to tell her tale. “Well, when we went to the park, I slid on the slides awhile and Beezus sat on a bench reading her library book.

Then I saw an empty swing. A big swing,

not a baby swing over the wading pool, and

I thought since I’m going to be in the first grade next month I should swing on the big

swings. Shouldn’t I, Mama?”

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Quimby was impa-

tient. “Please, go on with the story. What

happened to Beezus?”

“Well, I climbed up in the swing,”

Ramona continued, “only my feet wouldn’t

touch the ground because there was this big

hollow under the swing.” Ramona recalled

how she had longed to swing until the

chains went slack in her hands and her toes

pointed to the tops of the fir trees, but she 5

sensed that she had better hurry up with her story or her mother would ask Beezus to tell it. Ramona never liked to lose an audience.

“And I said,‘Beezus, push me,’ and some big

boys, big bad boys, heard me and one of

them said—” Ramona, eager to be the one

to tell the story but reluctant to repeat the words, hesitated.

“Said what?” Mrs. Quimby was baffled.

“Said what, Ramona? Beezus, what did

he say?”

Beezus wiped the back of her wrist across

her eyes and tried. “He said, ‘J-j-j—’ ”

Eagerness to beat her sister at telling what had happened overcame Ramona’s reluctance. “He said, ‘Jesus, Beezus!’ ” Ramona

looked up at her mother, waiting for her to

be shocked. Instead she merely looked sur-

prised and—could it be?—amused.

“And that is why I never, never, never want to be called Beezus again!” said Beezus.

“And all the other boys began to say it,

6

too,” said Ramona, warming to her story now that she was past the bad part. “Oh,

Mama, it was just awful. It was terrible. All those big awful boys! They kept saying,

‘Jesus, Beezus’ and ‘Beezus, Jesus.’ I jumped out of the swing, and I told them—”

Here Beezus interrupted. Anger once

more replaced tears. “And then Ramona

had to get into the act. Do you know what

she did? She jumped out of the swing and

preached a sermon! Nobody wants a little

sister tagging around preaching sermons to a bunch of boys. And they weren’t that big

either. They were just trying to act big.”

Ramona was stunned by this view of her

behavior. How unfair of Beezus when she

had been so brave. And the boys had seemed big to her.

Mrs. Quimby spoke to Beezus as if

Ramona were not present. “A sermon! You

must be joking.”

Ramona tried again. “Mama, I—”

7

Beezus was not going to give her little sister a chance to speak. “No, I’m not

joking. And then Ramona stuck her thumbs

in her ears, waggled her fingers, and stuck

out her tongue. I just about died, I was so