"I have enough problems of my own," said Anastasia. "If you want to ask a psychiatrist about Uncle George, you have to buy your own psychiatrist."
"How much did Freud cost?" asked her father.
"Four-fifty."
"When you're through with him, will you sell him to me for a discount?"
Anastasia thought that over. She wasn't sure she'd ever be through with Freud. On the other hand, if he was going to keep coming up with unintelligible responses, like the one about dependent relations, maybe she should sell him.
"I'll think about it," she told her father. "In the meantime, I could let you have an ashtray shaped like a pair of hands, real cheap."
"No thanks. I like my old hubcap."
Anastasia cringed. It was just one more embarrassing thing about her father. Once, years ago, he had had a car that he loved. When the car got so old that it couldn't be repaired anymore, he junked it, but kept its hubcaps. He used them for ashtrays. He called them his 1957 Ford Thunderbird Memorial Ashtrays, and there were four of them, in four different rooms of their house. Talk about gross. Every time friends came over, Anastasia had to stand in front of the hubcaps, so that her friends wouldn't notice them and ask what they were. Just one more in the long list of humiliations in her life.
"Anyway, about Sam—" she began.
Her mother sat up straight suddenly. "Anastasia," she said, looking at her watch. "It's almost nine o'clock. And it's Tuesday."
"Oh, MOM," she wailed.
"Your night for the dishes. They're in the sink."
"I PUT SAM TO BED. DO I HAVE TO DO ALL THE HOUSEHOLD CHORES?"
"No, but you have to do the dishes on Tuesday and Friday. You were a part of the negotiations when we created that schedule, Anastasia."
"But we had lasagna for dinner!"
"You love lasagna."
"Not on Tuesday! It makes the plates all yucky! It's practically impossible to clean lasagna plates!"
"Try using detergent for a change," her mother suggested dryly. "I've seen you, the way you wash dishes with just water and no soap."
"Spy," muttered Anastasia.
She got up from the couch, groaning. "I'm so tired," she said. "I ache all over. I may have a wasting disease."
Her father had picked up the newspaper again. Her mother had started in on a whole new cable; she was counting the stitches in her knitting.
"You don't even care," said Anastasia in an astounded voice. "You don't even care that I may have a wasting disease!"
Her mother reached for the sheet of knitting instructions. "So do I, sweetheart," she said wearily. "Mine's called motherhood."
"I had a plan," called Anastasia as she plodded down the hall toward the kitchen, "about Nicky Coletti. A truly great plan."
She opened the kitchen door and looked at the lasagna plates in the sink. Worse, she looked at the lasagna casserole, empty and crusted with cheese and tomatoes, on the kitchen table. "But I may never tell you guys about it!" she yelled.
Silence. She could picture them there, in the study, both of them smiling sardonically, just like Sigmund.
The dishes were finally finished. Anastasia put on her pajamas and then rummaged through her top bureau drawer until she found an old jar of hand lotion. She smeared some into her dishpan hands. It really wrecked your skin, using detergent. Twice in the past six months at least, she had used detergent, and both times she had had to use hand lotion afterward.
She still had Freud's head turned backward. She was kind of mad at Freud, and she didn't plan to consult him again tonight.
Instead, she looked guiltily at her Science Project notebook. She looked guiltily at her gerbil cage. Already she had squirted the room with air freshener today, and it needed it again, all because of those dumb gerbils. The gerbil book said that gerbils didn't smell. But the gerbil book lied.
She yawned, and re-read what she had written so far for the Science Project. Last time (twenty days ago, she realized guiltily) she had listed the names of the babies. She couldn't even tell which baby was which. How could you do a scientific study if you didn't know which subject was which?
She examined the small print on her king-sized box of marking pens, nontoxic, it said. She should have known that already, since Sam had tasted them all and not died.
Well, okay, that was a scientific thing she could do. Carefully, one at a time, she colored eleven gerbil heads different colors. Then she listed that in a very scientific fashion at the end of her Science Project.
Then, what the heck, thought Anastasia; he's become part of my Science Project, too. She colored the top of Freud's head, as well.
Science Project
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.
Day Twenty-five.
I have not written anything for a long time because I have felt very tired and it may be that I have a wasting disease. My dependent relations have no sympathy for someone with a wasting disease, I am sorry to say.
Here is what my psychiatrist says about dependent relations:
...the derivation of the super-ego from the first object-cathexes of the id, from the Oedipus complex, signifies even more for it. This derivation, as we have already shown, brings it into relation with the phylogenetic acquisitions of the id and makes it a reincarnation of former ego-structures which have left their precipitates behind in the id.
To identify my gerbils scientifically, I have colored their heads.
RED—ROMEO BROWN—GRUMPY
BLUE—JULIET BLACK—SLEEPY
YELLOW—HAPPY PINK—DOPEY
GREEN—SNEEZY TURQUOISE—SNOW WHITE
ORANGE—BASHFUL WHITE—PRINCE
PURPLE—DOC
This will make It easier for me to know who is who, in case one of them has babies or something.
