The Hockey Stick
Today we played hockey. In the winter we play hockey very often. Because in the winter it is the most interesting thing we can do. And our winters last for a long time. They last for nearly half a year, from November to March. But sometimes it can snow even in April and October.
Honestly, it is not quite hockey. We do not play on ice. We play on pressed snow. So we play without skates. We just run in shoes or, more often, in felt boots. And if we run in felt boots then we, of course, wear galoshes over them.
Sometimes they make a skating rink for us. But first of all, this happens very rarely, and second, we play in felt boots anyway. We play in felt boots because the ice is uneven. So it is difficult to skate on it. Besides, not everyone has skates.
Today there was no ice in the rink. But we trampled the snow so hard that the puck went over it just fine. It moved very well. It almost slid. And it slid over the snow because our puck is very good.
We make it out of an empty tin can. But not out of a tall can, of course. We make a puck out of a flat tin. And the best tin is one that is opened only a quarter or a third of the way, no more.
If we put something heavy inside and bend the lid back, it becomes a pretty decent puck. And there is no fuss with it. We hide it somewhere right in our yard. And we have never lost it. Probably because no one else has any need for it.
There is another difference between our game and real hockey. We play without hockey sticks. But not because we do not have them. Some of us do have hockey sticks. Using tin metal, we attach an oblong piece of plywood to a wooden stick, thus making a Canadian hockey stick. But not everyone has such a stick. And when someone plays with a hockey stick and someone else, without a hockey stick, it ends very badly for the stick. When the stick collides with a felt boot, it immediately breaks. For this reason, we are afraid to play with hockey sticks. However, if someone has a hockey stick, he still brings it out to the yard. But he brings it just for the warm up. And when we start to keep score, everybody knows that it is better to put the hockey stick aside.
But our hockey net is real. Well, it is almost real. We score goals under a bench. The puck has to pass between the legs of the bench, under its seat. And this is exactly the spot where our hockey sticks most often break. Because when you push the puck under the bench with your felt boot, no hockey stick can withstand it. By the end of December, all our benches are covered with snow. Then we come up with something else.
Today a boy from our yard decided to play with his stick when we kept score. And my friend Gleb Paramonov, with whom I have shared a desk at school since first grade, broke this hockey stick right away.
The problem was that the stick was not homemade. It was a real hockey stick from a store. That was the first time in my life that I have seen a hockey stick like that. The boy who brought it said that the stick was for Russian hockey. It was not straight and thin at the bottom like a Canadian stick. It was round and thick. And it seemed so durable that none of us thought it could ever be broken, especially that quickly.
So the boy who brought the hockey stick started to fight with Gleb. But when he started to fight, I reminded him of the rules we had in our yard. Everyone knows them. If you decide to play with a hockey stick and I break your stick, then I am not responsible for what happened. Well, obviously I am not responsible as long as I did not do it on purpose. That is the rule. And Gleb did not break it on purpose. Everyone saw that.
Well, and of course, after hockey I came home all wet. And my mom did not like it. My mom never likes it when I come home wet. But after hockey, you cannot come home dry. And because after hockey you are supposed to be wet, Mom does not like it when I play hockey. She always wants me to switch to something else.
Last year Mom took me to the swimming pool to sign me up for swimming classes. But at the pool, they said that Mom brought me in too late. Then Mom asked what time we should have come at. And they replied that they did not mean that. They meant that it was already too late to make an Olympic champion out of me. I should have begun much earlier. They told Mom that she should have brought me in when I was five years old.
Mom argued and asked them to sign me up for beginner class. But they replied that they did not have beginner classes. And when Mom started to insist, they said, “Okay, leave your child. But if he sinks, we will not be held responsible.” So we left.
I continued to play hockey. And Mom kept being upset when I came home wet.
Today Mom was upset again that I came home wet.
She told me that it was only Tuesday and I looked as dirty as if it was already Saturday. And she might have to fire up our gas boiler to wash me.
And she would have to change my bed linen every week, like in the best hotels abroad. And she would have to see if my shirt from yesterday had dried.
Mom also said that if she had not yelled for me to come home on time, I would have probably died out there, in the yard, right next to the tin can.
Yesterday's shirt turned out to be dry. But Mom still could not calm down. She told me that she hoped I would not take my wet clothes off on the staircase and dry them. And if I was stupid enough to do so, I would easily catch a cold.
And when I hesitated with my answer, Mom was horrified and said that she just did not know what to do. She probably should not punish me for my back being wet. Because with such unreasonable behavior, I could easily catch pneumonia.
So I had no choice but to promise Mom that I would not let my back get wet again. Finally, Mom calmed down, and I started to do my homework.
As I was doing my homework, I could not stop thinking about the broken hockey stick. Before it was broken, I had held it a little in my hands. Of course, it was terribly beautiful. Its edges were not sharp. They were rounded. And the whole hockey stick was covered with some wonderful varnish. The stick had such beautiful curves that shivers went down my spine. And I thought to myself that I was very lucky that we had a yard where we could play hockey. I was lucky that many kids in our yard liked hockey. And I thought that all this was just great.
And as for Mom’s idea about my wet back — I mean, about undressing outside on the staircase and drying my wet clothing — I liked it very much.
Носовой платок
Я очень не люблю врать. Моя мама считает, что я никогда не вру. Поэтому я действительно никогда не вру. И даже не говорю никакой неправды. Потому что, если только моя мама узнает, что я сказал неправду, будет конец света. А я не хочу, чтобы был конец света.
Но иногда бывает так, что сказать правду очень трудно. Бывает даже так, что сказать правду просто невозможно. Но это совершенно разные вещи: сказать неправду или не сказать правду.