Ramona Quimby, Age 8

Beverly Cleary

I L L U S T R AT E D B Y

Tracy Dockray

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Contents

1. The First Day of School 1

2. At Howie’s House 28

3. The Hard-boiled Egg Fad 45

4. The Quimbys’ Quarrel 64

5. The Extra-good Sunday 81

6. Supernuisance 98

7. The Patient 116

8. Ramona’s Book Report 133

9. Rainy Sunday 150

About the Author

Other Books by Beverly Cleary

Credits

Cover

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

The First Day

of School

Ramona Quimby hoped her parents

would forget to give her a little talking-

to. She did not want anything to spoil this exciting day.

“Ha-ha, I get to ride the bus to school all by myself,” Ramona bragged to her big sister, Beatrice, at breakfast. Her stomach felt quivery with excitement at the day ahead, a day that would begin with a bus ride just the

1

right length to make her feel a long way from home but not long enough—she hoped—

to make her feel carsick. Ramona was going to ride the bus, because changes had been

made in the schools in the Quimbys’ part of the city during the summer. Glenwood, the

girls’ old school, had become an intermediate school, which meant Ramona had to go

to Cedarhurst Primary School.

“Ha-ha yourself.” Beezus was too excited

to be annoyed with her little sister.“Today I start high school.”

“Junior high school,” corrected Ramona, who was not going to let her sister get

away with acting older than she really was.

“Rosemont Junior High School is not the

same as high school, and besides you have to walk.”

Ramona had reached the age of demand-

ing accuracy from everyone, even herself.

All summer, whenever a grown-up asked

2

what grade she was in, she felt as if she were fibbing when she answered, “third,” because she had not actually started the third grade.

Still, she could not say she was in the second grade since she had finished that grade last June. Grown-ups did not understand that

summers were free from grades.

“Ha-ha to both of you,” said Mr. Quimby,

as he carried his breakfast dishes into the kitchen. “You’re not the only ones going to school today.”Yesterday had been his last day working at the checkout counter of the

ShopRite Market. Today he was returning

to college to become what he called “a real, live school teacher.” He was also going to work one day a week in the frozen-food

warehouse of the chain of ShopRite Markets to help the family “squeak by,” as the grown-ups put it, until he finished his schooling.

“Ha-ha to all of you if you don’t hurry

up,” said Mrs. Quimby, as she swished suds in 3

the dishpan. She stood back from the sink so she would not spatter the white uniform she wore in the doctor’s office where she worked as a receptionist.

“Daddy, will you have to do homework?”

Ramona wiped off her milk moustache and

gathered up her dishes.

“That’s right.” Mr. Quimby flicked a dish

towel at Ramona as she passed him. She

giggled and dodged, happy because he was happy. Never again would he stand all day at a cash register, ringing up groceries for a long line of people who were always in a hurry.

Ramona slid her plate into the dishwater.

“And will Mother have to sign your progress reports?”

Mrs. Quimby laughed. “I hope so.”

Beezus was last to bring her dishes into

the kitchen. “Daddy, what do you have to

study to learn to be a teacher?” she asked.

Ramona had been wondering the same

thing. Her father knew how to read and do

arithmetic. He also knew about Oregon pio-

neers and about two pints making one quart.

Mr. Quimby wiped a plate and stacked it

in the cupboard. “I’m taking an art course, because I want to teach art. And I’ll study child development—”

Ramona interrupted. “What’s child

development?”

6

“How kids grow,” answered her father.

Why does anyone have to go to school to

study a thing like that? wondered Ramona.

All her life she had been told that the way to grow was to eat good food, usually food she did not like, and get plenty of sleep, usually when she had more interesting things to do than go to bed.

Mrs. Quimby hung up the dishcloth,

scooped up Picky-picky, the Quimbys’ old

yellow cat, and dropped him at the top of

the basement steps. “Scat, all of you,” she said, “or you’ll be late for school.”

After the family’s rush to brush teeth, Mr.

Quimby said to his daughters,“Hold out your hands,” and into each waiting pair he dropped a new pink eraser.“Just for luck,” he said,“not because I expect you to make mistakes.”

“Thank you,” said the girls. Even a small

present was appreciated, because presents of any kind had been scarce while the family

7

tried to save money so Mr. Quimby could

return to school. Ramona, who liked to draw as much as her father, especially treasured the new eraser, smooth, pearly pink, smelling

softly of rubber, and just right for erasing pencil lines.

Mrs. Quimby handed each member of her

family a lunch, two in paper bags and one in a lunch box for Ramona.“Now, Ramona—”

she began.

Ramona sighed. Here it was, that little

8

talking-to she always dreaded.

“Please remember,” said her mother,“you

really must be nice to Willa Jean.”

Ramona made a face.“I try, but it’s awfully hard.”

Being nice to Willa Jean was the part of

Ramona’s life that was not changing, the part she wished would change. Every day after

school she had to go to her friend Howie

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

Beatrice’s little sister. Teachers always like Beezus; she was so prompt and neat. When

both girls had gone to Glenwood School,

Ramona often felt as if teachers were thinking, I wonder why Ramona Quimby isn’t

more like her big sister.

