Free Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary Page B

many rabbits as possible. Black branches clawed at the sky, and the wind was raw.
    â€œStand up straight,” said Ramona’s heartless father.
    â€œI’ll get wet,” said Ramona. “I might catch cold, and then you’d be sorry.”
    â€œRun between the drops,” said Mr. Quimby.
    â€œThey’re too close together,” answered Ramona.
    â€œOh, you two,” said Mrs. Quimby with a tired little laugh, as she backed out of the car and tried to open her umbrella at the same time.
    â€œI will not be in it,” Ramona defied her family once and for all. “They can give the program without me.”
    Her father’s answer was a surprise. “Suit yourself,” he said. “You’re not going to spoil our evening.”
    Mrs. Quimby gave the seat of Ramona’s pajamas an affectionate pat. “Run along, little lamb, wagging your tail behind you.”
    Ramona walked stiff-legged so that her tail would not wag.
    At the church door the family parted, the girls going downstairs to the Sunday-school room, which was a confusion of chattering children piling coats and raincoats on chairs. Ramona found a corner behind the Christmas tree, where Santa would pass out candy canes after the program. She sat down on the floor with her car coat pulled over her bent knees.
    Through the branches Ramona watched carolers putting on their white robes. Girls were tying tinsel around one another’s heads while Mrs. Russo searched out boys and tied tinsel around their heads, too. “It’s all right for boys to wear tinsel,” Mrs. Russo assured them. Some looked as if they were not certain they believed her.
    One boy climbed on a chair. “I’m an angel. Watch me fly,” he announced and jumped off, flapping the wide sleeves of his choir robe. All the carolers turned into flapping angels.
    Nobody noticed Ramona. Everyone was having too much fun. Shepherds found their cloaks, which were made from old cotton bedspreads. Beezus’s friend, Henry Huggins, arrived and put on the dark robe he was to wear in the part of Joseph.
    The other two sheep appeared. Howie’s acrylic sheep suit, with the zipper on the front, was as thick and as fluffy as Ramona knew it would be. Ramona longed to pet Howie; he looked so soft. Davy’s flannel suit was fastened with safety pins, and there was something wrong about the ears. If his tail had been longer, he could have passed for a kitten, but he did not seem to mind. Both boys wore brown mittens. Davy, who was a thin little sheep, jumped up and down to make his tail wag, which surprised Ramona. At school he was always so shy. Maybe he felt brave inside his sheep suit. Howie, a chunky sheep, made his tail wag, too. My ears are as good as theirs, Ramona told herself. The floor felt cold through the seat of her thin pajamas.

    â€œLook at the little lambs!” cried an angel. “Aren’t they darling?”
    â€œBa-a, ba-a!” bleated Davy and Howie.
    Ramona longed to be there with them, jumping and ba-a-ing and wagging her tail, too. Maybe the faded rabbits didn’t show as much as she had thought. She sat hunched and miserable. She had told her father she would not be a sheep, and she couldn’t back down now. She hoped God was too busy to notice her, and then she changed her mind. Please, God, prayed Ramona, in case He wasn’t too busy to listen to a miserable little sheep, I don’t really mean to be horrid. It just works out that way. She was frightened, she discovered, for when the program began, she would be left alone in the church basement. The lights might even be turned out, a scary thought, for the big stone church filled Ramona with awe, and she did not want to be left alone in the dark with her awe. Please, God, prayed Ramona, get me out of this mess.
    Beezus, in a long blue robe with a white scarf over her head and carrying a baby’s blanket and a big flashlight, found her little