Slacks for Ella Funt

2

Slacks for Ella Funt

The day Ramona’s father went to work at the checkout counter of the ShopRite Market, life in the Quimby household changed. Sometimes Mr. Quimby worked all day; sometimes he worked afternoons and evenings. Sometimes he took the car to work while Mrs. Quimby took the bus to her job in Dr. Hobson’s office.

Sometimes she drove the car while he took the bus, or one would drop the other off at work.

Life was different for Ramona, too. She now went home with Howie Kemp after school. The Quimbys paid Howie’s grandmother to look after Ramona until one of her parents could come for her after work.

Mrs. Quimby said she could not hold a job unless she knew where Ramona was. Every single minute. Beezus also went to the Kemps’ house after school unless she telephoned her mother for permission to go to a friend’s house. Ramona had no choice.

One rainy Saturday morning, when Mr. Quimby had worked at the market for several weeks, Ramona asked her mother,

“Where do you have to go today?” Mr. Quimby always worked Saturday, the busiest day at the market, which meant Mrs. Quimby had the use of the car to run errands. Ramona was concerned about her mother’s errands because she always had to go with her, or as she thought of it, be dragged along. Most of them were of no interest to her.

Mrs. Quimby thought a moment before she said in surprise,“Well, what do you know? No place.We have groceries in the cupboard.

No one needs to go shopping for shoes. No one needs a present to take to a birthday party. I can stay home.”

“Then what are you going to do?” asked Ramona. She hoped her mother would not decide to clean house.

“Sew,” answered Mrs. Quimby.“I’ve been trying to finish a blouse for weeks.” Sewing seemed like a cozy way to spend a rainy morning. Ramona watched her mother get out the portable sewing machine and set it on the dining-room table along with a pattern and bundle of fabric.

“I’m going to wash my hair,” announced Beezus.

“Again?” inquired Mrs. Quimby. “You washed it only day before yesterday.”

“But it’s so oily,” complained Beezus.

“Don’t worry, it’s just your age,” reassured Mrs. Quimby. “You’ll outgrow it.”

“Yes,” said Beezus gloomily. “In about a million years when I’m too old to care.”

“You’ll never be that old,” said Mrs. Quimby. “I promise.”

Ramona, bored with her sister’s daily complaints about oily hair, leaned on the dining-room table to watch her mother.

“I like it when you stay home,” she remarked, thinking of the days before her mother had gone to work when the house had smelled of baking cookies or homemade bread on Saturday morning.“Can I sew, too?” she asked, picturing a companionable morning close to her mother. She imagined a neighbor dropping in and saying, Ramona is her mother’s girl, as the two of them stitched away together. Yes, her mother would answer, I can’t get along without Ramona.

“Of course you may sew. You know where the scrap bag is,” answered her mother with a smile. “What would you like to make?”

“I’ll have to think,” Ramona said. She went to her room and in a moment returned with a tired-looking stuffed elephant and a large piece of red-and-white checked cloth left over from a dress her mother had made for her when she was in kindergarten. Ramona had liked that dress because it matched the red plastic hat the firemen gave her when the kindergarten class visited the fire department.

Mrs. Quimby looked up from the sewing machine.“I haven’t seen Ella Funt for a long time,” she remarked as Ramona stood the elephant on its four feet on the table.

“I’m going to make her some slacks,” said Ramona as she spread out the fabric. “All my other animals have clothes. Except that snake.”

Mrs. Quimby considered. “Slacks for an elephant won’t be easy. Why not make slacks for Chevrolet?”

“She’s too beat up,” said Ramona critically.

“If I were you, I would—” began Mrs.

Quimby as Ramona studied the checked cloth.

“I can do it,” interrupted Ramona, who was impatient with instructions. Mrs. Quimby said no more. The sewing machine began to hum. Ramona picked up her mother’s pinking shears and began to cut. There was something satisfying about using pinking shears and watching fabric part in such a neat zigzag line. Working quietly at the table with her mother was even more satisfying. Even the grouchy old cat, Picky-picky, sitting on a corner of the dining-room carpet washing his paws, was behaving like a satisfactory pet.

This morning was a time for sharing confidences. “Mother, did I used to be like Willa Jean?” Ramona asked the question that had worried her since the brunch.

Mrs. Quimby answered when she came to the end of her seam. “You were a lively little girl with a lot of imagination. And you still are.”

Ramona was reassured by her mother’s words.“I would never throw Kleenex all over the living room when someone had a party,” she said virtuously.

If only every Saturday could be like this one: no errands to run, and the two of them sewing and talking together.“Are you going to stop working now that Daddy has a job?” Ramona asked as Beezus, her hair wet but combed, came into the dining room with a paper bag in her hand.

Mrs. Quimby looked up from the collar she was pinning to her blouse. “Why, no,” she answered as if she were surprised by the question.

“Why not?” demanded Ramona as Beezus pulled some sewing out of the bag.

