Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst (6 page)

"When my father said that, about the hormones," Sonya went on, grinning, "my brother said he knew a joke. And the beginning of the joke was: How do you make a hormone? But then my father got mad and said, 'None of that at the dinner table!' So I never got to hear the punch line."

"I don't think there's anything funny about hormones, anyway," Meredith said. "I hate the idea that there are all these
things
inside me. What do you suppose they look like? Insects or something?"

"Blecchhh," said Anastasia.

"Here's Bennington Street," said Sonya. "And there's a sign up there in the middle of the block—that must be the garage sale."

They turned the corner and headed toward the large Tudor house with the sign in the driveway.

"You know what?" asked Anastasia. "I told my parents that I wanted to go to a psychiatrist. But they said no. They said I didn't have any problems. Do you believe they said that? NO PROBLEMS?"

Sonya and Meredith sighed sympathetically and shook their heads.

"I read in the paper about a girl our age," said Meredith, "who was undergoing psychiatric evaluation at the state hospital."

"How come?" asked Anastasia. "Did her hormones get out of control?"

"She stole fourteen cars," Meredith explained. "And she didn't even have a driver's license. She even stole her own grandfather's car."

They had reached the driveway and turned in toward the garage. Its door was open, and a few people were prowling around through the assorted objects. Suddenly Meredith started to laugh. "Anastasia," she said, "you're going to go to a psychiatrist whether your parents like it or not!"

She pointed. On the side entrance of the house, a small bronze sign said:
CALVIN MATTHIAS, M.D. PSYCHIATRY. PATIENTS' ENTRANCE
.

"Oh, I knew that," said Sonya. "Dr. Matthias died—that's why they're having the garage sale."

"How did he die?" asked Anastasia.

"Are you sure you want to know? It's sort of gross," Sonya said. "It wasn't in the paper or anything, but my father told me about it."

"Of
course
we want to know," said Meredith.

"Well," Sonya explained, "a regular patient came in—a man—and they said hello to each other and everything, and then the patient lay down on the couch the way he always did, and Dr. Matthias sat in a chair, the
way
he
always did, and the patient started to talk, and he talked for a whole hour until his appointment was over. And Dr. Matthias didn't say anything for the whole hour, but the man didn't notice because Dr. Matthias
never
said anything. And then the patient got up to leave, and went to say good-bye, but Dr. Matthias was dead. He'd been dead the whole hour."

"You mean," Anastasia asked, "the guy had been talking to a dead body for an hour?" It made her feel queasy, just thinking about it.

"That's what the medical examiner said," Sonya explained matter-of-factly. "Apparently he had died of a heart attack, just after he sat down in the chair."

"Gross," said Anastasia. "Maximo grosso."

"Did the guy demand his money back?" Meredith asked.

"I dunno," said Sonya. "I never thought about that. But when my father was telling us about it, at dinner, he said it probably didn't make much difference because if Dr. Matthias never said anything anyway, so what if he was dead?"

"I'd demand my money back," said Meredith. "I demanded my money back when I found a dead beetle in a bag of popcorn at the movies. It seems like the same thing to me."

"After my father told us about it, my brother said he knew a joke about a psychiatrist. And it started: Once a man went to a psychiatrist and said, 'Doctor, you have to help me because everything I see reminds me of breasts.'"

"What did the psychiatrist say?" asked Anastasia.

Sonya shrugged. "I don't know. Because my father said, 'None of that at the dinner table.'"

"SONYA!" wailed Anastasia and Meredith together.

"I only know the beginnings of jokes," Sonya said wistfully. "I don't know one single punch line."

"Now listen," said Sonya seriously as they stood in the driveway, "let's make a pact. This time we won't buy junk."

"I
like
junk," giggled Meredith.

"I do too," said Anastasia. "But Sonya's right. I wasted five whole dollars last time. I bought that ashtray shaped like a pair of hands. And I don't even smoke."

"Yeah," Meredith admitted. "And I bought that shower curtain. My mother made me throw it out, because there was mold on it. But it had those neat swans all over it."

"I'm only going to look for books," said Sonya. "Really good books. No trash."