To identify my psychiatrist, I have put a large MAGENTA spot on his head. (There is, of course, no chance that my psychiatrist will have babies.)
/> Anastasia looked into the gerbil cage at the little rainbow-colored heads, burrowing into their nests to go to sleep. Then she looked back at what she had written. Despair overwhelmed her.
IN CASE ONE OF THEM HAS BABIES? She hadn't thought of the possibility before. How old did gerbils have to be, before they had babies? If one of them had, say, four babies, then she would have fifteen gerbils, instead of eleven. But what if two of them had babies? Nineteen gerbils. What if—she could hardly bear to think the thought—all eleven of them had babies? How many gerbils would that make?
Surely some of them were boy gerbils. She thought, suddenly, about a boy in the eighth grade, Kevin Burke, who was one of six brothers. Some families had all boys. Maybe all her baby gerbils were boys.
But she had a horrible suspicion that they weren't.
"Sigmund," she said to her psychiatrist as she climbed into bed, "I may have some problems coming up—problems that no psychiatrist has ever dealt with before."
6
"I've forgiven you guys," announced Anastasia to her parents the next evening, "so I'm going to tell you the plan."
"Forgiven us for what?" asked her mother.
Her mother was standing at the kitchen sink doing the dishes. Anastasia had her homework spread out on the kitchen table. Her room was beginning to smell so bad that she didn't like to do her homework there anymore. She was even worried about Frank Goldfish, though he didn't appear to have a nose.
Freud had a nose, though it was crooked, but she wasn't worried about Freud because his nose was plaster.
"For making me do the dishes last night."
Her father looked up. He had spread newspapers on the kitchen floor and lined up all his shoes on them. He was about to start polishing them. "It was Tuesday," he said. "Tuesday is your night, Anastasia."
"Well," Anastasia muttered, "I didn't feel like doing the dishes last night."
Her mother turned around. "Nobody ever feels like doing dishes. I never do. Dishes are just something you have to do every night whether you feel like it or not. Dishes are the same as laundry, or going to the dentist, or—"
"—or polishing shoes," said Dr. Krupnik, looking up again.
"Right," said Katherine Krupnik. "Just something you have to do, so you do it without even thinking about whether you want to do it."
Anastasia poured some salt into the palm of her hand, and tasted it. "Well," she said, finally, "everyone else in the whole world has a dishwasher."
Her father picked up one of the sheets of newspaper that he had on the floor. "Look," he said, and pointed to a photograph in the paper.
Anastasia looked. It was a picture of a long line of people wearing ragged clothes, walking barefoot along a dirt road. "Lebanese refugees flee their war-torn city," the caption began.
"So?" she asked.
"So," said her father, and put the paper back down on the floor. "They don't have dishwashers."
"How do you know? It doesn't say, 'Lebanese refugees, who do not have dishwashers—'"
Her father snorted and began polishing one shoe very vigorously, as if he wanted to murder it.
"Anastasia," asked her mother, "do you argue about everything that way with your teachers at school?"
Anastasia poked at the salt in her hand. "No," she admitted. "Only with you guys."
"Well, I wish you'd cut it out. It's very irritating. I also wish you'd tell us about your plan. I'm really fed up with big fat ugly Nicky Coletti, and if you have an idea, I'd like to hear it."
Anastasia brightened. "I do!" she said. "Listen, Mom, what you do is this. You call Mrs. Coletti and—"
Her mother interrupted. "Dad already said he thinks that's not a good idea."
"No, no, you don't call and yell at her. Call and be very polite. Ooze with sweetness. You can do that, Mom. I've heard you ooze with sweetness. You're really good at it."
Her mother picked up some clean plates and took them to the cupboard. "When did I? I never ooze with sweetness. Do I, Myron?"
He frowned, holding a shoe in one hand. "Well, I have to admit that you do occasionally. Every year, at that Faculty Wives Luncheon, you ooze a bit."
"And when that guy comes to the door selling brooms made by blind people, Mom. You always ooze with sweetness at him."
"Well," muttered Mrs. Krupnik, "I hate that luncheon. And as for the guy selling brooms, I used to buy those brooms. I really thought it was terrific that blind people could earn money by making brooms. And then one time I discovered a little sticker on one of those brooms; it said 'Made in Taiwan.' That really made me mad. So I figured I had a choice: I could either whack him over the head with a broom, or I could be sickeningly sweet. You're right, I guess; I do ooze with sweetness when he comes around."
"So," said Anastasia. "Call Mrs. Coletti. Call her tonight, in fact. Be nauseatingly nice. And invite her to bring Nicky over to play some afternoon."
"Why? Why on earth would I do that to Sam? He has to suffer enough in nursery school."
