The artist F. P. Reshetnikov was very fond of painting on children's themes, which he had developed since the time of the Great Patriotic War. Often watching the game of teenagers in the "war". It was from that day that he began to increasingly depict children in his paintings in different life situations.

Reshetnikov's painting "Boys" was created in 1971 and is also dedicated to children. Ten years have passed since the legendary first manned flight into space. All the boys dreamed of space and as one wanted to be like Yuri Gagarin. The picture shows three boys who, on an August night, climbed onto the roof of a multi-storey building to watch the starry sky. As you know, in August in central Russia it is very often possible to observe starfall and the boys, seeing another falling "star", try to make their most secret wish as soon as possible.

Reshetnikov places all the "dreamers" in the center of the picture. However, the boys are different in character, as evidenced by their postures. One teenager leaned completely on the parapet. His friend clings to the railing, yet the unusual height frightens him a little. The one in the middle, in a friendly manner, put his hand on the shoulder to the left of the standing one and tells what he read in some book just a few days ago. He points with his hand to some particularly bright star and possibly talks about it, with particular emphasis on its name. It gives him pleasure to feel some superiority over his comrades, which is so important at this age. The schoolboy tells with such enthusiasm that his friends, without stopping, look at the asterisk, which the narrator points to. They are a little jealous of him, because he knows so much about galaxies and planets. And he also dreams very much - to fly on a real spaceship, on which he will definitely accomplish a feat.

His friends are already imagining that they, of course, will fly to distant stars all together and will definitely visit this star, which is so different from others in this dark blue, like soft velvet, sky. Their eyes burn just like these stars, because the boys are sure that as adults they will contemplate the sky not from the height of a high-rise building, but through the porthole of an interplanetary space rocket. Below will be the earth illuminated by the sun's rays, and not the city sparkling with lights, merging with the sky, as if one whole.

In the painting Boys, the artist vividly depicts the state of enthusiasm, immersion in a dream, when everything around ceases to exist. It is these dreamers who, having matured, perform real feats, make great discoveries that allow humanity to move forward. Boys with undisguised delight and childish inquisitiveness of mind are directed to the future, which is already slowly revealing its secrets to them.

Around them is the city, plunged into the night and falling asleep in a misty haze. Reshetnikov conveys to us the state of these guys, awakening childhood memories in us. With a certain amount of nostalgia, we recall our dreams and secrets of the distant past. And these suddenly surging memories seem to give us wings and give us the strength to go to the end - towards the dream. After all, the more unrealistic the dream seems, the more interesting the path to it.

Fedor Pavlovich himself experienced all this during an expedition on the legendary Chelyuskin. It was a heroic epic in which the real character of the Russian people was manifested. And in this campaign, the same grown-up dreamers participated, about whom the whole world started talking back in 1934, admiring their courage.

SIM FROM THE FOURTH ROOM

B The boy was tall and thin, with his unreasonably long arms deep in his pockets. The head on a thin neck always leaned forward a little. The guys called him Semaphore.

The boy has recently moved into this house. He went out into the courtyard in new shiny galoshes and, lifting his legs high, strode out into the street. When he passed by the guys, he lowered his head even lower.

- Look, imagine! Mishka got angry. - He doesn’t want to know ... - But much more often Mishka shouted: - Semaphore, come here, let's talk! ..

The guys also shouted after the boy various mocking, and sometimes offensive words. The boy only lowered his head and quickened his pace. Sometimes, if the guys came close to him, he looked at them with blue, very large, clear eyes and silently blushed.

The guys decided that Semaphore was too good a nickname for such a floppy, and they began to call the boy simply Sima, and sometimes - to be sure - Sima from the fourth issue. And Mishka kept getting angry and grumbling at the sight of the boy:

- We need to teach this goose a lesson. Walking here!

Once Sima disappeared and did not appear in the yard for a long time. A month or two passed ... Winter began to weaken and ruled the street only at night. During the day, a warm wind blew from the Gulf of Finland. The snow in the yard turned gray, turned into a wet, dirty mess. And in these spring-like warm days, Sima appeared again. His galoshes were as new as if he had never worn them at all. The neck is even more tightly wrapped with a scarf. He held a black sketchbook under his arm.

Sima looked at the sky, narrowed his eyes, as if weaned from the light, blinked. Then he went to the far corner of the yard, to someone else's front door.

- Hey, Sima got out! .. - Mishka whistled in surprise. - Acquaintance, in any way, started.

Lyudmilka lived on the stairs where Sima went.

Sima went up to the front door and began to slowly pace back and forth, looking hesitantly into the dark opening of the stairs.

“Waiting,” Krugly Tolik chuckled, “his Lyudmilka…”

“Or maybe not Lyudmilka at all,” put in Keshka. - Why should he mess with Lyudmilka?

Tolik looked at Keshka slyly - they say, we know, they are not small - and said:

- What is he doing there then? .. Maybe he breathes air? ..

“Maybe,” Kesha agreed.

Mishka listened to them arguing, and thought about something.

"Time to act," he said suddenly. Let's go talk to this Sima.

Mishka and Kruglyi Tolik moved forward shoulder to shoulder. Keshka also joined them. At the decisive moment, you cannot leave your comrades - this is called honor. A few more guys joined the three friends. They walked on the sides and behind.

Noticing the army advancing on him, Sima raised his head, as always, blushed and smiled timidly.

- What are you? .. - began Mishka. - What is it? .. Well, what?

Sima blushed even more. muttered:

- Nothing ... I'm going ...

- He appears to be walking! Krugly Tolik laughed.

Mishka leaned forward, put his hands behind his back, turned to Sima a little sideways and spoke slowly, menacingly:

“Maybe you don’t consider us human beings?.. Yes?.. Maybe you’re brave?..

Sima looked around at all the guys with his big eyes, slightly opened his mouth.

“And what did I do to you?”

- But we are not going to beat you, - Mishka explained to him, - we will always have time ... I say, we will exchange, we will go one on one ... Let's see what kind of ostrich you are so unusual that you don’t want to approach us.

- With you? Sima asked.

Mishka stuck out his lip and nodded.

Sima looked at his feet and quite unexpectedly objected:

- It's very dirty.

The guys laughed together. And Mishka looked Sima contemptuously from head to toe.

“Maybe you should lay a Persian carpet?”

Sima pressed the black album to himself, stamped his feet and asked:

- We'll wait, but ... when will the sun be up?

The guys laughed.

When they laughed enough, Mishka stepped forward, pulled the album from Simin's hands.

- He needs the sun ... Well, let me see!

Sima turned pale, grabbed Mishka's hand, but he was immediately pushed back.

And Mishka has already opened the black calico cover. On the first page of the album, in beautiful colored letters, it was written:

"To the teacher Maria Alekseevna from Grigoriev Kolya."

- He is engaged in sycophancy ... Clearly! - Mishka said it in such a tone, as if he had not expected anything else.

“Give me the album,” Sima asked the guys behind their backs. He tried to push the crowd, but the boys were standing tight.

Some laughed, and Mishka shouted:

- You, sycophant, are not very good, otherwise I won’t even wait for the sun, I’ll let you have a portion of pasta on your neck!

Keshka no longer felt sorry for Sim, he stood next to Mishka and hurried him:

On the next page was drawn sailing ship, a brigantine, as Mishka determined. The brigantine was carried in full sail. Her nose was buried in a seething deep blue wave. On the deck at the mast, the captain stood with his arms folded.

- Wow, great!

The guys settled on Mishka.

Caravels, frigates, cruisers, submarines cut through the elastic waves. Watercolor storms raged, typhoons… And one drawing even showed a giant tornado. Sailors from a small boat hit the tornado from a cannon. After the ships came various palm trees, tigers...

Keshka jumped up and down with delight. He pushed Mishka under the elbow, asked:

- Mishka, give me a picture ... Well, Mishka, then ...

Everyone forgot that the album belongs to Sima, they even forgot that Sima is standing next to it.

Mishka closed the album and looked over the guys' heads at the artist.

- You, toady Sim, listen ... Let's act according to honor and conscience. So that you don't suck up to the teachers next time, we will distribute your pictures to anyone who wants to. It's clear? - And, without waiting for an answer, he shouted: - Well, come on! .. Beautiful pictures of marine life! ..

The pages in the album were bound with a white silk ribbon. Mishka unraveled the bow on the cover, crumpled up the first page with the inscription, and began handing out pictures.

Keshka received a four-pipe cruiser "Varyag", a frigate with a black pirate flag. Motley little men with huge sabers and pistols ran along the deck of the frigate ... He begged for another monkey on a palm tree and high mountain with white sugar top.

After handing out all the pictures, Mishka went up to Sima and pushed him in the chest.

- Get out now! .. Do you hear?

Sima's lips trembled, he covered his eyes with his hands in gray knitted gloves and, shuddering, went to his stairs.

- Follow the sun! Mishka called after him.

The guys boasted to each other trophies. But their fun was suddenly interrupted. Lyudmilka appeared at the front door.

- Hey you, give me pictures, otherwise I'll tell you everything about you ... I'll tell you that you are bandits ... Why did Sima offend?

- Well, what did I say? They are at one with each other, - Round Tolik jumped up to Keshka. - Now they would go to the teacher under the arm ... - Tolik bent, made his hand a pretzel and walked, swaying, a few steps.

Lyudmila flared up.

- Hooligans, and I don’t know this Simka at all ...

- Well, get out, there's nothing to stick your nose in then! Mishka said. - Let's go, I say! - He stamped his foot, as if he was about to throw himself at Lyudmilka.

Lyudmilka jumped aside, slipped and flopped into the snowy mess at the threshold of the stairs. There was a huge wet stain on a pink coat trimmed with white fur. Lyudmila roared.

– And I’ll t-tell about this too… You’ll see! ..

- Oh, squeak! Mishka waved his hand. - Get out of here guys...

At the woodpile, in their favorite place, the boys again began to examine the drawings. One Mishka sat drooping, rubbing his palm under his nose and collecting his forehead into longitudinal, then transverse wrinkles.

- What kind of teacher is Maria Alekseevna? he muttered. “Maybe the one who lives on Lyudmilka’s stairs?”

- Thought ... She has not been working at school for the third year. She retired, - Round Tolik nonchalantly objected.

Mishka looked at him indifferently.

“Where are you so smart when you don’t have to…” He got up, in his heart kicked the log he had just been sitting on, and, turning to the guys, began to select pictures. Let's go, let's say...

Keshka did not want to part with the ships and the palm tree, but he gave them to Mishka without a word. After Sima left, he felt uneasy.

Mishka collected all the sheets, put them back into the album. Only the first page with the dedication was irrevocably damaged. Mishka smoothed it on his knees and put it under the cover too.

The next day the sun dominated the sky. It loosened the snow and drove it in cheerful streams to the hatches in the middle of the yard. Chips, pieces of birch bark, sagging paper, matchboxes dived in whirlpools above the bars. Everywhere, in every drop of water, small multi-colored suns flashed. Sunbeams chased each other on the walls of the houses. They jumped on the children's noses, cheeks, flashed in the children's eyes. Spring!

Janitor Aunt Nastya was sweeping garbage from the bars. The guys dug holes with sticks, and water fell noisily into dark wells. By noon, the asphalt had dried up. Only rivers of dirty water continued to run from under the woodpile.

The boys were building a dam out of bricks.

Bear, running from school, hung his bag on a nail driven into a huge log, and began to build a reservoir.

“Let’s go faster,” he strained, “otherwise all the water will run away from under the woodpile!”

The guys carried bricks, sand, wood chips ... and then they noticed Sima.

Sima stood not far from the gate with a briefcase in his hands, as if wondering where to go - home or to the guys.

- Ah, Sima! .. - Mishka shouted. - The sun is in the sky. Dry, look, - Mishka pointed to a large dried-up bald patch. - So what do you say?

“Maybe bring a pillow?” Tolik quipped.

The guys laughed, vying with each other offering their services: carpets, rugs and even straw, so that Sima would not be tough.

Sima stood a little in the same place and moved towards the guys. The conversations immediately ceased.

“Come on,” Sima said simply.

Mishka got up, wiped his wet hands on his pants, and threw off his coat.

- To the first blood or to the full force?

“To the fullest,” Sima answered not too loudly, but very decisively. This meant that he agreed to fight to the end, while the hands were raised, while the fingers were clenched into a fist. It doesn't matter if your nose bleeds or not. The one who says: "Enough, I give up ..." is considered defeated.

The boys stood in a circle. Sima hung his briefcase on the same nail with Mishka's bag, took off his coat, tied the scarf around his neck tighter.

Tolik slapped himself on the lower back and said: “Bam-m-m! Gong!"

The bear raised his fists to his chest, jumped around Sima. Sima also put out his fists, but everything showed that he did not know how to fight. As soon as Mishka approached, he put his hand forward, trying to reach Mishka's chest, and immediately got hit in the ear.

The guys thought that he would roar, run to complain, but Sima pursed his lips and waved his arms like a windmill. He was advancing. He kneaded the air with his fists. Sometimes his blows got Mishka, but he put his elbows under them.

Sima got another slap. Yes, such that he could not resist and sat on the asphalt.

- Well, maybe that's enough? Mishka asked peacefully.

Sima shook his head, got up and clapped his hands again.

Spectators during a fight are very worried. They jump up and down, wave their arms, and imagine that by doing so they are helping their friend.

- Bear, what are you doing today! .. Misha, give it!

- Bear-ah-ah ... Well!

- Sima, it's not for you to engage in sycophancy ... Misha-ah!

And only one of the guys suddenly shouted:

- Sima, hold on!.. Sima, give it to me! - It was Keshka shouting. - Why are you waving your hands? You beat...

The bear fought without much passion. Among the spectators there would be those ready to swear that Mishka felt sorry for Sima. But after Keshka's cry, Mishka puffed up and began to thrash so much that Sima bent over and only occasionally put out his hand to push the enemy away.

- Athas! Tolik suddenly shouted and was the first to rush into the doorway. Lyudmilka's mother hurried to the woodpile; Lyudmilka spoke a little further away. Noticing that the boys were running away, Lyudmilka's mother quickened her pace.

- I you, hooligans! ..

Mishka grabbed his coat and darted into the gateway, where all the spectators had already disappeared. Only Keshka did not have time. He hid behind the woodpile.

But Sima did not see or hear anything. He was still hunched over, stunned by the blows. And since Mishka's fists suddenly ceased to fall on him, he apparently decided that the enemy was tired, and hurried to the offensive. His first lunge hit Lyudmilka's mother in the side, the second in the stomach.

- What are you doing? she squealed. - Lyudochka, did this hooligan push you into a puddle?

“No, no,” Lyudmilka whined. - This is Sima, they beat him. And Mishka pushed. He ran into the alley.

Sima raised his head, looked around in confusion.

Why did they beat you, boy? Lyudmilka's mother asked.

“But they didn’t beat me at all,” Sima replied sullenly.

- But I myself saw how hooligans ...

- It was a duel. By all the rules ... And they are not hooligans at all. Sima put on his overcoat, removed his briefcase from the nail, and was about to leave.

But then Lyudmilka's mother asked:

- Whose bag is this?

- Mishkin! Lyudmila shouted. - We need to take it. The bear will then come.

Then Keshka jumped out from behind the woodpile, grabbed his bag and ran to the front door.

- Run after me! he called to Sima.

- This is Keshka - Mishkin's friend. Hooligan! .. - roared Lyudmilka.

In the front door, the boys took a breath, sat down on the step of the stairs.

– You are not very hurt?.. – asked Keshka.

- Not, no so much…

They sat a little longer, listening to Lyudmilka's mother threatening to go to Mishka's school, to Mishka's parents, and even to the police, to the anti-neglect department.

- You wanted to give this album to your teacher? Keshka suddenly asked.

Sim turned away.

- No, Maria Alekseevna. She has been retired for a long time. When I got sick, she found out and came. She studied with me for two months ... for free. I specially drew this album for her.

Keshka whistled. And in the evening he came to Mishka.

- Mishka, give Sima the album. This is when he was ill, so Maria Alekseevna worked with him ... for free ...

“I know it myself,” Mishka answered.

All evening he was taciturn, turned away, tried not to make eye contact. Keshka knew Mishka and knew that this was not without reason. And the next day, this is what happened.

Toward evening, Sima went out into the yard. He still walked with his head down and blushed when Mishka and Tolik jumped up to him. He probably thought that he would be called to fight again; yesterday no one gave up, and yet this matter must be brought to an end. But Mishka thrust his red wet hand into his.

- All right, Sima, peace.

“Let’s go with us to make a reservoir,” Tolik suggested. Don't be shy, we won't tease...

Sima's big eyes lit up, because it's nice for a person when Mishka himself looks at him as an equal and is the first to give a hand.

Give him the album! Keshka hissed into Mishka's ear.

The bear frowned and didn't answer.

The brick dam was leaking. The water in the reservoir did not hold. Rivers strove to run around him.

The guys froze, got smeared, even wanted to punch a channel in the asphalt. But they were prevented by a little old woman in a downy shawl.

She went up to Sima, meticulously examined his coat and scarf.

- Zip up, Sima! .. You will catch a cold again ... - Then she looked at him affectionately and added: - Thank you for the gift.

Sima blushed deeply and muttered, ashamed:

- Which present?..

- Album. - The old woman looked at the guys, as if convicting them of complicity, and solemnly said: - “Dear teacher Maria Alekseevna, good man».

