Anastasia Again! (6 page)

"Good."

"I'm not a baby," he reminded her firmly.

"I know, Sam. I know you're not a baby."

***

She called Jenny MacCauley on the phone.

"The moving van's coming in about an hour," she said. "So I called to say good-by."

"Will you have a telephone in the new house?"

"Sure."

"Is it long distance?"

"I don't know. Not long distance like Milwaukee, or anything."

"Well, call me and tell me the number."

"I will."

"And call and tell me everything that happens."

"Yeah."

"Like if you meet any boys."

"Okay."

"Or if
Casablanca
ever comes to a movie theater out there, call me, and I'll figure out a way to get there. Don't ever go to
Casablanca
without me, promise."

"I promise. Don't you, either."

"I won't. And if Old Briefcase ever comes to visit, call and tell me."

Anastasia giggled. "Okay."

"Or if you get any new clothes, or anything."

"Okay. And you, Jenny, if you read any good books, call and tell me. Or if Michael Gottlieb comes over. Old Baseball Cap."

Jenny giggled.

"I still can't believe you're moving, Anastasia."

"Me neither. Come and visit me."

"I will."

"Promise."

"I promise."

Then, suddenly, Anastasia was too sad to talk any more. Very quickly, before she began to cry, she said good-by and hung up the telephone.

***

Everything was packed, and the moving van was pulling up to the front door.

But Anastasia hadn't packed Frank Goldfish—she was going to carry him with her, in his bowl, to the new house—and she hadn't packed her notebook.

Now she sat down on the bare floor, beside Frank in his bowl, and looked around. The moving men were coming in, and she could hear their heavy footsteps on the bare floor of the apartment. Her entire life was packed into cardboard boxes, except for the life that she was leaving here.

"The Mystery," she wrote quickly, before they got to her room, "of Saying Good-by."

She reread it with satisfaction. Now
that,
she thought happily, is a
title.

Anastasia's mother was sitting in the kitchen of the new house in a rocking chair, with her sandals kicked off and her long hair frizzy from the heat.

"Look at me," she said dramatically to Anastasia, who had wandered into the kitchen for a peanut butter sandwich, "and you are looking at someone who is suffering."

"Suffering from what?" asked Anastasia, as she spread peanut butter on a slice of whole wheat bread.

"Angst. And sore feet. And heat stroke."

"And the heartbreak of psoriasis?"

"No. The heartbreak of not being able to find anything. Have you seen a pitcher? Can you tell me how to make iced tea, which I desperately want, without a pitcher?"

"No." Anastasia licked the edges of her sandwich to even them off.

"
Damn.
" Her mother stood up and began to look through a half-unpacked carton.

Her father came into the kitchen, wiping his face with a handkerchief. "Did you make the iced tea?" he asked.

"I don't want to talk about it," said her mother tensely.

"I'm not asking you to talk about it. I'm asking you to pour it."

Her mother glowered at him.

"She can't find a pitcher," Anastasia explained. "Here," she said to her mother, handing her a saucepan. "Use this."

Her father sat down in the rocker, leaned his elbows on his knees, and looked at the floor.

"What's wrong, Dad?" Anastasia happened to know that her father was not at all interested in floors. Whenever he stared at the floor, it meant that something was wrong.

"I was unpacking the records," he said, "and I can't find the Verdi Requiem. I think the movers stole it."

"Dad," said Anastasia patiently. "Those movers never even
heard
of the Verdi Requiem. Those movers were the sort of people who would only steal Peter Frampton."

Her father wasn't paying any attention to her. He was only paying attention to the floor. "Also," he said, "I hate the car. And the car hates me. It backfires at me. It keeps running after I turn the ignition off, even after I get out, and as soon as I am
behind
it, it backfires at me."

"I don't hate the car," said Anastasia cheerfully. "I thought I would, but I don't. I'm glad you got an old beat-up car instead of a gross Cadillac or something."

"Here," said her mother, and handed them each a glass of iced tea. "If it tastes like aluminum, it's not my fault. I think the movers stole all my pitchers."

She sat down in a chair across from Anastasia's father, took a sip of tea, and made a face. Then she put her elbows on her knees and stared at the floor.

"You people are both suffering from Post-moving Depression," announced Anastasia.

"For pete's sake, where did you come up with
that
idea?" asked her mother.

"
Cosmopolitan
magazine."

Her father set his glass on the table with a thud that almost broke it. "Anastasia Krupnik," he said, "we have subscriptions to at least seven magazines in this household, all of them with some intellectual content. Why do you insist upon spending your allowance to buy that garbage?"

"It tells me stuff."

"
What
stuff?"

"Well, one issue had an article about lopsided breasts, how to disguise them, and also an article about wives who get fed up with things and run away. Those might be useful bits of information to me someday."

Her father made a noise like a horse exhaling. He stood up and stomped out of the kitchen.

"Post-moving Depression," said Anastasia to her mother. "It will only last a few days."

Sam padded into the kitchen. "I stood in every closet," he said.

"Sam," said his mother. "Where are your sneakers? You're going to get splinters if you don't keep your shoes on." She slid her own feet back into her sandals.

Sam thought. "One sneaker is in one closet," he said, "and one is in a different closet. I forget where." He sat on the floor and examined the soles of his feet. "I
like
splinters," he said happily.

"Sam's not depressed," pointed out Anastasia. "Neither am I. I wonder why the neighbors haven't come to visit, though. Neighbors are supposed to drop in and bring a chocolate cake or something, when you move to a new place."

"I wish someone would drop in and bring a pitcher," muttered her mother. "This tea tastes terrible."

Sam looked up suddenly. "A witch lives next door," he announced.

