The story of Likhanov's last cold weather. Likhanov albert - last cold weather - read a free e-book online or download this book for free

Albert Likhanov is children's writer... Today we will present you one of them famous works, more precisely, his summary... Last Colds is a novel he wrote in 1984. The book makes a truly amazing impression. It describes the growing up of a person, as well as a terrible, brutal war. It can be assumed that it is on the military theme. Only it is not so. This is not a story about people in the rear and the heroism of soldiers, this is a story about children in those terrible years.

The book begins with the fact that the boy Kolya remembers his teacher, Anna Nikolaevna, who taught him school lessons, as well as life lessons.

Then it was 1945, the war was going on. The narrator in a year and 2 months had to finish primary school.

Constant hunger

Further, a summary of the book "The Last Colds" tells that you want to eat all the time. In general, all the guys could be conditionally divided into 3 groups: simple, punks and jackals. Simple guys were afraid of everyone else. The jackals took away food from everyone, while the punks simply instilled fear with their whole appearance, while they evoked the feeling of a completely stupid crowd.

At some point, when Kolya was eating, he left the soup (for the narrator, an unthinkable thing, since his mother always taught to finish everything, even if he really didn’t like the food). One of the jackals sat down beside him, unnoticed by him, and began to beg for the remains of the soup. At this moment, the narrator hesitated, although he gave him food. He noticed this boy, silently calling him yellow-faced. In addition, he noticed one guy from the punks, making his way out of line among the small ones. He called him Nose.

A few days later, while eating again, he again saw a yellow-faced man who stole bread from a very little girl, which caused a terrible scandal. After that, the Nose gang decided to beat the yellow-faced, but it turned out that they, in general, did not really know how to fight, they were more bragging. Then the yellow-faced Nosa grabbed by the throat and began to choke. The gang fled in horror. And the yellow-faced man wandered over to the fence. There he fainted. Seeing this, Kolya began to call for help, and the boy was brought to his senses. It turned out that he had not eaten anything for 5 days, and had been stealing bread for himself and his sister Marya. Then the narrator learned that the name of the yellow-faced was Vadka.

Heroes

It is necessary to tell about the heroes, making up a summary for this story. "The last cold weather" shows us completely different children during the war years. So, the narrator lived with his grandmother and mother, his father fought. At home his women "wrapped a cocoon", as he said, sheltered from any troubles. He, in general, did not starve, he was always shod and dressed, did not miss lessons.

But Marya and Vadka lived quite differently. Their father died at the very beginning of the war. Mom was in the hospital with typhus, and there was little hope of recovery. The girl had lost food coupons somewhere, so her brother was forced to jackal, to get food with his cunning. At the same time, morally, they did not descend. Children constantly thought about their mother, always lied to her in their letters so that she would not worry at all. They lived in a very poor house. The narrator learned all this after talking with Vadka.

Helping children

Describing the summary ("The Last Colds"), it is worth noting that the narrator was drawn to Vadka like a magnet. He respected this strange, yellow-faced boy. At some point, it turned out that Vadka did not have enough money, and in order to survive in the cold, he asked the narrator for a jacket for a while. He went home and talked to his grandmother, whom he told about Marya and Vadka, as well as about their difficult situation. But his grandmother did not allow him to give the jacket. But the narrator went against her will. He took the item of clothing and ran to the guys on the street. A little later, the storyteller's mother came up to them. He told her what was the matter, but the mother, unlike the grandmother, treated the children with sympathy, fed them well, and they fell asleep right at the table from satiety.

Strolling school

Albert Likhanov described the life of these children in a very interesting way. The Last Colds is a tale of true friendship. So, the next day, the three children gathered to go to school. The girl went, but Kolya and Vadka skipped school for the first time. The yellow-faced man and the narrator, who had linked up with him, went to look for food. At first Kolya was very indignant, because Vadik was well fed, and their grandmother and mother invited them again in the evening, so why do you need to look for food? He asked this question to the boy, and he said that the narrator's relatives were not obliged to feed him. He acted nobly, did not want to sit on someone else's neck.

Cake

Vadik and Kolya begged for cake, went to the market. The yellow-faced told about his own "technology of survival".

Mothers

Composing a summary of the story "The Last Colds", you need to tell about the relationship of children with their mothers. So, when Kolya was with Vadim, he very actively compared them. The narrator was always under the auspices of his mother, he did not feel sorry for her, he was not afraid for her. And Vadik's relationship with his mother was completely different: he himself said that he was very afraid for her, that after the death of their father she had changed a lot. Such an attitude towards a loved one speaks of the boy's already emerging maturity, he, unlike Kolya, has seen a lot in his life. Even wrinkles appeared on his face, sometimes he looked like an old man.

Returning from school, Marya scolded Vadik for skipping lessons, and said that she had been given food stamps. The children finally ate in the cafeteria, but the second was taken away from the girl, after which her brother drove the offender away.

The main characters ("The Last Colds") come out of the dining room, laugh, joke. Vadik's coat was torn with a knife, the girl began to cry. The yellow-faced goes to school, as he was summoned to the headmaster, while Kolya escorts Marya home. Here they wrote a letter to her mother, while the not-so-talkative storyteller was unexpectedly attacked by the spirit of writing, perhaps due to the fact that he presented himself in the place of children.

Then they went home to Kolya, did their homework there, and ate. A yellow-faced man came in with textbooks tied with a belt and a whole portfolio of food - it was handed over to him through the teacher's director. Vadik accuses the narrator's mother of being summoned to the director, as well as of these handouts. But mom says she has nothing to do with it. She seats the boy at the table, he reluctantly, but agrees. They begin to talk about the bath. It turned out that after the hospitalization of their mother, Vadik and Marya washed themselves once because of the girl's terrible embarrassment to go to the common bathhouse, and she herself could not wash, it was difficult. The narrator says about childhood that you seem to be free, but you are not, you are not free. At some point, you will definitely need to do something that your soul resists with all its might. And at the same time they tell you that it is necessary, and you, suffering, toil, obstinating, still do what is required.

When Marya and Vadka leave, Kolya's mother scolds him for skipping lessons, by the way, the first in his life.

May 8

Some time later (May 8) Kolya notices a strange fuss in the behavior of his mother, and there are tears in her eyes. He assumes that something happened to the father. But she says that everything is in order, after which she invites him to visit Vadka and Marya. There the mother also behaves unnaturally. The narrator's suspicions about the pope are intensified, only with him everything is actually in order.

May 9

Victory Day has come. The whole country is happy, people seem to be close to each other, because they are all united by great joy, as Likhanov described. "The last cold weather" (the content is briefly presented in this article) expresses with this description an amazing pride in their country.

At school, no one could sit still. Anna Nikolaevna told her students that some time will pass, and they will all become adults. All will have children, then grandchildren. Time will pass, and those who are now adults will die. Then only they, the children of the last war, will remain. Their children and grandchildren of the war will not know. Only they will remain on Earth, people who will still remember her. It may happen that the guys will forget this grief, this joy, these tears ... And she asked them not to let this happen. Not to forget ourselves and not to let others forget.

Death of mother

The narrator went to the house of Marya and Vadim. There was no light in their apartment, but the door was open. The girl was lying in her clothes on the bed. Vadik was sitting next to her on the floor. He said that their mother died a few days ago, and they only found out about it today. May 9 has become a holiday for absolutely not everyone.

They were sent to an orphanage. The narrator visited them once, but their conversation somehow did not go well. He has not seen them since then, since the children were transferred to another orphanage.

End of the piece

The story "The Last Colds" ends with the words that sooner or later all wars will end. But hunger recedes much more slowly than the enemy. And tears do not dry for a long time. And canteens with additional food have been opened, where jackals live - hungry, small, innocent children. This must not be forgotten! So Anna Nikolaevna ordered.

"Last cold weather": review

It is very difficult to leave a review about this piece. We are well-fed people, we did not know war and hunger. And it is very scary to imagine the fear and despair of people of those years, small, innocent of anything.

