Anastasia Has the Answers by Lois Lowry

to have the same sort of curls—had once, for a school talent assembly, mouthed the words of "On the Good Ship Lollipop" to a record, while she danced, wearing a short ruffled dress. But one of her front teeth was blacked out, and she was wearing a black lace garter belt, which showed every time she did a little Shirley Temple twirl.
    The entire junior high had thought it was hysterical, and Daphne had gotten a standing ovation. But everybody over the age of thirty-five—which included a lot of the teachers—thought it was sacrilegious or something. Daphne almost ended up in detention again.
    Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby, Anastasia remembered with satisfaction, had loved it.
    Thinking of Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby reminded Anastasia that she planned to spend the remainder of the Saturday afternoon out in the garage once again. She had decided to try wearing her mother's gardening gloves this time, since her hands were beginning to be sore from all the rope-climbing attempts.

8

    "
PHWEET!
" Ms. Willoughby's whistle blasted through the gym on Monday afternoon, and the basketball game stopped. Everywhere there was the rubbery sound of sneakers coming to a speedy halt against the floor. Meredith Halberg bounced the basketball once, tossed it ineffectually toward the basket, and it rolled over into the corner where the gymnastics mats were piled.
    "The period's almost over," Ms. Willoughby called. "But gather round for a minute before you go to the locker room."
    The seventh-grade girls, still panting from the basketball game, clustered around Ms. Willoughby. Anastasia stood a little to the side. Somehow, in gym,
she felt a little separate from her classmates. She watched them now, each in a bright blue gym suit, listening to the gym teacher.
    "Very shortly," Ms. Willoughby was saying, "the day after tomorrow, to be exact, there will be a team of educators from several other countries visiting our school. You probably know that already."
    Everybody burst out laughing. The entire school had been talking of nothing else for two weeks. There were posters everywhere, reminding the students about the coming visit from the team of educators. The principal had spoken about it in a special assembly. Every single teacher had devoted a long discussion to it.
    All the teachers and administrators, Anastasia realized, were
terrified
that somehow or other they were going to be disgraced and humiliated in front of the foreign educators. Eddie Fox might yell out something obscene, the way he did occasionally. Daphne Bellingham—although it had been months since she had done her Shirley Temple imitation in assembly—might suddenly be moved to do it again, in the middle of a history class. Eighth graders would all light up cigarettes in the halls, instead of sneaking them in the bathroom the way they usually did.
    All of it was highly unlikely. The junior high students were actually a nice bunch of kids, and they wanted to impress the foreign visitors favorably. But Anastasia could see that the entire faculty was very nervous. And now Ms. Willoughby (Anastasia had supposed that such a super-cool person was above that sort of nervousness, but apparently not) was going to give the "Let's be very impressive for our visitors" pep talk, too.
    "We'll be doing a demonstration for them," Ms. Willoughby was saying. "We won't have a lot of time because they'll just be coming in small groups through the gym briefly. But physical education is very important in Europe—you remember how the Germans and Rumanians always perform at the Summer Olympics—so they'll be particularly interested in what goes on in gym.
    "I want you all to take your gym suits home for laundering tonight. And
iron
them!"
    Everyone groaned.
    "White socks," Ms. Willoughby went on. "No argyle knee socks, Jennifer Billings!"
    Everyone laughed at Jenny Billings's bright yellow, green, and red knee socks.
    "No pantyhose, Daphne Bellingham," Ms. Willoughby announced, and Daphne said, "Okay,