The Great Hair Argument

5

The Great Hair Argument

“Ramona, stand on both feet and hold still,” said Mrs. Quimby one Saturday morning. “I can’t cut your bangs straight when you wiggle.” “I’m trying,” said Ramona. Bits of falling hair made her nose tickle. She blew upward, fanning out her bangs from her forehead, to rid herself of the tickle.

“Now see what you’ve done.” Mrs.Quimby recombed the bangs.

Ramona stood perfectly still in an agony of itching, twitching her nose to get rid of snips of falling hair, until her mother finally said, “There, little rabbit, we’re finished.” She removed the towel from Ramona’s shoulders and shook it over the kitchen wastebasket.

Ramona, who liked being called a little rabbit, continued to twitch her nose and think of the warm and cozy picture books about bears and rabbits her mother used to read to her at bedtime before she kissed her good-night. She had loved those books.They made her feel safe. During the daytime she had preferred books about steam shovels, the noisier the better, but at night—bears, nice bears, and bunnies.

“Next!” Mrs. Quimby called out to Beezus, who had just washed her hair.These days Beezus spent a lot of time locked in the bathroom with a bottle of shampoo.

“Beezus, don’t keep me waiting,” said Mrs. Quimby. “I have a lot to do this morning.” The washing machine had broken down, and because no one had been able to stay home during the week to admit a repairman, Mrs. Quimby had to drive to a laundromat with three loads of washing. Repairmen did not work on Saturdays.

“I’m waiting,” repeated Mrs. Quimby.

Beezus, rubbing her hair with a towel,appeared in the doorway. “Mother, I don’t want you to cut my hair,” she announced.

Ramona, about to leave the kitchen, decided to stay. She sensed an interesting argument.

“But Beezus, you’re so shaggy,” protested Mrs. Quimby. “You look untidy.”

“I don’t want to look tidy,” said Beezus.

“I want to look nice.”

“You look nice when you’re neat.” Mrs. Quimby’s voice told Ramona her mother’s patience was stretched thin. “And don’t forget, how you look is not as important as how you behave.” “Mother, you’re so old-fashioned,” said Beezus.

Mrs. Quimby looked both annoyed and amused. “That’s news to me.”

Beezus plainly resented her mother’s amusement. “Well you are.”

“All right. I’m old-fashioned,” said Mrs. Quimby in a way that told Ramona she did not mean what she was saying. “But what are we going to do about your shaggy hair?” “I am not a sheep dog,” said Beezus.“You make me sound like one.”

Mrs. Quimby chose silence while Ramona, fascinated, waited to see what would happen next. Deep down she was pleased, and guilty because she was pleased, that her mother was annoyed with Beezus.

At the same time, their disagreement worried her. She wanted her family to be happy.

“I want to get my hair cut in a beauty shop,” said Beezus. “Like all the other girls.”

“Why Beezus, you know we can’t afford a luxury like that,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Your hair is sensible and easy to care for.” “I’m practically the only girl in my whole class who gets a home haircut,” persisted Beezus, ignoring her mother’s little speech.

“Now you’re exaggerating.” Mrs. Quimby looked tired.

Ramona did not like to see her mother look tired so she tried to help.“Karen in my room at school says her mother cuts her hair and her sister’s too, and her sister is in your class.” Beezus turned on her sister. “You keep out of this!”

“Let’s not get all worked up,” said Mrs. Quimby.

“I’m not worked up,” said Beezus. “I just don’t want to have a home haircut, and I’m not going to have one.”

“Be sensible,” said Mrs. Quimby.

Beezus scowled.“I’ve been good old sensible Beezus all my life, and I’m tired of being sensible.” She underlined this announcement by adding,“Ramona can get away with anything, but not me. No. I always have to be good old sensible Beezus.” “That’s not so.” Ramona was indignant.

“I never get away with anything.” After a thoughtful moment, Mrs. Quimby spoke. “So am I tired of being sensible all the time.” Both sisters were surprised, Ramona most of all. Mothers were supposed to be sensible.

That was what mothers were for.

