Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary

car pool. After I picked up all the children and drove them to nursery school and came home and did the breakfast dishes and made the beds, it was time to pick up the children and take them all home again. And after lunch I started the cake and had just creamed the sugar and butter in the electric mixer when I was called to the telephone. When I came back, what do you think had happened?”
    â€œWhat?” asked Beezus, pretty sure Ramona had something to do with it.
    â€œRamona had dropped all the eggs in the house into the batter and had started the mixer,” said Mother.
    â€œShells and all?” asked Beezus, horrified.
    â€œShells and all,” repeated Mother wearily.
    â€œAnd so I had to get out the car again and drive to the market and buy more eggs.”

    â€œRamona, what did you have to go and do a thing like that for?” Beezus demanded of her little sister, who was playing with her doll Bendix.
    â€œTo see what would happen,” answered Ramona.
    She doesn’t look a bit sorry, thought Beezus crossly. Spoiling my birthday cake like that!
    â€œDon’t worry, dear. There’s still plenty oftime to bake another,” said Mother. “If you’ll just keep Ramona out of the kitchen, I can get it into the oven in no time at all.”
    That made Beezus feel better. At least she would have a birthday cake, even if it did mean looking after Ramona for a while.
    â€œRead to me,” Ramona demanded.
    â€œRead about Big Steve.”
    â€œI’ll read to you, but I won’t read that book,” said Beezus, going to the bookcase. She really wanted to read one of her birthday books, called 202 Things to Do on a Rainy Afternoon , but she knew Ramona would insist on a story. “How about Hänsel and Gretel?” she asked. Next to stories with lots of noise, Ramona liked stories about witches, goblins, or ogres.
    â€œYes, I like Hänsel and Gretel,” agreed Ramona, as she climbed on the davenport and sat Bendix beside her. “O.K., I’m ready. Now you can begin.”
    Beezus curled up at the other end of the davenport with Grimm’s Fairy Tales. “Once upon a time…” she began, and Ramona listened contentedly. When she did not have to make noises like machinery Beezus enjoyed reading to Ramona, and this afternoon reading aloud was particularly pleasant, with Mother in the kitchen baking a birthday cake. As Beezus read she listened to the whir of the mixer and the sound of eggs being cracked against a bowl.
    Beezus read about Hänsel’s leaving a trail of crumbs behind him as he and Gretel went into the woods. She read the part Ramona liked best, about the witch’s trying to fatten Hänsel. Ramona listened wide-eyed until Beezus came to the end of the story, where Gretel pushed the witch into the oven and escaped through the woods with her brother.
    â€œThat’s a good story,” said Ramona, as shejumped down from the davenport.
    Surprised that Ramona didn’t demand another story, Beezus picked up 202 Things to Do on a Rainy Afternoon and began to read. She was learning how to make a necklace out of beans and pumpkin seeds painted with fingernail polish when a lovely sweet vanilla fragrance began to fill the house, and Beezus knew her birthday cake was safely in the oven at last.
    Ramona’s unusual silence made Beezus glance up from her book. “Ramona!” she cried, when she saw what her little sister was doing. “Stop that right away!”
    Ramona was busy pulling graham-cracker crumbs out of the pocket of her overalls and sprinkling them across the rug. “I’m Hänsel leaving a trail of crumbs through the woods,” she said, digging more crumbs out of her pocket. “My father is a poor woodcutter.”
    â€œOh, Ramona,” said Beezus, but she had to giggle at the picture of Father as a poor woodcutter.
    Ramona sprinkled more crumbs on the rug, and Beezus knew she had to