Page 82 of Pioneer Summer

Zhenya continued in a voice from beyond the grave: “The little boy was able to hide in an abandoned building and avoid the spies, but if they’d caught him—”

The boys’ room door was flung open, which kept Zhenya from finishing the story. In the doorway stood a sleepy, tousled, and disheveled Volodya with a self-satisfied Sashka bobbing around behind him.

Yurka, unable to suppress the joy that suffused him, automatically moved toward Volodya and seized his hand. Volodya gripped his hand back, pretending that it was just a regular handshake of greeting. The boys were triumphant: “Now we’ll get a good scary story!” Even Zhenya was glad to see the troop leader, rolling his eyes and groaning, “Finally! Can I go now?”

“You can go now,” said the sleepy Volodya through a yawn. “Thanks for covering for me.”

“And now will you tell a scary story?” squeaked Sashka, his eyes narrowed calculatingly.

At that point Yurka realized the troop leader had had some help waking up. Then it hit him that Volodya would also doubtless be hungry, and he started fretting in earnest: Where could he go and what could he do to get Volodya something to eat?

Meanwhile, Volodya plopped down clumsily on the edge of an unoccupied bed and tried to smooth his tousled hair, but he ended up just making it stick out even more. Baffled, he whispered in Yurka’s ear: “What do I tell them? We haven’t thought anything up in a long time.”

“So think of something!” Yurka whispered back. He nuzzled Volodya’s ear with his nose, as if accidentally.

“My brain’s not working at all right now,” grumbled Volodya.

Suddenly, Yurka had a revelation: almost every child’s parents sent care packages from home, meaning that the boys had food! Yurka said excitedly, “I’m giving you a five-minute head start. Come up with something.” Yurka moved to the middle of the room and started issuing orders: “Listen up, everyone! If our troop leader’s brain is going to be able to think, it needs fuel. That is, food. Dig deep into your grain bins, scrape every last kernel out of your corncribs! We have to feed our troop leader!”

“What’s a corncrib?” someone queried from the right side of the room by the window.

“And a grain bin,” came a question from the left side of the room by the door.

“Your care packages,” Yurka explained. “Is there anything left from your care packages, or did you already go through it all? Sash, I know for a fact that you’ve got cookies under your pillow.” He stabbed his finger toward Sashka’s bed. “I’ll trade you half a pack of cookies for one first-rate scary story.”

“How do you know I’ve got cookies?” scowled the chubby boy.

“Because I check your beds every morning,” Volodya chimed in, confirming Yurka’s guess.

For a wonder, Sashka did not try to argue; he just pulled out the package of Jubilee cookies and clutched it to his chest, asking doubtfully, “Are you sure the scary story will be first-rate?”

“Depends on the cookies,” said Yurka, crossing his arms on his chest.

“But the main thing is that it’s new and based on real events!” Volodya said, indicating to Yurka that he’d had an idea for a story.

“Great!” said Sasha, nodding in approval, but his hand still wavered when he held the package of cookies out to Volodya. “But if the scary story’s no good, I get my cookies back!”

Volodya nodded and snatched the package of cookies. Crunching ensued.

“No, not all chewed—” began Sashka indignantly, but Volodya, his mouth still full of cookies, began the story: “So this was literally the day before yesterday, in the early hours of morning. Imagine this: I wake up from some kind of strange noise in the troop leaders’ room. I open one eye and look down at the floor, and there’s some kind of strange black blur crawling across the floor. It’s shapeless, but it has these scary pointed parts on it! It crawls straight up to Zhenya’s bed, making this terrifying rustling noise, like—” and he crunchedinto another cookie. “But Zhenya’s just sleeping like nothing’s happening. I’m paralyzed with horror: I have no idea what this thing is or what it’s capable of. But then, all of a sudden, the black blur stops. And it starts moving around, turning in circles, and then it turns around and heads away from Zhenya’s bed and toward me! But I’m too scared to move. I can’t even reach out to feel for my glasses on the nightstand. So I end up catching hold of a book instead, and I crawl over to the edge of the bed, and I prepare to attack ... It’s headed toward Zhenya again, so I take advantage of the situation to jump out of bed and go over to it, but as soon as I raise my hand to hit it, the blur rushes toward my feet! I shout and jump away. Then Zhenya wakes up and has no idea what’s happening. I poke him, but then he sees it and lets out a stream of curses! Then he picks the blanket up off his bed and throws it right on top of the blur. And he says to me, ‘Volodya, put your glasses on!’ So I go over to my nightstand and plop on my glasses, and meanwhile Zhenya is gathering the blanket up into a bundle and holding the bundle in both hands. I look at it, and what do I see sticking out of it but ... a little pink nose! And the thing is snuffling! So fess up: Which of you took Snuffly from the Red Corner and brought him in here? You just about gave a troop leader a heart attack!”

Yurka couldn’t help it and burst into loud laughter. The boys started laughing, too.

“That’s not a scawy stowy at all!” squeaked Olezhka happily. “That’s a funny stowy!”

“Right! A funny story, not a scary story, because you get what you pay for with your so-so cookies. You were warned!” announced Yurka. Imitating Volodya’s managerial tone of voice, he ordered, “That’s it. And now time for bed.”

“Blankets to chins. And no talking,” chimed in Volodya.

It took them half an hour before they could get the kids to bed. Once they’d left the cabin and taken a lungful of fresh, still-warm air, Volodya asked Yurka merrily, “How are you? How was your day?” Then he surprised Yurka by shaking his hand even though they’d already shaken hands hello that day.

“I missed you!” Yurka burst out.

As though he’d heard his own words from the outside, Yurka immediately blushed and his throat closed up tight. He’d just blurted somethingvery candid indeed. He cleared his throat and patted the merry-go-round, inviting Volodya to sit down next to him. Volodya, for his part, seemed to like what he’d heard. He smiled, then adjusted his glasses and began, “And I also—”

He was cut off by the desperate shrieks of twenty voices coming from the girls’ room. Volodya rushed onto the porch and tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside. Yurka ran over to the window and hopped up to peer in. He saw “ghosts” in bedsheets with flashlights flying around the room. “Volod! Everything’s all right. It’s not sabotage. It’s ghosts who flew in to visit the girls,” he informed Volodya, laughing.

Volodya ran over to him and looked in the window, too. Yurka felt Volodya casually put his arm around his waist. “Six ghosts!” exclaimed the troop leader, as though nothing all that special were going on—as though saying,So I put my arm around him. That’s totally normal.“Let’s get ’em!”

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