Anastasia at This Address by Lois Lowry

driving us over. I'll be back around ten."
    "Have a wonderful time," her mom said. "And remember, when you practice walking down the aisle—"
    "Woking," Sam corrected automatically.
    Mrs. Krupnik laughed. "Yes. When you wok down the aisle, stand up straight. Pretend you're in the Miss America contest."
    Anastasia made a face and waved goodbye as she went through the front door.
    ***
    The rehearsal was sort of weird. Kristen kept giggling nervously while she stood beside Jeff at the front of the church. Daphne's father, the minister, didn't seem to mind. He told her that all brides were nervous.
    Reverend Bellingham didn't actually say the whole ceremony. He just said, "Now I'll do blah blah blah, and Jeff, you take the ring—"
    So Jeff took an imaginary ring and pretended to put it on Kirsten's finger while Kirsten giggled self-consciously.
    "Then Frances will sing," Reverend Bellingham said. He looked up to the balcony of the church, where Frances Bidwell was standing. "Do you want to go through your song, Frances, or shall we skip it?"
    "Let's skip it," Frances called back. "I've sung it a hundred times before. It'll be fine."
    "Okay, then Frances sings, blah blah blah. And then," he said, "at the end, I'll say blah blah blah, and you can kiss each other—"
    So Jeff and Kirsten both made loud kissing noises into the air while everybody laughed.
    "
Then,
" Reverend Bellingham went on, "everyone goes back down the aisle and out of the church. You first, Kirsten and Jeff; then the maid of honor with the best man; then the bridesmaids, each one with an usher. You first, Meredith, since you're her sister. You take
this
usher's arm—"
    Meredith, looking embarrassed, took Jeff's brother's arm and started down the aisle.
    "Then you, Anastasia, you take
this
usher's arm—"
    Anastasia, feeling embarrassed, took the arm of Meredith's Uncle Tim. She was secretly glad that she'd been paired with him because he was the handsomest of the ushers, and the tallest, and Meredith had whispered to her that Uncle Tim, who was her mother's youngest brother, led a very glamorous life and drove a Porsche. But he looked just the teensiest bit bored, she thought, at having to march down the aisle with a seventh-grader.
    Finally the rehearsal was over, and Reverend Bellingham assured them all that things would be perfect the next day.
    "You
promise
that you won't use his middle name," Kirsten said for about the fifteenth time.
    Reverend Bellingham, who really was a nice guy even though Daphne's mother said he was a sanctimonious creep, promised for the fifteenth time. He crossed his heart, and just for that moment, crossing his heart, looked like a Catholic, Anastasia thought.
    Then they all piled into cars to go to the restaurant where they would have dinner. Anastasia had vowed to herself that she would eat absolutely everything on her plate even if it was something she hated—even if it was chicken livers. She had vowed to be outgoing and to make polite conversation, even with strangers. She had vowed to be poised and interesting and to sit up straight and use the right fork, and not to take a single bite until the person at the head of the table did.
    She almost blew it the first minute, after they were all seated at a large table in a private room. She turned to the person on her left—the groom's older brother—and said politely, "I understand you're a lawyer. That's very interes——"
    To her surprise, he put his fingers to his lips and said, "Shhhh." Was it a secret that he was a lawyer? Great. Talk about dumb. Now she'd blown his cover and he would hate her.
    But he was gesturing toward Reverend Bellingham, who had stood and bowed his head. Anastasia gulped and bowed her own while the minister said grace.
    Then the groom's older brother, whose name Anastasia had forgotten, said, "Yes. I'm a lawyer in Springfield. Have you ever been to Springfield?"
    Anastasia hadn't; but when she said that she hadn't, he told her a little about