Is he there somewhere? What's wrong with him? God, how much I thought about it! .. In a word, both me and grandmother - we, of course, immediately began to think about my father, feeling sad, and I decided that, perhaps, my mother had every right to cry.
We ate in silence. And my mother suddenly asked me:
- How is Vadik? How is Masha?
“They go to the bathhouse regularly,” I replied.
- You see, - said my mother, - what good fellows. - She hesitated, not taking off my attentive gaze, and added: - Just heroes. The most real little heroes.
Her eyes were watering again, as if from smoke, she lowered her face to the plate, then jumped out from behind the table and went to the kerosene stove.
From there she said in an emphatically animated voice:
- Kolya, let's go to them today. I don't even know where they live.
“Come on,” I said, rather surprised than joyfully. And he repeated more merrily: - Come on!
- Mum! - It was she who addressed her grandmother. - Let's put together a present for them, huh? It is inconvenient to visit with empty handed.
- Yes, I have nothing and no such and such! - the grandmother threw up her hands.
- You can have flour, - said my mother, rustling in the hallway with bags, clattering cans. - Potatoes! Butter slice. Sahara.
Grandmother reluctantly left the table, there, behind the wall, the women began to whisper, and mother repeated loudly:
- Nothing, nothing!
Mom entered Vadik and Marya's room first and somehow very decisively. She was not surprised by the wretchedness, she didn’t even look at the guys very much, and this struck me. Strange somehow! Mom began to fetch water, took a rag, began to mop the floor, while the kettle hissed, and Mom washed all the dishes, although there weren't enough of them and they turned out to be clean.
It seemed to me that my mother was torturing herself on purpose, coming up with a job that she could not do, because the floor in the room was quite decent. She didn't seem to know what to start. And she didn’t look at Vadik and Marya, she turned her eyes away. Although she chatted incessantly.
- Masha, my dear, - mum was chattering, - can you darn? Now, after all, you yourself know how bad it is. You need to study, you need to study, child, and it's very simple: you take such a wooden fungus, well, of course, the fungus is not necessary, you can burn out on an electric light bulb, you can even on a glass, pull a sock, with a hole up, but also with a thread, first a shovel along, then across, it is necessary to take your time, diligently, so you get a thread darning, it will always come in handy ...
In general, such a talking shop on women's topics, first about darning, then how to cook borscht, then how to wash your hair so that it is fluffy - and so without a break, not that without a period, without a pause, but even without a semicolon.
And all would be fine, if not for one important circumstance, however, known only to me. The circumstance was that my mother could not endure such chatter and gently, but resolutely, interrupted such conversations if any woman who came to our light was mistaken for them. I listened and could not believe my ears.
Finally the whole room was tidied up and cleaned, the tea boiled, and there was no choice but to sit down at the table.
Mom looked around Vadik and Marya for the first time in the whole evening. In an instant she was silent and immediately lowered her head. Vadka understood this in his own way and began to thank him awkwardly, but politely. Mom quickly, slippery glanced at him and laughed insincerely:
- What are you, what are you!
I saw that she was thinking about something else. No, honestly, Mom wasn’t like herself today. As if something happened to her, but she is hiding. And she does it badly.
We drank tea.
They drank it with bread anointed with a thin, completely transparent layer of butter, and with sugar - in a very festive way. There was not enough sugar, and we ate a bit of it, no wonder. Drinking tea was considered an impermissible luxury during the war.
Sugar for tea was also military, grandmother.
Having received the ration with sand, she poured it into a bowl, added water and patiently boiled it over low heat. When the brew cooled down, it produced a yellow spongy sugar that was easy to prick with tongs. And most importantly, it became a little more. Here's a military trick.
We drank tea, ate black bread and butter, bit sugar little by little, and the hands of the clock moved to the edge of the last day of the war, after which the world began. How could I have thought that this is our last tea in this uncomfortable room? ..
Then we went outside. Vadik and Marya smiled after us.
They stood on the threshold of the room, waving their hands and smiling.
I also thought: as if they were leaving. They are standing on the carriage step, the train has not started yet, but is about to start. And they will go somewhere.
We went out into the street, and again I felt that something was wrong with my mother. Her lips weren't trembling, they were just shaking.
We turned a corner and I shouted again:
- What about dad?
Mom stopped, turned me strongly to her and uncomfortably pressed my head to her.
- Son! She sobbed. - My dear! Son!
And I cried too. I was sure that my father was dead.
She barely dissuaded me. She swore and swore. I calmed down with difficulty. I didn’t believe everything, I kept asking:
- What happened?
- Just! - repeated mother, and her eyes filled with tears. - Such a stupid mood! Sorry! I upset you silly.

