gloomy. What a dismal thought, being extra good, but it was better than allowing their parents to punish them.

Ramona went to her own room, where

she curled up on her bed with a book. She

wished something nice would happen to her

mother and father, something that would help them forget the scene at the dinner table. She wished her father would succeed in drawing a perfect foot, the sort of foot his teacher would want to hang in the front of the room above the middle of the blackboard. Maybe a perfect foot would make him happy.

And her mother? Maybe if Ramona could

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forgive her for not boiling the egg she would be happy. In her heart Ramona had forgiven her, and she was sorry she had been so cross with her mother. She longed to go tell her, but now she could not, not when she was

being punished.

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5

The Extra-good

Sunday

Sunday morning Ramona and Beezus

were still resolved to be perfect until

dinner time. They got up without being

called, avoided arguing over who should read Dear Abby’s advice first in the paper, com-plimented their mother on her French toast, and went off through the drizzly rain to

Sunday school neat, combed, and bravely

smiling.

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Later they cleaned up their rooms without being told. At lunchtime they ate without complaint the sandwiches they knew

were made of ground-up tongue. A little

added pickle relish did not fool them, but it did help.They dried the dishes and carefully avoided looking in the direction of the refrigerator lest their mother be reminded they

were supposed to cook the evening meal.

Mr. and Mrs. Quimby were good-

humored. In fact, everyone was so unnaturally pleasant that Ramona almost wished someone would say something cross. By early

afternoon the question was still hanging in the air.Would the girls really have to prepare dinner?

Why doesn’t somebody say something?

Ramona thought, weary of being so good,

weary of longing to forgive her mother for the raw egg in her lunch.

“Well, back to the old foot,” said Mr.

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Quimby, as he once more settled himself on the couch with drawing pad and pencil and

pulled off his shoe and sock.

The rain finally stopped. Ramona watched

for dry spots to appear on the sidewalk and thought of her roller skates in the closet.

She looked into Beezus’s room and found her sister reading. Ramona knew Beezus wanted

to telephone Mary Jane but had decided to

wait until Mary Jane called to ask why she had not come over. Mary Jane did not call. The day dragged on.

When dry spots on the concrete in front

of the Quimbys’ house widened until mois-

ture remained only in the cracks of the sidewalk, Ramona pulled her skates out of her

closet. To her father, who was holding a drawing of his foot at arm’s length to study it, she said, “Well, I guess I’ll go out and skate.”