The Grown-up Letter

7

The Grown-up Letter

It was almost Thanksgiving when Ramona decided that she liked Mrs. Meacham most of the time. Not that Mrs. Meacham did not have flaws. She did, in Ramona’s opinion. Mrs. Meacham was enthusiastic about spelling and especially enjoyed words with silent letters such as knit and wrist. She was also a stickler for pronunciation and corrected anyone who said “gonna” or “shoulda.” “If you don’t pronounce correctly, you can’t spell,” she said much too often, Ramona thought.

Most of the fourth grade thought Mrs. Meacham had another flaw. She confiscated any notes written by her class that were sailed, passed, or dropped on desks. She then read them for misspelled words and, if she found one, added it to the list on the chalkboard: Words We Need to Work On. She then tore up the notes and threw the pieces in the wastebasket.

The fourth grade thought this was unfair, but Ramona was not much concerned. By the fourth grade she had learned to put up with teachers. She was not concerned, that is, until one day when Yard Ape, on his way to the pencil sharpener, dropped a note on her desk. She picked it up and was about to read it when Mrs. Meacham said, “Ramona, bring the note to me.” Trapped, Ramona obeyed.

Mrs. Meacham read it, smiled, and turned to the chalkboard, where she added one word to the list of Words We Need to Work On. That word was “Ramona.” She then tore up the note and gave a little talk about not confusing n with m. Ramona, along with the rest of the class, then knew Yard Ape had written “Ranoma” instead of “Ramona.” She glanced at him. He was looking straight ahead and even his ears were red. She had never seen Yard Ape embarrassed before.What could he have written in the note?

At recess all the boys chanted, “Danny loves Ramona! Danny loves Ramona!” Daisy asked, “Didn’t you get to read any of it?” Ramona shook her head, more curious than ever. She decided to ask Yard Ape, but he was so busy kicking a ball that he acted as if he had never met her. Oh, well.

Now her class would have to study her name in spelling. Ramona liked that.

Yard Ape continued to avoid Ramona.

When he wasn’t paying attention in class, he was busy drawing a wristwatch in ink on his arm. On the bus he sat with the rowdy boys in the last seats.

As the winter rains beat against the classroom windows, Ramona plodded along with spelling, day after day, spelling most words right if she had worked hard, something she did not often do. On tests, if she spelled them all right, Mrs. Meacham wrote, “Keep up the good work!” on her paper.

Ramona sometimes wondered if spelling correctly was worthwhile, because those who spelled all their words right were given what Mrs. Meacham called Reward Words to work on. These were really hard words, some with three syllables. Ramona did not feel rewarded.

At home Ramona’s parents and sometimes Beezus sat beside her on the couch and went over spelling words with Ramona, who squirmed, unfastened and refastened the Velcro on her shoes, or tried to put one foot behind her head. Her parents sighed. Beezus said, “Oh, grow up, Ramona.” “I am a potential grown-up,” Ramona said with dignity, pleased to have used a Reward Word. She looked at Roberta lying in her playpen with her chewed-up bear and felt a moment of pity for her baby sister and what lay ahead of her in growing up, especially spelling.

All this made Ramona feel surrounded by words. There were words everyplace she looked: in books and newspapers, on signs and television, on cereal boxes and milk cartons. The world, Ramona decided, was full of people who used their dictionary skills and probably weren’t any fun Then one day when Ramona was riding on the school bus going to Daisy’s house, she glanced out the window and happened to notice a license plate on a car in the next lane. Instead of numbers it had letters: LIBARY. “Daisy, look!” she said. “They left out a letter.” Ramona was sure of the spelling of library because she went to the branch library once a week and saw the word above the door every time she entered.

“You’d better tell Mrs. Meacham,” said Daisy.

The next morning Ramona approached Mrs. Meacham, planted herself squarely in front of her teacher, and said,“I saw a license plate with library spelled with only one r, and that is wrong.” “Good for you, Ramona,” said Mrs.

Meacham. “I know that license plate. It belongs to the county librarian.” Ramona was indignant.“If she can’t spell, why is she a librarian? Librarians should know how to spell.” Mrs. Meacham laughed and said, “I’m glad you think so, Ramona, but the state of Oregon allows only six letters on personal-ized license plates. I am sure the librarian is really an excellent speller.” “Oh,” said Ramona, disappointed. She wanted a grown-up to be wrong for a change.

