Ramona the Brave (9 page)

There was Ramona standing on one foot, trying to hide her dirty sock behind her shoe while Beezus's whole class, and especially Beezus, stared at her. Beside her classmates Beezus did not look so big as Ramona had always thought her to be. Ramona was secretly pleased to discover her sister was a little less than medium-sized. Ramona wondered how Beezus would report this scene at home. Mother! The door opened, and there was Ramona standing with one shoe on….

Ramona refused to let her courage fail her. She remembered her manners and asked, “May I please borrow your stapler? I can use it right here in the hall, and it will only take a minute.”

Once again she had that strange feeling of standing aside to look at herself. Was she a funny little girl whom Mr. Cardoza would find amusing? Apparently not because Mr. Cardoza did not hesitate.

“Certainly,” he said and strode to his desk for the stapler, which he handed to her without question. Mrs. Griggs would have said, Tell me why you want it, Ramona. Miss Binney would have said, Won't you let me help you with it? Mr. Cardoza closed the door, leaving Ramona in the privacy of the hall.

Ramona knelt on the floor and went to work. She stapled the three paper towels together. The towel folded in thirds she placed at one end of the other towels and stapled it on three sides to make the toe of a slipper. She had to push down hard with both hands to force the staples through so much paper. Then she turned her slipper over and sent staples through in the other direction to make it stronger. There. Ramona slid her foot into her slipper. With more time and a pair of scissors, she could have made a better slipper with a rounded toe, but this slipper was better than an old boot, and it should last all day, school paper towels being what they were.

Ramona opened the door again and held out the stapler. Mr. Cardoza looked up from the book in his hand and walked over to take the stapler from her. “Thank you, Mr. Cardoza,” she said, because she knew he expected good manners.

“You're welcome, Ramona Q.,” said Mr. Cardoza with a smile that was a friendly smile, not an amused-by-a-funny-little-girl smile. “We're always glad to be of help.”

Ramona had not felt so happy since she was in Miss Binney's kindergarten. Too bad Beezus had first dibs on Mr. Cardoza. Ramona might have married him herself someday if she ever decided to get married. She reached Room One just as the two first grades were returning from recess. She heard someone from Room Two say, “Ramona must have hurt her foot.”

Someone else said, “I bet it hurts.”

Ramona began to limp. She was enjoying the attention her slipper attracted.

“Oh, there you are, Ramona,” said Mrs. Griggs, who was standing by her door to make sure her class entered the room in an orderly manner. “Where have you been? We missed you on the playground.”

“I was making a slipper.” Ramona looked up at Mrs. Griggs. “I didn't want to wear a dirty old boot.” She had not felt so brave since the day she started off to the first grade.

“After this you should ask permission to stay in during recess.” Mrs. Griggs looked down at the slipper and said, “You have made a very good slipper.”

Encouraged by this bit of praise, Ramona said, “I could make a better slipper if I had scissors and crayons. I could draw a bunny face on the toe and make ears like a real bunny slipper.”

Mrs. Griggs's expression was thoughtful. She seemed to be studying Ramona, who shrank inside herself, uncertain as to what her teacher might be about to say. Mrs. Griggs looked more tired than cross, so Ramona summoned her spunk and said, “Maybe I could finish my slipper instead of making a Thanksgiving turkey.”

“We always—” began Mrs. Griggs and changed her mind. “I don't see why not,” she said.

Mrs. Griggs approved of her! Ramona smiled with relief and pretended to limp to her seat as her teacher closed the door. She no longer had to dread turkeys—or her teacher.

The class took out arithmetic workbooks. While Ramona began to count cowboy boots and butterflies and circled the correct number under the pictures, she was busy and happy in the private corner of her mind planning improvements in her slipper. She would round the heel and toe. She would draw a nose with pink crayon and eyes, too, and cut two ears…. Ramona' shappy thoughts were interrupted by another less happy thought. Her missing brown oxford. What was her mother going to say when she came home without it? Tell her she was careless? Tell her how much shoes cost these days? Ask her why on earth she didn't go to school the usual way? Because I was feeling full of spunk, Ramona answered in her thoughts. Her father would understand. She hoped her mother would, too.

Workbooks were collected. Reading circles were next. Prepared to attack words, Ramona limped to a little chair in the front of the room with the rest of her reading group. She felt so much better toward Mrs. Griggs that she was first to raise her hand on almost every question, even though she was worried about her missing oxford. The reader was more interesting now that her group was attacking bigger words.
Fire engine
. Ramona read to herself and thought, Pow! I got you,
fire engine
.
Monkey
. Pow! I got you,
monkey
.

The buzz of the little black telephone beside Mrs. Griggs's desk interrupted work in Room One. Everyone wanted to listen to Mrs. Griggs talk to the principal's office, because they might hear something important.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Griggs to the telephone. “Yes, we do.” With the receiver pressed to her ear, she turned away from the telephone and looked at Ramona. Everyone else in Room One looked at her, too. Now what? thought Ramona. Now what have I done? “All right,” said Mrs. Griggs to the telephone. “I'll send her along.” She replaced the receiver. Room One, most of all Ramona, waited.

“Ramona, your shoe is waiting for you in the office,” said the teacher. “When the dog's owner found it on the lawn, he brought it to school and the secretary guessed it was a first-grade size. You may be excused to go get it.”

Whew! thought Ramona in great relief, as she limped happily off to the office. This day was turning out to be better than she had expected. She accepted her shoe, now interestingly scarred with toothmarks, from Mrs. Miller, the school secretary.

“My goodness,” said Mrs. Miller, as Ramona shoved her foot into her shoe and tied the lace, still damp from being chewed, in a tight bow. “It's a good thing your foot came out of your shoe when the dog got hold of it. He must have had pretty big teeth.”

“He did,” Ramona assured the secretary. “Great big teeth. Like a wolf. He chased me.” Now that Ramona was safe in her two shoes, she was eager for an audience. “He chased me, but I took off my shoe and threw it at him, and that stopped him.”

“Fancy that!” Mrs. Miller was plainly impressed by Ramona's story. “You took off your shoe and threw it right at him! You must be a very brave girl.”

“I guess maybe I am,” said Ramona, pleased by the compliment. Of course, she was brave. She had scars on her shoe to prove it. She hoped her mother would not be in too much of a hurry to hide the toothmarks with fresh shoe polish. She hippity-hopped, paper slipper in hand, down the hall to show off her scars to Room One. Brave Ramona, that's what they would think, just about the bravest girl in the first grade. And they would be right. This time Ramona was sure.

BEVERLY CLEARLY
is one of America's most popular authors. Born in McMinnville, Oregon, she lived on a farm in Yamhill until she was six and then moved to Portland. After college, as the children's librarian in Yakima, Washington, she was challenged to find stories for non-readers. She wrote her first book,
HENRY HUGGINS
, in response to a boy's question, “Where are the books about kids like us?”

Mrs. Cleary's books have earned her many prestigious awards, including the American Library Association's Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, presented in recognition of her lasting contribution to children's literature. Her
DEAR MR
.
HENSHAW
was awarded the 1984 John Newbery Medal, and both
RAMONA QUIMBY
,
AGE
8 and
RAMONA AND HER FATHER
have been named Newbery Honor Books. In addition, her books have won more than thirty-five statewide awards based on the votes of her young readers. Her characters, including Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, Otis Spofford, and Beezus and Ramona Quimby, as well as Ribsy, Socks, and Ralph S. Mouse, have delighted children for generations. Mrs. Cleary lives in coastal California.

Visit Ramona Quimby and all of her friends in The World of Beverly Cleary at www.beverlycleary.com.

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