she fell sprawling on the sidewalk. Ignoring the pain, she scrambled to her feet and fled home with blood trickling from her knees.

Ramona burst through the back door,

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safe from Something. “Mama! Mama! I fell down!” she managed between gasps.

“Oh, poor baby!” Mrs. Quimby took one

look at Ramona’s bloody legs and led her

into the bathroom, where she knelt and

cleaned the wounds, dabbed them with

antiseptic, and covered them with Band-

Aids. Her mother’s sympathy made Ramona

feel very sorry for herself. Poor little mis-understood first grader.

Mrs. Quimby wiped Ramona’s sweaty

tearstained face with a damp washcloth, kissed Ramona for comfort, and said, “That’s my

brave girl.”

Ramona wanted to say, But I’m not

brave, Mama. I’m scared because I did some-

thing bad.Yet she could not bring herself to admit the truth. Poor little Ramona with her wounded knees. It was all mean old Susan’s

fault for being such a copycat.

Mrs. Quimby sat back on her heels.

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“Guess what?” she said.

“What?” Ramona hoped for a glorious

surprise to make up for her unhappy day.

Ramona always longed for glorious sur-

prises.That was the way she was.

“The workmen finished the new room,

and before they left they moved your bed

and the dresser and bookcase we had stored

in the garage, and tonight you are going to

sleep in your very own room!”

“Really?” This actually was a glorious surprise. There had been days when the work-

men had not come at all, and the whole

Quimby family had despaired of the room

ever being completed. Ramona’s knees hurt,

but who cared? She ran down the hall to

see the room for herself.

Yes, there was her bed in one corner, the

bookcase filled with more toys than books

in another, and against the wall, the dresser.

For the first time Ramona looked into

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her very own mirror in her very own room.

She saw a stranger, a girl with red eyes and a puffy, tearstained face, who did not look

at all the way Ramona pictured herself.

Ramona thought of herself as the kind of

girl everyone should like, but this girl . . .

Ramona scowled, and the girl scowled

back. Ramona managed a small smile. So

did the girl. Ramona felt better. She wanted the girl in the mirror to like her.

6

Parents’ Night

Ramona stood inside her new closet,

pretending she was in an elevator. She

slid open the door and stepped out into her

new room, which she pretended was on the

tenth floor. There she drew a deep breath,

inhaling the fragrance of new wood and the

flat smell of sheetrock, which her father was going to paint when he found time. Her

mother had been too busy to find curtains

for the windows or to clean the smudges of

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putty from the glass, but Ramona did not mind.Tonight she was going to sleep for the

first time in her very-own-for-six-months