She was tired of the rightness of grown-ups.

That same day, late in the afternoon, when Ramona was grouchy because her mother had turned off Big Hospital, she was reading when she came across a strange word: asinine.

She did not want to spoil the pleasure of reading by looking it up, so she called out to anyone listening,“What does as-i-nine mean?” Beezus answered, “Stupid, dumb, silly, acting like a mule.” She was cross because she was having trouble with French verbs.

Ramona scowled, annoyed by her sister’s superiority. “I didn’t ask to have my vocab-ulary built. I just wanted to know what it meant.”

“Like I said. Stupid, dumb, foolish, mulish,” said Beezus. “Like you.” That was too much for Ramona. She threw down her book and called out,

“Mother, Beezus called me a bad name.”

“Well, you are,” said Beezus. “You are stupid, dumb, foolish, mulish, and asinine.

Everybody has to learn how to spell.”

“I wasn’t asking about spelling, and just because you’re in high school, you think you’re so big!” countered Ramona. “Well, I think you’re mean.”

“At least I keep my half of our room neat,” said Beezus.

Mrs. Quimby came into the room.“Girls!

Stop it this minute. I’ve had enough of this nonsense. Ramona, you are being foolish, yes, asinine about learning to spell, and Beezus, you are being stupid when you call your sister names. This sort of thing will only escalate into more name-calling.This is no example to set for Roberta.” The girls were startled. Their mother rarely spoke so sharply. They looked at each other with looks that said, Stupid? Foolish? Us?

“And furthermore,” said Mrs. Quimby, “I don’t want to hear any more bickering about whose turn it is to clean up your room.” With that she stalked out of the room to look after fussing Roberta, who was feverish.The pediatrician had given her a shot to prevent her from getting whooping cough.

“We’re nice most of the time.” Beezus regretted name-calling. “We wouldn’t be normal if we didn’t forget sometimes.”

“I don’t suppose Roberta will be one of those people who grows up just naturally knowing how to spell.” Ramona sighed, defeated. “Not with me for a role model.”

“Spelling is just one of those things you have to do,” said Beezus, “and there’s always the dictionary.”

“Boring,” said Ramona, and thought fondly of Daisy, herself a good speller, who never criticized Ramona’s spelling, because she could tell what she meant.

After that, Ramona and Beezus stopped bickering so much, and Ramona continued, with tiresome help from her family, to muddle along with spelling. When progress report time came, she delivered her envelope to her mother without peeking. Mrs. Quimby read the report, smiled, kissed Ramona, and said, “Good work. I’m proud of you.” Then she turned the report over to the Habits and Attitudes section, frowned, and read aloud, “Ramona’s spelling will improve when she decides she wants it to improve.” Mrs. Quimby looked at Ramona, but all she said was “Well?” “Mrs. Meacham is mean,” Ramona explained. “If we get all the spelling words right, she gives us hard words and calls them Reward Words as if they were some kind of treat.They aren’t.They are really, really hard words like foreign and quarantine, the kind of words where you don’t know which letter comes first. I think you should go talk to Mrs. Meacham and tell her she’s mean.” “And what do you think she would say to that?” Mrs. Quimby asked.

Ramona thought a moment. “She’d say I am a horrible, stupid child with bad habits and attitudes, the worst fourth grader she’s ever had, and she can’t wait to get rid of me and she never wants to see me again as long as she lives.” Mrs. Quimby did not seem upset. “Do you really think Mrs. Meacham would say that?”

Once more Ramona thought before she answered in a small voice,“No, but I’m tired of spelling.”

Mrs. Quimby said, “So am I. So is your whole family.”

“Except Roberta,” Ramona reminded her mother.

Mrs. Quimby ignored the interruption.

“From now on, you’re on your own.” She meant it, because after that no one said, “Come on, Ramona, let’s go over your spelling words.” Nobody said, “How about a little spelling before bedtime?” Nobody cared about Ramona’s spelling.

Ramona began to feel that no one cared about her, either. Her mother was busy reading a new book for her book club or comforting drooly Roberta, who was teething, Beezus was either talking on the telephone or doing her homework, and Mr. Quimby was in the basement refinishing his grandmother’s chest of drawers for Roberta’s room.

