– Well, what have you done?! I now do not see anything.

But the game began to flow in a new channel. About Moscow, all forgotten, starting to play in

"Kwacha" (in catch- up, who caught up with the others, he and Kwacha). For fun games, I forgot about the punishment, but it waited for me, threatening an unexpected revenge for disobeying my grandmother.

A teacher Olya suddenly appeared:

– Don't play enough?! – called my aunt Olya.

After breakfast, the aunt Olya, full and clumsy from her fullness, led the children into an oak grove on soft velvety grass. She spread the blanket under the thick, knobby trunk of the old oak, placed her fat body on him, and began her daily occupation, knitting blouses or darn stockings.

"Wreath!" She called with venomous notes in her voice. "You're punished today; you will not play." Sit here and do not go anywhere.

What could be more terrible for the most terrible punishment for a restless boy, how to sit next to a fat teacher, suffocating choking afterwards, clogging your breath, when there is a cheerful game right here next to your eyes. Loses the game, which breaks all my soul, and the severity of the prohibition does not allow to give pleasure, then the game becomes a hundred times more attractive than it really is. And this is the world of adults. What can be more boring than this world? Do adults really do not understand the hearts of little people, because the prohibitions in this my age bring up the deception and cunning of the little ones. So sitting next to Aunt Olya, I philosophically reflected. And sad thoughts plunged me into the jungle of reasoning that adults can only stimulate the child to play in the resolution, and the ban only tightens the soul, pushes the crime.

"Wreath!" Called the boy, bored with boredom, a skinny and frail peer. His wide open gray- blue eyes, looked innocent. The smile was affable and kind, and the upturned nose made the whole facial expression infinitely naive. He began to entice me with his gestures. The teacher at this time, snuffling, already nodded, somehow managing to sleep sitting, not leaning back on the trunk of an oak. I stood up cautiously, tiptoed over the oak.

What do you want, Pelvic?

– Come on, play in catch up with.

– And who will say?

"No one will say." Pavlik assured. I did not have to persuade me for a long time. I ran fun to meet the game of boys and girls. To meet the merry wind, not hearing the voice of the teacher. When Pavlik stopped me, it dawned on me:

– This is for you now! You're punished?! Anu ka come here!

And I, having lowered my head, wandered to the side of the calling aunt Oli. Lena Ochkolyas smiled sullenly beside the teacher. The educator's right hand was already holding her right hand behind her, an unkind sign for me. I approached cautiously, watching this hand hidden behind me. It can be seen that something very unpleasant there, and Lenya Ochkolyas awaits a terribly pleasant sight. It is not difficult to guess who handed me over and obligingly brought the stalk of nettle to the teacher. When I approached the distance of the teacher's outstretched hand, this something, as I guessed, turned out to be the burning nettles that rustled in the air, sinking to the ankles under the sweet wild laughter of Leni Ochkolyas. Tears of resentment and grief appeared on my face, I silently wept, scratching my swollen red bumps on my legs.

– Ah, what, got it?! – wailed, joyfully grinning Ochkolyas. This boy grew up in a large family. He was my peer, and was the most fragile little and sickly boy of all the boys in the kindergarten. Thin legs and a big belly made his figure comical, obscuring even the puppet features, and always a malicious smile and a tendency to talk about all the tricks of the boys made him a whore. I began to feel hurt not so much at the teacher, as in the slander of Lenya Ochkolyas, who not only talked about his unauthorized absence, but what I was sure of, even brought a gun to punishment, nettles. And now, smiling, was happy with the torments of his victim. I wanted at these moments of humiliation to run far from everyone, to huddle, wherever to the dark corner, hide and stay alone. I vividly remembered the house. The cockerel, from which I received blows and did not take offense at all, because the cockerel was never a close friend. He was an enemy friend and nothing more. And Lenya Ochkolyas was able to be both. This sowed distrust of Lena as a friend and did not evoke feelings of anger and a desire to win as an enemy. The only feeling that Lenya conjured up in my imagination was a feeling of pity born when my mother told me how she had worked for the collective farm administration so that the large family of the Ochkolyas, who had five children, built a house. As the family of the collective farm of the deceased at the hands of the bandits, who appeared after the amnesty. She told me about the horrible conditions in which the Ochkolyasis live. In a tiny hut, covered with straw, with an earthen floor, hastily molded, after the burnt to the sound of a good house. Mom also told about the difficulties of a young woman, Lena’s mother, who was left alone with her children.

The innate envy of the well- off, as it seemed to him, children, gave rise to hatred and anger in the soul, wounded by poverty.

By dinner, the burning of the toes had subsided and almost did not bother. The mood gradually returned to me, and already laughing happily, I paced the children in the ranks, substituting the footsteps of Ponomarenko Kolya, a fat and slow- moving little boy… The next day I went to the kindergarten alone without my grandmother. My grandmother refused to take me to the kindergarten. And to the mother's remark, she answered:

"He knows the way and can walk by himself." Not small, he will soon be six years old, let him learn! – to which the mother answered.

– It's small. And wander where?

– Do not wander, not great loss! And I would have drowned the Inquiry then I would not have suffered? – Mother swallowed the insult in silence, and already asked affectionately, if I know the way. I could tell you how to go to kindergarten. Mother affirmatively agreed. And this is the first time I left my house on my own in the morning. The road was park. Ahead in the bushes I saw Lyonya Ochkolyas, who stealthily looking around, looking for something there. He did not see me, and I, rejoicing that I would go more than one to the kindergarten, called him:

– Hey, Lionka, you wrote there, or what?! Let's go to kindergarten? – Lenya, frightened and displeased looking at me.

– Go wherever you go. – Answered not friendly Ochkolyas.

I approached him closer. And only now I saw that he was looking for a suitable stalk of nettles for the teacher, so that she would scourge the children with this instrument of punishment, and Lenya would, with her, as always, deserve to enjoy great trust and favor. I waited a little longer for him, but, afraid of being late, I left alone. When I entered the playground and began to examine the children swarming in the sandbox, Aunt Olya appeared from behind the corner of the sleeping building. She called me to her and said:

– Walik, tell me, surely something in the woods has died, that you and your grandmother are not late today in the kindergarten? – the teacher had a good mood and she spoke these words with a good- natured smile, showing even and white teeth. I looked puzzled into her mouth, replying:

– It in the kindergarten something is dead, so it stinks in the kitchen that already there is nothing to breathe. – I said these words, without hesitation, stinks there or not, but the remark of the educator has penetrated me with its infinitely pejorative form of treatment in relation to my grandmother, who was my friend. In a flash, Aunt Olya smiled, as if someone had erased from the face. She blushed, did not answer. She turned and walked nervously behind the kindergarten's sleeping building toward the dining room. Soon from the dining room were heard the hysterical cries of the teacher who came here to the playground: