Anastasia Has the Answers (11 page)

She stopped. She couldn't think what else to say. "Well, you watch," she said, finally. "I'll show you."

Anastasia turned and went to the closest rope. Suddenly she remembered the one final thing she had intended to say.

"I owe it all to my gym teacher, Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby," she said. Then she leaped and grabbed the rope as high as she could.

For a moment she dangled, the way she always had. But carefully she felt for the rope with her legs and feet, remembering how, last night in the garage, everything had come together for her.

There. There it was—the rope, in the correct position, and her sneakers grasping it just right. The feeling came back, the same feeling of power and control she had had last night, and she knew she would make it.

Up. She hauled herself with her arms, and felt herself rise along the rope. Up farther. Her feet grasped again, and the muscles in her legs pushed.

Up some more. Now her hands were more certain, and her legs moved just the right way, and she went faster.

Up and up. She had passed, now, the height of her garage rope, she knew. But she still had a distance to go, and she was sure now that she could make it. Below her, she could hear her classmates murmur. For them, it had been nothing, this trip up a rope—but each of them had seen Anastasia fail at it again and again.

Her glasses shifted on her nose and she realized that she was sweating a bit. It didn't matter. She didn't need to see. All she needed was the feel of the thick rope in her newly confident hands and then the feel of the knot in the upper end which would tell her she had made it to the top.

There: there it was, the knot. She was at the very top of the rope, the place she had thought she could never, ever achieve. Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby had been absolutely right when she had said, "One of these days, Anastasia, you'll amaze yourself."

I have, Anastasia thought; I've amazed myself. A week ago I thought I could never in a million years get to this spot, and now here I am: in front of a whole audience. I did it! This is the happiest moment of my life. And I'm just as glad that there wasn't time for me to say my poem in English class, because
this
is the absolutely right time for that poem, and won't they all be truly astounded now, because here goes:

"'O world!'" Anastasia exclaimed. " 1 cannot hold thee close enough!'"

Sure enough, it was just as Mr. Rafferty had predicted. Suddenly, now that she was overcome with emotion, the gestures came naturally. Anastasia flung out her arms.

And fell.

Anastasia opened her eyes and saw a ceiling that she was quite certain she had never seen before. Not wanting to move her head, which hurt a surprising amount for just one head, she slid her eyes first to the left and then to the right.

On one side she saw an unfamiliar table and an unfamiliar wall calendar. On the other side she saw an unfamiliar window with unfamiliar curtains, and through the window, she saw a tiny bit of an unfamiliar tree.

She was, she realized, in a bed—an unfamiliar bed. At the foot of the bed she saw a woman—an unfamiliar woman with gray-streaked hair—standing and looking at her.

Oh, great, Anastasia said to herself. I'm going to have to say the worst line of dialogue ever. Might as well get it over with.

She sighed. "Where am I?" she asked.

The woman moved forward, smiling. "Hi," she said. "You're in the hospital. I'm Dr. McCartin."

The doctor leaned more closely over Anastasia and looked into her eyes with an instrument. Anastasia could smell her perfume.

"Do you remember what happened?" Dr. McCartin asked, after she stood back up.

Anastasia frowned. She did remember, sort of. First she had been-in-English class, listening to el nerdo Jacob Berman; then she had gone to gym—oh yes,
gym;
that was it. She had blown the whistle—just thinking about it made her headache worse—and then she had made that stupid speech, and then she had...

Had
she? Or was she just imagining it?

"I climbed the rope in gym, I think," she said tentatively to the doctor.

"Good!" the doctor replied.

"What do you mean, good? It was
great!
" Anastasia said. "Do you realize I'd been trying for
months
to climb that rope?" She began to pull herself up, and then stopped. "
Ouch.
My head really hurts," she complained.

The doctor was pumping up a blood pressure cuff on Anastasia's right arm. "Shhh," she said. "Lie back."

Anastasia eased herself back onto the pillow. I
fell,
she thought suddenly. I must have fallen from that rope.

She remembered the time that Sam had fallen, last summer, from his bedroom window, and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. Now here she had gone and done practically the same thing, she realized. How stupid can you get? And my parents are probably all worried, the way they were then, when Sam had the fractured skull and had to have an operation and had to—

"Oh, NO!" Anastasia yelped suddenly.

The doctor popped the stethoscope out of her ears and looked at her quizzically. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Besides a headache, of course."

I'm going to be a good sport, Anastasia thought. I'll be mature. I won't cry. I'll learn to wear a turban or something.

"You had to shave my hair off, didn't you?" she wailed.

Dr. McCartin looked startled. "Good heavens, no," she said. "You only have a concussion. I'm going to send you home in a couple of hours, I think, if you promise not to climb any ropes for a few days."

Anastasia groaned.

"Want to try sitting up? There are a lot of people waiting out in the lounge to see you. Shall I let them come in?"

Dr. McCartin cranked up the head of the bed slowly. Anastasia felt dizzy for a moment, but then the dizziness faded. Her headache throbbed a bit, but it wasn't unbearable. Carefully she felt her head with her hand. There was a bump, and some soreness, but her hair was still there, thank goodness.

"Sure," Anastasia said, feeling a little like royalty, "allow them to come in."

***

Anastasia looked around the hospital room from where she sat in the position of honor in her bed. It was astounding. Never before in her entire thirteen years had so many people gathered just to pay attention to her.

