Page 12 of Pioneer Summer

Yurka nimbly ascended to the roof—he didn’t even need a ladder—and immediately spotted the issue. Right over the area where the wet beds were, the asphalt roofing material had cracked, so water was evidently getting in through the crack. Yurka crouched down and picked at the tarry surface with his fingernail, talking to himself as he figured it out: “This stuff probably cracked back last winter from the cold, and now, between the pouring rain and the burning heat, it’s finally given up the ghost. Need to tell the facilities manager ...”

“Yuwka! Hi, Yuwka!” he heard suddenly, down beneath him. Yurka was so startled, he jumped out of his skin.

A group of kids in yellow bucket hats was walking past: Troop Five, preceded by both its leaders, was making its way to the river. One of the little boys—Olezhka, who was also in drama club—had stopped, breaking up the column, and was shouting and waving both arms. Olezhka couldn’t say hisr’s right. This flaw in his speech became especially noticeable when he was shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Volodya, look! It’s Yuwka up thewe!”

“Hey! You get down off the roof or you’ll fall!” Volodya shouted sternly.

“What are you doing up there?” squeaked Sasha, the chubby boy who’d been injured the day before.

“I’m on the lookout for treasure hunters,” said Yurka, making it up on the spot. “They come here and poke around. Did you know this area was occupied by the Germans during the war?”

Suddenly he was filled with horror—but it wasn’t because he was about to fall. No. Yurka had seen the terrified but furious Ira Petrovna rushing toward him along a dirt path, raising a cloud of dust.

“Come on back to earth, Gagarin,” said Volodya. “I mean it. Get down.”

“Konev! For goodness’ sake—Konev!” Ira Petrovna’s shriek seemed to carry through the entire camp. “Hurry up and get off that roof! Now!”

“You want me to hurry up? Whatever you say.” Yurka stood back up and walked over to the side of the roof, pretending he was about to jump off.

“Oh no, Yurochka, don’t! Don’t do that! Just go down the same way you went up!” Ira cried. Once she caught sight of Yurka’s devious grin, she turned to Volodya and begged, “Volodya, do something!”

Volodya narrowed his eyes, mentally calculating the height of the roof, and then asked, completely calm: “So, are you coming to the river with us?”

The kids bellowed, “Come!” “Yes!” “Yes, he is!” “Come with us, Yuwka!”

“Well, I don’t know ... I still have to move those mattresses ... Or maybe you’ll let me go, Ira Petrovna? Mitka can move them himself ...” Yurka wobbled precariously on his tiptoes at the very edge of the roof.

In a thin, terrified voice, Ira Petrovna squeaked, “Go wherever you want, Konev! Just climb down from there normally, without jumping!”

Yurka shrugged as if to say,Why not?He crouched as though he were about to begin climbing down, but then jumped anyway. Ira Petrovna shrieked. When Konev emerged safe and sound from the bushes by the cabin, she blew out a breath in exasperation.

“We put the pile of wet mattresses over there,” Yurka said, smiling. “You don’t trust me, Ira Petrovna! You think I’m going to use a self-inflicted injury to get out of work. But you’re wrong!”

Ira Petrovna sighed in relief, so shaken that she had to lean against a tree. “Oh, Konev! Get yourself out of my sight!” But she was the one who left.

Twenty pairs of children’s shoes were arranged on the yellow sand in two even rows. Nearby, Polina, Ulyana, and Ksyusha were laying out on their towels, bodies arranged in graceful poses to get the most sun. A little farther away, a bored Masha lolled in a bit of shade with a volume of Chekhov. When he looked at Masha, Yurka was reminded of Chekhov’s commentabout the gun hanging on the wall that eventually will have to be fired. He had no idea why. Nothing about Masha looked threatening—quite the opposite, in fact. She looked very romantic, with her light ruffled dress that fluttered in the breeze, occasionally baring a bit of tawny-gold thigh.Where does she find the time to sunbathe?Yurka wondered.

Without coming up with an answer—actually, without even bothering to try—he turned and saw Vanka and Mikha on the other end of the beach. They were also stretched out on towels, so evidently they’d just finished their civic duty work of sweeping all the common areas. But Yurka walked past them. Right now, he wasn’t interested in friends or girls. He was interested in Volodya.

Volodya was standing ankle-deep in the water, staring intently at the campers under his care. The river rippled in lazy little wavelets while the sun flashed off the surface and sparkled in the splashes of water sent up by the frolicking children. Troop Five was churning and squealing in the shallow zone, roped off by nets and buoys. It looked like the water was boiling. Zhenya, the handsome physical education instructor, was floating in a boat behind the barrier. Every so often he’d grunt a warning at the daring Olezhka, who kept swimming right up to the buoys. Lena, Troop Five’s second leader, was also on the beach, sitting in a chair raised on a platform. She kept an eye on the kids and shouted orders from a megaphone, but she remained perfectly relaxed and calm, unlike Volodya.

“Pcholkin! Quit splashing!” Volodya ordered.

Pcholkin quit, but as soon as the leader looked the other way, he snickered and splashed up gouts of water again.

A few steps and Yurka was next to Volodya, but he didn’t even have a chance to open his mouth before Volodya waved him off: “No time. Not now. Sorry.” Without turning his head, Volodya’s peripheral vision caught another infraction. He shouted, “Pcholkin! One more time and you’re out of the water!” right in Yurka’s ear.

Yurka blinked helplessly, deafened. Just to be on the safe side, he went back to the beach. He couldn’t bring himself to distract Volodya—at least, not until Pcholkin had been ejected from the water back onto dry land. The leader was pale with worry and getting more nervous every minute. Yurka would only have gotten in the way.

Vanka saw his friend and waved at him to come join them. Yurka willingly joined him on his towel. As Yurka listened to his friends with half his now-deaf ear, he kept getting distracted—by Volodya, or the Pukes, or Masha. The last of these was actually only pretending to read; what she was really doing was glaring sternly at the flirtatious girls and then gazing fondly at Volodya, waiting to see whether the businesslike leader would look her way. He didn’t. He was watching the splashing kids intently without taking his eyes off them; it even seemed like he was trying to blink as little as possible.

“You up for a game of twenty-one, Yurets?” Mikha pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket.

“Deal,” said Yurka absentmindedly. He took off his sandals and sat cross-legged on the sand. “What are we betting? Flicks?” The traditional finger flicks to the loser’s forehead were no joke. Unfortunately so, because with Yurka paying attention to anything and everything but the game, he kept losing. Badly. His forehead was burning from all the flicks by the time Mikha suggested a new game.

“Should we play durak next? And for the loser ... takeoff-and-landing, maybe?” suggested Mikha, eyes narrowed craftily. This punishment was an especially painful one: a slap to the front and then the back of the head. Vanka rubbed his hands together. Yurka nodded.

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