Anastasia Has the Answers by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online Page A

parents. Of course, a lot of it was my fault." Daphne stood up and wandered over to the bureau. She picked up a bottle of nail polish. "You want to paint your toenails? I'm going to."
    "Okay." Anastasia began unlacing her hiking boots. "What shade is that?"
    Daphne read the label. "Fatal Apple."
    "That's cool. I used that once before. It has matching lipstick. But I look gross with lipstick on."
    They passed the little bottle back and forth and began to paint their toenails. "Don't shake the bed," Daphne said. "I always smear nail polish anyway, and it's worse if the bed jiggles."
    Silently, meticulously, they did one toenail after another. Anastasia finally stretched out one leg so that she could view her left foot with all five toes done. She grinned. It looked glamorous. It looked like someone else's foot. It looked like the foot of a model in the bathing suit issue of
Sports Illustrated.
It looked like a foot that could climb a rope. It looked like—
    "Hey," she said suddenly, turning to Daphne. "What did you mean, it was your fault? I just remembered that you said that. Your parents' divorce was your fault?"
    Daphne blew on her toes to dry the polish. "Yeah, they say it wasn't, but I know otherwise."
    "How could it be your fault?"
    "Remember when you first met me, right after you moved to town? Remember how weird I was?"
    Anastasia thought back. She remembered. She remembered the time Daphne had mowed a Nazi swastika into her parents' lawn, and the way she had painted her bedroom walls black. She remembered all the times Daphne had been in detention at school.
    "I wouldn't call it weird, Daph. You were being adolescent."
    Daphne sighed. She bent her knees, rested her arms on them, and put her head down in her arms. "I know," she muttered. "But I wish I hadn't been. They couldn't deal with it. And now look."
    "Look at what? Come on, Daphne. Your parents dealt with it very well. They never got upset or anything.
My
parents would have gone berserk-o if I had painted my walls black. Yours just waited till you got tired of such a sick-looking room and then they took the price of yellow paint out of your allowance. In my opinion that was an absolutely intelligent thing to do, much better than yelling, which is what my parents would have done."
    "You think?" Daphne turned her head and looked up at Anastasia.
    "I
know.
"
    "I always thought your parents were terrific. I thought it was neat that they yelled at you and stuff. My parents never,
ever
yelled at me. And guess what—" Daphne put her head back down in her arms. She started to cry. "I wanted them to."
    Anastasia sat silently and watched Daphne's shoulders move as she cried. She wondered what to do. People on TV always knew what to do, what to say. Joanne Woodward always knew just how to say soothing, intelligent things when she was playing psychiatrist roles. And Anastasia never did.
    "You're shaking the bed," she said finally. "You told me not to shake the bed, and now
you're
shaking the bed."
    Daphne took a deep breath and tried to stop crying.
    "Here," said Anastasia, and she handed Daphne a tissue from the box of Kleenex on a nearby table. "Psychiatrists on TV are always giving people Kleenex when they cry. Maybe I should become a psychiatrist."
    Daphne blew her nose. She took another deep breath. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm a jerk."
    "No, you're not. I don't mind that you cried. You don't have to be embarrassed or anything," Anastasia told her. "I just feel bad that I can't think of anything to say or to do. Except to tell you that I'm positive it wasn't your fault that your parents got divorced.
    "I'll do a journalistic evaluation," Anastasia suggested. "I'm going to ask you these questions: who, what, when, where, and why. First one is 'who,' and you say your parents' names. Ready? Who."
    Daphne smiled a little. "Reverend and Mrs. John Bellingham," she said.
    "What?" Anastasia asked next.
    "Filed for divorce—"
    "When?"
    "Last month—"
    "Where?"
    Daphne wasn't