There were her parents, of course, right beside the bed, still looking a little worried. "Honest," Anastasia kept reassuring them, "I'm
fine.
"

There was Sam, sitting on Gertrude Stein's lap. Sam had been smuggled in because he was too young, technically, to visit in the hospital. "If you had bashed your head harder," Sam said, "you would have been a baldy, like I was."

"True," Anastasia acknowledged.

"And harder than
that,
" Sam added, "and you would have been
dead.
"

"Well, Sam, I don't think—"

"We could have had a funeral," Sam said sweetly, "and buried you in the earth like little birds and bugs and animals and Aunt Rose."

"
Sam,
" whispered Anastasia, "
shhh.
" She glanced nervously toward Uncle George to see if he had heard. But Uncle George was over in the corner of the room, talking very pleasantly to—was that right? Was she seeing correctly? Anastasia sat up farther in the bed and peered beyond her father's shoulder.

Sure enough. It was Daphne's mother, smiling pleasantly and talking with animation to Uncle George. And there was Daphne, grinning at Anastasia.

"Did I disrupt gym class or did I not disrupt gym class?" Anastasia asked her.

"For sure," Daphne answered, rolling her eyes. "You should have seen everybody rushing around calling ambulances and stuff. And guess who was absolutely the most worried person there."

"That nervous-looking Japanese guy who kept checking his watch?"

"Shhh," whispered Daphne. "That guy's right over there in the corner of the room. It wasn't him anyway. It was—well, here, I'll let her tell you."

Daphne stepped aside to let Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby approach the bed. She didn't even have a layered-look outfit on; she had just thrown a trench coat over her shorts and sweat shirt.

"Anastasia, you were amazing," Ms. Willoughby said. "
Amazing.
"

"I climbed the rope okay, didn't I? The only reason I fell," Anastasia said, "was—"

"I know. Because you threw your arms out. Your rope-climbing was perfect. A-plus for rope-climbing. But why on earth did you throw your arms out that way at the top?"

Gingerly, Anastasia shook her head. "It's too complicated to explain, Ms. Willoughby."

"Well," her gym teacher said, "you certainly scared everyone to death, most of all
me.
But you're okay, that's the important thing. And I've had a chance to meet your family: your nice parents, and your brother, and your very charming uncle from California—"

Uncle George and Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby? Suddenly Anastasia remembered what Daphne had told her just a few days before: that Ms. Wilhelmina Willoughby had no man in her life. Hmmmmm. How did "Aunt Wilhelmina" sound? Not too bad. Anastasia glanced around to see if Uncle George was still totally involved with Daphne's mother. But no; Daphne's mother was now talking to the lady in the Indian sari—my goodness, that whole group of international educators was in the hospital room, too!

And there was Uncle George, off in a different corner now, talking to Dr. McCartin, who—Anastasia took a closer look at her doctor. Hmmmm. She was actually a pretty attractive lady, once she got that stethoscope out of her ears. Anastasia wondered if she was married, and decided that she would have to find a tactful way to ask. Of course there was no rush. It was still a little soon—just over a week since Aunt Rose's death—for Uncle George to remarry.

She felt exhausted. It had, after all, been an eventful day. Anastasia leaned back on the pillows and looked around the room filled with people.

Her parents looked more relaxed now that Anastasia had been talking cheerfully and sitting up comfortably in the bed. She had the greatest parents in the world, Anastasia decided, even if neither of them had much fashion sense (her mother was wearing jeans and a paint-smeared shirt, as usual; her father was wearing incredibly hideous baggy pants that he had bought probably in 1960).

Sam had leaned back in Mrs. Stein's lap and was sucking his fingers dreamily. Probably, Anastasia thought, he was planning another funeral. She was going to have to have a very serious talk with old Sam when her head stopped aching. Maybe she could help him find a new hobby. She really loved Sam a lot, and an older sister owed it to a little brother to try to guide him through life.

Gertrude Stein looked as if she had found Perfect Happiness, holding Sam on her lap. She had never had any children of her own. It was the luckiest thing for her,
and
for us, Anastasia thought, when we moved into the house next door. We got a brand-new grandmother and she got a brand-new family. Maybe I shouldn't try so hard to find her a man friend—especially a glamorous one—because he might whisk her away to live in Las Vegas or something.

Glamorous Uncle George was still talking to the doctor. They both looked very serious, and Anastasia thought he was probably telling her about how Aunt Rose had gotten zapped by a swordfish steak, compliments of Sal Monella. Poor Aunt Rose. Poor Uncle George. Anastasia felt sorry for everybody who had lost somebody...

Except Mrs. Bellingham, she realized suddenly. Daphne's mother, who so very recently had been grouchy and depressed, was apparently recovering. She had a new, becoming haircut; she was wearing eye make-up, something Anastasia had never seen on Caroline Bellingham before, certainly not when she was married to the Reverend Bellingham; and she was talking vivaciously to several of the international educators. One of the Japanese men was writing something on a small piece of paper—maybe Mrs. Bellingham's phone number? I wonder, thought Anastasia, what Daphne would think if...

Her eyes found Daphne's across the room. Daphne shrugged, grinned, and winked. Her blond Shirley Temple curls glistened, and Anastasia realized that Daphne would be a real big hit in Tokyo or Yokohama—or
anywhere,
for that matter. Daphne would be okay. Daphne had class.