the children swarming in the sandbox, Aunt Olya appeared from behind the corner of the sleeping building. She called me to her and said:
– Walik, tell me, surely something in the woods has died, that you and your grandmother are not late today in the kindergarten? – the teacher had a good mood and she spoke these words with a good- natured smile, showing even and white teeth. I looked puzzled into her mouth, replying:
– It in the kindergarten something is dead, so it stinks in the kitchen that already there is nothing to breathe. – I said these words, without hesitation, stinks there or not, but the remark of the educator has penetrated me with its infinitely pejorative form of treatment in relation to my grandmother, who was my friend. In a flash, Aunt Olya smiled, as if someone had erased from the face. She blushed, did not answer. She turned and walked nervously behind the kindergarten's sleeping building toward the dining room. Soon from the dining room were heard the hysterical cries of the teacher who came here to the playground:
– What are your rosella, ah?! I'm Klava, are you asking?! – Aunt Oli's voice was heard. My remark ended in a fit for the poor cook. Which was justified, telling that she had poisoned the rats, and that some probably died under. wooden kitchen flooring and stinks there. Soon Lenya Ochkolyas appeared on the playground. In his hands he held, like a rod, a high stalk of nettles, tall in height, with a thick and strong stalk and large saw tooth leaves. On his face there was a solemn smile of the performed of the teacher and his cot mother, Aunt Olya. And in the dining room at this time the cook, Aunt Klava, after the morning catching up, nervously tapping the dishes, gave the children food for breakfast…
"Look, he's started biting!"
– Yes, the case went on to the amendment. And yet, I will never refuse to take him to us.
"Another well- wisher are dreaming about this, except for you."
– Yes, I know, Moskvichka? – said with zealous notes in his voice.
Chapter 6
In the morning, the next day, as always, in the kindergarten I met Aunt Olay’s children:
– Have you told your parents that today there will be a full sunshine blackout in the afternoon that it happens once in a hundred years? – all the children answered in unison that the parents reacted to this in different ways. Some children were not brought to kindergarten, using the pretext of full solar shading. Those children whom parents brought to the kindergarten were supplied with smoke- stained glasses, so that it would not hurt to look at the Sun. Someone brought even marine binoculars, and the boys looked at him in turn. It was very interesting and it's not clear why on one side the binoculars bring things closer, and when you look from the other side, it detaches them a long distance. I took my blue glass with me and looked through it at the Sun. But the blue glass did not protect the eyes well enough, and through it was painful to the eye when looking at the Sun. After the dead hour and the afternoon snack that followed, the children, as a rule, spent their time in the courtyard playing games. The teacher warned the children that at four o'clock in the afternoon the full blackout of the Sun would begin with the satellite of the planet Earth, the Moon. So that no one is afraid that it's only for five minutes and no more. And that the parents will come to the children, and they will look together at the blackout. It would have been better if the teacher did not say that. The children were quiet, looking around in fright. There were only ten children, instead of twenty- three. The solar blackout began with the appearance of the parents of these children. My mother came in the outfit. She was wearing a black jacket and a velvet skirt. She informed me that after darkening she would be taken to the Party District Committee in Svyatoshino for a meeting of the party organizers of the Kiev- Svyatoshinsky district and she would come from Kiev late at night. I really wanted to go with her. I asked to take me and, about happiness, she promised that she would. Suddenly it began to get dark. Twilight was coming very fast. The collective farm herd of cows passed by the kindergarten, as the board decided to drive the cows into stalls to avoid the unwanted reaction of the herd to this rare natural phenomenon. The cows began to moo loudly and anxiously. Somewhere in the distance the dogs barked. The chirping of birds suddenly stopped. An animal fear began to creep into my subconscious. The feeling of anxiety and impending catastrophe with the onset of darkness became more and more felt in the gloomy and irrevocably approaching night. The sun faded and suddenly disappeared from the sky. The sky was covered with alluvial stars. There was a silence. Even the dogs stopped barking. Only the howling of a lonely and distant dog is heard. My mother pressed me to her, stood silently in the middle of the playground and shuddered at the terrible state of the sudden night that had come on the summer day. It lasted for ages, it seemed, there would be no end to it. Suddenly the air was cool. There was no sun and darkness was entering its domain. The coolness was noticeable from the sudden disappearance of the hot sunlight, and this added fears of the irretrievability of the phenomenon. I had a feeling that now there will never be a sun, but there will be darkness. But gradually the bright strip on the place of the sun grew wider and wider. And about! Miracle! The sun began to grow in the sky and appeared again. The warmth again flowed a generous river to the park, to the leaves, to the children and the children's playground. The village girls started singing. Birds choked and everything returned to normal. I was happy and was filled with the expectation of the promised trip with my mother to the meeting in her Obkom. But her mother seemed to forget her promise. I reminded her of this, but my mother did not answer me. She already talked with other parents who came for their children. Finally, my mother paid attention to me and told me that Nyuska would take me today. My mother's promise not to take me with her hurt painfully. Instead, it's also a surprise that Nyuska will take me. That I myself will not get home? I asked myself this question. I firmly decided not to go home with my cousin. After the mother left with other parents, I asked Aunt Olya for permission to go home, citing the fact that my mother allowed me to do this. She answered yes and I left. Nyuska, of course, did not find me in the kindergarten and pushed her mother. In the morning, I got a rod in a soft place from my mother, under the grinning grins of my sister …
Oh, time, how quick is your run. Rushed another year. It was time to say farewell to the kindergarten. After lunch, in the dining room, the teacher announced to all children who reached the age of seven, including me, that today they are the last day in the garden. That until the first of September they had exactly one month left, that they were almost schoolchildren.
In a month, the first of September. I'm 7 years old. The First Class is waiting for me. Newest comrades, almost adult cares.
"And how will I read and write?" And how to count? " – I thought anxiously. – Von Ponomarenko Kolya already knows the alphabet, Lenya Ochkolyas knows how to count to ten. "
With a bitter heart complained to Ponomarenko Vasya, his brother Kolya. No, not that Coley, who slipped me a boiled bacon, and another Kolya, already a first- class student.
To which Vasya authoritatively stated:
"My brother did not even know the first letter." And now he is reading the primer. Vasily proudly declared.
– Really?! – I was delighted. And my heart became calmer. With all my heart I reached out to Vasya, but Vasya was still in the kindergarten, he would go to school only next year. That's how friends get to know, on the very last day.
"Tell me everything that's in school." To me, already for the next year. Vasilis’s asked me. Vasya and Kolya Ponomarenko lived next door to us, and I often went to play with them. It is necessary to go through the neighbor's garden and I already have Ponomarenko …
Dead hour. Children sleep in their beds. The last dead hour in kindergarten, the last day of preschool childhood I sighed and turned, could not fall asleep, I was worried. I was still racked with fears:
"How can I go to school?" I thought, tossing and turning on my bed, during a dead hour. "I cannot read or write, I do not even
