Anastasia on Her Own by Lois Lowry Read Free Book Online

around her in the movie theater, and...
    "Anastasia? Are you still there?" Steve asked.
    "Yeah."
    "Will you be in school tomorrow?"
    She sighed. "I won't be there all week. I have to stay with Sam and take care of him and the house. Next week my father's going to do it until my mom gets home next Wednesday, and..."
    Good grief. She was babbling, and being boring. If she was that boring when they had a date, he would never ask her for another date; he would probably ask someone like Marlene Braverman, and her whole life would be .. .
    "Well, can you go to the movies Friday night?" Steve was asking.
    "Sure."
    "My dad'll drive us and pick us up afterward."
    "Okay. Fine." Anastasia tried to sound casual, as if this happened all the time.
    "Sam!" she squealed, after she had hung up. "Guess what! I have a date Friday night with Steve Harvey!"
    Sam glanced up from the cup of hot chocolate. "Watch this," he said. "It's like the vacuum cleaner, with Daddy's socks." He consumed the melted marshmallow with a loud sucking noise.
    Well, thought Anastasia, Sam's too young to understand the significance. Wait till Dad gets home and I tell
him.

    But when her father came through the door at five, he was not his usual cheerful self. His shoulders sagged, and his face had a terrible look. He put his briefcase down, hung up his coat slowly, and sat down on a kitchen chair.
    "How's Sam?" he asked, finally, in a disheartened voice.
    "Fine," said Anastasia. "Just look at him."
    Sam was running a truck around the kitchen floor. His chicken pox spots were all connected by green ink lines, even on his face, which he had done in front of the mirror, and he was making truck noises very happily.
    Dr. Krupnik stared gloomily at the floor after glancing at Sam. Wait'll I tell him my news, thought Anastasia with glee. Wait till we tell Mom on the phone tonight. They'll both be so excited. It's the first time one of their children has ever had a real date.
    "Did you have a bad day, Dad?" Anastasia asked sympathetically. She was feeling so happy that she decided not even to tell him about
her
bad day, with the endless phone calls from strangers wanting to sell her things. She wasn't even going to bug him about his dirty socks under the bed, or show him the new housekeeping schedule that she had made in a fit of anger.
    "I don't want to talk about it," he muttered.
    Anastasia tried to remember what her mother would do at times like this. She went to the refrigerator and got her father a can of beer. She took out a box of crackers and some cheese, and put them on the table beside him. She ran to the study, put a record on the stereo, and turned it up loud enough so that they could hear it in the kitchen.
    Her father brightened a little, and sipped at the beer. "Vivaldi," he said.
    Wait'll I tell him; wait'll I tell him, thought Anastasia, almost shivering with delight.
    "Dad," she started, "guess what!"
    He stared at her and took another sip of beer. "What?" he asked, finally.
    "I have a date Friday night!" Anastasia said with pride, and waited for his reaction.
    But to her surprise, he didn't smile. He didn't move. He only stared into the beer can as if he were trying to memorize the ingredients of Miller Lite for a quiz.
    Finally he looked up. "So do I," he said in a voice filled with despair.

5

    "Dad," Anastasia said, "don't be ridiculous. You can't have a date. You're a married man."
    "I know," he said miserably.
    "You're a happily married man." She stared at him. "Aren't you? Aren't you happily married?"
    "Of course. I'm just about the most happily married man in the whole world. Probably if they had a Mr. and Mrs. Happy Marriage Contest, your mother and I would win."
    "Yuck," said Anastasia. She hated the Miss America contest more than any other program on TV. Every year she stayed up late to watch it, just because she hated it so much. The thought of a Mr. and Mrs. Happy Marriage Contest was so disgusting she could hardly stand it. Still, it was