Ramona glanced at her father’s picture, and sure enough he had drawn Mount Hood peaked with a hump on the south side exactly the way it looked in real life on the days when the clouds lifted.

“I think you draw better than anybody in the whole world,” said Ramona.

Mr. Quimby smiled. “Not quite,” he said.

“Daddy—” Ramona summoned courage. “I’m sorry I was mean to you.”

“You weren’t mean.” Mr. Quimby was adding trees at the base of the mountain. “You’re right, you know.”

“Am I?” Ramona wanted to be sure.

“Yes.”

This answer gave Ramona even more courage. “Is that why you didn’t have a cigarette with your coffee? Are you going to stop smoking?”

“I’ll try,” answered Mr. Quimby, his eyes on his drawing. “I’ll try.”

Ramona was filled with joy, enthusiasm, and relief. “You can do it, Daddy! I know you can do it.”

Her father seemed less positive. “I hope so,” he answered, “but if I succeed, Picky-picky will still have to eat Puss-puddy.”

“He can try, too,” said Ramona and slashed dark V’s across her gray sky to represent a flock of geese flying south for the winter.

5

Beezus’s Creative Writing

The Quimby women, as Mr. Quimby referred to his wife and daughters, were enthusiastic about Mr. Quimby’s decision to give up smoking. He was less enthusiastic because, after all, he was the one who had to break the habit.

Ramona took charge. She collected all her father’s cigarettes and threw them in the garbage, slamming down the lid of the can with a satisfying crash, a crash much less satisfying to her father, who looked as if he wanted those cigarettes back.

“I was planning to cut down gradually,” he said. “One less cigarette each day.”

“That’s not what you said,” Ramona informed him. “You said you would try to give up smoking, not try to cut down gradually.”

There followed an even more trying time in the Quimby household. Out of habit Mr. Quimby frequently reached for cigarettes that were no longer in his pocket. He made repeated trips to the refrigerator, looking for something to nibble on. He thought he was gaining weight. Worst of all, he was even crosser than when he first lost his job.

With a cross father, a tired mother, a sister who worried about creative writing, and a cat who grudgingly ate his Puss-puddy, Ramona felt she was the only happy member of the family left. Even she had run out of ways to amuse herself. She continued to add to the longest picture in the world, but she really wanted to run and yell and make a lot of noise to show how relieved she was that her father was giving up smoking.