Free Ramona and Her Mother by Beverly Cleary

do,” soothed Mrs. Quimby. “No matter what we say, we all want to look nice.”
    Ramona sniffed, she felt so sad.
    â€œAnd you will look nice,” Mrs. Quimby continued, “once you wash out all that hair spray and comb your hair. Don’t forget Lester cut your hair, and that’s what counts.”
    Beezus raised her soggy tearstained face. “Do you really think it will look all right when it’s washed?”
    â€œYes, I do,” said Mrs. Quimby. “It just needs to be washed and combed.”
    Beezus sat up and let out an exhausted sigh.
    Mother and daughter had forgotten their adorable pixie buckled down in the corner of the back seat. Ramona hoped she could make it home without upchucking. She did not want to muss her hair.

6
RAMONA’S NEW PAJAMAS
    A s Mrs. Quimby had predicted, once Beezus washed her hair she looked like Beezus again. Because they were so glad to see her looking like a seventh grader, Ramona and her mother did not point out that her new haircut did not look much different from the cuts her mother had given her.
    As for Ramona, for a few days grown-ups said, “Why, how nice your hair looks,” as if they were surprised that her hair could look nice.
    Children asked, “How come your bangs are longer in the middle?”
    â€œBecause I’m a pixie,” Ramona answered, or sometimes, “because I’m a valentine.” In a few days everyone forgot about her hair, including Ramona.
    Clearly Ramona’s parents had something more important on their minds. At first Ramona did not know what it was. She heard long, serious conversations coming from their bedroom, and when she knelt by the furnace outlet to try to catch what they were saying, she could make out only a few words. “I don’t . . . school . . . why don’t . . . we could . . . teacher . . . school.” They sounded as if they might be arguing.
    â€œI told you not to fight anymore!” Ramona yelled through the furnace pipes. There was a startled silence, then laughter from the bedroom. Afterward Ramona could hear only whispers.
    Ramona decided her parents must be talking about her. What could they say about Beezus and school? Nothing. What could they say about Ramona and school? To begin with, there was her spelling. . . .
    For a while Ramona expected her parents to have one of those little talks with her about really working at her spelling or being a better girl. When they did not, she put their conversations out of her mind and went back to twitching her nose, pretending she was her mother’s little rabbit, warm and snug and loved like little bears and bunnies in the books her mother read to her at bedtime when she was little.
    One evening, when Ramona had turned from a pixie into a rabbit, she held her feet close together and, twitching her nose, went hopping down the hall. Thud. Thud. Thud .
    â€œRamona, do you have to do that?” asked her mother, who was watching the evening news on television while she let down a hem on a dress for Beezus.

    Ramona stopped being her mother’s little rabbit, but she did not answer. Of course she did not have to hop. She wanted to. Her mother should know that.
    Mrs. Quimby glanced up from her sewing. “Why, Ramona,” she remarked, “those pajamas are way too small for you.”
    And so they were. Ramona, who had been outgrowing clothes all her life, discovered that the sleeves reached only halfway to her wrists, the legs halfway to her ankles, and the seat was too tight. Her pajamas had been washed so often that the fuzz had worn off the flannel.
    â€œI have another pair put away for you,” said Mrs. Quimby. “I’ll get them and you can change.”
    â€œDid Beezus outgrow them?” Ramona was all too familiar with her mother’s habit of putting away for Ramona the clothes that Beezus had outgrown several years before.
    Mrs. Quimby went to