Page 57 of Pioneer Summer

“But why?”

“Because I’m no saint, Yura! Don’t try to get me to prove anything to you. You can’t make me.”

“Fine. Have it your way.” Yurka floundered, then remembered and woodenly repeated Volodya’s question: “Who is she?”

“I’m not telling. It’s too personal,” Volodya shot back.

“Don’t trust me? And you call yourself a friend ...”

“Think what you want. I’m not telling.”

“At least tell me her name, because we’ll have to refer to her somehow when we talk about her ag—”

“We won’t be talking about this again.”

Yurka wanted to be offended by this, but didn’t have the heart. He, of all people, knew exactly what it was to be afraid to reveal even a name. But on the other hand, Volodya’s response, “I’m not telling,” was worded in such a way that Yurka couldn’t stop thinking about it. Because Volodya could’ve fobbed him off with something vague, like Yurka did: “a girl from my building.” Or “a classmate.” Or he could’ve just said any random name. But no! What he’d said was “I’m not telling,” as though any information, even a name or brief description, could point to a specific person. So why the secrecy? Was she famous or something? Or ... maybe Yurka knew her? Maybe she was someone at camp?

Volodya interrupted Yurka’s musings. “Enough about me. What about you? You don’t want to even look at anybody else? There are lots of pretty girls around.”

“Nobody like her, though. And what difference does it make? Even if I liked one of them, they don’t like me.” He shrugged. “I’m not you. Every last one of them has fallen head over heels for you.”

“Yeah, right. ‘Every last one of them,’” Volodya scoffed.

“Most of them. And our group—it’s not the drama club, it’s your fan club! It’s the Vladimir Davydov harem!”

Volodya snorted. Encouraged by the smile that had flashed across Volodya’s face, Yurka continued in that vein: “I told you how the girls harassed me, trying to get me to bring you to the dance ...”

“Yeah, I remember that,” replied Volodya, a little less somber now.

“Ksyusha was going to have to kiss me in front of everybody for that ... on the cheek ... twice!”

“Oho!” said Volodya, and clicked his tongue.

“I know! I’d kind of forgotten about that, actually ...”

“Do you want her to?”

“Well, duh!”

Volodya considered this for a moment.

“So listen,” he said softly, making up his mind about something. “Since this is important, want me to go to the dance? I’ll go today.”

“Of course I do!” Yurka could already see how shocked Ksyusha would look when he informed her he’d done his part of the bargain and was waiting for her to do hers.

“Done! As soon as we finish, I’ll go get Lena to switch with me. And for now let’s get back to rehearsal. We’ve still got half an hour left.”

“You go on,” said Yurka, waving his hand dismissively. “First of all, I’m taking a day off today, and second of all, you don’t need me anyway. I’ll go on a walk and get some air before the dance. We’ll meet by your cabin on the merry-go-round.”

Volodya nodded and headed over to the theater. Yurka raced over to his hiding place on the construction site of the unfinished barracks. He needed to get the cigarettes Pcholkin had caught him with and move them to adifferent hiding place. There was probably a reason Pcholkin kept talking about some kind of hidden treasure: What if he meant Yurka’s smokes? Yurka hadn’t dared revisit the scene of the crime earlier, but now was the perfect time.

Once he had the incriminating evidence in hand, he returned to the movie theater, walked around to the back of the building, and clambered through the bushes there to his second hiding place. It didn’t hold a candle to his first hiding place, being small and narrow; a chunk of mortar near the bottom of the wall had come loose, revealing a little crack where he could fit his cigarettes, then cover them up by replacing the chunk of mortar. But Yurka wasn’t ready to part with them yet.

Club hour was about to end. Yurka took advantage of the fact that for the moment, all the Pioneers were busy with clubs, either inside a building or on the athletic fields, so nobody was out where they could see him. He took out the pack of filtered Javas and a box of matches, struck a match, lit the cigarette, and inhaled with pleasure. Even though he’d promised Volodya he wouldn’t smoke anymore, he just had to calm his nerves now, after such an emotional upheaval. He wanted to take a moment to settle himself ... and also to try and figure out who this mysterious stranger of Volodya’s was. Maybe she wasn’t even a stranger at all?

Apart from the girl campers, there were only two other girls at Camp Barn Swallow, both of them troop leaders: Lena and Ira Petrovna. Yura refused to even consider that it might be the unashamedly plain Lena. He knew it wasn’t okay to think like that, and he was embarrassed of his opinion, but he couldn’t help himself. They didn’t go together at all, not even in the slightest. Also, Volodya was always all business anytime he interacted with Lena. Yurka knew he couldn’t definitively exclude her as a possibility, but in spite of himself his thoughts turned to Ira, who was more attractive—to him, at least.

But his theory about Ira also fell apart immediately, because Volodya was so gallant, he would never have hurt her like that if he had feelings for her. Still, Yurka remembered Volodya’s comment about how he’d be capable of pushing the girl he loved away if it was for her own good, so Yurka couldn’t rule out that Volodya had said that for a reason. Maybe Ira could be Volodya’s secret passion after all.

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