Beezus’s Creative Writing

5

Beezus’s Creative Writing

The Quimby women, as Mr. Quimby referred to his wife and daughters, were enthusiastic about Mr. Quimby’s decision to give up smoking. He was less enthusiastic because, after all, he was the one who had to break the habit.

Ramona took charge. She collected all her father’s cigarettes and threw them in the garbage, slamming down the lid of the can with a satisfying crash, a crash much less satisfying to her father, who looked as if he wanted those cigarettes back.

“I was planning to cut down gradually,” he said. “One less cigarette each day.”

“That’s not what you said,” Ramona informed him. “You said you would try to give up smoking, not try to cut down gradually.”

There followed an even more trying time in the Quimby household. Out of habit Mr. Quimby frequently reached for cigarettes that were no longer in his pocket. He made repeated trips to the refrigerator, looking for something to nibble on. He thought he was gaining weight. Worst of all, he was even crosser than when he first lost his job.

With a cross father, a tired mother, a sister who worried about creative writing, and a cat who grudgingly ate his Puss-puddy, Ramona felt she was the only happy member of the family left. Even she had run out of ways to amuse herself. She continued to add to the longest picture in the world, but she really wanted to run and yell and make a lot of noise to show how relieved she was that her father was giving up smoking.

One afternoon Ramona was on her knees on the kitchen floor working on her picture when Beezus came home from school, dropped her books on the kitchen table, and said, “Well, it’s come.” Ramona looked up from the picture of Glenwood School she was drawing on the roll of shelf paper taped to the floor. Mr.Quimby, who had a dish towel tucked into his belt for an apron, turned from the kitchen sink. “What’s come?” he asked. Although it was late in the afternoon, he was washing the breakfast dishes. He had been interviewed for two different jobs that morning.

“Creative writing.” Beezus’s voice was filled with gloom.

“You make it sound like a calamity,” said her father.

Beezus sighed. “Well—maybe it won’t be so bad this time.We aren’t supposed to write stories or poems after all.”

“Then what does Mrs. Mester mean by creative?”

“Oh, you know. . . .” Beezus twirled around on one toe to define creative.

“What are you supposed to write if you don’t write a story or a poem?” asked Ramona. “Arithmetic problems?”

Beezus continued to twirl as if spinning might inspire her.“She said we should interview some old person and ask questions about something they did when they were our age. She said she would run off what we wrote on the ditto machine, and we could make a book.” She stopped twirling to catch the dish towel her father tossed to her. “Do we know anyone who helped build a log cabin or something like that?” “I’m afraid not,” said Mr. Quimby. “We don’t know anybody who skinned buffalo either. How old is old?”

“The older the better,” said Beezus.

“Mrs. Swink is pretty old,” volunteered Ramona. Mrs. Swink was a widow who lived in the house on the corner and drove an old sedan that Mr. Quimby admiringly called a real collector’s item.

“Yes, but she wears polyester pant suits,” said Beezus, who had grown critical of clothing lately. She did not approve of polyester pant suits, white shoes, or Ramona’s T-shirt with Rockaway Beach printed on the front.

“Mrs. Swink is old inside the pant suits,” Ramona pointed out.

Beezus made a face. “I can’t go barging in on her all by myself and ask her a bunch of questions.” Beezus was the kind of girl who never wanted to go next door to borrow an egg and who dreaded having to sell mints for the Campfire Girls.

“I’ll come,” said Ramona, who was always eager to go next door to borrow an egg and looked forward to being old enough to sell mints.

“You don’t barge in,” said Mr. Quimby, wringing out the dishcloth.“You phone and make an appointment. Go on. Phone her now and get it over.”

Beezus put her hand on the telephone book. “But what’ll I say?” she asked.

“Just explain what you want and see what she says,” said Mr. Quimby. “She can’t bite you over the telephone.”

Beezus appeared to be thinking hard.

“OK,” she said with some reluctance, “but you don’t have to listen.”

Ramona and her father went into the living room and turned on the television so they couldn’t overhear Beezus. When Ramona noticed her father reached for the cigarettes that were not there, she gave him a stern look.

In a moment Beezus appeared, looking flustered. “I meant sometime in a day or so, but she said to come right now because in a little while she has to take a molded salad to her lodge for a potluck supper. Dad, what’ll I say? I haven’t had time to think.” “Just play it by ear,” he advised. “Something will come to you.”

“I’m going too,” Ramona said, and Beezus did not object.

