“We studied for one day, and that’s plenty!” 

This is the phrase Sashka greeted me with, instead of the typical salutation, as I stepped out of the entrance of our building on September 2nd. His voice filled with so much determination, I involuntarily took every word with much more gravity. And at the same time, it didn’t matter that the source of this gravity was a couple of years my junior, someone who just yesterday celebrated his “first day in the first grade.” Only one thing mattered–your friend uttered a terribly forbidden phrase, one which would earn you a spanking in the no-fly zone from your parents or a public reprimand in front of the whole school.

“Are you with me?” Sashka inquired pragmatically.

“You don’t even have to ask,” I patted him on the shoulder. “Do you have a plan for playing hooky?”

Hatching the plan

“Playing hooky? No way, this is not playing hooky,” Sashka shook his head categorically. “Playing hooky is when you go and play instead of studying in school.”

“Aren’t we doing just that?”

“No.”

“We can’t stay home, because our neighbors will see, and will make a report to our parents on all counts.” 

I diligently enunciated the novel phrase that I heard the day before from dad, ‘on all counts,’ and felt terribly proud of myself when I saw signs of quiet respect on Sashka’s face. We have always had a passion for smart adult words, although we did not always use them appropriately.

“Staying home isn’t exactly playing hooky. You can’t properly play at home, right?”

“Right,” I confirmed with authority.

“What does ‘playing hooky’ mean?” Sashka lowered his voice almost to a whisper. 

“Playing hooky?” I thought for a moment. The phrase was simple enough, but there was a level of complexity to it. “It means–taking a walk, breathing fresh air.”

“Breathing the air of freedom!” Sashka clarified, and I nodded in agreement.

“To be free from studies, work, chores at home, from any mandatory activities,” I slowly and monotonously began my list.  “I also read somewhere that ‘playing hooky’ means shifting in different directions. And… there was this word there… Oh! Yes, it was ‘disperse’!”

“Like the wind?”

“Like the wind.”

“Now that’s more our style!” Delighted, Sashka slapped his hand on his thigh. “We cannot be locked between the stuffy walls of the school. We will be breathing the fresh air of freedom and dispersing through the city!” 

“Perfect plan,” I approved. “Where should we begin?” 

A close call

“We will begin right here. The quicker the better,” Sashka quickly looked around. “Before the neighborhood grandmas grab us and hand us over to our parents.”

“The problem is not with the neighborhood grandmas,” I snorted. “The problem is the nerds who go to the same school with us. We live too near. They are passing by us now. And they see us whispering in the courtyard. And we’re not in a hurry to go to school. Even though it’s already eight-thirty. The bell for the first period is about to ring. They’ll tell the teacher. And maybe even the principal. They’ll tell, without a doubt.”

“Then–let’s jump over the fence, and we will walk across the rooftops–to the stadium!” 

Sashka jumped up and ran towards the stadium. I sighed heavily and took off after him. On the way, we only met Grandma Varya, dragging an immodestly sized bag of seeds to sell. 

“Hey, hooligans!” she called out to us. “Where are you two off to?” 

“To the stadium!” Sashka panted without slowing down. “We have PE first period. We’re late!” 

“You seem to be in a bit of a hurry just to get to class,” she squinted suspiciously. “Be careful not to break your legs in a hurry!”

Taking a running start to the fence was a breeze, jumping over it and jumping on the other side was a matter of a couple of seconds. The stadium, surprisingly, was empty – no runners, no students exercising early in the morning, no other truants like us. 

“We almost got caught!” Sashka croaked, his eyes bulging. “And of all the grandmas, we just had to run into Baba Varya!”

“You’ll never be a spy,” I shook my head.

“Why is that?” 

“You and I are in different classes, we have different schedules, and you blurted out about the same class for both of us. Baba Varya can figure it out.”

“Oh no, how did I mess up like that?” Sashka spat at his feet in annoyance. 

“It’s alright friend, maybe your version will work,” I patted him on the shoulder. “Now we need to decide where we’ll go.”

Stealthy strategy

“What do you mean ‘where’? We breathed in the fresh air–so much my chest is bursting from it. Now we have to disperse through the city.” 

“We can’t just disperse randomly, otherwise any passerby will immediately see that we are playing hooky.”

“How should we behave so that we don’t get caught?”

