Ramona's World Read online

  “See!” cried Daisy. “The wicked witch is going to shut the beautiful princess in the dark dungeon full of rats and feed her bread and water.” She grabbed Ramona and pushed her toward the closet within a closet.

  “No, she isn’t!” cried Ramona, twisting away from Daisy. “The princess is going to throw the witch in the dungeon and feed her cold oatmeal!”

  “Yuck,” gagged Daisy. She shoved Ramona. Ramona shoved back. One shoe fell off. Daisy pushed harder and shoved Ramona through the little door into the dim space beyond. Ramona, in one shoe, stepped on her pink dress, lost her balance, turned, grabbed at nothing, and stepped off the boards onto the lath and plaster. There was an ominous cracking sound beneath her feet.

  “Oh, no!” cried Daisy.

  “Help!” shouted Ramona as the lath began to break beneath her weight, and she found herself sinking. Daisy screamed. The lath made snapping sounds. The pink dress ripped. Ramona heard bits of plaster hitting something below and felt her legs being scratched as the pink dress bunched up around her waist. Her other shoe fell off and hit something downstairs with a thump. She heard Mrs. Kidd cry out, “Oh my!”

  Jeremy yelled, “Hey!” Mutley barked.

  Desperate, Ramona bent forward over the joist to stop her fall and searched frantically with her feet to find something to stand on. There was nothing, only air. Above her, rain pattered on the roof.

  “Ramona, hang on!” Daisy called out. “Jeremy, come quick!”

  “I’m hanging.” Ramona was terrified. The sharp edge of the joist was pressing into her waist and her legs were cold. She wondered how much longer she could hang on. What if there really were rats in the attic? Dust was everywhere. Ramona sneezed. Below, Mutley barked harder, as if he were warning off an intruder. “Hurry,” she wailed. On the television a referee blew a whistle and a crowd roared.

  “They’re coming,” cried equally terrified Daisy, grabbing at the back of the pink dress. Thumping feet were heard on the stairs.

  In a moment Jeremy pushed his sister aside and, standing on the boards, seized Ramona under the arms and tugged. “Dumb kids” was his comment.

  “Ow,” said Ramona. Jeremy tugged harder and managed to pull her out of the hole she had made. “Yow!” escaped from Ramona even though she was grateful to be rescued. As she was pulled out of the hole, she had a glimpse below of the dining room table covered with rubble.

  “Oh, you poor child.” Mrs. Kidd was filled with sympathy, concern, and relief.

  Ramona was so glad to be standing on the hard floor with the remains of the pink dress heaped around her feet that she began to cry.

  Mrs. Kidd hugged her and murmured, “There, there. You’re safe now. Everything is all right.”

  “No, it isn’t,” wept Ramona. “I made a big hole in the floor—ceiling—”

  “Whatever,” said Jeremy, and left the room to clump down to the television set.

  “Thank you,” sniffled Ramona, remembering her manners even though Jeremy had left. “You saved my life.” She began to cry harder. She had broken the ceiling and could never come to the Kidds’ house again and she and Daisy couldn’t be best friends and she would be left with Howie and messy old Willa Jean to play with and—

  “Daisy, find Ramona some Kleenex,” said Mrs. Kidd. Daisy produced a box from her dresser. Ramona mopped her nose and eyes as Mrs. Kidd helped her down the stairs.

  “I’ll get her pants,” said Daisy.

  Downstairs, in the bathroom, Mrs. Kidd pulled off the pink dress. “Oh, my dear—” she said when she saw Ramona’s legs. She began to clean the scratches with cotton and stinging liquid from a bottle. Then she covered them with Band-Aids, all sizes. When she had finished, Ramona gave a final sniff. Mrs. Kidd washed her face, kissed her, and said, “There. You’re as good as new.”

  A fresh worry, paying for the damage, crept into Ramona’s mind. Payday, the checks her mother wrote to pay bills, taxes, and all those grown-up things whirled around in her mind.

  “That was some hole you made,” said Jeremy as she and Mrs. Kidd went into the living room, where Clawed was peeking out from under the couch. Mutley, his tail drooping, looked anxious.

