Ramona and Her Mother (7 page)

In the morning, a few seconds after she awoke and found herself in her sister's bed, a dull, unhappy feeling settled over Ramona. Her parents had quarreled. She dreaded facing them at breakfast. She did not know what to say to them. Beezus looked unhappy, too. Getting dressed took longer than usual, and when they finally went into the kitchen, they were surprised to see their parents sharing the morning paper as they ate breakfast together.

“Good morning, girls,” said Mr. Quimby with his usual cheerfulness.

“There is oatmeal on the stove.” Mrs. Quimby smiled fondly at her daughters. “Did you sleep well?”

Beezus was suddenly angry. “No, we didn't!”

“No, we didn't,” echoed Ramona, encouraged by her sister's anger. How could her mother expect them to sleep well when they were so worried?

Startled, both parents laid down the newspaper.

“And it's all your fault,” Beezus informed them.

“What on earth are you talking about?” asked Mrs. Quimby.

Beezus was near tears. “Your big fight, that's what.”

Ramona blinked back tears, too. “You wouldn't even talk to each other. And you hit Daddy!”

“Of course we were speaking,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Where did you get the idea we weren't? We were just tired is all. We had one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong.”

So did I, thought Ramona.

“I went to bed and read,” continued Mrs. Quimby, “and your father watched television. That was all there was to it.”

Ramona felt almost limp with relief. At the same time she was angry with her parents for causing so much worry. “Grown-ups aren't supposed to fight,” she informed them.

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Why not?”

Ramona was stern. “Grown-ups are supposed to be perfect.”

Both her parents laughed. “Well, they are,” Ramona insisted, annoyed by their laughter.

“Name one perfect grown-up,” challenged Mr. Quimby. “You can't do it.”

“Haven't you noticed grown-ups aren't perfect?” asked Mrs. Quimby. “Especially when they're tired.”

“Then how come you expect us kids to be so perfect all the time?” demanded Ramona.

“Good question,” said Mr. Quimby. “I'll have to think of an answer.”

“We want you to be perfect so you won't grow up to bicker about your grandmothers and their pancakes,” said Mrs. Quimby. Both parents thought her reply was funny.

Ramona felt the way Picky-picky looked when someone rumpled his fur. Maybe grown-ups weren't perfect, but they should be, her parents most of all. They should be cheerful, patient, loving, never sick and never tired. And fun, too.

“You kids fight,” said Mr. Quimby. “Why shouldn't we?”

“It isn't dignified,” said Beezus, giving Ramona another word to add to her list. “Especially when you hit someone with a pancake turner.”

“Oh, you silly little girls,” said Mrs. Quimby with amusement and affection.

“Why should we let you kids have all the fun?” asked Mr. Quimby.

“We don't quarrel for fun,” Ramona informed her father.

“You could fool me,” said Mr. Quimby.

Ramona refused to smile. “Don't you ever do it again,” she ordered her parents in her sternest voice.

“Yes, ma'am,” answered Mrs. Quimby with mock meekness, as if she were poking a little fun at Ramona.

“Yes,
ma'am
!” said her father, and saluted as if she were somebody important.

This time Ramona had to laugh.

“R
amona, stand on both feet and hold still,” said Mrs. Quimby one Saturday morning. “I can't cut your bangs straight when you wiggle.”

“I'm trying,” said Ramona. Bits of falling hair made her nose tickle. She blew upward, fanning out her bangs from her forehead, to rid herself of the tickle.

“Now see what you've done.” Mrs. Quimby recombed the bangs.

Ramona stood perfectly still in an agony of itching, twitching her nose to get rid of snips of falling hair, until her mother finally said, “There, little rabbit, we're finished.” She removed the towel from Ramona's shoulders and shook it over the kitchen wastebasket. Ramona, who liked being called a little rabbit, continued to twitch her nose and think of the warm and cozy picture books about bears and rabbits her mother used to read to her at bedtime before she kissed her good-night. She had loved those books. They made her feel safe. During the daytime she had preferred books about steam shovels, the noisier the better, but at night—bears, nice bears, and bunnies.

“Next!” Mrs. Quimby called out to Beezus, who had just washed her hair. These days Beezus spent a lot of time locked in the bathroom with a bottle of shampoo.

“Beezus, don't keep me waiting,” said Mrs. Quimby. “I have a lot to do this morning.” The washing machine had broken down, and because no one had been able to stay home during the week to admit a repairman, Mrs. Quimby had to drive to a laundromat with three loads of washing. Repairmen did not work on Saturdays.

“I'm waiting,” repeated Mrs. Quimby.

Beezus, rubbing her hair with a towel, appeared in the doorway. “Mother, I don't want you to cut my hair,” she announced.

Ramona, about to leave the kitchen, decided to stay. She sensed an interesting argument.

“But Beezus, you're so shaggy,” protested Mrs. Quimby. “You look untidy.”

“I don't want to look tidy,” said Beezus. “I want to look nice.”

