Page 20 of Pioneer Summer

“You made it all up? All that about the grand prince and the Russo-Japanese War? So many details ... Neatly done! You’re actually not such a knucklehead after all, are you?”

“A knucklehead? Who? Me? Are you saying I’m a knucklehead?!”

“No. That’s what I’m saying, is that you’re not.”

“But then what’s with the ‘aaaaactuallyyyy’?” Yurka affectedly drew out the word in an imitation of Volodya’s Moscow accent. It sounded just like him. “There really is a bas-relief of a woman, though. Down the river, in some wild apple trees.”

“Is it far?”

“Half an hour or so by boat. So what about this knucklehead thing?”

“Come on, give it up.”

“Is that why you were being all high-and-mighty before? You think I’m an idiot?”

“I wasn’t ... Fine!” Volodya gave in. “Look, people don’t normally expect much from good-for-nothings, right?”

“Now I’m a good-for-nothing, too?!” Yurka feigned outrage. For some reason he felt giddy and happy. He decided to play along, wouldn’t leave Volodya alone until he apologized. But an apology was the last thing on Volodya’s mind.

“It’s your own fault you’ve got such a reputation.”

“It has nothing to do with me! It’s just that those stupid troop leaders don’t have anything better to do than show up at the worst possible moment, and then they draw their own conclusions without even listening to me. Have you heard about the roof, for instance?”

Volodya’s reply was guarded: “Hmm ... Somebody said something about last year—”

Yurka interrupted him in a squeaky voice, parodying Olga Leonidovna: “‘Konev has gotten out of hand! He’s jumping around on the roof, breaking tiles, damaging government property, and putting his own health and safety at risk—along with our reputation as educators, comrades! That Konev’s a nasty piece of work! A vandal! Riffraff!’ And you think so, too, don’t you?!”

“Where’d you get that? I never draw hasty conclusions.”

“Yeah, right. You went along with ‘knucklehead’ quick enough.” Yurka gave a little laugh. “But it wasn’t like that at all, actually. What I was actually doing was helping get a girl’s Frisbee for her. I was walking along and I see Anechka—” Yurka broke off at the thought that he was saying the name too tenderly. “Anyway, I see this girl from my troop sitting there crying. So I asked why. Her Frisbee had landed up on the roof and she’d been asking the facilities manager for two days to get it down for her, but he couldn’t care less. The Frisbee was a gift from her father, and there was only a day until the end of the whole session! No way in hell she was going to get it back.”

“Don’t curse,” Volodya ordered, more from habit than as an actual reprimand.

Yurka ignored him. “So I went up onto the roof. It wasn’t high at all, I just reached up and pulled myself up. No sweat. But that’s the exact moment they appeared.”

“Didn’t the girl explain what was going on?”

“She explained it, but who’s going to listen to her? ‘You should’ve asked the facilities manager.’ But she already had ...”

“So what happened?”

“I got her Frisbee down for her, that’s what. Anechka’s all happy, beaming, thanking me, but Konev—no, Konev’s still just a troublemaker, riffraff.”

“Okay, that time you were in the right. But what were you doing sneaking through that hole in the fence?”

“Getting my smokes.” Yurka blurted out the truth before stopping to think.

“You smoke, too?!” cried Volodya, aghast.

“Who, me? No! No, I just—I’m just experimenting. I won’t do it anymore!” he fibbed, then changed the topic, just to be safe. “But who told you about the hole? I thought nobody knew about it!”

“Everybody knows about it. Not only do they know about it, they’ve fixed it.”

Yurka snorted. “Fine. It’s not like I don’t know other ways to get out of camp.”

Volodya sat up, alert: “There are other holes? Where?”

“I’m not telling.”

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