The job sounded like fun to Ramona. 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.
Teachers always like Beezus; she was so prompt and neat. 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. Her feet had grown since her last pair. She was not offended. Willa Jean was convinced she was beautiful, because her grandmother said so.
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 grownup lady on TV. Ramona tried to act kindly toward little Willa Jean. After all, her family was depending on her.
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. I am Mrs. Ramona always dreaded the people-and-fumes smell of the big city buses.
Kemp and Willa Jean, waving as if Ramona and Howie were 15 going on a long, long journey. 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. 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 speaking. This boy was not going to spoil her first day in the third grade. 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.
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.
The two searched 17 the seat and the floor. No eraser. Ramona felt a tap on her shoulder and turned. That grin was too much for Ramona. 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. 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.
Danny shoved ahead of her. The boy wound up as if he were pitching a baseball, and the eraser flew back to Danny. When she was about to catch him, he tossed her 19 eraser to the other boy. If her lunch box had not banged against her knees, Ramona might have been able to grab him.
Unfortunately, the bell rang first. Still fuming, Ramona entered her new school and climbed the stairs to find her assigned classroom, which she discovered looked out over roofs and treetops to Mount Hood in the distance. I wish it would erupt, she thought, because she felt like exploding with anger.
She saw some people she had known at her old school. Others were strangers. Everyone was talking at once, shouting greetings to old friends or looking over those who would soon become new friends, rivals, or enemies.
Ramona was too frustrated to speak. She wanted to hit him. How dare he spoil her day? Is it because the room is noisy? Like my swimming teacher, thought Ramona. Then the whale with a y for a tail handed Ramona some slips of paper. Squeak, creak, squeak. Ramona giggled, and so did the rest of the class. Ramona went up one aisle and down the other. The last 23 person she gave a slip to was the boy from the bus, who was still wearing his baseball cap.
Ramona stared at her feet. Bigfoot was a hairy creature ten feet tall, who was supposed to leave huge footprints in the mountain snows of southern Oregon. Some people thought they had seen Bigfoot slipping through the forests, but no one had ever been able to prove he really existed. Bigfoot indeed! She was not going to let him get away with this insult. To her astonishment,Yard Ape pulled her eraser out of his pocket and handed it to her 24 with a grin.
With her nose in the air, Ramona squeaked back to her seat. She felt so triumphant that she returned the longest way around and bent her feet as much as she could to make the loudest possible squeaks.
She had done the right thing! She had not let Yard Ape upset her by calling her Bigfoot, and now she had her eraser in her hand. He would probably call her Superfoot forever, but she did not care. Superfoot was a name she had given herself. That made all the difference. She had won. Ramona became aware that she was squeaking in the midst of an unusual silence.
She stopped midsqueak when she saw her new teacher watching her with a little smile. The class was watching the teacher. Of course the class laughed. By walking with stiff legs and not bending her feet, Ramona reached her seat without 25 squeaking at all. She did not know what to think. At first she thought Mrs. Ramona bent over her paper and wrote slowly and carefully in cursive, Ramona Quimby, age 8. She admired the look of what she had written, and she was happy.
She liked feeling tall in her new school. She liked—or was pretty sure she liked—her nonfussy teacher. Yard Ape— Well, he was a problem, but so far she had not let him get the best of her for keeps. Besides, although she might never admit it to anyone, now that she had her eraser back she liked him— sort of. Maybe she enjoyed a challenge. She was happy, too, because her family had been happy that morning and because she was big enough for her family to depend on.
If only she could do something about Willa Jean. Quimby, as she handed Ramona her lunch box. Grown-ups often forgot that no child likes to be ordered to be nice to another child. Ramona made a face. Deep down inside, where she hid her darkest secrets, Ramona 28 sometimes longed to be horrid to Willa Jean. Quimby with a little laugh. Her father was often tired, in a hurry, or studying on the dining-room table, which meant no one could disturb him by watching television.
At school she was still not sure how she felt about Mrs. Liking a teacher was important, Ramona had discovered when she was in the first grade. Kemp and Willa Jean. Those were the bad parts of the third grade. There were good parts, too. Ramona 29 enjoyed riding the bus to school, and she enjoyed keeping Yard Ape from getting the best of her.
