eight eighteen.

“Ramona, it's past your bedtime,” Mrs. Quimby called from the kitchen. Ramona did not budge. Eight nineteen. “Ramona!”

“As soon as I finish this chapter.”

“Now!”

What worked for Beezus would not work for Ramona. She closed her book and walked down the hall to the bathroom, where she drew her bath, undressed, and climbed into the tub. There she sat until Mrs. Quimby called out, “Ramona! No dawdling!”

Ramona got out, dried herself, and put on her pajamas. She remembered to dip her washcloth in the bathwater and wring it out before she let the water out of the tub. She brushed and brushed her teeth until her mother called through the door, “That's enough, Ramona!”

Ramona ran back to the living room and seized the unsuspecting Picky-picky asleep on Mr. Quimby's chair. “Picky-picky wants to sleep with me,” she said, lugging the cat in the direction of her room. Picky-picky did not agree. He struggled out of her arms and ran back to the chair, where he began to wash away the taint of Ramona's hands. Mean old Picky-picky. Ramona longed for a soft, comfortable, purring cat that would snuggle against her and make her feel safe. She wished Picky-picky would behave more like Fluff in her reader. Fluff was always willing to chase a ball of yarn or ride in a doll carriage.

“What time will Daddy be home?” asked Ramona.

“Around eleven,” answered her mother. “Now scoot.”

Hours and hours away. Ramona walked slowly down the hall and into her room, which smelled of fresh paint. She closed her new curtains, shutting out the dark eye of the night. She looked inside her closet to make sure Something was not hiding in the shadows before she slid the doors shut tight. She pushed her bed out from the wall so that Something reaching out from under the curtains or slithering around the wall might not find her. She picked up Pandy, her battered old panda bear, and tucked it into bed with its head on her pillow. Then she climbed into bed beside Pandy and pulled the blankets up under her chin.

In a moment Mrs. Quimby came to say good-night. “Why do you always push your bed out from the wall?” she asked and pushed it back.

“What do we do tomorrow?” asked Ramona, ashamed to admit she was afraid of the dark, ashamed to let her mother know she was no longer her brave girl, ashamed to confess she was afraid to sleep alone in the room she had wanted so much. If she told her mother how she felt, she would probably be given the old room, which would be the same as saying she was failing at the job of growing up.

“We are doing the usual,” answered Mrs. Quimby. “School for you and Beezus, work for Daddy and me.”

Ramona hoped to hold her mother a little longer. “Mama, why doesn't Picky-picky like me?”

“Because he has grown grouchy in his old age and because you were rough with him when you were little. Now go to sleep.” Mrs. Quimby kissed Ramona and snapped off the light.

“Mama?”

“Yes, Ramona?”

“I—I forgot what I was going to say.”

“Good night, dear.”

“Mama, kiss Pandy too.”

Mrs. Quimby did as she was told. “Now that's enough stalling.”

Ramona was left alone in the dark. She said her prayers and then repeated them in case God was not listening the first time.

I will think good things, Ramona told herself, and in spite of her troubles she had good things to think about. After Ramona had to apologize to Susan, some members of Room One were especially nice to her because they felt Mrs. Griggs should not have made her apologize in front of the class. Howie had brought some of his bricks back, so they could play Brick Factory if it ever stopped raining. Linda, whose mother baked fancier cookies than any other Room One mother, shared butterscotch-fudge-nut cookies with Ramona. Even little Davy, who usually tried to avoid Ramona because she had tried to kiss him in kindergarten, tagged her when the class played games. Best of all, Ramona was actually learning to read. Words leaped out at her from the newspapers, signs, and cartons.
Crash
,
highway
,
salt
,
tires
. The world was suddenly full of words that Ramona could read.

Ramona had run out of good thoughts. She heard Beezus take her bath, get into bed, and turn out her light. She heard her mother set the table for breakfast, shut Picky-picky in the basement, and go to bed. If only her father would come home.

Ramona knew she could get away with going to the bathroom at least once. She stood up on her bed, and even though she knew it was not a safe thing to do, she leaped into the center of her room and ran into the hall before Something hiding under the bed could reach out and grab her ankles. On her way back she reversed her flying leap and landed on her bed, where she quickly pulled her covers up to her chin.

