Anastasia at This Address (5 page)

She sighed and wondered how to answer his letter.

BRRRRINNG!

The shrill sound of a bell startled her and made her jump.

Sam poked his head around Anastasia's door. He was smiling mischievously.

BRRRINNNG!

"Cut it out, Sam," Anastasia said. "Quit ringing that. I'm thinking. I have a very important letter to write."

Sam grinned and rang the bell he was holding a third time.

"CUT IT OUT, SAM!"

Anastasia started toward her brother and he scurried away. She followed him down the stairs. He continued ringing the little metal bell, looking back over his shoulder to make certain that Anastasia was still chasing him and still angry. There was nothing Sam liked better than to be chased by his sister.

On the first floor, he ducked into Mrs. Krupnik's studio, where she was working. Anastasia followed him.

"Mom, would you
please
make him stop that?" Anastasia asked angrily, glaring at her brother.

Mrs. Krupnik looked up from her drawing table, where she was working on some pen-and-ink sketches of the pudgy little farmer milking a cow who was wearing wedgies on all four hooves. "Stop what?" she asked. She peered down at Sam. "Sam, what is that in your hand?"

Sam held it up gleefully and pushed hard at the metal switch with his thumb.

BRRRINNNG!

Anastasia and her mother both winced.

"It's the bell off the handle of his tricycle," Anastasia explained, although her mother had recognized the sound. "He took Dad's screwdriver and managed to get it off the bike."

"Why did you do that, Sam?" his mother asked, genuinely curious.

"Because I want to be in a wedding, too," Sam explained.

Katherine Krupnik stared at him. He was wearing drooping jeans, a dirty sweatshirt with a picture of Goofy on it, and bright red sneakers. There were grape juice stains around his mouth.

"You want to be in a wedding," Mrs. Krupnik said, puzzled.

Anastasia sighed. "It's my fault. I was telling him all about Kirsten's wedding, and how I get to walk down the aisle in my beautiful dress and everything, and have my name in the newspaper, and he said
he
wanted to be a bridesmaid, and I told him—"

Sam interrupted. "She said I couldn't because I'm a boy, and a boy can't be a
maid,
and the only way a boy can be in a wedding is if he's a—"

Mrs. Krupnik nodded. "I get it," she said. "A boy has to be a—"

"Yeah," Anastasia said. "A boy can only be a—"

"
Ringbearer!
" they all said together.

BRRRRINNNG!
Sam rang the bell again.

"Make him stop!" Anastasia wailed.

Mrs. Krupnik sighed and looked at the half-finished drawing on her paper. She began to wipe the ink off her pen with a piece of cloth. Then she looked at her children, who were glaring at each other.

"Sometimes," she said, almost to herself, "I wonder what my life would have been like if I'd opted for a full-time career instead of marriage."

"I'm doing just that, " Anastasia reminded her. "Renouncing marriage. By the way, Mom, do you know what a sloop is?"

Mrs. Krupnik screwed the lid tightly onto the jar of ink. "A sloop is a kind of boat," she said. She gazed fondly at Sam, who was sucking the thumb of his right hand while he turned the bell over in his left and examined its bottom.

"You know, Anastasia, you renounce a whole lot of good stuff when you renounce marriage," she said.

"Like what?"

"Well, just for starters, a wedding. Your dad and I had a really neat wedding."

Anastasia shrugged. "I get to be in other people's weddings. Like Kirsten Halberg's. I get to walk down the aisle and be in the newspaper and all that, and go to the reception and everything, but I don't have to write all those thank-you notes. Kirsten Halberg already has to say thank you for seven woks."

Sam looked up from his bell. "Wok, wok, wok, wok, wok, wok, wok," he said. "That's seven woks."

"And it's still four and a half weeks to her wedding. Can you imagine how many woks she may end up with? And have to write thank-you notes for?"

Mrs. Krupnik shuddered. "That certainly is something to be considered," she acknowledged. "Your dad and I didn't get a single wok when we got married. We got twelve pairs of silver candlesticks, though."

