Anastasia Has the Answers

Anastasia Has the Answers by Lois Lowry Page A

Book: Anastasia Has the Answers by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online
Authors: Lois Lowry
Tags: Ages 9 & Up
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okay."
    "
White socks.
No jewelry—that means you, too, Jill, even though you like to jangle—all three sets of earrings have to go. Be on time Wednesday, everyone. Let's see, what else?" Ms. Willoughby looked down at her clipboard.
    Jenny Billings raised her hand. "You said we'll be doing a demonstration. What are we going to demonstrate?"
    "Oh," Ms. Willoughby said, "you're what, second period?" She moved her finger down the paper on the clipboard. "First period, folk dancing; third period, precision marching. You guys are going to do rope-climbing. Now—we're running late. Class dismissed!
Phweet!
" Her whistle blew again.
    "Anastasia," Ms. Willoughby called, as the girls all ran toward the locker room door, "could I see you for a minute?"
    ***
    "The whistle!" Anastasia said, choking back sobs. "She said I could be in charge of blowing the whistle! Just as if I was a little kid, you know, like Sam, who could be conned into thinking that blowing the whistle was a real important job. And she was so nice about it, I couldn't argue or anything, and I know she—"
    "Shhh," her mother said soothingly. "Don't cry." She stroked Anastasia's hair. "Let me think. I'm sure we can work something out."
    "I could just be absent," Anastasia suggested, sniffling. "But I
want
to be there when those people from other countries come. I really want them to see what a neat school we have, and in English class I'm supposed to recite a poem when they're there, so I
can't
be absent, no one else knows that poem but me—"
    Sam looked up from the floor where he was playing. "I can do a poem," he announced. "Listen: I'm Popeye the sailor man, I live in a garbage can—'"
    "MOM! Make him
stop!
" Anastasia wailed.
    "Sam," Mrs. Krupnik said firmly, "shhhh. Anastasia's upset. You just play with your cars and be quiet. Have a nice, quiet funeral. You can bury Aunt Rose over there, under that stack of canvases."
    Sam nodded, eyed the stack of canvases against the far wall of his mother's studio, and loaded the blank-eyed GI Joe onto the back of his dump truck. "
Rrrrr,
" he said, and began driving away slowly.
    Mrs. Krupnik turned back to Anastasia. "I wonder if he'll get tired of funerals by the time George goes back to California," she murmured. "Four more days."
    "
Two
more days till the rope-climbing demonstration," Anastasia said bitterly. "I suppose I should practice up on whistle-blowing."
    "No, wait," her mother said. She put down the pen she'd been holding and looked at the drawing on the table in front of her. "This job isn't due at the publisher until the tenth of the month. That gives me a couple of weeks, still, so I can set it aside for a little while without feeling too guilty. What time is it?"
    "Four o'clock," Anastasia said, looking at her watch.
    "Sam's busy with his macabre game, aren't you, Sam? Are you keeping busy over there?"
    Sam looked up from the canvases, where he had just disposed of Aunt Rose. "'I always go swimmin' with bare-naked women,'" he said. "That's the rest of my poem about Popeye."
    "Sam is busy. George is reading in the study, Dad's not home yet from work, and dinner preparations can wait for a little while. So, Anastasia, out we go to the garage," her mother concluded. "It's you and me, kid; we're going to beat that rope if it kills us."
    "Really?" Anastasia stood up and brushed her hair out of her eyes.
    "
Really,
" her mother responded. "Ask me 'Who?'"
    "Who?"
    "Anastasia Krupnik—" said her mother.
    "What?"
    "Mastered the difficult art of rope-climbing—"
    "When?" Anastasia was grinning.
    "This very afternoon—"
    "Where?"
    "In the Krupnik garage—"
    "Why?"
    "Because she wasn't about to be the only kid in the seventh grade who was assigned to whistle-blowing, not in front of Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby, the most glamorous gym teacher in town, and a whole band of visiting foreigners. And because her mother was
determined
that she would do it!"
    ***
    "My arms ache," Anastasia told her mother that night.
    "Of

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