"What took you so long?" Anastasia asked suspiciously.
"You saw what she was like," her father said irritably. "You don't think she could say good night briefly, do you?"
"Well, it's cold out there. You shouldn't have been out there all that time without a coat. You should have shoved her into the taxi and come back in."
Her father groaned.
"Your face is red, from the cold," Anastasia pointed out.
Then she looked more carefully. "It isn't from the cold," she said. "Your face is red because you're blushing, I think."
"It is not."
"It is too. Why are you blushing, Dad?" Anastasia wailed. "You didn't KISS her, did you?"
"No," he sighed. "She swooped at me, but I ducked. Maybe she kissed my shoulder. Maybe my shoulder is bright red, from her lipstick. But my face isn't red."
"Yes, it is. It's bright red. Come over here in the light."
Anastasia tilted a living room lamp shade and examined her father's face. "Do you feel okay?" she asked.
"No," he said, "I feel lousy. I felt lousy the minute she walked in the door, and I've been feeling lousy ever since. You'd feel lousy, too, if an old friend you remembered fondly had changed that much, and turned into something so grotesque."
Anastasia touched his forehead. "You're hot," she said. "Does your head hurt? Does your nose ache? Does your belly button feel too tight?"
"I hurt all over."
It can't be, Anastasia thought. Please, no. But she knew. She was absolutely certain.
"Dad," she said, "guess what. You have chicken pox."
9
"Mr. Fortunate-," Anastasia said wearily into the phone, "this is Anastasia Krupnik. I need twenty more boxes of baking soda."
"Good grief, Anastasia, you've cleaned me out! I'll have to get them from my supplier. Let's see, today's Saturday. Can you wait till Monday for them?"
She sighed. There were still a few boxes left, and Sam didn't seem to be itching anymore. "Okay," she told the grocer. "But Monday for sure? I'll really, really need them by Monday."
She turned away from the phone and looked at the kitchen, which was still in the same shape it had been when she had left everything the night before. But worse. Now the food, which had been soggy leftovers last night, had congealed on the plates. She would have to use steel wool to get the plates clean.
And her father, of course, couldn't help. He was in bed, miserable, feverish, and complaining.
I could make up a whole new set of Seven Dwarfs, thought Anastasia: Grouchy, Itchy, Boring, Hateful, Demanding ... It was an interesting project, but it was interrupted by the doorbell. Anastasia put down the greasy pan she was about to wash and went to the front door.
"Packages!" the mailman announced cheerfully. "Sign here."
Curiously, Anastasia signed the slip he gave her. Maybe her mother had sent some gifts from California. That would be nice. That would cheer her up, and take her mind off the horrible housekeeping problems. The entire bulletin board was flapping with schedules, but none of them seemed to apply to her situation now. The excitement of the dinner party was gone. Her interest in gourmet cooking was gone. Her father's availability as an adviser and helper was gone. Her interest in Steve Harvey was gone. Everything was gone except a houseful of dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dust balls under every bed, a week of untouched homework assignments, and upstairs her father calling feebly now and then for ginger ale, and announcing every five minutes that he thought he would probably die before sunset, even though the doctor had said it wasn't true.
Both packages were addressed to Anastasia, and she opened the first one, which was the larger of the two.
Sam came into the room. "What's that?" he asked, as Anastasia lifted something blue out of the box.
"I don't know," she said, puzzled. She pulled off the plastic wrapping, and exposed a blanket with some cords attached to it.
"Oh," she said, remembering something vaguely. "I guess I ordered this. It's an electric blanket. I can't remember why I ordered it, though."
A slip of paper fluttered to the floor, and she picked it up. She glanced at it, and her stomach lurched. She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping that when she opened them again the electric blanket would be gone, and this would be a bad dream.
But when she opened her eyes, her arms were still full of blanket and the slip of paper was still in her hand.
