12
HE CLEANS MY CUT with water, dabs some purple stuff on, and wraps my thumb with a see-through cloth. The cut doesn’t even hurt, but I like him bothering with it.
“Let’s take our chairs outside,” he says, “and watch the sun go down.”
Why he wants to do a thing like that I don’t ask. Maybe that’s what regular people do after a decent meal. I take my chair out and he takes out his. We sit side by side. The birds chirp, chirp, chirp. I watch them whir in and out of the branches. On the way in, they carry bits of stuff, twigs maybe, shavings, blades of grass, but on the way out, their beaks are empty.
“What are they doing?”
“The birds?” he says. “You don’t know?”
I shrug.
“They are making homes for their babies, Arcady. It’s spring.”
I never looked at a bird longer than it took to aim a rock at it. But now with my belly more than full I’m thinking what’s the harm in birds? I bet it’s good to be one. To know someone is making you a home.
“I want you to be happy here, Arcady,” Ivan Ivanych says. “You will be starting school in the fall, but for now anything you want to do, you tell me.”
“Like what?”
“You must enjoy doing something. What is it? Woodworking? Arts and crafts? Reading?”
“You said I’m good at soccer,” I say, surprised. “That’s why I’m here, right?”
“Because of soccer?” He shakes his head and makes a snortlike sound. Snort, snort, snort. Is that the way he laughs? Snorting?
“What’s so funny?”
He quits snorting and tries to make a serious face, but his eyes are still laughing. “You must have a special dream about soccer?”
“What kind of a dream?”
“I don’t know. Whatever dreams regular boys have. Probably playing on a champion soccer team? Am I right?”
I better keep my mouth shut. I told Dimka and look what happened. They all laughed at me. This one will be snorting.
“My dream is to play for the Red Army,” I blurt out anyway.
“The what?”
“The Red Army Soccer Club. The best team in the country.”
“That’s good, Arcady. If you work hard, one day your dream might come true.”
“Why not now? All I need is a tryout.”
“A tryout for the best team in the country?” He watches me for a spell to see if I’m serious. “What’s the hurry, Arcady? Your whole life is ahead of you.”
“What life?” I fire back at him. “I know what you’re thinking!”
“What’s that?” he says, pulling back a little.
“You think the Red Army won’t take me, right? Because of what Butterball said?”
“Who’s Butterball?”
“Never mind that!” I spring up, knocking the chair sideways. “Kids like me are not allowed to be team players, is that right?”
“Wait a minute, Arcady.”
“You figure if you scrub my neck and brush my teeth you can make me into a regular kid?” I’m yelling now. “My mom and dad were enemies of the people! That makes me into one too. You know what it feels like to be the enemy? Do you? Do you?”
I feel water coming up to my eyes, so I turn away quick, kick the chair out of the way, and run back into the house and into the room that was made for a nice little baby but got me instead.