"I won't ever have that problem," Anastasia told her with satisfaction. "What do you mean, a boat? What kind of boat is a sloop?"

"Well," her mother said dubiously as she got up from her chair, "bear in mind that you will also be renouncing the fun of having childr—— Sam! Don't you dare!" Sam had put his tricycle bell down on the drawing table and had picked up his mother's little pot of ink.

He looked at her very innocently, still holding the ink.

"Put that down right
now,
Sam," Mrs. Krupnik said. "Right this minute."

Sam backed away from the table, still holding the ink.

"I mean it, Sam," said his mother.

Anastasia watched with interest as her brother and her mother glared at each other. Sam wasn't terribly naughty terribly often, but every now and then, when he got that defiant look in his eyes, which he had right now, it meant trouble.

Sam backed slowly across the broad room, watching his mother. He passed the ink back and forth between his hands.

"BRING THAT TO ME NOW, SAM," Mrs. Krupnik said loudly and firmly.

Sam grinned. He turned and ran from the room, still carrying the ink. "You can't catch me!" he called.

"You were talking about the fun of having children, Mom," Anastasia reminded her. "What kind of boat is a sloop?"

"Go get your brother," Mrs. Krupnik said angrily. "If he spills that on the living room carpet—"

"Why do I have to go after him? It's not
my
ink," Anastasia complained.

"
Anastasia,
" Mrs. Krupnik said.

"Anyway, I've given up chasing boys. That ought to include my brother." Anastasia was arguing, but she was already starting across the room, because she could see that her mother wasn't kidding. Far off, in another part of the house, she could hear Sam chanting, "Wok, wok, wok."

"Go get him. And earn your nickname," her mother ordered. "
Swifty.
"

***

"It won't come off, Sam. You're going to have ink on your hands for the rest of your life. And that may not bother you
now,
when you're three years old, but believe me, you're going to feel a little funny about it when you're forty.
Then
you'll be sorry."

Anastasia could hear her mother's voice coming from the bathroom, where she was scrubbing Sam. They had finally caught him and retrieved the ink on the second floor, in his bedroom. So the living room carpet was spared. But there was ink on Sam's hands and sweatshirt.

Anastasia put the tricycle bell on the table beside Sam's bed and wandered into the bathroom.

"You never said what a sloop is, exactly," she reminded her mother.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," her mother said in an impatient voice. She glanced toward the bathtub. "There. See that red boat of Sam's? Single mast, two sails? That's a sloop."

"Sloop, sloop, sloop," Sam sang, mooshing his hands in the soapy water.

"Quit wiggling," his mother said. "You're going to stay right here until we get that ink off."

"
Sam
has a sloop?" Anastasia asked. She picked up the red boat from the corner rim of the bathtub.

"He's had it for ages. How long have you had that boat, Sam?" Mrs. Krupnik asked.

"Twelve years," Sam replied cheerfully. "No, a
hundred
and twelve years."

"You're probably tired of it, " Anastasia said, an idea forming in her mind. "Would you trade it for something?"

Sam stood still, his hands dangling in the basin full of soapy water, and thought. "Trade it for what?" he asked.

Anastasia remembered the one thing that Sam had wanted for a very long time, the one thing that she had always said a very firm no to.

"Sam," she told her brother solemnly, "if you give me your sloop, I will let you take Frank Goldfish into the bathtub with you for one bath. No soap allowed. Just clear water. And no grabbing at Frank, either. Just quiet swimming."

Sam looked at her with wide eyes. "You will? I can?"

"If you give me your sloop."

"Take it. You can have it."

As she went back to her own bedroom, holding the small red wooden boat, Anastasia felt a little ambivalent, a little guilty. It was a pretty terrible burden to place on Frank Goldfish, who was so accustomed to his small bowl and would very likely feel terrified in the bathtub. But Frank was tough. Frank could take it, she was quite sure.

And, after all, it was worth it, Anastasia thought. Because now she was legitimately a woman who owned her own sloop.

Dear Septimus Smith,

I will send you a photograph soon. In my next letter.

