Read Anastasia on Her Own for Free Online Page B

good grief, we haven't even had breakfast yet."
    The telephone rang.
    "Good morning," said a spirited voice. "This is the National Telephone Survey Association. Do you have a few minutes to spare to participate in an important poll?"
    Anastasia sat down with the laundry in her lap and balanced the phone on her shoulder. "I guess so," she answered grudgingly. At least it would be more interesting than laundry.
    Then she gave her opinion on various political issues for fifteen minutes while Sam sat at her feet and connected the dots on his legs with green ink.

    By four in the afternoon Anastasia was rewriting the entire housekeeping schedule. She was exhausted. And she was mad.
    She had done all the laundry, and after she had done the laundry, she had decided to vacuum, even though it wasn't Saturday. And when she ran the vacuum cleaner under her parents' bed, it had made a strangling noise and died.
    "It ate something it wasn't supposed to," Sam said solemnly. She had been trying to keep Sam in bed—she had even dressed him in his pajamas—but he kept getting out.
    So she took the vacuum cleaner apart, unwound a wire coat hanger and poked it through the vacuum cleaner hose, and out came three of Dr. Krupnik's socks. She peered under the bed, and there were at least six others that the vacuum cleaner hadn't eaten.
    Then she found her father's pajamas behind a chair, on the floor.
    So she had a whole new stack of laundry and made another trip to the washing machine. No wonder she was exhausted. And no wonder she was mad. She was mad at her father for leaving his dirty clothes all over the place; but mostly she was mad at the telephone. It had been ringing all day. Total strangers had been calling her all day.
    Now, at four o'clock, just when she was about to relax with a cup of hot chocolate with a marshmallow in it, the phone rang again.
    Angrily she picked it up and began talking before the other person had a chance.
    "
No,
" Anastasia said assertively. "I do not want to be part of an important political poll.
    "I do not want to have my family's photographs taken even if it is a special offer and includes a gold-painted plastic frame.
    "I have absolutely zero interest in a full set of encyclopedias.
    "I do not want to test a new gelatin dessert, even if it
is
free of charge.
    "I have all the magazine subscriptions that I need, and furthermore"—she took a deep breath — "I am not going to donate money to
anything
even if it
is
a good cause, because I don't
have
any money."
    She was about to slam the receiver down when she recognized the voice at the other end.
    "Well," said Steve Harvey sarcastically, "I suppose that means you don't want to go to the movies Friday night, either, even though I was willing to pay."
    Anastasia gulped. "Hi, Steve," she said in a meek voice.
    "Why weren't you in school?"
    "My brother is sick, and my mother's away, so I'm in charge, and—" Anastasia talked on, explaining to Steve, but her mind was on what he had said. Had he asked her to go to the movies Friday night? And he would pay? Didn't that make it a
date?
    Anastasia had never had a date in her life. She had
daydreamed
about having a date, and she had even daydreamed about having a date with Steve Harvey. Sure, she had played tennis with Steve in the summer; and sure, she and he had gone to the movies with groups of kids; and once or twice they had even gone, just the two of them—but she had always paid her own way, so it didn't count as a date.
    Sam was watching her with interest. He had finished his own hot chocolate and was starting on hers. Good thing she'd already had chicken pox, Anastasia thought, because Sam was slurping chicken pox germs right into her cup. Well, that wasn't important. What was important was that Steve Harvey was actually calling and asking her for a date—the first one of her life—and she was worried about what she would wear, how she would act, what they would talk about, whether he would put his arm