Free Anastasia at This Address by Lois Lowry

walking. She stood still in front of a video rental store.
    "A
gun?
"
    Daphne giggled. "Not a real gun. A special earlobe-gun."
    "An earlobe-gun," Anastasia repeated to herself in a dubious voice. "
Great.
" But she started walking again.
    "I'm thinking of getting more holes punched in my lobes so I can wear maybe three earrings in each ear. But my mom freaks out when I mention it. She's afraid I'd wear safety pins."
    "Would you?" Anastasia asked. Nothing Daphne did would really surprise her.
    Daphne shrugged. "I might," she admitted. "Anyway, I don't see why my mom is freaked out by that.
She
has a tattoo."
    Anastasia stopped walking again, this time in front of Casual Male. "Daphne," she said. "Gimme a break. No way does your mom have a tattoo. Up until a few months ago she was a minister's wife."
    Daphne grinned. "Yeah, she really does. Her dad—my grandfather—was a doctor. And when she was a baby, he thought it would be a really smart thing to have his kids' blood types tattooed on them, in case they were ever in an accident. She has this little teeny blue tattoo on her butt."
    "
Gross.
"
    "
She
thinks it's gross, too," Daphne went on, "but not because it's a tattoo. Because of her blood type—B negative. They write that like a B minus. And her sister was A plus! Mom says she wouldn't mind having A plus on her behind, but she hates being a B minus!"
    "What if she was an F!" Anastasia said.
    "You can't be. Blood types are only A, B, AB, and O. We learned that in Science, remember?"
    "Yeah. I forgot."
    "Come on, Anastasia. There's the store. Let's get your lobes done, and then we can go to the record store and look at albums."
    "Okay." Anastasia headed toward the entrance of Jordan Marsh. She was still a little nervous. Her mother had been, too. She had agreed to the ear-piercing on the condition that Anastasia have it done by a doctor under absolutely sterile conditions. Her mother had read once about an earlobe that had gotten infected and fallen off, or something.
    So Anastasia had agreed, and asked her mother to call the doctor for an appointment. Anastasia hated calling doctors. She had had to do it once when her mom was away on business and Sam got chicken pox.
    She had sat in the kitchen stirring a marshmallow into a cup of cocoa while her mother called the doctor's office and explained to the receptionist what they wanted.
    "What did she say?" she asked her mother after the receptionist replied.
    "She's getting the doctor so I can talk to him. Yes? Hello?" She turned back to the telephone and Anastasia listened while her mother explained the whole thing again.
    Her mother listened for a minute and then said, "Oh, I see. Well, that's what we'll do, then. Thank you."
    She hung up, looked at Anastasia, and shrugged. "He said he doesn't have the slightest idea how to pierce ears and we should go to the jewelry department at Jordan Marsh. They have a special instru ment, and it's sterile, and quick, and painless, and inexpensive."
    "Why do you look so miserable? Want a sip of my cocoa?"
    Her mother nodded and took a sip, which left her with a marshmallow mustache. "I'm embarrassed," she said. "He made me feel dumb."
    Anastasia sympathized. "People make me feel dumb all the time," she said. "Here. You can have my whole cup of cocoa. Cocoa always makes people feel better."
    "Thank you. Promise me one thing, Anastasia."
    "What?"
    "You won't get big dangly earrings. Or rhinestones. I can't bear the thought of seeing you with rhinestone earrings."
    "I promise," Anastasia had told her.
    It turned out to be accurate, what the doctor had said. And what Daphne had said, too. It
was
like a little gun. It was quick, painless, and presumably sterile. ZAP. And: ZAP.
    Anastasia looked at herself in the mirror, there at the store, and beamed. She had a little gold stud in each ear. She pictured herself on the following Saturday, when she would replace them with the tiny pearl earrings, put on the beautiful blue dress, and tie the