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in their place.
    "Oh. Well, what about her? Did you want to tell me something about her?"
    Anastasia poked her head out again. "It's really
sick.
This girl, who you don't even know her name? She, ah, she has a crush on a teacher." She ducked back into the pantry and rearranged a sugar bowl and a tea cup.
    "Why is that sick? Lots of your father's students have crushes on him. I think that's fairly typical."
    "It's a
woman
teacher!" Anastasia wailed. "Isn't that
gross?
"
    "Oh," Mrs. Krupnik said. "I see." She got up from the table and came to the pantry. Anastasia was standing with her back turned and her head down, but she could hear her mother coining. Her mother put her arms around her.
    "It isn't gross at all," she said softly. "You can tell your friend that it isn't gross at all. And I'm an authority on that."
    "You are?" Anastasia lifted her head a little. "How come?"
    "Well, because when I was your age—and the age of this girl you know—thirteen, I had a crush on my piano teacher. A woman. Miss Hermione Fitzpatrick."
    "
Hermione?
"
    "Sorry about the name. But I adored her despite it. She was young and she was beautiful and she was a good musician, and—well, what can I say? I loved her. I even had fantasies about living with her after I grew up."
    "What happened?"
    Her mother shrugged. "Nothing. I got older. I got bored with piano lessons. Hermione Fitzpatrick married an oboe player. I haven't even thought of her for years and years."
    "So it didn't have any long-lasting bad effect on you, or anything?"
    "Anastasia," her mother said dramatically, "take a look at me." She walked across the kitchen, stood in the center, and posed there, like a model. "Did I turn out okay, or not?"
    Anastasia looked. Her mother was wearing jeans with paint smeared on one knee. There were sneakers on her feet, and one yellow sock and one white sock. She was wearing a sweat shirt that said GOD ISN'T DEAD, SHE'S COOKING DINNER across the front. Her hair was tied up in two ponytails, one on each side of her head, both of them a little crooked.
    "Yeah," Anastasia conceded. "You turned out okay."
    "So. There's your answer."
    "So you think that this girl I know, she might get over it? And it doesn't mean that she's weird or anything?" Anastasia came out of the pantry.
    "She's not weird at all. What it
does
mean is that she's very normal, very sensitive, very capable of loving. I think I would probably like her a whole lot."
    "If you knew her," Anastasia said quickly.
    "Yes, of course. If I knew her. Now, are you through rearranging dishes? Would you consider coming into the living room and maybe watching a movie on TV with Dad and Uncle George and me?"
    "Yeah, okay, in a minute. Or maybe five minutes. Save me a place on the couch." Anastasia headed for the back door.
    "Where are you going? It's dark out," her mother said in surprise.
    "To the garage. I'm just going to try the rope one more time," said Anastasia.

6

    Anastasia groaned when she woke up on Saturday morning and looked out the window. The weather was terrible. The big trees in the yard were blowing in the wind, and heavy rain was falling in sheets, splattering her window. There were already deep puddles in the driveway.
    Rats.
    Anastasia had planned to go over to Daphne's to see the new apartment where Daphne was living with her mother. But it was raining so hard that she couldn't possibly walk or ride her bike.
    "Frank," she asked, peering over into the bowl where her goldfish was swimming in circles, "how do you stand being wet all the time?"
    Frank Goldfish swirled and twitched his tail. He smiled and said something, his lips moving silently against the side of the bowl.
    "I know," Anastasia said, and sighed. "For you, wetness is normal. Here—eat your breakfast." She tapped the fish food box lightly over the bowl, and Frank came up to the surface greedily. "Don't
gobble,
" Anastasia scolded him, but he paid no attention.
    She dressed in a pair of jeans that she always saved