  Ramona suddenly had a new thought. If Daisy hadn’t been trying to shut her in a dungeon, none of this would have happened. Maybe it was Daisy’s fault. Maybe she should be angry with Daisy. She was confused. She didn’t want to be angry with her best friend. Still . . . she didn’t know what to think.

  Only then did Ramona gather her courage to look toward the dining room, where she saw in the ceiling a dark hole edged with broken lath and bits of plaster. The dining room table was covered with dust, rubble, and, in the midst of the mess, one high-heeled sandal. And the table had been set for—this made Ramona feel really bad—five places, one for her. Suddenly she didn’t want to stay for dinner. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be home with her own mother comforting her for her scratches and for the loss of her best friend. She looked at Daisy, wanting to say, It was all your fault for pushing me, but she did not say it, not in front of Mrs. Kidd. She would wait until school Monday and then she would—

  Mrs. Kidd put her arm around Ramona. “Would you rather not stay for dinner?” she asked. Ramona nodded. “Then come along,” said Mrs. Kidd. “I’ll have you home in a jiffy.”

  “Ramona—” Daisy was blinking back tears. “It was all my fault. I—I shouldn’t have pushed.”

  Ramona instantly felt both ashamed and much better. So often things that went wrong turned out to be her mistake. She should have known Daisy wasn’t the kind of girl to blame people. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It was both our faults, I guess.” Ramona hesitated. “Promise you won’t tell the kids at school.”

  Daisy crossed her heart, smiled shakily, and said, “Of course, if the beautiful princess had gone peacefully to the dungeon—”

  Ramona interrupted, “And if the witch had been a nice witch—”

  Daisy finished for her. “The kind you don’t like to read about.”

  Ramona managed to smile back over her shoulder as she followed Mrs. Kidd out the door. On the way home she ventured a question that had been hovering in the back of her mind. “Will—will it cost a lot of money to fix the ceiling?” she asked Mrs. Kidd.

  Mrs. Kidd patted Ramona’s knee. “Don’t worry about it. It was an accident, and I’m sure our insurance will take care of it. And you know something? Even before we moved in, I didn’t like the color of the dining room. Now we have an excuse to repaint it.”

  Ramona felt so much better, except for the scratches and stiffness in her legs, that she began to consider the drama of the afternoon.

  When Mrs. Kidd delivered her to the Quimbys’ door, she merely said to Mrs. Quimby, “Ramona had a little accident. She will tell you about it.”

  It was a big accident, thought Ramona, pleased that Mrs. Kidd did not spoil her chance to tell. She really was a nice mother, the nicest she had ever known, next to her own, of course.

  Mrs. Quimby immediately wanted to know what had happened but was distracted by Roberta. Ramona stalled for time by going to the bathroom and by darting into her room. When she came out, the family was seated at the dinner table. She then had the attention of her entire family, even Roberta, who was lying in her playpen nearby. Mrs. Quimby said, “Ramona, I thought you were going to have dinner at Daisy’s house. And what did her mother mean about a little accident?”

  Ramona assumed a sorrowful expression. “I was going to stay, but a terrible thing happened.” Her family stopped eating. Ramona paused dramatically. Here was her chance to keep Beezus from talking so much about Abby and the party.

  “Yes. Go on,” said Mr. Quimby.

  Ramona took a deep breath. “I broke the ceiling”—another dramatic pause—“I broke it all to smithereens and it’s going to cost a bazillion dollars to fix and it fell all over the dining room and made a terrible mess, so I decided not to stay for dinner.”

  Mr. Quimby became more impatient. “Ramona,
get to the point. What on earth are you talking about?”

  Ramona basked in the attention. “I was a princess trying to escape from a wicked witch who was shutting me in a dungeon, and there I was all alone in the dark with spiders and bats—well, maybe not bats”—Ramona felt if she exaggerated too much her family would not believe her—“and I was terrified because the wicked witch was about to break down the door”—maybe she was stretching the truth a tiny bit, but perhaps no one would notice—“and I was terrified because I felt something bump against my leg, something big, something evil and crawly”—of course, suitcases weren’t evil and crawly, but by then Ramona did not want to spoil her story with the truth—“and I was so terrified all alone in the creepy dark full of cobwebs that I tried to flee—”

  “Eeee!” crowed Roberta.

