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insisted a tiny voice in the back of her mind.

Don’t be silly, she told the little voice. “Yes, but—” began the little voice. And despite

the worry that would not go away Ramona

wanted her father to go on working so he

could stay in school and someday get a job he liked.

While Ramona worried, the house was

silent except for the sound of rain and the scratch of her father’s pencil. The smoking log settled in the fireplace, sending up a few feeble sparks.The day grew darker, Ramona

was beginning to feel hungry, but there was no comfortable bustle of cooking in the

kitchen.

Suddenly Mr. Quimby slammed shut his

book and threw down his pencil so hard it

bounced onto the floor. Ramona sat up. Now what was wrong?

“Come on, everybody,” said her father.

“Get cleaned up. Let’s stop this grumping 163

around.We are going out for dinner, and we are going to smile and be pleasant if it kills us.That’s an order!”

The girls stared at their father and then at one another. What was going on? They had

not gone out to dinner for months, so how

could they afford to go now?

“To the Whopperburger?” asked Ramona.

“Sure,” said Mr. Quimby, who appeared

cheerful for the first time that day.“Why not?

The sky’s the limit.”

Mrs. Quimby came into the living room

with a handful of stamped envelopes. “But

Bob—” she began.

“Now don’t worry,” her husband said.

“We’ll manage. During Thanksgiving I’ll be putting in more hours in the warehouse and getting more overtime.There’s no reason why we can’t have a treat once in a while. And the Whopperburger isn’t exactly your four-star gourmet restaurant.”

164

Ramona was afraid her mother might give a lecture on the evils of junk food, but she did not. Gloom and anger were forgotten.

Clothes were changed, hair combed, Picky-

picky was shut in the basement, and the

family was on its way in the old car with the new transmission that never balked at back-ing down the driveway. Off the Quimbys sped to the nearest Whopperburger, where they

discovered other families must have wanted to get out of the house on a rainy day, for the restaurant was crowded, and they had to

wait for a table.

There were enough chairs for the grown-

ups and Beezus, but Ramona, who had the

youngest legs, had to stand up. She amused herself by punching the buttons on the cig-arette machine in time to the Muzak, which was playing “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round

the Old Oak Tree.” She even danced a little to the music, and, when the tune came to an 165

end, she turned around and found herself face to face with an old man with neatly trimmed gray hair and a moustache that turned up at the ends. He was dressed as if everything he wore—a flowered shirt, striped tie, tweed

coat and plaid slacks—had come from dif-

ferent stores or from a rummage sale, except that the crease in his trousers was sharp and his shoes were shined.