Birthday Girl

11

Birthday Girl

Spring finally came. Rain no longer fell every day. Lawn mowers whirred through the shaggy winter grass. People went to the park again. Everyone, especially Ramona, felt good. One evening, late in May, the Quimby family was enjoying an unusually quiet dinner. The telephone did not ring.

Roberta had been fed and, worn out from pulling herself to her feet by hanging on to chairs, was asleep. Beezus and her father were talking about something—Ramona wasn’t paying attention because she was busy examining the new calluses beginning to form on the palms of her hands. The girls at school, those who enjoyed swinging on the rings, were once more comparing calluses. This thought gave Ramona an idea.

“You know what I would like to do on my birthday?” she asked, and did not wait for an answer. “Have a birthday party in the park.We can play on the rings and skip playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and all those babyish games.” “I think we can manage that if Beezus will help with Roberta,” agreed Mrs. Quimby, and added, “If it doesn’t rain.”

“Sure. I’ll help,” said Beezus.“The park is a good idea.That way the house doesn’t get messed up.”

Although she knew what Beezus said was true, Ramona ignored her sister and said dreamily, “Just think. I’ll be a teenager.”

“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself ?” asked Mr. Quimby.

“No, you won’t,” said Beezus. “You will be ten years old.”

“That’s a teenager, sort of,” said Ramona.

“Zeroteen. That’s a double-digit number.” Double-digit sounded serious and important.

“And next year I’ll be oneteen and the year after twoteen, then thirteen and fourteen.” Her family looked amused, but Ramona did not care. She was too busy with her plans.

“And I don’t want a birthday cake,” she continued. “I want a big bowl of whipped cream.” Ramona liked thick, soft, fluffy, sweet whipped cream much more than she liked cake, which was sometimes dry and with thin frosting.

“Think of the calories,” said Mrs.

Quimby, who thought a lot about calories since Roberta was born.

“And the cholesterol,” said Mr. Quimby, who sometimes said he should begin to watch his diet.

“Whipped cream will make your face break out in spots,” said Beezus, who spent a lot of time looking at herself in the mirror.

Ramona considered all these worries ridiculous, so she ignored them. She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and thought of a big bowl of whipped cream. On a table in the park. Surrounded by birthday presents. With the sun shining through the fir trees.

“But where would you put the candles?” asked Beezus.

Ramona opened her eyes. She had forgotten about candles. “Just—stick them around in the whipped cream” was the best answer she could come up with.

Of course Beezus found something wrong with this.“If you blow hard enough to blow out the candles, whipped cream will fly all over the place.” Ramona was silent. She liked the picture of whipped cream flying across the table with her friends ducking and squealing, but then she wouldn’t get to eat the whipped cream.

Beezus was right, which Ramona found a tiny bit annoying.

Mrs. Quimby, sensing trouble, quickly said,

“I could bake a cake with whipped cream for frosting.”

“Okay,” said Ramona. “Chocolate cake and thick whipped cream.” That evening she sat at the kitchen table to work on her guest list: three girls who were her good friends, four others who had invited Ramona to their birthday parties. She read her list to her mother.

“What about Susan?” asked Mrs. Quimby.

“You went to her birthday party.”

Ramona made a face. “Yes, but I didn’t have a good time.”

“That has nothing to do with it,” said Mrs. Quimby. “And I think it is time you and Susan learned to get along.” Reluctantly, in less than perfect cursive, Ramona added Susan’s name to her list. She did try, medium hard, to get along with Susan, who always waved around her papers on which Mrs. Meacham had written Excellent!

Good Work! or Prize Speller! at the top. She hoped Susan would not come. She did not want to hear her mother tell her to play nicely with Susan or her father tell her to cut out this nonsense about Susan.

As it turned out, everyone accepted, even Susan. When Ramona’s birthday—the most important day of the year, next to Christmas—finally came, the sky held only a few unimportant clouds. Ramona opened family presents at breakfast. After waffles served with blueberries, Ramona sang, “O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”—happy words from a book about a girl named Alice.

Then the telephone rang. Beezus got to it before Ramona. The call turned out to be from a neighbor who had an emergency and needed a baby-sitter right away. “Please, please, Mom, can I take it?” Beezus begged.