Sima blushed even more. He did not know where to go, he suffered.

I didn't write this...

- Wrote, wrote! Keshka suddenly clapped his hands. - He showed us this album, with ships ...

Mishka stood next to Sima, looked at the old woman and said in a hollow voice:

- Of course, he wrote ... Only he is shy of us - he thinks we will tease him with a toady. Freak!..

In the canvas "Boys" F. P. Reshetnikov continues to create a gallery of images of Soviet children, which the master began to paint in the post-war years. The outstanding realist was awarded orders and medals for his work in different years.

Fedor Pavlovich Reshetnikov

The future artist was born in a village in Ukraine in 1906 into a family of hereditary icon painters. He was orphaned early and, when he grew up, began to help his older brother, who, in order to survive, dropped out of school and continued his father's work. He became his apprentice, and later, seeing that it was impossible to find an interesting job without education, he left for Moscow and graduated from the workers' faculty there in 1929. Then there was study for higher art education. His teachers were D. S. Moor and even in his student days, a schedule by education, a mocker and a romantic, he took part in several polar expeditions, which were watched with bated breath by all Soviet people. After all, he and the Chelyuskinites ended up on a drifting ice floe. And although his vocation was caricature and satire, the artist willingly engaged in

By 1953, having already become a recognized master and academician, he suddenly drew children with enthusiasm, growing younger with them. One of the canvases will be Reshetnikov's painting "Boys", a description of which will be given in the next section.

The plot of the picture

Having agreed in the afternoon, three boys living in a big city climbed onto the roof of the tallest house in their area late in the evening to take a closer look at the starry sky.

They are eight or ten years old. And they, of course, know everything: about the flights of Belka and Strelka, about the first space flight of a Soviet man, and about the fact that our rockets with cosmonauts and satellites continue to explore the boundless space. This is how Reshetnikov's painting "Boys" looks like, the description of which has already begun.

Close-up

In the foreground are three boys with different personalities. Look at their faces and postures.

In the center, with a hand raised high and pointing to something, stands a connoisseur who is clearly giving a lecture. He, of course, has already visited the planetarium, reviewed the atlases of the starry sky and knows all the constellations of both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Now he, perhaps, shows where to find the North Star, in which constellation it is located, or tells how to find Ursa Major in the sky and why it is called that, or shows Orion - the most beautiful constellation - a butterfly of our latitudes. Or maybe he points to a flying satellite. There is something to see in the sky.

Reshetnikov's painting "Boys", which is described in this material, will also tell about the characters of the other two boys. The blond-haired boy standing next to him on the left is clearly younger (he is shorter in stature, and his expression is more naive), and he absorbs knowledge unknown to him with interest. Reshetnikov's painting "Boys", the description of which continues, very clearly outlined the character of the younger boy, inquisitive, but not yet able to independently find new knowledge. And the most interesting and mysterious character is the dreamer. He is depicted comfortably leaning on the ledge of the roof and half-heartedly listening to the simple reasoning of his friend. His own ideas about galactic travels are already taking shape in his head, in which he is now, perhaps, already taking part.

In the background

And behind the schoolchildren, Reshetnikov (“Boys”), whose description of the picture continues, He portrayed unusually good. Tall houses with windows gleaming with gold of warm homely comfort float in the haze and become part of the vast Cosmos. Only his native name is Earth, which attracts every real astronaut. After wandering, it is so nice to return to your homeland, to your beloved Earth.

On a warm summer evening, F. Reshetnikov's "Boys" ends, the boys make wishes, looking at them. All three of them are directed by dreams into the future, which will reveal many secrets to them. Time will pass and, perhaps, their dreams will change, but the craving for the development of the new, the unknown, will remain.

Page 13 out of 18

Nikitin got behind the wheel. He lit a cigarette and inhaled several times. Then he dropped his cigarette.

Let's! Vitalka waved his mitten.

With a growl, the fuel truck pulled the casing under the wheels, rose as if for a jump, then wearily sniffed and slid back into the former potholes.

More gas! More! - shouted Vitalka, substituting his shoulders under the convex rear of the tank. At that moment, he believed that he was helping the car. With all his might, he tried to keep her on the edge of the cliff.

This time the wheels mixed the sleeveless jacket with the snow and rose higher. One hundred and twenty forces roared in the engine. Dazzling blue headlights cut the night.

Well!.. Well!.. Well!.. - Vitalka muttered, leaning his whole body against the cold metal.

“If only I could stand the snow!”

The cistern rose slowly. The cold weight pressed less and less on Vitalkin's shoulders and, finally, moved out of them. The engine stopped for a second, then violently jerked and brought the car to a flat roadbed.

And Vitalka felt that, although they escaped, he could not rejoice - he had no strength.

Nikitin fell back and felt the back seat cushion on the back of his head. She was cool and soft. He sat for a while with his eyes closed, then took his hands off the black circle of the steering wheel. He removed it carefully, as from the keys of a piano.

Vitaly! - called Nikitin, getting out of the cab. And once again: - Vitaly!

Darkness pressed in from all sides. My knees were shaking badly. Slowly shifting his legs, he took a few steps back.

Two ruts worn by the wheels darkened on the slope of a snowdrift. They climbed the blockage and ended there, cut off by a new landslide. The edge of the blockage still could not withstand the last jerk. And on the very edge, above the disastrous depth, howling with an icy wind, stood Vitalka - a small figure in the vast northern night.

Vital! What are you standing for? After all, they got out! - The driver choked on the burning air, ran up to Vitalka and grabbed him by the shoulders. - You are my dear! They got out, you know?

They broke out, Uncle Nikitin, - Vitalka answered like an echo.

Let's go to the cab, - said the driver. - You are my dear assistant ... I will definitely be your guest today.

In Chukotka, two thousand kilometers away, somewhere between the islands of Big and Small Diomede, the new year was already beginning.

Radiy Petrovich Pogodin
Sim from number four

The boy was tall and thin, with unreasonably long arms deep in his pockets. The head on a thin neck always leaned forward a little.

The guys called him Semaphore.

The boy has recently moved into this house. He went out into the courtyard in new shiny galoshes and, lifting his legs high, strode out into the street. When he passed by the guys, he lowered his head even lower.

Ish imagines! Mishka got angry. - He doesn’t want to know ... - But much more often Mishka shouted: - Semaphore, come here, let's talk!

The guys also shouted after the boy various mocking, and sometimes offensive words. The boy only quickened his pace. Sometimes, if the guys came close to him, he looked at them with blue, very large, clear eyes and silently blushed.

The guys decided that Semaphore was too good a nickname for such a squishy guy, and they began to call the boy simply Sima, and sometimes - to be sure - Sima from the fourth issue. And Mishka kept getting angry and grumbling at the sight of the boy:

We need to teach this goose a lesson. Walking here!

Once Sima disappeared and did not appear in the yard for a long time. A month or two passed ... Winter began to weaken and ruled the street only at night. During the day, a warm wind blew from the Gulf of Finland. The snow in the yard began to wrinkle, turned gray, turned into a wet, dirty mess. And in these spring-like warm days, Sima appeared again. His galoshes were as new as if he had never worn them at all. The neck is even more tightly wrapped with a scarf. Under his arm, he held a black sketchbook.

Sima looked at the sky, narrowed his eyes, as if weaned from the light, blinked. Then he went to the far corner of the yard, to someone else's front door.

Ege, Sima got out! .. - Mishka whistled in surprise. - Acquaintance, in any way, started.

Lyudmilka lived on the stairs where Sima went.

Sima went up to the front door and began to slowly pace back and forth, looking hesitantly into the dark opening of the stairs.

Waiting, - Krugly Tolik chuckled, - his Lyudmilka.

Or maybe not Lyudmilka at all, - put in Keshka. - Why should he mess with Lyudmilka?

Tolik looked at Keshka slyly, - they say, we know, they are not small, and said:

What is he doing there then? .. Maybe he breathes air? ..

Maybe, - agreed Keshka.

Mishka listened to them arguing, and thought about something.

It's time to act, - he suddenly intervened. - Let's go talk to this Sima.

Let's go, - Tolik supported.

Mishka and Kruglyi Tolik moved forward shoulder to shoulder. Keshka also joined them. At the decisive moment it is impossible to leave comrades - this is called honor. A few more guys joined the three friends. They walked on the sides and behind.

Noticing the army advancing on him, Sima raised his head, as always, blushed and smiled timidly.

What are you? .. - began Mishka. - What is it? .. Well, what?

Sima blushed even more. muttered:

Nothing... I'm going...

He, it turns out, walks, - Krugly Tolik laughed.

Mishka leaned forward, put his hands behind his back, turned sideways to Sima and spoke slowly, menacingly:

Maybe you don’t consider us as people?.. Yes?.. Maybe you are brave?..

Sima looked around at all the guys with his big eyes, slightly opened his mouth.

And what did I do to you?

But we are not going to beat you, we will always have time ... I say, let's exchange, let's go one on one ... Let's see what kind of ostrich you are so unusual that you don't want to approach us.

With you? Sima asked.

Mishka stuck out his lip and nodded.

Sima looked at his feet and quite unexpectedly objected:

So it's very dirty.

The guys laughed together. And Mishka looked Sima contemptuously from head to toe.

Maybe you can lay a Persian carpet?

Sima pressed the black album to himself, stamped his feet and asked:

Let's wait, but ... when will the sun be up?

When the guys laughed enough, Mishka stepped forward, pulled the album out of Simin's hands.

He needs the sun ... Well, let me see!

Sima turned pale, grabbed Mishka's hand, but the guys immediately pushed him back.

And Mishka has already opened the black calico cover.

On the first page of the album, in beautiful colored letters, it was written: "To the teacher Maria Alekseevna from Grigoriev Kolya."

Engaged in sycophancy… Clearly! - Misha said it in such a tone, as if he did not expect anything else.

Give the album back, - Sima asked the guys behind their backs. He tried to push the crowd, but the boys were standing tight. Some laughed, and Mishka shouted:

You, sycophant, are not very good, otherwise I won’t even wait for the sun, I’ll let you have a portion of pasta on your neck!

Made and sent by Anatoly Kaydalov.
_____________________

Guys!
The heroes of these stories are the same as you, boys and girls. In their lives, probably, just like yours, there are difficult moments. Minutes that raise a serious question: who are you?
Courageous man or coward, honest or liar, a true friend or just like that, a random fellow traveler

CONSCIENCE. V. Golyavkin 3
SPARROW IS MY FRIEND. P. Vasiliev 10
TWO SAME BIKES. Ya. Dlugolensky 24
HERE'S A GLASS OF WATER. S. Wolf 32
CASTLES IN THE AIR. A. Kotovshchikova 43
DESPERATE FLIGHT. N. Vnukov 55
SIM FROM THE FOURTH ROOM. R. Pogodin 68
STATE TIMKA. B. Rayevsky 80

V. Golyavkin
CONSCIENCE

Once Alyosha had a deuce. By singing. And so there were no more deuces. There were triplets. Almost all three were. One four was once a very long time ago. And there were no fives at all. A person has not had a single five in his life. Well, it wasn’t - it wasn’t like that, well, what can you do! Happens. Alyosha lived without fives. Ros. Moved from class to class. Received their required triples. He showed everyone the four and said:
- Well, it was a long time ago.
And suddenly - five! And most importantly, why? For singing. He got this five quite by accident. He successfully sang something like that - and he was given a five. And even verbally praised. They said: "Well done, Alyosha!" In short, it was a very pleasant event, which was overshadowed by one circumstance: he could not show this five to anyone. Since it was entered in the journal, and the journal, of course, is usually not given to students. He forgot his diary at home. If so, it means that Alyosha does not have the opportunity to show everyone his five. And so all the joy was overshadowed. And he, of course, wanted to show everyone, especially since this phenomenon in his life, as you understand, is rare. If the five would be in a notebook, for example, for a problem solved at home or for a dictation, then it’s easier than ever. That is, go with this notebook and show it to everyone. Until the sheets start popping out.
In arithmetic class, he came up with a plan: steal a magazine! He steals the magazine and brings it back in the morning. During this time, he can bypass all acquaintances and strangers with this magazine. In short, he seized the moment and stole the magazine at recess. He slipped the magazine into his bag and sits as if nothing had happened. Only his heart is beating frantically, which is quite natural, since he committed theft. When the teacher returned, he was so surprised that the magazine was not in place that he didn’t even say anything, but suddenly became somehow thoughtful. It seemed that he doubted whether there was a magazine on the table or not, whether it came with or without a magazine. He never asked about the magazine: the idea that one of the students had stolen it did not even cross his mind. There was no such case in his pedagogical practice. And he, without waiting for the call, quietly left, and it was evident that he was greatly upset by his forgetfulness.
And Alyosha grabbed the bag and rushed home. On the tram, he took a magazine out of his bag, found his five there and looked at it for a long time. And when he was already walking down the street, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten the magazine in the tram-
wow. When he remembered this, he almost collapsed from fear. He even said "oh" or something like that. The first thought that came to his mind was to run after the tram. But he quickly realized (he was still quick-witted!), that there was no point in running after the tram, since he had already left. Then many other thoughts came to his mind. But these were all such insignificant thoughts that it is not worth talking about them.
He even had such an idea: to take a train and go to the North. And go to work somewhere. Why exactly to the North, he did not know, but he was going there. I mean, he didn't even want to. He thought about it for a moment, and then remembered about his mother, grandmother, his father and abandoned this idea. Then he thought about going to the Lost Property Bureau; it is quite possible that the magazine is there, but suddenly a suspicion arises. He will certainly be detained and prosecuted. And he did not want to be held accountable, despite the fact that he deserved it.
He came home and even lost weight in one evening. And all night I could not sleep, and by morning, probably, I had lost even more weight.
First, his conscience tormented him. The entire class was left without a magazine. All friends' marks are gone. His excitement is understandable. And secondly - five. One in a lifetime - and she was gone. No, I understand it. True, I do not quite understand his desperate act, but his feelings are completely understandable to me.
So he came to school in the morning. Worried. Nervous. Lump in throat. Doesn't look into the eyes.
The teacher comes. Speaks:
- Guys! The magazine is gone. Some sort of opportu- nity. And where could he go?
Alyosha is silent.
The teacher says:
- I seem to remember that I came to class with a magazine. Even saw it on the table. But at the same time, I doubt it. I couldn't lose him
road, although I remember very well how I picked it up in the teacher's room and carried it along the corridor
Some guys say:
- No, we remember that the magazine was on the table. We saw.
The teacher says:
"In that case, where did he go?"
Here Alyosha could not stand it. He could no longer sit and be silent. He got up and says:
- The magazine is probably in the chamber of lost things
The teacher was surprised and said:
- Where where?
And the class laughed.
Then Alyosha, very excited, says:
- No, I'm telling you the truth, he probably couldn't be lost in the chamber of lost things.
- In what cell? - says the teacher.
- Lost things, - says Alyosha.
“I don’t understand anything,” the teacher says.
Here Alyosha for some reason was afraid that he would get a big blow for this case if he confessed, and he said:
- I just wanted to advise
The teacher looked at him and said sadly:
- Do not talk nonsense, do you hear?
At this time, the door opens and a woman enters the classroom and holds something wrapped in a newspaper in her hand.
- I'm a conductor, - she says, - I'm sorry. I have a free day today - and so I found your school and class, in which case, take your magazine.
There was an uproar in the classroom, and the teacher said:
- How so? Here is the number! How did our class magazine end up with the conductor? No, it can't be! Maybe this is not our magazine?
The conductor smiles slyly and says:
- No, this is your magazine.
Then the teacher grabs a magazine from the conductor and quickly flips through it.
- Yes! Yes! Yes! he shouts. - This is our magazine! I remember that I carried him down the corridor
Conductor says:
- And then they forgot in the tram?
The teacher looks at her with wide eyes. And she, smiling broadly, says:
- Well, of course! You forgot it on the tram.
Then the teacher grabs his head and says:
- God! What is happening to me. How could I forget the magazine on the tram? It's simply unthinkable! Although I remember carrying it down the hallway. Should I leave school? I feel it's getting harder for me to teach
The conductor says goodbye to the class, and the whole class shouts “thank you” to her, and she leaves with a smile.
At parting, she says to the teacher:
- Be careful next time.
The teacher is sitting at the table with his head in his hands, in a very gloomy mood. Then he, resting his hands on his cheeks, sits and looks at one point.
Then Alyosha gets up and says in a broken voice:
- I stole a magazine.
But the teacher is silent.
Then Alyosha says again:
- I stole the magazine. Understand
The teacher lazily says:
- Yes, yes, I understand you, this one of yours Noble act but it's useless to do it you want to help me I know to take the blame but why do it, my dear
Alyosha almost crying says:
- No, I'm telling you the truth.
The teacher says:
- You see, he still insists what a stubborn boy no, this is an amazingly noble boy. I appreciate it, dear, but since such things happen to me, I need to think about leaving teaching for a while
Alyosha says through tears:
- I'm telling you the truth
The teacher abruptly stands up from his seat, slams his fist on the table and shouts hoarsely
- No need!
After that, he wipes his tears with a handkerchief and quickly leaves.
And what about Alyosha?
He remains in tears. He tries to explain to the class, but no one believes him.
He feels a hundred times worse than if he were severely punished. He cannot eat or sleep.
He goes to the teacher's house. And he explains everything. And he convinces the teacher. The teacher strokes his head and says:
- This means that you are not yet a completely lost person and you have a conscience.
And the teacher escorts Alyosha to the corner and lectures him.

