Chapter 5

“Don’t worry, Nastia. I understand that tenth grade isn’t like first grade, that it’s not easy for a teenager to fit into a new group, let alone prove herself academically. But you’re a smart, levelheaded girl, and I believe you’ll be fine. This is a fairly prestigious, successful school. I carefully tracked the statistics on where its graduates went to college and studied the recommendations, so don’t worry: while you’re here, it’ll give you the best education possible.

“Thank you.”

“Grisha and I have spoken with your teachers. If you need it, you’ll be able to get extra help in some subjects after class. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to walk you there tomorrow. I have a work assignment at seven in the morning, followed immediately by a meeting, so Stas will take you to school and show you around. He’ll bring you home, too—I’ve arranged it with him. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now go get dressed. I have two hours before I crash for the night. Let’s go to the store and buy everything you need for school. Your clothes are worn out, too. Grisha, what are you staring at? Let’s go…”

My stepmother bought me a beautiful school uniform. She didn’t haggle at the store; when they offered her a selection, she chose the best. A down coat, boots, even a hat. The mirror on my stepbrother’s wardrobe door was broken, so for an hour I’d been spinning around by the big window, where night had fallen beyond the glass, trying on my new clothes one after another and studying my reflection. Happy, hardly able to believe my luck. Thinking about how I’d surprise Grandma with the news tomorrow. I wouldn’t have noticed him at all if not for the flare of a cigarette beyond the glass. There, between the trees, stood my stepbrother Stas, watching me with a cold stare.

And the next morning, over breakfast, my stepmother said goodbye and left us alone together:

“All right, your father and I are leaving. Have a good day, kids. Take Nastia to school and show her the way. And listen to me, Staska: you’d better not pull anything. You know I don’t mess around. I’ll punish you.”

“Yeah, I know…”

She was strict with her son, but she loved him. I could see it in her eyes—that warm love and caring that only mothers seemed to have. The pride in her face when she looked at him, and the deep satisfaction of knowing it was working. She was raising him into the kind of man he might have become himself if life hadn’t been so hard on him before. She worked a lot, but she always found a minute to pull Stas close and kiss his cheek. With one brief, affectionate stroke of her strong hand, she’d muss his dark hair and give him that special smile. I saw all of it and couldn’t understand why he was so angry with me. No matter how kind my stepmother was to me, she wasn’t my mother. Didn’t my stepbrother understand that?

A commuter bus ran from Cherekhino into town, and Stas and I walked to the stop in silence. I was so afraid of upsetting him with my presence, my new clothes, and my buoyant mood that I walked a step behind him, trying not to fall back. I matched his firm stride, hopping over half-frozen puddles, gawking at the beautiful houses, then bounding to catch up whenever he got ahead. It felt as if my feet were moving on their own. Even so, when it was time to get off the bus, Stas silently stepped off and stopped me as I jumped down after him, grabbing my arm.

“Wait until I’m ten steps away, and only then start walking. Second floor, Room 27. Your homeroom teacher is Stella Vladimirovna Epifantseva. You can figure out the rest yourself. And if you let anyone know I’m your stepbrother, I’ll come to your room at night and smother you with a pillow. Got it?… By the way, how does it feel to sleep in someone else’s bed, huh, Skeleton?” He still couldn’t resist squeezing his fingers around my wrist. “Comfortable?… Never mind, don’t answer. It won’t be for long. Just wait until our parents leave, and I’ll show you your room.”

I didn’t understand where our parents were going, but I did understand why he was so determined that I keep quiet. It was already obvious on the front steps who the school’s star was and who the local girls wouldn’t leave alone. And it seemed my stepbrother enjoyed the attention. I looked at Stas’s narrowed eyes and the crooked smile sliding across his handsome face, and I understood: he definitely did. And he certainly had plenty of girls to ogle here. On that point, he hadn’t lied.

The new school really was new. Tall, bright, and spacious, with a large cafeteria, a library, and an excellent gym. A broad, snow-covered stadium was visible from the classroom windows, and there was a separate sports area with pull-up bars and swings.

My class greeted me with curiosity, and nothing more. The students were already divided into pairs and little groups… To my surprise, I recognized one of my classmates as the blond girl I’d seen at dinner in my stepmother’s house on my first day in Cherekhino. She carefully avoided my eyes, giving no sign that we knew each other, and I guessed I probably wouldn’t find a kind friend in her.

“You know her?” my desk mate asked after she got tired of waiting for an answer to her tenth question, and I said:

“Yes. I mean, no. Not really.”

“Well, that’s not surprising. Our little Marina doesn’t make friends with just anybody, so you’re wasting your time.”

“Who does she make friends with?” I was genuinely curious.

“Popular people. People who matter. Standard policy for the class queen. Do you have anything that might get her attention?”

“Not really,” I said, shrugging and smiling back at my desk mate.

“Then I’m sorry. You can forget you ever met her.”

The girl was tall and chubby, but pretty, with dark eyes, a blue streak of hair at her temple, and dimples in her cheeks. I liked her right away. We’d run into each other at the classroom door while I was looking for the right room, and she’d immediately invited me to sit with her.

Dasha Kuznetsova, nicknamed Squirrel. I learned why when I heard one of our classmates call out in the cafeteria:

“Squirrel, give me some nuts! Quit carrying them around in your cheeks!”

“Squirrel, come on! You’re not some kind of hamster. Are you really that stingy?”

Squirrel wasn’t stingy, and instead of a nut, the laughing boy got smacked on the back of the head.

“Oh my God, this isn’t a school—it’s a real jungle! Nothing but monkeys and deer! But don’t worry, Nastia. Hang in there—we’ll make it through!”

“Deer?” I was curious again, and I glanced back at the grinning classmate who had taken a seat at the table beside ours. Apparently, the boy wasn’t offended by Dasha at all.

“Exactly!” Kuznetsova nodded importantly. “I came up with my own classification system for guys a long time ago: primates, deer, nerds, and peacocks. So don’t be surprised if I identify them by what they look like. Take Petka Zbruev here: he’s a typical primate, wet-nosed and practically human. Did you get smacked? You did! But look—he’s still baring his teeth like a stupid baboon!” Dasha shook her fist in the air. “One more word about nuts, Zbruev, and I’ll really let you have it. Got that?”

The baboon immediately puffed out his cheeks and pretended to crack a nut. I looked away from him in surprise.