Then Mrs.Whaley said,“We have time for

one more report before lunch.Who wants to

be next?”

Ramona waved her hand, and Mrs.Whaley

nodded.

Ramona beckoned to Sara and Janet, who

giggled in an embarrassed way but joined

Ramona, standing behind her and off to

one side. All three girls slipped on their cat masks and giggled again. Ramona took a

deep breath as Sara and Janet began to chant,

“Meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow, meow,” and danced back and forth

like the cats they had seen in the cat-food commercial on television.

“Left-Behind Cat gives kids something to smile about,” said Ramona in a loud clear

voice, while her chorus meowed softly behind 143

her. She wasn’t sure that what she said was exactly true, but neither were the commercials that showed cats eating dry cat food without making any noise. “Kids who have

tried Left-Behind Cat are all smiles, smiles, smiles. Left-Behind Cat is the book kids ask for by name. Kids can read it every day and thrive on it.The happiest kids read Left-Behind Cat. Left-Behind Cat contains cats, dogs, people—” Here Ramona caught sight of

Yard Ape leaning back in his seat, grinning in the way that always flustered her. She

could not help interrupting herself with a giggle, and after suppressing it she tried not to look at Yard Ape and to take up where

she had left off. “. . . cats, dogs, people—”

The giggle came back, and Ramona was

lost. She could not remember what came

next. “. . . cats, dogs, people,” she repeated, trying to start and failing.

Mrs.Whaley and the class waited. Yard Ape

144

grinned. Ramona’s loyal chorus meowed and danced.This performance could not go on

all morning. Ramona had to say something,

anything to end the waiting, the meowing,

her book report. She tried desperately to

recall a cat-food commercial, any cat-food commercial, and could not. All she could

remember was the man on television who

ate the pizza, and so she blurted out the only sentence she could think of, “I can’t believe I read the whole thing!”

Mrs. Whaley’s laugh rang out above the

laughter of the class. Ramona felt her face turn red behind her mask, and her ears, visible to the class, turned red as well.

“Thank you, Ramona,” said Mrs.Whaley.

“That was most entertaining. Class, you are excused for lunch.”

Ramona felt brave behind her cat mask.

“Mrs.Whaley,” she said, as the class pushed back chairs and gathered up lunch boxes,

145

“that wasn’t the way my report was supposed to end.”

“Did you like the book?” asked Mrs.

Whaley.

“Not really,” confessed Ramona.

“Then I think it was a good way to end

your report,” said the teacher. “Asking the class to sell books they really don’t like isn’t fair, now that I stop to think about it. I was only trying to make book reports a little

livelier.”

Encouraged by this confession and still safe behind her mask, Ramona had the boldness