"I suppose I could look for a birthday present for my sister," Meredith mused.

"Does she smoke?" asked Anastasia.

"Yeah. But don't tell my parents."

"For three dollars I'll sell you this ashtray shaped like a pair of hands."

"How about two dollars?" asked Meredith. "I didn't charge you anything for the gerbils, and I gave you their cage and everything, and the book about how to take care of them."

Anastasia pondered that. "That's true," she said. "But don't forget that your mother said that if you didn't get
rid of them she was going to put them down the garbage disposal. So I really did you a favor by giving them a good home."

"Well," said Meredith, "let me look through this garage. If I don't find anything, I'll buy the ashtray from you. What are you going to buy?"

"I'm not sure," said Anastasia. "I always have to wait until something sort of, you know,
strikes
me."

Sonya had wandered off, into the garage, and was looking through a large shelf of books. They caught up with her.

"I found
Wuthering Heights,
" she said blissfully. "My very favorite book."

"Don't you already have
Wuthering Heights?
" asked Meredith, who was leaning over a box full of fishing tackle.

"You can never have too many copies of
Wuthering Heights,
" said Sonya, clutching the dusty volume.

"Do you think Kirsten would like a fly-tying kit for her birthday?" asked Meredith. She held up a musty box.

"No," said Anastasia. "She'd like an ashtray shaped like a pair of hands."

"Here, Anastasia!" said Sonya, who was still looking through the bookshelf. She pulled out a thick blue book. "The complete works of Freud! Just the thing for you!"

"I read it the other night," Anastasia said. She moved around to the end of the bookshelf and knelt to examine a box full of kitchen utensils on the garage floor. Suddenly there was a shifting noise; she glanced up and saw Sonya attempting to return the blue book to the crowded
shelf. Like dominoes, all the books began to tilt and lean; finally they fell to their sides, one after another. Above Anastasia, at the end of the shelf, where it had been placed as a bookend, something large and cream colored—something very solid looking—wobbled and fell.

Anastasia jumped aside, but not quickly enough. The object whacked the corner of her forehead—she winced with the sharp pain—and then crashed to the floor.

"Ow," muttered Anastasia. She rubbed her forehead, and could feel a bump starting to rise. "Am I bleeding?"

Sonya examined her. "No," she said. "It's okay, I think. You should put ice on it when you get home. I'm really sorry."

They looked down at the object on the floor. It was the head of a man, a plaster bust of an old-fashioned bearded man with solemn eyes. And no nose. His nose was lying beside him on the floor of the garage.

The price tag taped to the man's head said $4.50.

"Well," sighed Sonya. "There goes
Wuthering Heights.
I guess I just bought myself a noseless man."

Anastasia picked up the nose and held it against the serious plaster face. "Hello," she said. He stared back at her with blank eyes.

"I kind of like him," she told Sonya. "You know what? I think I'll buy him—then you won't have to, even though you broke him. I think Elmer's glue will reattach his nose."

"Really? You really like him? You're not just saying that because you feel sorry for me?"

Anastasia tucked the man under one arm and headed for the person who was collecting money in the nearby corner. "Nope," she said to Sonya. "It was like I said to Meredith. Something would strike me."

She gave a five-dollar bill to the woman sitting at a card table with a box of change. She pocketed two quarters in return.

"Young lady," said the woman, who had gray hair and large horn-rimmed glasses, "you got a great bargain. You just bought yourself Sigmund Freud."

"Mom? Dad?" called Anastasia as she went in through the back door, clutching Freud under one arm. "I need ice cubes because I got whacked on the forehead."

"And guess what?" she added. "I have a psychiatrist!"

Half an hour later, after an ice-cube treatment, Anastasia's bump had disappeared, leaving only a pinkish bruise. And Freud, after a treatment of Elmer's glue, had his nose back. Anastasia carried him upstairs toward her room.

She found Sam sitting unhappily on the stairs to the third floor. He was sucking his thumb, and his old security blanket was wrapped around his arm. Now that Sam was three, he rarely needed the yellow frayed blanket that had been his constant companion when he was younger. Anastasia knew that something must be terribly wrong.