* * *

And then tomorrow came! The first day without war.
After all, of course, I did not understand how wars end - just think, without a year and one month, primary education! I just didn't know how to do it. True, I think my grandmother had no idea, and my mother, too, and many, many adults who were not in the war, and those who were, could not imagine how this damned war ended there, in Berlin.
Have you stopped shooting? Has it become quiet? Well, what else? After all, it cannot be that they stop shooting - and it’s all over! Probably, our military shouted, eh? "Hooray!" shouted with all their might. Wept, hugged, danced, fired rockets of all colors into the sky?
No, whatever you think of, whatever you remember, everything will not be enough to express unprecedented happiness.
I was already thinking: maybe I should cry? Everyone, everyone, everyone should cry: girls, boys, women, and, of course, the military, soldiers, generals and even the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in his Kremlin. Everyone should get up and cry, not at all ashamed of anything, from great, immense, like heaven and like earth, happy joy.
Of course, tears always taste salty, even if a person cries for joy. And grief, grief in these tears - a full cup, immeasurable, cool ...
Here is my mother - she washed me with tears that day. I was still disgraced, she grabbed me asleep, whispering something so as not to scare me, and her hot tears are dripping on my face: drip-drip, drip-cal.
- What's happened?
I jumped up, frightened, disheveled like a sparrow. The first thing that crossed my mind was that I was right. Father! You can't cry for no good reason all evening and morning to boot!
But my mother whispered to me:
- Everything! Everything! The end of the war!
Why is she whispering? - I thought. - You need to shout about this! " And he barked with all his might:
- Hurray!
My grandmother and mother jumped near my bed like girls, laughed, clapped their hands and also shouted, as if in a race:
- Hurray!
- Hurray, hurray, hurray!
- And when? - I asked, standing on the bed in shorts and a T-shirt. Wow, from here, from above, our room seemed huge, just the whole world, and I, a simpleton, did not know about it.
- What - when? - Mom laughed.
- When did the end of the war come?
- They announced it early in the morning. You were still asleep!
I boiled:
- And they didn’t wake me up?
- It was a pity! - said my mother.
- What do you say! I shouted again. - How sorry is that? When such, when such ... - I did not know what word to use. How to call this joy. I never came up with it. - How, how?
Mom laughed. She understood me today, she perfectly understood my unintelligible questions.
- Well, my grandmother and I ran out into the street. The morning is just beginning, and the people are full. Get up! You will see for yourself!
Never in my life - neither before nor after - did I want so much to go outside. I feverishly dressed, put on my shoes, washed myself, ate and flew out into the yard in my open coat.
The weather was gray, dull, as they say, dank, but even if a storm raged and thunder thundered, this day would still seem bright and sunny to me.
The people were moving straight along the cobblestone pavement, freed from the snow. Not a single person was on the sidewalks. And do you know what came to my mind right away? The sidewalks are on the side of the road, on both sides. People walk on one side and on the other on ordinary days, in two separate paths. And then the tracks became ridiculous! Stupid to the point of disgust! People were drawn to the crowd, to the very middle of the road. How can you walk at a distance from each other? You need to connect to see smiles, speak friendly words, laugh, shake hands to strangers!
What a joy it was!
As if everyone on the street is acquaintances or even relatives.
At first I was overtaken by a band of boys. They shouted "Hurray!"
- Hurray!
Then I came across a stocky old man with a thick beard. His face seemed wet to me, and I thought that he was probably crying. But the old man barked in a cheerful voice:
- With victory, granddaughter! - And he laughed.
On the road stood a young woman in a checkered headscarf, just a girl. In her hands she held a parcel with a child and loudly said:
- Look! Remember! - Then she laughed happily and repeated again: - Look! Remember!
As if this irresponsible baby could remember something! He, it seems, was not up to the holiday, he yelled in his bag, this little one. And his mother laughed again and said:
- You shout right. Hooray! Hooray! - And she asked me: - Do you see? He shouts "Hurray!"
- Well done! - I answered.
And the woman shouted:
- Congratulations!
There was a disabled person at the corner, almost every woman who passed by served him - this was before, in simple days... He had no right arm and left leg. Instead, the sleeves and trousers are rolled up - tunics and breeches.
Usually he sat on a wooden block, in front of him was a winter hat with an asterisk, coins were thrown into this hat, and the invalid himself was drunk, however, he was silent, he never said anything, only looked at passers-by and gritted his teeth. On the left, on his chest, the medal "For Courage" gleamed faintly, but on the right half of his tunic, like a shoulder strap, a long row of yellow and red stripes had been sewn - for wounds.
Today the invalid was also drunk, and, you see, he was strong, but he did not sit, but stood, leaning on a crutch on the side where it should be right hand... He held his left near his temple, saluting, and he had nowhere to put alms today.
He might not have taken it. He stood at the corner, like a living monument, and people approached him from four sides. Women who were bolder approached him, kissed him, cried and immediately stepped back. And he saluted each one. Still silent, as if dumb. He only gnashed his teeth.
I went further. And suddenly I almost crouched down - there was such a crash. A man in the major's uniform was standing next to me and firing from a pistol. Fuck-fuck-fuck! He released a full clip and laughed. It was a wonderful Major! The face is young, the mustache is like a hussar, and there are three orders on the chest. The shoulder straps burned with gold, the orders tinkled and glittered, the major himself laughed and shouted:
- Long live our glorious women! Long live the heroic rear!
A crowd immediately gathered around him. The women, laughing, began to hang themselves around the major's neck, and there were so many of them that the soldier could not stand it and collapsed along with the women. And they screamed, squealed, laughed. Before I could blink, everyone got up, and the major was raised even higher, above the crowd, for a moment he was like this, over the women, then he fell, only not on the ground, but in their hands, they hooted and threw him into air. Now not only the Major was shining, but also his shiny boots. He barely persuaded to stop, barely fought back. For this he was forced to kiss each one.
- In Russian, - shouted some lively aunt. - Three times!
In general, something incredible was happening at school. People ran up the stairs, shouted, pushed merrily. We never allowed veal tenderness, it was considered indecent, but on a happy Victory Day I hugged Vovka Kroshkin, and Vitka, and even Sack, even though he is a fool of the king of heaven!
Everything was forgiven that day. All were equal - excellent and poor students. All of us were equally loved by our teachers - quiet and bully, quick-witted and sleepy. All past accounts seemed to be closed, it was as if we were offered: now life should go differently, including yours.
Finally, the teachers, shouting over the noise and hubbub, ordered everyone to line up. By class, below, on a small patch where they settled general fees... But the classes did not work out! Everyone pushed, wandered, and ran from place to place, from friend to friend from another class and back. At this time, the director, Faina Vasilievna, was rattling with all her might with the famous school bell, which looked more like a medium-sized copper bucket. The ringing turned out to be terrible, I had to cover my ears with my palms, but today it did not help either. Faina Vasilievna called for about ten minutes, at least, until the school became a little quiet.
- Dear children! She said, and only then did we become quiet. - Remember today. He will go down in history. Congratulations to all of us on the Victory!
It was the shortest rally in my life. We shouted, clapped our hands, shouted "Hurray!", Jumped as high as possible, and there was no government on us. Faina Vasilievna stood on the first step leading up. She looked at her raging, out-of-control school, first surprised, then good-natured, finally laughed and waved her hand.
The door flew open, we broke into streams and flowed into our classrooms. But no one could sit. Everything was shaking in us. Finally Anna Nikolaevna calmed us down a little. True, the calm was unusual: some were standing, some were sitting astride a desk, some were sitting right on the floor, near the stove.
- Well, - said Anna Nikolaevna quietly, as if repeating the question. - She liked to ask questions twice: once louder, the second quietly. “Well,” she said again, “the war is over. You found her as children. And although you did not know the most terrible thing, you still saw this war.
She raised her head and again looked somewhere above us, as if there, behind the school wall and beyond, behind the most solid wall of time, our future life, our future shone through.
“You know,” the teacher said, after a moment's hesitation, as if she had decided to tell us something very important and adult. - Time will pass, a lot, a lot of time, and you will become quite adults. You will have not only children, but also children of children, your grandchildren. Time will pass, and everyone who was adults when the war was going on will die. Only you, the children of today, will remain. Children of the last war. She paused. - Neither your daughters, nor sons, nor grandchildren, of course, will know the war. Only you who remember it will remain on the whole earth. And it may happen that new kids will forget our grief, our joy, our tears! So, don't let them forget! Do you understand? You won’t forget, so don’t give it to others!
Now we were already silent. It was quiet in our class. Only from the corridor and from behind the walls were excited voices heard.

* * *

After school I didn’t rush to Vadka’s place, he didn’t miss lessons now, and how could anyone stay at home on such a day?
In general, I came to them at dusk.
The communal three-story house where they lived was like a ship: all the windows were shining. in different colors- it really depended on the curtains. And although no noise and din was heard, it was already clear that people were celebrating victory behind the colored windows. Maybe someone with wine, the true one, but the majority - sweeter tea or potatoes, in today's case, not just boiled, but fried. What is there! Without wine, everyone was drunk with joy!
In the cramped space under the stairs, fear touched me with its icy hand! Still would! The door to the room where Vadim and Marya lived was half ajar, and no light was on in the room. At first it flashed through my head as if the room had been cleared by thieves. Where is their conscience, on a holiday ...
But then I felt a dark beam hitting the open door.
As if there, in the room, the black sun was baking hot and now its rays break through the crack, penetrate under the stairs. Nothing that you can't see it, it's a strange sun. But you can hear it, but you can feel it with all your skin, like the breath of a terrible and big beast.
I pulled on myself doorknob... Long, as if crying, the hinges creaked.
In the twilight, I saw that Marya was lying on the bed, dressed and in boots. And Vadim is sitting on a chair next to a cold "stove".
I wanted to say that it is a great sin to be twilight on such an evening, I wanted to find the switch and flip it so that the strange black sun disappears, melts away, because an ordinary light bulb can handle it. But something kept me from turning on the light, speaking in a loud voice, grabbing Vadim from behind so that he could move, revived in this darkness.
I went into the room and saw that Marya was lying with closed eyes... "Is he really asleep?" - I was amazed. And he interrogated Vadim:
- What's happened?
He was sitting in front of the "potbelly stove", his hands clasped with his knees, and his face seemed unfamiliar to me. Something changed in this face. It sharpened, dried up a little, childishly plump lips stretched out in bitter strings. But the main thing is the eyes! They got bigger. And as if they saw something terrible.
Vadim was thoughtful and did not even budge when I entered, twisted in front of him and stared into his eyes.
- What's happened? - I repeated, not even assuming that Vadka might answer.
And he looked, lost in thought, at me, or rather, looked through me and said with thin, wooden lips:
- Mom died.
I wanted to laugh, shout: what a joke! But would Vadka have become ... So it’s true ... How so?
I remembered what the day was today, and shuddered. After all, the end of the war, a great holiday! And is it possible that on a holiday, for this to happen on a holiday ...
- Today? - I asked, still not believing. After all, my mother, my mother, whom you can always rely on, asked me to tell Vadik and Masha that things in the hospital were getting better.
But it turned out ...
- For several days already ... She was buried without us ...
He spoke in a lifeless voice, my Vadim. And I just physically felt black water open between us with every word.
Wider and wider.
As if he and Marya are sailing from the shore on a small raft in their room, where I, a lop-eared little boy, are standing.
I know: a little more, and the black fast water will pick up the raft, and the black sun, which is already burning with not visible, but only felt warmth, shines on the unstable raft, escorting it on an unclear path.
- What's next? - I questioned Vadka barely audibly.
He moved weakly.
“To the orphanage,” he replied. And the first time we spoke, he blinked. He looked at me with a meaningful look.
And suddenly he said ...
And suddenly he said something that I can never forget.
- You know, - said the great and incomprehensible person Vadka, - you would go from here. And that is a sign. - He hesitated. - Whoever walks next to a disaster can touch it, get infected. And you have a dad at the front!
“But the war is over,” I breathed.
- You never know what! - said Vadim. - The war is over, and you see how it happens. Go!
He got up from the stool and began to slowly turn in place, as if seeing me off. Walking around him, I held out my hand to him, but Vadim shook his head.
Marya kept lying, she was all asleep in some kind of fake, fabulous dream, only that the fairy tale was not kind, not about a sleeping princess.
This fairy tale was without any hope.
- And Marya? I asked helplessly. He did not ask, but babbled in a childish, plaintive voice.
- Marya is sleeping, - Vadim answered me calmly. - That will wake up, and ...
What will happen when Marya wakes up, he did not say.
Backing slowly, I went out into the space under the stairs. And he closed the door behind him.
The black sun now did not break through here, into the dusk under the stairs. It remained there, in a room where the windows were sealed with strips of paper, as at the very beginning of the war.