I know you got a lot of mail so just to remind you, I am the one who wrote you three letters already. This makes four. I will send a photograph in my fifth letter.

But the thing I wanted to tell you right away is that, even though I am not the woman who you are very interested in who has her own sloop, I am—ta DA!—
also
a woman who has her own sloop.

The reason I didn't tell you before is because I just
got
my sloop. So mine is newer than the woman who already wrote. Well, that's not entirely true, because I have to be honest and tell you that what I got is a
used
sloop.

Still, I thought you might be interested in knowing about my sloop, especially since I live near Boston and not in Sitka, Alaska.

Please write soon, now that you know I have a sloop.

Sincerely,
SWIFTY

(Sloop-owner Writing Increasingly Frequently To You)

"Frank?" It was Saturday morning, and Anastasia was whispering in a solicitous voice toward the side of the goldfish bowl. "Look at me, Frank. Please accept my very humble apology. I'm truly sorry."

But Frank aimed his tail in her direction and swam listlessly to the opposite side of the bowl.

Sam, kneeling on the rug beside his sister, said in a small voice, "I didn't mean to sit on him in the bathtub. But I was all slithery. Is he okay?"

"I think so. He's just mad, I think."

"He didn't completely squish or anything. I just sat on him for one weensy second."

Anastasia sighed and tapped a little fish food into the bowl. "I think he'll be okay, Sam," she said. "We'll leave him alone for a while. I think his feelings are hurt. When my feelings are hurt, I just need to be by myself for a while."

"Yeah, me too," Sam said. "My feelings are hurting right now because I mashed Frank. My feelings are hurting very, very bad."

Anastasia put her arm around Sam's skinny shoulders. "It was my fault, really," she told her brother. "I shouldn't have let you take Frank in the tub. But I needed your sloop."

"Yeah." Sam's voice was dejected. "Now I don't have a sloop. And I had a terrible time in the bathtub. And Frank is mashed. Three bad things in a row. " He held up three fingers and looked at them mournfully.

Then he gazed at his sister with a sad, pleading look. "Can I have my sloop back?" he asked.

"Nope. I traded for it fair and square."

"I'll give you ten pennies," Sam suggested.

"Sorry. No deal. Life is hard sometimes, Sam," Anastasia told him.

Sam sighed. "Life is hard," he agreed. "I guess I'd better go eat a banana."

"A banana?" Anastasia looked at him, puzzled.

Sam headed for the stairs. "Yeah," he said. "Eat a banana and watch cartoons. That's what I do when life is hard."

"Anastasia?" her mother called from the hallway below. "Your friends are here. Do you want to come down or shall I send them up?"

"Send them up," Anastasia called back. Then she leaned over the staircase railing and watched Sonya, Meredith, and Daphne climbing the stairs toward her room.

"Hi, guys," she said. "What's the big problem?" Meredith had called earlier and announced that there was a humungous problem that the four of them needed to deal with.

All three of her friends kicked their shoes off automatically. Anastasia was already in her stocking feet. Meredith settled herself on the floor, and Sonya and Daphne sprawled on Anastasia's unmade bed. Anastasia sat backwards on her desk chair, her arms folded over the top of its back. She felt like a hard-bitten detective when she sat that way.

"You have to speak softly," she added, glancing at the fishbowl. "Frank has had a traumatic day and he needs peace and quiet."

"What happened?" Daphne asked. "How can a fish have a traumatic day?"

Anastasia shook her head. "Don't ask. It was awful. Does he look flat to you?"

They all gazed at the goldfish for a moment. "Yeah, he looks flat," Sonya said at last. "But he always
was
flat. I don't think he's changed any."

"Good," Anastasia said. "Maybe he's okay, then. What's the big problem, Meredith?"

"Well, first there's just a small problem," Meredith said. "A decision. Which of these do you like best?" She reached into the pocket of her jeans, pulled out three squashed-looking pink things, and tossed them onto Anastasia's desk. Sonya, Daphne, and Anastasia all stared at them.