Mrs. Swink saw the sisters coming and opened the door for them as they climbed the front steps. “Come on in, girls, and sit down,” she said briskly.“Now what is it you want to interview me about?” Beezus seemed unable to say anything, and Ramona could understand how it might be hard to ask someone wearing a polyester pant suit questions about building a log cabin.

Someone had to say something so Ramona spoke up.“My sister wants to know what you used to do when you were a little girl.” Beezus found her tongue. “Like I said over the phone. It’s for creative writing.” Mrs. Swink looked thoughtful. “Let’s see.

Nothing very exciting, I’m afraid. I helped with the dishes and read a lot of books from the library. The Red Fairy Book and Blue Fairy Book and all the rest.” Beezus looked worried, and Ramona could see that she was trying to figure out what she could write about dishes and library books. Ramona ended another awkward silence by asking, “Didn’t you make anything?” She had noticed that Mrs. Swink’s living room was decorated with mosaics made of dried peas and beans and with owls made out of pinecones. The dining-room table was strewn with old Christmas cards, scissors, and paste, a sure sign of a craft project.

“Let’s see now. . . .” Mrs. Swink looked thoughtful. “We made fudge, and—oh, I know—tin-can stilts.” She smiled to herself.

“I had forgotten all about tin-can stilts until this very minute.”

At last Beezus could ask a question.“How did you make tin-can stilts?”

Mrs. Swink laughed, remembering. “We took two tall cans. Two-pound coffee cans were best.We turned them upside down and punched two holes near what had once been the bottom of each. The holes had to be opposite one another on each can.Then we poked about four feet of heavy twine through each pair of holes and knotted the ends to make a loop. We set one foot on each can, took hold of a loop of twine in each hand, and began to walk. We had to remember to lift each can by the loop of twine as we raised a foot or we fell off—my knees were always skinned. Little girls wore dresses instead of slacks in those days, and I always had dread-ful scabs on my knees.” Maybe this was why Mrs. Swink always wore pant suits now, thought Ramona. She didn’t want scabs on her knees in case she fell down.

“And the noise those hollow tin cans made on the sidewalk!” continued Mrs. Swink, enjoying the memory. “All the kids in the neighborhood went clanking up and down.

Sometimes the cans would cut through the twine, and we would go sprawling on the sidewalk. I became expert at walking on tin-can stilts and used to go clanking around the block yelling, ‘Pieface!’ at all the younger children.” Ramona and Beezus both giggled.They were surprised that someone as old as Mrs. Swink had once called younger children by a name they sometimes called one another.

“There.” Mrs. Swink ended the interview.

“Does that help?”

“Yes, thank you.” Beezus stood up, and so did Ramona, although she wanted to ask Mrs. Swink about the craft project on the dining-room table.

“Good.” Mrs. Swink opened the front door.“I hope you get an A on your composition.”

“Tin-can stilts weren’t exactly what I expected,” said Beezus, as the girls started home. “But I guess I can make them do.” Do! Ramona couldn’t wait to get to Howie’s house to tell him about the tin-can stilts. And so, as Beezus went home to labor over her creative writing, Ramona ran over to the Kemps’ house. Just as she thought, Howie listened to her excited description and said,“I could make some of those.” Good old Howie. Ramona and Howie spent the rest of the afternoon finding four two-pound coffee cans. The search involved persuading Howie’s mother to empty out her coffee into mayonnaise jars and calling on neighbors to see if they had any empty cans.

The next day after school Howie arrived on the Quimby doorstep with two sets of tin-can stilts.“I made them!” he announced, proud of his work. “And Willa Jean wanted some, so I made her a pair out of tuna cans so she wouldn’t have far to fall.” “I knew you could do it!” Ramona, who had already changed to her playclothes, stepped onto two of the cans and pulled the twine loops up tight before she took a cautious step, lifting a can as she lifted her foot.

First the left foot, then the right foot. Clank, clank. They worked! Howie clanked along beside her.They clanked carefully down the driveway to the sidewalk, where Ramona tried to pick up speed, forgot to lift a can at the same time she lifted her foot, and, as Mrs. Swink had recalled, fell off her stilts.

She caught herself before she tumbled to the sidewalk and climbed back on.

Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Ramona found deep satisfaction in making so much noise, and so did Howie. Mrs. Swink, turning into her driveway in her dignified old sedan, smiled and waved. In a moment of daring, Ramona yelled, “Pieface!” at her.

“Pieface yourself !” Mrs. Swink called back, understanding Ramona’s joke.

Howie did not approve.“You aren’t supposed to call grown-ups pieface,” he said. “Just kids.”