* * *

I saw Vadim again.
Mom said which orphanage he was in. She came and said. I understood what her tears meant on the day before the Victory.
I went.
But nothing came of it, no conversation.
I found Vadim in the orphanage - he was carrying an armful of firewood. The end of summer turned out to be cool, and the stove, you see, had already been heated. Noticing me, silently, without a smile, he nodded, disappeared into the open mouth of a large door, then returned.
I wanted to ask him, they say, how are you, but it was a stupid question. Isn't it clear how. And then Vadim asked me:
- How are you?
After all, the same question can look stupid and completely serious if asked. different people... Rather, people in different situations.
“Nothing,” I replied. I didn’t turn my tongue to say “okay”.
- Soon we will be sent to the west, - said Vadim. - The whole orphanage is leaving.
- Are you glad? - I asked and dropped my eyes. Whatever question I asked, it turned out to be awkward. And I interrupted him to others: - How is Marya?
- Nothing, - Vadim answered.
Yes, the conversation didn't work.
He stood in front of me, at once grown up, unsmiling guy, as if not very familiar with me.
Vadim was wearing gray trousers and a gray shirt, unknown to me, I see, from an orphanage. Strange, they separated Vadim from me even more.
And it also seemed to me as if he felt some kind of awkwardness. As if he is to blame for something, or what? But in what? What nonsense!
I just lived in one world, and he existed in a completely different one.
- Well, I went? He asked me.
Weird. Is that what they ask?
“Of course,” I said. And shook his hand.
- Be healthy! - he said to me, for a moment he watched me walk, then resolutely turned and did not look back.
I haven't seen him since.
In the building that he occupied Orphanage, the artel was located, producing buttons. There were no buttons during the war. The war was over, and buttons were urgently needed to sew them on to new coats, suits and dresses.

* * *

In the fall, I went to fourth grade, and I was again given food stamps.
The road to the eighth canteen was embellished by a sunny autumn - maple branches swayed overhead, colored, like multi-colored flags, with festive leaves.
Much I now saw and understood in a different way. My father was alive, and although he had not yet returned, because there was a new war with the Japanese, it no longer seemed as terrible as everything that had passed. I had only a few months left to study, and - please - I had my primary education certificate in my pocket.
Everything grows all around. Trees grow, well, small people - too, everyone's cleverness comes, and everything changes in our eyes. Absolutely everything!
The autumn was warm, there was no need to undress and dress the people, and Aunt Grusha looked out of her window with her black, anthracite eye just like that, out of pure curiosity, immediately lowering her head - she was probably knitting.
And in general there were fewer people in the canteen. For some reason no one was pushing at that hour.
I calmly received food - again a glorious, at all times delicious pea, cutlet, compote - took up a spoon and, without looking around, was strumming about the bottom of an iron bowl, when a boy appeared in front of me.
The war is over, thank God, and I have already forgotten everything - a short memory. You never know why the kid could appear here! I did not think at all about such a recent past.
At the boy's temple, a blue vein similar to an accordion trembled, throbbed, he looked at me very attentively, without taking his eyes off, and suddenly said:
- Boy, if you can, leave!
I dropped my spoon ...
I lowered the spoon and looked at the kid. "But the war is over!" - I wanted to say, or rather, I wanted to ask.
And he looked at me with hungry eyes.
When they look like that, the tongue does not turn.
I said nothing. I guiltily pushed the bowl over to him, and with a fork made a border exactly in the middle of the cutlet.

* * *

Yes, wars end sooner or later.
But hunger recedes more slowly than the enemy.
And the tears do not dry out for a long time.
And there are canteens with additional food. And jackals live there. Little, hungry, innocent kids.
We remember that.
You new people would not forget.
Do not forget! This is what our teacher Anna Nikolaevna told me to do.

Early April 1945. The narrator, a boy named Kolya, lives in a small rear town with his mother and grandmother. Kolya's father is at the front. Mom works as a nurse in a hospital, and the boy himself is in the third grade.

Mom and grandmother are trying to save Kolya from hunger and other vicissitudes of war. The war is drawing to a close, but food is scarce and the boy is constantly hungry. The younger grades of the school are issued food stamps. There are not enough coupons for everyone, and the children take turns to go to the canteen. Colin's turn comes up on the first day after vacation.

The eighth dining room, to which Kolya is going to go, seems to the boy like paradise bushes with chandeliers and figs. In fact, the cafeteria turns out to be a huge and cold hall full of children from all schools in the city. Kolya sits down at the table next to two "smooth guys" who eat playing, racing. They give the remains of the bread to the ubiquitous sparrows so as not to leave them to the jackals.

Kolya finds out who the jackals are the next day. In order not to meet with the "smooth" ones, he comes to the dining room later and is already finishing dinner, when an unfamiliar boy with a yellow face appears in front of him and asks Kolya for the remains of the hated oatmeal soup. Dumbfounded, he hands over the soup, and some older girl shares her portion with the boy's younger sister. Kolya understands that these are jackals - starving children who are begging in school canteens.

The next day Kolya comes to the eighth canteen early due to canceled physical education. He has in his briefcase a piece of bread that the boy pulled from the sideboard the night before. In the longest queue, right in front of Kolya, a company of arrogant and tall guys, led by a big-nosed guy, wedges in. From the gang carries tobacco and "some kind of brute and evil force, with which even adults preferred not to get involved."

I did not envy such gangs, there were many of them then, almost in every courtyard or even class - unrighteous laws, evil and injustice reigned there.

Kolya begins to look out for the yellow-faced boy, but sees other jackals, more insolent - they steal food from trays. A neighbor on the table tells Kolya that such jackals can take away not only bread, but also a plate of soup or cutlet. At this moment, Kolya sees a yellow-faced. This time he also takes bread without permission. The robbed girl begins to roar, a hubbub rises, and the yellow-faced man has time to jump out into the street.

Kolya hears a bunch of nosed ones agree to teach the jackal a lesson. He jumps out after the guys who have already attacked the yellow-faced. He takes the blows "with some incomprehensible <…> humility", and then grabs the big-nosed leader by the throat. The gang cannot wrestle the leader from his stranglehold, the yellow-faced boy lets go of the half-strangled boy himself, and the gang flees cowardly.

Having expended his last strength in the fight, the yellow-faced boy loses consciousness. Kolya rushes to the cloakroom attendant for help, and she drinks the yellow-faced sweet tea. He confesses to the woman that he hasn't eaten for five days.

Kolya meets Vadka, who is three grades older than the boy, and his younger sister Marya. He learns that the children were recently evacuated from Minsk to the rear. Their father died at the beginning of the war, and their mother immediately after arrival fell ill with typhus and ended up in a typhoid barrack. Marya lost money and food stamps, and now the children survive as best they can. In order not to upset a sick mother, children write her cheerful and optimistic letters every day, in which there is not a word of truth.

Kolya is irresistibly drawn to Vadka like a magnet. He feels that his new friend different from all other people, even from adults.

The freedom granted to fight hunger, the independence gained in order not to die, looked different.

Vadim asks Kolya to lend him some jacket until summer. He wants to sell his coat, warm and sturdy, in order to somehow feed himself until the beginning of the month and new ration cards.

Colin's mom catches the guys in the yard when Vadim tries on a jacket that is too thin for early spring. Kolya tells her about the misfortunes of Vadik and Marya. The woman brings them home, feeds them satisfyingly and puts them to bed. After examining the children's notebooks, Kolya's mother learns their last name - the Rusakovs - and decides to help them. The next day, she calls the schools where the brother and sister study, and informs about their plight. Kolya does not know about this - he asked to keep everything secret, so as not to upset the mother of the Rusakovs.

The next day Kolya skips school. All morning he and Vadim have been walking around the city in search of food - an adult boy that is not for his years does not want to sit on the neck of strangers.

This happens often, at all times <…> a younger boy, like a faithful squire, is ready to follow a boy who is barely older than him.

It turns out that Vadik knows all the "bread" places of the city. Kolya understands that he is not a jackal for the first week. On the way, Vadim talks about the punks who take away food in the canteens, threatening with a knife. Then the guys enter a room under the stairs of a three-story communal apartment, which was allocated by the evacuated Rusakov. Kolya had never seen such a wretched room. Linens burned because of typhus, and the windows remained cross-sealed with paper. After the death of Vad'kin's husband, his mother lives as in a dream, so Vadim is so afraid for her.

