Page 74 of Pioneer Summer

Their goodbye handshake was a little awkward. All night Yurka had been dying to ask Volodya one burning question, but he just couldn’t muster the courage. Now, as they stood in silence, right hands clasped, Volodya wouldn’t let go, as though he were waiting for something. When Volodya finally released his hand and softly said, “Bye,” Yurka had no choice. He had no more strength to wait until tomorrow. He panicked: “No! Wait! I want to talk to you. I have something to ask you.”

“What?”

“I don’t get it. You were talking about there’s a girl you like, and—”

“Is that really what I said?” Volodya interrupted. Yurka stared at Volodya, confused. “I didn’t say ‘girl.’ I said ‘person.’”

“But then who is it?”

“It’s a long story. Forget about it,” urged Volodya. Out of nowhere he hugged Yurka, then just as suddenly released him. “And then I’ll forget about the ‘girl from my building,’ too.”

“It’s hard to forget something like that,” grumbled Yurka.

Volodya snorted mirthlessly. “Tell me about it.” He took both of Yurka’s hands in his own and said regretfully, “Yur, we can’t keep dragging this goodbye out. Irina’s going to notice. And it really is time to get some sleep. Right now the main thing’s to make it to tomorrow, right?”

“Wrong. I’m coming to you today,” said Yurka firmly. “Tonight, late, after everyone’s asleep. At midnight, or maybe a little later.”

“No. We can’t risk it, especially not after this afternoon.”

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. I’m coming. I’ll tap on the window.”

“Don’t ...”

“Even if you don’t wait up for me, I’m still coming.”

“Well ... okay, then. I won’t be able to get to sleep anyway, after today. Just be careful and stay out of trouble.”

Waiting until the little kids fell asleep was no problem, but it was a long time until the senior troops went quiet. As soon as Yurka lay down in bed,all the day’s accumulated tiredness hit him like a ton of bricks. He kept drifting off, but with a supreme effort of will he caught himself every time and made himself wake up. He wanted to see Volodya again too badly to let himself doze off.

Once the camp had gone not only quiet but dark—some of the outside lights were turned off after lights-out—Yurka knew it was time. He got up, dressed, and left the cabin.

This was the first time he’d seen the camp so quiet and empty. His imagination ran wild, fed by the lack of sleep and the day’s trepidations: Had the enemies of the Soviet Union gone ahead and hit the place with an atomic bomb, killing everything around? He couldn’t hear any owls hooting or any barking from the dogs over in Horetivka; only the crickets gave themselves away with their violently loud chirping. Yurka had even heard that some insects, like cockroaches, were capable of surviving a nuclear war.

All the windows of all the cabins were completely dark. At last he reached the Troop Five cabin, which was just as dark and quiet as the rest.

Yurka instantly found the window he needed. He stepped up onto the small ledge formed by the base of the cabin and knocked. A few seconds later, a pale face with glasses appeared out of the darkness. Yurka pointed back behind himself at the bushes and whispered soundlessly that he’d wait for Volodya there.

Volodya came out dressed all in black a couple of minutes later, but even that brief wait felt like an eternity to Yurka. He rushed out to meet Volodya and grabbed his hands, but Volodya jerked back: “What are you doing, they’ll see! Not here.”

“Fine,” grunted Yurka sullenly. He held tight to Volodya’s wrist and dragged him through the bushes toward the athletic fields.

“What kind of Pandora’s box have I opened here?” hissed Volodya, running behind Yurka.

They went by the tennis and basketball courts to end up by the pool. The only thing past the pool was dense woods. Right now it was petrifyingly dark out here. The water rippling in the pool looked black, and the moonlight cast shadows onto it from the tall trees. At the far side of the pool, past the row of starting blocks, statues of swimming Pioneersstood with their backs to the woods. Two white plaster silhouettes, of a girl in a swimsuit with an oar and a boy getting ready to dive, glowed like ghosts against the background of the dark, gloomy woods. But Yurka couldn’t have cared less about how scary it all looked. He barely registered it. Instead, he dragged Volodya on, skirting the pool to hide behind the pedestal of a statue.

He took a step toward Volodya, wanting to embrace him, but Volodya pushed him away: “Wait, people can see us. Let’s get down.”

Volodya sat on his knees on the grass right next to the pedestal and pulled Yurka down. Yurka submitted, but he was horribly offended. “If you push me away just one more time, I’ll disappear out of your life for good. I’ll—I’ll run away for real!”

“Fine,” said Volodya. In the dark, it was hard to tell which emotions were playing across his face. “I’m sorry. You know why I do that ... But I won’t do it anymore.” Then he paused. “So you did mean to run away earlier? Where were you?”

“Over there.” Yurka gestured in the general direction of the road. “I went out to the bus stop.”

Volodya took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as though he were trying to get himself under control and calm down.

“For five hours?! Yura, I just about lost it looking for you!” Volodya whispered hotly. “I ran around the camp like a crazy person. I checked every room in the unfinished barracks, every single one! And there’s forty of them in there! But you weren’t anywhere. And I was afraid to ask about you, in case anyone figured out that you were up to who-knows-what again and told Leonidovna. You know how fast rumors spread here, and if she found out, that’s it: Consider yourself already kicked out of camp. And that was if I could find you! But what if I couldn’t?!” Now Volodya was doing his best to yell at Yurka in a whisper.

“Oh, simmer down! What could happen to me? This isn’t my first time here; I already know every—”

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