Mrs. Quimby continued.“Once in a while I would like to do something that isn’t sensible.”

“Like what?” asked Beezus.

“Oh—I don’t know.” Mrs. Quimby looked at the breakfast dishes in the sink and at the rain spattering against the windows. “Sit on a cushion in the sunshine, I guess, and blow the fluff off dandelions.” Beezus looked as if she did not quite believe her mother.“Weeds don’t bloom this time of year,” she pointed out.

Ramona felt suddenly close to her mother and a little shy. “I would like to sit on a cushion and blow dandelion fluff with you,” she confided, thinking what fun it would be, just the two of them, sitting in warm sunshine, blowing on the yellow blossoms, sending dandelion down dancing off into the sunlight. She leaned against her mother, who put her arm around her and gave her a little hug. Ramona twitched her nose with pleasure.

“But Mother,” said Beezus, “you always said we shouldn’t blow on dandelions because we would scatter seeds and they would get started in the lawn and are hard to dig out.” “I know,” admitted Mrs. Quimby, her moment of fantasy at an end. “Very sensible of me.”

Beezus was silenced for the time being.

“I like your hair, Mother,” said Ramona, and she did. Her mother’s short hair was straight, parted on one side and usually tucked behind her left ear.

It always smelled good and looked, Ramona felt, the way a mother’s hair should look, at least the way her mother’s hair should look.“I think your hair looks nice,” she said, “and I don’t mind when you cut my hair.” In the interest of truth she added, “Except when my nose tickles.”

Beezus flared up once more.“Well, goody-goody for you, you little twerp,” she said, and flounced out of the kitchen. In a moment the door of her room slammed.

Ramona’s feelings were hurt. “I’m not a little twerp, am I?” she asked, wondering if her mother agreed.

Mrs. Quimby reached for the broom to sweep bits of hair from the kitchen floor.

“Of course not,” she said.“I don’t bring up my daughters to be twerps.”

Ramona twitched her nose like a rabbit.

Afterward neither Mrs. Quimby nor Beezus mentioned hair. Beezus’s hair grew shaggier and Ramona decided that if her sister did not look like a sheepdog yet, she soon would.

She also sensed that, as much as her mother wanted to say something about Beezus’s hair, she was determined not to.

Beezus, on the other hand, looked defiant.

She sat at the dinner table with a you-can’t-make-me-if-I-don’t-want-to look on her face.

Ramona discovered that the tiny part of herself, deep down inside, that had been pleased because her mother was angry with her sister was no longer pleased. Anger over one person’s hair was not worth upsetting the family.

“Women,” muttered Mr. Quimby every evening at supper. He also remarked, as if he had hair on his mind, that he thought he was getting a little thin on top and maybe he should massage his scalp.

Conversation was strained. Beezus avoided speaking to her mother. Mrs. Quimby tried to look as if nothing had happened. She said calmly, “Beezus, when the shampoo bottle is almost empty, don’t forget to add shampoo to the grocery list.We use it, too, you know.” “Yes, Mother,” said Beezus.

Ramona felt like yelling, Stop it, both of you! She tried to think of interesting things to talk about at the dinner table to make her family forget about hair.

One evening, to distract her family from hair, Ramona was telling how her teacher had explained that the class should not be afraid of big words because big words were often made up of little words: dishcloth meant a cloth for washing dishes and pancake meant a cake cooked in a pan.

“But I bake cakes in pans—or used to—and this does not make them pancakes,” Mrs. Quimby pointed out.“If I bake an angelfood cake in a pan, it is not a pancake.” “I know,” said Ramona. “I don’t understand it because carpet does not mean a pet that rides in a car. Picky-picky is not a carpet when we take him to the vet.”At this exam-ple her parents laughed, which pleased Ramona until she noticed that Beezus was neither laughing nor listening.