On that day, Kolya decides to share his lunch with Vadik in the eighth canteen. Near the canteen Marya catches up with them and says that the school has allocated coupons for special meals for them, the director has promised new ration cards, and the teachers have raised some money.

In the dining room Marya gets lunch first, but soon loses her second course - cutlets. They are taken away by "a guy with a pumpkin-like face." Armed with a tray, Vadim stands up for his sister, despite the sharp razor in the jackal's hand. The thief runs away, leaving behind a half-eaten cutlet. The guys do not look at her, although yesterday they would have finished eating without hesitation.

It turns out, - I thought, - when hunger recedes, a person immediately becomes different? But who rules whom then? Human hunger? Man is hungry?

The "pumpkin guy" watches over Vadim at the entrance to the canteen and ruins his coat with a blade. Vadim is upset - now he will not be able to sell it.

The guys part - Vadim goes to school, and Kolya and Marya compose a letter and take it to the terrible typhoid barrack. On the way, Marya tells how she and her brother survived after losing the cards, and how embarrassing at first to beg for food in the canteen. Only then "hunger kills all shame."

Three events await Kolya in the evening. At first, Vadik comes home from school, stunned - the teachers have collected a whole portfolio of products for his brother and sister. Colin's mom assures that she has nothing to do with it. The second event is Marya's story about how she and her brother went to the bathhouse. Vadik did not let his sister go alone, the girl could get scalded, and Marya had to wash in the men's department. Since then, Marya has been ashamed to go to the bathhouse.

The third event turns out to be a scolding, which is arranged by Kolya's mother, who found out that her son had skipped school. Kolya tries to explain that he helped Vadim find food, but his mother does not want to listen to anything. She decides that Vadim is bad for her son. Kolya is indignant, in his attitude to his mother, always so strong and wise, "some thin partition is breaking."

A fragile, fragile thing is a child's soul. Oh, how to take care of it, oh, how it should be! ..

After that, catching up, Kolya "trembled", his friendship with Vadik does not work - only an acquaintance comes out.

Throughout the spring of Colin's mother tells Vadim that the patient from the typhoid barracks is doing well. On May 8, she comes home from work upset and in tears. Kolya is frightened - suddenly now, on the eve of victory, something happened to dad. Having collected a small present, my mother, together with Kolya, goes to the Rusakovs and there behaves fussy and restless.

The next day, May 9, the entire city celebrates Victory Day. The headmistress of the school congratulates the children, and the teacher asks them to remember everything they have experienced, because they, the children of the war, will be the last ones who will preserve these memories. They must preserve "our grief, our joy, our tears" and pass this memory on to their children and grandchildren.

After huddling in the festive crowd after lessons, Kolya goes to Vadim and learns that his mother died a few days ago. Colin’s mom only found out about it yesterday, and that’s why she was acting so weird. Listening to Vadim, Kolya feels like "black water opens up" between them, as if he and Marya are floating away somewhere, while he, Kolya, remains on the shore. Vadim says that he and Marya will be sent to an orphanage, and asks Kolya to leave.

Marya kept lying, she was still sleeping in some kind of fake, fabulous dream, only that the fairy tale was not kind, not about a sleeping princess. This fairy tale was without any hope.

One more time, the last, Kolya meets with Vadim at the end of summer. "At once grown up, unsmiling guy" reports that their orphanage is leaving.

In the fall, Kolya moves to the next class, and he is again given food coupons. In the eighth canteen, a hungry boy comes up to him again, and Kolya shares his portion with him.

Albert Likhanov

Last cold weather

I dedicate to the children of the last war, their hardships and not at all childish suffering. I dedicate it to today's adults who have not forgotten how to trust their lives to the truths of military childhood. May those lofty rules and undying examples always shine and do not fade in our memory - after all, adults are just former children.

Remembering my first grades and my dear teacher, dear Anna Nikolaevna, now that so many years have passed since that happy and bitter time, I can definitely say: our mentor loved to be distracted.

Sometimes, in the middle of the lesson, she suddenly rested her fist against her sharp chin, her eyes were foggy, her gaze drowned in the skies or swept through us, as if behind our backs and even behind the school wall she saw something happily-clear, to us, of course, incomprehensible , and here is what is visible to her; her gaze was fogged even when one of us stomped at the blackboard, crumbled chalk, groaned, sniffed, looked around inquiringly at the class, as if looking for salvation, asking for a straw to grab onto, and suddenly the teacher became strangely quiet, her gaze softened, she forgot the respondent at the blackboard, forgot us, her students, and quietly, as if to herself and to herself, uttered some truth that still had the same direct relation to us.

“Of course,” she said, for example, as if reproaching herself, “I won't be able to teach you drawing or music. But the one who has God's gift - she immediately reassured herself and us too - with this gift will be awakened and will never fall asleep again.

Or, blushing, she muttered to herself, again without addressing anyone, something like this:

- If someone thinks that you can skip just one section of mathematics, and then go further, he is cruelly mistaken. One must not deceive oneself in teaching. You may be deceiving the teacher, but yourself - for nothing.

Either because Anna Nikolaevna did not address her words to any of us specifically, or because she spoke to herself, as an adult, but only the last donkey does not understand how much more interesting the conversations of adults about you from teachers' and parental teachings, or all of this, taken together, had an effect on us, because Anna Nikolaevna had a commanding mind, and a good commander, as you know, will not take a fortress if he starts hitting only in the forehead - in a word, Anna Nikolaevna's distractions, her general maneuvers, pensive, at the most unexpected moment, reflections were, surprisingly, the most important lessons.

As a matter of fact, I hardly remember how she taught us arithmetic, Russian language, geography, because it is clear that this teaching became my knowledge. But the rules of life, which the teacher pronounced to herself, remained for a long time, if not for a century.

Perhaps, trying to instill in us self-respect, or perhaps pursuing a simpler but important goal, whipping up our efforts, Anna Nikolaevna from time to time repeated one important, apparently, truth.

“It’s necessary,” she said, “just a little more, and they will receive a certificate of primary education.

Indeed, multicolored balloons swelled inside us. We looked, satisfied, at each other. Wow, Vovka Kroshkin will receive the first document in his life. And me too! And, of course, the excellent student Ninka. Anyone in our class can get - like this - certificate about education.

At the time when I was studying, elementary education was appreciated. After the fourth grade, they were given a special paper, and it was possible to complete their teaching on this. True, this rule did not fit any of us, and Anna Nikolaevna explained that it was necessary to complete at least seven years, but the document on primary education was still issued, and we, thus, became quite literate people.

- Look how many adults have only primary education! Anna Nikolaevna muttered. - Ask at home your mothers, your grandmothers, who graduated from elementary school alone, and think carefully after that.

We thought, asked at home and gasped to ourselves: a little more, and it turned out that we were catching up with many of our relatives. If not by growth, if not by intelligence, if not by knowledge, then by education we approached equality with people loved and respected.

- Wow, - Anna Nikolaevna sighed, - some year and two months! And they will get an education!

To whom was she sad? US? To yourself? Unknown. But there was something in these lamentations significant, serious, disturbing ...

* * *

Immediately after spring break in the third grade, that is, without a year and two months as an initially educated person, I received coupons for additional meals.

It was already forty-five, ours beat the Fritzes how much in vain, Levitan announced a new fireworks every evening on the radio, and in my soul in the early mornings, at the beginning of a day that was not disturbed by life, two lightnings crossed, blazing - a presentiment of joy and anxiety for my father. I felt as if I were springing up, superstitiously averting my eyes from such a murderously painful opportunity to lose my father on the eve of obvious happiness.

In those days, or rather, on the first day after spring break, Anna Nikolaevna gave me food coupons. After school, I have to go to dining room eight and have lunch there.

Free meal coupons were given to us in turn - there was not enough for everyone at once - and I already heard about the eighth canteen.

Who didn't know her, in fact! This gloomy, lingering house, annexed to the former monastery, looked like a beast, which lay flattened to the ground. From the heat, which made its way through the unsealed cracks of the frames, the windows in the eighth dining room were not only frozen, but overgrown with uneven, lumpy ice. Gray bangs over front door hoarfrost hung, and when I passed the eighth dining room, it always seemed to me that there was such a warm oasis with ficuses inside, probably along the edges of a huge hall, maybe even under the ceiling, like in the market, two or three happy sparrows live, managed to fly into ventilation pipe, and they chirp to themselves on beautiful chandeliers, and then, emboldened, sit on ficuses.

