Anastasia's Chosen Career by Lois Lowry

Vera smiled a polite but pained smile, and Henry muttered under her breath, "Make that hippo."
    "Ah, well, I guess I'll try lioness," Anastasia said when her turn came. She walked across the room, imagining herself stalking game on the African veldt. But she tripped on an untied shoelace and started to laugh. "I meant giraffe," she said.
    Henry had simply said "Panther," and then she had panthered herself across the room so magnificently that everyone—even Bambie—burst into applause.
    Now she had done it again in the bookstore. She
became
a panther somehow.
    "This afternoon," Anastasia told Barbara Page, "we practice speaking. I think I can do that better than walking."
    "If Bambie Browne does her Juliet death scene again," Henry said, and she imitated Bambie, "'to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,' well, you might just hear a foul mouth make a comment. And it'll be mine."
    Barbara Page made a tsk-tsking sound, but Anastasia could see she was laughing silently.
    Over a lunch of egg salad sandwiches, Anastasia said, "You know, the modeling course is actually kind of fun. The haircuts and make-up day was a whole lot of fun. And this morning wasn't bad, even if I did turn out to be a giraffe."
    "You should try panther," Henry commented, shaking some pepper onto her egg salad.
    Anastasia made a face. "I don't think I'm pantherlike, Henry. I'm too klutzy. Anyway, I like giraffes."
    "I like giraffes, too," Barbara Page said. "My husband and I went on safari in Africa last year, and we saw a lot of giraffes."
    Henry's eyes widened. "Safari?" she said. "Africa?"
    "Who ran the bookstore while you were away?" Anastasia asked.
    Barbara looked a little embarrassed. "I just closed it down," she said. "I probably should have hired someone to come in and take charge. But I didn't trust anybody to know how to handle all the senior citizens and the little kids and all my customers that I know so well. So when I go on vacation, I just lock up the shop."
    "You need to train an assistant," Anastasia suggested.
    "Maybe."
    "A young assistant," Anastasia said.
    "I suppose so."
    "Someone like
me,
" Anastasia said.
    Barbara smiled. "That's a good thought," she said. "Maybe next summer we can discuss a part-time job for you. And then eventually, when you're older, I could leave you in charge, and my husband and I could go to Africa again. I'd love to go back.
    "As a matter of fact," she said suddenly, "when you came in here, Henry, you reminded me of something—or someone—and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. But I just realized. Look." She walked over to the section marked travel and reached for a large book. She leafed through its pages, found what she wanted, and turned to show the photograph to Henry and Anastasia.
    "Jeezum," Henry said softly. "My haircut." She took the book from Barbara Page and sat down.
    Anastasia peered over Henry's shoulder and looked at the portrait of the Masai woman. She was wrapped in a red blanket and had large, beaded necklaces around her throat and rings of beads dangling from her ears. Her head was shaved down to a thin layer of hair, the same as Henry's, and she had Henry's high cheekbones, slender neck, and large dark eyes.
    "I saw a lot of women who looked just like her—and you—in Kenya and Tanzania," Barbara Page said. "They were all very beautiful."
    Henry closed the book slowly and laid it on the desk. She looked worried. "You don't think they'll all come over here and go to modeling school?" she asked. "I don't think I can deal with all that competition."
    Barbara Page laughed. "I don't think so," she said.
    "Can I look at the children's books?" Henry asked. "I got two little nephews who like books."
    "Sure. Go through the ones on the little table, and if you find one you want, you can have it. The nursery school comes in here for story hour, and the kids have dirty hands sometimes. So those books have some smears, and I can't sell them."
    While Henry was leafing through the