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.