This is how the eighth dining room seemed to me, while I was just passing by it, but had not yet been inside. What significance, one may ask, do these notions have now?

Even though we lived in the rear city, even though my mother and grandmother sat down with all their might, preventing me from starving, the feeling of satiety visited me many times a day. Rarely, but still regularly, before going to bed, my mother forced me to take off my shirt and bring my shoulder blades on my back. Smirking, I obediently did what she asked, and my mother sighed deeply, or even began to sob, and when I demanded to explain this behavior, she repeated to me that the shoulder blades converge when a person is thin to the limit, so my ribs are all to be counted it is possible, and in general I have anemia.

I was laughing. I don't have any anemia, because the word itself means that there should be little blood, but I had enough of it. When I stepped on a glass bottle in the summer, it gushed as if from a water tap. All this is nonsense - my mother's worries, and if we talk about my shortcomings, then I could admit that something is wrong with my ears - often they heard some kind of additional, besides the sounds of life, a slight ringing, really , at the same time, my head lightened and seemed to be thinking even better, but I was silent about it, I didn’t tell my mother, otherwise he would invent some other stupid disease, for example, low-ear, ha-ha-ha!

But this is all nonsense in vegetable oil!

The main thing was that the feeling of satiety did not leave me. We seem to eat in the evening, but our eyes still see something tasty - some plump sausage, with round pieces of bacon, or, even worse, a thin slice of ham with a teardrop of some kind of moist delicacy, or a pie that smells of ripe apples. Well, it's not for nothing that there is a saying about insatiable eyes. Maybe, in general, there is some kind of impudence in the eyes - the stomach is full, but the eyes are still asking for something.

In general, it seems that you are eating hard, an hour will pass, and it sucks under the spoon - I will not save you. And again I want to eat. And when a person is hungry, his head reaches for writing. He will invent some unprecedented dish, I have never seen it in my life, except in the cinema " Funny boys", For example a whole pig is lying on a platter. Or something else. And all sorts of food places, like the eighth dining room, can also be imagined by a person in the most pleasant form.

Food and warmth, it is clear to everyone, things are very compatible. So I imagined ficuses and sparrows. I also imagined the smell of my beloved pea seeds.

* * *

However, the reality did not confirm my expectations.

The door, scalded with frost, gave me away from behind, pushed forward, and I immediately found myself at the end of the line. This line did not lead to food, but to the locker room window, and in it, like a cuckoo in kitchen clock, a thin aunt with black and, it seemed to me, dangerous eyes appeared. I noticed these eyes at once - they were huge, half a face, and in the wrong light of a dim electric bulb, mixed with the reflections of daylight through a window covered with ice, they sparkled with cold and anger.

Current page: 1 (total of the book has 7 pages)

Albert Likhanov

Last cold weather

I dedicate to the children of the last war, their hardships and not at all childish suffering. I dedicate it to today's adults who have not forgotten how to trust their lives to the truths of military childhood. May those lofty rules and undying examples always shine and do not fade in our memory - after all, adults are just former children.

Remembering my first grades and my dear teacher, dear Anna Nikolaevna, now that so many years have passed since that happy and bitter time, I can definitely say: our mentor loved to be distracted.

Or, blushing, she muttered to herself, again without addressing anyone, something like this:

Perhaps, trying to instill in us self-respect, or perhaps pursuing a simpler but important goal, whipping up our efforts, Anna Nikolaevna from time to time repeated one important, apparently, truth.

“It’s necessary,” she said, “just a little more, and they will receive a certificate of primary education.

- Wow, - Anna Nikolaevna sighed, - some year and two months! And they will get an education!

To whom was she sad? US? To yourself? Unknown. But there was something in these lamentations significant, serious, disturbing ...

* * *

Immediately after spring break in the third grade, that is, without a year and two months as an initially educated person, I received coupons for additional meals.

In those days, or rather, on the first day after spring break, Anna Nikolaevna gave me food coupons. After school, I have to go to dining room eight and have lunch there.

Free meal coupons were given to us in turn - there was not enough for everyone at once - and I already heard about the eighth canteen.

Who didn't know her, in fact! This gloomy, lingering house, annexed to the former monastery, looked like a beast, which lay flattened to the ground. From the heat, which made its way through the unsealed cracks of the frames, the windows in the eighth dining room were not only frozen, but overgrown with uneven, lumpy ice. Hoarfrost hung over the front door with gray bangs, and when I passed the eighth dining room, it always seemed to me as if there was such a warm oasis with figs inside, probably along the edges of a huge hall, maybe even under the ceiling, like in a market, two or three happy sparrows who managed to fly into the ventilation pipe, and they chirp to themselves on beautiful chandeliers, and then, emboldened, sit on ficuses.

This is how the eighth dining room seemed to me, while I was just passing by it, but had not yet been inside. What significance, one may ask, do these notions have now?

But this is all nonsense in vegetable oil!

In general, it seems that you are eating hard, an hour will pass, and it sucks under the spoon - I will not save you. And again I want to eat. And when a person is hungry, his head reaches for writing. He will invent some unprecedented dish, I have never seen it in my life, except in the movie "Merry Fellows", for example, a whole pig is lying on a platter. Or something else. And all sorts of food places, like the eighth dining room, can also be imagined by a person in the most pleasant form.

Food and warmth, it is clear to everyone, things are very compatible. So I imagined ficuses and sparrows. I also imagined the smell of my beloved pea seeds.

* * *

However, the reality did not confirm my expectations.

The door, scalded with frost, gave me away from behind, pushed forward, and I immediately found myself at the end of the line. This line did not lead to food, but to the dressing room window, and in it, like a cuckoo in a kitchen clock, appeared a thin aunt with black and, it seemed to me, dangerous eyes. I noticed these eyes at once - they were huge, half a face, and in the wrong light of a dim electric bulb, mixed with the reflections of daylight through a window covered with ice, they sparkled with cold and anger.

This canteen was specially arranged for all schools in the city, therefore, of course, there was a queue for children, of boys and girls who had been quiet in an unfamiliar place, and therefore immediately polite and submissive.

“Hello, Aunt Pear,” the line said in different voices, so I understood that the cloakroom attendant was called by that name, and I also greeted, like everyone else, politely calling her Aunt Pear.

She didn’t even nod, looked up with a shining raven eye, threw a tin, gnashing number on the barrier, and I found myself in the hall. Only the size and the sparrows coincided with my ideas. They sat not on ficuses, but on an iron crossbar under the very ceiling and did not chatter animatedly, as their fellows chirped in the market, not far from the dung rolls, but were silent and modest.

The far wall of the dining room was cut through by an oblong embrasure, in which white robes flashed, but the way to the embrasure was blocked by a wooden, waist-length, fence of a dull gray-green color, like the rest of the dining room. To get behind the fence, one had to go up to a painted aunt, who was sitting on a stool in front of a plywood box with slots: she took coupons, scrutinized them, and lowered them, as into letterboxes, into the cracks of the box. Instead, she gave out duralumin rounds with numbers - for them in the embrasure they gave the first, second and third, but the food was different, apparently, depending on the coupons.

I piled my share on a tray and selected an empty seat at a table for four. Three chairs were already occupied: on one sat a skinny, horse-faced, pioneer, from the sixth grade, the other two were occupied by boys older than me, but also younger than a pioneer. They looked smooth and rosy-cheeked, and I immediately realized that the guys were racing - who would eat their portion faster. The guys often glanced at each other, chomped loudly, but were silent, did not say anything - the competition turned out to be silent, as if, quietly puffing, they were pulling the rope: who will win? I looked at them, probably too attentively and too thoughtfully, expressing with my eyes doubt about the mental development of the boys, so one of them looked up from the cutlet and said to me indistinctly, because his mouth was full of food:

- Burst until you got kumpol!

I decided not to argue and started eating, occasionally glancing at the riders.

No, whatever you say, but this food could only be called that - additional food. Certainly not the main thing! The sour cabbage soup made my cheekbones cramp. For the second I relied on oatmeal with a yellow puddle of melted butter, and I have not liked oatmeal since pre-war times. But the third made me happy - a glass of cold tasty milk. I finished the rye humpback with milk. However, I ate everything - it was supposed to be, even if the food they give is not tasty. My grandmother and mother all my adult life persistently taught me to always eat everything without a trace.

