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ment. “But who paid for them?” demanded Mr. Quimby.

“A lonely gentleman who left a little while ago,” answered the waitress.

“He must have been the man who sat

across the aisle,” said Mrs. Quimby.“But why would he pay for our dinners? We never saw him before in our lives.”

The waitress smiled. “Because he said

you are such a nice family, and because he misses his children and grandchildren.” She dashed off with her pot of coffee, leaving the Quimbys in surprised, even shocked,

silence. A nice family? After the way they had behaved on a rainy Sunday.

“A mysterious stranger just like in a book,”

said Beezus.“I never thought I’d meet one.”

“Poor lonely man,” said Mrs. Quimby at

last, as Mr. Quimby shoved a tip under his saucer. Still stunned into silence, the family struggled into their wraps and splashed across 175

the parking lot to their car, which started promptly and backed obediently out of its

parking space. As the windshield wipers

began their rhythmic exercise, the family rode in silence, each thinking of the events of the day.

“You know,” said Mrs. Quimby thought-

fully, as the car left the parking lot and headed down the street, “I think he was

right.We are a nice family.”

“Not all the time,” said Ramona, as usual

demanding accuracy.

“Nobody is nice all the time,” answered

her father. “Or if they are, they are boring.”

“Not even your parents are nice all the

time,” added Mrs. Quimby.

Ramona secretly agreed, but she had not

expected her parents to admit it. Deep down inside, she felt she herself was nice all the time, but sometimes on the outside her nice-ness sort of—well, curdled.Then people did 176

not understand how nice she really was.

Maybe other people curdled too.

“We have our ups and downs,” said Mrs.

Quimby, “but we manage to get along, and

we stick together.”

“We are nicer than some families I know,”

said Beezus. “Some families don’t even eat dinner together.” After a moment she made

a confession. “I don’t really like sleeping on someone’s floor in a sleeping bag.”

“I didn’t think you did.” Mrs. Quimby

reached back and patted Beezus on the knee.

“That’s one reason I said you couldn’t go.

You didn’t want to go, but didn’t want to

admit it.”

Ramona snuggled inside her car coat,

feeling cozy enclosed in the car with the

heater breathing warm air on her nice family.

She was a member of a nice sticking-together family, and she was old enough to be

depended upon, so she could ignore—or at

177

least try to ignore—a lot of things. Willa Jean—she would try reading her Sustained

Silent Reading books aloud because Willa

Jean was old enough to understand most of

them. That should work for a little while.

Mrs.Whaley—some things were nice about

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her and some were not. Ramona could get