The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - стр. 100

And I did not miss the second visit to the bath-house, but it disappointed me—the huge unbearably noisy room had no bath-tubs at all! You had to wash yourself throwing water up at you from a tin basin with tin ears for grabbing when carried. On the wall, there were two taps, side by side, one for boiling hot water, and the other for cold. You put your basin on a low table beneath the taps but it was hard to mix their waters to your liking because the line of boys with their empty basins yelled from behind your back to be quick…

The shift at the camp traditionally ended with the Farewell Bonfire which was built in the far end of the field with the rusty mast of the never-used attraction nearby the edge of the forest behind the barbed wire.

After the breakfast in the morning, the senior platoons marched to that forest thru a temporary passage in the 2-barbed-wire fence opened by a couple of 2-meter-tall spanner-boughs and harvested dry firewood for the Farewell Bonfire. The harvesting went on after the "stiff hour" too and by the evening on the field edge accumulated a heap of dry branches taller than a grown-up man. In the dusk of the nearing summer night, that heap was set on fire from all sides and burnt with high flames under our choral songs, and the marches from the accordionist.

Then Camp Director and the caretakers began to argue in agitated voices. Finally, Camp Director agreed and gave the orders to his chauffeur. The man shrugged and answered: “If you wish so,” walked to the camp buildings, and drove back in the Camp Director’s car. From the trunk, the chauffeur grabbed a metal canister while the pioneers were ordered to step back from the fire. He splashed onto it from the canister in his hands, and a huge ball of red-and-black flame buzzed and swirled up in the night, for at least three meters high, and then fell back again until the next splash.

In the morning, the buses were taking us home….

~ ~ ~

However, the end of the camp shift did not mean the end of summer. And again there was the Rechka river and playing War-Mommy, Cossacks-and-Robbers, American Ball, and Twelve Chips, as well as the new adventures, borrowed from the Detachment’s Library. However, besides the travels to distant planets and mysterious islands started from the opposite armrests of the big sofa, I also wandered in the forest for quite a few different reasons.

For instance, our neighbor Yura Zimin suggested going there to harvest the Hare Cabbage, and I grew curious about the unheard-of vegetable. Well, though sour, it still was tasty but picking it turned a literal toil because its leaves were so too tiny.

Or else, my sister Natasha would bring the news that in the swamp behind the next block, there were myriads of blueberries, and one boy from the other block brought home a whole milk-can of them! Now, the spirit of competition drove me to the same swamp, I had to collect more blueberries than any “one boy”! Good news the Lowlanders hadn’t come to pillage harvest from a swamp upon the Gorka…

But usually, I wandered there alone and almost without any purpose, well, except for hunting a Juniper to make another good bow, or collecting green Pine cones for all sorts of hand-crafted toys.