Page 32 of Pioneer Summer

“Alyosha! You’re—there’s so muchyoueverywhere!” groaned Yurka. “Okay, fine, I thought about it.”

“You did? What’d you decide?”

“Give me a piece of chalk.”

“Here.” Alyosha held out the box and Yurka took a piece.

“Thanks. I’m not going to Central Command. I’m going to stay with my troop.”

“Then what’d you take the chalk for?”

“I have low calcium levels. I’m going to eat it. Oh, they’re calling you, hear that?”

“What? Who? Oh, it’s Olya. Well, bye—but still, you think about it!”

Maybe he should’ve agreed to be a scout? He’d have been able to run around the whole camp and could’ve found a way to stay with Volodka. As they always did during the epic war game, the troops had dug trenches around their bases, and Volodya would surely be worried that some kids, like chubby Sashka, would fall into a trench and break their arms, and their legs, and the trench itself. Of course, Lena wouldn’t leave her fellow Troop Five leader high and dry, but it was obvious that Volodya would need Yurka, too. It was completely and utterly obvious!

Right, like he needs you!protested Yurka’s pride.You pester him and dance around him, just like Alyoshka did to you. All he does is sneer and lecture. Hmpf! I wasn’t doing all that work with those stupid scary stories and that stupid drama club for myself, but he doesn’t care. Well, now he can get by without me! I’m not going anywhere for him anymore. Not anywhere! And definitely not to rehearsal! He’ll be sorry he glared at me! Let him mess around with his own dumb show now. I’m not going to help him!And he didn’t. He was already on the porch of the Troop Five cabin, but he turned around and took off back across the dance floor to the tennis courts where Troop One was scheduled to be playing.

There were two tennis courts, not just one, and Ping-Pong tables, too. Except for Masha and the Pukes, all of Troop One was there under Ira Petrovna’s supervision. Some of the campers were playing badminton next to the tennis courts, others were cheering them on, and a few were just goofing around inside the box created by the chain-link fence around the tennis courts. Yurka liked to lean back against that fence and bounce his wholebody on the little wire rhombuses while watching other people play. But today he had no intention of rooting for other people. Today he intended to defeat everyone and take out his anger on the badminton birdies.

When he was still quite a ways from the courts, Vanka and Mikha caught sight of him and waved him over in unison to be part of their team. Yurka was pretty good at badminton, but these two could neither serve nor return worth a darn, so the only people who joined their team were people who didn’t like winning. Yurka did like winning, but he didn’t bother asking to get on anyone else’s team. Without a word, he snatched a badminton racquet and served. The birdie soared over the net and hit Ira Petrovna right in the forehead.

“Sorry!” Yurka shouted. He expected Ira Petrovna to let him have it right then and there, so he held off from serving again. But his troop leader winked cheerily at him and turned around.

Ira had been avoiding Yurka ever since what happened in Volodya’s room. When she and Yurka did have to do something together, she walked on eggshells around him. Yurka wasn’t about to tell anybody what he’d seen, of course, but, judging by Ira’s angelic behavior, she evidently thought he was capable of that kind of backstabbing and blackmail.

Yurka was privately furious—Who does she take me for?!—but didn’t utter a peep out loud: after all, this arrangement suited him. The troop leader had quit putting the blame on him and scapegoating him unfairly, and as a result there was peace between the two of them. It was fragile and awkward, but peace nonetheless.

The same could not be said for Ira Petrovna’s relationship with Volodya, however. As soon as Yurka remembered that, the scene in the theater came flooding back to him, replaying itself in full color: Ira’s white face, her trembling hands, and the tears of fury in her eyes ... Volodya, standing right in front of her, his eyes narrow and mean: “Do you love him or something?” “Oh, man, Ira Petrovna’s never going to forgive him for something like that ... ,” Yurka mused to himself sympathetically. Then he caught himself and spat in disgust: he’d thought about Volodya again!

Volodya was everywhere, even places he couldn’t possibly be. Right now Volodya was without a doubt in the movie theater, working with his actors, but Yurka thought he glimpsed Volodya’s silhouette over there in the bushes.

The game went on. Yurka slashed his racquet as though he wanted to slice the sunbeams to ribbons, not hit a birdie. The sunbeams remained safe and sound, but the disheveled and sweaty Yurka did kill a great many mosquitoes.

Their team led the count. Vanka and Mikha spent almost the whole game standing in place, but Yurka raced around like a man possessed. Before sending the birdie off on its triumphant flight—so lofty it might even hit Ira Petrovna in the forehead again—he turned around and saw Volodya in the bushes again.

This time it was definitely him. Pensively, with a timid smile, Volodya drew nearer to the box of the tennis court but stopped a meter away from the entrance, unable to bring himself to go inside. Instead, he walked around outside the fence and came to a halt behind Yurka, where he stretched his fingers wide through the chain-link fence and grasped the metal rhombuses.

“Why didn’t you come to rehearsal, Yur?” he asked, very quietly.

Yurka still heard him. He batted the birdie away without looking and walked up to the chain-link fence so he could look Volodya defiantly right in the eyes. “I don’t have a part, so what am I supposed to do there?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’?” Volodya looked at him sadly and shook his head. Then he collected himself and in his habitual troop leader tone, he said: “Olga Leonidovna said that whether you have a part or not, you have to come to every rehearsal. You are helping me and I’m responsible for you.”

“So be responsible. What’s that got to do with me?”

“So you already want to leave? They’d send you home without batting an eye.”

“What can they send me home for? I’m playing with my troop, and with my own troop leader, actually. Ira Petrovna’s right here, she’ll confirm it.”

As he waited for an answer, which didn’t come, Yurka bounced his racquet off the toe of his sneakers. Then he looked around and went over to the bench to get a glass of water. Volodya followed him along the fence. “I hurt your feelings,” he surmised, casting his eyes down guiltily.

“As if!” scoffed Yurka. “You didn’t hurt my feelings. I realized there’s not that much I can talk to you about, that’s all.”

“That’s not true! Talk about whatever you want!”

“Yeah. Right.” Yurka turned away and started drinking his water.

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