"Seventy-seven dollars and ninety-five cents," she read aloud in a horrified voice. "Charged to Myron Krupnik's MasterCard."
"I'm going to tell Daddy," Sam said, his eyes wide.
"No, don't. Daddy's sick. This would do him in."
She pushed the blanket back into the box and closed the lid. She stared at the other, smaller box. She tried to remember what else she had ordered.
Nothing. She had ordered nothing except groceries—she cringed, remembering the veal marrow and knucklebones—and forty-one boxes of baking soda.
Suspiciously she opened the second package and took out a set of bright red leotards and the ugliest pair of shoes she had ever seen in her life. They were black, with big black bows, fat heels, and metal plates on the soles.
"Wicked-witch shoes," announced Sam in awe.
"I didn't order these," Anastasia said angrily. "I know I didn't."
She picked up the paper in the box. When she saw the letterhead — good times dance studio — she cringed.
Congratulations, Anastasia Krupnik. By enrolling in our twenty-four-week tap-dancing course, you are enrolling in a future of good fun, good health, and good friends.
Enclosed are your Practix Leotards for Beginners and your special Beginner's Tap Shoes. Please bring both to your first lesson.
Since you accepted our special offer, that first lesson will be Absolutely Free!
The cost of your remaining twenty-three lessons will be our regular fee of $12.00 each, amounting to a total of $276.00.
Your Practix Leotards for Beginners cost only the special discount price of $14.95, and the Beginner's Tap Shoes, made of the finest leather, are only $24.50.
Please remit $315.45 within seven days.
WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF TAP DANCING!
Across the bottom of the form letter was a handwritten note: "Hope your gourmet dinner was a success! Sincerely, Ralph." In a rage, Anastasia threw the ugly shoes across the living room, where they landed side by side in the corner by the potted azalea. She wadded up the red leotard and threw it after them. Then she kicked the box they had come in.
Sam scurried away, looking nervous.
Anastasia stomped into the dining room and pulled the purple tablecloth from the table. It was spotted with scraps of veal by Sam's place, a Popsicle puddle by Steve's place, coffee where her father had sat, and a hideous stain where Horrible Annie had held the bag of veal marrow and knucklebones suspended by her plate.
She rolled it into a ball and took it to the kitchen. Twenty-four fifty for the ugliest shoes in the world! Seventy-seven ninety-five for a stupid electric blanket!
Furiously Anastasia opened the lid of the washing machine in order to toss the tablecloth in. But something was already there. She had forgotten that she had washed all of her father's shirts the evening before. It seemed like a hundred years ago.
She reached in and pulled out the mass of damp shirts. She looked at them in horror and burst into tears. She had dyed all of her father's shirts purple.
When she had cried enough to calm down to an occasional choking sob, she went to the desk to find the number; then she dialed her mother in California.
***
"There," said Katherine Krupnik with satisfaction. She held up a shirt. "Clorox is amazing, Anastasia. I don't think anyone will ever notice that those shirts have a slight purple tinge. Or if they do notice, they'll think: 'That Myron Krupnik. What a classy guy.'"
Anastasia took the shirt, hung it on a hanger, and put it with the others. "You're amazing, Mom. You can solve anything."
Her mo
ther laughed. "Well, not quite. I sure didn't solve the problems with that film studio in California. It's going to be the worst animated picture ever made. I was so glad when you called and it gave me an excuse to come home."
"I felt so bad about calling you. But I thought I would probably have a nervous breakdown if I didn't. Everything in the world had gone wrong."
"I'm glad to be home. And you can go back to school tomorrow, Anastasia. Goodness, I feel terrible that you had to miss so much school!"
Anastasia shrugged. "No big deal," she said. "I can make it all up."
She looked around the spotless kitchen. It was Sunday evening, and her mother had been home only three hours. But everything was cleaned up. All of the pots and pans and plates were washed and dried and put away; they had done it together, Anastasia and her mother, and it had actually been fun.
