Ramona the Pest

Ramona is very excited for Show and Tell at school that day, the second day of kindergarten. She has seen her sister and Henry Huggins bring various objects to school over the years, and now it is finally her turn to participate in Show and Tell. Beezus criticizes Ramona for having a doll named Chevrolet. Chevrolet is a disheveled, worn doll with green hair.

Mrs. Kemp, Howie, and Willa Jean join Ramona and Mrs. Quimby at the Quimby’s before their walk to school. Howie did not bring anything for Show and Tell and throws a tantrum when he sees that Ramona is bringing something. Mrs. Quimby tells Ramona to go into their house and find something for Howie to present at Show and Tell. Ramona reluctantly agrees and goes back inside where she finds a stuffed rabbit that’s been worn down by the Quimby cat. Howie is upset that the rabbit is so beat-up, but Mrs. Kemp insists that he thank Ramona for sharing.

Miss Binney greets Ramona and Howie when they arrive at school. When the class settles in their seats, Miss Binney asks if anyone brought something to present at Show and Tell. Ramona raises her hand, and Miss Binney invites her to the front of the classroom. Ramona tells the class about her doll, that she washes her hair with shampoo (and sometimes detergent and even Dutch Cleanser) and that the doll’s name is Chevrolet, named after Ramona’s aunt’s car. The class laughs, and Ramona feels ashamed at her doll’s name. Miss Binney says she thinks Chevrolet is a lovely name, and has the entire class pronounce the word: “‘Chev-ro-let,’ said the class obediently, and this time no one laughed” (46).

After Ramona, one student shows her doll, and another tells the class about their family’s new refrigerator. Howie eventually goes up for his turn and sheepishly presents the “shabby blue rabbit” (48). Howie says that he brought it only because his mother made him. Miss Binney says that she can tell how loved the bunny is because it is so worn. Miss Binney then presents Howie with a red ribbon which she ties around the bunny’s neck, so that it has a “nice new bow” (49). Ramona is delighted by the red ribbon, and she assumes that when Howie returns the rabbit, the ribbon will belong to her:

All morning she thought about the things she could do with that red ribbon. She could use it to tie up what was left of Chevrolet’s hair. She could trade it to Beezus for something valuable, an empty perfume bottle or some colored paper that wasn’t scribbled on (50). 

At the end of the day, Ramona and Howie walk home with their mothers. Howie unties the ribbon and gives Ramona back her rabbit. Ramona demands that Howie turn over the ribbon, but he refuses. Ramona feels infuriated, and tries to argue with him, but Howie will not give her the ribbon. Finally, Mrs. Quimby and Mrs. Kemp intervene and they try to come up with a solution (they suggest sharing the ribbon or even cutting it in two), but both Ramona and Howie are unrelenting—they each want the ribbon without having to share, just as it is. Mrs. Kemp confiscates the ribbon and says that they will return to this subject after lunch.

While Mrs. Quimby and Mrs. Kemp prepare tuna fish sandwiches for the children, Ramona and Howie go outside to play with Ramona’s tricycle. There, Ramona informs Howie that her trike is actually in the garage, since she no longer rides it now that she is in kindergarten: “Only babies ride tricycles” (57). Howie tells Ramona that he can make her trike into a two-wheeler with a set of pliers and a screwdriver. Ramona does not believe he can do this and says she does not want Howie to ruin her trike. Howie begs her to let him, since he loves tinkering with tricycles. Ramona says she will allow it, but only if Howie lets her have the ribbon. Howie says fine, and so Ramona gets him the pliers and a screwdriver. To Ramona’s surprise, Howie successfully removes one back wheel from the trike, and it becomes ride-able as a two-wheeler, if Ramona leans a bit: “Ramona was so impressed by Howie’s work that her anger began to drain away” (60). Ramona is happily riding her new two-wheeler when Mrs. Quimby calls the children in for lunch. 

Another day at school, and Ramona runs around the playground before class begins. She notices her crush, Davy, is wearing a cape that day. Ramona asks Davy if he is Batman or Superman, but Davy tells her that he is neither: Davy is Mighty Mouse. At that, Ramona exclaims “I’m going to kiss you, Mighty Mouse” (65), and she begins chasing him around the schoolyard. Every morning from then on, Ramona would chase Davy around the playground before school began, trying to catch him and kiss him.

Miss Binney gathers the children from the playground and brings them into the classroom. Ramona notes that Miss Binney is teaching the children more than just games now during the portion of kindergarten called “seat work.” Ramona thought of kindergarten as being divided into two parts, “[t]he first part was the running part, which included games, dancing, finger painting, and playing.” The second part is seat work where the children must work quietly in their seats. The children’s first “seat work” assignment is to draw a picture of their family home. When Ramona completes her drawing, she looks at it critically and decides that she needs to make it more “interesting” (70). She uses a black crayon to draw giant black swirls all over the front of her house. Miss Binney asks Ramona to tell the class about her drawing, and Ramona explains that the giant black swirls are plumes of smoke coming from the home because there is a fire due to Santa being stuck in the chimney.

