The Role Model

2

The Role Model

The next morning Ramona was excited and happy when she entered her classroom, that is, until she saw—she might have known—spelling words on the chalkboard.

She mentally groaned. Why did nice Mrs. Meacham have to do this? She soon found out.

Mrs. Meacham explained. “Today we are going to study words we use. When we wrote about ourselves, we discovered words we need to learn how to spell.” Ramona looked more closely at the words on the chalkboard. Among them she saw scream, hungry, couch, finger, role, model. They looked familiar. They were familiar. They were her words. She scowled.

“Is something the matter, Ramona?” asked Mrs. Meacham, who had been quick to learn names.

Ramona decided to speak up. “What difference does spelling make if people know what you mean?” she asked.

“You wouldn’t want people to think you sat on a coach instead of a couch, would you?” Mrs. Meacham asked.

The class found this funny, but Ramona did not, not when the class laughed. She felt her face grow hot. She slid down in her seat and shook her head. Mrs. Meacham knew the answer.Why did she bother to ask?

Mrs. Meacham continued, “And before lunch are you hungry or hunrgy?” The class laughed, harder this time. The warm day suddenly seemed warmer. Ramona decided right then that she did not like Mrs.

Meacham, and this was only the second day of school. Mrs. Meacham did not tell the truth. She said learning was fun, and it wasn’t.

At least not all the time. Not when it came to spelling.

The fourth grade suddenly began to stretch ahead, long and dreary and full of spelling. Before long, rain would begin to fall, day after day. The school bus would smell like old boots. Then, with luck, snow might fall. Ramona imagined herself making snow angels in the front yard.

“Ramona, please join the class.” Mrs. Meacham spoke sharply. The class laughed a third time.

Ramona sat up and stared glumly at the spelling words on the chalkboard. She did not really want to be a bad speller. She simply did not want to bother being a good speller. She had more interesting things to do, although at the moment she couldn’t think what. She frowned and studied the words based on her own misspellings as well as those of others and disliked every minute. Mrs. Meacham gave a little talk on not confusing h with k in cursive writing and pointed to muck on the chalkboard. Ramona knew much was not her word but that of some babyish person in the class. Imagine spelling it muck. How silly.

When recess came,Yard Ape stopped chasing a ball to ask, “What kind of coach did you sit on? Baseball or football?”

“You keep quiet.” Ramona saw no reason to be polite, especially when the day was so warm. Then she had an inspiration.“I sat on a coach like a stagecoach,” she informed him. She could tell he didn’t believe her.

Susan smiled that superior smile of hers and said nothing.

“Everybody makes mistakes,” Janet reminded Ramona.

“I’m a rotten speller, too,” said Howie, as if that would help.

Daisy smiled, showing the bands on her teeth, and said,“I don’t think Mrs. Meacham was very nice to you.” Ramona felt better.

When the long day finally ended, Ramona sat as far as she could from Yard Ape on the bus. She gave ever-sweeping Mrs. Pitt a tiny smile and did not bother to wave. At home she found her mother sitting on the couch, not coach, still reading Moby Dick.

“Sh-h-h,” said Mrs. Quimby.“Don’t wake Roberta. She was fussy last night and the heat makes her cross.” She laid her book aside.

“What happened in school today?” Ramona was in no mood to be hushed.

“Oh—nothing much. Same old stuff.

Spelling and multiplication facts and stuff.” Then, because her mother often told her to look on the bright side, she added,“Daisy gave me half of her chocolate-chip cookie.” “That’s good.” Mrs. Quimby spoke as if she was thinking of something else.

“Ramona,” she said in that quiet voice that meant Ramona was about to get a little talking-to,“you’ve been using the word stuff entirely too much. Surely you can find a better word to say what you mean.” Ramona felt picked on, first by her teacher and now by her mother. Stuff was a perfectly good, handy, multipurpose word and easy to spell, too. She flopped into a chair and scowled. If she had written,“My sister is cute and stuff,” or “I like to hold her and stuff,” she wouldn’t have misspelled so many words, and Mrs. Meacham wouldn’t have had a chance to be so mean.