  “Ramona.” Mrs. Quimby spoke quietly. “I think you’re getting carried away.”

  Beezus, who had been quiet until now, spoke up. “So you stepped back on the unfinished part of the attic and fell through the ceiling. I know all about those attics because mothers were always telling us to stay off the lath and plaster, and I know someone who really did fall through.”

  Of course, Ramona was annoyed with Beezus for spoiling her story. “Sort of like that,” she admitted with a scowl.

  Mrs. Quimby was shocked. “Why, Ramona—Did you fall all the way through? You might have been seriously hurt.”

  “I hung on, but I was wounded.” Ramona tried to regain her family’s sympathy. “My legs got all scratched and scraped and it hurt a lot. I was in agony.” There, take that, Beezus, she thought. “And then a handsome prince, I mean Daisy’s brother, rescued me.”

  “Jeremy Kidd?” Beezus began to laugh. “He’s in my math class. Wait till I tell him you called him a handsome prince!”

  “Don’t you dare!” Ramona was furious.

  “Girls!” warned Mr. Quimby. “Beezus, there are some things we keep in the family.”

  Beezus stopped laughing. Finally she asked, “Weren’t you wearing pants?”

  Ramona said in her most dignified way, “Princesses don’t wear pants.” She paused and added, “Unless they are in disguise.”

  The family found this funny. Beezus recovered enough to say, “You must have looked weird, just your bare legs hanging down from the ceiling.”

  And my underpants, thought Ramona in horror, not having pictured the scene from below until this moment. Did I fall far enough for them to show? What if Jeremy saw them? She could never face him again. She could see that her family was hiding their smiles at the picture of Ramona’s bare legs hanging from the ceiling. This made Ramona sulky. “It really did hurt, because I was wounded. I bled.” That ought to impress her family.

  Her father patted her hand. “I know it was painful and you could have been badly hurt.”

  “But I was brave.” Ramona held her head high. “I hung on with all my might and main.” She wasn’t quite sure what that meant. She had read it in a book someplace and it sounded right.

  “Maybe you have a fairy godmother,” suggested Mrs. Quimby.

  A best friend is better, thought Ramona.

  “Maybe,” agreed Mr. Quimby, “but I think she has been reading fairy tales.”

  “I like fairy tales,” said Ramona. “Fairy tales always have happy endings.” She paused before she added, “And so does mine, I guess.” Her family had paid attention to her and she still had a best friend. Then she thought to herself, A happy ending except for my underpants showing.

  6

  THE PARTY

  Before Ramona’s scratches healed and her Band-Aids were pulled off, Ramona had grown bored with her sister’s party invitation, the shopping, and most of all with the telephone calls. Beezus seemed always to be talking on the telephone. Boredom did not prevent Ramona from listening to her sister’s half of the conversations: “I’m sorry. I won’t be able to baby-sit that evening. I’m going to a party.” “If George won’t come, maybe you could ask Randy. He’s only a semi-creep.” “I just love my new skirt. We found it on sale. Have you bought yours yet?”

  Then there were dancing lessons given by Mr. Quimby with much twirling and step, slide, step, step, slide, step. One evening when the lesson was finished and Beezus went off to do her homework, Mr. Quimby held out his hand to Ramona. “Let’s give it a try,” he said. Ramona shook her head. It all looked so silly.

  Silliness did not stop Ramona from telling Daisy about the dancing lesson or from giving her a demonstration when she came to the Quimbys’ after school. The girls stepped and slid, getting in the way of each other’s feet, until, laughing, they fell over on the couch.

  Another evening when Beezus was talking on the telephone, Ramona heard her father say to her mother, “I’ll be glad when this party is over and we can all settle down again.”

  Mrs. Quimby lowered her voice, which of course made Ramona listen harder. “I’m glad Beezus is finally coming out of her shell. She has always been such a quiet girl. I do hope she has a good time. It could be a terrible letdown.”

  This conversation was a surprise to Ramona. She had assumed Beezus would have a good time twirling and gliding and eating good things. Maybe not. Maybe their mother was right.

  Mrs. Quimby was not the only one concerned. When the girls were in bed, Beezus confided, “I hope Daddy’s dancing isn’t too old-fashioned.”

