Page 69 of Pioneer Summer

“And that’s when the war started!” interjected Sashka, who was covered with Band-Aids like a telephone pole covered with flyers and ads. He jumped up onstage and started running around, gesticulating wildly. “Attack! Pow! Pew-pew-pew, rat-a-tat-a-tat!”

The educational specialist put her hands on her hips. “You think this is funny, Shamov?”

“N-no ...” Eyes bulging, Sashka shrank back a step.

“Joking about the great suffering of not only the Soviet people, but the whole world—!”

“Sasha had no intention of joking!” Volodya interceded. “Olga Leonidovna, in peacetime it all seems so distant, it seems like all this has nothing to do with us. But that’s how it should be ...”

Then the camp director chimed in. “Ahem ... but people didn’t know there’d be a war back then, either. And they wouldn’t have believed it if you’d told them the war would begin tomorrow. Children were on vacation, in villages or ... ahem ... in Pioneer camps, like we are now.”

“That’s right!” agreed Olga Leonidovna. “And actually the first strategic facility the Fascist air force destroyed wasn’t a train station or a factory but a Pioneer camp!”

Yurka could no longer stand idly by and listen to the kids, who were working hard, being lectured in this way. He liked absolutely none of this: the conversation was idiotic, it was insulting to the kids, and it was boring.

“So what did they bomb the camp for?” he interjected, shooting a challenging look at Olga Leonidovna. “It’s just a waste of ammunition, after all. They should’ve hit airports, transportation centers ...”

“The camp was in the little town of Palanga, right on the border between the Lithuanian SSR on one side and Nazi-occupied Poland on the other. The Fascists attacked in the very early hours of June 22, 1941. They shelled the camp directly, capturing it all on film. Read Mykolas Sluckis if you’re interested, Konev; he wrote about it. But we’ve gotten off-subject. Where were we ... ? Zina and her sister are spending their summer with their grandma in a little village near Obol. The war begins. Out of nowhere, all of a sudden. Their village, in the northern part of the Byelorussian SSR, is immediately occupied by German soldiers. And so she—that is, you, Nastya, just the same way you are now, good and kind—you start seeing nothing but blood and death all around you. A year later you join the ranks of the Young Avengers, a troop of local children. You learn to shoot, to throw grenades ...”

Dried-up old fish, Yurka thought furiously to himself as the educational specialist’s flood of words finally abated. She shook her head solemnly, then insisted that Yurka read his lines.

After she listened to him, she declared: “No, Konev. You’re also doing it wrong.”

“Really ... ?” Yurka said slowly, dripping with sarcasm. Fortunately for him, Olga Leonidovna didn’t catch his tone.

“Yes. Your character’s coming off as too human. But he’s a monster, not a person! All the Germans were monsters!”

“Really ... ?” Yurka said slowly, again, but this time he was genuinely surprised by her vehemence. Still, he recovered quickly and fell into line: “Okay, what should I do, then?”

“Well, I don’t know, make some kind of monstrous face.”

“Like this?” Yurka beamed a wide, self-satisfied smile.

The cast snickered. The educational specialist blinked stupidly, then burst out laughing herself. “Don’t be ridiculous, not that.”

But she didn’t smile again. She listened to everyone else stony-faced, with pursed lips. Then, frowning so hard you could’ve used her forehead for a washboard, she pronounced her verdict: “No. This is completely unsuitable for the Pioneer Hero Zina Portnova Barn Swallow Pioneer Camp. This is absolutely unfit for offering to the public and disgraces our name. Volodya, I expected much more from you!”

“Ahem ... yes ... ,” agreed the camp director.

At first Volodya just blinked, flustered. Then he ground his teeth so hard that the tendons stood out in his cheeks. Her words clearly cut him deeply. They couldn’t have done otherwise: Volodya was devoted heart and soul to preserving his reputation, and now there’d be a black mark on it. A small one, but still. This one wasn’t directly from Pal Palych, and there wasn’t any cussing involved, but it was in front of everyone. Again.

“But, Olga Leonidovna, the script is genuinely very difficult, and the topic is serious,” he said, trying to justify himself.

“I know, Volodya! But I was counting on you and thought you could handle it!”

“Icanhandle it! We canallhandle it! But we need more actors! We’re just not getting enough boys, even after I asked them to come join us—this is what I’ve been telling you, yesterday and the day before ...”

The educational specialist pondered for a moment, then nodded. “Then we’re postponing the premiere! We’ll do the show the very last day, before the final campfire.”

“But that’ll mess up our original plan: we wanted to do it on Camp Barn Swallow Day, so we specifically picked an old script, and chose music for it ...” Volodya shot Yurka such a guilty, pleading look that Yurka felt he’d been splashed with boiling water.

“Either the last day or not at all,” proclaimed Leonidovna.

“All right,” said Volodya, surrendering. There was nothing he could do, anyway. “But what about the boys? Help us bring in some more actors, Olga Leonidovna. Everyone in the whole drama club has already gone out andtried to all but drag people in, but they’re still not coming. All we need them for is the crowd scenes, they don’t have to say a single word.”

“I’ll help,” the dried-up old fish said, nodding and jotting something in her notebook. “But in that case it has to be even better than I expected.” She nodded again and jotted something else in her notebook. She gave a couple more instructions, glanced at her watch, and left.

There was almost an hour of rehearsal remaining, but the actors, all riled up from the harsh critique, had no idea where to start or what to do. The cast wandered aimlessly around the movie theater until Volodya’s thunderous roar “Over here, everyone!” drew all the boys and girls to one place.

---