When Ramona reached the bus stop, she

found Howie Kemp already waiting with

12

his grandmother and Willa Jean, who had

come to wave good-by.

Howie looked up from his lunch box,

which he had opened to see what he was

going to have for lunch, and said to Ramona,

“Those new sandals make your feet look

awfully big.”

“Why, Howie,” said his grandmother,

“that’s not a nice thing to say.”

Ramona studied her feet. Howie was right,

but why shouldn’t her new sandals make her feet look big? Her feet had grown since her last pair. She was not offended.

“Today I’m going to kidnergarten,” boasted Willa Jean, who was wearing new coveralls

and T-shirt and a pair of her mother’s old earrings. Willa Jean was convinced she was beautiful, because her grandmother said so.

Ramona’s mother said Mrs. Kemp was right.

Willa Jean was beautiful when she was clean, because she was a healthy child. Willa Jean did not feel she was beautiful like a healthy child. She felt she was beautiful like a grown-up lady on TV.

Ramona tried to act kindly toward little

Willa Jean. After all, her family was depending on her. “Not kidnergarten, Willa Jean,”

she said. “You mean nursery school.”

Willa Jean gave Ramona a cross, stubborn

14

look that Ramona knew too well.“I am too going to kid nergarten,” she said. “Kid nergarten is where the kids are.”

“Bless her little heart,” said her grand-

mother, admiring as always.

The bus, the little yellow school bus

Ramona had waited all summer to ride,

pulled up at the curb. Ramona and Howie

climbed aboard as if they were used to getting on buses by themselves. I did it just like a grown-up, thought Ramona.

“Good morning. I am Mrs. Hanna, your

bus aide,” said a woman sitting behind the driver.“Take the first empty seats toward the back.” Ramona and Howie took window

seats on opposite sides of the bus, which had a reassuring new smell. Ramona always

dreaded the people-and-fumes smell of the

big city buses.

“By-byee,” called Mrs. Kemp and Willa

Jean, waving as if Ramona and Howie were

15

going on a long, long journey. “By-byee.”

Howie pretended not to know them.

As soon as the bus pulled away from the

curb, Ramona felt someone kick the back of her seat. She turned and faced a sturdy boy wearing a baseball cap with the visor turned up and a white T-shirt with a long word

printed across the front. She studied the

word to see if she could find short words in it, as she had learned to do in second grade.

Earth. Quakes. Earthquakes. Some kind of team.Yes, he looked like the sort of boy whose father would take him to ball games. He did not have a lunch box, which meant he was

going to buy his lunch in the cafeteria.

A grown-up would not call him a purple

cootie. Ramona faced front without speak-

ing.This boy was not going to spoil her first day in the third grade.

Thump, thump, thump against the back of Ramona’s seat. The bus stopped for other

16

children, some excited and some anxious.

Still the kicking continued. Ramona ignored it as the bus passed her former school. Good old Glenwood, thought Ramona, as if she

had gone there a long, long time ago.

“All right, Danny,” said the bus aide to

the kicking boy.“As long as I’m riding shotgun on this bus, we won’t have anyone kicking the seats. Understand?”

Ramona smiled to herself as she heard

Danny mutter an answer. How funny—the

bus aide saying she was riding shotgun as if she were guarding a shipment of gold on a

stagecoach instead of making children behave on a little yellow school bus.

Ramona pretended she was riding a

stagecoach pursued by robbers until she

discovered her eraser, her beautiful pink

eraser, was missing.“Did you see my eraser?”

she asked a second-grade girl, who had

taken the seat beside her. The two searched 17

the seat and the floor. No eraser.

Ramona felt a tap on her shoulder and

turned.“Was it a pink eraser?” asked the boy in the baseball cap.

“Yes.” Ramona was ready to forgive him

for kicking her seat. “Have you seen it?”

“Nope.” The boy grinned as he jerked

down the visor of his baseball cap.

That grin was too much for Ramona.

“Liar!” she said with her most ferocious glare, and faced front once more, angry at the loss of her new eraser, angry with herself for

dropping it so the boy could find it. Purple cootie, she thought, and hoped the cafeteria would serve him fish portions and those

canned green beans with the strings left on.

And apple wedges, the soft mushy kind with tough skins, for dessert.

The bus stopped at Cedarhurst, Ramona’s

new school, a two-story red-brick building very much like her old school. As the chil-18

dren hopped out of the bus, Ramona felt a little thrill of triumph. She had not been carsick. She now discovered she felt as if she had grown even more than her feet. Third

graders were the biggest people—except

teachers, of course—at this school. All the little first and second graders running

around the playground, looking so young,

made Ramona feel tall, grown up, and sort

of . . . well, wise in the ways of the world.

Danny shoved ahead of her. “Catch!” he

yelled to another boy. Something small and pink flew through the air and into the

second boy’s cupped hands.The boy wound

up as if he were pitching a baseball, and the eraser flew back to Danny.

“You gimme back my eraser!” Encum-

bered by her lunch box, Ramona chased

Danny, who ran, ducking and dodging,

among the first and second graders. When

she was about to catch him, he tossed her