Then another good part of the third grade began the second week of school. Just before her class was to make its weekly visit to the school library, Mrs. Whaley continued. Whaley promised the class. Can anyone guess what these letters stand for? A good thought, but not the right answer. Whaley laughed and told him to try again. As Ramona thought, she stared out the window at the blue sky, the treetops, and, in the distance, the snow-capped peak of Mount Hood looking like a giant licked ice-cream cone.
R could stand for Run and A for And. Ramona felt silly. She should have thought of that herself. How peaceful it was to be left alone in school. She could read without trying to hide her book under her desk or behind a bigger book.
She was not expected to write lists of words she did not know, so she could figure them out by skipping and guessing. Whaley did not expect the class to write summaries of what they read either, so she did not have to choose easy books to make sure she would get her summary right.
Now if Mrs. Whaley would leave her alone to draw, too, school would be almost perfect. Yes, Sustained Silent Reading was the best part of the day. Howie and Ramona talked it over after school and agreed as they walked from the bus to his house. There they found two of the new friends he had made at Cedarhurst School waiting with their bicycles.
Ramona jumped up, eager to take a turn. Ramona mounted the bicycle and, while the three boys silently watched, teetered and wobbled to the corner without falling off.
All I need is a little practice, thought Ramona, as Howie seized his bicycle and rode off with his friends, leaving her with nothing to do but pick up her book and join Willa Jean in the house. Now that Willa Jean was going to nursery school, she was full of ideas. Dressing up was one of them. She met Ramona at the door with an old curtain wrapped around her shoulders. The snack turned out to be pineapple juice and Rye Crisp, a pleasant change for Ramona, even though Willa Jean stood impatiently beside her, watching every swallow until she had finished.
Did she have to be a dog if Willa Jean wanted her to then? She glanced wistfully at her book lying on the chair, the book she was supposed to read at school, but which she was enjoying so much she brought it home. While Willa Jean was thinking, Mrs. Kemp was shocked. As things turned out, Ramona was saved 37 from being a dog by the arrival of a small boy whose mother let him out of the car and watched him reach the front door before she drove off.
Kemp felt a need to apologize for her granddaughter. She dragged from the corner a carton piled with old clothes. She 38 unwound the curtain from her shoulders, draped it over her head, and tied it under her chin. Then she hung a piece of old sheet from her shoulders. Satisfied with herself, she handed a torn shirt to Ramona, who put it on only because Mrs.
Kemp was watching. Ramona hm-med too. Willa Jean stamped her foot. Miss Mousie. The two nursery-school children looked to Ramona for the next line. Since she did not remember the words used by Uncle Rat to give Mr. Go ahead. His hand was sticky. Ramona skipped, Willa Jean pranced, and Bruce flapped.
Above their laughter and the sound of the television, Ramona heard the shouts of the boys outside as they rode their bicycles up and down the street. She wondered how much longer she would have to wait until her mother came to rescue her.
Willa Jean scrambled to her feet. Over and over the three sang, danced, and fell down. As the game went on and on, Ramona grew bored and varied the words she used to give Mr. Frog permission to marry Miss Mousie.
Then Beezus came in with an armload of books. You can be the old tomcat in the song. I have homework I have to do. Ramona looked at Mrs. Kemp, who smiled and continued crocheting. Why did Ramona have to play with Willa Jean when Beezus did not? Because she was younger. That was why. Ramona was overwhelmed by the unfairness of it all.
Now she had to get along with Willa Jean—her whole family was depending on her—and Beezus did not. Once more Ramona looked at her book of fairy tales waiting on the chair beside the front door, and as she looked at its worn cover she had an inspiration.
It was worth a try. Kemp, who was counting stitches, merely nodded. Ramona picked up her book and settled herself in the corner of the couch. On the days when Mr. Beezus left next because she walked to school and because she wanted to stop for Mary Jane on the way. Ramona was third to leave. She enjoyed 45 these last few minutes alone with her mother now that Mrs.
Quimby no longer reminded her she must be nice to Willa Jean. This week hardboiled eggs were popular with third graders, a fad started by Yard Ape, who sometimes brought his lunch.