“These are nice people who always have the right change.”

“But this is Ramona’s birthday,” Mrs. Quimby reminded her.

“It’s okay with me,” said Ramona, who enjoyed having her mother to herself. Along with Roberta, of course. She also liked feeling she was being kind to Beezus.

“Please, Mom,” begged Beezus. “I don’t want someone else to get their business.” Mrs. Quimby, who was sliding layer cake pans into the oven, reluctantly agreed.

Then telephone calls came for Ramona:

Grandpa Day from his mobile home park in California, where he was table-tennis cham-pion;

Aunt Bea and Uncle Hobart all the way from Alaska, where Ramona pictured them surrounded by the seals and polar bears she had seen on television. A lovely chocolate smell of baking cake filled the house, and the few clouds in the blue sky remained as fluffy as whipped cream. It was the beginning of a great day.

Finally, finally, Roberta was bathed and dressed in her red corduroy overalls. Ramona stuffed her into her little sweater and wondered if she would ever learn to hold her thumbs in so her hands would slip through the sleeves without a struggle.The cake was frosted with swirls of whipped cream, and the car was loaded with the picnic, along with Roberta in her car seat, her diaper bag, and her teddy bear. Ramona buckled her seat belt in happy anticipation.“Whew!” said 191 Mrs. Quimby as she turned the key in the ignition. “We’re on our way.”

Fortunately, the picnic table Ramona wanted, the one between the wading pool and the playground, was vacant. Mrs. Quimby lifted Roberta out, car seat and all, and set her on the grass where Ramona could keep an eye on her. Roberta waved her hands and feet, fussing, until Ramona released her and, holding her by the hands, helped her walk on the grass. The teeter-totter thumped, rings clanged, little children in the wading pool splashed, tennis balls bounced.

The great day was about to get better.

Ramona’s guests, all of them carrying interesting packages, came running across the grass. Of course Susan was among them, the only one wearing a dress instead of play clothes.

Roberta, crawling fast, started toward the wading pool while the girls piled their presents on a bench. Ramona caught her and brought her back.

“Hello, girls,” Mrs. Quimby called out as she laid out plastic forks and spoons on the checkered tablecloth and poured punch into paper cups.

Without a word about Happy Birthday, the guests hovered over Roberta, cooing, squealing, and admiring. “Look at her tiny fingers with those teeny-weeny fingernails!” “She’s so sweet!” “I wish I had a baby sister.”

“Look at her little teeth when she smiles!” Smiling, Roberta crawled away. The girls caught her and brought her back. Roberta had invented a new game that the girls played, catching her and bringing her back.

Ramona felt forgotten. She knew all about Roberta’s tiny hands and feet. All babies had them. She knew about her teeth, too. She had listened to Roberta fret and wiped up her drool when she was teething. She marveled at Roberta’s growth, but not today.

This was her birthday, her very own day, not Roberta’s. Ramona sat beside her pile of presents and scowled.

“Ramona!” whispered Mrs. Quimby as she dealt out tuna-fish sandwiches and carrot sticks. “Behave yourself. Smile.” Ramona turned up the corners of her mouth, hardly a real smile. Roberta tired of excitement and began to fuss until Mrs. Quimby picked her up.

Ramona’s friends then remembered to say Happy Birthday as they gathered around to watch her open her presents.This is more like it, Ramona thought as she untied bows, read cards, and tore fancy wrappings off paperback books, hair bands, stationery, a big box of crayons, and a floppy stuffed frog, while her mother, with Roberta balanced on her hip, poked candles into the whipped cream frosting.

Then, as the girls were eating their sandwiches and carrot sticks, one of them said,

“Look! There’s Danny!” Everyone looked to see Yard Ape and two other boys climbing up the slides. Ramona knew they felt too old to slide down, so they had to show off by climbing up.“Ee-yew! Boys!” the girls squealed.

On hearing this,Yard Ape and his friends came running and whooping. Ramona’s squealing guests all disappeared under the table, hidden by the tablecloth. Roberta howled. Mrs. Quimby tried to comfort her, but she only cried louder, her face puckered, tears streaming down her face.

“Yard Ape, you go away!” ordered Ramona, annoyed at Yard Ape’s taking away her birthday. “You’re scaring my baby sister.” The boys, still whooping, ran back to the playground.

