“I knew you could do it!” Ramona, who had already changed to her playclothes, stepped onto two of the cans and pulled the twine loops up tight before she took a cautious step, lifting a can as she lifted her foot. First the left foot, then the right foot. Clank, clank. They worked! Howie clanked along beside her. They clanked carefully down the driveway to the sidewalk, where Ramona tried to pick up speed, forgot to lift a can at the same time she lifted her foot, and, as Mrs. Swink had recalled, fell off her stilts. She caught herself before she tumbled to the sidewalk and climbed back on.

Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Ramona found deep satisfaction in making so much noise, and so did Howie. Mrs. Swink, turning into her driveway in her dignified old sedan, smiled and waved. In a moment of daring, Ramona yelled, “Pieface!” at her.

“Pieface yourself!” Mrs. Swink called back, understanding Ramona’s joke.

Howie did not approve. “You aren’t supposed to call grown-ups pieface,” he said. “Just kids.”

“I can call Mrs. Swink pieface,” boasted Ramona. “I can call her pieface any old time I want to.” Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Ramona was having such a good time she began to sing at the top of her voice, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer. You take one down and pass it around. Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall…”

Howie joined the singing. “Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall. You take one down and pass it around. Ninety-seven bottles of beer…”

Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Ninety-six bottles of beer, ninety-five bottles of beer on the wall. Sometimes Ramona and Howie tripped, sometimes they stumbled, and once in a while they fell, muddying the knees of their corduroy pants on the wet sidewalk. Progress was slow, but what their stilts lost in speed they made up in noise.

Eighty-nine bottles of beer, eighty-six…Ramona was happier than than she had been in a long time. She loved making noise, and she was proud of being able to count backwards. Neighbors looked out their windows to see what all the racket was about while Ramona and Howie clanked determinedly on. “Eighty-one bottles of beer on the wall…” As Mrs. Swink had predicted, one of the twine loops broke, tumbling Ramona to the sidewalk. Howie knotted the ends together, and they clanked on until supper-time.

“That was some racket you two made,” remarked Mr. Quimby.

Mrs. Quimby asked, “Where on earth did you two pick up that song about bottles of beer?”

“From Beezus,” said Ramona virtuously. “Howie and I are going to count backwards all the way to one bottle of beer.”

Beezus, doing homework in her room, had not missed out on the conversation. “We used to sing it at camp when the counselors weren’t around,” she called out.