P. Vasiliev
SPARROW - MY FRIEND

Here is the frost! For a minute I jumped out into the street - it burned like fire!
The whole village is gray, houses, trees, fences - everything is overgrown with mossy hoarfrost. Gauze ribbons of smoke stretch from rooftops to the sky. A neighbor carries water from a pump - steam swirls over a bucket. Water splashes out of the bucket, but does not crumble, but splashes onto the road like pancakes.
- Misha! - Mom calls me. I fly like a bullet
into the room. “Let’s try again,” she says.
- Well, as much as possible!
- Do not grumble, do not grumble. Last time.
I reluctantly take off my old jacket and put on a new one. I just bought it yesterday. Bought for growth. The jacket is wide and long. Mom shortens it.
- Turn around!
I turn around and see myself in the mirror. Yes, the jacket is clearly too wide. Shoulders - in! But I don’t look like a hero in it, because heroes don’t have such thin giraffe necks. My head is like a half-plucked daisy, my face is red from the cold, and above my head there is a halo of blond, disheveled hair. Do not comb them - they always stick out like this in different directions.
- Well, now it's good! Mom says turning me around. - Take it off, I'll steam it now, and everything is in order.
I quickly take off my jacket.
“Be careful,” Mom says. - Don't remember the shirt. And don't get dirty. My God, I stroked all morning, and he!
But I don't listen to her anymore. I pull on my coat as I go. I don't have time, I'm in a hurry. Today is such a day that everyone is in a hurry, preoccupied, rushing somewhere. New Year's Eve!
Heart worries and fun. Like you're late for the theatre. I already washed my neck, got dressed, and still you can’t leave, something is holding you back. And there, ahead, there must be something interesting, new! And it's waiting for you, hurry up! Hurry!
I take a rope, a hand saw and jump out into the street. There were ten minutes left before the train arrived. I run out onto the road and see Tolik-Sparrow running from his house.
- Hurry! I shout and wave to him. - Hurry!
We run to the platform, I'm ahead, Tolik is behind me. He is in his father's large boots, in a hat, slipping
cabbage soup on the eyes. The ears of the hat are not tied and wave in unison.
- Hurry, hurry! I scream. - Ha-ha! And I kick my feet as I run.
Here is the train. She approaches almost silently and stops. The doors are flung open, and the crowd falls out of the cars along with the steam. Waiting for everyone to come out. We jump into the vestibule and through the windows of the slammed doors we look at the ones who left. These are all ours, the villagers. Came from the city, from work. The front ones have already descended from the platform and are running along the road to the village. These are boys. They are followed by a group of adults. They talk solidly, stop, light a cigarette.
I see dad. In his hands is a string bag, in it are oranges and something in little bags. Dad bought everything again. Soon there will be nowhere to put in the closet, every day brings something
- Well, out of breath? I ask.
- No, - Sparrow answers, straightening his hat. She moved down to his very nose. Sparrow's face is small and pockmarked. It was completely drowned in hare fur. Cowberry nose. Eyes blue, spring. He looks up at me and quickly blinks his light cilia.
Sparrow is two years younger than me, goes to the fourth grade. His voice is chirping.
- Well, yes, no! - I mimic Sparrow. - Did you take an ax?
- He took it, - he answers and shows me an ax sticking out of the burlap.
- You can't lift it.
- I'll pick it up.
We went for the trees. Our village is among the forests. Forests are known, dense. And now there is an impenetrable coniferous wall outside the window, and only occasionally a piece of the sky will flash in the gaps, it will brighten up and suddenly a clearing will open, as if surrounded by a fence - closed by a pine forest.
Sparrow and I are going to the platform "Seventy
eighth kilometer. This is the next stop. Back in the fall, the route of the future high-voltage power line was outlined there, and it is allowed to cut down the forest along the route.
- Will you have many guests? I ask Sparrow.
- A lot of.
- We're leaving for the city. Father met his comrade, fought together.
- Come to us, and let them go.
- No, what are you! It is forbidden!
I myself would very much like to go to Sparrow. Here I know everyone, and Sparrow is my friend. But you have to go.
Dad is very happy with this meeting. I have never seen him so cheerful.
- This is such a celebration! he says. - In a peaceful environment! IN New Year at a friendly table! We dreamed about this throughout the war. In the trenches, mud. This, of course, must be experienced, maybe then you will understand!
They urgently bought me a new suit, a white shirt with a strong collar. Must go!
It's getting dark outside. The darkness is gathering rapidly. First it snowed. The sky turned a little red and faded. The forest came closer and closer to the road, the gaps became less frequent.
- It's dark, - I say to Sparrow. - And you won't find a Christmas tree. Are not you afraid?
- No.
- And my knees are trembling! Haha! Now let’s go out, you’ll immediately start screaming: “Misha! Misha!
- But I won't!
- You will!
- I bet I won't!
- We argue! What are we arguing for? Bet! Just, chur, do not walk behind.
The train stopped for only a few seconds and left, rustling in the wind. We are alone. It's deserted all around. Lantern without bulb. He has a hat of snow on him. Railings, up to the railings, stuck in the snow. We go out
dim on the trail. It leads to the village of Berezovka, which is seven kilometers from here.
- Come on, coward! I speak too loudly. - Let's scream!
Sparrow is silent. He walks behind me, sniffling. I'm terrified myself too. The snow crunches underfoot like parchment paper. And the further we go, it gets darker and darker. Ate higher. It is black under them, around the trunks of the pit there are funnels.
- What about wolves? I ask. - What then?
- I am their axe.
- And I'll saw them with a saw, - I'm brave. - Yes, there are no wolves in our forest.
We go out to the meadow. The spruce forest here is small, rare and fluffy.
- Well, I came, - I say and turn off the path. - If you want, follow me.
- No, - Sparrow answers and, without looking back, goes on.
Getting stuck in the snow, I wander from one Christmas tree to another, finally choose, rake the snow under it and start sawing. I listen. Somewhere far, far away, Sparrow taps with an ax.
- That-lik! I scream. - That-la!
But Sparrow does not respond. Stubborn! Having cut down the Christmas tree, I tie it with a rope and trample on the snow for a long time before I find a path. It became quite dark.
- Tolik! I scream again. - Sparrow!
- Hey-gey! - the forest responds. Something clicks, crunches in the branches.
- Sparrow! I scream over and over again. But Tolik does not answer. And then I guess he left. I raise the tree and run to the railroad. I can still hear the train coming. Here she is, right next to me. It seems to have stopped. And she went again. The sound starts to fade. I run to the platform. Empty!
- Gone! - I almost sob. - Gone! Coward! Coward! You will know more from me! You will come to me, wait! ..
I look around. Nobody. Leaning against a dark pillar. Cold. Chilly chills run down the back. My feet are cold, but walking is scary. I stand and look around. The forest is quiet. Occasionally shoots, shoots, but as if something creaks.
“There is no one here, everything is nonsense,” I reassure myself. - Nothing, I'm not lost. And he still knows me! More regrets!"
I'm probably standing for a very long time. Both the hat and the collar of the coat were covered with frost.
Finally the train arrives
They are waiting for me at home.
- Well, here it is! Where have you been? Dad says angrily. - It's already nine o'clock. You know that we are leaving, and you are walking somewhere! Let's quickly wash up, change your clothes. It's time to go. Live!
He shaves. One cheek is clean, the other is soapy, and he examines it in the mirror.
I wash, put on a new white shirt and a new suit. Dad looks at me meticulously.
“Wet your hair and brush it,” he says. - And then you walk, how ashamed to look!
Finally we go outside. Many people walk through the village to the platform. Whole families. On the platform, as on May Day, a crowd. And then there was the train. I accidentally look around and see Sparrow's sister, Natashka.
- Why are you here? I ask.
- So.
- Did Tolik bring a good Christmas tree?
- None.
- How - none? - And it makes me laugh. “Shit! Ay yes Tolik!
- He has not come yet.
- Did not come? I ask in surprise. - Why didn't you come?
“Go, go,” dad says to me and pushes me into the car.
“How did you not come? -The door slams behind us, and we are going.- And where is he? -I pass in a crowded-
wagon. I stand among the broad backs, collars. - Where is Tolik? After all, he left. Where is he? - I ask myself. - After all, I called him, he did not answer.
I look out the window. Flashes black and white, like a broken TV. Sometimes lights flash, dim, yellow.
- Why are you so sad? Mom asks.
- Yes, it is.
- Worried, - says dad and smiles.
I'm getting hot. The hard, almost iron collar of my new shirt presses against my chin. The shirt is biting me.
"Where is Tolik?" - I think.
Papa's friend lives in the area of ​​new buildings, it's two stops from the city. The houses here are bright and rarely located. In all houses today - not a single dark window. All multi-colored: red, yellow,
green as Christmas tree lights.
Papa's comrade joyfully greets us. He shakes his father's hand for a long time. He says hello to his mother, then to me.
“Vasil Vasilich,” he says to me. - Take off your clothes, go to the room.
Some people come out to meet us, also say hello, dad and mom call their first and middle names, and they simply say to me: “Hello!” Only one aunt, pushing sideways through the small-sized door, shouts to me:
- Hello my Sunshine! What a pretty boy! Just beautiful! I'm Aunt Adya. And he gives me his hand. I take it and don't know what to do. The hand is soft, and not a single finger moves.
But Aunt Adya had already forgotten about me. She says something to the others and rolls into the next room.
I stand alone for a long time. The men are smoking in the corridor, talking about something, all the women are in the kitchen. And I hide in a corner, to the receiver, and quietly twist the tuning knob. Whistles, crackles, hums. Music breaks in. The world breathes loudly and noisily. The last hour of the old year is dying out. New Year is coming!
“Where is Tolik? - I think. - Where is Tolik? Really in the forest? .. Alone?
“And the train was going - chick, chick, chick - to Chicago!”
“And in the coming year, I hope you will achieve the same large milk yields?” - “Of course!”
“Tolik, what are you, Tolik! How so?"
And I think what Tolik is weak. When we go for mushrooms, he gets tired the very first. He is the only one of ours who cannot swim across the river.
And I remember how trustingly he looked at me today with his blue eyes, quickly blinking his cilia
- To the table! - commanded by Vasil Vasilich. - Everyone at the table!
We sit down. Radio - at full volume. Silence. And now, "Dear comrades! .." Everyone gets up. They hold glasses in their hands. With new happiness! Happy New Year! ! And - sh-sh-sh - Moscow. Red Square. Boom! Boom! Boom!
- Hooray! everyone screams. - Hooray!
As always, I'm waiting, how I love this moment!
- Hooray! With new happiness, Happy New Year!
Shoot bottles of champagne, hiss and pour
sparks sparklers. Confetti falls on people, on the table.
- Hooray! - Aunt Adya screams louder and longer than all.
And then the dancing begins. Aunt Adya jumps up, dropping chairs, rushes towards me.
- I'm with a young man! She grabs me and drags me to the middle of the room. - Tara-ra-ra, tara-ra-ra! He puts his hand on my shoulder and starts to turn me back and forth.
And I'm like a robot being taught to walk. I stumble, trudge after Aunt Adey.
- Tra-ra-ra-ra, ta-ra-ra-ra!
It's finally over. The music stops, and I quickly slip into the hallway.
- What's new, young man!? Are you so boring? - asks Vasil Vasilyevich. He is the same height as my dad. But wider in the shoulders, tighter. Whiskey he began to turn gray - How are you on the training front?
- He studies well, - dad answers for me, takes Vasil Vasilyevich by the arm. - And I, Vasya, still remember how you dragged me wounded then, near Ust-Narva.
- Yes, what is there! I you or you me After all too would not leave.
They go to the kitchen and light up. Vasil Vasilievich, having asked his father for permission, opens the window, and white steam pours into the kitchen from it. As if on the street someone smokes and exhales into our room.
And I return to the room and clog for the receiver. I think about Tolya. Maybe he is now wandering through our forest, sinking waist-deep into the snow? Or, crouched, sits somewhere under the Christmas tree and freezes? I feel good here, but what about him! Because he's so weak.
"Maybe tell dad?"
I go out into the corridor.
- Well? Dad asks.
- Shreds remained in the forest!
- What Tolik? Dad doesn't understand.
- Sparrows.
- How did you stay?
I am telling. Dad is silent, looking at me. Then he softly pats me on the back of the head and smiles:
- What are you! Tolik, probably, has long been at home. He knows our forest better than you. Oh you! - He ruffles my hair. - Do you really want to see Tolik, right? confess?
- No, really! Tolik could stay.
- OK OK! - says dad. - Be patient! Every day with Tolik! - And he's leaving.
I stand at a loss. Indeed, maybe Tolik has already returned? We left, and he came, sits to himself!
And suddenly remained, then what? What then?
I know Tolik well. He can!
- Vasil Vasilyevich, do electric trains run now? I ask.
- Yes, the last one at one in the morning. And tonight, maybe all night. Why would you? Didn't you want to go home?
- No.
I remember that a train leaves from us to the city at two o'clock. And now it's half past one. You can go and come back. Find out if Tolik is at home, and back. Nobody will notice.
I take my coat and hat and leave. I dress already on the street, on the run.
In the whole train, I'm probably the only one. Now I only think about whether Tolik is at home? If at home, then I will come and tell him. I will tell. I don't know what I will tell him. What if he's not at home?
The closer I get to my station, the more anxious I become. I stick my face to the glass, peer into the darkness. Here is the village. Lights are on in all the windows of the Vorobyovs' house. So, Tolik is at home! I'm heading for the exit. “Well, Tolik! Well, coward! And now they will ask me!” The train slows down, quieter, quieter. Stops. The doors open. But I don't go out. I see Tolika's mother. She, chilled, stands at the house and tensely, anxiously looks into the distance. She is waiting. Or is it just me?
The doors slam shut. The train is shifting, gradually begins to pick up speed.
So Tolya is not at home? So he hasn't arrived yet? He's in the forest!
I get off at the Kilometer 78 platform.
The path into the forest is like a deep cave. You can't even see the sky above. The forest is all black, there is no light anywhere. And it seems that someone is hiding behind every tree, silently watching me. The gnarled branches of the trees reached out to me like clawed paws. Here, at least the road is a little lighter, something is visible, but I have to climb there, into the darkness.
The train subsides in the distance, and I still stand and look around, in indecision I stagnate in one place. Maybe not walk? Scary! But you have to go. "Step, step!" - I command, quietly rearranging my legs, ready to rush back every second. I don't look back, I'm afraid. I don't call Tolik. Putting my head on my shoulders, hunched over, I pass under the multi-ton branches of Christmas trees. I cannot determine where I then turned off the path. At first it seems to me that in this place, then - in another.
- Tolik! I begin to call softly. - Tolik! Sparrow!
In a half-whisper, carefully, as if Tolik is standing somewhere nearby and will now respond to me. Now I don't know where I'm going, away from the path or towards it. I lost my bearings a long time ago and just wander through the woods.
- Tolik! I call louder and louder. - Sparrow!
Walking on snow is as difficult as running on water. I stumble, fall and walk again. I climb through a dense crisp spruce forest.
- Tolik! I call. - Tolik! - and I'm crying. There seems to be no end to the spruce forest, it seems to be intertwined with barbed wire, you can’t get through it. I lean on him with my chest, rest with all my might and climb, climb.
I understand that I'm lost.
- Help! I scream. - Help! - Snow, snow from all sides, from below, from the sides, touch the tree and from above - wow! - and crawling, crawling, rustling, snow avalanche. And I'm alone! No one around!
- Help! Tolik! I scream. I don't want to freeze here in the woods. Just don't stop, just don't stop! There is unbearable pain in my legs, I lost my mitten and now my hand freezes. I hide it in my pocket and climb, not looking where.
- Tolik! Tolik! - It seems to me that someone grabs me, holds. - Ah-ah-ah!
And quite unexpectedly I go out on the field. I see lights ahead. The people are warm. Warm! I look around. The railroad tracks are right next to me. I get out on it and, sobbing, stumbling, run to the village. This is our village.
“And Tolik, what about Tolik? Frozen Tolik! Need to save! Call people!
The light is on in our house. I carefully open the door and enter the room. At the table, dad and Vasily Vasilyevich. They look long and hard at me. For some reason, I am shy and turn away in embarrassment.
- Where have you been? - Dad asks sternly.
- For Tolik, - I mutter a little audibly.
- Answer the truth!
- For Tolik, - I repeat.
Dad grabs my sleeve.
- Tolik has been sleeping for a long time, I went to see him. Where have you been? Speak!
I am ashamed of Vasil Vasilyevich, and I am silent. Tolik, Tolik! I suddenly feel so sad.
- Where did you learn to lie? - says dad.
- No need! - says Vasil Vasilyevich.
He ruined the whole party!
- And you find out! .. - I shout.
- Well, why so! - reassures Vasil Vasilievich dad. - Get dressed and let's go. They are waiting for us there, worried. Let the boy go to sleep. It happens at their age.
“Where have you been, anyway?” Vasil Vasilyevich asks me.
- For Tolik.
- Who is Tolik?
- Yes, there is one friend here, - dad explains.
- Well, so what about Tolik?
- Stayed in the forest. When they went for the Christmas trees, - I say.
- In the forest? - Vasil Vasilievich asks in surprise. - Why didn't you tell your father?
- I told.
“I did,” Dad sighs. - It was necessary to say it properly, for real. - In his voice sounds uncertainty, annoyance.
- So, so - Vasil Vasilyevich looks at
me. - So you went? Search? Alone in the woods? Everything is clear Perhaps you're right Well, go to bed. Let's go, he calls his dad.
They are going away. A door slams in the hallway.
- Why are you such a guy, - I hear how Vasily Vasilyevich says quietly, reproachfully to my dad. They pass under the window. - After all, you see what a guy you have, well done! ..
Muffled by the voices, the frozen snow creaks loudly underfoot.

