Mr. Quimby closed the last window. “What are you talking about?”

“You smoked and you promised you wouldn’t!” Ramona felt as if she were the grown-up and he were the child.

Mr. Quimby sat down on the couch and leaned back as if he were very, very tired, which made some of the anger drain out of Ramona. “Ramona,” he said, “it isn’t easy to break a bad habit. I ran across one cigarette, an old stale cigarette, in my raincoat pocket and thought it might help if I smoked just one. I’m trying. I’m really trying.”

Hearing her father speak this way, as if she really was a grown-up, melted the last of Ramona’s anger. She turned into a seven-year-old again and climbed on the couch to lean against her father. After a few moments of silence, she whispered, “I love you, Daddy.”

He tousled her hair affectionately and said, “I know you do. That’s why you want me to stop smoking, and I love you, too.”

“Even if I’m a brat sometimes?”

“Even if you’re a brat sometimes.”

Ramona thought awhile before she sat up and said, “Then why can’t we be a happy family?”

For some reason Mr. Quimby smiled. “I have news for you, Ramona,” he said. “We are a happy family.”

“We are?” Ramona was skeptical.

“Yes, we are.” Mr. Quimby was positive. “No family is perfect. Get that idea out of your head. And nobody is perfect either. All we can do is work at it. And we do.”

Ramona tried to wiggle her toes inside her shoes and considered what her father had said. Lots of fathers wouldn’t draw pictures with their little girls. Her father bought her paper and crayons when he could afford them. Lots of mothers wouldn’t step over a picture that spread across the kitchen floor while cooking supper. Ramona knew mothers who would scold and say, “Pick that up. Can’t you see I’m trying to get supper?” Lots of big sisters wouldn’t let their little sister go along when they interviewed someone for creative writing. They would take more than their fair share of gummybears because they were bigger and…

Ramona decided her father was probably right, but she couldn’t help feeling they would be a happier family if her mother could find time to sew that sheep costume. There wasn’t much time left.

7

Ramona and the Three Wise Persons

Suddenly, a few days before Christmas when the Quimby family least expected it, the telephone rang for Ramona’s father. He had a job! The morning after New Year’s Day he was to report for training as a checker in a chain of supermarkets. The pay was good, he would have to work some evenings, and maybe someday he would get to manage a market!