Anastasia, Absolutely Read online

  Sam squatted down and fed the treats to the kitten. Then he pulled a piece of string across the floor so that the kitten could chase it.

  "What do you like best, cats or dogs?" Sam asked his sister.

  "Both the same," Anastasia lied.

  "Me too," Sam said cheerfully. "Both the same."

  "I'm going to do a good deed for you, Sam. I'm going to empty the litter box," Anastasia said. She emptied the contents of the box into a plastic trash bag, twisted the top closed, and deposited it in the big trash can that stood by the garage door. She refilled the litter box from the bag of cat litter on a shelf.

  Something created an odd little nudge of awareness in her mind. Something about the trash can.

  "Here you are," she said to the kitten, putting the litter box back in its place on the ground near the plaid pillow that the cat used as a bed. "All set for another few days.

  "Take it easy on the mice-munching, okay?" The kitten cocked its head, twitched its ears, and looked at her alertly. Sam giggled.

  There was something about the trash can. It was one of those feelings that you get. Something wasn't exactly right.

  Anastasia tried to think about what she had put into the trash can recently. Oh. Of course. Her father's New York Times blue plastic bag, functioning as a pooper-scooper that very morning. She laughed a little to herself and wrinkled her nose.

  But why did she feel something was wrong?

  Anastasia went back to the trash can, lifted the lid, saw the bag of cat litter that she had just placed inside, thought briefly to herself that the poor trash can was turning into an outhouse, and made herself lift up the bag of used litter in order to assess what was underneath.

  What was underneath was a mailing envelope addressed to a New York publisher. Katherine Krupnik's name was in the upper left return-address corner.

  It was the packet of illustrations that Anastasia thought she had put into the mailbox on Chestnut Street at 6:30 that morning.

  Anastasia Krupnik

  VALUES

  2. Suppose that by sacrificing one day at the end of your own life—in other words, by dying one day earlier than you otherwise would have—you could save the life of a small child in a Chinese village. Would you do so?

  Well, I guess I would, because if I was old, like maybe ninety, what difference would one day make? Heck, it would probably rain that day anyway. And just think: that Chinese child might grow up to find a cure for some disease, and win the Nobel Prize.

  But maybe if that particular day was my birthday or something, probably my family would have planned a big celebration, with a cake with ninety candles or something. So it wouldn't exactly be fair to cancel that day, even if it did save the life of a small child.

  Could I make it the day after my ninetieth birthday?

  3

  Anastasia could hardly believe it.

  "Sam," she said, "tell Mom I'll be right back, okay? And tell Sleuth I'll be home in a minute, and I'll take him out to play in the yard.

  "But right now I have to do a quick errand." Leaving her schoolbooks on the back steps, Anastasia jogged off with her mother's envelope in her hand.

  She headed toward the corner of Chestnut and Winchester streets, the site of the mailbox that she had used that morning: the mailbox into which she thought she had deposited her mother's illustrations.

  She tried to recreate the moment in her mind. She had stopped near the corner because Sleuth had been nosing around in the shrubbery by the edge of someone's yard. A woman had passed her, walking a tall thin dog on a bright red leather leash, and Anastasia had smiled in response to her cheery greeting, a little embarrassed, she remembered, because Sleuth had chosen that moment to go to the bathroom in the shrubbery.

  She remembered that she was glad that the woman had already passed by the time she had knelt to clean up after Sleuth.

  She recalled that she had walked on, now holding the warm, bulky plastic bag in her right hand. She had looked around for a trash can, hoping that she could dispose of it; but there were none in sight. There was, however, the mailbox up ahead, on the corner.

  She had decided to mail her mother's illustrations and then head home. Sleuth, after all, had fulfilled his mission, so there was no reason to prolong the walk; she could dispose of the blue plastic bag in the trash can back home.

