but what if we are already on the opposite side of the forest and will go where we don’t have to go? I’ll run and ask.»
Without waiting for her brother’s answer, the girl threw a plastic box with mushrooms at his feet and ran across the field towards the tractor driver. Andrey wanted to object, but seeing that it was useless, he waved his hand and, picking up her box, reluctantly trudged after his sister. The whole body itched unpleasantly from many mosquito bites, responded with pain and ached as if he had been beaten with sticks all night long.
Seeing a beauty running towards him across the field, the tractor driver turned off the engine and, leaning out of the cab, shouted in displeasure:
«Well, what else do you need, shameless?»
Running a little closer, the girl reproachfully said:
«You shouldn’t be so unkind to us, man. We didn’t do anything like that.»
«Well, of course. You think, I believed you,» the tractor driver said with a grin.
«But in vain. We are siblings. We were picking mushrooms and got lost in the forest. And at night, exhausted, we fell asleep on this… haystack. We don’t know where we are.»
Looking at the girl incredulously and looking back at her companion with two plastic containers full of mushrooms, lazily walking towards them across the field, the tractor driver finally softened, and in a completely different tone, he said:
«Ah, what a deal. I see… Hmm… What do you need? What place?»
«The village of Kraevka,» Lera answered, smiling at the gray-haired worker with a childish sincere smile.
«A beautiful girl,» he thought, and said aloud:
«Well… you got very far! There will be fifteen miles to Kraevka here. It’s at least four hours on foot.»
«In which direction?» Andrey asked, who at that moment had already come close enough to hear the conversation.
«Do you see that edge of the field?» the tractor driver asked, pointing with his hand. «There is the beginning of the road. Follow it all the time straight, not turning anywhere. There will be some branches from it, but there are no forks, so you’ll figure it out. You will reach Malinovka, and there it is already close to Kraevka. Understandable, or not?»
«Oh, I see! Thank you,» Lera said with a grateful smile.
«Well, God bless you then. It is a good thing that I didn’t beat you to death today. You, boy, indeed owe your life to your sister. If she had not screamed, I would have raked you along with the hay. I could really kill you.»
«Thank you,» Andrey said gloomily and, handing a box of mushrooms to his sister, slowly walked to the beginning of the road at the end of the field. It really bothered him that he couldn’t remember how they got here.
Following the guys with his glance, the worker started the tractor and thought:
«Well, they are indeed brother and sister. You can immediately see that… They are very similar. He’s probably three or four years older than her.»
* * *
When the roofs of the houses of some villages appeared between the trees at the end of the forest road, the guys could hardly drag their feet.
«Tell me that this is Malinovka, please,» Lera said in a tired but cheerful voice.
Andrey looked ahead and after a moment answered confidently:
«Yes, it’s Malinovka.»
«How long until home?»
«A couple of kilometers.»
«So, another half an hour, right?»
«Well, yes. About that. And what?»
«Finally.»
«Y-yes…» Andrew said in a strange tone.
«What?»
«Well… I’m still trying to remember how we ended up in this hay.»
«Do you really need it? You yourself said that we were so tired that we were exhausted, and therefore we did not remember. That it must be a stress, and… because of stress, the body’s defense reaction worked, so we forgot everything.»
«Well… to say something, is one thing,» he answered, «but it is strange that this reaction worked equally for both. I understand if one would forget, and the second would remember, but when both forgot, and… it is as if the memory was simply completely turned off.»
«So what? Thank God that we were not eaten by wild animals, and ended up in a bale of hay, and not in the stomach of some bear.»
«The bear… hmm,» again, some obscure fragment flashed through his memory, as if it was cut off. «It seems like we were still on a tree, and there, it seems, there was some kind of bear, but… down somewhere. And you were talking about a tree. But I didn’t remember it, and now you said about the bear, and some obscure fragment surfaced, like a dream. So… there must still be a tree.»
Lera rummaged through her memory for a while, and then shook her head negatively.
«No, I don’t remember anything, neither a tree, nor a bear.»
«You yourself asked about tree?»
«Really? I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t remember what I asked. Maybe I dreamed it?»
«We can’t dream the same.»
«Where do you see the same?»
«Well, a tree… a bear…»
«Oh yeah! So many things are the same! We do not clearly remember either one or the other, and there is not a single fragment that actually matches.»
«Uhu! The same lapses in memory match. Which is strange. And plus, I have some feeling that something happened to us, which for some reason we don’t remember, but at the same time, we ended up in this hay for a reason.»
«I think that now the main thing is to get home and rest. Personally, I was very tired and hungry. And when we rest, you’ll see, everything will fall into its place.
«It is like I had a dream that I forgot.»
«Andrey!» Lera pleaded. «Please, let’s talk about something else.»
At that moment, her brother, who mechanically put his hands into his trousers, took out from the right pocket of his jeans some small object in the shape of a cylinder, slightly smaller than a grain of wheat. He stopped and began to examine it carefully.
Lera came up, and looking into his palm, asked:
«What’s this?»
«I don’t know.»
«It looks like some kind of electronic device.»
«Yes, it seems so.»
«So little! Where did you get it from?»
Without answering, Andrey put his hand back in his pocket and, quickening his pace, resolutely walked along the road.
* * *
Kanny was sitting in a large Mercedes bus. Reclining his seat and completely relaxing, he lazily watched the scenery passing through the window. The bus was going fast, a pleasant breeze was blowing from the top hatch, and Kanny felt happy. He completed, as the master said, a very serious task, and deserved a corresponding reward. This time these were not just a few people, but almost three dozen directors! The job was done cleanly. No clues or suspicions. And now, finally, the long-awaited vacation. With the money that he received, he will be able to have a great rest somewhere in Spain or even better. Now a beautiful hotel room, delicious food, excellent booze, women and entertainment are waiting for him. And at the same time, he will still have money left, and not a little money.
Kanny