TWO SAME BIKES

In the summer, Zhenya lived in the country.
In fact, he would have preferred to live somewhere else, say, in a pioneer camp, but my mother said that the air was better in the country, because when three hundred pioneers and schoolchildren passed through the camp, there was nothing to breathe from the dust and hubbub.
In addition to Zhenya, the owners and the artist Rymsha lived at the dacha, who swallowed ping-pong balls and took them out of Zhenya's ear.
Rymsha came to the dacha every Monday -
Monday was his day off. And although on other days Rymsha's room was unoccupied, it still seemed to Zhenya that Rymsha was sitting in it.
One day - it was on Friday - Zhenya looked into the room, knowing for sure that Rymsha was not there, and - he was dumbfounded: Rymsha was there! Rymsha, dressed in all black, prayed to the electric meter.
- Do you believe in God? - Eugene asked dumbfounded.
- No, - answered Rymsha.
- Then what are you doing?
- I pray.
Frightened Zhenya backed away from the room. And he came to his senses only at home, when he learned from his sister that Rymsha was an artist.
Since then, he has been following Rymsha, waiting for who knows what.
Today he met Rymsha at the house.
- Hello, youth! - said Rymsha, looking at Zhenya.
- Hello!
- Where are you going?
- Home.
- I'm on the river. Do you want to ride a bike?
Zhenya wanted. He already said it all
Rymshe, but remembered in time that it was time to go home.
- No, thank you, another time
- I know, - said Rymsha and went, waving a towel.
Sometimes Zhenya said “you” to Rymsha, and sometimes “you”, and Rymsha was not at all angry at this.
Rymshin's bicycle stood by the flowerbed in the garden. With one shoulder he rested against a tree, with the other - against the porch. Zhenya knew that if you tease Rymshin's bicycle properly with a red rag, he will surely jump out of his ambush and rush at Zhenya
A wonderful artist who prays to an electric meter and can swallow ping-pong balls must have had a wonderful bike.
Quite recently Zhenya drowned exactly such a bicycle in the river. Prior to this, the bike was in the country a whole
a month, and each time the mother said that it would be time for this bicycle to return to her home, but her sister raised her eyebrows - they are thick, like a squirrel's tail - and said that she would not take this bicycle to the owner, the owner should come himself.
The owner didn't come.
And the bike was gone.
But I did not want to remember this: Zhenya hoped that Igor Petrovich, a friend of his sister and the owner of a bicycle, would still get his car from the bottom of the river.
Zhenya entered the room.
Sitting at the table were his mother, sister, and Igor Petrovich, who appeared from nowhere.
All three had sour faces.
But when Zhenya entered the room, all three, as if on command, smiled, and he realized that these smiles were for him. Zhenya also forced a smile out of himself. But he didn't feel well.
“Hi,” he said.
- Hello, - said Igor Petrovich.
- you came to us
- Igor Petrovich came for a bicycle, - said the sister.
- Did you come for the bike? - Zhenya asked again.
- Yes. I think you've ridden enough on it.
Then the mother said:
- What do you! We didn't let him ride at all! He rode it only once to the river and returned back
And although the mother unknowingly told a lie, Zhenya, in order to make this lie sound more convincing, said:
- Yes it is
- But I see you are not in a hurry to part with my bike! - said Igor Petrovich and almost winked. - A?
For some reason this wink reassured Zhenya.
He said:
- Come on, I'll show you.
He didn't want to talk about the bike in front of everyone. He wanted to talk with Igor Petrovich about the bicycle like a man: “Igor Petrovich, I will collect bottles on the beach, but I will work out the bicycle!”
“I have already seen him,” said Igor Petrovich. And don't make big eyes. He is standing on the porch.
- Aren `t you ashamed! - said Zhenya's sister. - We say that you skated only once, and you
Zhenya thought feverishly.
It was clear to him that his sister and Igor Petrovich had not reconciled.
It was clear to him that they talked least of all here about the bicycle.
It was clear to him that they needed the bicycle so that they would no longer talk in front of Zhenya about what they were talking about here.
- Yes, - Zhenya said, - I rode it to the river.
Rymsha's bicycle was standing in the same place.
Igor Petrovich examined him carefully.
- What to inspect, - said Zhenya.
“Shame on you,” said the mother.
Igor Petrovich's bike has long been at the bottom
rivers. He drowned when Zhenya and his friends were making a "water machine" out of him. The pontoons sank, the bicycle sank, and Zhenya barely floated out. Zhenya, when he swam out, really hoped that his sister would make peace with Igor Petrovich and that he would forgive everything in joy.
“The wing is scratched,” said Igor Petrovich.
Zhenya was silent. He felt sorry for Rymsha's bicycle.
She went out for Igor Petrovich and Zhenya and was now watching.
But my sister didn't come out. So they won't reconcile.
- And there is no bag with tools either.
Rymshe didn't need them. Rymsha's bike is always in order.
“We will pay you,” said the mother.
Zhenya was ready to bring her handbag - she was lying under the mattress, but she was afraid that Rymsha would appear, and the shame would be such that her sister would no longer be able to go to the institute.
"The thieves!" Igor Petrovich will shout. And he goes to tell everyone about it.
- So-so, - said Igor Petrovich and led the bike out of the garden.
So he got into the saddle, now he has already earned by pedaling.
- Is he, - Zhenya asked with relief, - will he go to the city on it?
- No, - said the mother, - to the train.
- They won't let you on the train.
- God bless him! And you should be ashamed! Why did you go to the river now?
- Ashamed
- Where are you now?
- I'll be there soon
But Zhenya did not hope that he would return soon. He went to the police. He went to the police to declare himself.
At the turn, he met a washed-up Rymsha. He walked, waving a towel, and sang something.
- Where are you going? Rymsha asked him.
“Yes, yes,” Zhenya said.
- How long? Rymsha asked him.
- Don't know.
Not very soon they will release him from the police
- Well, well, - said Rymsha. - Just don't forget that today we are watching mysterious pictures.
“I won’t forget,” Zhenya said with a sigh.
The only room in the police station was empty, and Zhenya was very surprised, because he thought he would see a crowd of crooks here, and armed policemen should be standing nearby, and for half a kilometer everything should smell like gunpowder.
- Where are you, boy? the junior lieutenant, who was sitting behind a low fence, asked Zhenya. On the table in front of the junior lieutenant lay a slide
sharpened pencils, and the ashtray was full of shavings.
- I stole a bicycle, - Zhenya said hopelessly.
The junior lieutenant, out of inertia, still continued to sharpen the last pencil, but then he suddenly stopped and looked sternly at Zhenya.
- Why did you do that?
Zhenya told everything as it was.
- All this is good, boy, - after thinking, the junior lieutenant said, - that is, bad. But first, a statement must be received from the victim
- From Rymsha?
- From him.
- All right, - Zhenya said, - I'll tell him to write a statement
- Tell me, tell me, - the junior lieutenant was delighted. - All this, of course, is a formality, but it’s impossible otherwise. Suddenly you came up with
"I didn't think of it," Zhenya said sadly.
- I believe you, - reassured the junior lieutenant. - But only let him write a statement.
Zhenya found Rymsha, who was walking around the garden, looking for his bicycle.
- Zhenya, - Rymsha said, - I'm looking for my bike. I can swear I left it an hour ago by the flower bed! ..
- Yes, Sergey Borisovich, you left it at the flowerbed, but I, Sergey Borisovich, gave your bicycle
- And how long did you give it away? Rymsha asked anxiously.
- Forever, probably, - Zhenya said. - Igor Petrovich left on your bike, and I don’t think he will return it
- But, Zhenya, - Rymsha said in surprise, - he has exactly such a bicycle! Why shouldn't he ride his own?
Stumbling, Zhenya explained what was the matter.
- Well, Zhenya, the children's colony is crying for you!
- Yes, - said Zhenya, - I was already in the police.
- In militia?
- Yes, and they said that you need to write a statement
For several minutes Rymsha stared at Zhenya dumbfounded.
- Do you remember where you drowned the bike?
- Where are we going? Zhenya Rymshu asked when they went out into the street.
- To Kolya, - said Rymsha.
- Which Kolya?
- To the lifeguard.
- Ah, - said Zhenya. - So he, then, will climb to the bottom and get a bicycle ?!
- Get it, - said Rymsha.
“I know him,” Zhenya remembered, “he wears a wool sweater all summer long.
- Because it can't get warm: it's cold under water.
- How do you know him?
- Wow, - said Rymsha. - We are old friends.
In the evening, Zhenya and Rymsha were repairing and cleaning a thoroughly rusted bicycle.
- I was going to repaint mine for a long time, - said Rymsha. - Yes, all the hands did not reach. So in a way, you did me a favor. But remember for the future - Here Rymsha looked angrily at Zhenya. - I'm not going to change it anymore.

S. Wolf
HERE IS A GLASS OF WATER

When I'm sad, I try to cheer myself up. Not a bad idea, right?
I often feel sad or uncomfortable at all, but the trouble is that I almost never know why I feel sad or uncomfortable. So I try to cheer myself up as best as I can. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't, but I try my best.
Today I’m just coming home from school, and my mood is not a mood, but some kind of nonsense. Why not
I know. I didn't even eat, put on my best swim shorts, grabbed fins, a mask and snorkel, and climbed into the bathroom. He poured half a bath of water and lay down there. I lie down, move my fins quietly, breathe through the tube, examine the bottom of the bath in the mask - and it seems to become easier. It seems to be easier. “Summer is coming soon,” I think, “I’ll go to the dacha and swim all day long with a mask and flippers and hunt big fish. And I will forget about everything in the world. Who is there, huh? Perch? And this? Pike! Just think about it! Well, pricks! Now we don't, she's gone. However healthy. Oh well, we'll see you again. Rest assured. My gun doesn't miss."
I felt cold in the bath, but I decided not to add hot water, no, that's not supposed to be. I got out of the bath, padded softly into the room, took it out of the closet and put on my breeches and a wool sweater. That's what all good spearfishers do if they don't have a special suit, I read.
I got into the bath again. Beauty! Quite another matter! It's hot even! “Hey, there, on the shore! Stop yelling and scaring away big fish! Yeah, here it is, pike! The one! It stands near the algae and does not notice me. This hour we are her "
Suddenly, a call. Someone calls to our apartment. Wow. They can't help ruining the hunt.
Neighbor Victoria Mikhailovna knocks on my bathroom and says:
- Alyosha! There's a girl here for you.
Girl?! Haha! Here's the number! This was not enough!
I answer her directly through the breathing tube, no
taking their heads out of the water:
- Let him go to the bathroom. I don't wash. I'm in a suit.
She says:
- What is it with your voice?
I speak:
- Such a voice.
She says:
- Hm. Strange.
And I began to laugh underwater.
Then the door to the bathroom opened, and I heard this girl come in, stood a little and then sat down on a stool. And I lay in the water and did not raise my head.
“What kind of girl is this? What does she want? I thought. It was a pleasure to lie in the water in a wool sweater and breeches. Warm, great. But it was no longer possible to hunt.
I raised my head and immediately sat down and took off the mask - the girl was a complete stranger. She looked at me, her head cocked to one side in curiosity, as if I were a rare insect.
- Who are you? I asked.
She said:
- I found your briefcase.
- What-oh? - I said. - That is? What does it mean? - And I myself already remembered that when I was walking home from school, I was a little uneasy, I lacked something like that (I felt this, besides a lousy mood), but I never guessed then what exactly I not enough. This is fruit, right?
“I found it at the grocery store,” she said.
And so I sat in the bath.
“Exactly,” I said and laughed. - Right. There I left it. I drank tomato juice there. I found ten kopecks today. I bought a bun at a break, broke it in half - and there are ten kopecks. Not bad, huh?
She says:
- And when I was two years old, I found a hundred rubles. My mother told me, I don’t remember myself, after all, it was ten years ago. And we went to the country, we just lacked money. Are you cold in the water?
“No,” I said. - Trivia. - And then I felt that I had chills on my skin.
“Wait, wait,” I say. - Well, did you find the briefcase, opened it, found out my name and surname? Where did you get the address?
- I went to your school.
- Exactly, - I say, - I went to school; so they say, and so, right? .. Your portfolio has been lost. Can you imagine what they will think of me now?!
“No,” she said. - I figured it wasn't possible. I asked you to give me your address so that we can come to you and invite you to our school - I study at another school - so that you share with us about spearfishing.
“You lie,” I said. - It's all lies. You didn't know I was into deep sea spearfishing! Didn't you know?!
“That's right,” he says. “I didn’t know it at all, but I said it that way, I don’t know why. Honestly.
She wasn't lying, you could see it. I already thought that I caught her, but it turns out - no. I even got a little bored.
- Yes talking. - It happens. There are sometimes, so to speak, coincidences. Where's my briefcase, did you leave it in the hallway?
No, he's at my house.
- Why so?
- You see, what if you died, or you are simply not at home? I will come to you with a briefcase, your people are looking: there is a briefcase, but you are not - suddenly something happened to you! They would have fainted.
- Yes, - I say. - Well, you're the head! I wouldn't have realized. Go wait for me in the hallway, I'll be ready in a moment.
“Nothing girl,” I thought, taking off my wet underwater suit, “quite funny. We need to chat with her more, for mood.
I quickly changed and we went outside.
“Here it is, spring,” she said. - Summer is coming soon.
“That's right,” I say. - I'll wind away somewhere far away, I'll hunt and not think about anything.
- Aren't you going to school with us? she asks. - Can you tell me about spearfishing?
“I don't know,” I say. - I'll think about it. And call
me, please, on "you" - I'm not some kind of old man
She laughed and said:
- Fine. So I will. What else do you do besides scuba diving?
- Yes, - I say - different. This and that. I'm reading. I go to mugs - air and photography. I'm still doing lessons. Sometimes I have to sit for a long time: I have too many triples. And you? - I say.
She suddenly became terribly embarrassed, blushed, and said softly:
- I am an excellent student.
I whistled, stopped and looked at her for a long time, and she turned away and stood all red. I don't understand what happened to her. In my opinion, it's great to be an excellent student, I would love to do that, but I can't do anything.
“Come on,” I said. - Miracle Yudo. You probably go to ten circles and are also the headman, huh?
- No, I'm not an elder. I am nobody. And I don't go to clubs. I can't.
- None?
- None.
“You poor fool,” I say. - Do you know how interesting it is sometimes?
She says:
- I know. I guess. But i can not.
- Yes, what is there to be able to do! - I say. - For example, a photo. All the film is loaded - and you load the film. Everyone puts the shutter speed in a hundredth of a second - and you put in a hundredth of a second. Let's say we shoot a window or a flower in a pot. Together. All - click the shutter. And you, too - klats! And that's it! It's clear?
“Understood,” he says. - But i can not.
"You're a complete dick," I said. - What is there to be able to do!
She says:
- I do not know myself. Everything seems to be clear, but I can not. I can probably load the film, but I don’t know how to go to the circle.
I thought a little and said:
- It seems that I understand you. Exactly. You go-go-dish, go-go to this circle, and sometimes you will find such anguish. Am I saying right?
“I don't know,” she said. - Here we come. I live here.
I ran home, waving my briefcase, and sang a song to my own melody. I composed the melody myself, all of a sudden. A bit similar to "And outside the window it's raining, then it's snowing." I don't remember the words, something like:
Everything in my head is upside down.
Hello!
Tra-la-la!
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
Something along those lines.
I was flying down the street like a meteor, and I even almost knocked down a beer stall, and some guy said about me, pointing his finger at me:
- These will show us.
But I was still in a great mood, even though he poked me.
Firstly, because the briefcase was found: after all, anyone understands what would have happened to me at school and at home if they had known that I had lost the briefcase.
And secondly, because I really liked this girl. All over her room - on the closet, on different shelves, on the stove, on the window - there were frigates, corvettes, yachts, some other unfamiliar sailing boats - many, many things. The whole room was in sails. And on the wall hung a clock, from which a cuckoo jumped out. How many times have I heard and read about such watches, but never seen.
I asked:
- And who made the ships?
She says:
- Yes, they just stand there.
“Yeah,” I said. - It's clear. - And did not bother.
The ships were amazing, I considered them as stunned. The window in the room was open, the wind flew into the room, and the sails moved quietly.
I said:
- You're fine. Very. I would live in such a room and do not know worries! And how neatly done, you can go crazy.
She says:
- Dad did it.
And then I said:
- In two or three years there will be no place to live here at all - only ships.
She laughed and says:
- All. No longer. He disappeared.
- Who disappeared? I asked.
- Dad.
- How did he disappear? Where?
- Don't know. Gone. Disappeared.
- And mom - what, also disappeared?
- No, my mother has not disappeared.
The sails moved from the wind, I still could not come to my senses and almost did not listen to her.
I felt so great, something so incomprehensible was happening to me that everything jumped in me, and I felt that I had to do something right now, immediately. Suddenly I saw through the window that opposite, across the street, there were vending machines with soda water, two of them, and right there I was so thirsty, so thirsty, well, just awful. I even almost jumped out the window, especially since it was completely not much higher than the simple first floor, just a drop. Needless to say, I did not jump out, still uncomfortable, I grabbed my briefcase and began to say goodbye and ran out into the street. It's funny, but I completely forgot about the water and rushed straight home, waving my briefcase and singing a song.
When I got home, it was almost evening. Mom saw me with a briefcase and looked at me for a long time, as if she had already received a call from school that I had been expelled. Then she said:
- What, dear, you were forced to sit at school for violation of discipline? Or a bad grade?
- What are you, - I say.
- But you're with a briefcase! So you haven't been home, have you?
- Nonsense. I ran into a guy here. Maybe now we will do lessons together.
"That's very nice," Mom said. - I have advised you for a long time. Mind is good, but two is better.
“That's right,” I said. - Two minds are better. - And went to another room to do homework.
I laid out my textbooks and notebooks and sat there for two hours, but I couldn't do anything, for some reason it didn't work out. In general, I even sat badly in place, as if a restless motor was working in me: choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo It worked quieter and quieter, and then it stalled and stopped bothering me, but still nothing worked out with the lessons, and suddenly I felt that my mood was rotten, rotten. "Why did it happen?" I thought.
By the way, what is this girl's name? No, I didn't ask her.
What is her school number?
What about the house number?
What about apartments?
I didn't know anything!
I imagined how she sits at home alone, does not go to circles, her room is dark, the window is open, and she sits at the window and looks out into the street, and the wind stirs the sails of her ships. I imagined all this and quickly got up, the motor started working in me again: choo-choo. Suddenly I realized everything, grabbed my father's old cap, his scarf and glasses, put on a raincoat, hid the scarf and glasses under the raincoat, took a notebook in my hands and ran out into the kitchen.
- Where, dear? Mom asked.
"Doesn't fit well with tractors," I said. - No matter how I fight - it does not converge. Maybe the two of us can figure it out faster. I'm going to this guy.
- Well, fly, dear, - said my mother. - Learn.
I jumped out into the yard, after - into the street
It's already completely dark.
“It’s all clear,” I thought, “her windows are just opposite the soda machines.”
When I approached these machines, I did not look at the windows, although it was quite difficult to recognize me: glasses, a scarf, a cap, a raincoat - nothing of this on me during the day
did not have. Maybe that's why I still could not stand it and looked and immediately shuddered, as if I had been bitten by an electric current - I guessed everything so accurately.
She sat at the window and looked out into the street, but the room was dark, and the sails of the ships must have moved, because the wind was blowing terribly outside. And for some reason it was also dark, only the light bulbs in the machines themselves shone.
I turned away and began to look for a glass to drink, first on one machine, then on another, but there were no glasses. Did the wind blow them away?
I began to turn my head in all directions and suddenly I saw that she was jumping out of the window and running across the street towards me. And in her hands is a glass.
"Take a glass," she said, running up. - Do you want to drink?
“Yes,” I said in a bass voice. - Drink.
I guess I didn't take a glass, because she said:
- You do not be shy, please, and drink. There are no glasses here tonight. Only in the morning and afternoon. And many go and want to drink.
- That's it, - I said in a bass voice and a little hoarsely. From excitement, right? - 3-amusing!
“Well, yes,” she said. - As soon as I see that someone is thirsty, I get out with my glass and sing a person, and then again I climb into the window and wait.
- What are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?! - I yelled, and I grabbed my ears and pulled with all my might, because I felt that now, now I would roar.
“It's me,” I say. - You didn't know, did you?
- Who you are?
- Well, I, Alyosha Briefcase and all that
- You don't know you don't know at all.
“Yes,” I say. - Yes. I won't pour, I don't want to. Go put on your coat quickly - and let's go for a walk.
“Now,” she said, ran across the street, climbed in through the window and immediately, in her coat already, climbed back out.
- Where's mom? I asked.
- At work. On the second shift.
We went leaning forward against the wind, and immediately joined hands so as not to fall from this crazy wind.
She called out:
- Where are we going?
- Walk! I shouted. - Don't sit by the window. We'll just walk.
- OK! she called. - All the same, on such an evening, rarely does anyone drink water! - And then, at some aunt, the wind turned the umbrella inside out, and we both began to laugh, although it was unfair, and laughed to the very corner, and then turned to the right, and here the wind was quieter, and I said:
- Let's run over there. Want? I once saw a hefty dog ​​there, she carried in her teeth a "string bag" with food, a briefcase and a doll, and a girl was riding on it. Do you want me to show you this place?
“I want to,” she said.
“Well, let’s run,” I said.
And we rushed off, and all the time I thought how easy and beautiful I run, like a real runner.