Before the discussion could continue, Beezus came home from school, dumped an armload of books on the dining room table, and gave her mother and sister a cheerful “Hi.”

Ramona returned it with a grumpy “Hi.” Beezus, smiling and full of enthusiasm, perched on the arm of the couch.“I love high school. I didn’t get lost in the halls even once today. I think I made a new friend. My French teacher makes French seem easy, and I have the nicest man teacher for English, and—” Ramona interrupted.“And I suppose you spelled every single word right.” “Well, aren’t you Miss Grouchypuss?” Beezus said. “Yes, I did, and in French, too.”

“Smartypuss,” countered Ramona, feeling that everyone picked on her.

“Girls!” Mrs. Quimby’s voice was weary.

The afternoon was too warm for this sort of disagreement. From the bedroom came the sound of fussing, crying, and finally screaming.

S-c-r-e-a-m, thought Ramona, mentally spelling the word in spite of herself.

“I’ll get her,” Beezus offered.

Good old Beezus, thought Ramona, sliding farther down in the chair.

“Ramona, please,” said Mrs. Quimby.“Try to be agreeable.”

“I am agreeable,” said Ramona with an even darker scowl.

Beezus returned with sobbing Roberta in her arms. Because of the heat the baby was wearing only a diaper. “What’s the matter with Roberta?” Beezus crooned, and kissed the baby’s hair.

Mrs. Quimby held out her arms for Roberta, who snuggled against her mother’s shoulder. “Sh-h-h,” whispered her mother.

Roberta stopped crying with one last hic-cuping sob.“That’s my good girl,” whispered Mrs. Quimby, and she too kissed the baby’s hair.

All this made Ramona feel worse than ever—unloved, left out, and a rotten speller with the whole horrible fourth grade ahead of her. Nobody kissed her hair, at least today, and it was clean, too. She pulled herself out of the chair, found the remote control, and turned on the television to a rerun of her favorite after-school program, Big Hospital.

She wanted to forget her troubles and lose herself in the corridors of the hospital where people in green pajamas fell in love if they weren’t too busy saving lives or comforting the lost and lonely.

“Ramona, please turn that off.” Mrs. Quimby looked over Roberta’s head at her middle daughter.“I wish you’d tell me what’s bothering you.” “Nothing’s bothering me,” grumped Ramona as she pushed the button on the remote control without finding out what Handsome Doctor and Blond Nurse would say next. She waited for her mother to coax her problems out of her, to soothe her, to tell her things would be better tomorrow, and maybe even kiss her hair. She picked at a callus but did not pull it off. Calluses were one thing she had to be proud of. Right now she felt they were the only thing.

Before Mrs. Quimby could coax, the telephone rang.“I’ll get it!” Beezus shouted.

She and Ramona usually tried to beat each other to the telephone in the hall.

Of course, Ramona eavesdropped. She heard Beezus say, sounding surprised, “Yes, I’d love to, but I’ll have to ask Mother. Just a minute—” Beezus, her eyes shining and her face alight with joy, came back into the room and said, “Mother, guess what! Mrs. Lucas wants me to baby-sit with Benjamin Saturday evening.

They won’t be out late, and they’ll pay me and everything!”

And stuff, thought Ramona.

Beezus continued. “And Mrs. Lucas says she wants me because she knows I’m responsible. Oh, please, please—”

“I don’t see why not,” said Mrs. Quimby.

“We’ll be home, so we could help if there is an emergency, which I’m sure there won’t be.”

Not with good old Beezus being so responsible all over the place, thought Ramona as Beezus danced off to the telephone. After she had accepted the offer, she returned, gathered up her books, and started down the hall to the room the sisters had shared since Roberta was born. The baby now occupied Ramona’s old room.

Beezus paused and said, “Au revoir.”

“What does that mean?” asked Ramona, annoyed with Beezus for using words she did not understand.