“You can come out now,” Ramona ordered her less-than-perfect guests. Roberta stopped howling and looked surprised to see girls crawl out from under the table. She was old enough to know girls did not belong under tables. Mrs. Quimby returned the baby to her car seat on the grass, where, worn out by excitement, she fell asleep. Somehow, with Ramona helping, Mrs. Quimby managed to serve everyone ice cream, light the candles, and say, “Make a wish.” Ramona closed her eyes, unsure of what to wish for. New skates?

Susan transferred to another room at school?

She settled on an all-purpose wish: I wish all my wishes would come true.Then she blew out all her candles with one breath.

“No cake for me, please,” said Susan. “I brought an apple.”

The girls looked at her in surprise as she pulled an apple out of her pocket. Not eat birthday cake? Everyone ate birthday cake.

“There might be spit on the cake from blowing out the candles,” explained Susan.

Ramona was shocked. “I did not spit on my birthday cake,” she informed Susan, while her mother continued to serve cake as if nothing terrible had been said.

Susan was very sure of herself. “You could have. Little bits of spit so tiny you couldn’t see them.” The girls began to giggle. Susan looked superior in that annoying way of hers and said, “My mother says blowing out candles is unsanitary and cake can give you cavities.” She crunched into her apple. The girls stopped giggling and looked thoughtfully at their cake.

“You ate cake at other people’s birthday parties,” said an indignant Ramona. “I saw you.”

Susan had an explanation. “Yes, but that was before Mother read a book on how to stay healthy.”

Now Daisy spoke up. “I think that’s silly.

I’m going to eat my cake. I’ve eaten birthday cake all my life and I’m still alive.” Ramona was glad she had Daisy for a best friend.

Susan went on crunching her apple. She frowned. Obviously she did not like to hear her mother and the book called silly.

“All right, girls,” said Mrs. Quimby, smiling brightly.“You don’t have to eat your cake if you don’t want to.” Used to Quimby spit, she took a bite of her own cake.

“I hope your apple has a worm in it,” Ramona whispered to Susan.

Three girls carefully scraped their whipped cream aside.Two did not touch their cake but ate their ice cream. The rest ate as if nothing had happened. “I think you are all being stupid,” Daisy said to the non-eaters.“If you can’t see spit, maybe it isn’t there.” “You can’t see germs, and they can make you sick,” someone pointed out. Two girls laid down their plastic forks.

“I don’t have germs!” Ramona insisted.

“Of course you do,” someone said.“Everyone has germs.You can’t see them, but they are there.” This set off an argument about germs—how small they were, did they stick together, could they jump.

Even though she suspected her mother of being amused, Ramona spoke sternly to her guests. “You aren’t supposed to talk about germs at someone’s birthday party.” Daisy spoke up once more. “Who cares about a few teeny germs. It’s not like we picked something up off the sidewalk or bit into something someone else was eating.” All the guests except Susan began to eat their cake, which, after all, looked delicious.

“So there, Susan,” said one of the girls before she took a big bite.

“See what you’re missing,” another said.

Everyone except Susan agreed that whipped cream was better than frosting. They all wanted whipped cream on their birthday cakes, too.

To everyone’s surprise Susan threw her apple across the lawn without even trying to hit the trash can. Her face crumpled as if she were about to burst into tears. Ramona was stunned. People didn’t cry at birthday parties unless they were little and missed their mothers. The rest of the girls were shocked into silence.

“Why, Susan.” Mrs. Quimby put a comforting arm around her shoulders.“Whatever is the matter, dear?”

“Everything,” said Susan through her tears.“Nobody likes me and everybody likes Ramona.”

“You are supposed to like people on their birthdays,” Ramona tried to explain to make things better.

“I don’t mean just on your birthday,” said Susan with a tearful gulp. “I mean every day. People even make valentines for you.

All mine were store-bought.You aren’t perfect and nobody cares.”

Ramona wasn’t so sure about the part about nobody caring. Take Mrs. Meacham and spelling—

“I’m supposed to be perfect every single minute,” said Susan, her chin quivering.