“I saw a movie recently about spies,” I began thoughtfully. “There was one guy who got this advice: if you don’t want to attract the attention of passers-by, don’t look them in the eyes, look somewhere to the side, look down, at your feet.”

“That’s not easy,” Sashka scratched the back of his head with both hands at once. “If you don’t look into their faces, then how can you anticipate approaching danger?”

“What danger?”

“What if someone we know comes by? Or even our family? Or–worse–upperclassmen!” 

“The upperclassmen are in class right now.” I objected.

“Yesterday, right after the first day celebrations, the teacher told us about how on Easter, Komsomol members were stationed at the doors of the church so that they would catch the Little Octobrists and Young Pioneers who might go to the night service with their grandmothers.” 

“Where was this?” I asked doubtfully.

“I don’t know,” Sashka shrugged his shoulders. “Our teacher was telling us. Of course, she could just have been scaring us, so that we’re too scared to go to church. But–what if it’s true?”

“It’s not Easter now. And we are not going to church.”

“But what if Komsomol members created their own patrol to catch truants?” Sashka asked worriedly. “They’ll catch us and put us on a line in front of the school to reprimand us with all their might.”

“Let’s conclude,” again I repeated a word I heard from dad. “We can’t look into the faces of the passers-by, as this attracts unnecessary attention. And if we don’t look, we may not anticipate danger. What can we do?”

“We need to go where we won’t see anyone, and no one will see us.”

“Where can that be?”

“In the movies,” Sashka answered simply.

Unexpected lesson

“And on the way to the movies, you don’t think we will run into anyone?” I asked with light sarcasm.

“The journey to the ‘Friendship’ cinema will take ten minutes at most,” Sashka said measuredly. “Ten minutes of danger, and then an hour and a half of watching a movie in complete safety.”

“School lasts from eight-thirty to one-thirty. An hour and a half of the film will, of course, save us, but what will we do next?”

“We will go see another movie.”

“Another movie playing in another cinema? Or… we’ll have to watch the ‘Elusive Avengers’ several times in a row.”

“Sitting all day in one place–it means dispersing in one direction only,” Sashka thoughtfully chewed on his lips. “We’ll have to make our way to another cinema in short dashes.”

Might a couple of boys in school uniforms with briefcases at the ready, crossing neighborhoods in short dashes from tree to tree, diligently avoiding the glances of passers-by, carefully looking only at their feet, attract a lot of attention? But that’s what we did.

Of course, we went to the first cinema. Having paid tribute to the “Elusive Avengers” and being inspired by their heroic images, we began our progress towards the Odesa cinema, but halfway – in the New Bazaar area – we were caught by a young teacher from our school. Now I probably won’t even remember her name. But I remember her words–not accusations, no. Simple words:

“You didn’t run away from class. You ran away from a portion of knowledge. Which will no longer exist for you. Maybe you can catch up. Or maybe you won’t need it at all. But today you missed a part of your life.”

We remained silent in response, diligently feigning remorse. This is something we’ve always been good at.

“Tell me, did you at least spend this time usefully?” She spoke again. 

“Or you just wandered around the city? What did you get into?”

“We breathed a bit of air of freedom,” I answered quietly.

“And we dispersed,” Sashka added. “Through the city.”

She laughed loudly. Unexpectedly for both of us.

“Okay, let’s do this: now you will take these heavy bags with books from my hands and return to school with me,” she handed us two bright blue cloth bags. We humbly accepted this burden, which turned out to be not so heavy. 

“I’ll tell your teachers that I asked you both to help me, and ask them not to put your truancy on record. Let it be our little secret. And in the future–before you think about skipping school, think: is it really so important to miss it? Will the place you are going to be more useful than the lesson you miss? Not only school, life itself is always full of lessons. And believe me, not all of these classes are worth skipping. And not all of them can be made up.”

We carried this little secret through all these years. Even in private conversations, we never discussed that day. Although after this incident we skipped school more than a dozen times. But that very first one will be remembered for the rest of our lives.

Well, our little childhood secret is no longer a secret.

But by now, that should be allowed, right?

—–

FOOTNOTES: The Komsomol was the Communist Youth League in the USSR. Little Octobrists was an organization in the USSR for elementary school children in grades 1 through 3. Young Pioneers was an organization in the USSR for children and adolescents ages 9–14.