Beezus took a deep breath.“Mother,” she said in a determined way that told Ramona her sister was about to say something her mother might not like.The words came out in a rush. “Some of the girls at school get their hair cut at Robert’s School of Hair Design. People who are learning to cut hair do the work, but a teacher watches to see that they do it right. It doesn’t cost as much as a regular beauty shop. I’ve saved my allowance, and there’s this lady named Dawna who is really good and can cut hair so it looks like that girl who ice skates on TV. You know, the one with the hair that sort of floats when she twirls around and then falls in place when she stops. Please, Mother, I have enough money saved.” When Beezus had finished this speech she sat back in her chair with an anxious, plead-ing expression on her face.

Mrs. Quimby, who had looked tense when Beezus first began to speak, relaxed. “That seems reasonable. Where is Robert’s School of Hair Design?” “In that new shopping center on the other side of town,” Beezus explained. “Please, Mother, I’ll do anything you want if you’ll let me go.” Ramona did not take this promise seriously.

In the interests of family peace, Mrs. Quimby relented.“All right,” she said with a small sigh. “But I’ll have to drive you over.

If you can hold out until Saturday, we’ll go see what Dawna can do about your hair after I drive your father to work.” “Oh, thank you, Mother!” Beezus looked happier than she had since the beginning of the great hair argument.

Ramona was pleased, too, even though she knew she would have to be dragged along.

Peace in the family was worth a boring morning.

Saturday turned out to be cold, raw, and wet. Ramona despaired of ever using her roller skates. The Quimbys hurried through breakfast, stacked the dishes in the sink, piled into the car and drove off, windshield wipers flopping furiously, to deliver Mr. Quimby to the ShopRite Market. Ramona, resigned to a tiresome morning, could feel Beezus’s excitement and see how tightly she clutched her allowance in the drawstring bag she had crocheted.

When Mr. Quimby had been dropped off at the market, Beezus joined her mother in the front seat. She always gets to sit in the front seat, thought Ramona.

Mrs. Quimby started up the on-ramp to the freeway that cut the city in two.

“Beezus, watch for the signs. I have to keep my eyes on my driving,” she directed.

Ramona thought, I can read, too, if the words aren’t too long.

Mrs. Quimby looked back over her shoulder for a space in which to merge with the heavy morning traffic. A space came down the freeway, and Mrs. Quimby managed to fit the car into it. In no time they were cross-ing the river, which looked cold and gray between the black girders of the bridge.

Green signs spanned the freeway.

“Do I turn left?” asked Mrs. Quimby, uncertain of the way to the shopping center.

“Right,” said Beezus.

Mrs. Quimby turned right onto the off-ramp.

“Mother,” cried Beezus. “You were supposed to turn left.”

“Then why did you tell me to turn right?” Mrs. Quimby sounded angry.

“You asked if you should turn left,” said Beezus,“and I meant,’Right, you should turn left.’”

“After this, use your head,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Now how do I get back on the freeway?” She drove through a maze of un-familiar one-way streets looking for an on-ramp sign. Finally she asked for directions from a man at a service station. He looked disagreeable because he had to come out in the rain.

Ramona sighed.The whole world seemed gray and cross, and it was most unfair that she should have to be dragged along on a dreary ride just because Beezus wanted her hair cut by Dawna. Her mother would never go to all this trouble for Ramona’s hair.

Huddled in the back seat, she began to feel carsick. The Quimby car, which they had bought from someone who had owned a large dog, began to smell like a dog.“Oh-h,” moaned Ramona, feeling sick. She thought about the oatmeal she had eaten for breakfast and quickly tried not to think about it.

Mrs. Quimby glanced in the rear-view mirror. “Are you all right, Ramona?” Her voice was anxious.

Ramona did not answer. She was afraid to open her mouth.

“I think she’s going to upchuck,” said Beezus, who, since she was in the seventh grade, said upchuck instead of throw up. She felt the new word was more sophisticated.

“Hang on, Ramona!” said Mrs. Quimby.

“I can’t stop on the freeway, and there’s no way to get off.”

“Mother!” cried Beezus. “She’s turning green!”

“Ramona, open the window and hang on!” ordered Mrs. Quimby.

Ramona was too miserable to move.

Beezus understood. She unbuckled her seat belt, which buzzed angrily. “Oh, shut up,” she said to her seat belt as she leaned over and lowered a window for Ramona.

