Free Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary

break your arm,” her father pointed out.
    Ramona had an answer. “I always turn on the light or sort of feel along the floor with my feet.”
    â€œYou could smother in old school papers, stuffed animals, and hula hoops if the mess gets deep enough,” said her father and added, “Miss Radar Feet.”
    Ramona smiled. “Daddy, you’re just being silly again. Nobody ever smothered in a hula hoop.”
    â€œYou never can tell,” said her father. “There is always a first time.”
    Ramona and her father got along better for a while after that, and then came the terrible afternoon when Ramona came home from school to find her father closing the living-room windows, which had been wide open even though the day was raw and windy. There was a faint smell of cigarette smoke in the room.
    â€œWhy there’s Henry running down the street,” said Mr. Quimby, his back to Ramona. “He may make it to the Olympics, but that old dog of his won’t.”
    â€œDaddy,” said Ramona. Her father turned. Ramona looked him in the eye. “You cheated !”
    Mr. Quimby closed the last window. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œYou smoked and you promised you wouldn’t!” Ramona felt as if she were the grown-up and he were the child.
    Mr. Quimby sat down on the couch and leaned back as if he were very, very tired, which made some of the anger drain out of Ramona. “Ramona,” he said, “it isn’t easy to break a bad habit. I ran across one cigarette, an old stale cigarette, in my raincoat pocket and thought it might help if I smoked just one. I’m trying. I’m really trying.”
    Hearing her father speak this way, as if she really was a grown-up, melted the last of Ramona’s anger. She turned into a seven-year-old again and climbed on the couch to lean against her father. After a few moments of silence, she whispered, “I love you, Daddy.”

    He tousled her hair affectionately and said, “I know you do. That’s why you want me to stop smoking, and I love you, too.”
    â€œEven if I’m a brat sometimes?”
    â€œEven if you’re a brat sometimes.”
    Ramona thought awhile before she sat up and said, “Then why can’t we be a happy family?”
    For some reason Mr. Quimby smiled. “I have news for you, Ramona,” he said. “We are a happy family.”
    â€œWe are?” Ramona was skeptical.
    â€œYes, we are.” Mr. Quimby was positive. “No family is perfect. Get that idea out of your head. And nobody is perfect either. All we can do is work at it. And we do.”
    Ramona tried to wiggle her toes inside her shoes and considered what her father had said. Lots of fathers wouldn’t draw pictures with their little girls. Her father bought her paper and crayons when he could afford them. Lots of mothers wouldn’t step over a picture that spread across the kitchen floor while cooking supper. Ramona knew mothers who would scold and say, “Pick that up. Can’t you see I’m trying to get supper?” Lots of big sisters wouldn’t let their little sister go along when they interviewed someone for creative writing. They would take more than their fair share of gummybears because they were bigger and…
    Ramona decided her father was probably right, but she couldn’t help feeling they would be a happier family if her mother could find time to sew that sheep costume. There wasn’t much time left.

7
Ramona and the Three Wise Persons
    S uddenly, a few days before Christmas when the Quimby family least expected it, the telephone rang for Ramona’s father. He had a job! The morning after New Year’s Day he was to report for training as a checker in a chain of supermarkets. The pay was good, he would have to work some evenings, and maybe someday he would get to manage a market!
    After that telephone call Mr. Quimby stopped reaching for