Anastasia, Absolutely by Lois Lowry

Author:Lois Lowry [Lowry, Lois]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

"How was jury duty, Dad?" Anastasia asked when her father came home. She could almost guess the answer, because he looked exhausted and miserable.

He grunted. Then he undid his necktie, took it off, and loosened the collar of his shirt. He sat down, with his shoulders slumped, at the kitchen table.

Mrs. Krupnik, who'd been preparing dinner, brought him a cup of coffee. Then, while he sipped, she stood behind him and massaged his shoulders and neck. Sleuth, who seemed to sense that the master of the house was unhappy, came over and lay at his feet, snuggling between Myron Krupnik's two size-twelve shoes.

Finally, after he had relaxed for a minute, Anastasia's dad answered her question.

"It was horrible," he said flatly.

"How come? I thought it would be fun."

He sighed. "Never use the word Tun' to describe the judicial process," he told her. "It is very, very serious. There was not one minute of fun all day."

"Yeah," Anastasia said, "I guess I was thinking of Night Court on TV."

"All of us gathered there at eight this morning," Mr. Krupnik explained, "and we waited around, and a judge came in and explained the whole thing to us, how it would work, and then we waited around again. Every now and then they would come in and collect one group of people—we all had numbers—and they would take that group away to ask them some questions and figure out if they would actually serve on a jury.

"There are lots of different trials going on at the same time," he explained. Anastasia nodded.

"So I sat and sat and sat, and read the New York Times over and over. I even read all the small print: what restaurants were closed this week for health violations, who had a baby."

"Who had a baby?" asked Sam, with interest.

Myron Krupnik thought. He rubbed his beard. Finally he said, "Heidi and Michael Kooperman welcome Alisa Michelle, beautiful baby sister for Matthew and Jared."

Anastasia stared at him. "You made that up, didn't you, Dad?"

He shook his head sadly. "No."

"Poor Myron," Katherine Krupnik said, and poured him a little more coffee.

"Anyway, finally they called my number, and I went into a courtroom with a group, and it was just like on TV, with a judge up there on the bench. And he described the case and started asking us questions."

"Like what?"

"Well, he read us a list of all the lawyers and all the witnesses, and he asked if we knew any of them."

"Did you? You and Mom know a lot of lawyers."

"Nope. I was hoping I would, because then I would have been excused. Some of the jurors got to leave at that point. But I didn't recognize a single name."

"What happened then?"

"Well, then he called our numbers, and we had to go sit in the jury box, and the trial started."

"Just like on TV?"

"Right. But the worst thing was, the judge looked through the list of jurors. He had all those questionnaires we'd filled out. And he appointed me foreman. I had to switch seats with someone and sit in the front seat.

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