School

Girl Ira - 7 years old - September 1, 1988.


I remember that I wanted to go to first grade, all the adults said that it would be interesting there.  My parents bought me a set of colored pencils and a huge bright yellow backpack  with a chicken on it, dressed me in a school uniform, braided bows.

With a joyful gait with flowers in her hands, little Ira and her older sister Natasha went to school. Natasha, grinning (because she was already 7 years older, was already in grade, Ira with anticipation.

Little Ira was instructed by her father (military pilot) that the best tactic at school, if someone offends you (of course not, but if ..) punch him, and then figure it out. What, to whom and how often in this “instruction” from the father was not specified.

Little Ira was assigned to the same class with the neighbor Lesha Bobrov (later he was given the nickname “beaver” because he gnawed pencils and other objects that fell into his field of vision). Lesha did not have such instructions as I did and did not have such a multifunctional knapsack. Mine served everything at once: in the winter, as a sleigh, during the rest of the year, as a container for everything that a 7 child might need for school, also weapons that hit exactly the wrong target, but where you hit. In Ira’s arsenal was fearlessness, in Lesha’s arsenal neither “instructions” nor courage.

So, when little Ira saw a group of boys offending a neighbor boy, a bright yellow backpack with a chicken on it was turned in their direction. We can say that Lesha was saved. We became best friends: we played checkers, painted, fooled around and none of us recalled the bright yellow backpack with a fighting chicken on it anymore. Thus began the 10 years  friendship of the girl Ira with the boy Lesha , and then the girl and the boy grew up ...