SYMBOL OF ETERNITY. V. Speys

Ochkolyasov, who had five children, build a house. As the working collective farm family of the deceased from the bandits, announced after the amnesty. She told me the terrible conditions in which live Ochkolyasy. In the tiny hut, thatched, with a dirt floor, hastily cobbled together, after burning down of a good home. Mom told about the difficulties of a young woman, a mother, Leni, remaining one with the children.

      Congenital envy of the wealthy, as he thought, children, engendered hatred and anger in poverty wounded soul.

      By lunchtime burning feet subsided and almost do not care. The mood gradually came back to me, and has a carefree laugh; I paced in the ranks of children, exposing tripping who was walking in front of Cole Ponomarenko, thick and clumsy little boy…

      The next day I went to kindergarten without a grandmother. Granny flatly refused to drive me into the garden. A mother’s remark, she answered:

      – He knows the way and can it have to go there. Not small, it soon turns six years, let grows up! – The mother replied to a comment grandmother.

      – It is also weak. A wanders somewhere?!

      – Do not get lost, no great loss! And drown in the toilet, and would not have suffered! – Mother silently swallowed the insult and has already asked me if I knew the way. I said, which way to go to kindergarten. Mother agreed to the affirmative. And the first time I went out one morning. The road was a park. Ahead in the bushes I saw Ochkolyasa Llonyu, who furtively looking around, there is something looking for. I have not seen it, and I’m glad I’m not alone in the kindergarten named after him:

      – Hey, Lenka, you wrote that there is, or what?! Let’s go into the garden! – Lenya, threw scared look in my direction.

      – Go yourself where you are going. – The answer is not friendly Ochkolyas.

      I walked closer to him. And just now I saw that he was looking for a suitable stem nettle for educators to this instrument of punishment she frighten children, and Lenya, as always, will be deserved to enjoy great trust and favor. I have waited for him, for fear of being late, left alone. When I went to the playground and looked at the children swarmed in the sandbox, from the corner of the sleeping body seemed to Aunt Olya. The called me to her and said:

      – Valik, tell me, probably something in the forest has died, that you are with her grandmother in the garden not late today? – Educators in a good mood, and she spoke these words with a good- natured smile, showing straight and white teeth. I looked puzzled watched her mouth, responding:

      – It’s in the garden something has died, so smells from the kitchen that much can not breathe. – I said these words without thinking, stink or not, but my remark getting through his boundless derogatory form of address in relation to my grandmother, who was a friend to me. At the moment, Aunt Oli smile, as if someone wiped out. She blushed, did not say anything. She turned and went for the nervous walking dormitory kindergarten towards the dining room. Soon, from the dining room were heard hysterical screams of educators:

      – Are you here spread, eh?! I, Claudia, you ask?! – A voice of Aunt Olya my answer broke the scandal. That justify telling that poisoned rats, and that some might die under floor and it stinks in there. Soon the playground came Lenya Ochkolyas. In his hand he held as a rod, a temple nettle stalk height in its growth, with a thick and sturdy stems and serrated leaves. His face shone solemn smile made request educators and his Kresna mother, Aunt Olya. And in the dining room at this time cook, Aunt Claudia, after the morning catching up, nervously tapping utensils, distributed food to children for breakfast…

      Chapter Six

      In the morning, as always, at the kindergarten children I met and Aunt Olya:

      – Well you told parents that today will be a total solar shading during the day, which happens once in a hundred years? – All the children responded in unison that parents react to this in different ways. Some children did not lead to a kindergarten, using the pretext of a total solar shading. Those children whose parents have led to the garden, added a smoky bits of glass, so it did not hurt to look at the sun. Someone even brought a pair of binoculars, and the boys took turns looking into it. It was very interesting and do not understand why on the one hand the binoculars closer objects, and when you look from the back side, then separates them at a great distance. I took with me my blue piece of glass and looked through it at the sun. But the blue piece of glass is not good enough to protect the eyes, and through it hurt the eye when looking at the sun. After the dead hours and the subsequent snack children tend to spend time in the yard for games. The teacher warned the children that at four o’clock in the afternoon will blackout the sun satellite of planet Earth Moon. To no one do not worry, it’s just for five minutes, and no more. And the children will come the parents, and will work together to look at blackout. It would be better if the teacher did not say that. Children were silenced fearfully glancing around. It was only ten children, instead of twenty- three. Solar blackout began with the advent of the parents of these children. My mother came in off clothes. She wore a black velvet jacket and skirt. She told me that after the blackout it will be taken to the district Party committee in Svyatoshino party organizers to a meeting of the Kiev- Sviatoshynsky area, and it will arrive in Kiev late at night. I really wanted to go with her. I asked to take me and the happiness it promised that he would take. Suddenly it became dark. Twilight were coming very fast. State Farm herd of cows passed by the kindergarten, as board decided to drive the cows in the stable, to avoid unwanted reaction step of this rare natural phenomenon. Cows became loud and disturbing hum. Somewhere a dog barked in the distance. Chirping birds suddenly stopped. In my subconscious I began to creep animal fear. Feelings of anxiety and impending disaster after dark more clearly felt in the dim and irrevocably impending night. Sun extinguished in his eyes and suddenly disappeared from the sky. The sky had taken refuge scattering of stars. There was a silence. Even dogs We stopped barking. You can hear the howl of a lonely and distant dog. His mother pressed me to her, stood silently in the middle of the playground and trembling from the terrible state suddenly had come the night among a summer day. This went on for ages; it did not seem to be the end. Suddenly a breath of coolness. Sun did not have and darkness came into their possession. Coolness was palpable by the sudden disappearance of the hot sunlight, and it adds fears irrevocable effects. I had the feeling that now will never be the sun, and is darkness. But gradually, bright strip in place of the sun grew wider and wider. And about! Miracle! The sun was in the sky and grows reappeared. Heat again poured a generous river park, the leaves, on children and children’s playground. They began singing rural males. Chirped the bird, and all returned to normal. I was happy and was filled with the expectation of the promised trip with my mother to the meeting in its regional committee. But the mother seemed to have forgotten his promise. I reminded her about it, but the mother did not answer. She was talking with other parents who have come for their children. Finally the mother drew attention to me and told me that I have, today, take Nyuska. Not doing mother promise to take me with hurt hit annoyance. Instead, even a surprise that Nyuska take me. What I do not I will go to the house? I asked myself this question. I was determined not to go home with a cousin. After his mother left, along with other parents, I asked Aunt Olay’s permission to go home, referring to the fact that her mother allowed me. She said yes, and I left. Nyuska, of course I did not find in the garden, and complained to his mother. In the morning I got a soft spot for the rods from the mother, under the approving grin sister…

      Oh, time rushes rapidly. In one year we are older. It’s time to say goodbye to kindergarten. After lunch in the dining room, the teacher announced that all children who have reached the age of seven, including me, that today they are on the last day in the garden. With regard to the first of September they left exactly one month later, they almost schoolchildren.

      A month later, on September 1. I 7th years. I am waiting for the first class. New comrades, almost adult care.

      – «And I’m going to read and write A, how to count?» –