Mutiny of the Little Sweeties
- Автор: Емец Дмитрий Александрович
- Серия: My Big Family #1
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Переводчик: Jane H. Buckingham
- Жанр: Детские и приключения
Электронная книга - «Mutiny of the Little Sweeties». Краткое содержание книги:
“So what are we to do?” Mama asked.
“I’ll call you,” the grandpa replied and said goodbye.
Mama stood for a long time with the phone still in her hand and then ran to Papa. Papa was sitting in front of the computer and stroking the keys. The brilliant novel was hiding somewhere among the keys, and all that was needed was to press the keys in the correct sequence. But who knows what the correct sequence is!
“It’s August 31st!” Mama yelled. “We’ve just enrolled in school! And now, it turns out, there’s also a caving-in with school and you can’t understand anything at all! It’s as if we’re on a volcano!”
Papa looked at the wooden floor. There clearly was no volcano under them, but then a mouse was living under the floor. At night, it could be heard running and rustling, and sometimes in the morning, there would be a small pile of sawdust on the floor that the mouse had thrown out.
Papa put Mama on his lap and stroked her hair. “Everything will resolve itself somehow!” he promised. “Remember how many times everything was difficult and bad, and then everything resolved itself?”
“So we’re still going to school?” Mama asked.
“Where else will we go?”
Mama ran to iron uniforms, wipe with a damp cloth the backpacks dusty from the move, and do other important things that without which September 1st would never come.
The most trouble was with school uniforms. They were not required in the previous school, which only asked to come dressed in something “normal”. In this school, they had to wear something responsibly dark, in a decorous style, and under no circumstances a sweater and jeans. Peter, though, was a supporter of jeans in particular. He had roughly the same number of jeans as sunglasses.
“Give him your pants! You’ve almost never worn them and they look very respectable!” Mama said to Papa.
Papa doubted that Peter would agree to go to school in the pants, especially those that someone had worn before him. Peter got accustomed to things for a very long time, could go around in one thing for weeks, and cursed a lot if something else appeared.
“Don’t you mention these pants to him at all! He’ll say that they’re filth and lousy. You wash all his old jeans and secretly put these there. He’ll then put them on in order not to go around naked. Only don’t get into any argument with him!” Papa advised her.
“But what about pedagogy? What about Makarenko?”[21] Mama asked plaintively.
“Students of Makarenko wore athletic shorts,” Papa parried.
The night of August 31st to September 1st turned out to be difficult. Rita was whining non-stop. She was cutting another tooth and clear snot was flowing from her nose like a long, sticky river. In view of that, Rita did not sleep for a large part of the night, and Mama and Papa watched her in turn.
At some point, on Mama’s watch, Papa heard shouts of “Hello! Hello!” in his dream. He sensed a dirty trick and woke up. It turned out that Mama was trying to weave grapevines into a rocking chair, using the wooden frame of an old chair which she had found in the basement. Rita was walking around with Papa’s phone, calling anybody, and shouting, “Hello! It’s me! Hello! It’s me!” The unhappy voices of people who had been woken up could be heard responding. This was all fun for Rita and she broke into laughter.
Papa ran to catch Rita. On seeing that someone was trying to catch her, Rita rushed off with laughter in the opposite direction. She ran to the bathroom and froze, looking around merrily and jumping on the spot. Papa started to sneak up carefully to her. Detecting Papa sneaking up, Rita was amused and began to run away from Papa around the baby bath, which was about a third full of water and with rubber boots standing in it, on the floor.
“Why did you give her my phone? She’s calling people!” Papa shouted at Mama.
“Sorry! I didn’t see it!”
“I don’t believe you! Oh-h! Catch her! She’s dropping it!”
Papa rushed forward. The phone slipped from Rita’s hand, flew up, bounced off the edge of the sink, and fell into the baby bath. Papa uttered a plaintive cry, rushed to the bath, and saw that the phone had fallen right into a boot and was lying in it safe and sound.