That left Daisy, who had no trouble spelling. One afternoon when she had come to Ramona’s house, the girls were looking for something to do. Daisy picked up the sports section of the newspaper, which was lying on the coffee table, and began to read aloud as if she were an excited television announcer,“ ‘Crash! Splash! $25 Cash Back!

No down payments for six months!’” Ramona picked up another part of the paper and read in a stern voice,“’Stop sneez-ing! Get rid of dust, mold, and fungus with our duct clean-up system’”—here, a dramatic pause—“’and keep it clean!’” Both girls found this funny.

“Sounds like what Jeremy’s room needs,” remarked Daisy before she read in a dreamy voice, “’Planning a romantic wedding?’”

“Not right away,” said Ramona, scanning the newspaper. “Here’s a funny letter somebody wrote to some people who do income tax stuff.They put it in their ad.”

“Boring,” said Daisy.

Ramona ignored her and read,“’You J. K.

Barker people really know your stuff. I shoulda come here last year, and I’m gonna come here next year.’” She frowned her disapproval.

Daisy was indignant.“They shouldn’t put words like gonna and shoulda in the newspaper. Mrs. Meacham wouldn’t like it.”

“Or maybe we should show it to Mrs. Meacham,” suggested Ramona,“so she would know it is okay to use them because they are in the newspaper.”

Daisy was doubtful. “You know Mrs. Meacham. She’ll march right down to the newspaper with her red pencil and—”

“I know!” Ramona was inspired. “Let’s write to the tax people. I bet they made up the letter themselves.”

Daisy was enthusiastic. Ramona found paper and an envelope, and the girls went to work composing their letter. “Dear Tax People,” Ramona wrote, because her cursive was better than Daisy’s. “There are no such words as gonna and shoulda which you put in your ad.You set a bad example for children who are learning to spell. We think you made up the letter yourself.” Ramona added the last sentence. “There are better words than stuff.” Daisy read the letter carefully to make sure they had not misspelled words.They both signed it, including their ages. Ramona addressed the envelope and included the Quimbys’ return address.Then they ran to the corner mailbox, mailed it, and forgot about it. They had other things to think about.

That was why Ramona was surprised a week later when she came home from school and her mother handed her a long envelope addressed to Miss Ramona Quimby. Nobody had ever called her “Miss” except when they were joking or were cross with her. This looked serious. The return address read, “J. K. Barker. Certified Public Accountant.”

“Ramona, are you having problems with your income tax?” Mrs. Quimby asked, behaving as if she were serious even though she was joking.

“Oh, Mother. You know my allowance isn’t that big.” Ramona tore open the envelope and pulled out a crisp sheet of paper, a real grown-up business letter addressed to her and to Daisy. Only then did Ramona remember the letter they had written, a letter they did not expect to be answered.

This letter read:“Dear Ramona and Daisy: I goofed and you caught me! I did make up the letter in the newspaper, and I promise never to do it again, not when two sharp-eyed nine-year-olds read my advertisements.

You must do good work in school and are sure to do well in life. When you earn millions of dollars, please bring your income tax work to my office. Cordially, J. K. Barker.” Ramona was so impressed she reread the letter. Grown-ups almost never admitted they goofed.

“May I see?” asked Mrs. Quimby. When she had read the letter, she said,“This is great.

Mrs. Meacham should be proud of you.” Ramona ran to the telephone. Daisy, as she had expected, was every bit as excited as she was. Like Ramona, she could not wait to show Mrs. Meacham their real grown-up letter.

The next morning Daisy met Ramona as she got off the school bus. Together they accosted Mrs. Meacham and held out J. K.

Barker’s letter. Mrs. Meacham read it and said, “Good for you! This world needs more people like you to keep things in order. May I read this to the class?” Of course the girls agreed, and while she read it they tried to look modest. Then their teacher fastened it with thumbtacks to the bulletin board for all to behold.

Everyone was impressed, even Susan.Yard Ape, looking straight ahead, smiled, but Ramona noticed that out of the corner of his eye he was looking at her.

Ramona felt good, better than she had felt since the first day of fourth grade.