Page 70 of Pioneer Summer

Yurka thought the artistic director was going to start sending them all over the stage in a frenzy, making them push themselves to the limit, but all he did was say, “All right, guys, did you hear that? Olga Leonidovna is absolutely not happy with what we’ve done. But fortunately for us, she’s allowing us to postpone the premiere to the last day of camp.”

A murmur ran through the gathered cast. The kids had been hoping to perform on Camp Barn Swallow Day, the special celebration held each session to honor their beloved camp. A few of them even had their parents coming. As he surveyed the downcast faces and listened to the pitiful sniffling, Yurka felt very bad for the actors. Volodya was also hurting, to judge by his guilty face and downcast eyes. An awkward silence lingered.

“It’s my fault,” squeaked Olezhka. “It’s because I can’t say myaw’s wight ...”

“It’sallour faults!” Yurka interrupted. “But nothing bad actually happened. It’s fine, guys, let them postpone the show.”

Volodya chimed in. “Let’s think positive. We just got a little more time, plus we’re getting actors for the crowd scenes. But the main thing is that we’ve been given a big honor: performing for the official closing of session!” He smiled. Olezhka sniffed again, but his face brightened. “They’re paying attention to us now! That means they’ll help us and the show will turn out way better than it is now. Guys, I’m expecting you to do your absolute best!”

To get the kids a little more excited, Yurka also added in a scary voice, “And if you don’t do your best, and we’re a flop, then every night for the rest of your lives you’ll be visited by the vengeful spirit of an artistic director who killed himself, and the spirit will haunt you, and keep you from sleeping ...”

“What is this crap?” said Polya indignantly.

“What kind of spiwit is it, Yuwka?” said Olezhka, perking up. “Tell us!”

Yurka paused to think. “Okay, I will. But not tonight. And not even tomorrow. I’ll tell you if for the next three days you work hard at rehearsal and then do a great job in performance! Deal?”

“Deal!” chorused the kids, while the Pukes scoffed and rolled their eyes simultaneously.

Yurka caught Volodya’s eye: he nodded to Yurka and soundlessly whispered, “Thanks.” And that’s when the jitters hit Yurka for real. He kept looking at the wall clock, but its minute hand was apparently taunting him, going so slow that Yurka sometimes thought it was just standing still. How he longed for rehearsal to be over! For everyone to leave the movie theater, so he could ... Yurka didn’t know what, exactly. But he felt a sharp need to be alone with Volodya.

The step by the entryway creaked yet again, and once more a strained silence descended over the theater. Yurka turned to look at who’d come in. The person standing on the threshold was Ira.

She threw up both hands apologetically. “Keep going, I don’t want to distract you. I’m just looking for ...” Then her voice turned harsh all of a sudden, and unconcealed anger rang out in it: “Konev! Get over here! Come on!”

Yurka instinctively ducked his head into his shoulders. He knew a tone like that did not bode well. While he was slowly trudging up the center aisle toward the main exit, he racked his brain, trying to remember where he’d managed to botch it. And it turned out there were a lot of places: he’d skipped out from mess duty, he’d run away from camp, he’d wandered around nobody knew where for five whole hours, if not more ... And it was unlikely his disappearance had gone unnoticed, of course. In comparison to everything that had happened since he got back to camp, Yurka’s flight now seemed insignificant, unimportant, not the kind of thing worth worrying about. But he was apparently the only one who thought that. And now he was going to get it, and how.

But to his great surprise, Ira Petrovna looked more worried than angry, and she just asked in irritation, “How can you disappear for so long, Yur? We were worried!”

“What was there to worry about?”

“You just went and abandoned your mess duty and disappeared! How long were you gone? Why didn’t you tell anyone beforehand? How can you just run off like that? Did you even think about anybody else? Volodya was beside himself when he came to me and said you’d vanished!”

Yurka swallowed nervously. He hadn’t actually thought about what would happen here at camp while he was wandering around in the forest, looking for the bus stop and figuring himself out. Nor had he thought about how Volodya would feel ... because once Yurka had come back, Volodya hadn’t yelled at him, instead blindsiding him with completely different words and actions ...

Ira went on: “You only think about yourself, but other people suffer because of you! I’ve never seen Volodya like that! He was running around looking everywhere, you know! He crawled all over the unfinished barracks, and even went out onto the river! The duty phys ed guys told him over and over they hadn’t seen you, but he combed the whole beach anyway, and even took a boat and went out somewhere! He’s always so calm, you know, so levelheaded, but it was like someone else had taken over his body—and it was all your fault, Konev! Yura?! Hey, Yura! Are you even listening to me?!”

Yurka was listening. Ira was asking him a lot of questions, but he wasn’t coming up with answers quick enough, and he doubted he even needed to answer them at all. But now, just thinking about what Ira Petrovna was telling him, thinking about how Volodya had felt when he found out Yurka wasn’t in camp, Yurka felt the hair on the back of his neck start to rise. Suddenly it hit him: Volodya had looked for him! He’d gone down to the river. Had he tried to go to the willow? Had he taken the boat to get to it? And another thing: Volodya hadn’t gone immediately to tell the educational specialist. Neither had Ira! But that kind of negligent attitude toward the job,andthe loss of a Pioneer—that would mean getting fired on the spot, if not being hauled into court.

What had Yurka almost done?

“Why didn’t you report it to Olga Leonidovna?” he asked, head bowed guiltily.

“If you’d been missing any longer, we would have! I was on the verge of going to the office, but you can thank Olezhik for telling us right away thatyou were here in the movie theater. And Volodya had asked me not to tell anybody yet. It would’ve meant a reprimand for us, but you would’ve been kicked out of camp. And then also”—she hesitated for a few seconds—“you kept my secret ...”

Yurka nodded and said softly, “I’m sorry, Ir ...”

“What good is your ‘sorry’ to me, Yur? You can see yourself that I’m not even angry. I just really want you to understand the full gravity of your actions. Yura, you’re already grown, but you’re acting like such a child. Grow up already!”

Yurka winced. Acting like a child—the same thing Volodya had said to him an hour ago, word for word!

“Take responsibility for your actions! Remember they can have consequences for people other than yourself!”

“I will, Ir. I’ll do my best,” Yurka said hurriedly, so that Ira would let him go and stop lecturing him.

She reached over, squeezed his shoulder, and said, more affectionately now, “I get it, it’s been hard for you after what happened ...”

Yurka’s guts turned to ice. What was she talking about?

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