“Because we got behind on our bills when Daddy was out of work,” explained Mrs. Quimby, “and because we have plenty of ways to use money. Beezus will be ready for college in five years, and in a few more years you will be ready, too.” College, to Ramona, was a faraway school for young grown-ups. When they went to college, their mothers worried about them and mailed them boxes of cookies that they called Care Packages. She had learned this from listening to some of the neighbors talk to her mother. Ramona was surprised to learn that she and her sister would be expected to go to such a school someday.

“Besides,” continued Mrs. Quimby,“I like my job. The people are interesting, and Dr. Hobson is pleasant to work for.”

“I wish Daddy liked his job.” Beezus’s head was bent over the skirt she was basting together.

Ramona understood what Beezus meant, because she felt sad, too, and her stomach felt tight when her father came home tired and discouraged after a day in the checkout line. People were in a hurry, many were cross because the line was long, and some customers acted as if he were to blame because prices were so high.

“So do I wish he liked his job.” There was a hint of sadness in Mrs. Quimby’s voice. “But maybe when he has worked at ShopRite longer, he will like it better. New jobs take getting used to.” Ramona held up the two pieces of cloth she had cut out for the front and back of the slacks. Both were the same. Until now she had fastened together whatever she was making with Scotch tape or a stapler. Now Ramona felt the time had come for her to advance. Beezus had been using the sewing machine for several years.“Can I sew on the machine?” she asked.

“If you’re careful.” Mrs. Quimby demon-strated the use of the machine. Even though Ramona had to stand up to stitch, she found the machine easier to use than she had expected. She followed her mother’s instructions carefully and watched the needle move up and down, leaving behind a trail of tiny, even stitches. Ramona was filled with pleasure at the sight. The sewing machine was much more satisfactory than the stapler, which often stuck or ran out of staples. All sorts of uses for the sewing machine began to fly through Ramona’s imagination. Maybe she could even sew paper and make a book. Quickly, but still carefully, she finished the seams of Ella Funt’s slacks.

“See? I can use the sewing machine, too,” Ramona bragged to Beezus.

Beezus did not bother to answer. She was busy pulling on her skirt while Mrs. Quimby stood by to see how it fit.

Ramona picked up her gray-flannel elephant and shoved its hind legs into the legs of the slacks.

Mrs. Quimby pinned the waistband for Beezus and stood back to look at the skirt.

“It fits nicely,” she said. “You can go ahead and stitch it.” Pleased, Beezus went off to the bedroom to admire her work in the mirror.

Ramona tugged and tugged at Ella Funt’s slacks, but no matter how hard she tugged she could not make them come up to the elephant’s waist, or to what she guessed was the elephant’s waist. Ella Funt’s bottom was too big, or the slacks were too small. At the same time, the front of the slacks seemed way too big. They bunched under Ella Funt’s paunch. Ramona scowled.

Beezus twirled into the living room to make her skirt stand out. Anyone could see she was pleased with what she had accomplished.

Ramona scowled harder, but no one noticed. No one even cared. The sewing machine hummed. Beezus slipped out of her skirt. Ramona heaved a gusty sigh. The sewing machine stopped humming.

“Having problems, Ramona?” inquired Mrs. Quimby.

“These slacks look terrible.” Ramona glowered. “They look awful!”

Mrs. Quimby considered Ella Funt and her slacks. “Well,” she said after a moment, “maybe you could find something easier to sew. Slacks for an elephant are very hard to make. I’m sure I couldn’t do it.” Ramona could not scowl any harder. “I like to do hard things.”

“I know you do, and I admire you for it,” answered Ramona’s mother,“but sometimes it’s better to start with something easy and work up.”

“Why don’t you make a skirt?” suggested Beezus. “Ella Funt is a girl elephant.”

“I don’t want to make a skirt!” Ramona’s voice was rising.“I want to make pants!” She looked at her mother and sister, so calm and happy with their sewing. Why couldn’t her sewing turn out right the way theirs did?

Ramona felt shut out from something she longed to share. Picky-picky stopped washing, gave Ramona a long stare, and slowly and disdainfully left the room.

“Now Ramona,” said Mrs. Quimby gently, “I know you are disappointed, but life is full of little disappointments. You’ll get over it.

Why don’t you try something else? A skirt the way Beezus suggested.”

“I won’t either get over it!” Nobody had to tell Ramona that life was full of disappointments. She already knew. She was disappointed almost every evening because she had to go to bed at eight-thirty and never got to see the end of the eight o’clock movie on television. She had seen many beginnings but no endings. And even though she had outgrown her tricycle, she was still disappointed because she never could find a tricycle license plate with her name printed on it. Didn’t the people who made those license plates care about little girls named Ramona?

And then there was that time she had gone to the Easter egg hunt in the park with a big paper bag and had found only two little candy eggs, one of which had been stepped on. Nobody had to tell Ramona about disappointment.

The disappointment of Ella Funt’s slacks was not one of life’s little disappointments to Ramona. It was a big disappointment because she had failed at something she wanted to do and because she no longer felt she was sharing with her mother. Beezus was doing so instead. “I don’t want to do something easier!” yelled Ramona, and hurled poor old Ella Funt and her slacks across the room. As the elephant bounced off the wall, a thought flashed through Ramona’s mind. Her mother had not actually said she was not like Willa Jean.

