Page 11 of Pioneer Summer

Yurka was horribly hurt: here it all went, again, and for no reason, again. He really and truly hadn’t done it, but he was the one being accused. By inertia, apparently. Because the easiest thing, of course, was just to blame him: he was always stirring up trouble anyway, so it must be him this time, too.

Yurka scowled, trying to guess how much trouble he’d get in this time for something he hadn’t done.

“Irin, it really wasn’t him,” came a voice behind him. Yurka turned and saw Volodya. “Yura was in the theater yesterday, and then he was helping me bring a boy to the first aid station. That’s why he was late to dinner. So it was someone else who tore up your lilacs.”

Ira Petrovna stopped short, gave Yurka a look of amazement, and turned to Volodya. “He was helping you?”

“You heard it at the staff meeting: yesterday there was an accident in my club. Sashka fell off the stage and Yura stepped up to help,” Volodya assured her.

If there was one person she had to believe, it was Volodya. Irina was taken aback. Yurka let out a breath and shot Volodya a look of immense gratitude: he’d come not a moment too soon!

“I didn’t know that; we didn’t talk about it at check-in ... Never mind, then, Konev,” said Ira Petrovna. “If you really were helping, then good work. I’ll go ask the girls where they got the lilacs.”

“Fine, but couldn’t you have gone to them first?” he grumbled resentfully.

She just tousled Yurka’s hair as she left, making him huff in annoyance. He was angry enough to snap “What about an apology?” at her back.

She paused for a moment, tossed a “Sorry” over her shoulder, and walked away.

“Thank you,” said Yurka, smiling, as he turned to Volodya. “I thought I was really going to get it there.”

“No problem. You reallyaren’tto blame. It seems Olga Leonidovna’s already managed to convince Irina to blame you anytime there’s something strange going on. So now she’s picking on you.”

“But wait—what are you doing over here?”

“I came to tell you we’re heading to the river around ten. You volunteered to help yesterday—”

He was interrupted by Ira Petrovna, who’d suddenly reappeared. “Yura, after breakfast, instead of cleanup duty, go get Mitya from Troop Two. You remember him, don’t you? Take him and check the mattresses in the junior cabins. The kids were complaining that some of them were damp. Put the unusable ones in storage. I’ll get someone to bring new ones to the junior cabins by quiet hour.”

Yurka groaned in despair. “Gee, Ira Petrovna, thanks for not hitching me to a plow, at least!”

“Don’t clown around with me, or—” She broke off upon catching sight of Ksyusha coming out of the cabin. “Ksyusha, hold on! I have to ask you something about the lilacs ...”

“Somebody’s sure gonna get raked over the coals now,” said Yurka with a smirk.

Volodya sighed. “I’m guessing you’re not going to be able to make it to the beach?”

Yurka shrugged. “I’ll try to take care of this as fast as I can.”

He washed and headed back to his troop cabin to change. He shook hands in greeting with Vanka and Mikha, who were lolling on the bench by the entrance, and gave a short nod to Masha, who was grinning suspiciously. He was on the threshold, about to go into the cabin, when he stopped dead in his tracks. His troop’s wall newspaper was posted by the door. Everytroop wrote one by hand every week on a large sheet of paper, applauding the good troop members and scolding the bad ones, and posted it publicly on the outside of their troop cabin for all to see. This issue was dedicated to the ceremonial opening of the session and the first day of camp. It was a nice, big, eye-catching wall newspaper, but it made Yurka’s mood go sour: he’d been subjected to public censure in the form of a caricature.

Half of the paper was taken up by a cartoon of a great big apple tree. From it, a stick figure version of Yurka was hanging upside down with a strand of lights wrapped around his ankle, arms and legs flailing. The drawing had actually turned out pretty well, it was funny, but the expression on Yura’s face was just too stupid. It wasn’t a face so much as an ugly mug, with a wide snout like a pig’s and a gaping mouth displaying a missing front tooth. But Yurka had all his teeth! And they were excellent, too! It was offensive. He was grown-up, basically, so stuff like this didn’t work on him, but it was still able to hurt his feelings. It already had, so many times ...

No matter how funny it was, it was still offensive. And since all the troops in camp avidly read each other’s wall newspapers, he’d be getting ribbed for his piggy snout all day, all over camp.

Even the delicious tvorog breakfast cake couldn’t get rid of the bad taste the wall newspaper left in his mouth. Before he went over to start hauling mattresses, Yurka got the artist’s name from his fellow troop members. It was Ksyusha. One of the Pukes. Yurka wasn’t going to go get revenge on her or anything—but he did make note of it.

The Mitka whose voice was broadcast from the radio was the one assigned to help Yurka. Or rather, Yurka was the one doing the helping, because Mitka was sent out on tasks like this all the time, where he was moving, lifting, and carrying things. Mitka not only sang well and had a good speaking voice, he was also big and strong. Yurka, thinking of all the things Mitka was that he wasn’t, felt out of sorts all of a sudden.

Sure enough, some of the mattresses were wet. The boys hauled out the six damp ones and dumped them next to the cabin. At first Yurka blamed the kids: they’d gotten scared, they hadn’t been able to hold it, they were still just Little Octoberists, these things happened at that age ... But when itturned out that all the wet mattresses were on beds right next to each other, Yurka walked around with an intent look on his face, then rubbed his chin in contemplation.

“Hey, Mit! Maybe the roof’s leaking. I heard there was some rain a few days ago. Maybe something happened to the roof?”

Mitya peered up at the ceiling, examining it closely, but didn’t see any stains. “And nobody noticed the water dripping from the ceiling?”

“There was nobody in the cabin then, it was in between sessions ... Listen, we need to climb up there and take a look.”

“You go right ahead. The roof wouldn’t hold me, anyway,” Mitya said, laughing.

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