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Ramona had two feelings about this conversation. She did not want her father’s hair to grow thin or her mother’s hair to grow

gray. She wanted her parents to stay exactly as they were for ever and ever. But oh, how good it was to see them be so affectionate with one another. She knew her mother and

father loved one another, but sometimes,

when they were tired and hurried, or when

they had long, serious conversations after the girls had gone to bed, she wondered and worried, because she knew children whose

parents had stopped loving one another.

Now she knew everything was all right.

Suddenly Ramona felt so happy that a

book report did not seem so difficult after all—if she could think of a way to make it interesting.

The book, The Left-Behind Cat, which Mrs.Whaley had sent home for Ramona to

read for her report, was divided into chapters 136

but used babyish words.The story was about a cat that was left behind when a family

moved away and about its adventures with a dog, another cat, and some children before it finally found a home with a nice old couple who gave it a saucer of cream and named

it Lefty because its left paw was white and because it had been left behind. Medium-boring, thought Ramona, good enough

to pass the time on the bus, but not good

enough to read during Sustained Silent

Reading. Besides, cream cost too much to

give to a cat.The most the old people would give a cat was half-and-half, she thought.

Ramona required accuracy from books as

well as from people.

“Daddy, how do you sell something?”

Ramona interrupted her father, who was

studying, even though she knew she should

not. However, her need for an answer was

urgent.

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Mr. Quimby did not look up from his book.“You ought to know.You see enough

commercials on television.”

Ramona considered his answer. She had

always looked upon commercials as enter-

tainment, but now she thought about some

of her favorites—the cats that danced back and forth, the dog that pushed away brand-X dog food with his paw, the man who ate

a pizza, got indigestion, and groaned that he couldn’t believe he ate the whole thing, the six horses that pulled the Wells Fargo bank’s stagecoach across deserts and over mountains.

“Do you mean I should do a book report

like a TV commercial?” Ramona asked.

“Why not?” Mr. Quimby answered in an

absentminded way.

“I don’t want my teacher to say I’m a nui-

sance,” said Ramona, needing assurance from a grown-up.

This time Mr. Quimby lifted his eyes

138

from his book.“Look,” he said,“she told you to pretend you’re selling the book, so sell it.What better way than a TV commercial?

You aren’t being a nuisance if you do what your teacher asks.” He looked at Ramona a

moment and said,“Why do you worry she’d

think you’re a nuisance?”

Ramona stared at the carpet, wiggled her