I definitely owned this book as a kid, and was pleased to remember some parts of it as I read—including the really excellent/hilarious opening scene, in which Anastasia is so bored she’s lying on the floor acting out all the deathbed scenes she can think of (Beth from Little Women, Juliet from Romeo and Juliet, Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web, Cleopatra), and in which Anastasia’s mom teaches her what a groan sounds like (Anastasia thinks it just consists of saying “groan”). But there were other things I didn’t remember at all, and I definitely did not remember how stressful this book is (which is something that, as an adult, makes me like it a bit less than I liked the first two books in this series).
So, right: it’s summer vacation, and Anastasia’s broke (because her allowance is two dollars a week) and bored (because her family recently moved, and the only kid her age she knows in her new town is off at basketball camp). Her dad suggests that a summer job will solve both problems, so she writes up a flyer advertising her services as a lady’s companion and posts it around town. A woman named Mrs. Bellingham responds to the ad and hires her, but then, on her first day, Anastasia finds herself in the kitchen with the housekeeper and two cooks, polishing silver: she’s doing the tasks of a maid. And two things make the whole situation worse: first, she accidentally drops a silver spoon down the garbage disposal, and is told she’ll have to pay for it out of her wages—so she can’t just quit until she’s paid it off. And then she learns that the following day, she’s expected to serve appetizers and drinks at a birthday luncheon Mrs. Bellingham is throwing for her thirteen-year-old granddaughter, Daphne—who’s going to be in Anastasia’s class at school.
Which leads to the first stressful thing: Anastasia decides she’s going to disguise herself as a middle-aged lady, so maybe when school starts Daphne won’t recognize her. Clearly this is not the strongest plan, and a comedy of errors ensues at the party. But luckily, Daphne turns out to be nice, so Anastasia gains a friend. Which leads to the next stressful thing: Daphne’s upset at her grandmother for having given her a doll for her birthday, and Anastasia’s upset that she has to work as a maid rather than as a companion, so they decide to try to humiliate Mrs. Bellingham at the big charity party she’s throwing the following week. Again, not the best plan. There’s more stress, too, involving an accident that befalls Anastasia’s little brother. And oh, Anastasia gets in trouble with her parents because she says something really offensive about the town’s low-income housing development—never mind that she was only imitating Daphne imitating Mrs. Bellingham, not actually saying the offensive thing herself. Everything turns out fine, ultimately, and the stressful things resolve themselves in sometimes-hilarious ways, but I don’t really like reading about plans that are clearly doomed to go awry. Still, I liked this book, particularly the very beginning and the very end.
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