Anastasia on Her Own Read Free Page B

when she entered the kitchen, that there were no oatmeal cookies, though she noticed with satisfaction a package of defrosted pork chops sitting on the counter. Well, she thought, Mom's still adjusting;
soon
there will be oatmeal cookies.
    "I'm home!" she called, after she dropped her schoolbooks on the table and drank a glass of apple juice.
    "Hi!" her mother called back from upstairs.
    Anastasia found her mother sitting on Sam's bedroom floor. She and Sam had constructed a large garage from blocks and were lining up Matchbox cars at the entrance.
    "They all need inspection stickers," Sam explained, and he drove a little red car into the garage.
    "Oh no," Mrs. Krupnik said in a gruff garage mechanic's voice, "bad brakes on this one."
    "Bad headlights, too," announced Sam. "This one flunks. Let's junk it."
    He drove the red car out of the garage and dropped it into a metal wastebasket with a resounding clunk.
    "That's the junkyard," Sam said.
    "How was your day, Anastasia?" her mother asked, standing up. "Any more problems with Steve?"
    "Actually, it was a pretty good day as far as Steve was concerned. At lunchtime he bumped into the table where I was sitting, so that my milk container tipped over. And at the end of school, he grabbed my hat and threw it on top of my locker."
    Mrs. Krupnik grinned. "Great," she said.
    "
Rrrrrrr,
" said Sam, driving a green car out of the garage. He dropped it into the wastebasket junkyard. "No windshield wipers," he explained happily.
    Anastasia sat down on Sam's bed. "You know, Mom," she said, "you really amaze me sometimes. I don't think most mothers would understand about that stuff. Most mothers would probably think it was a
bad
thing, that a boy tipped over your milk and grabbed your hat. I bet Sonya Isaacson's mother would call the boy's mother to complain."
    Mrs. Krupnik sat down on the bed beside Anastasia. She smoothed the legs of her paint-spattered jeans. "Well," she said, "for some reason I remember what that was like. When I was in seventh grade—no, maybe it was eighth—I liked a boy named Freddy Valente. Freddy Valente was really neat; he had the longest eyelashes I've ever seen. Except maybe for Sam's."
    Sam looked up, grinned, and fluttered his long eyelashes.
    "Did he grab your hat?" Anastasia asked.
    Mrs. Krupnik blushed. "No, actually, what Freddy Valente was into was bra-snapping. He used to come up behind me in the hall and snap my bra."
    Anastasia giggled.
    "So of course I would shriek and scream and pretend to be outraged."
    Anastasia nodded. "Of course," she said.
    Sam had stopped junking cars and was listening with interest. "How do you snap a bra?" he asked.
    Mrs. Krupnik knelt on the floor with her back toward Sam. "Just pull it," she said, "and then let it snap back."
    Sam frowned, with his tongue between his teeth. Carefully he snapped his mother's bra.
    "Ouch," Mrs. Krupnik said.
    Sam giggled, and snapped it again.
    His mother stood up. "Enough," she said. "Somehow the thrill is gone. It was much more exciting when Freddy Valente did it."
    "I wonder what ever happened to him," Anastasia said. She pictured Freddy Valente grown up, a long-eyelashed bra-snapper, maybe looking like Burt Reynolds. Someone like that might have quite a glamorous career.
    "He's a dentist in Albany," her mother said. "Sorry about that."

    Outside, in the driveway, they heard the familiar sound of the Krupnik car arriving. It backfired three times between the street and the garage. Then it sputtered, coughed, and finally gave a long, noisy whine before it was quiet. Anastasia, Sam, and their mother all went to the window and looked down. In a moment they saw Dr. Krupnik emerge from the garage with his briefcase in one hand and a pile of papers in the other. His pipe was clenched between his teeth. At the rear of the car he turned and kicked the back bumper angrily. Then he headed toward the house.
    "He really hates that car," murmured Mrs. Krupnik. "I wish we could afford a new