Chapter 4

“So you're singing that same old song again, Staska? Will you ever give it a rest? You never had a sister; you were my only child, and now suddenly you have one. Don't make me think I raised a pig. You're a man, and you should understand without being told that Nastia is a guest in our home. Besides, she's a girl, unlike you. She needs a room of her own more than you do. Believe me, I know.”

“But, Mom…”

“I said you're staying here, period! I didn't expect this from you, son…”

A week passed. Grandma wasn't getting any better, but I had finally recovered, and I'd even gone to the hospital with my father several times to visit her. The rest of the time, I hardly left the room, still spending my days and evenings reading, writing rhyming lines in a thin notebook, and sketching little pictures in pencil. Sometimes I walked around the yard, trying to stay out of my stepbrother's sight. Now he ignored me completely, never speaking to me over breakfast or dinner and never even looking my way, and I felt a little calmer. Once, I simply told him, “I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen.” But he apparently didn't hear me anyway.

There was a wide swing in the backyard. Galina Yuryevna let me use it, and sometimes I sat on its carved wooden seat, looking at the snow-covered tops of the spruces and arborvitae and the little clearing untouched by footprints. I liked to imagine that I was in an enchanted winter forest, where the little stepdaughter from the fairy tale “The Twelve Months” was wandering somewhere nearby, or a proud, smiling prince was riding back from a hunt with his friends, as in “Three Wishes for Cinderella.” At times like that, I thought Galina Yuryevna was nothing like a fairy-tale stepmother, even if she was strict with everyone, while her son looked nothing like a prince. Except that he was just as handsome—and just as conceited.

I would even smile, scoop up snow in my palms and toss it into the air, spin around, and giggle like any ordinary girl. Then I'd remember Grandma, my gloomy stepbrother, and my silent father, and quietly go back inside. And then…

Then Grandma was prescribed a new treatment, and Galina Yuryevna decided to send me to school.