The next “seat work” assignment is for the children to learn how to write their own names. Ramona is excited to begin, even though her name is more of challenge to write than other children’s names:

When Miss Binney handed each member of the class a strip of cardboard with his name printed on it, anyone could see that a girl named Ramona was going to have to work harder than a girl named Ann, or a boy named Joe. Not that Ramona minded having to work harder—she was eager to learn to read and write. Having been the youngest member of her family and of the neighborhood, however, she had learned to watch for unfair situations (73).

Ramona adds her last name’s initial—“Q”—to the end of her name. When she draws the Q, she adds a set of ears and whiskers to the letter, making it resemble a cat. Meanwhile, Davy is struggling to make his D’s. Miss Binney tells Davy that the D should be curved like a robin’s breast, so Ramona recommends that he adds feathers to his D because robins have feathers, after all. Davy takes Ramona’s advice and makes a jagged line around the curve of his D. Miss Binney, however, tells Davy that that is incorrect, and he should try to make his D’s nice and smooth. Upset, Davy tells Miss Binney that the feathers are Ramona’s fault, and Miss Binney tells him to “never mind what Ramona says” and to do exactly as she instructs (80). Ramona quickly figures that, if Miss Binney does not like a D with feathers, then she will not like a Q with cat ears and whiskers. Ramona quickly erases all her cat ears, thinking about how Miss Binney is the “nicest teacher in the whole world” (82), and she wants to be sure she never displeases her. 

The next morning, Ramona and Howie walk to school by themselves. Mrs. Quimby and Mrs. Kemp give the children all kinds of warnings beforehand (look both ways before crossing the street, be sure to walk on the sidewalk, etc.) before they set off: “Ramona and Howie, weighed down by the responsibility of walking themselves to school, trudged off down the street” (84). At the first intersection, they let two cars pass before making their way across the street. At the next intersection, Henry Huggins, the traffic boy, is there to help them cross. Henry is at the crosswalk with his dog Ribsy.

When they arrive at the kindergarten building, Ramona notices that something is off. The door to the kindergarten hangs open, and there are no children playing on the playground equipment. Instead, the children huddle near the door to the classroom “like frightened mice” (89). Ramona learns from Susan that Miss Binney is not in class today, so they are having a substitute teacher. Ramona is distraught: “Kindergarten would not be kindergarten without Miss Binney” (90). Ramona looked through the door of the classroom to see a woman “taller and older” than Miss Binney sitting at Miss Binney’s desk (90). Ramona decides that she is not going into that kindergarten room out of loyalty to Miss Binney. Instead, she will hide behind a row of trash cans alongside the playground while she waits for the school day to be over.

Ramona gets down on her hands and knees and hides behind two of the trash cans. Henry’s dog Ribsy, while sniffing the trash cans, finds Ramona hiding. He lets out a small bark, and Ramona tells him to hush. As the class begins to sing the “dawnzer song,” Ramona starts to feel sorry for herself: “Ramona felt so sorry for the poor shivering little child behind the trash cans that one tear and then another slid down her cheeks. She sniffed pitifully” (95).

Ramona dozes off for a moment before recess time rolls around, and the older boys and girls go to the playground. Ramona crouches lower. A ball bounces against one of the trash cans, and a boy comes running up to where Ramona is hiding. He shouts that there is a “little kid hiding back here” and gets the attention of Henry Huggins, since he knows Ramona. Beezus approaches the scene and tells Ramona that her mother is going to be very angry with her for this stunt. The yard teacher then approaches to investigate what is causing the commotion, and when she finds Ramona hidden behind the trash cans, she tells Beezus to take Ramona to see the principal, Miss Mullen, to sort this out.

Ramona is frightened that she is going to the principal’s office, but when she meets Miss Mullen, she finds that Miss Mullen treats her with kindness. Miss Mullen does not seem to be bothered that Ramona had hidden behind the trash cans of the playground rather than attend kindergarten; in fact, she seems sympathetic to Ramona, saying that it must have been a “surprise” to Ramona to find Miss Binney absent from school that day (102). Miss Mullen calmly walks Ramona back to her kindergarten class, where Miss Mullen says she will introduce her to Mrs. Wilcox, the substitute teacher for the day.

Mrs. Wilcox greets Ramona and says that she is glad she joined the class, who are all occupied doing “seat work.” Ramona observes, however, that the class is not doing real “seat work:” “Here it was seat-work time, and Mrs. Wilcox was not even having the class do real seat work, but letting them draw pictures, as if this were the first day of kindergarten” (104). Still, Ramona tells Mrs. Wilcox that she would like to practice drawing the letter “Q,” and so she sits down and begins writing. Ramona draws a whole line of Qs with the cat ears and whiskers. She decides that having a substitute teacher that day is not as bad as she initially thought.