Ramona

“She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting, she had to find out what happened next.”
~Beverly Cleary



How much to I love Beverly Cleary? A lot. Because I think she gave me a best friend.

Fifteen years ago I was lying upside-down on a tattered second-hand couch, toes tapping the wall, my hair falling straight to the ground. My reading position. Not only was I in Ramona's world. I was Ramona.

The Ramona books were my first chapter books. "I can read chapter books!" I remember telling Mom over and over. "And next I'm going to read Henry Higgins."

Kearsen who preferred The Boxcar Children and The Babysitter's Club at age 8-12 may have been my inspiration. She read quickly, flipping pages so fast I pretended to keep up with her. Sometimes I would sit opposite her on the couch with one of Dad's western novels--books that were too advanced for me--in my hands, pretending that I loved reading for long periods of time without looking at pictures.

But then I discovered the only other person in all the world who was exactly like me. Ramona Quimby.

The predicaments! I once slept too long one morning, and upon realizing I would be late, I returned to school with the exact same shirt.

"Is that the same shirt you were wearing yesterday?" Whitney asked In my world, Whitney was Susan, hair so curly all a girl like Ramona and I could do was to yank it.

"No!I just have two shirts that are exactly the same. And I love them. A lot. And sometimes I wear them two days in a row, because that's how much I like them," I retaliated.

"Gee whiz, just asking," and Whitney whipped her blond curly hair back around.

And the beautiful Beezus. I mean Kearsen. So confident and sure but worried about her social life. Her hair was shampooed AND conditioned. Mine was short, chopped, and tangled almost in every strand. And she had boyfriends. Many of them. Not at the same time, though, but she did once kiss the TV screen when Casper turned into Devon Sawa. And there were moments of little-sister-mortifies-older-sister-in-front-of-cute-boy.

Like this one:
The doorbell rang, and I had just changed into my pajamas--an oversized T-shirt, one that Dad had bought at a Flying-J restaurant while on the road. It read "Give me all your chocolate, and nobody gets hurt" and a picture of a gun was pointed at whoever read it.

"Somebody get that!" I yelled. The doorbell rang agian. "Fine!" I said, my bare legs flying down the hall. I flung the door open.

It was some tall boy. "Is Kearsen here?" His name was either Nick or Dan, I was never sure. I was struggling to yank down my oversized T-shirt while hiding the lower half of my body behind the door. He glanced at my skinny bear legs and my hands tugging and stretching my shirt.

"Kearsen! It's a boy!"

When Kearsen came to the front door and saw the backside of my pajamas, she ran for the door, closing it half-way and waving at me with her other arm to go away.

Ramona and I truly thought that some things were too important to overlook. Like having friends over.

"Can Megan come over?"

Megan's mom was on the other line. "Is your mother there?"

She wasn't. She was working at the Flying-J and wouldn't be home until 4. "Ummmmm. Yes."

Megan's mother thought for a minute. "May I speak with her?"

"She's taking a nap." Megan's mother continued to ask me when Mom would be awake and other such questions until she said, "Okay. I'll bring Megan over now. I'll talk to your mother when we get there."

Oh no! I thought. Megan and her mother would show up and Mom would be nowhere in sight, and they would know I was a liar!

When they arrived I had thought of a whole story. "Mom is gone, but just for a minute. She went to pick up some milk and eggs and ice cream. The milk and eggs were for dinner, and the ice cream was for Megan, because I told mom how much Megan likes ice cream."

Megan's mother nodded. "Okay, well then have your mother call me as soon as she comes home."
When Mom came home, she called Megan's mom and proceeded to apologize for my overactive imagination and my "unacceptable behavior."
But it was important! I had tried explaining to her. Brandy couldn't play and neither could Carly, and I was all alone.

And Howie was Ryan. Ryan was my first love, but first and foremost a best friend. We walked home together every day, kicking leaves or rocks as we went. "You can come over and we can jump on our trampoline," I told him every day after school.

We used to build woodchip piles and forage for worms.

And I was curious.

I biked to the library and checked out books and shuddered at the creepy downstairs where they placed all the children's books. One time I checked out a book where a little girl and a little boy were best friends. The little girl aways wore a scarf around her neck, and the boy wondered why, but never asked her. Then one day she said, "I'll show you why I wear this scarf," and the little girl untied the scarf and her head fell off! I threw down the book, and ran up the stairs, tripping as I hurried. "Have a nice..." the librarian said after me, but I didn't stop. I pedaled so fast I could hardly contain my breath.
That halloween the third grade class was having a costume party. I tied one simple scarf around my neck, and when asked what it was for, I would not say, but secretly I knew that if I untied it then my head would fall off.

And I was an innovator. "Why are you writing 5's instead of capital Z's?" My teacher asked me.

"Because we replaced Q's with 2's! When lowercase letters turn into uppercase cursive letters, some of them turn into numbers."

I am Ramona. Let that be known.

Thank you, Beverly Clearly giving me a friend who was just like me.