Mrs. Quimby spoke sharply. “That’s enough, Ramona. Calm down.”

“I won’t calm down!” shouted Ramona, bursting into tears. She fled to that haven of anyone in the family who had tears to shed, the bathroom, where she sat on the edge of the tub sniffling miserably. Nothing was fair.

Her mother was always saying everyone must be patient with Beezus when she was cross because Beezus had reached a difficult age, but what about Ramona? Her age was difficult, too—not old enough to sit down with her mother and sew something she wanted to sew and too old to go pulling out a whole box of Kleenex and flinging it all over the house like Willa Jean. People should not think being seven and a half years old was easy, because it wasn’t.

As Ramona sat on the hard edge of the tub, feeling sorry for herself and trying to sort out her thoughts, she noticed a brand-new red-white-and-blue tube of toothpaste lying beside the washbasin. How smooth and shiny it looked with only one little dent where someone had squeezed it once. That tube was as good as new, and it was the large economy size.

Ramona was suddenly filled with long-ing. All her life she had wanted to squeeze toothpaste, really squeeze it, not just one little squirt on her toothbrush but a whole tube, a large economy size tube, all at one time just as she had longed to pull out a whole box of Kleenex.

I’ll give it one little squeeze, thought Ramona. Just one teeny squeeze to make me feel better. She seized the tube. How fat and smooth it felt in her hand. She unscrewed the cap and laid it on the counter.Then she squeezed that tube the way she had been told she must never squeeze it, right in the middle.White paste shot out faster than she had expected.

That squirt really did make Ramona feel better. She squeezed again. Another satisfying squirt. She felt even better.This was more fun than finger painting or modeling turtles out of clay. Suddenly Ramona no longer cared what anyone thought. She squeezed and squirted, squeezed and squirted.

She forgot about Ella Funt’s slacks, she forgot about her mother and Beezus, she forgot that no one ever called her her mother’s girl.

The paste coiled and swirled and mounded in the washbasin. Ramona decorated the mound with toothpaste roses as if it were a toothpaste birthday cake. When the tube was almost empty, she rolled it properly from the bottom and squeezed some more.

Tighter and tighter she rolled it until not another speck of toothpaste could be squeezed out.

There, thought Ramona with pleasure and satisfaction, which unfortunately lasted only a moment. With the rolled-up tube in her hand Ramona stood looking at the white mound.What would her mother say?

What could she do with it? Wash it down the drain? It might foam all over the bathroom. Or it might stop up the sink. Then she really would be in trouble.

Of course just at that moment Beezus came down the hall toward the bathroom.

Ramona started to slam the door, but Beezus blocked it with her foot.

Ramona tried to hide the toothpaste by standing tall in front of the washbasin.

Unfortunately, she was not tall enough.

Beezus looked over her shoulder. “Is that toothpaste?” she asked in disbelief.

Ramona scowled because she did not know what else to do.

“Mother!” Beezus had seen the rolled-up squeezed-out tube. “Ramona has wasted a whole tube of toothpaste!” Now apparently Beezus was not only a friend of trees, she was a friend of toothpaste as well.

“You keep quiet!” ordered Ramona. “I’ll pick it up.”

“How?” asked Beezus.“How can you pick up toothpaste?”

“With a spoon. I can put it in a plastic bag with a spoon,” said Ramona. “We can dip our toothbrushes in the bag.”

“Yuck,” said Beezus rudely. “Everybody’s germs will get mixed up.”

“Picky,” said Ramona.

“Girls!” Mrs. Quimby came to see what the argument was about. “Ramona, what on earth got into you?” she asked in exasperation when she saw the toothpaste birthday cake.

The whole thing was much too difficult to explain. Really impossible, so Ramona said cockily, like the funny man on television,

“The devil made me do it.”

“That’s not funny, Ramona.” Mrs. Quimby meant what she said.

Ramona did not understand. Everyone laughed when the man on television said the devil made him do something. Why wasn’t the remark funny when she said it? Because she was seven and a half (right now!). That was why. Grown-ups could get away with anything. It wasn’t fair.

“Get a spoon and a jar from the kitchen,” directed Mrs. Quimby, “and scoop up the toothpaste.” Then she said to Beezus, “She can use it herself, and the rest of us can use a fresh tube.” Somehow Ramona felt sad knowing she was to be excluded from the family tube of toothpaste for a long time. And she wished her mother would not speak about her to Beezus as if she were not in the room.

“Ramona,” said her mother, “don’t you ever let me catch you squeezing out a whole tube of toothpaste again.”

“I won’t,” promised Ramona, and as she went off to the kitchen for a jar and a spoon she felt unexpectedly cheerful. She had done something she had always wanted to do. Of course she would never squeeze out a whole tube of toothpaste again. She had done it once. She did not need to do it again.**