"Hey, old Sam," she said, "what's the matter?"

He looked at her fearfully. "Don't go up to your room," he said.

"Why not? I have to take my friend Freud up there."

Sam sucked harder on his thumb.

Anastasia knelt beside him. "Were you in my room?" she asked.

He nodded miserably.

"Did you do something bad?"

Tears began to stream down Sam's cheeks. Anastasia set Freud on the step. "Tell me what you did, Sam."

"I broke the gerbils," Sam sobbed.

Anastasia started up the stairs. Behind her, Sam followed, still crying and trying to explain. "I just only reached in to pat them, and I was very very gentle like you told me to be, and they just
broke!
There are a million pieces of gerbil all over the cage!"

Anastasia put Freud on her bed temporarily and then went to the gerbil cage under the window. Sam stood apprehensively behind her.

There was one furry gerbil in its nest in one corner of the cage; and there was the other furry gerbil in its nest in the other corner. But surrounding each of them were numerous squirming pink creatures.

"Sam!" said Anastasia happily. "They're not broken! They had babies!"

Sam took his thumb out of his mouth and peered around her, into the cage. "Even the father had babies?" he asked.

"Well, I guess I was wrong. Instead of a father and a mother, we had two mothers." She thought briefly about
her Science Project. This was certainly going to complicate her Science Project.

"They sure had millions of babies," said Sam in an awed voice, looking at them.

"Let me count." Anastasia leaned over the cage and checked the number of babies. "Romeo has four," she announced. "And Juliet has four. So there are eight babies. No, wait—there's one more. Juliet has five. Altogether there are nine. Good grief, we have to think of nine new names."

"Can I name them?" asked Sam. "Because you got to name the first two."

"Sure," said Anastasia. She went to the bed and picked up Freud. She looked around the room, decided on her desk, and placed him there, beside her schoolbooks. Sam squatted by the gerbil cage very intently. Finally he looked up.

"Okay," he said. "I got names."

Anastasia took a pencil and paper to write them down. "What are they?" she asked.

"Happy is one."

"That's a good name. What else? Eight more."

"Sleepy and Dopey and Sneezy and Grumpy and Bashful and Doc."

Anastasia grinned. "Terrific, Sam. But that's only seven. We need two more."

"Snow White," said Sam.

Anastasia wrote it down. "Good," she said. "One more."

Sam beamed. "Prince," he said.

Anastasia Krupnik
Mr. Sherman's Class

On October 13, I acquired two wonderful little gerbils, who are living in a cage in my bedroom. Their names are Romeo and Juliet, and they are very friendly. They seem to like each other a lot. Since they are living in the same cage as man and wife, I expect they will have gerbil babies. My gerbil book says that It takes twenty-five days to make gerbil babies. I think they are already mating, because they act very affectionate to each other, so I will count today as DAY ONE and then I will observe them for twenty-five days and I hope that on DAY 25 their babies will be born.

This will be my Science Project.

Day Three.

My gerbils haven't changed much. They lie in their cage and sleep a lot. They're both overweight, because they eat too much, and they resemble Sonya Isaacson's mother, at least in chubbiness.

In personality, they resemble
my
mother. They're very grouchy.

Day Three Continued.

People who have serious emotional problems sometimes have difficulty doing real good gerbil-observation because they suffer from inability to concentrate. I myself have serious emotional difficulties so I have this problem.

As part of my Science Project I will talk about serious emotional problems. I will tell you what someone named Freud says about this.

The division of the psychical into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise of psycho-analysis; and it alone makes it possible for psycho-analysis to understand the pathological processes in mental life, which are as common as they are important, and to find a place for them in the framework of science.

Day Five.

My gerbils gave birth to premature babies. Instead of twenty-five days, it took them only five days to have babies.

Now I have eleven gerbils, and their names are Romeo, Juliet, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, Doc, Snow White, and Prince.

I also have a psychiatrist. His name is Freud. He is dead. But there is no need to be grossed out by that because with some psychiatrists It doesn't seem to matter much If they are alive or dead.