Soon after the death of my husband I moved the children to School No. 201. It was too far to the other school, and I was afraid to let the children go alone. I was no longer on the staff there myself as I had begun teaching at a school for grownups.
The new school pleased the children right from the start; they fell in love with it on the first day, and just could not find words to express their admiration. After all, they had been studying up till then in a small wooden house, like the one in Aspen Woods. But this school was big and roomy, and next door there was being built a magnificent building three stories high, with huge broad windows. That was to be their school next year.
Zoya's thrifty eye was quick to appreciate Nikolai Tasilyevich Kirikov, the principal of School No. 201.
"You should see what a hall we are going to have!" she said enthusiastically. "And the library! So many books! I've never seen so many: shelves all round the walls, from floor to ceiling and not a single blank space... Just cramful," she added after a moment's thought (and again I heard Grandma, for "just cramful" was one of her expressions). "Nikolai Vasilyevich took us to the building site and showed us everything. He says we shall have a big garden and that we shall plant it ourselves. You'll see what a school we shall have: you won't find another like it in the whole of Moscow!"
Shura was also carried away by what was being done in the new school, but he liked the gym lessons most of all. He was never tired of telling us how he had pulled himself up on the trapeze, how he had vaulted over the horse, how he had learnt to play basketball.
They both took to their new schoolteacher Lydia Nikolayevna Yuryeva right from the first. I saw that by the way they went to school so willingly every day, the way they returned home lively and contented, the way they tried to tell me word for word everything their teacher had said—everything down to, the last detail held vast significance for them.
"In my opinion, you leave too wide a margin," I said once to Zoya as I looked through her copybook.
"Oh, no!" Zoya retorted, blushing. "Lydia Nikolayevna said they should be like that, smaller ones aren't allowed!"
It was like that in all things: whatever Lydia Nikolayevna says goes. And I knew that was the way it should be. The children loved and respected their teacher. They tried to carry out all her orders and requests as best they could. Zoya and Shura always took to heart everything that happened at school.
"Boris was late today and said: 'My mama was ill so I went to the chemist!' " related Shura heatedly. "Well, if his mother was ill, he couldn't help it. So Lydia Nikolayevna says to him: 'Go and sit down.' But after school up comes Boris' mother to take him somewhere. And we can see that she looks well and healthy and not at all ill. Lydia Nikolayevna blushed all over, got angry and says to Boris: 'What I dislike most is when people don't tell the truth. My rule is if you own up and don't lie … that is, if you tell the truth' "—Shura corrected himself, feeling that he was beginning to give too free an interpretation of his teacher's words, "'that means half the fault is forgiven.' And I asked: 'Why is half the fault forgiven if he owns up?' And Lydia Nikolayevna says: 'If someone owns up then it means he has understood his fault, and there is no point in punishing him severely. But if he denies his guilt, that means he doesn't understand anything and will go and do the same thing again, and that means he ought to be punished.'..
If the class did their tests badly Zoya would come home with such a sad face that I would ask in alarm, "Did you get a poor mark?"
"It wasn't me," she would sadly explain. "I got a good mark, but Manya Fedotova had everything wrong. So had Nina Lyubimova too. Lydia Nikolayevna said: 'I am very sorry but I shall have to give you girls a poor mark.'…"
One day I returned from work earlier than usual. The children were not at home. Worried, I went to the school, found Lydia Nikolayevna, and asked her if she knew where Zoya was.
"I expect they have all gone home," she answered. "But let's look into the classroom."
We went up to the classroom door and looked through the glass panes of the door.
Zoya was standing at the board with three other girls. Two were taller than Zoya, with the same thin pigtails; the third was short, plump and curly. They were all very serious, and the curly one even had her mouth open a little.
"What are you doing?" Zoya was saying to her with gentle reproof in her tone. "When pencils are added to pencils you get pencils. But you are adding metres to kilograms. What do you get then?"
At that moment my eye caught a white flash in the back of the classroom. I glanced in that direction. On the back bench sat Shura, quietly engaged in flying paper airplanes.
We tiptoed away from the door. I asked Lydia Nikolayevna to send Zoya home soon, and in future not to allow her to stay behind long after the lessons. In the evening I myself told Zoya that she should come home as soon as school was over.
"I tried to get away earlier today because I wanted to spend a little while with you, and you were not at home," I said to her. "Don't stay behind at school wasting time."
Zoya heard me out in silence, but afterwards, when supper was over, she suddenly demanded, "Mama, is it really a waste of time to help the other girls?"
"Why a waste of time? It is a very good thing to help a comrade."
"Then why did you say, 'Don't stay behind wasting time'?"
I bit my lip and thought (it must have been for the hundredth time) how carefully one must choose one's words when talking to children!
"I just wanted to spend some time with you. After all I am not very often free."
"But you yourself say that work comes before everything."
"That's true. But your work is also to see that Shura is fed, and he was sitting in school hungry, waiting for you to leave."
"No, I was not hungry," chimed in Shura. "Zoya took a good lunch to school."
The next morning, when she was setting off for school, Zoya asked, "May I stay behind with the girls today?"
"But don't be long, Zoya."
"Half an hour!" she answered.
And I knew it really would be half an hour and not a minute longer.
Next: Greek Mythology