Well! This was a new idea to Ramona. She thought it over as she got out her crayons and paper and knelt on a chair at the kitchen table. Singing a song about hamburgers would not be hard to do. She could do it herself. Maybe she could earn a million dollars like that boy so her father would be fun again, and everyone at school would watch her on television and say, “There’s Ramona Quimby. She goes to our school.” A million dollars would buy a cuckoo clock for every room in the house, her father wouldn’t need a job, the family could go to Disneyland….

“Forget your pots, forget your pans,” Ramona began to sing, as she drew a picture of a hamburger and stabbed yellow dots across the top of the bun for sesame seeds. With a million dollars the Quimbys could eat in a restaurant every day if they wanted to.

After that Ramona began to watch for children on television commercials. She saw a boy eating bread and margarine when a crown suddenly appeared on his head with a fanfare—ta-da!—of music. She saw a girl who asked, “Mommy, wouldn’t it be nice if caramel apples grew on trees?” and another girl who took a bite of cereal said, “It’s good, hm-um,” and giggled. There was a boy who asked at the end of a weiner commercial, “Dad, how do you tell a boy hot dog from a girl hot dog?” and a girl who tipped her head to one side and said, “Pop-pop-pop,” as she listened to her cereal. Children crunched potato chips, chomped on pickles, gnawed at fried chicken. Ramona grew particularly fond of the curly-haired little girl saying to her mother at the zoo, “Look, Mommy, the elephant’s legs are wrinkled just like your pantyhose.” Ramona could say all those things.

Ramona began to practice. Maybe someone would see her and offer her a million dollars to make a television commercial. On her way to school, if her friend Howie did not walk with her, she tipped her head to one side and said, “Pop-pop-pop.” She said to herself, “M-m-m, it’s good,” and giggled. Giggling wasn’t easy when she didn’t have anything to giggle about, but she worked at it. Once she practiced on her mother by asking, “Mommy, wouldn’t it be nice if caramel apples grew on trees?” She had taken to calling her mother Mommy lately, because children on commercials always called their mothers Mommy.

Mrs. Quimby’s absentminded answer was, “Not really. Caramel is bad for your teeth.” She was wearing slacks so Ramona could not say the line about pantyhose.

Since the Quimbys no longer bought potato chips or pickles, Ramona found other foods—toast and apples and carrot sticks—to practice good loud crunching on. When they had chicken for dinner, she smacked and licked her fingers.