How awful, thought Ramona, beginning to feel sorry for Susan.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Mrs. Quimby reminded Susan.“I could tell you a few things about Ramona. Like the time she was playing at Daisy’s house—” “Mother!” cried Ramona. The guests were immediately alert to a dark secret about to be revealed. Having distracted the guests, Mrs. Quimby did not continue.

Susan was too engrossed in her troubles to be curious. She sniffed and said, “Even Yard Ape likes Ramona.”

Here Ramona modestly lowered her eyes.

Other girls giggled. Mrs. Quimby hugged Susan and said, “Cheer up. Things are often not as bad as they seem.”

“That’s right,” agreed Ramona. “I survived spelling.”

These words seemed to comfort Susan.

“Maybe I could eat a little piece of cake,” she ventured with a sniff. “I don’t think Mother would mind if I don’t eat the whipped cream and if I brush my teeth as soon as I get home.” Ramona was relieved that the other girls did not laugh at Susan. It must be terrible, always having to be perfect when everyone else was messy and full of faults part of the time, maybe even most of the time. She discovered she really felt sorry for Susan.

The other girls’ attention had been diverted from Susan. “Mrs. Quimby, tell us about what happened when Ramona was playing at Daisy’s house,” one of the girls requested.

Fortunately, at that moment Roberta woke up, felt wet and neglected, and began to cry. Mrs. Quimby, having comforted Susan, went off to change and soothe Roberta.

Daisy, eager that the question not be answered when Mrs. Quimby returned, said, “Let’s see who has the biggest calluses.” Hands were held out, calluses felt, and it was agreed that those who lived closest to the park were lucky. Ramona felt secure. By the end of summer she would have super calluses.

Mrs. Quimby finished changing Roberta’s diaper and returned to the table with the smiling baby in her arms. Before anyone could ask again what had happened at her house, Daisy spoke up.“Let’s go play on the rings.” The girls, even Susan, scrambled from the table, remembered their manners, and cho-rused,“Thank you for the party,” before they ran off to the rings. Mrs. Quimby started to clear the table with her free hand, and even though she wasn’t sure a birthday girl should have to clean up after her own party, Ramona felt obliged to help. After all, she lived near the park and would have plenty of time to swing on the rings when school was out.

“You know, Ramona,” said Mrs. Quimby,

“Susan’s mother isn’t the only one who has read a book.The book I read said ten is the nicest age of growing up. It said ten-year-olds are pleasant and agreeable.” “That’s me,” said Ramona, suddenly at her pleasant and agreeable best.

Mrs. Quimby dropped a kiss on Ramona’s hair before she changed the subject. “I wonder what we should do with the rest of this cake,” she said.“Whipped cream doesn’t keep very long.” Ramona saw Yard Ape and his merry band of two running across the grass.“Feed it to the boys,” she said to her mother, and called out,

“Hey,Yard Ape! Want some birthday cake?”

“Sure.” Danny picked up a tennis ball a beginning player had batted over the fence and threw it back. Then he and his friends came running.

Ramona seized the knife and clumsily divided the leftover cake into three pieces.

The boys picked up their cake with their fingers and sang, led by Yard Ape, “Happy birthday to you . . . happy birthday, dear Ramona.You belong in a zoo.” Ramona could ignore the part about the zoo because she was secretly pleased that Yard Ape had called her dear Ramona even if the words were part of a song everyone knew.

The boys finished their cake, licked their germy fingers, and wiped them on the seats of their germy pants. “Thank you for the birthday cake,” said Yard Ape, who must have been taught manners, even if they did not show in school. “Happy tenth birthday.” “Zeroteenth,” corrected Ramona. “I’m a teenager now.”

Yard Ape stopped. “I never thought of it that way.” He started off across the grass.

“And I’m a potential grown-up!” Ramona called after him.

“Me too!” Yard Ape shouted back.

“Come on, Ramona,” one of the girls called out. “It’s your birthday.”

“Run along,” said Mrs. Quimby as she returned Roberta to her car seat.

“I’m coming,” Ramona answered. Her sticky fingers would help keep her hands from sliding off the rings. The sky was blue, little children still laughed and splashed in the wading pool, the rings clanged. She felt better about Susan. Yard Ape liked her. The day was perfect—well, not really, but close enough.