"No kidding," said Anastasia. "How do you know?"

"I looked out a window, and she was looking out a window."

"How do you know she's a witch? Was she wearing a pointed hat?"

"No," he said, picking some dirt out from between his toes. "She had an ugly witch face."

"Hey," said Anastasia, "I have an idea. We need a pitcher until we find ours, right? Why don't I go next door and borrow a pitcher? That gives me an excuse to meet one neighbor, at least. I'm dying to meet the neighbors."

"You want to meet a
witch?
" asked Sam, his eyes lighting up.

"Sure. You want to come, Sam? Find your sneakers and I'll take you with me. I want to comb my hair first."

She was heading out of the kitchen when her mother called her back. "Did it really have that article, the one you said? About wives who just chuck it all and run away? What happens to them? Do they end up happy, living in Malibu or something?"

"Mom," said Anastasia, "just hang in there a couple more days. Post-moving Depression goes away. It really does."

***

The house next door looked like a Charles Addams house. That didn't bother Anastasia. She even watched the shower scene in
Psycho
without covering her face with her hands, something her mother had never been able to do. She read vampire books and watched late movies about gooey blobs that grew and ate entire city populations, without ever having bad dreams.

But Sam was scared. He wasn't old enough to have developed an immunity to it yet. He held tightly to Anastasia with one hand and tightly to his yellow blanket with another. When they got to the front steps, Sam let go of Anastasia and dropped back to hide behind a bush.

"Dope," she needled him, and left him there. She went up on the porch and pushed hard on the unpolished brass bell. The shrill ring sounded inside the house. After a
moment she heard footsteps, slow ones, shuffling.

The door finally opened, and a woman peered out from the dim hall.

Good grief. She really
did
have an ugly witch face. Sam was right. She would have looked perfect on a broom.

"Hello," said Anastasia politely. "I'm your new neighbor. My name is Anastasia Krupnik."

The woman with the witch face stared at her without smiling and didn't say anything. Her gray hair stood out around her face, tangled, like a nest that Anastasia had once seen high in a tree in winter.

"What's your name?" Anastasia asked.

The woman stared at her for another long moment. Finally she said, "Mrs. Stein."

"My mother was wondering if maybe you have a pitcher we could borrow, just for this afternoon until we find ours. We're still unpacking, and it's so hot we need something to make iced tea in."

"No," said Mrs. Stein abruptly. "I don't have one."

Liar. Everybody has a pitcher unless they can't find it.

"Oh," said Anastasia. She wanted to say sarcastically, "Well, thanks anyway, you old bat." But she didn't say that. Instead, she said nicely, "Thank you anyway. I'm sorry I bothered you."

Mrs. Stein began to push the door closed. Then she stopped, looked beyond Anastasia, and said, "Who's
that?
"

Anastasia looked. It was Sam, who had come out from
behind his bush and was looking at them fearfully, his yellow blanket wrapped around his arm and his thumb in his mouth.

"That's my brother, Sam."

"What is that disgusting thing he's holding?"

"It's his blanky. He holds it when he's sleepy or scared."

"Come here, young man," called Mrs. Stein.

Sam climbed the steps to the porch, carefully holding the railing. It took him a long time because he still went up stairs the baby way, with both feet on each step at the same time.

"Do you like cookies?" Mrs. Stein asked him.

Sam nodded.

"How can you eat cookies if you keep your thumb in your mouth?"

Sam removed his thumb and wiped it dry on his blanket.

"Can you talk?"

"Yes," said Sam solemnly.

"My name is Gertrude Stein. Can you say that?"

"Gertrustein," said Sam. He said it the way he said Frankenstein when he was playing monsters.

"Do you prefer chocolate chip cookies or molasses?"

"Both," said Sam.

Gertrude Stein began to laugh. "Come in then, and I'll give you one of each."

She looked sternly at Anastasia. "What was it you said you wanted to borrow?"

"A pitcher."

"You come in, too. I'll give you one." Then, as if she needed to explain something, she said, "I like little children. I do not much care for middle-sized ones."

Anastasia and Sam followed her into the dark house.

"This house smells funny," whispered Sam.

It surprised Anastasia that he whispered it. Why was it that Sam, who was only two and a half, already understood something about manners? Some people Sam's age, or even older, would have said that very loudly, which would have been rude. But Sam whispered it, what he said about Gertrustein's house. Anastasia squeezed his hand.

And yet Gertrustein herself, who was probably eighty years older than Sam, had been rude when she opened the door. Or at least she had
seemed
rude.

Anastasia remembered that her grandmother—who had been ninety-two when she died—had sometimes seemed rude.

Maybe it was just that people who were very old, or very young, were the only ones who said exactly what they thought. If they were young, they hadn't learned yet to worry about what other people might think. And if they were old, they didn't care any more.

And the house did smell funny. Sam was right. It wasn't a bad smell; it was just the smell of being closed up: a no-fresh-air-for-a-long-time sort of smell.

"I walk very slowly," said Gertrustein. Anastasia had already noticed that.

"I do, too," said Sam. "It's because I have small legs."

Gertrustein looked back at him and smiled.

Anastasia was surprised again at Sam. He had said something which made her feel good. What a nice guy Sam was beginning to be.

"I don't have small legs," said Gertrustein. "I have big legs, as a matter of fact. But they don't work very well. The doctor says I should go for long walks."

"Do you?" asked Anastasia. "Do you go for long walks?"

"No," sniffed Gertrustein.

The kitchen was not as dim as the rest of the house, because there was sunlight coming in through the windows. But it was very old-fashioned. Gertrustein shuffled over to a thick crockery pot with a lid, opened it, and took out some cookies. She put them on a plate and put the plate on the table.