The moment Ramona dreaded had come. There was no one awake to protect her. Ramona tried to lie as flat and as still as a paper doll so that Something slithering under the curtains and slinking around the walls would not know she was there. She kept her eyes wide open. She longed for her father to come home; she was determined to stay awake until morning.

Ramona thought of Beezus safely asleep in the friendly dark of the room they had once shared. She thought of the way they used to whisper and giggle and sometimes scare themselves. Even their quarrels were better than being alone in the dark. She ached to move, to ease her muscles, rigid from lying still so long, but she dared not. She thought of the black gorilla with fierce little eyes in the book in her bookcase and tried to shove the thought out of her mind. She listened for cars on the wet street and strained her ears for the sound of a familiar motor. After what seemed like hours and hours, Ramona caught the sound of the Quimby car turning into the driveway. She went limp with relief. She heard her father unlock the back door and enter. She heard him pause by the thermostat to turn off the furnace. She heard him turn off the living-room light and tiptoe down the hall.

“Daddy!” whispered Ramona.

Her father stopped by her door. “You're supposed to be asleep.”

“Come here for just a minute.” Mr. Quimby stepped into Ramona's room. “Daddy, turn on the light a minute. Please.”

“It's late.” Mr. Quimby did as he was told.

The light, which made Ramona squint, was a relief. She held up her hand to shield her eyes. She was so glad to see her father standing there in his bowling clothes. He looked so good and so familiar and made her feel so safe. “Daddy, see that big book in my bookcase?”

“Yes.”

“Take it out of my room,” said Ramona. To herself, she thought, Please, Daddy, don't ask me why. She added, to protect herself from any questions, “It's a good book. I think you might like it.”

Mr. Quimby pulled the book from the bookcase, glanced at it, and then bent over and kissed Ramona on the forehead. “No more stalling, young lady,” he said. “You were supposed to be asleep hours ago.” He turned out the light and left, taking
Wild Animals of Africa
with him and leaving Ramona alone in the dark to worry about the mysterious noises made by an old house cooling off for the night. She wondered how much of the six months was left before she could return to her old room. She lay as flat and as still as a paper doll while she listened to her father splashing in the shower. Ramona had to think about her eyelids to force them to stay open. Her father got into bed. Her parents were whispering, probably talking about her, saying, What are we going to do about Ramona, always getting into trouble! Even her teacher doesn't like her. Everyone was asleep but Ramona, whose eyelids grew heavier and heavier and heavier. She was afraid of the dark, but she would not give up the new room. Only babies were afraid to sleep alone.

The next morning, as Ramona took her sandwiches out of the refrigerator and put them in her lunch box, Mrs. Quimby asked, “Does your throat feel all right?”

“Yes,” answered Ramona crossly.

“Sore throats are going around,” said Mrs. Quimby. Since she had gone to work in the pediatrician's office, she looked for symptoms in her daughters. Last week it had been chicken-pox spots, and the week before, swollen glands.

“Mama, I had a bad dream last night.”

“What did you dream?”

“Something was chasing me, and I couldn't run.” The dream was still vivid in Ramona's mind. She had been standing at the corner of the house where the zinnias used to be. She knew something terrible was about to come around the corner of the house to get her. She stood as if frozen, unable to lift her feet from the grass. She had been terrified in her dream and yet the yard had looked clear and bright. The grass was green, the zinnias blooming in shades of pink and orange and scarlet, so real Ramona felt she could have touched them.

Beezus was rinsing her cereal bowl under the kitchen faucet. “Ugh, that old dream,” she remarked. “I've had it several times, and it's awful.”

“You did not!” Ramona was indignant. Her dream was her own, not something passed down from Beezus like an old dress or old rain boots. “You're just saying that.”

“I did too have it.” Beezus shrugged off the dream as of little importance. “Everybody has that dream.”

“Ramona, are you sure you feel all right?” asked Mrs. Quimby. “You seem a little cranky this morning.”