I asked to take me and, about happiness, she promised that she would. Suddenly it began to get dark. Twilight was coming very fast. The collective farm herd of cows passed by the kindergarten, as the board decided to drive the cows into stalls to avoid the unwanted reaction of the herd to this rare natural phenomenon. The cows began to moo loudly and anxiously. Somewhere in the distance the dogs barked. The chirping of birds suddenly stopped. An animal fear began to creep into my subconscious. The feeling of anxiety and impending catastrophe with the onset of darkness became more and more felt in the gloomy and irrevocably approaching night. The sun faded and suddenly disappeared from the sky. The sky was covered with alluvial stars. There was a silence. Even the dogs stopped barking. Only the howling of a lonely and distant dog is heard. My mother pressed me to her, stood silently in the middle of the playground and shuddered at the terrible state of the sudden night that had come on the summer day. It lasted for ages, it seemed, there would be no end to it. Suddenly the air was cool. There was no sun and darkness was entering its domain. The coolness was noticeable from the sudden disappearance of the hot sunlight, and this added fears of the irretrievability of the phenomenon. I had a feeling that now there will never be a sun, but there will be darkness. But gradually the bright strip on the place of the sun grew wider and wider. And about! Miracle! The sun began to grow in the sky and appeared again. The warmth again flowed a generous river to the park, to the leaves, to the children and the children's playground. The village girls started singing. Birds choked and everything returned to normal. I was happy and was filled with the expectation of the promised trip with my mother to the meeting in her Obkom. But her mother seemed to forget her promise. I reminded her of this, but my mother did not answer me. She already talked with other parents who came for their children. Finally, my mother paid attention to me and told me that Nyuska would take me today. My mother's promise not to take me with her hurt painfully. Instead, it's also a surprise that Nyuska will take me. That I myself will not get home? I asked myself this question. I firmly decided not to go home with my cousin. After the mother left with other parents, I asked Aunt Olya for permission to go home, citing the fact that my mother allowed me to do this. She answered yes and I left. Nyuska, of course, did not find me in the kindergarten and pushed her mother. In the morning, I got a rod in a soft place from my mother, under the grinning grins of my sister …
Oh, time, how quick is your run. Rushed another year. It was time to say farewell to the kindergarten. After lunch, in the dining room, the teacher announced to all children who reached the age of seven, including me, that today they are the last day in the garden. That until the first of September they had exactly one month left, that they were almost schoolchildren.
In a month, the first of September. I'm 7 years old. The First Class is waiting for me. Newest comrades, almost adult cares.
"And how will I read and write?" And how to count? " – I thought anxiously. – Von Ponomarenko Kolya already knows the alphabet, Lenya Ochkolyas knows how to count to ten. "
With a bitter heart complained to Ponomarenko Vasya, his brother Kolya. No, not that Coley, who slipped me a boiled bacon, and another Kolya, already a first- class student.
To which Vasya authoritatively stated:
"My brother did not even know the first letter." And now he is reading the primer. Vasily proudly declared.
– Really?! – I was delighted. And my heart became calmer. With all my heart I reached out to Vasya, but Vasya was still in the kindergarten, he would go to school only next year. That's how friends get to know, on the very last day.
"Tell me everything that's in school." To me, already for the next year. Vasilis’s asked me. Vasya and Kolya Ponomarenko lived next door to us, and I often went to play with them. It is necessary to go through the neighbor's garden and I already have Ponomarenko …
Dead hour. Children sleep in their beds. The last dead hour in kindergarten, the last day of preschool childhood I sighed and turned, could not fall asleep, I was worried. I was still racked with fears:
"How can I go to school?" I thought, tossing and turning on my bed, during a dead hour. "I cannot read or write, I do not even know the letters."
I began to recall the letters. It was easy to remember the letter "A", like two telegraph poles, topped and fastened with a crossbar. It's easier to remember, there are such poles out there, as long as you want on the sovkhoz fields. I easily remember the letter "O", similar to the hoop, with which Uncle Fyodor fastens the barrels for pickling tomatoes and cucumbers at my mother's at work. As Valik did not try to remember even one, at least some letter, nothing came to mind. He began to toss and turn. He lay on his back, looked at the ceiling, remembered, for some reason, the grandmother by the stove and her poker.
«Yeah, it seems like the letter" G «. – I thought, the heap in the memory of the device, with which the grandmother deftly manipulates, putting in the stove cast- iron, rakes the heat. But nothing more could not really remember. I turned my fair head to one side, listened. The hay crackled in the cushion. In the bedroom, the sniffling of sleeping children was heard. The fly flew by. Everywhere reigned sleepy silence. Suddenly a crumpled green leaf of the lime flopped on the pillow next to my head. I lifted my head, the springs creaked treacherously. Carefully looking around, he found that everyone was asleep:
«Pavlik? It does not seem to be sleeping like killing. "I thought. The glance slid over the cots in the far corner of the bedroom, then stopped at the neighbor on the right. But the blanket of Vasya Ponomarenko rose slightly in time to snuffle, the boy was asleep. Two white teeth were visible in his open mouth, and he looked like a rabbit, peacefully asleep on a pillow, with all his sleeping form. I turned to the right, looked at the bunk of Leni Ochkolyas. There, rustling, the edge of the blanket moved away and black eyes flashed beady under it.
«Oh, that's a whore! From you to me! " – my little hand grabbed the edge of the pillow and in an instant a soft projectile, describing the arc in the air, sank to the sheltered head of Lenya. The blanket flew open with lightning speed. Lena's wide- open black eyes stared at me.
"I'll give you some," said her face. And in return, Leni's pillow flew to me. The fighters stopped the hurried steps behind the door. When Aunt Olya entered the room, the picture that appeared before her seemed, did not disturb the sleepy atmosphere. The tutor examined the sleeping ones anxiously. When her gaze settled on my bunk, there were faint flashes in her eyes. I lay on the crumpled blanket of the crib with my feet toward the pillow. The head was lying where the legs should lie. My eyes closed treacherously for centuries. With all his might trying to make a dream, I tried not to blink for centuries. However, in vain, treacherous eyelashes with their trembling spoiled pretense. Strict aunt Olya already and so she understood everything. She quietly went out and in a moment appeared again. In her hand, swaying with a long stem, the gift of Leni Ochkolyas, squeezed in her right hand, nettles. She is coming up to me "sleeping" and began to drag nettles over my bare stomach. The eyelashes of my closed eyes fluttered desperately, but the body lay motionless. Lenya Ochkolyas watched with emotion from his "hiding place" behind what was happening. He was very flattered that the nettle, which he so lovingly chose this morning on the road to kindergarten, did not fade in vain. Thus ended my preschool childhood …
Chapter 7
My grandmother met me at home.
"Tomorrow is Sunday, we'll go to Buzovaya Farm, to the bazaar." – My grandmother Eugenia Lavrentyevna solemnly informed me.
The bazaar was far away, six kilometers from Spitec. Local residents called this place "Bazaar on Buzovaya". The settlement of the Buzovaya hamlet is located from Kiev on the thirtieth- thirty first kilometer of the Brest- Litovsk highway.
Grandmother announced this news and with a pleased look added:
– Maybe I cannot go next time. I'll go for the last time …
Early in the morning, I woke up from a light grandmother's touch.
– Get up now it's time. She leaned over me in a white clean kerchief and stroked my head.
I rubbed my eyes. He rose, drowsily went to the kitchen. There on the stool stood a bucket of water and a mug, and next to it, near the stool, a garbage can. Having scooped up a mug of water, he took it in his mouth, then poured water from his mouth into his hands