Beezus and Ramona - Beverly Cleary [1]
“You skipped,” interrupted Ramona.
“No, I didn’t,” said Beezus.
“Yes, you did,” insisted Ramona. “You’re supposed to say, ‘I want to be a big bulldozer.’”
“Oh, all right,” said Beezus crossly. “‘I want to be a big bulldozer.’”
Ramona smiled contentedly and Beezus continued reading. “‘G-r-r-r,’ said Scoopy, doing his best to sound like a bulldozer.”
Beezus read on through Scoopy’s failure to be a bulldozer. She read about Scoopy’s wanting to be a trolley bus (“Beep-beep,” honked Ramona), a locomotive (“A-hooey, a-hooey,” wailed Ramona), and a pile driver (“Clunk! Clunk!” shouted Ramona). Beezus was glad when she finally reached the end of the story and Scoopy learned it was best for little steam shovels to be steam shovels. “There!” she said with relief, and closed the book. She always felt foolish trying to make noises like machinery.
“Clunk! Clunk!” yelled Ramona, jumping down from the chair. She pulled her harmonica out of the pocket of her overalls and climbed on her tricycle. Oh dear, oh dear, she inhaled and exhaled.
“Ramona!” cried Beezus. “You promised you’d stop if I read Scoopy to you.”
“I did stop,” said Ramona, when she had taken the harmonica out of her mouth.
“Now read it again.”
“Ramona Geraldine Quimby!” Beezus began, and stopped. It was useless to argue with Ramona. She wouldn’t pay any attention. “Why do you like that story anyway?” Beezus asked. “Steam shovels can’t talk, and I feel silly trying to make all those noises.”
“I don’t,” said Ramona, and wailed, “A-hooey, a-hooey,” with great feeling before she put her harmonica back in her mouth.
Beezus watched her little sister pedal furiously around the living room, inhaling and exhaling. Why did she have to like a book about a steam shovel anyway? Girls weren’t supposed to like machinery. Why couldn’t she like something quiet, like Peter Rabbit?
Mother, who had bought The Littlest Steam Shovel at the Supermarket to keep Ramona quiet while she shopped one afternoon, was so tired of Scoopy that she always managed to be too busy to read to Ramona. Father came right out and said he was fed up with frustrated steam shovels and he would not read that book to Ramona and, furthermore, no one else was to read it to her while he was in the house. And that was that.
So only Beezus was left to read Scoopy to Ramona. Plainly something had to be done and it was up to Beezus to do it. But what? Arguing with Ramona was a waste of time. So was appealing to her better nature. The best thing to do with Ramona, Beezus had learned, was to think up something to take the place of whatever her mind was fixed upon. And what could take the place of The Littlest Steam Shovel? Another book, of course, a better book, and the place to find it was certainly the library.
“Ramona, how would you like me to take you to the library to find a different book?” Beezus asked. She really enjoyed taking Ramona places, which, of course, was quite different from wanting to go someplace herself and having Ramona insist on tagging along.
For a moment Ramona was undecided. Plainly she was torn between wanting The Littlest Steam Shovel read aloud again and the pleasure of going out with Beezus. “O.K.,” she agreed at last.
“Get your sweater while I tell Mother,” said Beezus.
“Clunk! Clunk!” shouted Ramona happily.
When Ramona appeared with her sweater, Beezus stared at her in dismay. Oh, no, she thought. She can’t wear those to the library.
On her head Ramona wore a circle of cardboard with two long paper ears attached. The insides of the ears were colored with pink