L. Kosmodemyanskaya

The Story of Zoya and Shura


Green is the Colour of Youth

The days went by. Zoya had recovered her health and that was so important for us! She had grown quite strong again and did not tire so quickly. Gradually, thanks to the help of her comrades, she caught up with the class. Zoya, who was so sensitive to any kind or friendly word net, valued their help highly.

I remember her saying to me once, "You know that I've ways loved school, but now…

She fell silent, but in her silence there was greater feeling than any words could express. After a while she added, "You know, I think I've made friends with Nina Smolyanova. She's in the parallel class. She's a girl after my own heart. So serious and straight. One day we got talking in the library about books and about our friends. And we found we agreed about everything. I'll introduce to you as soon as I can."

A few days later I met Vera Sergeyevna Novoselova the street.

"Well," I asked, "how is my Zoya getting on?" "She caught us up in my subject long ago. And no wonder: she's read so much . . We're very glad she has got better and stronger. I'm always seeing her with her chums. It seems to me she has made friends with Nina. they are rather alike, both of them are very straight and take everything seriously—people and studies."

I walked as far as the school with Vera Sergeyevna. On my way home I thought, "How well she knows the children!"

Spring stole in upon us—green and sudden.

I do not remember now what misdemeanour was committed by Grade 9-A, but the whole class came to principal full of repentance and begged that they should not be punished but given work in the most difficult part of the schoolyard which was to be planted with trees.

Nikolai Vasilyevich agreed, and he certainly did not show any mercy. He really did give them the very hardest place—where the three-storied annex to the school building had recently been built and waste rubbish was still lying about everywhere.

Zoya and Shura came home late that day, and competed with each other telling me how they had worked.

Armed with shovels and stretchers Grade 9-A were clearing and levelling the ground, carrying away the rubble and digging holes for the trees. Nikolai Kirikov, the principal, was working with them too—carrying stones and digging the earth. Suddenly a tall thin man came up to the children.

"Hello," he said.

"Hello!" they answered in chorus.

"Can you tell me where I can find the principal?"

"Here I am," replied Kirikov turning to the stranger and wiping his dirty hands.

"And there he stood," related Zoya laughing, "all dirty, with a shovel, just as if it were nothing out of the ordinary, as if it were a principal's job to plant trees with his pupils."

The thin man turned out to be a children's writer and a correspondent of Pravda. At first he was surprised to learn that the broad-shouldered navvy was indeed the principal of School No. 201; then he laughed and for the rest of the afternoon did not leave the site, although he had come to the school on quite a different errand. He looked over the young orchard, which the children had planted, the thick raspberry bushes and the roses. "Wonderful…!" he said thoughtfully. "Suppose you were in the middle grades when you planted an apple tree in the school garden with your own hands. It grew up with you, you ran to have a look at it during the breaks, kept the soil dug and watered, and destroyed the pests. And 1/2 now you are finishing school and your apple tree is already giving its first fruit…Wonderful…I"

"Wonderful!" repeated Zoya dreamily. "Now I'm in the ninth grade and I have planted a linden tree today. We'll grow up together…My linden is the third one-remember, Mummy. And the fourth tree is Katya Andreyeva's."

And a few days later the story of how the children of Grade 9-A had planted the schoolyard with trees appeared in Pravda. The story ended with these words:

"The graduation exams are almost over. Young people are leaving school, well grafted and developed, and impervious to frosts and winds under the open sky. The pupils of this school will go away to work, study, and serve in the Red Army, as indomitable and sure to win as the young green growth of the forest, sung by Nekrasov."

 


Next: The Ball