Page 83 of Pioneer Summer

He withdrew his arm from around Yurka and with a ferocious grin he raced over to the other door, which was unlocked. Yurka stood underneath the window and watched as, a few seconds later, Volodya jubilantly cried, “Aha!” and burst into the room with the terrified girls, moved the disheveled, flustered Lena to one side, and caught the first ghost. The others were scared and rushed to flee out the cabin door, but Yurka was waiting for them in the doorway.

They didn’t leave the cabin until all the ghosts had been neutralized, delivered back to their own room, and put back in bed.

“So what’s gotten you so cheerful?” said Yurka, amazed. It used to be that Volodya got upset when people didn’t follow the rules, while Yurka was amused, but now it was the other way around. He hadn’t even noticed when they’d switched places.

“Firstly, I’ve finally slept, and secondly, I realized that if I don’t learn to have a sense of humor about pranks, I’m going to end up killing these little squirts,” chuckled Volodya. “Clearly the scary story really was bad this time. It didn’t work.”

Then Volodya took Yurka’s hand and pulled him into the thicket. Yurka couldn’t tell what the bushes were in the dark: either lilacs or some other sort of tall shrub. There was a large clump of them at a small distance fromthe cabin. Inside, it was quiet and dark. It felt like they could hide from everyone here, even from ghosts with flashlights, and the best part was that Volodya and Yurka could see the whole wide-open yard.

But they were no longer watching over, or waiting for, or looking for anybody. Now that they were finally alone, they had eyes only for each other. Tremulously, they embraced and whispered in eager conversation about nothing at all.

Not half an hour later came the sound of someone’s footsteps walking along the path to the Troop Five cabin. Yurka heard it first and pulled away from Volodya. “You hear that?”

Volodya put his finger to his lips, pulled a branch down a little to make a small gap in the bushes, and peeked out. So did Yurka. The person coming down the path was Masha.

She peered into the window of the girls’ room for a long time, apparently looking for someone in the dim space lit only by a night-light. Yurka could tell who she was looking for: Volodya. When Masha didn’t find him there, she went over to the other window, the one to the boys’ room. She looked in, listening and waiting. Once she was convinced he wasn’t in there, she walked through the flower bed to the third window.

“My room,” whispered Volodya.

That room was completely dark, so Masha quickly went back up onto the porch. The door gave a quiet creak as she carefully went inside the cabin. Volodya tensed visibly.

“Where does she think she’s going? Is she crazy?” He moved sharply, about to leap to his feet, but Yurka grabbed his arm.

“Wait, hold on. Is there anything wrong in there? I mean, any blackmail material, stuff like that?”

“Well, no, actually,” said Volodya, after some thought.

“So sit tight, then. What’s she going to think when she sees you lurking around in the bushes?”

“Like hell I’m going to sit here and hide when somebody’s digging around in my room!”

Volodya emerged from the bushes just in time. Masha was coming out of the cabin and ran into Volodya in the doorway. It was too late for Yurka tosneak away. His alarm grew with every passing moment. A terrible realization was driving him to distraction: Was the lovelorn Masha so far gone that she was actually stalking Volodya now?

Yurka was trying to fight down an insane urge to run over to her and tell her off. Then he froze in his tracks, realizing he was a hopeless idiot. The porch was too far away. Not only could he not hear what they were saying, he couldn’t even read their lips because the swarming bugs were making the dim light from the weak bulb flicker and it was impossible to see anything. But one thing was clear: Whatever Masha was telling Volodya was making his indignation melt away.

They finished their conversation. Masha moved calmly down the porch steps to the path and walked away. When she was out of sight, Yurka burst out of the bushes and ran over to Volodya.

“So? What did she say?!” he exploded, panting from agitation.

“She was looking for you,” replied Volodya. He sounded worried. “She said Irina was looking for you, and since you weren’t in the theater, Masha thought you might be with me. It’s not necessarily so strange. You’re both in the same troop, and she helps Irina a lot, so nothing’s out of the ordinary here, but ... I wasn’t expecting it.”

“Not so fast. This is way out of the ordinary! You know what? I’ve heard Masha is saying stuff about me. And she’s basically just acting really suspicious. Have you noticed? She winds up around us too often ...”

“Are you sure you’re not exaggerating?”

Yurka saw Volodya’s somewhat patronizing smile and faltered. Volodya doubtless thought Yurka was still jealous of the time he danced with Masha and was willing to accuse Masha of anything as a result. And if that really was what Volodya was thinking, well, he was right! Yurka’s passionate urge to leap out of the bushes and catch the spy red-handed was indeed motivated by jealousy. But Yurka thought of other arguments in support of his theory, too, and he said them aloud: “This isn’t the first time she’s gone wandering around at night. Remember that time Ira came to the theater and jumped on me, asking what I was doing with Masha and where I’d been? And you know what else? No matter where we are, she’s always there. Volod! We have to report that she’s out at night!”

“Well, why don’t you start with Irina?”

Yurka’s mood was already ruined, and Volodya was getting paranoid again: he kept holding still to listen and look around, and he wouldn’t let Yurka even touch his hand. And the evening was coming to an end, anyway.

He quickly said goodbye to Volodya, returned to his cabin, and found his troop leader. Expecting her to glare up at him and start shouting the moment he appeared at her door, he’d already prepared his mumbled excuses, but Ira just stared at him in surprise and said, “No, I wasn’t looking for you, actually.” Yurka was picking his jaw back up off the floor when Ira seemed to realize what he’d said. “But hold on: Where were you?”

“With Volodya.”

“Do you have any idea what time it is? Yura, if you need to be out after lights-out, you have to let me know!”

Yurka struggled to calm his swirling, fearful feelings as he fell asleep. There were always a lot of girls buzzing around Volodya, but it seemed to Yurka that Masha was among them too often. He was probably just jealous. And he’d evidently been infected by Volodya’s paranoia, too ...

---