Last week the fad had been individual bags of corn chips. Ramona had been left out of that fad because her mother objected to spending money on junk food. Surely her mother would not object to a nutritious hard-boiled egg. Neither did she 46 like soft-boiled eggs, because she did not like slippery, slithery food.
Ramona liked deviled eggs, but deviled eggs were not the fad, at least not this week. On the bus Ramona and Susan compared lunches. Each was happy to discover that the other had a hard-boiled egg, and both were eager for lunchtime to come.
While Ramona waited for lunch period, school turned out to be unusually interesting. After the class had filled out their arithmetic workbooks, Mrs. Whaley handed each child a glass jar containing about two inches of a wet blue substance—she explained that it was oatmeal dyed blue.
When the room was quiet, she explained that for science they were going to study fruit flies. The blue oatmeal contained fruit-fly larvae.
Several people thought the blue dye was some sort of food for the larvae, vitamins maybe. Everybody laughed at this guess. Who would ever think cold oatmeal was good to eat? Yard Ape came up with the right answer: the oatmeal was dyed blue so the larvae could be seen. And so they could— little white specks.
Then she drew tiny fruit flies around it before she pasted the label on her very own jar of blue oatmeal and fruit-fly larvae. Now she had a jar of pets. Ramona decided she liked Mrs. Whaley after all. The morning was so satisfactory that it passed quickly.
When lunchtime came, Ramona collected her lunch box and went off to the cafeteria where, after waiting in line for her milk, she sat at a table with Sara, 49 Janet, Marsha, and other third-grade girls. She opened her lunch box, and there, tucked in a paper napkin, snug between her sandwich and an orange, was her hard-boiled egg, smooth and perfect, the right size to fit her hand. Because Ramona wanted to save the best for the last, she ate the center of her sandwich—tuna fish—and poked a hole in her orange so she could suck out the juice.
Third graders did not peel their oranges. At last it was time for the egg. There were a number of ways of cracking eggs. There were two ways of doing so, by a lot of timid little raps or by one big whack.
Sara was a rapper. Ramona, like Yard Ape, was a whacker. She took a firm hold on her egg, waited until everyone at her table was watching, and whack—she found herself 50 with a handful of crumbled shell and something cool and slimy running down her face.
Ramona needed a moment to realize what 51 had happened. Her egg was raw. Her mother had not boiled her egg at all. She tried to brush the yellow yolk and slithery white out of her hair and away from her face, but she only succeeded in making her hands eggy. Her eyes filled with tears of anger, which she tried to brush away with her wrists. The gasps at her table turned into giggles. From another table, Ramona caught a glimpse of Yard Ape grinning at her.
She did not want this third-grade girl treating her like a baby. The teacher who was supervising lunch period came over to see what the commotion was about. Marsha gathered up all the paper 52 napkins from the lunch boxes at the table and handed them to the teacher, who tried to sop up the egg.
Unfortunately, the napkins did not absorb egg very well. Her face felt stiff as egg white began to dry. Larson will help her. Ramona jerked away. She was so angry she was able to ignore the giggles and the few sympathetic looks of the other children.
Ramona was mad at herself for following a fad. She was furious with Yard Ape for grinning at her. Most of all she was angry with her mother for not boiling 53 the egg in the first place. Ramona almost ran into Mr. Wittman, the principal, which would have upset her even more. He was someone Ramona always tried to avoid ever since Beezus had told her that the way to remember how to spell the kind of principal who was the principal of a school was to remember the word ended in p-a-l, not p-l-e, because the principal was her pal.
Ramona did not want the principal to be her pal. She wanted him to mind his own business, aloof and important, in his office. Wittman must have felt the same way because he stepped—almost jumped— quickly aside. Larson for behaving as if eggy third graders walked into her office every day.
The secretary led her into a tiny room equipped with a cot, washbasin, and toilet that adjoined the office. I guess the best way is to wash your hands, then dunk your head. They are supposed to be wonderful for the hair.
She rinsed and Ramona sniffed. Finally Mrs. As she sat on the cot, rubbing and blotting and seething in humiliation and anger, she listened to sounds from the office, the click of the typewriter, the ring of the telephone, Mrs.
