Anastasia, Ask Your Analyst by Lois Lowry

floor. "Move," she said to him. "You're in my way."
    Anastasia looked over from the sink, where she was washing the teacups. "Hi, Dad," she said wearily.
    "How's it going, old Sam?" asked Dr. Krupnik cheerfully, and leaned over to pick up Sam, who was kneeling on the floor trying to unsquash his red caboose. "Want to feel some snowflakes?"
    Sam burst into tears. "Put me down," he wailed.
    "Well," said Anastasia's father, depositing Sam back on the floor, "there's nothing like a warm hearty welcome to make a man feel terrific."
    Everyone glared at him.
    "I have a feeling," he said slowly, "that the tea party did not go well."
    "Where were you?" asked Mrs. Krupnik. "You said you'd be here."
    "I got held up at the gas station. Everybody was waiting in line to have their snow tires put on. Why? You didn't need me, did you? To entertain one woman and one little boy?"
    "Girl," said Sam.
    "Girl," said Anastasia.
    "Girl," said Mrs. Krupnik. "One obnoxious, pretentious, irritating woman, and one horrendous, horrible ■—"
    "Hyperactive—" said Anastasia.
    "Hyperactive brat. YES, we needed you. Talk about a rat deserting a sinking ship!"
    Dr. Krupnik hung his jacket on a hook in the back hall. "Sam, would you get your old dad a beer, please?" he asked.
    Sam went to the refrigerator.
    "Now tell me all about it, Katherine," Anastasia's father said.
    "I'm going upstairs," said Anastasia. "I don't want to hear about it."
    "Can I come with you?" asked Sam.
    Sure.
    They trudged up the stairs, over the cookie crumbs, past Sam's paint-spattered room and the master bedroom, which still reeked of Je Reviens perfume.
    "I don't know which is worse," said Anastasia. "A room filled with French perfume or a room filled with gerbilsmell." They headed up the stairs to Anastasia's thirdfloor room.
    "A room with Nicky Coletti in it;
that's
the worst," said Sam.
    "Right. Oh, NO!" Anastasia stood in the doorway of her bedroom, looking in. "She was up here, too!"
    Anastasia's marking pens were lying all over the floor, with their caps off. There was a wavy line of orange on the wallpaper near her bed; and Freud had a blue spot on the tip of his crooked nose.
    She dashed to her goldfish bowl. "Frank? Are you okay, Frank?"
    Frank opened and closed his mouth solemnly. He looked all right, but he wasn't his usual cheerful self.
    "He's traumatized," Anastasia said. "He's stunned."
    "Anastasia," said Sam in a frightened voice. "Look." He was on his knees beside the gerbil cage.
    She looked. The top of the cage was unlatched and open, and the gerbil cage was empty.
Science Project
    Anastasia Krupnik
Mr. Sherman's Class
    On October 13, I acquired two wonderful little gerbils, who are living in a cage in my bedroom. Their names are Romeo and Juliet, and they are very friendly. They seem to like each other a lot. Since they are living in the same cage as man and wife, I expect they will have gerbil babies. My gerbil book says that It takes twenty-five days to make gerbil babies. I think they are already mating, because they act very affectionate to each other, so I will count today as DAY ONE and then I will observe them for twenty-five days and I hope that on DAY 25 their babies will be born.
    This will be my Science Project.

    Day Three.
    My gerbils haven't changed much. They lie in their cage and sleep a lot. They're both overweight, because they eat too much, and they resemble Sonya Isaacson's mother, at least in chubbiness.
    In personality, they resemble my mother. They're very grouchy.

    Day Three Continued.
    People who have serious emotional problems sometimes have difficulty doing real good gerbil-observation because they suffer from inability to concentrate. I myself have serious emotional difficulties so I have this problem.
    As part of my Science Project I will talk about serious emotional problems. I will tell you what someone named Freud says about this.

    The division of the psychical into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental