Anastasia Again! by Lois Lowry

right here on the front porch, looking at her. He was looking
down
at her, because he was a little taller than she, and he was wearing cut-off jeans and a rugby shirt. He looked a little like Luke Sky-walker. When he said hi, she noticed his voice was a little squeaky, like Robert's.
    His voice will change, she thought happily.
    "Hi," she said.
    "My name's Steve Harvey. I live down the street, and I saw that you guys moved in, and I wondered if you wanted your lawn mowed. I've got my lawn mower right outside."
    "Well, I'll ask my mother, but I'm absolutely certain she'll say yes. She was just saying this morning that the grass needed to be cut." What she had said, actually, at breakfast, was, "Myron, we have to buy a lawn mower and cut this grass."
    "My name is Anastasia Krupnik," she added, before she went to get her mother.
    "What grade are you in?"
    "I'll be in seventh."
    "Me too. You'll probably be in my homeroom because they do it alphabetically."
    "Oh. Well, it'll be nice to know someone in my homeroom before I start school."
    "Yeah. It's lousy to be the new kid. I know, because I just moved here last year. But it doesn't take long to make friends. Do you play tennis?"
    "Not very well."
    "Me neither. But there are courts down behind the school. You want to play later?"
    "Sure. Wait here a minute, and I'll go ask my mom about the lawn."
    Her mother was standing in the kitchen, grinning.
    "Mom, there's a boy at the door who..."
    "I know. I was eavesdropping."
    "We
do
need the grass cut. You were just saying to Dad this morning that..."
    "Anastasia, up in my bathroom there's a brand new bottle of shampoo. You'll have time to wash your hair and dry it while he's doing the lawn."
    "Do you think maybe I should shave my legs?" whispered Anastasia.
    "The last time you tried to shave your legs," her mother whispered back, "you practically needed blood transfusions. I'd forget it if I were you."
    "
Cosmopolitan
magazine says that it's fashionable not to, especially if you have blonde hair, like me."
    "Fine. Wonderful. Now scoot. I'll get him started on the lawn."
    ***
    Hmmm, thought Anastasia, as her hair dried, and she practiced her backhand, standing in the center of her tower bedroom. Maybe it's true, what Mom said. Maybe other boys besides Robert Giannini will like me.
    Maybe
this
boy will.
    Maybe my hair will look okay when I go to play tennis.
    Maybe my legs aren't quite as skinny as they were last month.
    Maybe I will think of something intelligent to say to him. And maybe I won't hit the ball into the net every time, the way I usually do.
    I think I will have a hyphenated name, she thought, when I get married. Anastasia Krupnik-Harvey, she thought. That doesn't sound too bad.
    Anastasia peeled a strip of the old, loosened, flowered wallpaper from the wall of her room, exposing an even older layer of paper underneath. She rolled the strip into a ball and shot it into the wastebasket.
    Outside, she could hear the clatter of Steve Harvey's lawn mower.
    Maybe I will get to feeling at home in this room before too long, she thought.
    Maybe the suburbs aren't as bad as I used to think.
    Maybe I was making premature assumptions.
    Anastasia picked up her notebook and began a new version of Chapter 2.
    "After she moved to her new home," Anastasia wrote, "the young girl began to be more adaptable than she had been in the past. She began to take up tennis, as a hobby."

9

    The phone rang, and it was Jenny MacCauley.
    "Jenny! I've called you twice, and you weren't home either time."
    "Oh. I guess I was out."
    "Yeah, your mother said you were out. How are things in Cambridge?"
    "Booorrring," said Jenny mournfully.
    "Yeah, here too. Booorrring," said Anastasia.
    "Do you hate it there?"
    "Well, sort of," Anastasia lied. "When are you going to come see me?"
    "I thought Robert and I might ride our bikes out next Saturday. He said he looked at a map and figured out how to get there."
    "Robert
Giannini?
When did you talk to
him?
"
    Jenny