“It means good-by in French,” answered Beezus, and went off to the room the sisters shared. Probably to be responsible about her homework, thought Ramona.

Mrs. Quimby shifted Roberta to her lap and patted the couch beside her.“Ramona, come sit by me,” she coaxed.

Reluctantly Ramona moved to the couch, staying as far away as she could from her mother. She balanced the heel of one sandal on the toe of the other and longed to lean against her mother and confide her troubles.

Life was hard enough, and now Beezus would be showing off by speaking French. She picked at a callus.

“Can you tell me what’s bothering you?” Mrs. Quimby’s voice was gentle. Roberta stared at Ramona as if she were giving her serious thought.

“Nothing.” Ramona sighed.

“Now, Ramona,” her mother said in her soothing voice,“I know something’s bothering you.You’ll feel better if you tell me.” Ramona knew her mother was right, but she sighed again before she burst out, “My spelling is rotten and Mrs. Meacham doesn’t like me and makes me feel stupid in front of the whole class and they laughed at me and made me feel super-stupid and everybody says Beezus is responsible and nobody says 29 I’m responsible and everybody fusses over Roberta and says she is cute and adorable and stuff and nobody pays any attention to me and I’m not supposed to say ‘stuff ‘ and—and—stuff.” Roberta looked worried.

Mrs. Quimby ignored the stuffs. “Has anybody ever said you weren’t responsible?” she asked.

Ramona thought.“Well—no,” she admitted, “but Mrs. Meacham probably will. She only likes people who can spell. She loves good spellers. She adores good spellers.” Mrs. Quimby smiled. “Ramona, I think you are exaggerating.” Ramona knew her mother was right, but that was the way she felt. Exaggerating felt good.

“Bring your spelling words home, and we’ll help you.” Mrs. Quimby was comforting, but Ramona was not ready to be comforted. “And don’t forget,” her mother went on, “this is only the second day of school, and Mrs. Meacham is there to teach you.You’ll feel differently when you get to know her better and when your spelling improves.” Ramona felt calmer after spilling out her troubles, but she wasn’t ready to admit it. How did she know her spelling would improve? It might get worse. Roberta stared as if she were trying to understand. Ramona stared back, still engulfed in self-pity, and thought, I wish somebody would call me darling and adorable like Roberta. But no, I’m just plain old messy Ramona. She stuck her tongue out at Roberta and immediately felt ashamed of herself. Her sweet innocent baby sister—Then, to Ramona’s astonishment, Roberta stuck her tongue out at Ramona. Ramona couldn’t believe it. Roberta was too little to understand. It must have been a coincidence.

As an experiment Ramona stuck her tongue out again. Roberta smiled a real smile and stuck her tongue out again. It was a game.

Ramona could scarcely believe what she had seen.“Mother, did you see that?” she asked in wonder. “Roberta stuck her tongue out when I stuck my tongue out, and she smiled, really smiled, like it was some kind of game.” Mrs. Quimby laughed.“I told you Roberta would take after you.” “But she’s so awfully little,” said Ramona, still marveling.

“Babies are more observant than we realize,” said Mrs. Quimby.

Ramona’s troubles seemed to vanish. She had taught her baby sister to stick out her tongue. She could teach her other things when she was older, things like playing tic-tac-toe and roller-skating. As for spelling—pooh! Mrs. Meacham was just another teacher. Ramona had survived others, liked them, and even loved her kindergarten teacher. She would survive Mrs. Meacham, maybe get to like her, even though at the moment this seemed doubtful. Ramona didn’t care. Suddenly the sun was shining—it had shone all day, but Ramona hadn’t noticed, since she had gone to school—and now Roberta had copied her by sticking out her tongue.

Ramona felt so good she held up her finger to Roberta, who grasped it in her tiny perfect hand. “See,” Ramona said to her mother, “I really am Roberta’s role model.” Then, in spite of herself, Ramona thought, r-o-l-e m-o-d-e-l.