"Mom," explained Anastasia patiently. "Here's the plan. Make sure that you invite Mrs. Coletti, too, so that she doesn't just drop Nicky off. You want her to stay, so that she can see Nicky beating up on poor Sam. She'll be a witness, and she won't think you're just making it up."
"Katherine," said Dr. Krupnik, rubbing one shoe with a brush, "it might work. It sounds good."
"I'll be darned. Anastasia, sometimes you're a genius." Mrs. Krupnik put the last pot away, hung up the dishtowel, and went to the phone. "Listen to me, you guys, while I ooze with sweetness."
"Fifteen minutes," said Mrs. Krupnik. "They should be here in about fifteen minutes."
"I'm going to hide," whimpered Sam. "I'm going to hide in a closet."
It was Saturday afternoon, and Mrs. Coletti was bringing Nicky to play.
"Sam," Anastasia reminded him. "Mom and I are here. And Nicky's mother will be here, too. We'll protect you, we promise. And remember why they're coming? So Mrs. Coletti will see Nicky beating you up. Remember it's all a secret plan?"
Sam nodded, but his eyes were wide. "Yeah," he whispered. "A secret plan."
Mrs. Krupnik arranged cookies on a plate. The tea kettle was on, and she had teacups on a tray. Little glasses of juice were ready for Sam and Nicky.
"Sam," his mother suggested, "why don't you bring your oatmeal-box train down to the living room, so you and Nicky can play with it there while the mothers have tea?"
"Okay," Sam said, and trotted off. In a minute Anastasia and her mother could hear the train thumping down the front stairs: fourteen oatmeal boxes attached to each other in a line, with the bright red caboose at the end. The train was Sam's very favorite toy.
The doorbell rang. Sam scurried into the kitchen and stood behind his mother, clutching her skirt. Mrs. Krupnik had changed out of her usual jeans for the Colettis' visit.
"Sam, sweetie," said his mother, "I can't answer the door if you're grabbing me that way."
Reluctantly, Sam let go. Anastasia took his hand, and the three of them went to the front door.
The woman standing there was small and ordinary looking. "Hello," she said, "I'm Shirley Coletti."
Mrs. Krupnik, oozing with sweetness, ushered her into the house. Behind Mrs. Coletti stood somebody about Sam's size, bundled into a red snowsuit.
"And this must be Nicky," oozed Mrs. Krupnik. "Let me take your coat, Shirley. Anastasia, can you get Nicky's snowsuit?"
Anastasia knelt on the hall floor in front of Nicky Coletti, who looked at her suspiciously with big dark long-lashed eyes.
"Lookit the train," said Nicky, peering through the door to the living room. "I wanna play with the train."
"It's my train," said Sam. Then he added, reluctantly, "But you can play with it."
Anastasia unzipped Nicky's snowsuit. Her mother had taken Mrs. Coletti into the living room.
She eased the top of the snowsuit down over Nicky's firm little shoulders. She lifted Nicky into a chair and began to maneuver the thick snowsui
t legs over Nicky's shoes—Nicky's black patent leather shoes.
That's weird, thought Anastasia. Black patent leather shoes?
Finally she pulled the entire snowsuit off, revealing Nicky's two bare, sturdy legs and a short plaid dress that was hiked up in back, exposing ruffled underpants.
"I'm gonna get that train," announced Nicky. She jumped down from the chair and ran into the living room.
"Sam," said Anastasia in astonishment to Sam, who was hiding in a dark corner of the hall, "Nicky Colletti is a girl!"
"Yeah," said Sam. "Big fat ugly Nicky Coletti."
Anastasia took Sam's hand and went into the living room. Her mother was pouring tea for Mrs. Coletti, who was talking nonstop. Nicky was on her hands and knees, pushing the train around the room.
"You got stuck with one of these big old houses, I see," Mrs. Coletti was saying. "I'm lucky; I've got a raised ranch. I've got your four-bedroom, family-room, two-and-a-half baths."
"Rrrrrrrrrrr," said Nicky in a loud voice, "train wreck, coming up." She was aiming the train for the coffee table. Anastasia cringed and waited for Mrs. Coletti to tell Nicky not to smash the train into the table.
Crash. The table remained intact, though the teacups rattled. But Sam's engine was dented, and the little smokestack fell off.
Mrs. Coletti glanced down. "You shouldn't get those cheap cardboard toys," she said. "I always get Nicky the real sturdy toys: your Playskool and your Tonka."
"Rrrrrrrr," roared Nicky. She took the plate of cookies, tilted it, and emptied it into one of the train cars. Then she headed for the dining room with Sam's train. "Train wreck number two!" she bellowed, and they heard a crash, and the sound of cookies hitting the floor.
Mrs. Krupnik took a deep breath. "More tea, Shirley?" she asked politely.
Sam was sitting beside Anastasia on the couch, listening intently to the noise in the dining room. His chin was puckered, as if he might cry.