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for Saturdays because her mother said they were too disgusting to wear to school, a turtleneck sweater (because her mother had said her neck was long and skinny—which was true—and she was testing various ways to disguise that), and her hiking boots with red laces. Then she brushed her hair briefly.
    Anastasia frequently made resolutions to brush her hair a hundred strokes in the morning and a hundred strokes at night. But never once had she actually done it. A hundred strokes was a
lot.
    It was similar, she thought, to the resolution her father was always making about his pipe. "I'm not going to light this pipe again," he would say after supper, "until midmorning tomorrow."
    But two hours later he would casually pick up his pipe again and begin filling it with tobacco. Anastasia and her mother would stare at him meaningfully. Anastasia would hum "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."
    "Well," Dr. Krupnik would say defensively, "until midmorning tomorrow is a
long time.
"
    It was the same with hair-brushing, Anastasia thought, and put the brush down after stroke fourteen. Her arm got tired. Probably overuse wasn't good for the brush, either.
    She put on her glasses, thought briefly about making her bed, decided not to, and left her bedroom. She thumped down the stairs. Her parents weren't crazy about the noise that her hiking boots made on the stairs, but Anastasia kind of liked it. And it was another Saturday thing, like her torn, grubby jeans.
    "
Rrrrrrrr,
" said Sam. He was on his hands and knees in the hall, arranging another long line of cars. "Watch out, Anastasia. Don't step on my cars. I'm having a—"
    "A parade, right? That's neat, Sam: a lovely parade."
    "Nope," Sam said in a loud, cheerful voice. "Another funeral."
    "Shhhhh." Anastasia knelt beside her brother and whispered, "Don't say that so loud. Not while Uncle George is here."
    "Why not? Uncle George knows all about funerals, because Aunt Rose just—"
    "SHHHHHHH!"
    Sam pointed to a small metal dump truck. GI Joe was lying stiffly in the back of it, his glazed eyes staring at the ceiling. "See? That's dead Aunt Rose," Sam said. "I'm hauling her off to the—"
    Anastasia had an idea. "Sam," she whispered,
"funerals are supposed to be very private and quiet."
    "They are?"
    "Yeah. So you have to drive all your cars and trucks real quietly, and you have to whisper."
    "Like a secret?" Sam's eyes were wide. He loved secrets.
    Anastasia nodded solemnly.
    "Oh. Okay," Sam whispered. He turned back to his line of cars and began to move them very quietly. "
Rrrrrr,
" he murmured under his breath.
    Relieved, Anastasia headed for the kitchen, where she could hear her parents and Uncle George.
    ***
    "Who, what, when, where, and why," Anastasia said as she stirred her corn flakes.
    Her father turned another page of the
Boston Globe
and didn't say anything. Her mother took a sip of coffee, added another word to the crossword puzzle she was doing, and didn't say anything.
    But Uncle George looked up quizzically from the magazine he was reading. R sure was nice to have company in the house, Anastasia thought; it meant that someone paid
attention
to you now and then.
    "I'm practicing to be a journalist," Anastasia explained to Uncle George. "And those are the questions that a good journalist answers right at the beginning of an article."
    "Oh, I see," said Uncle George politely, and looked back at his magazine.
    "Or a
piece,
" Anastasia continued. "A real pro usually calls it a piece instead of an article. For example, right now I'm working on a piece about the seventh-grade girls' basketball team, for our school paper."
    "I see," said Uncle George politely, and his eyes sneaked a look back at his magazine article.
    "So you see, I have to answer those questions when I write the piece. I'll show you how it works. Ask me the questions, one by one."
    "What? What questions?" Uncle George asked.
    "Who, what, when, where, and why," Anastasia explained patiently. "Ask them one at a