Anastasia Has the Answers by Lois Lowry Page B

gestures came naturally. Anastasia flung out her arms.
    And fell.

12

    Anastasia opened her eyes and saw a ceiling that she was quite certain she had never seen before. Not wanting to move her head, which hurt a surprising amount for just one head, she slid her eyes first to the left and then to the right.
    On one side she saw an unfamiliar table and an unfamiliar wall calendar. On the other side she saw an unfamiliar window with unfamiliar curtains, and through the window, she saw a tiny bit of an unfamiliar tree.
    She was, she realized, in a bed—an unfamiliar bed. At the foot of the bed she saw a woman—an unfamiliar woman with gray-streaked hair—standing and looking at her.
    Oh, great, Anastasia said to herself. I'm going to have to say the worst line of dialogue ever. Might as well get it over with.
    She sighed. "Where am I?" she asked.
    The woman moved forward, smiling. "Hi," she said. "You're in the hospital. I'm Dr. McCartin."
    The doctor leaned more closely over Anastasia and looked into her eyes with an instrument. Anastasia could smell her perfume.
    "Do you remember what happened?" Dr. McCartin asked, after she stood back up.
    Anastasia frowned. She did remember, sort of. First she had been-in-English class, listening to el nerdo Jacob Berman; then she had gone to gym—oh yes,
gym;
that was it. She had blown the whistle—just thinking about it made her headache worse—and then she had made that stupid speech, and then she had...
    Had
she? Or was she just imagining it?
    "I climbed the rope in gym, I think," she said tentatively to the doctor.
    "Good!" the doctor replied.
    "What do you mean, good? It was
great!
" Anastasia said. "Do you realize I'd been trying for
months
to climb that rope?" She began to pull herself up, and then stopped. "
Ouch.
My head really hurts," she complained.
    The doctor was pumping up a blood pressure cuff on Anastasia's right arm. "Shhh," she said. "Lie back."
    Anastasia eased herself back onto the pillow. I
fell,
she thought suddenly. I must have fallen from that rope.
    She remembered the time that Sam had fallen, last summer, from his bedroom window, and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. Now here she had gone and done practically the same thing, she realized. How stupid can you get? And my parents are probably all worried, the way they were then, when Sam had the fractured skull and had to have an operation and had to—
    "Oh, NO!" Anastasia yelped suddenly.
    The doctor popped the stethoscope out of her ears and looked at her quizzically. "What's the matter?" she asked. "Besides a headache, of course."
    I'm going to be a good sport, Anastasia thought. I'll be mature. I won't cry. I'll learn to wear a turban or something.
    "You had to shave my hair off, didn't you?" she wailed.
    Dr. McCartin looked startled. "Good heavens, no," she said. "You only have a concussion. I'm going to send you home in a couple of hours, I think, if you promise not to climb any ropes for a few days."
    Anastasia groaned.
    "Want to try sitting up? There are a lot of people waiting out in the lounge to see you. Shall I let them come in?"
    Dr. McCartin cranked up the head of the bed slowly. Anastasia felt dizzy for a moment, but then the dizziness faded. Her headache throbbed a bit, but it wasn't unbearable. Carefully she felt her head with her hand. There was a bump, and some soreness, but her hair was still there, thank goodness.
    "Sure," Anastasia said, feeling a little like royalty, "allow them to come in."
    ***
    Anastasia looked around the hospital room from where she sat in the position of honor in her bed. It was astounding. Never before in her entire thirteen years had so many people gathered just to pay attention to her.
    There were her parents, of course, right beside the bed, still looking a little worried. "Honest," Anastasia kept reassuring them, "I'm
fine.
"
    There was Sam, sitting on Gertrude Stein's lap. Sam had been smuggled in because he was too young, technically, to visit in the