Beezus and Ramona - Beverly Cleary [10]
“Hey!” interrupted Wayne in a loud voice. “She’s licking my sucker!”
“Ramona!” Beezus was horrified to see Ramona, no longer interested in footprints, calmly sucking Wayne’s grape-flavored lollipop. “Ramona, put that down this instant! You’re not supposed to lick other people’s suckers.”
“You give me that!” Wayne made a grab for his lollipop.
“No!” screamed Ramona, trying to hold it out of his reach. “I want it!”
“Ramona, give it to him,” ordered Beezus. “It’s all germy.”
“You mean she’s getting germs on it,” said Wayne. “Give it to me!”
The rest of the class stopped painting to watch. Wayne made another grab for his lollipop. This time he grabbed Ramona by the wrist.
“Let go of her!” said Beezus angrily.
Ramona howled as Wayne tried to pry her fingers loose from the lollipop stick. He knocked against his muffin tin, which flipped into the air spattering paint over the table, the drawing boards, and the floor. Ramona was splashed with red and yellow paint. Blue and green ran down Wayne’s jeans onto his sneakers. A pool of brown paint dripped off the table onto the floor.
“Now see what you did,” said Wayne, after he had pried his sucker out of Ramona’s fist.
“See what you did,” contradicted Beezus.
“Picking on my little sister like that!” She picked up the paper towel the sucker had been resting on and began to wipe the spatters off Ramona, who continued to howl.
“Boys and girls!” Miss Robbins raised her voice. “Let’s be quiet. When the room is quiet I know you are thinking. Lots of people don’t know you have to think while you paint.” Then she turned to Wayne. “All right, Wayne, you may get a damp cloth and wipe up the paint.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Robbins,” said Beezus.
“I want the sucker!” screamed Ramona.
Suddenly Beezus decided she had had enough. This art class was one place where Ramona was not supposed to be. She was supposed to play in the sand pile. Mother had said so. She was not supposed to upset the class and spoil everything with one of her tantrums. Beezus made up her mind she was going to do something about it and right now, too, though she didn’t know what.
“Ramona, stop that this instant,” Beezus ordered. “Go out and play in the sand pile, where you belong, or I’ll…I’ll…” Frantically Beezus tried to think what she could do. Then she had an inspiration. “Or I’ll tickle you!” she finished. I guess I do have some imagination, after all, she thought triumphantly.
Instantly Ramona stopped crying. She hugged herself and stared at Beezus. “Don’t tickle, Beezus,” she begged. “Please don’t tickle.”
“Then go out and play in the sand pile, like Mother says you’re supposed to,” said Beezus.
“Don’t tickle,” shrieked Ramona, as she scrambled down from her stool and ran out the door.
Well! thought Beezus. It worked! It really worked!
Feeling suddenly lighthearted, she tacked a fresh sheet of paper to her drawing board and sat staring at it. Maybe Ramona didn’t have so much imagination after all, if she couldn’t draw a picture of an imaginary green lizard. Well, if Ramona couldn’t paint a picture of Ralph, she could. Ramona was not the only one in the family with imagination. So there!
Beezus seized her brush and painted in another sky with bold, free strokes. Then she dipped her brush into green paint and started to outline a lizard on her paper. Let’s see, what did a lizard look like? She could not remember. It didn’t matter much, anyway—not for an imaginary animal. She had started the lizard with such brave, bold strokes that it took up most of the paper and looked more like a dragon.
Beezus promptly decided the animal was a dragon. Dragons breathed fire, but she did not have any orange paint, and she was so late in starting this picture that she didn’t want to take time to mix any. She dipped her brush into pink paint instead and made flames come out of the dragon’s mouth. Only they didn’t look like flames. They looked more like the spun-sugar candy Beezus had once eaten at the circus. And a dragon breathing clouds of pink candy was more fun than an ordinary