  So she had gone to the mailbox, she recalled. Anastasia approached the corner again, now, remembering how hurried she had felt that morning, carrying the unappealing package, and how she had wanted to go home immediately. She had spoken to the dog, she recalled, saying things like, "Good boy, Sleuth, we're heading home as soon as I mail Mom's stuff"; "Good Sleuthie, we'll fix your breakfast in a few minutes"; and he had obediently trotted beside her as if he could understand what she said.

  She was very close now. She could see the brick building on the corner. There were more people around now, at (Anastasia checked her watch) 3:20, than there had been at dawn.

  In fact, she remembered, there had really been only one person nearby when she mailed (or thought she mailed) the packet. It was the grumpy man. She had been feeling self-conscious because he had seen her scoop, and now he could see the lumpy bundle in her right hand; but she had smiled at the man, who was near the mailbox, and said "Good morning."

  He had scowled. He had definitely given her a hostile look—or maybe, actually, he was scowling at the blue bundle in her hand. Sleuth had growled a little, and Anastasia remembered that she didn't blame him, because the grumpy man had invaded the dog's privacy.

  But because of the combination of scowl and growl, she had felt uncomfortable—she remembered it clearly now—and had reached to open the mailbox quickly, transferring the dog's leash from one hand to the other, which wasn't easy while holding the mail and also the plastic bag. Then she had tossed it quickly into the mailbox and turned and walked home.

  But the "it" she had tossed into the mailbox was not the mail.

  She had realized that the instant she saw the bulky envelope in her trash at home. Now, approaching the scene, Anastasia cringed as she actually remembered it quite distinctly. She had felt self-conscious and rushed, with the scowling man nearby, and she had tossed the wrong thing. Darn it!

  Somehow she hoped that she would not be too late, that perhaps she could undo the error. In the computer program that she used at school, there was an UNDO command. You could get rid of your mistakes if you pressed that command; and you could go back and try again.

  Maybe she could UNDO by reaching into the mailbox and down to find the smelly plastic bag still resting there under other people's greeting cards and mortgage payments.

  She was still thinking in those terms, fantasizing that she could somehow UNDO unpleasant reality, when she realized that she was there. She was on the corner of Chestnut and Winchester streets, in front of the insurance agency, near the lamppost.

  But there was no mailbox in sight. There was no mailbox anywhere. It had been taken away.

  Gloomily she trudged home. Hardly thinking about it, she dropped her mother's mail into a mailbox that she spotted on a different corner.

  I'll have to call the post office, she thought. I'll have to ask for the guy in charge, and I'll have to tell him my name, and I'll have to tell him that I'm the one who—

  How on earth can I tell him that?

  I'll just be forthright. I'll say, "Hello, my name is Anastasia Krupnik, and I'm very sorry to tell you that because of a foolish mistake, I deposited a bag of—"

  No way. I can't do it.

  I could say, "Hello, I choose not to tell you my name, I'd prefer to be anonymous, but unfortunately by mistake I put a bag of—"

  They could trace the call. I'm sure they could. The post office is part of the government. And I read somewhere that tampering with the mail is a federal offense, so I'm quite sure that they could—

  Federal offense. Anastasia's steps slowed when she repeated the phrase to herself. She wasn't entirely certain what it meant;
but it sounded grim. Tampering with the mail: she wasn't entirely certain what that meant, either.

  But maybe she had done it. Maybe, without intending to, she had tampered with the mail.

  Maybe she was—or would he —in big trouble, if she called the post office.

  Maybe she didn't need to call the post office.

  If she didn't, how would they ever know who had made the terrible deposit in the mailbox?

  She walked on, reached her own house, picked her books up from the back steps, and went inside. The kitchen was empty but it didn't seem deserted. The radio was playing softly, a violin concerto, and a novel by Gail Godwin was lying upside down and open on the table beside her mother's chair. On the refrigerator, a nursery school painting of a rainbow and an airplane dropping bombs was fluttering from its little teapot-shaped magnet. A pot of something tinged with the smell of garlic and herbs was simmering on the stove. From somewhere distant, upstairs, she could hear her mother's voice, and Sam's. After a moment she could hear the tap, tap of dog toenails on the stairs; Sleuth had heard her come home and was coming down to greet her with a big slurpy dog-breath kiss.

