“Well, it’s all over now,” she said.“Run along and play, but please don’t play Brick Factory this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry, Mother. I don’t have any

bricks left.”

Ramona felt that her mother should be

able to see that running along and playing

was impossible on a hot summer afternoon

when everyone Ramona’s age had gone to

the beach or the mountains or to visit a

grandmother. The two weeks the Quimbys

had spent in a borrowed mountain cabin in

15

July now seemed a long time away. Who was she supposed to play with?

Summer was boring. Long and boring.

No bricks left for the game of Brick Factory, which she and her friend Howie had

invented, nobody to play with, and Beezus

with her nose in a book all day.

Not having any place to run along to,

Ramona sat looking at her mother, thinking

that her fresh haircut and touch of eye

shadow made her look unusually nice this

afternoon. She wondered if her mother

would tell her father about the incident in

the park and if they would have a good

laugh over it when they thought Ramona

could not hear. She hoped not. She did not

want her father to laugh at her.

Seeing her mother looking so nice made

Ramona recall the reason for the trip to the park.“What was your errand that you didn’t

want to drag us along on?” she asked.

16

Mrs. Quimby smiled a different smile,

exasperating and mysterious. “Sh-h-h,” she

said, her finger on her lips. “It’s a secret, and wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.”

Ramona found secrets hard to bear. “Tell

me, Mama! Mama, please tell me.” She threw her arms around her mother, who had a

good smell of clean clothes and perfumed

soap. “Please, please, please! ” Learning a big juicy secret would help make up for

Ramona’s unhappy afternoon.

Mrs. Quimby shook her head.

“Pretty please with a lump of sugar on

it?” Ramona felt she could not bear not

knowing this very minute.

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret any-

more,” said Mrs. Quimby.

That, Ramona felt, was just about the

most exasperating sentence ever spoken by a

grown-up.

18

2

Mrs. Quimby’s Secret

Mrs. Quimby, wearing a dress instead

of old slacks, had gone off on

another mysterious errand. She promised

not to be away long, and Beezus and

Ramona promised to stay out of trouble

while she was out, a promise easier for

Beezus to keep than for Ramona. Beezus

disappeared with a book into the room the

girls shared. Ramona settled herself at the

19

kitchen table with paper and crayons to draw a picture of the cat on the label of a

can of Puss’n Boots cat food. Ramona

loved that jaunty booted cat, so different

from old Picky-picky, who spent most of

his time napping on Beezus’s bed.

The house was quiet. Ramona worked