Ramona began to calm down and feel a little better. Maybe Mrs. Kemp would let her wash her hair after school. She could let Willa Jean pretend to be working in a beauty shop and not say anything about her Sustained Silent Reading. One of these days Willa Jean was sure to catch on that she was just reading a book, and Ramona wanted to postpone that time as long as possible.
Toward the end of lunch period, Ramona heard teachers drift into the office to leave papers or pick up messages from their boxes.
Then Ramona made an interesting discovery. Ramona found all this conversation most interesting. She had blotted her hair as best she could when she heard Mrs. Larson murmured an answer. Then Mrs. Did Mrs. Whaley think she had broken a raw egg into her hair on purpose to show off? And to be called a nuisance by her teacher when she was not a nuisance.
Or was she? Ramona did not mean to break an egg in her hair. Her mother was to blame. Did this accident make her a nuisance? Ramona did not see why Mrs. Whaley could think she was a nuisance when Mrs. Whaley was not the one to get her hands all eggy. Yet Ramona had heard her say right out loud that she was a show-off and a nuisance.
That hurt, really hurt. Ramona sat as still as she could with the damp paper towels in her hands. She did not want to risk even the softest noise by throwing them into the wastebasket.
Lunch period came to an end, and still she sat. Her body felt numb and so did her heart. She could never, never face Mrs. Whaley again. Ramona was forgotten, which was the way she wanted it. She even wanted to forget herself and her horrible hair, now drying into stiff spikes.
She no longer felt like a real person. The next voice Ramona heard was that of Yard Ape. Larson, as she appeared in the doorway.
The third grade was spoiled forever. Surprised by sympathy from Yard Ape, Ramona reluctantly left the office. She expected him to go on ahead of her, but instead he walked beside her, as if they were friends instead of rivals. Ramona felt strange walking down the hall alone with a boy.
As she trudged along beside him, she felt she had to tell someone the terrible news. She began to like him, really like him. There was nothing for Ramona to do but follow him into the room. Whaley called it, was over, and the class was practicing writing cursive capital letters. Whaley was describing capital M as she wrote it on the board.
She enjoyed the work, and it soothed her hurt feelings until she came to the letter Q. Ramona sat looking at the cursive capital Q, the first letter of her last name.
Ramona had always been fond of Q, the only letter of the alphabet with a neat little tail. She 62 enjoyed printing Q, but she did not like her written Q. She had made it right, but it looked like a big floppy 2, which Ramona felt was a dumb way to make such a nice letter. Ramona decided right then and there that she would never again write a cursive Q. She would write the rest of her last name, uimby, in cursive, but she would always, no matter what Mrs.
So there, Mrs. Whaley, thought Ramona. She began to feel like a real person again. I put the boiled eggs on one shelf in the refrigerator and the raw eggs on another. In my hurry, I took an egg from the wrong shelf. I am sorry. There is nothing more I can say. She felt mean 64 and unhappy because she wanted to forgive her mother, but something in that dark, deepdown place inside her would not let her.
Hearing her teacher call her a show-off and a nuisance hurt so much she could not stop being angry at almost everyone. Quimby sighed in a tired sort of way as she gathered up sheets and towels to feed into the washing machine in the basement. Ramona stared out the window and wished the misty rain, which fell softly and endlessly, would go away so she could go outdoors and roller-skate away her bad feelings.
Beezus was no help. Afterward they stayed awake talking, too scared to go to sleep. That morning Beezus had come home tired and grouchy and had fallen asleep almost immediately.
She found pencil and paper, pulled off one shoe and sock, and climbed on the couch beside her father. Both studied their feet and began to sketch.
Ramona soon found that drawing a foot was more difficult than she had expected. Like her father, she stared, frowned, drew, erased, stared, frowned, and drew.
For a little while she forgot she was cross. She was enjoying herself. She had drawn a good, not an excellent, foot. It was the kind of picture a teacher would pin up off in the corner where no one but the artist would notice it. For the first time, Ramona began to doubt that her father was the best artist in 67 the whole world. This thought made her feel sad in addition to reminding her she was cross at that world. That makes your foot harder to draw. Quimby crumpled his drawing and threw it into the fireplace.
