by Lois Lowry
"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)
6
"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 traum
atic 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.
"Yuck," Daphne said after a moment. "What are they?"
Meredith had been taking off her sweater. She glanced over and giggled. "Oh," she said. "They got squooshed."
Anastasia cringed and looked quickly at her goldfish to see if he had heard the word, but Frank seemed to be daydreaming.
Meredith picked up the three pink things and fluffed them out a bit. "Now look," she said. "They're fake flowers. We're going to have real ones at the wedding, but these are just so you can vote for which kind you like the best, to carry for your bouquet. What would look best with our dresses? This one's a rose. " She held up a wrinkled pink silk rose on a green wire stem.
"And this is a snapdragon." She held up a longer, deeper pink silk flower.
"And this one is a tulip. What do you think? They'll all look better when they're real, my mom says."
"Why pink?" Sonya wailed. "Do they have to be pink? I told Kirsten I can't wear pink with my red hair!"
"You won't be wearing them," Meredith pointed out. "You hold them down at your waist. They won't be anywhere near your hair."
"Well," Sonya said grudgingly, "I like the roses."
"Tulips are more dramatic," Daphne said. "I want to look dramatic."
"I vote for snapdragons," Anastasia said. "Snapdragons are neat. You can snap them open and closed; my mom showed me when I was just a little kid."
Meredith sighed. "I knew this wouldn't be easy," she said. She held the three silk flowers in her hand and looked down at them with a frown. "Hey, look!" she said suddenly. "They look good all together."
The other girls nodded. "Can't we have all of them?" Sonya asked. "They call that a mixed bouquet."
"Great idea," Meredith said. "Is that a unanimous vote for a mixed bouquet?"
Everyone nodded, and Meredith dropped the flowers back on Anastasia's desk. "Now for the tough decision," she announced.
"Do you have anything to eat? Nonfattening?" Sonya asked. "I always need food when I discuss problems. Just last night my mother called a family meeting to discuss Lack of Help around This House, and it took two tunafish sandwiches for me to get through it.
"Sorry, Frank," she added apologetically, looking at the fishbowl. "Next time I'll have egg salad."
Anastasia handed her the open box of Ritz crackers that was next to the sloop on the windowsill beside her desk.
"Ready?" Meredith asked.
Sonya scooped a handful of crackers out of the box and offered them to the other girls. Everyone shook their heads no. "Okay. Ready," Sonya said, and nibbled at a cracker.
"Well, here's the deal. We have a moral decision to make," Meredith announced.
Anastasia, Sonya, and Daphne all stared at her.
"I'm against capital punishment," Daphne said firmly. "Even though I disagree with my parents on just about everything else, I agree with them on that."
Sonya frowned. "About abortion?" she said. "I think I agree with a woman's right to make her own decision, but sometimes I—"
Meredith interrupted. "No, no, nothing like that," she said loudly.
"Shhhh," Anastasia said, and gestured meaningfully toward the goldfish bowl. "Quieter."
"Oh. Sorry, Frank." Meredith lowered her voice. "It's nothing like that. Not a political issue. It has to do with the wedding."
"I won't wear falsies," Anastasia said quickly and firmly. "Absolutely not. I know it might make the dress fit better, but it would be fake, and I won't do it."
"I will," Daphne said. "I think it'd be neat to wear falsies. Remember, Anastasia, the time you stuffed pantyhouse into a bra, and—"
Anastasia blushed, and all four of them giggled. Frank flicked his tail in disdain.
"It's not about falsies," Meredith explained. "It's about boys."
"Boys?"
"Yeah, the opposite sex, the one we renounced, remember?"
"What about them?" Anastasia asked. She wondered for a second whether the mail had arrived yet. Not that the mail had anything to do with boys.
"Well, last night we—me, my mom, and Kirsten—were addressing wedding invitations. They made me promise to use my very best handwriting before they let me do any."
"You have pretty good handwriting, Mer," Anastasia remarked. "Mine stinks. Mr. Rafferty made me rewrite my whole entire paper on Johnny Tremain because he couldn't read my handwriting."
"Yeah, I know. Yours is awful. Mine's not so bad, though. Anyway, we were doing the invitations last night. I did the ones for your families. We put Sam in, Anastasia, so he's invited, too. But we only did your parents, Sonya. You have too many brothers."
"That's okay," Sonya said, munching on a cracker. "I hate my brothers, anyway."
"You didn't invite my mom and dad together, did you?" Daphne asked in a horrified voice. "They don't even speak to each other since they got divorced."
