Ramona the Pest

She was not a slowpoke grownup. She was a girl who could not wait. Life was so interesting she had to find out what happened next.

Words were so puzzling. Present should mean a present just as attack should mean to stick tacks in people.

I am not a pest," Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

Poor Miss Binney, dressed like Mother Goose, now had the responsibility of sixty-eight boys and girls.

Ramona could not understand why grown-ups always talked about how quickly children grew up. Ramona thought growing up was the slowest thing there was, slower even than waiting for Christmas to come. She had been waiting years just to get to kindergarten, and the last half hour was the slowest part of all.

That girl has been bad again,” Ramona heard the four-year-old next door say to her little sister.