A. Kotovshchikova
CASTLES IN THE AIR

Wormwood, bitter, dry steppe stretches. The hot air stood motionless above her. No breath, no hesitation, no sigh. Only in the distance, on the horizon, an airy blue jet trembled.
“What nonsense it turned out,” Kira thought. “Like a bad dream.”
Valya trailed behind.
"It's all my fault," she said plaintively. - You are a Leningrader, but I am still a Crimean
- I could also figure out that it is easy to get lost, - Kira said magnanimously. - And it was I who persuaded you to go see castles in the air.
And she thought: “I wish my mother would be scared if she knew!”
She and her mother rested near Simferopol. Kira became very friendly with Valya. Both were thirteen years old. To Valya's aunt, the accountant of the state farm, the girls went together.
A streak of water flashed with a metallic sheen under a lilac sky from the heat.
- Look! Kira showed.
“Sivash is,” Valya said wearily, “the rotten sea.
But Kira perked up.
- It's beautiful here. The earth is multicolored.
Pale sand, dark red shores approached
to the mother-of-pearl waters of the Sivash. Spots of emerald green, reddish, burgundy blurred on the yellow. This dense carpet grew low plants. Kira bent down and tore off a stalk with small round leaves.
- What strange these solerosy! Is that what your aunt called them? And they don't look like grass.
- Aunt will return only tomorrow. Maybe even in the evening. Until then, no one will miss us. And where will they look for us? We didn't even leave a note that we went for a walk.
- But we thought that in an hour and a half we would return. Yes, we would get there somehow. It can't be that they didn't get there!
- There is milk in the cellar cold - cold- Valya said hopelessly, - and a huge watermelon!
- It would be nice to have a watermelon! Kira sighed.
Leaving on business in the district center, Valina's aunt kissed the girls, showed them where in the cellar there was lunch, milk, and watermelons lay in a pile. She left the girls without the slightest fear: big after all! Could it have occurred to her that they would immediately rush to the steppe in search of mirages? Valya told Kira that in the
you can often see a mirage. Sometimes whole castles, bizarre fairy-tale palaces appear above the lakes. "Oh, let's go take a look! Kira asked. “I have never seen a mirage in my life!”
Now she saw him. And not alone. Already after they realized that they did not know which way the state farm was located, and began to stray across the steppe, Kira suddenly saw a house with a tiled roof ahead, a tree, a haystack. She rushed there: “Yes, there is a state farm!” But what is? A blue stripe flows under the house, it is getting wider. A tree rose into the air and floated upright. She moved from her place and a mop. And now it all melted away without a trace.
“At first I also thought it was true,” said Valya.
And then, more than once, houses and clumps of trees loomed in the trembling haze, now foggy, now clearly. But there were no castles.
I was unbearably thirsty.
But even the smallest bottle of water they did not guess to grab!
- Are we swimming? Kira suggested.
- Yes, what are you?! It's full of salt right there. Every scratch will hurt.
Kira sighed.
- Yes, salt! That's why everything is so gray.
A coldish, subdued tone was also found in variegated
shores, and near the water, pale green in the distance, densely gray under the shore. As if someone, painting the steppe and the sea, generously mixed white into the paint. A gray, frozen coating of salt lay on every blade of grass. Everything - soil, water, vegetation, it seemed, and the very air - was saturated with salt.
Unintentionally, Kira took a plucked saline into her mouth - and her mouth became very salty. Yes, that salty-ku! Lick your hand - the skin tastes salty.
Kira squatted down by the water, dipped her finger into it. The water was warm and seemed to be thick. Kira wiped her finger on the hem of her dress, and yet in a minute it became covered with a whitish coating.
They wandered under the scorching rays, no longer knowing where.
- If only a bird flew by! Kira muttered.
There was nothing alive around - a dull emptiness. No one ran, did not fly, did not sing, did not chirp. Gophers and field mice probably lived in the ground, but they also hid in burrows from the heat.
And do gophers live here?
Suddenly Valya started up:
- Forest belt!
Gray in the side either bushes or stunted trees.
The girls quickened their pace, they were unable to run.
- And here is the deception! Valya said gloomily.
“But still, at least it’s not a mirage,” Kira said.
Huge, bush-sized thickets of thistles. These thistle giants did not give shadows. Maybe in the very thick there was a meager shadow, but there’s no point in climbing there and thinking: you’ll be splintered, splintered.
Bridge railing. Bridge? So it's a river?
What flowed in this gently sloping ravine in autumn and winter - whether it was a river, a stream - is unknown.
Now the soil was hard, wrinkled, cracked and looked like elephant skin.
Only under the middle of the bridge lurked a miserable puddle. To be in the shade, one had to climb into this puddle.
Still, they climbed under the bridge, nestled on the edge of the swamp.
“If we hadn’t put on white handkerchiefs, we would have died long ago,” Valya said hoarsely. - Locks! And why did I succumb to your persuasion!
- Now what can we say about it. Aren't these little animals going to eat us? Kira frowned in disgust. - Oh, what are they doing?
A flock of small flies scurried over the swamp. The flies landed on the water, ran and slithered over it, dreaming
you took off and landed again. None of the flies landed on the girls, never even touched them.
“They go skating,” Kira said with surprise. - Well, exactly. Wow!
The flies, indeed, seemed to be merrily skating. They glided through the salt-saturated water as if they were on ice. They became even rows and all together quickly rolled in one direction. They stopped for a moment and, just as coordinated, all at the same time, rolled into another. Then, for some reason, the direction changed: the flock of flies rushed, gliding in a different way. But not a single fly was out of order.
- Miracles! Kira whispered. - Do they have training? Our guys would have been so great at PE! I would draw, but my fingers do not move.
She opened the notebook anyway. Kira dragged her all the way with a pencil in her notebook, she wanted to draw castles in the air. An awkward movement - the pencil slipped out, fell to the ground and fell into a crack.
- Well! - Kira looked into the crack. The pencil and the trace caught a cold, the soil swallowed it.
“If we had matches,” Valya said dejectedly, “we could light a fire.” To find us.
- And where would we get brushwood?
- The bridge would have been set on fire.
- A bridge may be needed in winter. After all, why was it built here? Yes, with such a sun, the fire, perhaps, you will not see Let's go. Still, there is no shadow.
- I'm about to get nauseous. - Vali's voice was quite sleepy. - I'll faint
- No, it's better not to fall. Otherwise, I will bring you to life with water from this foul, rotten swamp. - Kira tried to speak in a playful tone, but looked at her friend with concern. Helped her up.
They trudged on.
The sun blinded my eyes. Whatever the breeze
blew! Another thistle bush. Now you won't be fooled! We see that it is not a tree.
And suddenly Valya stopped and sank to the ground.
- Valechka, what are you? Stumbled?
Valya crouched helplessly to the ground, covering her head with her hands.
- I can't do it anymore! I can't take a step
- But lying down is even worse! Get up! We'll take to the road. Or someone will pass by.
- Don't you see that no one here goes, doesn't go? - Valya said with irritation. - This edge of the steppe is completely abandoned
- Or maybe someone will go. Well, pull yourself together! - Kira hovered over Valya, feeling completely stupefied: “But what to do? Here you go!” - Listen, Valechka! Get up! In what situations did people not lose heart! Well, think! Your aunt told us yesterday about partisans. Here, in the Crimea! How they hid in the mountains and there was no food at all. There are guys among them, maybe younger than us
- In the mountains - a shadow! muttered Valya.
- There were partisans in the steppe, well, what are you talking about? Probably here too, on this damned Sivash of yours. They had it much worse than us!
- That was during the war
- As if, when there is no war, you can dissolve! - Kira tried to forcibly lift Valya, pulling her by the shoulders, by the hands.
Everything was in vain. Pull don't pull. Valya went completely limp, fell limply to the ground and only kept repeating:
- I can't walk, I have no strength
Kira even out of breath. She stood for a moment in thought. Then she said decisively:
- Well, that's what! I'll run, maybe I'll find some road where the cars go. I will scream loudly all the time on the run
“If you leave, I will die immediately,” Valya said firmly. - I can't be alone.
Sitting next to Vali, Kira looked around fearfully. What an evil steppe! In some places the earth was completely bald - a bare, hard crust, all in cracks. Even the wormwood refused to grow.
The Tauride Garden was visible from the window. They have houses in Leningrad. Huge branched lindens. The crowns spread like a tent, the shade from them is thick and so cool that you can drink it like water. In winter, the trunks turned black on the white snow. From a distance it seemed that they were cut out of black paper and pasted on white. It's like an application. Heavy snow fell. You can stick out your tongue and catch a snowflake. How delicious it is - a snowflake!
But snowflakes don't fly here. There are flies here. They slide like on ice. Very salty. It is necessary to ask the teacher of zoology Claudia Petrovna why the flies train like that? In the zoology room, Sanka Gromov pushed her, Kira. From surprise, she dropped a stuffed wild duck and was terribly frightened: it seemed to her that the duck's beak was cracked. The crack, if it was, was not deep - the pencil would not have fallen into it. Wild ducks do not fly to Sivash. What do they do here when everything around is salty? Picking up the duck from the floor, Kira gave Sanka a cuff. But Sanka is smart, he would have come up with something. And he could drag Valechka on his back, but she can't do it. Klavdia Petrovna then kicked both of them out of the class - both Sanka and Kira. What if she never sees Klavdia Petrovna again? Mommy! What is it?
Through the closed eyelids and then shines red. And if you open your eyes, the whitish, cracked earth and the sea, purple, some kind of metallic, are blinding
If she had a long dress, like the women of India - Kira saw in the movies - they would both close, even a canopy would be arranged over her head. Kira took off her dress and threw it on Valya so that she would not become sunstroke. She herself remained in panties, and covered her shoulders with Valya's scarf. And he sits, as in an oven - burns through it.
She was already running off in one direction, then in the other, shouting and waving her kerchief. But she didn’t run very far so that she could see Valya all the time. Run away and suddenly you can't find your way back? And it's easy to lose this place: everything around is the same.
I don't want to eat anymore, just drink. They will not die of hunger, without food a person can live for a very long time. And without water? After how many days do people who get lost in the desert die of thirst? Aunt Valina will return tomorrow, she will immediately raise the alarm. And if she is delayed?
Was she, Kira, sitting on the hot ground with her knees drawn up to her chin? It’s somehow strange that Valya lies quietly under the dress. You need to bury your face in your elbows, lying on your knees, then it’s dark for your eyes, it’s easier without this brightness
Graphite-gray twilight enveloped the steppe. And the sky on the horizon was ablaze, blood red, orange. The merciless sun was gone.
Kira took a breath of refreshed air, stirred. Shoulders and back were in sharp pain.
Valya sat with her legs crossed.
- How you slept soundly! Well, what should we do? Let's get lost! She whimpered.
At least we won't get lost at night. At least we don't get burned. - Kira jumped up and screamed: - Uy-yu-yu! Back hurts! Yes, I'm all like wood. At night, the fire would be visible.
She looked up and froze in surprise. Against the flaming background of the sunset sky, black silhouettes of running horses suddenly appeared. Muzzles, steep necks, flying hooves - everything is so clear and unusual. Manes flutter on the run.
- Valya! Look! What a beauty!
Valya raised her head and whispered in fright:
- Tabun!
And horse silhouettes grew, became more and more
- They're running at us! They will trample! - Valya quickly got to her feet, horror sounded in her voice.
Kira's heart was pounding with fear. She rushed about, grabbed Valya, trying to drag her somewhere. Weeping, Valya sagged in her arms.
Beside herself, Kira screamed desperately:
- Mother! Ma-a!
She pulled Valya close to her and closed her eyes. Gone! Very close somewhere horse snoring
- What is there? - alarmed asked ringing voice.
Kira opened her eyes. The muzzle of a horse above them. Rider on horseback. It is hard to see it in the dark, someone is looming on a horse's back
And then Kira burst into tears like a little one.
- Uncle, dear, save! she pleaded. - We are lost
The rider muttered something, suddenly turned his horse sharply. The clatter of hooves The rider has disappeared.
Kira looked around in confusion. Empty dark steppe. No horses.
The sky burned down, became lemon. In the silence, the fireflies of the stars sparkled.
Didn't she dream of a rider?
"He's gone!" Valya screamed indignantly.
So Valya saw it. So, it didn’t dream, not
dreamed.
- Ah-ah-ah! Kira screamed. - Hey!
- Hey hey! - responded from the darkness.
And along with the scream, a light flickered. He danced in the air quite high off the ground. What is this?
Again the clatter of horse hooves. Out of the darkness emerged two horses, two riders. One of them was holding a bat lantern.
How they put Valya on a horse's back, Kira
dont know. She herself barely climbed, although someone's hands held her tightly and pulled her up.
The fire burned merrily. The water from the flask was just wonderful. And the cheese bread is amazingly delicious. At some distance, behind the bushes, horses were grazing, snorting. Grasshoppers chirped. Huge bright stars sparkled above, and there were surprisingly many of them.
Valya was reclining, leaning on her elbow, on some kind of bedding, and also looked at the fire.
- Here aunt will be amazed when we tell her how we got lost and almost died! - she said.
“It won’t be long to get lost in the steppe,” replied an old man with tufted eyebrows and a small sparse beard. - And you can completely disappear from the habit! The sun is not joking.
And the boy no-no and snorted, immediately took on a stern look, but then again a sly grin parted his lips.
When the girls were illuminated by the "bat", one of the riders held out in surprise:
- What healthy girls! I thought the little ones were crying
Kira heard this phrase in a fog and involuntarily remembered it. But at that moment, she didn't care. And now, by the fire, she laughed embarrassedly. She screamed pleadingly to such a kid-chik: “Uncle!”
- You, Andrei, how old are you? she asked. I already knew the name, I heard how my grandfather called it.
- Thirteen. Moved to the seventh.
Kira was surprised. She thought that he was not even twelve: a small boy. But stocky, strong. How he dragged her onto a horse!
- And we moved to the seventh. You come to me in Leningrad! Come by all means! I'll show you everything. You know what trees are in the Tauride Garden! - Kira smiled from the top of her head, feeling infinitely happy, and suddenly shivered shiveringly: - Oh, something seems to chill me, I don’t know what it is
The old man stood up, pulled out a jacket from somewhere and carefully covered Kirina's shoulders.
- I'm looking closely. So you're completely burned out! This girl is nothing, - he pointed to Valya. - And you, daughter, will have to get sick
The old herdsman turned out to be right: Kira lay in bed for a week with a high temperature, and she had to send a telegram to call her mother from Simferopol. Kira's back was full of bubbles. And then the skin came off in layers.
- Tell me, please, how I was renewed in the steppe! - looking at the new thin skin, Kira said with a laugh. ¦
But a whitish, cracked earth rose before my eyes, a blinding metallic sea, and my heart sank in fright; after all, the hot sun of the Crimean steppe nearly killed them.