As they were doing the dishes, Anastasia had described the horrible dinner party: the disgusting bag of veal marrow and knucklebones, the purple Popsicles for dessert, Steve Harvey and his unromantic attitude, and Annie Whatever-her-last-husband's-name-was.
"She kept saying 'bleep,' Mom," Anastasia explained. "Everything was bleeping this and bleeping that, and it was all in this horrible big booming voice. And she had frizzy orange hair, and she called Dad 'Mike'—"
"That was his nickname, when he was young," her mother explained.
"And she said I looked like an owl. And she said Sam had bleeping acne, and—" Anastasia got angry again, just thinking about it.
But her mother laughed. "Well, maybe it's a good thing. Your dad won't have fond memories of Annie anymore, and I can quit being jealous. Maybe we can even get rid of that painting. I've always hated it."
"It's gone, Mom. Dad took it down Friday night, before he went up to bed. It was his last conscious act before he collapsed with chicken pox."
Mrs. Krupnik shook her head. "Poor Dad," she said. "We'll have to be very good to him, because he feels absolutely miserable."
"Moribund," Anastasia told her. "He says he's moribund." Then she remembered something. "Mr. Fortunato's delivering twenty boxes of baking soda tomorrow," she said. "So Dad can have baking soda baths, the way Sam did. It helps the itching.
"Also," she added, with a guilty look, "we have this really neat new electric blanket."
"Nope," said her mother. "The electric blanket's going right back to the store, and I'm going to give them a piece of my mind. They should never have taken advantage of a kid your age. And you should have had more sense, Anastasia."
"I know it," Anastasia admitted.
Her mother sat down in a kitchen chair and yawned. "I'm beat," she said. "I'm going to bed. But you know what I'm going to do tomorrow?"
"Call the electric-blanket store and chew them out."
"I mean in addition to that. First I'm going to tear up the housekeeping schedule. All the housekeeping schedules; I notice you've made some new ones."
"Good," said Anastasia. "I'll help you tear them up. I hate housekeeping schedules."
"And then—" her mother began.
"I know! Then you're going to call up the Good Times Dance Studio and chew them out for taking advantage of a kid my age, right?"
"No. Then I'm going to order a microwave oven. Even though they're making a terrible movie, they did pay me a lot to act as adviser. So I'm going to buy a microwave oven. You know what a microwave oven can do?"
"No. What?"
"It thaws out frozen things. So even if I forget to thaw something out for dinner—zap! I can do it in seconds with a microwave oven."
"That solves your housekeeping problems!" Anastasia said with delight.
"Bight. And then—"
"Then you're going to call the Good Times Dance Studio and chew them out?"
"Anastasia, let me see those tap shoes again."
Anastasia brought them to her mother. She held them out in front of her, the way you might hold something truly disgusting, with your eyes averted.
Mrs. Krupnik kicked off her own loafers and slid her feet into the tap-dancing shoes. She tied the revolting black bows.
"Mom! You wouldn't!"
Her mother stood up and tap-danced across the kitchen. Tippety-tap, tippety-tap; kick; twirl; tap tap tap. She picked up the sponge mop that was standing in the corner, held it like a cane, and circled around it, tapping. Ta-ta TAP; ta-ta TAP.
Then she bowed. "I'm going to do it," she said decisively. "The first lesson is absolutely free, right?"
"Right," Anastasia said, giggling. "But Mom, you can't. It's gross."
"That may be," said her mother haughtily, "but it's fun. And it would be a break from housekeeping, which is what I need. Come on. Let's go up and visit Dad, and tell him."
Anastasia fell in behind her mother and tried to follow the complicated hops, turns, and shuffles her mother was doing. Together they tap-danced down the hall and up the stairs. It was silly, she thought; but it was fun. And it sure felt good, having her mother back in charge.
Lois Lowry, Anastasia on Her Own
(Series: Anastasia Krupnik # 5)
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