Cold air swept away the doggy smell, and drops of rain against her face made Ramona feel better, but she kept her mouth shut and did not move. Hanging on was not easy.

“How did I ever get into this?” Mrs. Quimby wondered aloud as she turned onto the off-ramp that led from the freeway.

When the haircut expedition finally reached the shopping center and parked near Robert’s School of Hair Design, the three Quimbys splashed through the rain. Ramona, who had quickly recovered when the car stopped, found a certain grim pleasure in stomping in puddles with her boots.

After the cold, the air inside the beauty school seemed too warm and too fragrant.

Pee-you, thought Ramona as she listened to running water, snipping scissors, and the hushed roar of hair dryers.

A man, probably Robert himself, asked,

“What can I do to help you ladies?” as per-spiring Ramona began to wiggle out of her car coat.

Beezus was suddenly shy.“I—I would like Dawna to cut my hair,” she said in almost a whisper.

“Dawna graduated last week,” said Robert, glancing behind the screen that hid the activ-ity of the school, “but Lester can take you.” “Go ahead,” said Mrs. Quimby, answering Beezus’s questioning eyes. “You want your hair cut.”

When Robert asked for payment in advance, Beezus pulled open her crocheted bag and unfolded the bills she had saved.

As Robert led her behind the screen, Mrs. Quimby sank with a little sigh into one of the plastic chairs and picked up a shabby magazine. Ramona tried to amuse herself by drawing pictures with her toe in the damp and muddy spots their boots had left on the linoleum.

“Ramona, please don’t do that,” said Mrs.

Quimby, glancing up from her magazine.

Ramona flopped back in a chair and sighed. Her booted feet were beginning to feel hot.To pass the time, she studied pictures of hair styles mounted on the wall.“Is Beezus going to look like that?” she whispered.

Mrs. Quimby glanced up again. “I hope not,” she whispered back.

Ramona peeked behind the screen and reported to her mother. “A man is washing Beezus’s hair, and she’s lying back with her head in a sink. He’s using gobs of shampoo.

He’s wasting it.”

“Mm-mm.” Mrs. Quimby did not raise her eyes from the magazine. Ramona twisted her head to see what her mother found so interesting. Recipes.

Ramona returned for another look.“He’s rubbing her hair with a towel,” she reported.

“Mm-mm.” Ramona disliked her mother’s mm-mming. She walked quietly behind the screen to watch. Lester was studying Beezus’s hair, one lock at a time, while a woman, probably a teacher, watched.

“Ramona, come back here,” Mrs. Quimby whispered from the edge of the screen.

Once more Ramona flopped down in the plastic chair and swung her legs back and forth. How nice it would be if she could have her hair shampooed, too. She raised her eyebrows as high as she could to make her bangs look longer and thought of her quar-ter, two nickels, and eight pennies at home in a Q-tip box.

“Little girl, would you like to have your hair cut?” asked Robert, as if he had read her mind—or was tired of watching her swing her legs.

Ramona stopped swinging her legs and answered politely, “No, thank you. We are scrimping and pinching to make ends meet.” Using “scrimping and pinching” made her feel grown up.

An exasperated sigh escaped Mrs. Quimby.

She glanced at her watch. Beezus’s haircut was taking longer than she had planned.

“Haircuts for children under ten are half price,” said Robert,“and no waiting.We aren’t very busy on a wet morning like this.” Mrs. Quimby studied Ramona’s hair while Ramona tried to push her eyebrows still higher. “All right, Ramona,” she said. “Your hair does need cutting again, and it will help to have one more Saturday chore out of the way.” In a moment Ramona found herself draped with a poodle-printed plastic sheet and lying back with her hair buried under mounds of lather while a young woman named Denise rubbed her scalp. Such bliss!

Washing hair at home was never like this.

No soap in her eyes, no having to complain that the water was too hot or too cold, no bumping her head on the kitchen faucet while her knees ached from kneeling on a chair, no one telling her to stop wiggling, no water dribbling down her neck. The shampoo was over much too soon. Denise rubbed Ramona’s hair with a towel and guided her to a chair in front of a mirror. On the other side of the row of mirrors, she could hear Beezus’s hair being snipped with long pauses between snips.