Papa quickly took it together with the boot, but told Rita that the phone had dissolved. No more. Rita looked all around in the tub, spread her arms, and repeated wonderingly, “No more! No more!”
On the morning of September 1st, while Papa fed the other children breakfast, Mama stood by Peter’s door and listened. Now Peter pushed the stool with his knee, now he was searching for his jeans. Now, he sniffed decisively and set off to the door. Mama had managed to disappear into her room and dived under the covers.
“I’m sleeping! Don’t bother me! ” she yelled before Peter had time to knock.
Peter stopped thoughtfully, looked at his watch, put on the pants, made sure they were sitting all right on him, and resigned himself. Downstairs, the children were given pocket money for all kinds of snacks in the school cafeteria. Even Rita, seeing that the others were doing this, demanded money, although she only had a vague idea of what to do with it. Papa tried to give her a coin, but Rita wanted paper money, because she saw that Papa had given paper money to all the others.
However, Papa had only a large bill left and giving it to Rita was not in his plans. Rita did not understand this and had already started to pout dangerously. Fortunately, Alena had the sense to take a magic marker and draw for Rita money with so many zeros that you could buy the whole town, if only it was accepted for payment. She even depicted quite acceptably a portrait of Mama on the banknote. So, the money turned out to be tolerably official.
“100 roubles to the 100th degree! That’s powerful!” Peter stated the value and went to school.
Papa stood at the window and watched as Peter went to school together with his toughness. Peter caught up with Alena, who was still scared to go to a new class, where it was unknown how she would be taken. She walked along for some time and then, as if by chance, stretched her hand out to her brother. Peter conferred with his toughness, looked back at the window, checking to see if the parents were watching, and took Alena’s hand. Alena went with a huge bouquet of gladiolus thrown over her shoulder like the club of a folk warrior. Vicky and Kate followed at some distance behind Alena. Kate went without gladioli, folded her arms on her chest, and looked like Napoleon heading to a council of marshals. Vicky was moving in short dashes, clutching flowers to her chest. Mama and Alex brought up the rear. Also with gladioli. Mama held Alex’s hand firmly, knowing that he would climb on fences and trees otherwise and immediately get dirty.
Mama returned home at nine in the morning. “It seems that everything’s fine. I looked at the line. Alena and Kate immediately joined the team, but Vicky is staying on the sidelines and pining for the time being. It’s always like this with her. She’ll get accustomed in a day or two,” she communicated.
“And Peter?”
“I didn’t see him. There were many classes, everyone was running around, the orchestra was roaring… By the way, Alex has to be picked up in an hour!” Mama said.
“Yes. Nice to study in the first grade!” Papa said.
Mama was standing, looking out the window, and thinking about something. “It’s strange that all our children are so different! Different personalities, habits, desires… All different! But growing up together!” she said.
“Nothing strange about it. They sometimes mix up in maternity wards!” Papa responded. He had already started weaving a story. “Perhaps my perfect child is now with the Turkish Sultan? Yes, exactly!”
“How?”
“Simple! The Sultan could have come to Moscow with all his wives to see the Red Square. And then – oh! – one of his wives clutches her stomach. The Sultan grinds his teeth because he hasn’t seen the Place of Skulls.[22] But there’s nothing to be done. He jumps in the limo and takes the poor wretch to the hospital in Kapotnya, where you gave birth to Peter and where they’re ready to accept a non-resident woman without registration… The guards wave their pistols, the Sultan plucks his beard, and the hospital staff is nervous and attaches the name-plates incorrectly! My perfect child turns out to be in Turkey, while we only have the heir to their throne!”
21
Anton Semenovych Makarenko (1888–1939), Russian and Soviet educator, promoted democratic ideas and principles in educational theory and practice.
22
Lobnoe mesto, also known as the Place of Skulls, is an old circular stone platform on Red Square, a place that was used for the announcement of royal decrees and other special public events.