Title Page

ii

Beverly Cleary

I L L U S T R AT E D B Y

Tracy Dockray

viii

Contents

1. A Present for Willa Jean 1

2. Slacks for Ella Funt 26

3. Nobody Likes Ramona 49

4. The Quarrel

78

5. The Great Hair Argument 103

6. Ramona’s New Pajamas

135

7. The Telephone Call 159

About the Author

Other Books by Beverly Cleary

Credits

Cover

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

A Present

for Willa Jean

When will they be here?” asked

“

Ramona Quimby, who was sup-

posed to be dusting the living room but

instead was twirling around trying to make

herself dizzy. She was much too excited to

dust.

“In half an hour,” cried her mother from

the kitchen, where she and Ramona’s big

sister Beatrice were opening and closing the 1

refrigerator and oven doors, bumping into one another, forgetting where they had laid

the pot holders, finding them and losing the measuring spoons.

The Quimbys were about to entertain

their neighbors at a New Year’s Day brunch

to celebrate Mr. Quimby’s finding a job at

the ShopRite Market after being out of

work for several months. Ramona liked the

word brunch, half breakfast and half lunch, and secretly felt the family had cheated

because they had eaten their real breakfast

earlier. They needed their strength to get

ready for the party.

“And Ramona,” said Mrs. Quimby as

she hastily laid out silverware on the dining-room table, “be nice to Willa Jean, will you?

Try to keep her out of everyone’s hair.”

“Ramona, watch what you’re doing!” said

Mr. Quimby, who was laying a fire in the fire-place. “You almost knocked over the lamp.”

2

Ramona stopped twirling, staggered from

dizziness, and made a face. Willa Jean, the

messy little sister of her friend Howie

Kemp, was sticky, crumby, into everything,

and always had to have her own way.

“And behave yourself,” said Mr. Quimby.

“Willa Jean is company.”

Not my company, thought Ramona, who

saw quite enough of Willa Jean when she

played at Howie’s house. “If Howie can’t

come to the brunch because he has a cold,

why can’t Willa Jean stay home with their

grandmother, too?” Ramona asked.

“I really don’t know,” said Ramona’s

mother. “That isn’t the way things worked

out. When the Kemps asked if they could

bring Willa Jean, I could hardly say no.”

I could, thought Ramona, deciding that

since Willa Jean, welcome or not, was coming to the brunch, she had better prepare to

defend her possessions. She went to her

room, where she swept her best crayons and

drawing paper into a drawer and covered

them with her pajamas. Her Christmas roller

skates and favorite toys, battered stuffed animals that she rarely played with but still

4

loved, went into the corner of her closet.

There she hid them under her bathrobe and

shut the door tight.

But what could she find to amuse Willa

Jean? If Willa Jean did not have something