“She’s definitely the pixie type,” said the teacher to Denise.

Me? thought Ramona, surprised and pleased. Ramona the pixie sounded much nicer than Ramona the pest as she had so often been called by Beezus and her friends.

“A little off the bangs,” said the teacher, “and the ends tapered.”

Denise went to work. Her scissors flashed and snipped. Unlike Lester on the other side of the mirror, Denise was sure of what she was doing. Perhaps she had studied longer.

Ramona closed her eyes. Snip-snip-snip went her bangs.When she opened her eyes she was surprised to discover they were a tiny bit longer in the center of her forehead.

Like the top of a heart, thought Ramona, like a valentine.

Denise lifted locks of wet hair between her fingers and snipped with flying scissors.

Lift and snip, all the way around Ramona’s head. Flicks of a comb, and Denise aimed a hand-held hair dryer at Ramona’s head with one hand while she guided Ramona’s hair into place with a brush held in the other. In no time Ramona’s hair was dry. More flicks of the comb, the plastic sheet was whisked away, and there sat Ramona with shining hair neatly shaped to her head.

“Excellent,” said the teacher to Denise.

“She looks adorable.”

Students who had no customers gathered around. Ramona could not believe the words she was hearing.“Darling.”“Cute as a bug.” “A real little pixie.”The dryer was humming on the other side of the mirror.

Ramona felt light and happy when she returned to her mother.

“Why, Ramona!” said Mrs. Quimby, laying aside her magazine. “Your hair looks lovely.

So neat and shiny.”

Ramona couldn’t stop smiling, she was so happy. She twitched her nose with joy.

But something made the smile on Mrs. Quimby’s face fade. Ramona turned and stared at Beezus standing beside the screen.

.

Her sister’s hair had been teased and sprayed until it stood up three inches above her face Her bangs were plastered in a curve across her forehead. Beezus did not look like an ice skater on television. She looked like an unhappy seventh-grade girl with forty-year-old hair.

Ramona did not know what to say. No one knew what to say except Robert. “You look lovely, dear,” he said, but no one answered. Beezus’s face looked as stiff as her hair.

Ramona thought of the allowance Beezus had saved and wanted to shout at Robert,

“She does not look lovely! My sister looks terrible!” For once she kept still. She felt sorry for her sister and sad about the allowance she had saved for so long, but deep inside, where she was ashamed of her feeling, she felt a tiny triumph. Ramona looked nicer than Beezus.

Ramona walked carefully to the car, not wanting to disturb her hair by running and hopping. Beezus walked in stony silence.

When all three had buckled their seat belts, Beezus could no longer hold back her feelings. “Well, go ahead and say it!” she burst out in anger and in tears. “Tell me my hair looks terrible. Tell me my hair looks stiff and horrible, like a wig. A cheap wig!” “Now Beezus.” Mrs. Quimby spoke gently.

“Well, it does! You know it does,” Beezus went on.“I tried to tell the man I didn’t want my hair to stand up, but he said I would be pleased when he finished, and now I’ve wasted your whole morning and all my allowance. I look terrible and can’t go to school because everyone will laugh at me.” She began to sob.

“Dear girl—” Mrs. Quimby took Beezus in her arms and let her weep against her shoulder.

Tears came into Ramona’s eyes. She felt she could not bear her sister’s unhappiness even if she did look nicer than Beezus.That awful stiff hair, the wasted allowance . . .

Ramona no longer triumphed in looking nicer. She did not want to look nicer. She wanted them to look the same so people would say, There goes that nice-looking Beatrice Quimby and her nice-looking little sister.

“I j-just wanted to look nice.” Beezus’s voice was muffled by her mother’s coat. “I know th-that what I do is more important than how I look, but I just wanted to look nice.” “Of course you do,” soothed Mrs. Quimby.

“No matter what we say, we all want to look nice.”

Ramona sniffed, she felt so sad.

“And 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?”

“Yes, 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.