  “Daddy’s a good dancer,” said Ramona, loyal to their father even though his dancing did not look like some of the dancing she had seen on television.

  Finally, to the relief of everyone, the day of the party arrived. Beezus washed her hair in the afternoon and was so nervous and excited she could scarcely eat her dinner. Afterward she lingered in the bath. “Whew!” said Ramona as perfume from bubble bath wafted down the hall.

  At last Beezus appeared, ready for the party. “Ta-dah!” she announced as she came into the living room. “Do I really look all right?” She was wearing her new long skirt, a pretty blouse, small gold hoops in her ears, and her hiking shoes that laced above her ankles. Her hair was shining, her cheeks pink.

  “You look lovely, dear,” said Mrs. Quimby, “but—ah—don’t you think you should change your shoes?”

  “Oh, Mom, nobody wears party shoes anymore these days.” She gave her mother a pitying look.

  “Oh,” said her mother. “I didn’t know.”

  “I think you look great.” Ramona was impressed by the change in Beezus but somehow missed her plain big sister. Oh, well, at least her feet still looked sensible. Will I look like that someday? she wondered as she put her hand to her own hair and decided maybe she should brush it more often, the way her mother was always telling her.

  Mrs. Quimby kissed Beezus and said, “Have a good time, dear. But don’t you think you should wear a coat? This is November, you know.”

  “Oh, Mo-ther,” said Beezus. “I don’t want to wrinkle my new blouse. Besides, it’s not like it’s snowing or anything.”

  “I’ll turn on the car heater,” reassured Mr. Quimby. “We can’t wrinkle that blouse.”

  Ramona suddenly did not want to let go of her sister. “Can I come, too?” she asked.

  “Sure. Come along,” Mr. Quimby said. The ride was made in silence with Beezus sitting up straight in the backseat and unwrinkled. In spite of the car heater she hugged her arms to keep warm. When they pulled up in front of Abby’s house, Beezus said in anguish, “Dad, what do I do? My hands are all clammy.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine,” said her father, “and it will all be over by eleven o’clock.” After he dropped Beezus off among the arriving guests, he said, almost as if he were speaking to himself, “Well, there goes our little girl.”

  Ramona moved as close to her father as her seat belt would permit. “You still have me,” she reminded him.

  “That’s right.” Her father patted her knee. “And Roberta.”

  “Yes,” whispered Ramona with a tiny sigh. She loved her baby sister, but sometimes she
wished her father did not have quite so many daughters.

  When the two returned home, Mrs. Quimby looked up from her book (she did not have many pages left) and said, as if her thoughts were far away, “I’ll never forget my first dance. It was in the school gym, and the only boy who asked me to dance I didn’t want to dance with. He was a weird little fellow who grew up to be an interesting man, but at the time I wanted to dance with a tall, handsome boy. Silly me. I was a real wallflower and spent most of the evening hiding in the girls’ bathroom with a couple of other miserable wallflowers.”

  Ramona was indignant. Stupid boys, not asking her nice mother to dance. She hoped Beezus wasn’t hiding in the bathroom, even though the Alexanders’ bathroom was sure to be nicer than a school bathroom. Their bathroom wouldn’t have scratchy tan paper towels.

  When her father told her to stop stalling and go to bed, Ramona lay awake thinking. She would never hide in a bathroom. She would march right up and ask a boy to dance if she ever wanted to do such a silly thing as dance.

  Even though Ramona thought that dancing was silly, she wanted her sister to have a good time. She even said a little prayer as she lay awake, waiting, full of hope and curiosity. The minute she heard her father drive off to bring Beezus home, Ramona bounced out of bed and went into the living room, where her mother was finally finishing Moby Dick. Of course Mrs. Quimby said, “Ramona, you should be in bed asleep.” Parents always said that.

  Ramona ignored this remark and snuggled up under her mother’s arm. She loved moments alone with her mother, which made her feel cozy and protected. She must have nodded off, for suddenly there was Beezus, her eyes still shining, her cheeks still pink. The rest of her face was unrecognizable. She was wearing dark red lipstick and green eyeshadow.

  “Wow!” was Ramona’s comment. “What happened to you?”

  Beezus dropped into a chair and laughed.