Read Anastasia Again! for Free Online Page B

came along and asked what you were doing. Anastasia was an expert on that. Either you said "nothing," or you whistled, or hummed.
    Her father began to hum. He did a little drumming rhythm on his desk top with his fingers.
    "You all packed in here?" she asked, looking around the bare room.
    "Yep. All ready for the movers. It sure looks empty with the books packed, doesn't it?"
    "Yeah. I suppose someone else will move new books in.
Probably their books won't be as good as yours, though."
    "Probably no one else will have a first edition of
The Old Man and the Sea,
" her father said, and that seemed to make him feel better. "I think I'll have a beer."
    He headed for the kitchen. When he was gone, Anastasia saw, suddenly, the place on the wall of the study where, in his best writing, very small, with his fountain pen, he had written his name.
    ***
    Anastasia found Sam in his bedroom, sitting on the floor, crying silently.
    "What's wrong, Old Sam?" she asked.
    "I'm feeling sad about my blanky," he said.
    "Oh, Sam, I'm sorry. I was just teasing when I said your blanky couldn't come to the new house. Of course it can come."
    Tears trickled down Sam's cheeks. "But it wants to live here," he whispered to her. "It told me so."
    Anastasia thought and thought. "I have an idea, Sam," she said, finally. She ran to the kitchen and got a pair of scissors. Then, sitting beside Sam on his bedroom floor, she carefully cut his ragged yellow blanket in half.
    "There," she said. "Now part of it can live here, and part of it can come to the new house." She folded one half and Sam showed her where to put it: on a dark, narrow shelf in the closet. He wrapped the remaining half around his hand, held it against his cheek, and sucked his thumb, testing how it worked with only half. After a moment he smiled. "Okay," he said. "It's okay."
    "Good."
    "I'm not a baby," he reminded her firmly.
    "I know, Sam. I know you're not a baby."
    ***
    She called Jenny MacCauley on the phone.
    "The moving van's coming in about an hour," she said. "So I called to say good-by."
    "Will you have a telephone in the new house?"
    "Sure."
    "Is it long distance?"
    "I don't know. Not long distance like Milwaukee, or anything."
    "Well, call me and tell me the number."
    "I will."
    "And call and tell me everything that happens."
    "Yeah."
    "Like if you meet any boys."
    "Okay."
    "Or if
Casablanca
ever comes to a movie theater out there, call me, and I'll figure out a way to get there. Don't ever go to
Casablanca
without me, promise."
    "I promise. Don't you, either."
    "I won't. And if Old Briefcase ever comes to visit, call and tell me."
    Anastasia giggled. "Okay."
    "Or if you get any new clothes, or anything."
    "Okay. And you, Jenny, if you read any good books, call and tell me. Or if Michael Gottlieb comes over. Old Baseball Cap."
    Jenny giggled.
    "I still can't believe you're moving, Anastasia."
    "Me neither. Come and visit me."
    "I will."
    "Promise."
    "I promise."
    Then, suddenly, Anastasia was too sad to talk any more. Very quickly, before she began to cry, she said good-by and hung up the telephone.
    ***
    Everything was packed, and the moving van was pulling up to the front door.
    But Anastasia hadn't packed Frank Goldfish—she was going to carry him with her, in his bowl, to the new house—and she hadn't packed her notebook.
    Now she sat down on the bare floor, beside Frank in his bowl, and looked around. The moving men were coming in, and she could hear their heavy footsteps on the bare floor of the apartment. Her entire life was packed into cardboard boxes, except for the life that she was leaving here.
    "The Mystery," she wrote quickly, before they got to her room, "of Saying Good-by."
    She reread it with satisfaction. Now
that,
she thought happily, is a
title.

6

    Anastasia's mother was sitting in the kitchen of the new house in a rocking chair, with her sandals kicked off and her long hair frizzy from the heat.
    "Look at me," she said dramatically to Anastasia, who had