Kemp’s house, where her parents paid

Howie’s grandmother to look after her until one of them could come for her. Both of

Howie’s parents, too, went off to work each day. She liked Howie, but after spending most of the summer, except for swimming lessons in the park, at the Kemps’ house, she was tired of having to play with four-year-old Willa Jean. She was also tired of apple juice and graham crackers for a snack every single day.

“No matter what Willa Jean does,” com-

plained Ramona, “her grandmother thinks

it’s my fault because I’m bigger. Like the time 9

Willa Jean wore her flippers when she ran under the sprinkler, pretending she was the mermaid on the tuna-fish can, and then left big wet footprints on the kitchen floor.

Mrs. Kemp said I should have stopped her

because Willa Jean didn’t know any better!”

Mrs. Quimby gave Ramona a quick hug.

“I know it isn’t easy, but keep trying.”

When Ramona sighed, her father hugged

her and said, “Remember, kid, we’re count-

ing on you.” Then he began to sing, “We’ve got high hopes, try hopes, buy cherry pie-in-July hopes—”

Ramona enjoyed her father’s making up

new words for the song about the little old ant moving the rubber tree plant, and she

liked being big enough to be counted on,

but sometimes when she went to the Kemps’

she felt as if everything depended on her.

If Howie’s grandmother did not look after

her, her mother could not work full time. If 10

her mother did not work full time, her father could not go to school. If her father did not go to school, he might have to go

back to being a checker, the work that made him tired and cross.

Still, Ramona had too many interesting

things to think about to let her responsibility worry her as she walked through the autumn sunshine toward her school bus stop, her new eraser in hand, new sandals on her feet, that quivery feeling of excitement in her stomach, and the song about high hopes run-

ning through her head.

She thought about her father’s new part-

time job zipping around in a warehouse on a fork-lift truck, filling orders for orange juice, peas, fish sticks, and all the other frozen items the markets carried. He called himself Santa’s Little Helper, because the temperature of the warehouse was way below zero, and he would have to wear heavy padded clothing to keep 11

from freezing. The job sounded like fun to Ramona. She wondered how she was going

to feel about her father’s teaching art to other people’s children and decided not to think about that for a while.

Instead, Ramona thought about Beezus

going off to another school, where she would get to take a cooking class and where she

could not come to the rescue if her little sister got into trouble.As Ramona approached her

bus stop, she thought about one of the best parts of her new school: none of her teachers in her new school would know she was