“You look nice when you're neat.” Mrs. Quimby's voice told Ramona her mother's patience was stretched thin. “And don't forget, how you look is not as important as how you behave.”

“Mother, you're so old-fashioned,” said Beezus.

Mrs. Quimby looked both annoyed and amused. “That's news to me.”

Beezus plainly resented her mother's amusement. “Well you
are
.”

“All right. I'm old-fashioned,” said Mrs. Quimby in a way that told Ramona she did not mean what she was saying. “But what are we going to do about your shaggy hair?”

“I am not a sheep dog,” said Beezus. “You make me sound like one.”

Mrs. Quimby chose silence while Ramona, fascinated, waited to see what would happen next. Deep down she was pleased, and guilty because she was pleased, that her mother was annoyed with Beezus. At the same time, their disagreement worried her. She wanted her family to be happy.

“I want to get my hair cut in a beauty shop,” said Beezus. “Like all the other girls.”

“Why Beezus, you know we can't afford a luxury like that,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Your hair is sensible and easy to care for.”

“I'm practically the only girl in my whole class who gets a home haircut,” persisted Beezus, ignoring her mother's little speech.

“Now you're exaggerating.” Mrs. Quimby looked tired.

Ramona did not like to see her mother look tired so she tried to help. “Karen in my room at school says her mother cuts her hair and her sister's too, and her sister is in your class.”

Beezus turned on her sister. “You keep out of this!”

“Let's not get all worked up,” said Mrs. Quimby.

“I'm not worked up,” said Beezus. “I just don't want to have a home haircut, and I'm not going to have one.”

“Be sensible,” said Mrs. Quimby.

Beezus scowled. “I've been good old sensible Beezus all my life, and I'm tired of being sensible.” She underlined this announcement by adding, “Ramona can get away with anything, but not me. No. I always have to be good old sensible Beezus.”

“That's not so.” Ramona was indignant. “I never get away with anything.”

After a thoughtful moment, Mrs. Quimby spoke. “So am I tired of being sensible all the time.”

Both sisters were surprised, Ramona most of all. Mothers were supposed to be sensible. That was what mothers were for.

Mrs. Quimby continued. “Once in a while I would like to do something that isn't sensible.”

“Like what?” asked Beezus.

“Oh—I don't know.” Mrs. Quimby looked at the breakfast dishes in the sink and at the rain spattering against the windows. “Sit on a cushion in the sunshine, I guess, and blow the fluff off dandelions.”

Beezus looked as if she did not quite believe her mother. “Weeds don't bloom this time of year,” she pointed out.

Ramona felt suddenly close to her mother and a little shy. “I would like to sit on a cushion and blow dandelion fluff with you,” she confided, thinking what fun it would be, just the two of them, sitting in warm sunshine, blowing on the yellow blossoms, sending dandelion down dancing off into the sunlight. She leaned against her mother, who put her arm around her and gave her a little hug. Ramona twitched her nose with pleasure.

“But Mother,” said Beezus, “you always said we shouldn't blow on dandelions because we would scatter seeds and they would get started in the lawn and are hard to dig out.”

“I know,” admitted Mrs. Quimby, her moment of fantasy at an end. “Very sensible of me.”

Beezus was silenced for the time being.

“I like your hair, Mother,” said Ramona, and she did. Her mother's short hair was straight, parted on one side and usually tucked behind her left ear. It always smelled good and looked, Ramona felt, the way a mother's hair should look, at least the way her mother's hair should look. “I think your hair looks nice,” she said, “and I don't mind when you cut my hair.” In the interest of truth she added, “Except when my nose tickles.”

Beezus flared up once more. “Well, goody-goody for you, you little twerp,” she said, and flounced out of the kitchen. In a moment the door of her room slammed.

Ramona's feelings were hurt. “I'm not a little twerp, am I?” she asked, wondering if her mother agreed.

Mrs. Quimby reached for the broom to sweep bits of hair from the kitchen floor. “Of course not,” she said. “I don't bring up my daughters to be twerps.”

Ramona twitched her nose like a rabbit.

Afterward neither Mrs. Quimby nor Beezus mentioned hair. Beezus's hair grew shaggier and Ramona decided that if her sister did not look like a sheepdog yet, she soon would. She also sensed that, as much as her mother wanted to say something about Beezus's hair, she was determined not to.

Beezus, on the other hand, looked defiant. She sat at the dinner table with a you-can't-make-me-if-I-don't-want-to look on her face.

Ramona discovered that the tiny part of herself, deep down inside, that had been pleased because her mother was angry with her sister was no longer pleased. Anger over one person's hair was not worth upsetting the family.

“Women,” muttered Mr. Quimby every evening at supper. He also remarked, as if he had hair on his mind, that he thought he was getting a little thin on top and maybe he should massage his scalp.

Conversation was strained. Beezus avoided speaking to her mother. Mrs. Quimby tried to look as if nothing had happened. She said calmly, “Beezus, when the shampoo bottle is almost empty, don't forget to add shampoo to the grocery list. We use it, too, you know.”