felt was a dumb way to make such a nice

letter.

Ramona decided right then and there that

she would never again write a cursive Q.

She would write the rest of her last name, uimby, in cursive, but she would always, no matter what Mrs. Whaley said, print her

capital Q’s.

So there, Mrs. Whaley, thought Ramona.

You can’t make me write a cursive Q if I don’t want to. She began to feel like a real person again.

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4

The Quimbys’ Quarrel

“But Ramona,” said Mrs. Quimby on

Saturday, “I’ve already told you that I

boiled several eggs so I wouldn’t have to boil an egg for you every morning. I put the

boiled eggs on one shelf in the refrigerator and the raw eggs on another. In my hurry,

I took an egg from the wrong shelf. I am

sorry.There is nothing more I can say.”

Ramona remained silent. She felt mean

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and unhappy because she wanted to forgive her mother, but something in that dark, deep-down place inside her would not let her.

Hearing her teacher call her a show-off and a nuisance hurt so much she could not stop being angry at almost everyone.

Mrs. Quimby sighed in a tired sort of way

as she gathered up sheets and towels to feed into the washing machine in the basement.

Ramona stared out the window and wished

the misty rain, which fell softly and endlessly, would go away so she could go outdoors and roller-skate away her bad feelings.

Beezus was no help. She had spent the

night at Mary Jane’s house with several other girls, and they had stayed up late watching a horror movie on television and eating

popcorn. Afterward they stayed awake talk-

ing, too scared to go to sleep.That morning Beezus had come home tired and grouchy

and had fallen asleep almost immediately.

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Ramona wandered around the house looking for something to do, when she discovered her father sitting on the couch,

pencil in hand, drawing pad on his knee,

frowning at one bare foot.

“Daddy, what are you doing that for?”

Ramona wanted to know.

“That’s what I keep asking myself,” her

father answered, as he wiggled his toes. “I have to draw a picture of my foot for my art class.”

“I wish we got to do things like that in

my school,” said Ramona. She found pencil

and paper, pulled off one shoe and sock,

and climbed on the couch beside her father.

Both studied their feet and began to sketch.

Ramona soon found that drawing a foot was

more difficult than she had expected. Like her father, she stared, frowned, drew, erased, stared, frowned, and drew. For a little while she forgot she was cross. She was enjoying herself.

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“There,” said Ramona at last. She had

drawn a good, not an excellent, foot. She

looked at her father’s paper and was disappointed in what she saw. It was the kind of picture a teacher would pin up off in the