I finished eating alone when both the pioneer and the boys left. The one who won, passing by, painfully clicked me on the shaven head, so I drank milk not only a piece of rye bread, but also a bitter lump of resentment stuck in my throat.

Before that, however, there was one moment in which I really did not understand anything, having figured everything out only the next day, after a whole day. Having defeated the opponent, the sleek guy rolled a ball of bread, put it on the edge of the table and moved away a little. Raising their heads, the boys looked up, and a sparrow flew straight onto the table, as if on a silent command. He grabbed a round bread and immediately got out.

“Lucky for him,” the champion said hoarsely.

- And how! - confirmed the loser.

The champion was left with a crust of bread.

- Leave? - he asked a friend.

- Jackals? - he was indignant. - Give better to the sparrows!

The champion put down the crust, but the sparrow, which flew up immediately, could not grab it. Meanwhile, the kid who lost the food competition was already up.

- OK! The winner rose. - Do not disappear! - And stuffed the crust into his mouth.

His cheek protruded, and with such a slanting face, he walked next to me and snapped me on the top of my head.

I didn't look around anymore. Choking, looking into a glass, he finished the ryanukha and went with a number to Aunt Grusha.

The additional food was not very tasty.

* * *

Schools taught children in three shifts, and therefore the eighth canteen additional food puffed from morning to late evening. The next day I took advantage of this: right after school there was a queue in the cafeteria, and I didn't want to meet yesterday's smooth guys.

What a bastard! I recalled how they competed, who would eat their lunch faster, I tried to imagine their similar faces, but I could not remember anything except the same smoothness.

In a word, I took a walk, wandered the streets, and when I got completely hungry, I crossed the threshold of the dining room. There were no people to see Aunt Grusha at all, she was bored in the locker room window, and when I began to unfasten the buttons of my coat, she suddenly said:

- Don't take off your clothes, it's cold today!

Apparently, my face wandered with disbelief, or maybe just bewilderment - I had never eaten in winter clothes in my life, and she smiled:

- Don't be afraid! When it's cold, we allow it.

To be sure, I pulled off my hat and entered the dining room.

It was that lazy hour in the dining room when the crowd of eaters had already subsided, and the cooks themselves, of course, had to eat before the general dinner, so as not to be irritated and to be kind, and therefore doze wandered around the dining room. No, no one slept, the eyes of the cooks in the embrasure didn’t stick together, and the painted aunt sat beside the box, alert, spring-loaded, like a cat, you see, she had not yet recovered from the excitement of a childish queue, but she was already straining just like that, out of habit and unnecessarily ... A little more - she will become quiet and purr.

The slumber was, of course, uncomfortable in this dining room. After all, she always needs, besides satiety, also warmth, even stuffiness, and in the eighth dining room there was a chill. It looks like they still found firewood for boilers to cook food, but there was not enough energy to heat the cold monastery annex. And nevertheless, a doze wandered around the dining room - there was silence, only the spoons of a few eaters rattled, from behind the embrasure, delicious white steam slowly and reluctantly floated out, a painted aunt, as soon as I approached her with my ticket, I rolled my eyes funny, drawn out, with a moan yawned.

I got food and sat down at an empty table. It was awkward to eat in a coat, thick quilted sleeves strove to drop into a plate, and to make it more comfortable to sit, I put a briefcase under me. Another thing! Now the plates did not stick out in front of my nose, but dropped a little, or rather, I found myself higher, and things went better.

Only the food today turned out to be worse than yesterday's. First, oat soup. How much I did not want to eat, how much I could not stand oatmeal, to overcome oatmeal soup was an exorbitant heroism for me. Remembering the stern faces of my grandmother and mother who called me to hard rules food, I swallowed hot liquid with terrible violence against himself. And the power of female severity is still great! No matter how free I was here, in a dining room far from home, no matter how walls and distance sheltered me from my mother's and grandmother's gaze, it was not easy to get rid of this difficult rule. He swallowed two-thirds of the plate in half with longing and, sighing heavily, shaking his head, as if ending a silent argument, put down the spoon. I took up the cutlet.

As he sat down opposite me, I did not even notice. It appeared without a single rustle. Yesterday's sparrow made a lot more noise when it flew to the table. And this boy appeared like a ghost. And he stared at the plate of half-eaten soup.

At first I did not pay attention to it - the quiet appearance of the boy amazed me. And yet - he himself.

He had a yellow, almost dead face, and on his forehead, just above the bridge of the nose, a vein was noticeably blue. His eyes were also yellow, but maybe it just seemed to me because of what a face is? At least there was something shining in them, in those eyes. Some kind of scary flame blazed. Probably, these are the eyes of crazy people. At first I thought: this guy is not doing well. Or is he sick with something, some strange disease that I have never seen.

He also gave strange looks. My heart even sank, and I could hear the pounding of blood in my temples. The boy looked into my eyes, then quickly lowered his gaze to the plate, quickly, quickly moved his pupils: at me, at the plate, at me, at the plate. As if he was asking something like that. But I could not understand him. I didn’t understand his questions.

Then he whispered:

- Can I milk it?

This whisper sounded louder than a loud cry. I didn't get it right away. What is he talking about? What does he ask? Can he finish eating?

I shrank, froze, amazed. I was taught at home to always eat everything, my mother came up with all sorts of anemia for me, and I tried as best I could, but even with hard efforts, not everything worked out for me, although I knew that I would soon suck in my stomach again. And so the boy, who saw the half-eaten nasty soup, asks for it - asks for it!

For a long time and with an effort, I chose the word which I should say to the kid, and he understood my silence in his own way, understood, Probably, as if I feel sorry for or I'm still eating this tasteless stew. His face - on his forehead and on his cheeks - was covered with torn, like birthmarks, red spots. And then I realized: another moment - and I will be a pig, the very last pig. And only because, you see, I have no words.

I nodded quickly. And then he nodded three more times, but the boy no longer saw these nods. He grabbed my spoon and quickly, in an instant, finished the oat soup.

After I nodded, the kid no longer looked at me. I never looked. He quickly ate the soup and, hiding his eyes, moved away from the table. I looked after him. The boy went to the far corner of the dining room and only turned around there. He did not look at me, I, apparently, no longer interested him. He looked at the hall, shifting his gaze from one table, where someone was eating, to another. Next to him, in the corner, was a little girl.

I finished the cutlet, drank tea and got off my portfolio. Slowly, deliberately calming my step, I went to the exit, stealthily so that he would not notice this, looking at the boy. He was dressed in nothing, decently, in a gray coat with a black dog collar, such, I knew, were given by orders in the department store, and the girl was wearing exactly the same coat, only, of course, small size, and I thought that maybe these are children from the orphanage - they dress everyone there as if in uniform.

When I got very close to the boy with his sister - what kind of boy in our time could stand with a girl if she is not a sister? - small quickly, like a mouse, darted to the table near the window.

There was a big girl sitting there, thin and pale as paper. She nodded her small head. And when she ran up, pushed her half of the cutlet and half of the mashed potatoes. I lingered in the doorway and saw that the big girl gave the little one also bread. She was whispering something, the little one, and the big girl spoke to her inaudible to me, but good words- it is immediately clear that they are kind, because when they say kind words, they nod their heads in time.

It dawned on me.

So that's what jackals the smooth guys were talking about yesterday!

* * *

I walked home and kept thinking: could I do that? It's probably a shame. Yes, probably, and disgusting - to finish eating for others. Also ask ...

No, perhaps the boy and his sister are not from orphanage, after all, they feed there properly, but these ... What kind of hunger do you have to wipe in the canteen, eat up other people's pieces, lick someone else's plates?

In childhood, humanity does not suffer from rhetoric. And this question, how many days you need to starve in order to beg in the eighth canteen, was not for me a question for the sake of a question. I decided that I could stand it for two days. Yes, two days. On the third, no matter how bashful you are, you come, ask, pray.

Yet I could not imagine such a shame. It is clear to anyone: just like that, unnecessarily, a normal person will not beg. But the boy's eyes were burning with a mad light. “Maybe he’s sick after all? I asked myself. - Well, the girl? Sick too? "

Just in case, even in the evening, I pulled a piece of bread from the sideboard, wrapped it neatly with newspaper and put it in my briefcase.

