Henry and Ribsy (Henry Huggins #3)(16)

“Go away,” Henry said to him. “You can’t have any of their ice cream.” Ribsy made a whimpering noise.

“What’s Ramona carrying a lunch box for?” Henry asked. “She doesn’t go to school.”

“It’s not a lunch box,” said Ramona, as a little river of ice cream dribbled off her chin.

“It is too a lunch box,” said Henry.

Beezus ran her tongue all the way around her ice-cream cone. “Ramona’s pretending it’s a camera,” she explained.

“How can she pretend a lunch box is a camera?” Henry wanted to know. A lunch box for a camera! What a dumb idea!

“Oh, she has lots of imagination,” said Beezus. “Daddy says she has too much.”

“I’m going to take your picture,” announced Ramona. She held one end of the lunch box against her stomach. The other end she pointed at Henry.

“Ramona, look out for your ice cream cone,” Beezus warned. “You’re tipping it.”

That was just what Ribsy was waiting for. With one sweep of his long pink tongue he knocked Ramona’s ice cream cone to the porch. In three greedy licks the ice cream was gone. Then the cone crunched between his teeth.



Ramona let out a scream of rage.

“Look what you’ve done, you old dog,” said Henry crossly. He looked around to see if any of the neighbors were watching. He didn’t want people to say he had a dog that stole ice cream from little children.

Ribsy gave the porch a couple of licks to make sure he had not missed any ice cream. Ramona stopped screaming and started to hit Ribsy with the lunch box.

Beezus grabbed her little sister with one hand and held her own cone out of Ribsy’s reach with the other. “I told you to be careful,” she scolded.

“I want my ice cream cone,” howled Ramona.

“Well, it’s gone now,” said Beezus.

Looking guilty, Ribsy slunk down the steps. He turned his back to Henry and the girls and began to gnaw an old bone in the corner of the yard.

“I want my ice cream cone,” shrieked Ramona.

“Well, you can’t have mine. I licked it all the way around.” Beezus bit off the top of her cone and sucked out the melting ice cream. “Anyway, you were getting most of yours on your chin.”

“I was not!” howled Ramona.

“Aw, I’ll buy her another one,” said Henry. Anything to quiet Ramona so he and Beezus could get started on their checker game. Besides, since his dog had taken the cone, he guessed he really owed her another one.

“Now?” With her grubby fist Ramona scrubbed at the tears that had rolled down into the ice cream on her chin.

“Oh, all right.” Henry decided he might as well get it over with. “Wait a sec.” He went into the house, where he took a dime out of a marble sack in his dresser drawer.

When Henry returned to the porch, he saw Ramona walking across the lawn with her lunch box in her hand. She stopped, opened the box, and laid it on the grass. Then she ran over to Ribsy, grabbed the bone from between his paws, and put it in the lunch box. “There!” she said, as she snapped the lunch box shut.

Ribsy looked surprised. “Wuf!” he said.

“Hey,” said Henry, “you can’t do that.”

“Ramona, you give Ribsy his bone this minute,” ordered Beezus.

“No,” said Ramona.

Ribsy sniffed at the lunch box. Then he looked hopefully at Ramona and wagged his tail.

“That’s a camera,” Henry reminded Ramona. “You can’t put a bone in a camera.”

“Now it’s a lunch box,” said Ramona.

“Ramona, give Ribsy his bone,” coaxed Beezus. “Whoever heard of carrying a dirty old bone in a lunch box?”

“I have a samwidge in my lunch box.” Ramona was firm. “I’m going to eat it.”

“Oh, dear, now she’s pretending his bone is a sandwich,” said Beezus apologetically. “I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about it. Maybe Mother has a bone Ribsy could have.”

Henry had trouble keeping up with Ramona’s thinking. At least she was quiet and that was something. “Ribsy’s got lots of old bones buried around. He can dig up another one. Come on, let’s go to the store and get her the ice cream cone and get it over with. I want to play checkers.”

Ribsy, however, did not want another bone. He wanted the one Ramona had snatched. Sniffing at the lunch box, he trotted at Ramona’s heels all the way to Glenwood School, which was across the street from the store where Henry and Beezus planned to buy the ice cream cone.

“I guess all these cars are parked here because of the P.T.A. meeting,” Henry remarked, as they took a short cut across the playground. “Did your mother go?”

“No, not this time.” Beezus took a Kleenex out of her pocket and tried to scrub some of the chocolate ice cream off Ramona’s chin. “Mother said she was too tired after watching Ramona all day.”

“I want some,” announced Ramona.

“Some what?” asked Beezus.

“Some P.T.A.,” said Ramona firmly.

“You can’t have any P.T.A.” Henry didn’t see how one little girl could have so many dumb ideas. “It’s the Parent-Teacher Association—just a bunch of ladies talking. Come on, we’ll get you the ice cream cone.”