The day dragged on. By dinner time Ramona still had not been able to forgive her mother, who looked even more tired. Quimby had crumpled several more unsatisfactory drawings of his foot, and Beezus had emerged from her room sleepy-eyed and 68 half-awake, when her mother called the family to supper. Corn bread was a pretty shade of yellow, which would have looked cheerful on a misty day.
She leaned forward to sniff the plate of food set before her. Broccoli and baked potato, both easy to eat. Pot roast. Ramona leaned closer to examine her meat. She could not find one bit of fat, and there was only a bit of gravy poured over her serving. Ramona refused even the tiniest bit of fat. She did not like the slippery squishy feeling in her mouth. Quimby, who did not feel he had to inspect his food before eating. Ramona seized her fork, speared her meat to her plate, and began to saw with her knife.
A fork is not a dagger. She succeeded in cutting a bite of meat the way her parents thought proper. It was unusually tender and not the least bit stringy like some pot roasts her mother had prepared. It tasted good, too. The family ate in contented silence until 70 Beezus pushed aside her gravy with the side of her fork.
Gravy was fattening, and although Beezus was slender, even skinny, she was taking no chances. Quimby innocently. Ramona understood her mother was trying to hide something when she saw her parents exchange their secret-sharing glance. She too scraped aside her gravy. Beezus was right. One edge of her meat was covered with tiny bumps.
Like Beezus, Ramona pushed her meat aside. Quimby was losing patience. The meal continued in silence, the girls guilty but defiant, the parents unrelenting. When Mr. Picky-picky, purring like a rusty motor, 73 walked into the dining room and rubbed against legs to remind the family that he should eat too. Quimby looked at one another and only partly suppressed their laughter.
The girls exchanged sulky glances. Parents should not laugh at their children. Beezus silently cleared the table. Quimby served applesauce and oatmeal cookies while Mr. He told how snow fell inside the warehouse door when someone opened it and let in warm air.
He told about a man who had to break icicles from his moustache when he left the warehouse. Snow indoors, icicles on a moustache— Ramona was full of questions that she would not let herself ask.
Quimby to Mrs. Quimby, when the last cookie crumb had been eaten. Tomorrow the girls can get dinner and you can take it easy. Quimby was both cheerful and heartless. When Beezus had no answer, Ramona understood their plight was serious. When their father behaved this way, he never changed his mind. Anyone who can read can cook. Quimby, his face serious but his eyes amused, looked at Ramona. The sisters looked at one another. What had gone wrong? They liked to cook; they did not like to be punished.
They sat in silence, thinking cross thoughts about parents, especially their parents, their unfair, unkind parents who did not appreciate what nice daughters they had.
Lots of parents would be happy to have nice daughters like Beezus and Ramona. Things like stuffed olives and whipped cream. Beezus objected. She found herself thinking of French toast, golden with egg under a snowfall of powdered sugar. Something had gone wrong. Beezus was probably right. The only way to escape punishment was to try being extra good. What a dismal thought, being extra good, but it was better than allowing their parents to punish them. Ramona went to her own room, where she curled up on her bed with a book.
She wished something nice would happen to her mother and father, something that would help them forget the scene at the dinner table. She wished her father would succeed in drawing a perfect foot, the sort of foot his teacher would want to hang in the front of the room above the middle of the blackboard. Maybe a perfect foot would make him happy. And her mother?
Maybe if Ramona could 79 forgive her for not boiling the egg she would be happy. In her heart Ramona had forgiven her, and she was sorry she had been so cross with her mother. She longed to go tell her, but now she could not, not when she was being punished. At lunchtime they ate without complaint the sandwiches they knew were made of ground-up tongue. A little added pickle relish did not fool them, but it did help. They dried the dishes and carefully avoided looking in the direction of the refrigerator lest their mother be reminded they were supposed to cook the evening meal.
Quimby were goodhumored. In fact, everyone was so unnaturally pleasant that Ramona almost wished someone would say something cross. By early afternoon the question was still hanging in the air. Would the girls really have to prepare dinner? Ramona thought, weary of being so good, weary of longing to forgive her mother for the raw egg in her lunch. The rain finally stopped. Ramona watched for dry spots to appear on the sidewalk and thought of her roller skates in the closet.