H. Grandchildren
DESPERATE FLIGHT

Outside, behind the frozen windows of the control room, a car engine rumbled dully. The door slammed, and a man in a triokha and a black oiled sheepskin coat entered the room in clouds of frosty steam.
- On duty, a ticket to Uyanda! - he said, upholstering the snow from the boots with his mittens. - Hurry up. To turn around in the morning.
"Here's your ticket, Nikitin," said the officer on duty, rising from the table and holding out a double-folded sheet of paper to the newcomer. - Only today you will go with a passenger.
- What passenger? Nikitin tossed his head. - Still not enough!
- Here is your passenger, - the dispatcher pointed to Vitalka, who was huddled in the corner. - Deliver all the way to Uyanda in perfect order and health. The boy is going home for the holidays. To the father.
- Do you know what flight I have? shouted Nikitin. - I have a desperate flight. Seven tons of fuel in the tank! Yes, even in the snow! I don't know how I'll scratch my way to the mine. And you are my little boy! Thank you!
- But, but, be quiet, - the dispatcher said wearily. - I suppose you make a Christmas tree with your own. Does that mean it's not necessary? Nothing, take it.
Nikitin took the ticket and looked Vitalka up and down.
“Well, get going,” he said. - Get in the car.
Vitalka picked up his suitcase and rushed out of the control room.
The fuel truck looked like a huge tank ready for battle. Heat came from the radiator. The corrugated herringbone tires of the wheels went deep into the road roll.
Vitalka climbed into the cab and settled comfortably on the springy oilcloth seat. He placed the suitcase between his legs.
A minute later, Nikitin appeared, without looking at Vitalka, started the engine and pulled the car off.
The village soon disappeared from sight. There was only a white ribbon of the road and high snowdrifts on the sides. The fuel truck moved between them like an endless ice tunnel.
- From boarding school? asked Niki-Kitin unexpectedly.
- From the boarding school, - answered Vitalka.
- In what class?
- In the sixth.
- What's your name?
- Vitaly.
- Do you bring good grades to your father?
- Nothing, - answered Vitaly.
- Well done then.
He didn't say another word, just looked thoughtfully at the road, slightly turning the steering wheel.
Vitalka was also silent. The driver seemed to him a stern and somewhat angry man. This was awkward to talk to. If you want, let him start.
Soon Vitalka dozed off, lulled by the monotonous hum of the engine, and then fell asleep completely, resting his head on the springy back of the seat. In a dream, he saw a mining club, a father in a festive costume and a fluffy Christmas tree shining with multi-colored lights. The Christmas tree slowly turned on its base, its lights flared up brighter and even hummed with tension.
- Dad, - said Vitalka, - after all, light bulbs can burn out! Gotta turn them off!
“They won’t burn out,” my father said calmly. - On a holiday they do not burn out
Then it was all over. Something cracked and he poked his forehead forward. Ears were filled with thick silence.
- Damn it! To her this way. Seems like they got stuck.
Vitalka slowly came to his senses. Nikitin's chin, overgrown with stubble, swayed in front of him. Thin, dry lips moved over his chin.
Nikitin cursed in a whistling whisper. The fuel truck stood in front of a white wall. The air in the cabin quickly cooled. A thick snowy mountain was visible through the front glass.
- Sat down! I told the dispatcher that the flight was desperate. Did not believe. Now get it.
- Where are we? - asked Vitalka.
- At the seventy-second kilometer. You see, the hills have gone. You slept for two hours.
He yanked open the cab door and jumped down onto the road.
Vitalka followed him. Air stuck in my throat. Vitalka covered his nose with his mitten and coughed.
- as cold as
"Thirty-five degrees," said Nikitin. - Africa.
They stretched their legs near the car. Vitalka's head was still buzzing from sleep. Christmas lights flickered in front of my eyes. Coming to himself, Vitalka looked around. The road ended at the foot of a snowy mountain. Probably, an avalanche broke from the top of the hill and blocked the path.
Vitalka stepped towards the rubble and kicked a gray block that had stuck to the road. The snow creaked like dried earth.
- So what's now? Vitalka sighed.
- What, what - Nikitin walked around the fuel truck, hit the rear wheel cylinder with his fist, looked under the chassis. - Sat down, lad, as it should be. They are there, at the mine, hiding us how much in vain. The authorities hurried - a radiogram from the motor depot was sent last night. They are waiting for us today. Waiting and hoping.
Vitalka was surprised and delighted that Nikitin did not say "me", but "us". This means that now he is not just a passenger, but a person who is to some extent responsible for the delivery time of fuel to the mines. And the driver does not consider the eVo an unnecessary load.
“We have an ax in the fire box, and I took a shovel in case,” said Nikitin.
They climbed the hump of the rubble.
The fuel truck was at the highest point of the ascent. On both sides the road rolled down, encircling the hill with a narrow cornice. To the left, just behind the curb, the edge of the cliff shone like a broken line. There, in the depths, houses between the hills. It was already getting dark. And on the right, on a smooth slope, along which the avalanche had slid down onto the road, a short northern day was still smoldering.
- Great, - said Vitalka, looking at the other side of the blockage. - Here you can’t break through with a bulldozer
- Yes, brother, we got into history - muttered Nikitin.
The avalanche that crossed the track was not wide - only ten or twelve steps. And yet it was impossible to dismantle such a mass of frozen snow by hand.
Nikitin walked over the crisp, starchy boulders, fell into the pits with his feet, slapped his thighs with his mittens, and thought.
Vitalka wanted to sleep. Eyelashes glued frost. He rounded his lips and exhaled a thick stream of steam. The air rustled like tissue paper. This meant that the frost was stinging under forty.
"Uncle Nikitin," he asked. - Give me the axe. Frozen. I'll cut some snow
They went down to the tanker.
- There are no worse mine flights. Podzagoresh - no one will help out. Cars go here once a week, and then one by one, - Nikitin grumbled, taking out an ax and a shovel from a box. - I really didn’t want to go on this flight. But I had to. You can’t leave people without a holiday. Take it. I'll dig with you. Let's try to make entrances
Vitalka figured the ax on his hand, cut it into the snow. The blade went with a creak, as if into a tree. Nikitin unfolded his mitten and glanced at his watch.
- Four soon. They have a good canteen at the mine. Now a couple of deer kidneys with buckwheat porridge and a glass of tea
An hour later, it began to seem to Vitalka that the car had stopped in front of the blockage yesterday. Time was running out. Time froze across the road like a heavy snowdrift. All that remained were the steady swings of the ax with which Vitalka was carving out white bricks, and the squeal of a shovel eating into the snow. My hands ached with tension. The short fur coat interfered with work. Vitalka dropped him. It got easier.
“What time is it now: six? seven? Vital thought.
ka. - And when will Nikitin stop? You have to take a break."
He would never have stopped before the driver. He did not want to appear weak in Nikitin's eyes. And he wasn't weak either. He remembered how in the spring, together with his father, on a Sunday afternoon, he sawed two cubic meters of logs from logs, and then they chopped them together for firewood. In the evening, after work, they drank tea and the father looked at him approvingly, and then said:
- Today was a real day. You are my good guy.
Sweat seeped through his shirt, crackling on his shoulders in brittle crusts. Eyebrows turned into tufts of cotton stuck on the forehead. They pulled together the bridge of the nose, interfered with looking.
Finally the shovel stopped screeching.
Let's go start the engine. No matter how the radiator freezes, - said Nikitin.
It was cozy in the rapidly heated cabin. Nikitin turned on the light on the instrument panel. The space behind the cockpit glass is no longer huge. Now they had their own little human world, abandoned in the dead hills between Indigirka and Uyandina. Back along the road - seventy-two kilometers to the nearest village. And more than a hundred to the mine.
- What are you chasing without restraint? Look, boy, you'll run out of steam quickly, - said Nikitin.
- It's not me, it's you driving, - Vitalka smiled.
- I'm, I'm an adult. How old are you now, thirteen?
- No, I'll be thirteen in March. Number seven.
Nikitin looked at the boy.
- Tired?
- Not. I can work, no doubt.
- And I have no doubt. I see. Well, get some rest.
The driver leaned back in the very corner of the cab, stretched. My knees cracked.
- Do you have a father who is at the mine?
- Replacement master.
- On the subway or in open works?
- On the placer.
- It's hard now outdoors work.
- Of course, - said Vitalka. - He's just used to it. He has been in the mines for the fourteenth year.
- So, it turns out that you were born here?
- Here, - said Vitalka. - On Burkhale. How long have you been a driver?
- Six years soon. I used to work as a taxi driver in Moscow.
- Why did you leave here? Is it bad in Moscow?
Nikitin considered.
“Actually, I’m tired of sitting in one place,” he said. - You live, you live, and you don’t really know the land on which you live. Wanted to see. I went to the district committee, took a ticket. We need people everywhere.
- We're good, right? - asked Vitalka.
- Fine. If it had been bad, I would have left immediately. And now I've settled down
- And I really want to go to Moscow, - Vitalka said dreamily. - Dad promised to go on vacation to show.
- You can do more. You will have time to Moscow, and to Leningrad, and to the Black Sea
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
- Well, let's go for a walk, - Nikitin said, turning off the engine.
Night darkness rose from the valley, flooded the road. The sky sank very low, crushing the hills under it. A stream of icy wind flowed over the blocks of the blockage, lashing painfully on the cheeks. Oh, how I didn’t want to get out of the warm cabin of a fuel truck!
Nikitin switched off the light on the instrument panel and switched on the headlights. The light broke through an oval tunnel in the twilight and rested against a white wall cut with an axe.
The snowdrift remained as high as at the beginning. There was no work to be seen.
"That's it," said Nikitin. - Now we will cut off the top of the blockage. Maybe the car will pass. Let's hope the snow doesn't fall.
The ax creaked again and the shovel screeched.
At the top of the blockage, the wind roamed widely, freely. On the slope of the hill walked snow spinners. Frost climbed under a sheepskin coat, burned the body, carved tears from the eyes.
The site was quickly leveled - the snow did not have to be thrown up, it rolled along the slope into the dark abyss of the ravine and clapped a little audibly deep below.
Half an hour later, they began to dig the exit on the other side of the blockage. It was dark here, headlights were a yellow glow above their heads. Nikitin coughed and muttered something in an undertone. Vitalka continually rubbed his cheeks, nose and chin with a scarf. Rough fur chafed the skin. Sweat flowed into the abrasions, and his face was burning and cold at the same time. The ax turned in his hands - his fingers lost their tenacity. He tried to keep up with the driver, but fatigue overpowered him. At times he did not even notice where he hit with an ax. The head was spinning. “Hurry to finish,” he pounded heavily in his temples. - Hurry Hurry Hurry » Maybe the car will break through, and then in a few hours he will see his father. Father is probably already waiting. Prepared a gift. I wonder what? Last time he gave him wonderful dog fur boots, these are the very ones that are now on his feet. And then there will be a Christmas tree in the mining club. And he will sit next to his father, talk, laugh, look at the dancers And there will be no circle of this cold darkness, wind, snow
- Well, it seems that's all - said Nikitin. - You don't need to clean up much. And so we'll go - He threw off his mitten and with the edge of his hand drove sweat from his forehead. - Let's go to the car, rest a little.
They climbed into the cab of the fuel truck.
A light bulb flared up, illuminating from below Nikitin's crimson face with hot spots on his cheeks.
- And you, Yaren, well done. A real northerner. Without you, I would be digging here until the morning
- Uncle Nikitin, - said Vitalka. - You must come to us to celebrate the New Year. You will be a good guest. Pass the fuel and come. Ask where the Balabins live. Everyone will show you. OK?
“All right,” said the driver. - If only I could stand the snow.
He smoked a cigarette and pressed the starter sharply. The car jerked. The engine distinctly uttered: “Yes, yes, yes,” and it worked powerfully and evenly.
"Let's try our work," said Nikitin.
The fuel truck roared, tensed up and climbed onto the rubble. He
climbed like a huge black buffalo, unfolding large blocks of snow under him. The people in the cab did not know what was going on under the wheels - in front lay the smooth road they had dug, silver-gold in the electric rays. She seemed both strong and unsteady at the same time.
"Let's. Let's. Let's. Let's!" Vitalka's heart was pounding in time with the engine.
- Damn it!
The seven-ton weight brought down some kind of void in the depths of the snowdrift, the car fell on its side, the wheels turned idle several times in a row.
- It was necessary to chain - Nikitin remembered.
But the wheels came off. The car leveled off.
Both sighed
- Swept
And immediately the back of the fuel truck fell somewhere sideways. There was a loud splash of kerosene in the cistern. Vitalka flew at Nikitin, hit his face on his shoulder, and clattered his teeth. The car continued to settle, lifting up the radiator. Vitalka and the driver were no longer sitting, but were lying on the back cushion of the seat.
"The avalanche is crawling!" - Vitalka guessed. It flashed before my eyes: the bottom of the valley, the bursting tank, the cabin crushed to smithereens, black blood on the snow
- Oh! he yelled, jerked open the cabin door and rolled out.
Nikitin turned off the engine.
In the prickly darkness, they crawled under the front of the car, clutching the burning metal with their hands, trying to understand what had happened ..
Five minutes later everything became clear. Part of the avalanche collapsed down, the platform on the hump of the blockage squinted and barely held back the fuel truck, which had sunk deep with its rear wheels on the very edge of the cliff.
Nikitin tore off his fur sleeveless jacket and, clinging to the hot lid of the hood, began to unfasten the radiator heater.
- Let's! he shouted. - Come on, Vitalka! Let's! All rags under the wheels. Everything is junk. Everything there is!
He leaned into the cab, grabbed a shovel and began to throw snow from under the wheels. Vitalka helped him directly with his hands. Fear knocked all the weariness out of his body.
"Well, it's all right. We almost lost our heads," whispered Nikitin. - Another half a meter, and the end
Clothes and a heating casing were spread under the car.
- Let's touch it little by little, I'll see, - said Vitaly. - I'll give you a push if you need to.
He did not notice how he switched to “you” with the driver. Now he didn't feel like a boy. He was on a par with Nikitin. He was his assistant, shifter and together with him was responsible for the car.
Nikitin got behind the wheel. He lit a cigarette and inhaled several times. Then he dropped his cigarette.
- Let's! Vitalka waved his mitten.
The fuel truck with a growl pulled the casing under the wheels,
5 Conscience
he got up, as if for a jump, then wearily sniffed and slid back into the old potholes.
- More gas! More! - shouted Vitalka, substituting his shoulders under the convex rear of the tank. At that moment, he believed that he was helping the car. With all his might, he tried to keep her on the edge of the cliff.
This time, the wheels mixed the tank top with the snow and climbed higher. One hundred and twenty forces roared in the engine. Dazzling blue headlights cut the night.
- Well! .. Well! .. Well! .. - Vitalka muttered, leaning his whole body on the cold metal.
“If only I could stand the snow!”
The cistern rose slowly. The cold weight pressed less and less on Vitalkin's shoulders and, finally, moved out of them. The engine stopped for a second, then violently jerked and brought the car to a flat roadbed.
And Vitalka felt that, although they escaped, he could not rejoice - he had no strength.
Nikitin fell back and felt the back seat cushion on the back of his head. She was cool and soft. He sat for a while with his eyes closed, then took his hands off the black circle of the steering wheel. He removed it carefully, as from the keys of a piano.
- Vitaly! - called Nikitin, getting out of the cab. And once again: - Vitaly!
Darkness pressed in from all sides. My knees were shaking badly. Slowly shifting his legs, he took a few steps back.
Two ruts worn by the wheels darkened on the slope of a snowdrift. They climbed the blockage and ended there, cut off by a new landslide. The edge of the blockage still could not withstand the last jerk. And on the very edge, above the disastrous depth, howling with an icy wind, stood Vitalka - a small figure in the vast northern night.
- Vital! What are you standing for? After all, they got out! - Sho-
Föhr choked on the burning air, ran up to Vitalka and grabbed him by the shoulders. - You are my dear! They got out, you know?
- They broke out, Uncle Nikitin, - Vitalka answered like an echo.
- Let's go to the cab, - said the driver. - You are my dear assistant. I will definitely be your guest today.
In Chukotka, two thousand kilometers away, somewhere between the islands of Big and Small Diomede, the new year was already beginning.

