Beezus and Ramona - Beverly Cleary [7]
When the girls came to the shopping district, Ramona had to stop at the drugstore scales and pretend to weigh herself while Beezus held Ralph’s string. “I weigh fifty-eleven pounds,” she announced, while Beezus smiled at Ramona’s idea of her weight. It just goes to show how much imagination Ramona has, she thought.
At the radio-and-phonograph store Ramona insisted on petting His Master’s Voice, the black-and-white plaster dog, bigger than Ramona, that always sat with one ear cocked in front of the door. Beezus thought admiringly about the amount of imagination it took to pretend that a scarred and chipped plaster dog was real. If only she had an imagination like Ramona’s, maybe Miss Robbins would say her paintings were free and imaginative and would tack them on the middle of the wall.
When they reached the park, Beezus left Ramona and Ralph at the sand pile and, feeling more and more discouraged at her own lack of imagination, hurried to the recreation center. The class had already poured paints into their muffin tins and were painting on paper thumbtacked to drawing boards. The room hummed with activity. Miss Robbins, wearing a gay paint-smeared smock, flew from one artist to another, praising, correcting, suggesting.
Beezus waited until Miss Robbins finished explaining to a boy that he should not outline a mouth with black paint. Her mouth wasn’t outlined in black, was it? Then Beezus said, “I’m sorry I’m late, Miss Robbins.” She stared in fascination at Miss Robbins’s earrings. They came almost to her shoulders and were made of silver wire twisted and bent into interesting shapes—not the shape of anything in particular, just interesting shapes.
“That’s all right.” Miss Robbins, her earrings swinging, smiled at Beezus. “Get your paints and paper. Today everyone is painting an imaginary animal.”
“An imaginary animal?” Beezus repeated blankly. How could she possibly think of an imaginary animal? As Beezus poured paints into her muffin tin and tacked a sheet of paper to her drawing board, she tried to think of an imaginary animal, but all the animals she could think of—cats and dogs, cows and horses, lions and giraffes—were discouragingly real.
Reluctantly Beezus took the only vacant seat, which was beside a boy named Wayne who came to the class only because his mother made him. Once Beezus had hung her sweater on the back of a chair, and Wayne had printed “Post No Bills” on it in chalk. Beezus had worn it all the way home before she discovered it. Since then she did not care to sit beside Wayne. Today she noticed he had parked a grape-flavored lollipop on a paper towel beside his muffin tin of paints.
“Hi, Beez,” he greeted her. “No fair licking my sucker.”
“I don’t want your old sucker,” answered Beezus. “And don’t call me Beez.”
“O.K., Beez,” said Wayne.
At that moment the door opened and Ramona walked into the room. She was still dragging the string behind her and she looked angry.
“Why, hello,” said Miss Robbins pleasantly.
“Oh, Ramona, you’re supposed to be playing in the sand pile,” said Beezus, going over to her.
“No,” said Ramona flatly. “Howie threw sand on Ralph.” Her dark eyes were busy taking in the paints, the brushes, the drawing boards. “I’m going to paint,” she announced.
“Mother said you were supposed to play in the sand pile,” protested Beezus. “You’re too little for this class.”
“You say that about everything,” complained Ramona. Then she turned to Miss Robbins. “Don’t step on Ralph,” she said.
“Ralph is a make-believe green lizard she pretends she leads around on a string.” Beezus was embarrassed at having to explain such a silly thing.
Miss Robbins laughed. “Well, here is a little girl with lots of imagination. How would you like to paint a picture of Ralph for us, Ramona?”
Beezus could not help feeling annoyed. Miss Robbins was letting Ramona stay in the class—the one place where she was never allowed to tag along! Miss Robbins would probably like her painting, because it would be so full of imagination. Ramona’s pictures, in fact, were so full of imagination that it took even more