* * *

The next day we were released after the fourth lesson. The fifth was physical education, but Anna Nikolaevna was sick with a sore throat - and so she sat with a temperature, and then you still have to go into the yard and make all sorts of exercises. Before, we also had this happen, but then, you see, Anna Nikolaevna felt better and replaced physical education with some other subject, the same, for example, arithmetic, set tasks, and she wrapped herself in a kerchief, shivered, and poured, something- she uttered something at the end of the lesson: they say, you can't spoil porridge with butter. They say that there is physical education, how can it be compared with arithmetic, where to repeat it once again is a real blessing.

But then she fell apart completely, spoke in a weak voice, and after the call for the fifth lesson, Faina Vasilievna, our headmistress, entered the class instead of her. Stopping at the doorstep and lowering her voice, she said that we quietly and quickly pack up and go home, because Anna Nikolaevna has a fever.

I ran into the canteen and found a pandemonium. A line to Aunt Grusha looped like a snake, but many, without undressing, walked straight to their aunt with a box, ate in their coats, there weren't enough seats at the tables, and some even chewed while standing, placing their plates on the edge of a busy table or on the wide monastery windowsill.

There were especially many kids, and I realized that two or maybe even three shifts came together. The little ones who were released earlier, the second shift ate, of course, before lessons, and from the third came those who, probably, did not have enough patience. I thought about it and moved to the attack of the embrasure dressed.

Life is difficult when you are short. They push you away, they can hit you on the top of your head, substitute your foot if you are in a hurry, and laugh evilly. While I was standing by my aunt with the box, the bigger boys began to walk forward and, noticing a girl or a little boy, easily climbed in front of them. They didn’t even turn around, the impudent ones, and, of course, didn’t say anything in excuse. And the little ones had to unite. At first there was a red-eared boy in front of me, and I took him by the strap of my coat so that no one would burst between us. He just smiled at me, showing half a face with crooked teeth. He himself held on to the girl. But when we approached the cashier, a long guy with a big humped nose climbed between me and the red-eared one. He so impudently wedged himself between us, as if he did not even notice that we were holding on to each other. I immediately gave him the nickname Nose.

The long one turned to me.

“Don’t rock the boat,” he hissed, and I smelled of such a vigorous tobacco spirit that I submitted.

And the long one waved his hand and let five more guys pass in front of him, no less, such an insolent man.

From the gang of this pearl, as from a smoking room somewhere in a cinema, they shouted, swore, though lowering their voices, pushed, and in general, fearless, maybe each one individually, together they were some kind of rough and evil force, with which even adults preferred not to mess with.

The gang dumped their briefcases near the wall, and none of them ever turned back to their goods. I did not envy such gangs, there were many of them then, almost in every courtyard or even class - unrighteous laws, evil and injustice reigned there. Okay, they hurt others - they could easily beat their own. Why, almost every company had its own six - a kid who was supposedly considered the aide-de-camp of the strongest. But the gangs had their own privileges. They were not afraid of adults. They did not shake at every step if they were together. They did not look around and could easily dump their bags in a heap. But I couldn't even do that little. I was alone in this cafeteria, holding my bag tightly, thinking about how I was going to carry a tray of food and even a briefcase.

This, of course, did not work well, the soup, this time the beloved peas, was half splashed, and I barely carried the rest. Well, at least lucky with the place. Finally I got a job. A gang was giggling nearby - the guys took a table, but two of them did not get seats, and they ate standing, bending over to their plates for each spoon, making the others laugh.

I got comfortable spot, in the corner, and instead of a briefcase, I settled down on my own leg, pulling it up under me, and my leg was in a large felt boot, so the whole dining room opened up in front of me at a glance.

What was going on around! I even laughed - I had never seen such a thing. The line to the painted aunt wound between the tables and ended near the wardrobe, where again, like a cuckoo, the black-eyed Pear flashed through its window.

And what a noise there was! Such a hubbub could only have been at the station. The train is about to start, but people did not sit down, and there are not enough seats in the carriages, and everyone is pantyhose, twitching, but they cannot do anything. The people in the eighth dining room were also pantyhose and twitching. Rumbled iron bowls at the distributors in the embrasure. Spoons were tapped against the edges of bowls in the dining room. Boys and girls different heights and in different clothes they got up, sat down, walked between the tables, talked, laughed, screamed, carried trays of food and dragged them back, already with empty dishes. It was not so easy to find the yellow-faced in such a crowd. And did he come today? He might not have come. Or appear later.

Sipping my soup, I studied the dining room. And suddenly I saw how a little boy jumped up to the fair-haired girl who was carrying the tray and grabbed her bread. The girl screamed in fright, almost let go of the tray, and the guys from the gang burst out laughing:

- Well done, jackal! Shouted the long one.

- Jackals! - squeaked under my ear.

I turned around. At my table was a girl and two other boys, all younger than me. Choking, they hastily ate their food, and even free hand covered the bowls, as if someone would grab them now.

“They won’t take the second away,” I said, trying to calm them down. - And even more so!

I tried to smile, and the freckled and chipped girl - from the talkative, you see, - whispered through mashed potatoes:

- How will they take away!

- Straight to the bowl? - I was surprised.

- Straight a bowl! I saw once, - having chewed like a teacher, she explained, - how a guy grabbed a cutlet right from a bowl and ate it right there! Didn't even run!

Little boys at our table knocked more with spoons.

“The main thing,” the freckle explained, “is to eat the soup as soon as possible.

- Why? - I was surprised.

- Then only one plate will remain. You can hold it.

Two boys froze while the girl said that they were memorizing the lesson of a clever teacher, but as soon as she stopped talking, they just rumbled with spoons.

I looked around the room again. And at last I saw a yellow face. He looked like a hunter. He stood in some kind of alert position.

And the chipped-toothed girl did not stop. She got to the compote and, apparently, now was not afraid that she would be robbed. So I tried.

“There are, of course, those who ask in an amicable way,” she said and sipped the compote. - They arrange raids on them. Nothing helps. She dangled her legs and no longer thought about fear. - But the little ones have the worst. And to us girls. And if you are small and a girl, then in general!

She barely had time to speak, when the yellow-faced man, deftly skirting the table, rushed towards another little girl with a tray and grabbed the bread.

The fair-haired woman was silent - apparently, she was afraid and knew how to behave - and the little one howled like a siren. The dining room immediately became quiet, everyone turned to her and the yellow-faced, and in this silence the jackal silently, confidently and quickly rushed out of the dining room.

- E-that what is it again? - shouted the painted aunt, slammed the wooden barrier to the embrasure with a crash, jumped up from her dais, yelled to the cloakroom attendant: - Pear, you are sitting there, and here they are stealing again!

The guys at the next table began to cackle, a squabble began between Pear and the painted one, and everyone was on Pear's side: of course, whoever is sitting is the painted one, and the cloakroom attendant, like a cuckoo in a clock, barely keeps time to turn around.

- Am I sitting? - shouted Pear.

- Then who? - answered her painted.

- Look, skoko people!

- And I have less? You are ordered to drive all these ... - She slowed down, but could not resist and finished: - Jackals!

- What are they jackals ?! - Pear shouted desperately. - Hungry guys, that's all!

- Everyone's hungry!

The girl whose bread had been stolen had calmed down long ago and ate the second, while Pear and the cashier were still quarreling, and then the line began to grumble. At first, quietly, uncertainly, a rustle rolled in the canteen. Then someone shouted:

- Stop bazaar! Let's eat!

What started here!

Rough and squeaky, girlish and boyish voices merged into one drawn-out, long cry:

- Eat! Eat!

I even got scared. The painted aunt looked around like a cat in danger, then realized something, decided something of her own and quickly returned to the box.

Distributors in white kerchiefs protruded from the embrasures.

- Well? They asked. - Again?

- Nothing! - Loudly, blocking the hubbub, answered the painted one and began to accept the coupons. As if on command, the scream died down, the spoons began to rattle again.

The canteen continued to feed the small people.

* * *

- And the girl's name is Nyurka, - announced the long one, who wiped me off. - She's from our yard!

- Ooh! - the rest of the gang buzzed.

“And this jackal needs to be taught a lesson,” said Nose.

It would never have occurred to me that this Nose was fighting for justice. There are just a lot of them, that's all. And the yellow-faced one - is he only with his sister?

Having finished, I jumped out for the Nose's gang. The long one was already talking to the yellow-faced. He was alone and stood in front of the boys, leaning against the fence.

I was amazed. The yellow-faced man was completely calm. It seemed like another moment, and he yawns.

- Yes we are, - Nose swaggered, - yes you! Let's hand over to the police, such a bully.