Mutiny of the Little Sweeties

Mama was away in Moscow for a few days. The next morning, Papa got up stealthily and carefully pushed Alex and Costa together; they were sleeping with him now using the excuse that they were afraid. Papa moved them because, being moved, they felt something warm nearby and believed that Papa was still lying right beside them. If they were not moved, after some time, someone would wake up for sure and start to wander around the house, looking for adults.

In complete darkness, lit only by the screen of his phone, Papa went to work. It was dark and cold. In the dark room, there was a continuous swishing, squeaking, rustling of papers, and short frenzied quarrels. It was the huge rat, Schwartz, with a tail thick as a ring finger, educating his wives. The awakening parrots responded to the rats. Half an hour later, when dawn began to appear weakly beyond the window, high, continuous, melodic sounds were added to the choir of rats and parrots. These were the guinea pigs squealing a little, demanding food.

Wrapping himself in a blanket, Papa made coffee, sat down at the computer, and began to work immediately in three windows, in each of which lived a separate chapter or story line. At seven, the alarm went off on Papa’s phone. He climbed the stairs, and while he was climbing, all new alarms above snapped into action. Each had a different melody and some even a train whistle. These were now the children’s alarms on phones, smartphones, and tablets.

The alarms did their best, but still no one woke up. Papa got angry and ran, pulling blankets off everyone and repeating monotonously, “School, school, school!” Occasionally one of the children half rose in the bed, looked at Papa with eyes seeing nothing, and settled back on the pillow again.

Finally, Vicky woke up, followed by Kate and Alena, and then Papa went downstairs, knowing that everything would go as usual. He washed buckwheat kasha, added water, and placed it on the stove. Kasha is valued because one can eat it in any way: with milk or without milk, with sausages or without sausages, with sugar or without sugar. And cooked kasha is quite edible even after two days.

The kids could be heard screaming at each other upstairs.

“Turn off your alarm!”

“I can’t! It won’t turn off!”

“Well, at least put it under the mattress!”

Somewhere in the process of the overall noise, Costa got into a fight with Alex, then he went to the mirror and, lifting up his t-shirt, began to study his chest earnestly. Mama once told him, “You’ll have a black heart when you fight!” And now, after fighting, Costa always lifted up his t-shirt, looked, and then yelled, “Not black! Not black!” However, it was apparent all the same that this issue troubled him. After yelling “not black!” several times, Costa just in case put the shoes back in the place where Rita had left them, went to Papa, and asked in a whisper, “Is my heart red now? Look!” And, not waiting for an answer, he quickly ran away.

Finally, Papa brought the chapter to a turning point, where it was possible to break safely. He sat Costa and Rita down on the bike and took them to kindergarten, where a crowd of mothers, getting excited, were discussing buying shampoo or a vase for the teacher’s birthday. While Papa was trying to get away from the discussion, the children went to school with Alex in tow.