Ramona knew Beezus wanted to telephone Mary Jane but had decided to wait until Mary Jane called to ask why she had not come over. Mary Jane did not call. The question that had hung in the air all day was answered. The matter was settled. And yoghurt, one carton of plain and one of banana. There must have been a special on yoghurt. There was no need to let their parents, their 84 mean old parents, know what was going on in the kitchen.
All I know is that Mother bakes thighs in the flat glass dish with some kind of sauce. Beezus opened the cupboard of canned goods. Beezus, always practical, changed her mind.
She 86 tried holding down a thigh with a fork and pulling off the skin with the tongs. She took a firm hold on the thigh while Beezus grasped the skin with the tongs.
Both pulled, and the skin peeled away. They played tug-of-war with each thigh, leaving a sad-looking heap of skins on the counter and a layer of chicken thighs in the glass dish. Ramona could not.
The girls studied the spice shelf, unscrewed jar lids and sniffed. Chili powder? Yes, that must be it. Ramona remembered that the specks were red. Beezus stirred half a teaspoon of the dark red powder into the yoghurt, which she poured over the chicken. She slid the 87 dish into the oven set at degrees, the temperature for chicken recommended by the cookbook. After she climbed down, she discovered she had to climb up again for baking powder and soda.
She finally knelt on the counter to save time and asked Beezus to bring her an egg. There was no 89 buttermilk in the refrigerator. Use this. Beezus hurled herself against the door. She stirred egg and yoghurt together, measured flour, spilling some on the floor, and then discovered she was short of cornmeal.
More panic. Something was needed to sop up the sauce with little red specks when the chicken was served. When the rice was cooking, she slipped into the dining room to set the table and then remembered they had forgotten salad. Carrot sticks were quickest. Beezus began to scrape carrots into the sink.
Beezus snatched a larger pan from the cupboard and transferred the rice. Quimby called from the living room. Another calamity. The corn bread should bake at degrees, a higher temperature 91 than that needed for the chicken.
What was Ramona to do? In went the corn bread beside the chicken. All she could find was a can of boring pear halves. Back to the cookbook. Half a jar of apricot jam would have to do. The pears and butter went into the saucepan. Never mind the syrup spilled on the floor. Beezus groaned. Out came the partially cooked chicken while she stirred the thawing peas into the yoghurt and shoved the dish back into the oven. The rice!
They had forgotten the rice, which was only beginning to stick to the pan. Take it off the burner. How did their 92 mother manage to get everything cooked at the right time?
Put the carrot sticks on a dish. Pour the milk. Beezus struck the match to light them, because although Ramona was brave about touching raw meat, she was skittish about lighting matches.
Was the chicken done? The girls anxiously examined their main dish, bubbling and brown around the edges. Beezus stabbed a thigh with a fork, and when it did not bleed, she decided it must be done. A toothpick pricked into the corn bread came out clean. The corn bread was done—flat, but done. It was amazing how a tiny bit of spilled 93 Cream of Wheat could make the entire kitchen floor gritty. At last their dinner was served, the dining-room light turned off, dinner announced, and the cooks, tense with anxiety that was hidden by candlelight, fell into their chairs as their parents seated themselves.
Was this dinner going to be edible? Quimby with his most wicked grin. The girls watched anxiously as their father took his first bite of chicken. Quimby, and took a bit of corn bread. Quimby tasted the corn bread. They could not taste the banana yoghurt, and by candlelight no one could tell that the corn bread was a little pale. The chicken, Ramona decided, was not as good as her parents thought—or pretended to think— but she could eat it without gagging.
Everyone relaxed, and Mrs. Quimby said chili powder was more interesting than paprika and asked which recipe they had used for the chicken. Those little specks in the sauce should have been paprika. Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Download Ramona Quimby Age 8 Books now!
In this sixth book in the series Ramona is in the third grade and is big enough to ride the school bus on her own. She's determined to enjoy the third grade - that is until she gets sick and throws up right in front of everyone in the class! But being a patient isn't all bad, and although being eight isn't easy - it's never dull.
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