Ezoosmos. Anastasia Novykh

lost hope of catching anything at all.

      In the afternoon, the “wonder-fish” secret got disclosed in a very trite way. And the main thing was that it was disclosed by the inimitable humorist who had been the one to make the others swear of non-disclosure of this, nearly “government level” secret… At first, everything went right according to the plan. Eugene even decided to demonstrate courage and heroism of a fearless swimmer in front of the gazing fishermen. The water had already got warmed enough, but nobody really hurried to get into it after all those thriller stories. Only Eugene indulged in swimming with pleasure, diving like a duck in various places in quest of big cat-fish.

      Suddenly, being at the deepest part of the river, the guy started to flounder desperately, as if he was drowning. First, everyone thought it was his next tomfoolery. Yet, such of his actions were usually followed with some comic speech declaring all the “heroic merits” of his, whereas now he was speechlessly floundering, disappearing under the water from time to time. Stas was the first one to rush to his help. Bogdan and Svat jumped into the water right after him without hesitation. At that moment, Eugene had finally managed to free himself from something, and he started swimming towards the bank at such speed which probably exceeded the dreams of Olympic swimming champions. Like a shot from a gun, he got out of the water, turned round dread and began looking narrowly at the place where he had nearly drowned.

      “What’s happened?” the guys asked, coming up running.

      “Have the cat-fished attacked?!” agitated Victor tried to elicit.

      “There’s no cat-fish!” Eugene began to jabber very seriously. “Stas and I, we’ve played a trick on you with the cat-fish. But now somebody has been really pulling me to the depth. It’s something very strong and shaggy! It’s a total horror! It’s still giving me the shivers. I’ve released one foot, but it grasped me by the other one with its claw! I wanted to dive under it, but it’s sooooooo huge…”

      Sensei who was just passing by the group, stopped, listened to their conversation for a while and looked at the place showed by Eugene on the water. Then he glanced at each of the present, smiled and went his way to get extra hooks.

      The crowd was listening to Eugene’s words with distrust when suddenly he fell into a silent stupor. His fastened his eyes upon the water. Everybody looked in that direction, too. Rising from the abyss, there appeared an odd monster overgrown with long slime. It slowly started approaching the bank. The people were standing motionless: some couldn’t move because of interest, some – because of a natural weakness. While the “monster” was gradually showing its human body from the water, and its upper part was clearing from slime, the dead-stopped guys began to give signs of life. In the end, the object of Eugene’s enormous fear became completely transformed into Vano who shook off the last “flock” of slime, dipped into the water and walked to the bank with his customary gap-toothed smile, sleeking his hair with his hands.

      “Well, how is the cat-fish?” he teased Eugene archly, and the entire crowd rolled with laughter.

      After this incident, nobody was afraid of entering the water any more. The guys were heavily splashing in the river, having thoroughly scared away even the smallest fish. Vano was actively stirring up all that chaotic young enthusiasm with an interminable stream of jokes. He impressed Eugene so much that the latter became friends with him and discovered him as an irreplaceable mate for his “funny affairs” without even noticing it. Almost everyone abandoned fishing and devoted themselves to full-blooded rest. Only Sensei was still sitting on the bank with his rod, as a faithful fisherman. Vano and Eugene could stand it no longer, pointedly swam up to Sensei’s rod and started to tug by the fishing-line one after another, imitating a mighty bite. Sensei tolerated their mockery for a while and then he gave in and said with a smile, “If fishing wasn’t so calming, I would “drown” you both long ago, crucians.”

      Eugene cried out optimistically in response, “Fish does not drown in the water!”

      And Vano teased Eugene right on the spot, “Hey, you, amphibian! Haven’t you confused something about what does not drown in the water?”

      Hilarious laughter resounded above the river again.

* * *

      When the group blissfully stretched themselves out in the sun after their “water treatment”, Volodya took a seat near Sensei.

      “Nothing?” he pointed to the fishing float.

      “Nothing,” Sensei answered with a slight sadness.

      “You’d better abandon this hopeless occupation,” Volodya advised with a smile. “I believe no decent fish has ever been found here.”

      “E-e-eh, no…” Sensei drawled persistently, but then added after a pause, grinning, “Do you know a folk fishing token? ‘Good biting comes either before you start fishing or after you’ve already made off’.”

      “Exactly! So, you better make off, as those “most honest” fishing folks recommend”, Volodya proposed with a laughter.

      Sensei supported his joke, “Are you delicately hinting at the “law of nature” under which honest people cannot be good fishermen?”

      They both laughed, recalling the widespread fishing tale.

      “I’d like to catch at least a single decent one. With such ones,” Sensei pointed at his bottle with several little herrings peacefully swimming inside, “my cat won’t even let me in the door”.

      Volodya grinned again and looked towards the forest. Valera came out of it and walked to the camp, dragging along a dry tree trunk.

      “Oh, Valera… dragging another log…”

      Sensei turned round.

      “Fine fellow. He is stocking firewood for tonight, in contrast to others,” he looked at Volodya unambiguously, and then uttered, “including myself”.

      “I’ve proposed him to go swimming, but he keeps holding himself aloof from the group.”

      “The feels shy. He’s in a new company for the first time. He knows nobody here, except you.”

      “It’s true,” Volodya said in a bass voice. “By the way, I wanted to talk with you about him. He’s a good guy, although he’s got quite a hard destiny. He needs help in order not to get into trouble again… We were friends since childhood. He’s my neighbor. We used to attend gym together, and hung out in the same street company… His parents works in the North while Valera was brought up by his grandmother. She’s a really nice woman. Well, when his parents came back to live with him, Valera turned fourteen. And then his “merry life” started. His father started drinking alcohol and beating his mother. She wouldn’t wait long, divorced him and married another man. Yet, her second husband proved to be not better than Valera’s father, and brawls in the family became even more frequent and worse. Valera became very irritable, for reason or without it. For the first time he went to jail by total foolishness. He had then just turned eighteen. A month before he was supposed to go to the military service, he thrashed a man in a street fight. They imprisoned him for a year, after which he was released. He tried to find job, but no one would hire him. Moreover, his stepfather was nagging him with claims that he didn’t want to support a criminal at his expense. To cut a long story short, he had no money, but wanted to have many things like most young people. Well, as a result, he got imprisoned for another three years, this time for a robbery. When he returned from jail, the situation at home was as bad. He didn’t have any opportunity to rent an apartment, and so he got drawn into a gang again. He moved to an apartment in the neighboring district, married a nice girl, but less than in a year he got in trouble once more. They exposed him, fool, to a very serious crime, and he got into jail again... It’s good they’d condemned him to only five years. And, while he was imprisoned, his wife left him, and his parents died in a car accident. His granny was his only close relative remained, but she’s about eighty years old… He’s been released just recently and is still under criminal department control… So, he’s got a really tough life. But, in general, he’s a not a bad guy.”

      “Indeed, not a bad guy… having three criminal records only,” Sensei grinned.

      “You