R. Pogodin
SIM FROM THE FOURTH ROOM

The boy was tall and thin, with unreasonably long arms deep in his pockets. The head on the G-thin neck always leaned forward a little.
The guys called him Semaphore.
The boy has recently moved into this house. He went out into the courtyard in new shiny galoshes and, lifting his legs high, strode out into the street. When he passed by the guys, he lowered his head even lower.
- Ish imagines! Mishka got angry. - He doesn't want to know - But much more often Mishka shouted: - Semaphore, come here, let's talk!
The guys also shouted after the boy various mocking, and sometimes offensive words. The boy only quickened his pace. Sometimes, if the guys came close to him, he looked at them with blue, very large, clear eyes and silently blushed.
The guys decided that Semaphore was too good a nickname for such a squishy guy, and they began to call the boy simply Sima, and sometimes - to be sure - Sima from the fourth issue. And Mishka kept getting angry and grumbling at the sight of the boy:
- We need to teach this goose a lesson. Walking here!
Once Sima disappeared and did not appear in the yard for a long time. A month passed, two months later. Winter began to weaken and was in charge on the street only at night. During the day, a warm wind blew from the Gulf of Finland. The snow in the yard began to wrinkle, turned gray, turned into a wet, dirty mess. And in these spring-like warm days, Sima appeared again. His galoshes were as new as if he had never worn them at all. The neck is even more tightly wrapped with a scarf. Under his arm, he held a black sketchbook.
Sima looked at the sky, narrowed his eyes, as if weaned from the light, blinked. Then he went to the far corner of the yard, to someone else's front door.
- Hey, Sima got out! .. - Mishka whistled in surprise. - Acquaintance, in any way, started.
Lyudmilka lived on the stairs where Sima went.
Sima went up to the front door and began to slowly pace back and forth, looking hesitantly into the dark opening of the stairs.
- Waiting, - Krugly Tolik chuckled, - Lud his sweetheart.
“Or maybe not Lyudmilka at all,” put in Keshka. - Why should he mess with Lyudmilka?
Tolik looked at Keshka slyly, - they say, we know, they are not small, and said:
- What is he doing there then? .. Maybe he breathes air? ..
"Maybe," Keshka agreed.
Mishka listened to them arguing, and thought about something.
"Time to act," he interrupted suddenly. - Let's go talk to this Sima.
- Let's go, - Tolik supported.
Mishka and Kruglyi Tolik moved forward shoulder to shoulder. Keshka also joined them. At the decisive moment it is impossible to leave comrades - this is called honor. A few more guys joined the three friends. They walked on the sides and behind.
Noticing the army advancing on him, Sima raised his head, as always, blushed and smiled timidly.
- What are you? .. - began Mishka. - What is it? .. Well, what?
Sima blushed even more. muttered:
- Nothing I go
- He, it turns out, walks, - Krugly Tolik laughed.
Mishka leaned forward, put his hands behind his back, turned sideways to Sima and spoke slowly, menacingly:
- Maybe you don’t consider us as people? .. Yes? .. Maybe you are brave?
Sima looked around at all the guys with his big eyes, slightly opened his mouth.
- What did I do to you?
- But we are not going to beat you, we will always have time. I say, let's go one on one Let's see what kind of ostrich you are so unusual that you don't want to come up to us.
- With you? Sima asked.
Mishka stuck out his lip and nodded.
Sima looked at his feet and quite unexpectedly objected:
- It's very dirty.
The guys laughed together. And Mishka looked Sima contemptuously from head to toe.
- Maybe you can lay a Persian carpet?
Sima pressed the black album to himself, stamped his feet and asked:
- Wait, when will the sun be up?
When the guys laughed enough, Mishka stepped forward, pulled the album out of Simin's hands.
- He needs the sun Well, let me see!
Sima turned pale, clung to Mishka's hand,
but the guys immediately pushed him back.
And Mishka has already opened the black calico cover.
On the first page of the album, in beautiful colored letters, it was written: "To the teacher Maria Alekseevna from Grigoriev Kolya."
- Yasno is engaged in sycophancy! - Misha said it in such a tone, as if he did not expect anything else.
- Give the album, - Sima asked behind the backs of the guys. He tried to push the crowd, but the boys were standing tight. Some laughed, and Mishka shouted:
- You, sycophant, are not very good, otherwise I won’t even wait for the sun, I’ll let you have a portion of pasta on your neck!
- Turn over further, what are you waiting for? .. - said Keshka.
Next was drawn a sailing ship, a brigantine, as Mishka determined. The brigantine was carried in full sail. Her nose was buried in a seething deep blue wave. On the deck at the mast, the captain stood with his arms folded.
- Wow, great!
The guys settled on Mishka.
Caravels, frigates, cruisers, submarines moved forward. Watercolor storms raged, typhoons And one drawing even showed a giant tornado. Sailors from a small boat hit the tornado from a cannon.
Keshka jumped up and down with delight. He pushed Mishka under the elbow, asked:
- Mishka, give me a picture? .. Well, Mishka
Everyone forgot that the album belongs to Sima, they even forgot that Sima is standing next to it.
Mishka closed the album and looked over the guys' heads at the artist.
- You, sycophant Sim, listen Let's act according to honor and conscience. So that you don't suck up to the teachers next time, we will distribute your pictures to anyone who wants to. It's clear? - And, without waiting for an answer, he shouted: - Well, come on! .. Beautiful pictures of marine life! ..
The pages in the album were bound with a white silk ribbon. Mishka unraveled the bow on the cover, crumpled up the first page with the inscription, and began handing out pictures.
Keshka received a four-pipe cruiser Varyag, a frigate with a black pirate flag. On the deck of the frigate, colorful little men with huge sabers and pistols ran. He begged for another monkey on a palm tree and a high mountain with a white sugar top.
Having distributed all the pictures, Mishka approached Sima and pushed him in the chest.
- Get out now! .. Do you hear?
Sima's lips trembled, he covered his eyes with his hands in gray knitted gloves and, shuddering, went to his stairs.
- Follow the sun! Mishka called after him.
The guys boasted to each other trophies. But their fun was suddenly interrupted. Lyudmilka appeared at the front door.
- Hey you, give me pictures, otherwise I'll tell you everything about you. Why was Sim offended?
- Well, what did I say? They are at one with each other, - Round Tolik jumped up to Keshka. - Now they would go to the teacher under the arm - Tolik bent over, made his hand a pretzel and walked, swaying, a few steps.
Lyudmila flared up.
- I'm not familiar with this Simka at all.
- Well, then there is nothing to poke your nose! Mishka said. - Let's go, I say! - He stamped his foot, as if he was about to throw himself at Lyudmilka.
Lyudmilka jumped aside, slipped and plopped into the snowy mess at the threshold of the stairs. There was a huge wet stain on a pink coat trimmed with white fur. Lyudmila roared:
- And I’ll tell you about this too, you’ll see! ..
- Oh, squeaky! Mishka waved his hand. - Let's get out of here guys.
At the woodpile, in their favorite place, the boys again began to examine the drawings. One Mishka sat drooping, rubbing his palm under his nose (he had such a habit).
- What kind of teacher is Maria Alekseevna? he muttered. - Maybe the one who lives on Lyudmilka's stairs? ..
- I came up with She has not been working at school for the third year, she retired, - Krugly Tolik nonchalantly objected.
Mishka looked at him indifferently.
- Where are you so smart when you don't have to - He got up, in his hearts kicked the log on which he had just been sitting, and, turning to the guys, began to select pictures. - Let's, let's say
Keshka did not want to part with the ships and the palm tree, but he gave them to Mishka without a word. After Sima left, he felt uneasy.
Mishka collected all the sheets, put them back into the album.
The first dedication page was damaged. Mishka smoothed it on his knee and put it under the cover too.
The next day the sun dominated the sky. It dissolved the snow slurry and drove it in cheerful streams to the hatches in the middle of the yard. Chips, pieces of birch bark, sagging paper, matchboxes dived in whirlpools above the bars. Everywhere, in every drop of water, small multi-colored suns flashed, like scattered beads. Sunbeams chased each other on the walls of the houses. They jumped guys
there on their noses, cheeks, flashed in childish eyes. Spring!
Janitor Aunt Nastya was sweeping garbage from the bars. The guys dug holes with sticks, and water fell noisily into dark wells. By noon, the asphalt had dried up. Only rivers of dirty water continued to run from under the woodpile.
The boys were building a dam out of bricks.
Bear, running from school, hung his bag on a nail driven into a huge log, and began to build a reservoir.
- Let's hurry, - he was tearing himself up, - otherwise all the water will run away from under the woodpile!
The guys carried bricks, sand, wood chips, and here they noticed Sima.
Sima stood not far from the gate with a briefcase in his hands, as if he was thinking where to go - home or to the guys.
- Oh, Sima! .. - Mishka shouted. - The sun is dry in the sky, look, - Mishka pointed to a large dried-up bald patch. - So what do you say?
- Maybe bring a pillow? Tolik quipped.
The guys laughed, vying with each other offering their services: carpet, rugs and even straw, so that Sima would not be hard. Sima stood a little in the same place and moved towards the guys. The conversations immediately ceased.
“Come on,” Sima said simply.
Mishka got up, wiped his wet hands on his pants, and threw off his coat.
- To the first blood or to the full force?
“To the fullest,” Sima answered not too loudly, but very decisively. This meant that he agreed to fight to the end, while the hands were raised, while the fingers were clenched into a fist. It doesn't matter if your nose bleeds or not. The one who says “Enough, I give up” is considered defeated.
The boys stood in a circle. Sima hung his briefcase on the same nail with Mishka's bag, took off his coat, tied the scarf around his neck tighter. Tolik clapped his hands and said: “Bem-m-m! .. Gong!”
The bear raised his fists to his chest, jumped around Sima. Sima also put out his fists, but everything showed that he did not know how to fight. As soon as Mishka approached, he put his hand forward, trying to send Mishka's chest, and immediately received a blow to the ear.
The guys thought why he would roar, run away, but Sima pursed his lips and waved his arms like a windmill. He was advancing. He kneaded the air with his fists. Sometimes his blows got Mishka, but he substituted: elbows under them.
Sima got another slap. Yes, such that he could not resist and sat on the asphalt.
- Well, maybe that's enough? - Mishka asked peacefully.
Sima shook his head, got up and spoke again with his hands.
Spectators during a fight are very worried. They jump up and down, wave their arms, and imagine that by doing so they are helping their friend.
- Bear, what are you doing today! .. Misha, give it!
- Bear-a-a Th!
- Sima, it's not for you to engage in sycophancy Misha-a!
And only one of the guys suddenly shouted:
- Sima, hold on.. Sima, give it to me! - It was Kolika shouting. - Why are you waving your hands? You beat
The bear fought without much passion. Among the spectators there would be those ready to swear that Mishka felt sorry for Sch-mu. But after Keshka's cry, Mishka puffed up and began to thresh. Sima bent over and only occasionally put out his hand to push the enemy away.
- Athas! - Tolik suddenly shouted and was the first to rush into the doorway. People's mother hastily walked to the woodpile; Lyudmilka spoke a little further away. Noticing that the boys were running away, Ludmilkins' mother quickened her pace.
Mishka grabbed his coat and darted into half a company, where all the spectators had already disappeared. Only Ket.1ka did not have time. He hid behind the woodpile.
But Sima did not see or hear anything. He is pgkzh-
he stood bent over, deafened by the blows. And since Mishka's fists suddenly ceased to fall on him, he apparently decided that the enemy was tired, and went on the offensive. His first blow landed in the side of Lyudmilka's mother, the second - in the stomach.
- What are you doing? she screamed. - Lyudochka, did he push you into a puddle?
- No, no, - whined Lyudmilka. - This is Sima, they beat him. And Mishka pushed. He ran into the alley.
Sima raised his head, looked around in confusion.
- Why did they beat you, boy? - asked Lyudmilka's mother.
“But they didn’t beat me at all,” Sima replied sullenly.
- But I saw it myself.
- It was a duel. - Sima put on his coat, took off his briefcase from the nail, went away.
But then Lyudmilka's mother asked:
Whose bag is this?
- Mishkin! shouted Ludmilka. - You have to take it. The bear will come by itself.
Then Keshka jumped out from behind the woodpile, grabbed his bag and ran to the front door.
- Run after me! he called to Sima.
- This Keshka is Mishka's friend, - Lyudmilka roared.
In the front door, the boys took a breath, sat down on the step of the stairs.
My name is Kesha. Are you in a lot of pain?
- Not, no so much
They sat for a while longer, listening to Lyuda's mother threatening to go to Mishka's school, to Mishka's parents, and even to the police, to the anti-surveillance department.
- You wanted to give this album to your teacher? - asked Keshka suddenly.
Sim turned away.
- No, Maria Alekseevna. She has been retired for a long time. When I got sick, she found out and came. two months from
worked for me for free. I specially drew this album for her.
Keshka whistled. And in the evening he came to Mishka.
- Mishka, give Sima the album. This is when he was sick, so Maria Alekseevna worked with him for free
“I know it myself,” Mishka replied. All evening he was taciturn, turned away, tried not to make eye contact. Keshka knew Mishka and knew that this was not without reason. And the next day, this is what happened.
Toward evening, Sima went out into the yard. He still walked with his head down, and blushed when Mishka and Tolik jumped up to him. He probably thought that he would be called to fight again: yesterday no one gave up, and yet this matter must be brought to an end. But Mishka thrust his red wet hand into his.
- All right, Sima, peace.
- Let's go with us to make a reservoir, - suggested Tolik. - Do not be shy, we will not tease
Sima's big eyes lit up, because it's nice for a person when Mishka himself looks at him as an equal, and the first one gives a hand.
Give him the album! Keshka hissed into Mishka's ear.
The bear frowned and didn't answer.
The brick dam was leaking. The water in the reservoir did not hold. Rivers strove to run around him.
The guys froze, got smeared, even wanted to punch a channel in the asphalt. But they were prevented by a little old woman in a downy shawl.
She went up to Sima, meticulously examined his coat and scarf.
- Buckle up, Kolya! You will catch a cold again - Then she looked at him kindly and added: - Thank you for the gift.
Sima blushed deeply and muttered, ashamed:
- Which present?..
- Album. - The old woman looked at the guys, as if convicting them of complicity, and solemnly said: -
"Dear teacher Maria Aleksevna, a good person."
Sima blushed even more. He did not know where to go, he suffered.
- I didn't write that.
- Wrote, wrote! - Keshka suddenly clapped his hands - He showed us this album, from the ship -
Mishka stood next to Sima, looked at the old woman and said in a hollow voice:
- Of course, he wrote. Only he is shy of us, - he thinks we will tease him with a toady. Freak!
mi

B. Raevsky
STATE TIMKA

After school, I ran to the volleyball court. If you are late, they will take a seat, then wait. We play. Nearby, the house was extensively renovated. More precisely, it was not repaired, but rebuilt. Back in the summer, they tore off the roof from it, broke out all the internal partitions, windows, doors, floors and ceilings - in general, as the builders say, they took out all the "stuffing", all the "offal". Only the ancient mighty walls remained, probably a meter and a half thick. As if not a house, but a fortress. This three-story brick box, empty inside, was now built on two more floors.
And here we are playing, suddenly we hear - at this construction site there is some kind of noise, screams. What's happened? Did anyone get crushed?
- Fly away, - I say to Mishka from the seventh "b". - Find out what the scandal is. Anyway, you're still on the bench
Well, Mishka left the briefcase and ran there. Soon he returned, laughing:
- It's Timka! Again the booze spread
They also started laughing on the set. Because the whole school knows Timka. Yes, there is a school! He is even known to the police. Quite a celebrity. Specialist in all sorts of stories and scandals.
The guys wink at each other, shouting to me:
- Run, save my friend!
I don't feel like leaving the site. I just moved to number four. My favorite place: at the net, all the balls suit you. Extinguish!
But nothing can be done. Tim needs to be released.
- Get up, - I nodded to Mishka, and he quickly pulled on a jacket, rushed to the construction site.

