red beneath her boing-boing curls. She was not counting mittens.

Ramona was fiercely glad she had upset

Susan so much she was unable to count

mittens.

104

“Seven mittens.” Several people spoke at the same time.

“Seven is correct,” said Mrs. Griggs. “But

let’s remember to raise our hands. Now pre-

tend three mittens are lost. How many are

left?”

Ramona was not counting mittens

either. She looked at Mrs. Griggs, standing

there in her pale green sweater with a wisp

of hair hanging in front of each ear. She was always so calm. Ramona liked people who

got excited. She would rather have a teacher angry with her than one who stood there

being calm.

Mrs. Griggs, finished with mittens, had

the class counting balloons. Unexcited Mrs.

Griggs. Mrs. Griggs who did not understand.

Mrs. Griggs who went on and on about

counting and adding and taking away, and

on and on about Tom and Becky and their

dog Pal and their cat Fluff, who could run,

105

run, run and come, come, come. Mrs. Griggs, always calm, never raising her voice, everything neat, everything orderly with no paste wasted.

Ramona wished she could run, run, run

out of that classroom as she had the day

before and never come back.

106

7

Alone in the Dark

Ramona did not run away. Where could

she run to? She had no place to go.

Each of her days seemed to plod along more

slowly than the day before. Every morning

Mrs. Quimby looked out the window at the

rain dripping from the trees and said,“Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day.”

The weather paid no attention. Ramona,

who could not wear sandals in such

107

weather, now had to wear oxfords and a pair of Beezus’s old boots to school, because

she had outgrown her red boots during the

summer. Mrs. Griggs wore the same sweater,

the color of split-pea soup, day after day.

Ramona did not like split-pea soup. Ramona

never got to lead the flag salute or be scissors monitor. Number combinations. Reading

circles. Bologna sandwiches and chocolate-

chip cookies from the store in her lunch

three times in one week.

One day the reading workbook showed a

picture of a chair with a wrinkled slipcover.

Beneath the picture were two sentences.

“This is for Pal.” “This is not for Pal.”

Ramona circled “This is for Pal,” because

she decided Tom and Becky’s mother had

put a slipcover on the chair so that Pal could lie on it without getting the chair dirty. Mrs.

Griggs came along and put a big red check

mark over her answer. “Read every word,

108

Ramona,” she said, which Ramona thought was unfair. She had read every word.

Ramona dreaded school because she felt

Mrs. Griggs did not like her, and she did not enjoy spending the whole day in a room

with someone who did not like her, espe-

cially when that person was in charge.