The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - стр. 126
One hour before the New Year party, my carnival costume was packed in a large bag, and off I went to school thru the dark night forest.
At school, I sneaked up to the second floor, where even the light was not turned on, and in one of the dark classrooms, I changed into my fancy dress. Descending to the first floor, I held onto the railing because walking in high-heel shoes was no better than having skates on your feet.
Both the vestibule and the first-floor corridors were lighted rather scantily, yet there was enough illumination to see that everyone, including the guys from senior classes, wore, albeit not the school uniform, yet nothing like carnival costumes.
They all stood in small groups or ran back and forth and fell silent when I clap-clapped the shoe heels past them over the parquet flooring, then over the tiles of the vestibule and the following parquet in the next corridor. And where was the celebration then? Where were the streamers and confetti?.
A couple of senior boys talked in a whisper to each other and approached me, “Could you tell the future, gypsy girl?”
At that moment School Pioneer Leader appeared and took me with her to the gym. The hall was crowded with rows of seats up to the New Year Tree and farther back on both sides of it to accommodate the audience for the performance of a prepared play. So, all my waltzing that chair at home was just useless, the school New Year party program foresaw no dancing whatsoever.
School Pioneer Leader seated me in the first row facing the still closed blue curtains. Then she left briefly and brought a masked girl in a Harlequin suit—another stupid fool like me. The girl was placed in the chair next to me, and we were the only mummers in the gym.
The curtain fell open and the ninth-graders presented their production of Cinderella. They had good costumes though, I especially liked the tartan cap of the Jester… The performance ended, everyone started to clap and I realized that now even the Jester would change into his pants and jacket.
I left the gym and went upstairs to the dark classroom, where I had left my clothes, and changed back. What a bliss it was to get rid of the hatefully painful high-heel shoes and get into my long-longed-for felt boots!
Exiting the school, I met my Mom and Natasha who came to admire my masquerade triumph. I shortly warned them that there was no carnival, and we went home thru the same night forest.
(…the trick for being happy all the time is pretty simple: avoid looking back and let the memory do its job quickly – it will forget and erase your blunders, sorrows, and pains. Just keep looking forward to pleasures, successes, and holidays…)
~ ~ ~
Though the New Year celebration party fell so flat, ahead still was the long winter vacations with seventeen TV sequels of “Captain Tankesh” where he’d ride his swift horse, and swash his saber, and make fools of the Austrian occupants of his Hungarian Motherland.
In the parents’ room, as always, the Christmas Tree was touching the ceiling with the ruby star on its top, and among the shiny decorations there also hung chocolate candies “Batons” and “Bear Cub in the Forest”. After the lead-balloon carnival, life smiled again…
On the New Year Eve, Dad worked the night shift so that the garland lights would not fade in the Christmas trees in homes at the Object. And on the first morning of the New Year, Mom left for her work so that water would flow steadily from the kitchen taps…