Ramona the Brave Read Online Free

world,” said Beezus, who spent her time playing jacks with Mary Jane when she was not reading. “Why do you call your game Brick Factory? You aren’t making bricks. You’re wrecking them.”
    â€œWe just do,” said Ramona, who left rusty footprints on the kitchen floor, rusty fingerprints on the doors, and rusty streaks in the bathtub. Picky-picky spent a lot of time washing brick dust off his paws. Mrs. Quimby had to wash separate loads of Ramona’s clothes in the washing machine to prevent them from staining the rest of the laundry.
    â€œLet the kids have their fun,” said Mr. Quimby, when he came home tired from work. “At least, they’re out in the sunshine.”
    He was not so tired he could not run when Ramona chased him with her rusty hands. “I’m going to get you, Daddy!” she shouted.
    â€œI’m going to get you!” He could run fast for a man who was thirty-three years old, but Ramona always caught him and threw her arms around him. He was not a father to worry about a little brick dust on his clothes. The neighbors all said Ramona was her father’s girl. There was no doubt about that.
    â€œOh, well, school will soon be starting,” said Mrs. Quimby with a sigh.
    And then one morning, before Ramona and Howie could remove their bricks from the garage, their game was ended by the arrival of two workmen in an old truck. The new room was actually going to be built! Summer was suddenly worthwhile. Brick Factory was forgotten as the two elderly workmen unloaded tools and marked foundation with string. Chunk! Chunk! Picks tore into the lawn while Mrs. Quimby rushed out to pick the zinnias before the plants were yanked out of the ground.
    â€œThat’s where my new room is going to be,” Ramona boasted to Howie.
    â€œFor six months, don’t forget.” Beezus still felt they should have drawn straws to see who would get it first.
    Howie, who liked tools, spent all his time at the Quimbys’ watching. A trench was dug for the foundation, forms were built, concrete mixed and poured. Howie knew the name of every tool and how it was used. Howie was a great one for thinking things over and figuring things out. The workmen even let him try their tools. Ramona was not interested in tools or in thinking things over and figuring things out. She was interested in results. Fast.
    When the workmen had gone home for the day and no one was looking, Ramona, who had been told not to touch the wet concrete, marked it with her special initial, a Q with ears and whiskers:She had invented her own Q in kindergarten after Miss Binney, the teacher, had told the class the letter Q had a tail. Why stop there? Ramona had thought. Now herin the concrete would make the room hers, even when Beezus’s turn to use it came.
    Mrs. Quimby watched advertisements in the newspaper and found a secondhand dresser and bookcase for Ramona and a desk for Beezus, which she stored in the garage where she worked with sandpaper and paint to make them look like new. Neighbors dropped by to see what was going on. Howie’s mother came with his messy little sister Willa Jean, who was the sort of child known as a toddler. Mrs. Kemp and Mrs. Quimby sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and discussing their children while Beezus and Ramona defended their possessions from Willa Jean. This was what grown-ups called playing with Willa Jean.
    When the concrete was dry, the workmen returned for the exciting part. They took crowbars from their truck, and with a screeching of nails being pulled from wood, they pried siding off the house and knocked out the lath and plaster at the back of the vacuum-cleaner closet. There it was, a hole in the house! Ramona and Howie ran in through the back door, down the hall, and jumped out the hole, round and round, until the workmen said, “Get lost, kids, before you get hurt.”
    Ramona felt light with joy. A real hole in the house that was