“I can call Mrs. Swink pieface,” boasted Ramona.“I can call her pieface any old time I want to.”

Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Ramona was having such a good time she began to sing at the top of her voice, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer.You take one down and pass it around. Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall . . .” Howie joined the singing. “Ninety-eight bottles of beer on the wall. You take one down and pass it around. Ninety-seven bottles of beer . . .”

Clank, clank. Clank, clank. Ninety-six bottles of beer, ninety-five bottles of beer on the wall. Sometimes Ramona and Howie tripped, sometimes they stumbled, and once in a while they fell, muddying the knees of their corduroy pants on the wet sidewalk.

Progress was slow, but what their stilts lost in speed they made up in noise.

Eighty-nine bottles of beer, eighty-six . . .

Ramona was happier than than she had been in a long time. She loved making noise, and she was proud of being able to count backwards. Neighbors looked out their windows to see what all the racket was about while Ramona and Howie clanked determinedly on. “Eighty-one bottles of beer on the wall . . .” As Mrs. Swink had predicted, one of the twine loops broke, tumbling Ramona to the sidewalk. Howie knotted the ends together, and they clanked on until supper-time.

“That was some racket you two made,” remarked Mr. Quimby.

Mrs. Quimby asked,“Where on earth did you two pick up that song about bottles of beer?”

“From Beezus,” said Ramona virtuously.

“Howie and I are going to count backwards all the way to one bottle of beer.” Beezus, doing homework in her room, had not missed out on the conversation.

“We used to sing it at camp when the coun-selors weren’t around,” she called out.

“When I used to go to camp, we sang about the teeny-weeny ‘pider who went up the water ‘pout,” said Mrs. Quimby.

The teeny-weeny ‘pider song was a favorite of Ramona’s too, but it was not so satisfying as “Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer,” which was a much louder song.

“I wonder what the neighbors think,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Wouldn’t some other song do?”

“No,” said Ramona. Only a noisy song would do.

“By the way, Ramona,” said Mr. Quimby.

“Did you straighten your room today?” Ramona was not much interested in the question. “Sort of,” she answered truthfully, because she had shoved a lot of old school artwork and several pairs of dirty socks under the bed.

The next afternoon after school was even better, because Ramona and Howie had mastered walking on the tin-can stilts without falling off.“Sixty-one bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down and pass it around,” they sang, as they clanked around the block.

Ramona grew hot and sweaty, and when rain began to fall, she enjoyed the cold drops against her flushed face. On and on they clanked, singing at the top of their voices.

Ramona’s hair grew stringy, and Howie’s blond curls tightened in the rain.“Forty-one bottles of beer on the wall . . .” Clank, crash, clank.“Thirty-seven bottles of beer . . .” Clank, crash, clank. Ramona forgot about her father being out of a job, she forgot about how cross he had been since he gave up smoking, she forgot about her mother coming home tired from work and about Beezus being grouchy lately. She was filled with joy.

The early winter darkness had fallen and the streetlights had come on by the time Ramona and Howie had clanked and crashed and sung their way down to that last bottle of beer. Filled with a proud feeling that they had accomplished something big, they jumped off their stilts and ran home with their coffee cans banging and clashing behind them.

Ramona burst in through the back door, dropped her wet stilts with a crash on the linoleum, and announced hoarsely, “We did it! We sang all the way down to one bottle of beer!” She waited for her family to share her triumph.

Instead her father said, “Ramona, you know you are supposed to be home before dark. It was a good thing I could hear where you were, or I would have had to go out after you.” Mrs. Quimby said, “Ramona, you’re sopping wet. Go change quickly before you catch cold.”

Beezus, who was often embarrassed by her little sister, said, “The neighbors will think we’re a bunch of beer guzzlers.” Well! thought Ramona. Some family! She stood dripping on the linoleum a moment, expecting hurt feelings to take over, perhaps even to make her cry a little so her family would be sorry they had been mean to her.

To her wonder, no heavy feeling weighed her down, no sad expression came to her face, no tears. She simply stood there, cold, dripping, and feeling good. She felt good from making a lot of noise, she felt good from the hard work of walking so far on her tin-can stilts, she felt good from calling a grown-up pieface and from the triumph of singing backwards from ninety-nine to one. She felt good from being out after dark with rain on her face and the streetlights shining down on her. Her feelings were not hurt at all.

“Don’t just stand there sogging,” said Beezus. “You’re supposed to set the table.” Bossy old Beezus, thought Ramona.

She squelched off to her room in her wet sneakers, and as she left the kitchen she began to sing, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall . . .”

“Oh, no!” groaned her father.