  For some reason Anastasia suddenly felt like crying. This is a nice, comfy home, she thought. Good people live here. People who make soup and are kind to dogs and small children, who feed their goldfish, who read good literature and listen to classical music. People with Values.

  Of course, her thought continued, I will call the post office and confess.

  It is the right thing to do.

  On the other hand...

  Why is decision-making so hard? Why am I such a wishy-washy person?

  Anastasia sighed, decided to think about it all at a later time, and sat down on the kitchen floor to wrestle with her dog instead of her conscience.

  "I have to get up early tomorrow," Myron Krupnik said at dinner. "Wake me up, would you, Anastasia, when you go out with the dog? I'll set the alarm but sometimes I go back to sleep by mistake."

  Anastasia nodded. "Okay." She poked at her salad. "Why do you have to get up early? I thought you arranged your schedule so that all your classes start at ten."

  Her father made a rueful face. "Jury duty," he groaned. "I have to report at eight o'clock."

  "No kidding! That sounds like fun!"

  But her father shook his head. "No, it's awful. When I filled out the questionnaire they sent me, I tried to think of something that would make me ineligible. But there wasn't anything."

  "What would make you ineligible?" Anastasia asked.

  "Bad health," her father said.

  "You got chicken pox from Sam and you were really sick."

  Sam grinned. "Chicken pops," he said, remembering.

  "Yes, but I don't have chicken pox now," Myron pointed out.

  "What else?"

  "Oh, let's see, if I were deaf or blind, I'd be ineligible—"

  "You have terrible astigmatism," Anastasia reminded him. "I inherited it from you."

  "True. But we both can see perfectly well with our glasses."

  Mrs. Krupnik looked up from cutting Sam's chicken. "We have a very unreliable car, Myron," she said. "What if you had jury duty and your car wouldn't start?"

  But he shook his head. "That wouldn't be an excuse. They'd make you take a cab." He took a bite of chicken. "Nope, I couldn't think of anyway to get out of it. There was one question about whether any of your relatives are criminals, and I thought about mentioning my brother George, but—"

  "Myron." Mrs. Krupnik scolded him gently, but she was chuckling. "George borrows money and doesn't repay it. That's irritating, not criminal. Here, Sam. Eat." She handed Sam his fork.

  "What if you lie when you fill out the questionnaire?" Anastasia asked casually.

  Her father frowned. "Well, of course I wouldn't lie."

  "Well, I mean, what if you lied without realizing it? Like, oh, for example, maybe you had a relative who was a criminal but you didn't know it?"

  Her dad laughed. "Oh, I suppose they'd catch you somehow. But don't worry about it, sweetie. I didn't lie, and I'm eligible, and I'm on jury duty tomorrow, and I have to get up early. So wake me, okay?"

  "Duty duty duty kazootie," Sam chanted, and danced his fork around his mashed potatoes. "Sam," Mrs. Krupnik said firmly, and he grinned and took another bite of his dinner.

  Anastasia sighed and poked at her salad again.

  "I think I might use Sleuth as a model," Mrs. Krupnik announced. They were eating in the kitchen, and the dog, who was lying in his corner, and who had acquired his name only that morning, looked up at the sound of it.

  "Cool," Anastasia said. "He can be as famous as—who's that dog in all the books, Sam?"

  "Carl," Sam said, without looking up from the road he was carving through his mashed potatoes. "Carl goes to daycare. And Carl goes shopping." Sam grinned slyly. "And Carl goes through mashed potatoes."

  "Ha ha," Anastasia said sarcastically to her brother. Then she turned to her mom. "He's right, though, Mom. There are a billion Carl books. You could make Sleuth into a dog detective, or something, and there could be a whole series. You could get rich. Dad could retire from teaching, and we could buy a house in, oh, maybe Hawaii, and—"

  For a moment, Anastasia had been thinking along the lines of "and we could move far, far away from the corner of Chestnut and Winchester." But she reminded herself that she had decided not to think about that particular topic.

