And the clouds were always different in the sky. I’d like to know if anyone has ever seen two cumulous clouds of the same shape. The day before, I had seen one of them resembling a castle fly by, and a dragon with its mouth wide open, a ship, a gigantic head with a flying beard. Is there an artist up in the sky who models them? But how does he know what castles, ships or human faces look like?
Something mysterious happens to clouds on windless days. Here they are, wavy, light, spread across the sky. You pick out a row of them, stare at it and wait. Shouldn’t it move at least a little bit? Shouldn’t it fly? No, it doesn’t. It just sits there as if it were asleep. You look at the sky an hour later, and everything has changed.
Now, there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. I lay there looking up and it seemed to me that my glance penetrated farther and farther into the firmament. It was a strange feeling. It felt as if I were not looking but rather flying into that vastness, picked up by the wind. I was weightless. I wasn’t scared. I enjoyed the sensation. I didn’t know how to express it in words, and I didn’t even try. Now, I think that it could be called the feeling of freedom, of total freedom.
A lark began to sing somewhere up there, and its song was heard everywhere, as if it was sung not by a little bird but by the sky, the whole sky…
Suddenly, someone began to talk and laugh. The magic was gone.
“There’s a lake not far from here. Shall we go for a swim?” Yarosh suggested.
“Soldier’s Lake?” Kolya Kulikov winced. “It’s just a puddle. No, I won’t go. It’s time to go home.”
None of us had been to the lake, with the exception of the two of them. Opinions were divided. My friends and neighbors, the four of them, went home. Yarosh, Parkhomenko and I went to the lake.
We decided to have a race: who could be the first to run up the hills and, without stopping, down the hills. Vitya Yarosh, a rather stout boy, his face covered with sweat, was nonetheless the first to reach the top of every hill. He sometimes fired at us as he made himself out to be an antiaircraft gunner because, naturally, we were enemy airplanes, a bomber and a fighter.
“Falcon! Falcon!” Sasha Parkhomenko, the bomber, called. “We’ve been detected! Cover me!” And, spreading his arms, he continued moving to the top of the hill from which Vitya was firing.
“Falcon is here! I’m beginning the attack!” I, the fighter, answered and, overtaking Parkhomenko, attacked Yarosh, the antiaircraft gunner. Sasha pounced on top of us, and the three of us rolled down the hill laughing.
This dashing pastime, of course, tired us out.
“How much longer before we get there?” I asked Vitya.
“It should be soon,” Vitya answered.
And again, we walked over the hills. We didn’t feel like romping any longer. Over two hours had passed since we had parted with Kolya and Edem, but the lake was not in our field of vision. We shielded our eyes with our hands in the hope of seeing the blue strip of water, but all we could see were hills. We were getting bored from such a long walk.
It was good that small incidents distracted us now and then. When an eagle with black wings spread wide soared over us, we teased Yarosh: it was not an eagle but an Egyptian vulture that spied some plump prey. Vitya might perish before reaching the lake. Suddenly, Sasha stomped his foot, bent and grabbed a small lizard. Grey, with big eyes, it wriggled and twitched and, after leaving its tail in his hand, disappeared into the grass.
“So, where’s your lake?” Sasha asked maliciously as we took a rest at the top of yet another hill. “Perhaps you’ve never been there.”
“Stop picking on me. I went there by car. I didn’t look at the road. I was reading a book.”
“Was it ‘The Three Musketeers’? You should have read it at home. Valery, let’s go back. Let him go there if he wants.”
We got up.
“Wait! I can see the road! Over there, on the right!” Vitya shouted.
Indeed, we soon walked out onto a road. But what road? Where did it go?
“To China,” Sasha said sarcastically.
It was easier walking on the road that wound between the hills, avoiding steep slopes, but we could hardly move our feet by this time. Each of us hoped that a car going to town would appear and give us a lift, but the road remained deserted; only the poles of electric power lines followed us with their sullen eyes.
We were so tired that I thought about getting rid of some of the spoils. But I felt awkward doing it in front of my friends, and they, perhaps, didn’t want to do it in front of me.
Then, suddenly, around a bend, the lake spread out before the eyes of the three travelers, as the author of one of our favorite adventure novels would have written.
Alas, not all discoveries turn out as joyful in life as in novels.
“It’s a swamp,” Sasha Parkhomenko muttered scornfully. And – I allow myself another phrase from a novel – the most profound disappointment was expressed on his tired face.
Yes, Kolya had been right. And we, for some reason, hoped that he had made it up, that he had been too lazy to walk there, and that the lake would actually turn out to be big and beautiful.
But it was rather small, just the size of two soccer fields, with bare shores. In a word, it was quite an ordinary reservoir, and even though its water glittered in the sun, we didn’t feel like going swimming. That’s how tired we were. We were also hungry and thirsty. It had been over six hours since we left home, and it had taken us almost four hours to walk to the lake.
“Are you satisfied?” Sasha asked Yarosh. Vitya only sighed in response, looking downcast and guilty.
“Look, there’s a man,” I said.
“A soldier,” Sasha specified.
A soldier dressed in a white T-shirt sat on a big car tire cleaning a dismantled submachinegun. He held a cigarette between his teeth.
I felt a bit better right away.
We went up to him, said hello, and asked for a drink of water.
“Drink. We have nothing else to offer, but we sure have plenty of water. What brought you here? It’s so far from town.”
“It’s a school excursion,” Sasha giggled, glancing at Yarosh. “The rest didn’t make it here.
The solider chuckled, “Well, well…”
I was scared that he might notice our bulging pockets, but he didn’t. The deep sound of a heavy engine was heard. A dark-green armored personnel carrier drove up to the ground near the lake. The hatch opened, and a soldier wearing a forage cap climbed out. He raised his eyebrows, “Oh, we have visitors.”
Without going into detail, we explained. The solider with the forage cap, who had a nice freckled face, nodded.
“I would give you a lift home, but I can’t. We’re staying here overnight. Have some rest and head back. They’ll be starting to look for you, right?”
The walk home seemed much more difficult, and it was so long… Unpleasant thoughts added to my fatigue – would I catch hell from Father? Back home, I learned, with a feeling of relief, that my parents had gone somewhere, and I hurried to bed. Oh, what bliss!
I propped my heavy feet against the wall. They ached, throbbed. I felt the blood pulsing through my veins, and I began falling through something, falling through…
And that’s how I fell asleep.