Timka is my friend. We have been friends for a long time, since the fifth grade. Although, to be honest, it's hard to be friends with Timka! Everything about him is not like people.
Take volleyball for example. Timka folds not so hot as he cuts most often into the net. But noisy!.. For the whole team!
- Out!
- Net!
- Fourth hit!
His voice is piercing, like a police siren. Timka's voice always becomes disgustingly shrill when he is worried.
The guys are angry. Just think, "a fighter for justice"! Judge of the All-Union category! It would be better to throw more accurately.
And Timka argues, gets excited. He talks and talks, but he suddenly closes his eyes and so, closing his eyes, he continues to scribble. Then he opens his eyes, then closes them again. Like a chicken. The guys were both amused and annoyed. Because of this chicken habit, he was sometimes teased like that: "Timka the chicken."
And the stories of the Timkins are countless. Just some kind of "historical child", as our physicist once said.
Once Timka was even dragged to the police station. A policeman came to the school to the director and said:
- Do you have such a student - Timofey Gorelykh?
- Did you do something? the director was concerned.
- With a Finn on one citizen rushed.
The director was already thrown into the paint. Well, they called, of course, Timka. Removed from class. The policeman asks:
- It was so? Did you throw yourself with a Finn at citizen Maltsev in the village of Dudinka?
- No, - says Timka. - I didn't throw it.
- That is, how did you not throw yourself? Here is a statement from citizen Maltsev
“I didn’t throw myself,” says Timka. - And so slightly threatened
Well, in general, it turned out such a story. Timka lived in this Dudinka in the summer with his grandmother. One evening he is walking along the road, he sees a woman sitting on the side of the road, groaning, holding her chest with her left hand.
- You feel bad? Timka says.
"I'm sick," the woman whispers. - In the hospital, however, do not reach
And the road is deserted, cars rarely go on it. One appeared, the woman raised her hand, but the car sped past, not even slowing down. Then the truck flashed by and didn't stop either.
- OK! Timka frowned.
Standing next to a woman. Finally, because of the turn, the Volga jumped out. Timka immediately stood in the middle of the road, raised his hand like a traffic controller.
- Stop!
The car screeched to a halt.
- What are you kidding? - angry driver. - Get off the road!
And Timka:
- The woman is sick. Take me to the hospital.
- Not on the way - says the driver. - And at all Maybe, she is contagious. We need special transport here.
Wants to go further. But Timka does not leave the road.
- You are obliged, - says, - to take. Shame on you!
- Don't shame me! the driver got angry. - Do I know you. You live with your grandmother Anfisa. So I complain to her. Well, off the road!
Then Timka took a penknife out of his pocket.
- What are you? Will you kill me? the driver chuckles. But, by the way, he turned pale.
- I will not kill, - Timka says. - And I will puncture the tire. From the principle I will pierce. honest pioneer
- I will complain! - boiled the driver.
But, in general, he still took the patient.
The policeman and the director listened to this story and looked at each other.
“Y-yes,” the director says. - However, All the same, If everyone grabs knives
- It is forbidden to threaten, even with words. And even more so with edged weapons, - says the policeman. - you have to follow
He took Timka to the department. They talked with him for a long time. In the end, they took the word that they would no longer wave a knife. released
But you never know such "exploits" were listed for Timka ?! He really has a special talent: be sure, at least once a week, but get involved in some kind of story. "Historical Child"! And not all of Timka's affairs ended happily.
Once, on the May holidays, Timka was going down his stairs. He went up to the fourteenth apartment, already raised his hand to call, - there his friend Volodya lived, - yes, he remembered that Volodya
together with his parents on his own "Muscovite" drove off to Riga.
I wanted to go further down, suddenly I hear: behind
door - voices. Quiet, muffled voices
Here's the number! Who would it? After all, Volodya didn’t have anyone left in the apartment? Fact! empty apartment
Yes, Tim thought. -The thieves "
I listened. That's right, voices. One is rough, as if from a barrel. The other one is thinner. Instantly Timka rolled down, looked for the janitor.
- Faster! - speaks. - In the fourteenth thieves! I'll watch on the stairs so that they don't run away. And you call for help.
Again on the stairs. Just in case, he climbed one flight higher so that the thieves, if they come out, would not notice him. Waiting.
Soon came the janitor with an ax, the fireman from the boiler room. Behind them are two more residents.
- Do you hear? - whispers Timka and eyes in a chicken-
mu covers. - Voices And Volodka with his
left.
- Exactly. We left, - the janitor confirms in a whisper. - And they said goodbye to me.
They listened. Yes, voices. And they speak quietly, hiding, that means.
“Break the lock,” Timka whispers. - Grab
their!
But the janitor waved his hand. Leaned against the door. Listens. Then, suddenly, how he wants to! A boom, all the way down the stairs.
- It's a radio! - screams. - You forgot to turn it off!
And then, as if on purpose, music blared through the door.
After that, Timka had no passage in the yard. The "Great Detective" teased him.
Is it only in this story that Timka got into a mess ?! And how did he catch the keys in the hatch? And how was it once removed from the tower ?!
That's why I hurried from the volleyball court to the construction site. What else did Timka throw out?
People crowded around the huge legs of the tower crane. Among them, I immediately saw Timka, although he was, perhaps, the shortest of all. He fussed, waved his arms and squealed so piercingly, well, just like a rooster.
The foreman - a hefty uncle in tarpaulin boots and a blue canvas jacket - chopping the air with his hand, angrily said:
- No, you tell me: I have a construction site or a kindergarten? There is a shortage of mortar here, masons are idle, precast concrete has not been delivered. Worries - the mouth is full, and yet - hello - the boys are climbing
Why cut trees? - not listening to him, Timka sat down. - The year before last, pits were dug, planted, cared for, watered. And here you are! - Timka jabbed his finger into the trunk of a poplar.
I looked: the skin from the poplar side was torn off with "meat". Delicate white rags hang.
Why is this so?
I looked - on the neighboring poplars there are the same torn marks and at the same height. And between the trees there is a deep rut. Ah, got it! These were trucks with their sides with metal locks shuffling through the trees.
- Is it difficult to drive up from the alley? Timka screams. - Is it necessary to disfigure the square?
- I also have a pointer! - boiled foreman. - "From the alley"! From the lane you need to make a detour. Well, I will drive cars in vain?
- Not in vain, but so as not to destroy the greenery, - some old man with a stick in dark glasses intervened. - You, comrade, do not get excited. Delve into. The little girl is talking.
“Of course,” a fussy young woman stood up with a shopping bag. - Such a wonderful square! .. And why boards directly on the grass? What can't be put on the sidelines?
- Not only boards! - Feeling the support, Timka calmed down a little, his voice became not so
shrill. - There's a pile of bricks - the bushes are crushed. And the garbage is thrown right into the square
- You know, citizens, you are not a decree for me here. - The foreman, apparently, was quite nervous. - At this construction site, I'm still the owner. Clear?! If you don't like it, you can complain. Tsvetkov, third construction trust. Until then, get away! Don't interfere! Don't interfere! Styopa! Let's! to the left
And a car with a metal bath instead of a body, filled to the brim with a trembling, jelly-like solution, drove heavily between the trees, scratching one of them.
The foreman left. The crowd gradually dispersed as well.
- I won't leave it like this! said a tall, blind old man.
- Me too! Timka frowned. - out of principle
We walked home together. Timka silently rubbed
bridge of the nose, I knew it was sure sign- Timka thinks.
- Let's write a complaint, send it to the construction trust, - I suggested.
Timka shook his head gloomily.
- Until they get it there and until they figure it out, this figure will bomb the whole square.
We almost reached the house, when suddenly Timka stopped.
- Is Valya at school? What do you think? - he asked.
Valya is our senior counselor.
“Probably,” I said.
- Turned back! - Timka slapped me on the shoulder, and we almost ran to school.
We found Valya in the dining room and told her about the square.
- Disgrace! - Valya was indignant.
- Fact! Timka stared at her. I suggest: immediately gather the guys. Let's set up a barrier where cars turn onto the lawn. And draw a poster. Pokhlesche: "Citizens! Foreman Tsvetkov works here. He breaks trees! Shame on him and disgrace!" And under the poster is a caricature.
- Clever! I rejoiced. - Just great!
I was even offended: why didn’t I come up with this very barrier?
Valya pursed her lips, looked at the ceiling:
- Actually, of course, it's great. But we need to think it over comprehensively. Weigh it soberly.
"Yes," Timka narrowed his eyes. - So you're scared? What is there to weigh? Just don't let the foreman break the trees. In general, Valya, if you want, let's organize it. No, I'll like the guys myself. Out of principle.
- Wait, do not boil, - said Valya. - Sit down for a minute. Cool down. And while I'm thinking.
"Let's go," said Timka.
We left the school, turned to the volleyball court. There was still a fight going on. I told the players about the Timkin project.
- And what?! The guys were on fire right away. - You give!
We rushed to the Pioneer room. Vovka
Schwartz - our best artist - on a huge sheet of cardboard with a brush wrote:
“Passerby stop! The famous magician works here - foreman Tsvetkov. Builds with one hand, breaks with the other!
And on the side, Vovka painted Tsvetkov himself. Vovka, however, never saw the foreman, he painted according to our prompts. It turned out to be a long uncle in high boots and a blue jacket. Right hand he laid a brick on the wall, and with his left he bent the tree into an arc, it was about to crack.
When we were already nailing the poster to the stick, Valya came.
- Well? Timka asked venomously and closed his eyes. - Have you thought about it?
“To protect green spaces is the direct duty of a pioneer,” Valya answered. - And to be literate, by the way, is also the duty of a pioneer. She pointed at the poster. - After the "passerby" you need a comma. Appeal. Fix it.
When the six of us came to the construction site, the foreman pretended not to notice us.
As soon as we stuck a stick with a poster in the ground near the mutilated poplars, the audience immediately began to gather. People were laughing, talking, making noise.
The foreman kept looking at us from the wall. He probably wanted to know what was written on the cardboard. But the poster was turned to the street, and the foreman saw only the reverse side.
Then he climbed down from the wall and, smoking a cigarette, as if by chance, leisurely walked past our cardboard.
I saw - his face turned white, then suddenly turned purple.
"He'll hit Timka," I thought.
But the foreman restrained himself. He turned and just as leisurely walked to his object. It must have been very difficult for him to walk so slowly, so solidly, but he nevertheless withstood the pace taken to the end, until he disappeared into his brick box.
- Well done boys! passers-by said.
- Battle Boys!
People joked, loudly let out all sorts of remarks about the unfortunate builders. But the foreman never showed up again.
“Looks like he just decided to ignore us,” I whispered to Timka.
- Nothing. Will turn, - said Timka. - We'll bake him. Today will not help - tomorrow we will come.
And yet the foreman could not stand it.
He got out of his brick fortress, went up to Timka ..
I got worried.
The foreman, putting his hands in his pockets, stood in front of our poster, as if he had just noticed it, and began to carefully examine the drawing.
"Looks like it," he said politely, though, to be honest, the portrait didn't look like it at all. - Only here's a mustache. And I'm without a mustache.
- To'io, - Timka agreed just as calmly and delicately. - But do not worry. Vovka Schwartz, our main artist, instantly shave you!
The crowd laughed.
- And here's the cap, - says the foreman. - I have a blue one. And then there's a redhead
- Disorder! - confirmed Timka and commanded: - Hey, Vovka! Don't forget to change the citizen foreman's cap later!
So they were poisonously politely talking, and the audience giggled and winked at each other.
Finally, the foreman apparently got tired of it.
"Well, that's it," he said sternly. - They joked - and that's fine. You interfere with work. It's clear? Blow from the construction site. Here I am the owner.
- And we are not at a construction site, - says Timka. - Is the square yours? Please indicate where the construction site ends? We will gladly move there the caricature of Comrade Tsvetkov.
The crowd laughed again. And the foreman was so filled with blood, even his neck was swollen.
“He will hit Timka,” I thought. - Fact, hit.
But then a car with a solution drove up. The driver drove her close to the crowd, leaned out, put pressure on the signal, yelling: “Road!”
- There is no passage through the square, - says Timka. - And in general it is forbidden to buzz in the city!
- What?! - yells the driver. - I also have a state inspectorate!
He gave gas and moved straight to Timka,
And Timka stands between the ruts, in the middle of the road, his legs apart, his socks turned inside, his fists clenched like a boxer when he is preparing for a fight. And he turned white.
But he doesn't close his eyes like a chicken! No, he's aiming directly at the driver.
“So, he probably stood in the village,” I thought. “When the Volga was detained for the patient.”
I went up to Timka and stood next to him. And many more, both children and adults, crowded around him.
The driver swears, and then suddenly how he laughs! He saw our poster!
- So! - laughs. - So, we build with one hand, we break with the other? Eh, - he says, - the fool is with you! - I turned on the reverse gear, backing away, got out onto the road, turned around and drove off.
We saw how soon he drove up to the construction site from the other side.
So we stood until dark: no more cars appeared.
The next day after school we went back to the construction site.
Timka carried our famous poster, which the whole school already knew about. The mustache on the portrait of Vovk managed to “shave” and repainted the cap.
We came, stuck a stick with a poster in the ground, immediately, of course, the people crowded together. And again laughter, jokes about the foreman. And he himself walks upstairs along his brick "fortress". It will appear in the window opening or on the wall, then it will disappear again.
“Well, character,” I think. - Will it survive? Isn't it going to come down?"
However, soon the foreman tears down. Without looking at the poster or at Timka, he passed by and, without turning around, walked off somewhere. He walked even more leisurely than usual, as on a walk.
To be honest, we were even offended. Runs away! It just runs away! Why hang around a construction site now when there is no foreman?!
And time passed. Standing like that, doing nothing, was dreary. And, unfortunately, not a single car drives up.
We stomped on the spot, near the poster, and I saw: the guys were languishing from idleness. Someone sat down on a stone, someone took a book out of a briefcase and, leaning back against a tree, began to read.
- So now what? one of the boys asked in a dull voice.
- Stand! - firmly answered Timka. - Stand to death!
I thought the foreman had gone somewhere to the trust, or to a meeting, or somewhere else. Or maybe he didn't need the trust or the meeting. He just left so as not to see us. But it turned out - he is smarter.
Half an hour passed, suddenly we see - the foreman returned
chasing. He walks tall, overweight, in his cap and tarpaulin boots, with large, sweeping strides, and next to him someone is knitting small and small steps. Who would it? Whom did the foreman bring to the rescue?
We look, and this is the director of our school, Mikhail Mikhailovich, whom everyone calls Mikh-Mikh to speed things up.
"Here's the number! I thought. - Well, hold on, Timka!
Mikh-Mikh is strict with us. And most importantly, he loves it when it's quiet. And he doesn't like it when it's noisy.
And here is a whole crowd, and everyone is humming something, fussing.
I see: Mikh-Mikh is coming up, and his eyes are restless and are buried directly in Timka.
"Well, what else have you done?"
- Here, - says the foreman Mih-Mihu, - admire your daring men! Interfere with government construction! - And tells the director about our "barrier".
Mikh-Mikh listens, is silent.
Timka also listens and is also silent. And he closes his eyes like a chicken.
- I have an urgent task, - the foreman gets excited. - Two hundred thousand to master! It's clear? Two hundred thousand rubles! These are not jokes! And here, because of some lousy bushes, such noise-thunder, just an atomic explosion. Yes, I will finish the construction, and then I will plant these flower-bushes for you again! Smell for health!
- I still don't understand why spoil the square? - Mikh-Mikh says calmly and pulls his beard. And he always, when angry, pulls his beard, as if he wants to pluck it.
The foreman gets even hotter.
- And in general, - shouts, - what are these methods? Well, you don't like it, well, write a complaint to the trust, well, tell the newspaper. And what's that? Demonstration some thought up!
Here Timka could not stand it either.
“I don’t know about methods,” he says, and his voice is piercing, like a rooster’s, “but we won’t allow poplars to be spoiled!” We planted them, and you
- What's a bad method? - says Mikh-Mikh and pinches his beard. - As you can see, effective. And this is the most important thing. And this method is, I would say, public in nature.
Here the foreman was completely at a loss, said that he would complain to the district committee and somewhere else, but Mikh-Mikh turned and left.
And before leaving, he furtively winked at Timka. Actually winked! A little. Out of the corner of my eye. Or did it just seem to me? Actually, our director is not the kind of person to wink at a student.
Well, the director left, the foreman hid in his "fortress", and then the cars began to roll up - with a solution, with some barrels, with sand. We turned all the trucks to a single one and let them take a detour. The drivers didn't put up much of a fight.
Until the very end of the working day we were on duty.
Already at dusk Timka and I go home, and I say:
- How could he not really tell?
Timka was silent. But I could see that he was worried too. When they got to the house, he said:
“But we’ll still bake him.” Out of principle!
The next day after school, we again took the poster and walked to the construction site.
They came and were surprised. Our "barrier" was no longer required.
Where a deep rut ran through the square between the trees, a pole was now stuck with the inscription: "The passage is closed."
The arrow showed how to make a detour. There were no boards piled on the grass. There were no bricks and piles of construction debris. When did you have time to remove all this? At night? Or early in the morning?
“Interesting,” I said to Timka. - Did the foreman call the district committee? Or not?
Timka shrugged.
- Or maybe it's the other way around? I thought out loud. - Maybe the foreman was warmed up there? That's what he is now such a good boy!
Timka shrugged again.
Maybe you didn't call? Did you realize it yourself?
- Wow! Under public pressure! Timka winked, and everyone around smiled.
After this incident, the guys didn’t really laugh at Timka when he got into another story. And when they did laugh, someone would definitely put on a serious face and, putting a finger to his forehead, as Valya did, would say:
- And yet in Timofey Gorelykh there is something so state
Since then, he was no longer teased as a “chicken” and “historical child”, and was often called “state Timka”.

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Recognition - BK-MTGC.