  Her mother laughed. "No, actually, I hadn't planned to write a book about Sleuth. But remember I told you I have a picture-book text that a publisher sent me, and it happens to have a dog in it? I've done all the preliminary sketches but I didn't fill in the dog because I hadn't decided what kind of dog to use. The author doesn't mention the breed, or even the size or the color. So I thought I might use Sleuth as a model."

  The dog, finally, after raising his head at each mention of his name, got up and came over to the table. He sniffed each person's knees as if maybe they had turned edible overnight. Disappointed at the smell of denim, he yawned, went back to his corner, and resumed his disguise as a mop.

  Anastasia laughed at the thought of Sleuth posing for her mother, who had been a children's book illustrator for many years, since before Anastasia was born. She had posed for her mom, sometimes, over the years; and so had Sam and their father. Occasionally, when she was in a bookstore or library, she would search for one of those books. There was one called Lucy-Mousie about a little girl who had turned into a mouse, and the little girl was actually Anastasia, age six. Anastasia thought the story itself was pretty stupid (and so, in fact, did her mother), but the book was popular, still, and she did enjoy leafing through it to see herself with a long gray tail, little paws, and whiskers poking out below her own horn-rimmed glasses.

  There was another book, called Uncle Dudley and the Dimwits, for which her father had reluctantly posed as Uncle Dudley. There he was, on almost every page, with his bald head and his beard and his bifocals (but not with his pipe in his mouth; the publisher had told Mrs. Krupnik she couldn't put the pipe in); and on one page, he was wearing his underwear—striped boxers and a T-shirt.

  Myron Krupnik, Anastasia's father, had said that if anyone at Harvard, where he taught, ever saw that book and recognized him, he would be ruined as a senior professor of English. But no one ever did.

  "This manuscript's a little sad," Katherine Krupnik explained. "It's about a very old woman and her dog."

  "Why is it sad?" Anastasia asked.

  "Well, because the old woman is clearly very, very old; and so she's looking for a new home for her pet because she knows she won't be around much longer."

  Anastasia groaned. "That's gross," she said. "Why do they have to make little kids cry? If I were writing that book, I'd give it a surprise ending, and have the woman live forever and then she'd have to go and get her dog back.

  "As a matter of fact," she went on, now that she was warmed up, "if I had written Little Women, I'd have penicillin be discovered i
n time for Beth not to die."

  "Great idea!" her father, the English professor, said. "If only Shakespeare had thought of it! Hamlet could die, and then he'd sit up and start laughing and say to the audience, 'Gotcha! Fake rubber sword!'"

  Anastasia finished the last of her chicken. "Actually," she said, "that reminds me of something. If you could save the life of one Chinese child by giving up one day of your life, would you do it?" She took her plate to the sink.

  "Hong Kong?" her mother asked hesitantly, "or mainland China?"

  "I'm not sure," her father said, scrunching his eyebrows. "What if I were in the middle of writing a terrific poem and it needed only one more day's work?

  "Or what if I was on jury duty?" he added gloomily.

  "Those are really wishy-washy answers," Anastasia said with a sigh.

  "Who's Hamlet?" asked Sam, plunging his finger, swordlike, into a mound of potatoes.

  Later, sitting at the desk in her bedroom, looking over the answer she had written to question two, Anastasia chewed on a strand of her hair and went on to the third question. At her feet, Sleuth chewed briefly on his paw.

  Maybe Sleuth had values to worry about, too, she thought. Probably dogs have moral questions to answer: whether or not to scare a cat, for example, or how violently to bite a burglar.

  Question three was another toughie. She wondered what Mr. Francisco would have to say in class tomorrow about the second question, and whether maybe they would have time to talk about the third—assuming, of course, that they were finished with groundhogs.

  She glanced over at the clothes folded on the nearby chair. She had laid out the things she planned to wear to school tomorrow. Jeans, of course. She had folded a white blouse—kind of boring—beside the jeans. Then she had added a sweater that she liked a lot; it had a bright yellow and red design.