Meredith shook her head. "Of course not, stupid," she said. "Your dad's the minister. He's doing the wedding. What do they call it? He's performing the wedding."
"Officiating," Daphne said.
"Right. He's officiating. So we didn't send him an invitation since he'll automatically be there. I addressed one to your mom, though."
Daphne rolled her eyes. "She won't come. Not if my dad's there. If that's the moral question, forget it. She won't come."
"If you'd just let me finish, please?"
"Sorry. I know she won't come, though." Daphne reached over and took a Ritz cracker from the box on Sonya's lap.
"Here's the moral question," Meredith said in a serious voice.
The other three girls were all silent, waiting.
"There are four invitations set aside, not addressed yet. There'll be dancing at the reception, and my mom thought we'd each like to invite a, well, a you-know-what."
"A boy," Sonya said. "Like Norman Berkowitz."
"A boy," Daphne said. "Like Eddie Cox."
"A boy," Anastasia said. "Like Steve Harvey."
"Yeah," Meredith acknowledged. "A boy. Like Kirby McEvedy."
They all sighed and were silent.
"We did give them up, you know," Sonya said.
In a slow, thoughtful voice, Anastasia pointed out, "We only gave up chasing them."
"This wouldn't be chasing them, would it?" Daphne asked. "Sending an invitation wouldn't be chasing, exactly."
"Well, that's what I thought," Meredith explained. "But I wanted to check with you guys. We will need someone to dance with. I don't want to end up dancing with my father and my grandfather."
"I sure don't want to dance with Sam" Anastasia said.
"This is a toughie," Sonya said in a serious voice. She reached into the box for another cracker. "Rats. It's empty already."
Anastasia twisted around in her chair, reached into a desk drawer, and handed Sonya an open box of animal crackers. "Sam left these here," she said. "He ate all the elephants."
"Thanks." Sonya tossed the empty Ritz box into the large wastebasket and started on the animal crackers. "Will there be any other guys there? People we could dance with?" she asked.
Meredith shook her head. "Just old guys," she said. "Friends of Kirsten and Jeff. And my uncle Tim is coming from out of town, to be an usher—he's real good-looking. But he's old, too. He finished college already."
"Well," Daphne said slow
ly. "It looks to me as if we have to make a sacrifice here."
"Sacrifice dancing? Not dance at all, at a wedding reception, with a live band, and we have those terrific dresses?" Sonya wailed.
"No, you idiot. I meant sacrifice our principles, just for one day," Daphne explained.
"I agree," Anastasia said. "It wouldn't be chasing. And it would help out the wedding, after all, so that if won't be a flop. We wouldn't want Meredith's family to have a flop of a wedding."
Meredith nodded. "Sonya?" she asked. "I don't want to do it unless it's unanimous."
Sonya sighed. "Okay," she said after a moment. "Let's invite them. Norman's address is—"
"I know Norman's address," Meredith said. She reached down to her pocketbook on the floor and pulled out a group of stamped, addressed envelopes held together by a rubber band. "Here they are. I lied when I said they weren't addressed yet."
Sonya began to laugh. She crumpled the empty box of animal crackers and tossed it at Meredith. "I'm starving," she said. "Moral decisions are very appetite-producing. Do you have anything else to eat, Anastasia? Nonfattening?"
Anastasia stood up and stretched. "Not up here," she said. "But let's go downstairs and get some bananas and watch cartoons."
***
Later, after her friends had gone home, Anastasia thought about Septimus Smith and the letter she had mailed to him a few days earlier. She wondered if he would think her pushy, bragging about the sloop. Of course he was very interested in sloops, so she had needed to tell him about hers. But still, she hadn't wanted to come across as overeager or anything.
She remembered an article she had read in Cosmopolitan. "Keep Him Guessing" it was called. Would Septimus Smith be guessing about her? Wondering whether she was interested in pursuing a relationship with him? The Cosmo article had made it quite clear that you should keep your man slightly mystified at all times, wondering whether he is really number one on your list. The article had even suggested little hints for doing that, like sending yourself fabulous bouquets of flowers with cryptic little notes saying things like "Thanks for last night" or simply "Love from You-Know Who. " Then the man in your life would see the flowers in your apartment, placed in a conspicuous place (the article had suggested on an occasional table, near the wine rack), but he wouldn't have the bad taste to ask about them—he would just wonder. It had also suggested hanging a masculine-looking toothbrush next to your own, in the bathroom.
