Anton Prus - Good Boys and Where to Find Them

Illustrator Batylina Marina

© Anton Prus, 2022

© Batylina Marina, illustrations, 2022

ISBN 978-5-0056-8822-4

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

The first time I saw auntie Raya I knew she was a witch. She had to be! Now tell me, would a nice non-witch auntie have this kind of face? All scrunched up, dark, with a big misshapen nose and an assortment of moles and knots. She most definitely would not. And then there were her ears: peeking out of her babushka head scarf, they looked like a giantess’ ears and were almost as hairy as a dog’s. Our dog Trezor even had shorter ear hairs! All of this at once I considered when auntie Raya came to see my grandma. Upon considering, I cried in terror. It wasn’t even the face or the surreal ears that scared me, but her teeth! She had only three teeth, all of them long and yellow and looking like they belong in a wolf’s mouth, not an aunties’. When Raya spoke, I could see her tongue slither behind the scary teeth like a wet snake I once saw in a puddle behind the wooden toilet, and she sounded like she had tea in her mouth. After a few moments, when I have finished screaming, I informed her that actually only wolves have teeth like these. Rather loudly, from the comfort of my mother’s arms. Mom let out a giggle, and grandma covered her mouth with her hand. Maybe she was trying to hide her teeth, I don’t know, hers weren’t nearly as scary anyway. But auntie Raya suddenly started crying, turned her back on us and walked toward her izba, which was just across the road from our house. There was a wooden footbridge and a small bench beside her old wicket gate, and along the fence there was a ditch surrounded by great big pine trees. But I never went there. This was my enemy’s territory.

Raya had an enormous black rooster, almost as big as me. Whenever it spread its wings, craned its neck and started crowing, making all of the hens scatter, I always darted behind our wicket. The rooster was just as ugly as Raya herself. It had no teeth of course, but what it lacked in teeth it made up for in moles and knots, which covered its head, comb and wattles. It’s eyes were pitch black with a fiery red rim, its legs were always covered in mud because it liked to stomp on dirt like a stallion. My grandpa had made a sandpit just by our wicket for me to play in, but even there I was afraid. The rooster would stalk me, and whenever it would locate me, it would lower its head like a bull and start towards me, at first slowly but then faster and faster, until it was running at full speed, spreading its enormous wings… by that time I was usually behind the wicket. Once I couldn’t hear the rooster approach and it pecked my leg and my butt. It hurt a lot, but what hurt more was the fear. I couldn’t even run away, my legs had given up on me because of fear. I fell face down in the dirt, covered my head and yelled as loud as I could. Thankfully, grandpa heard me screaming, jumped out of the barn holding a shovel and dashed towards us. The rooster didn’t let go of me immediately, it kept eluding grandpa’s foot, screeching and roaring and landing more painful pecks. …What a terrible day. I stayed inside for the rest of it, and I heard grandpa say that he told Raya that if the rooster attacked anyone else, then he, grandpa, would kill it. I didn’t believe it of course, I don’t even think this kind of a rooster could be killed, so I decided to stay home indefinitely.

Next morning my parents were all set to visit my great grandmother Malvina who lived on the other side of the village, but I was determined to stay inside. Then my father proposed to give me a ride on his back, and I, having considered how high could a hypothetical rooster jump, agreed. I still kept sneaking a glance behind us, just to make sure a hypothetical rooster was not in fact chasing us.

Great grandma Malvina had nasty goats, a cat that always hissed and clawed, a deep pond with a rotting wooden planked footway in front of it, handsome tritons inside of it, stinging nettle and prickly gooseberry bushes all around it, that made walking near the pond to look at those tritons very painful, but you couldn’t not walk there because how could you go to great grandma and not see the tritons? Because the tritons were indeed very handsome. I used to get scared walking through the vegetable garden alone, but without the threat of the terrible rooster everything looked friendly and inviting.

When we came back home, auntie Raya was visiting. She was sitting in the kitchen with grandma, but I was hungry, so I approached and stood silently in the doorway. Raya noticed me, covered her mouth, and although I could see she was smiling, asked me in a stern voice: «What is it, Antosha, don’t you like me? Would you not marry me?» I said no, you are old. She burst out laughing and dropped her hand, so that I had to look at my feet to avoid seeing her teeth. But just in case, I whispered to grandma if it was possible for me to not marry Raya. This made everyone laugh so much I couldn’t understand if I had to marry old Raya or not, and I ran crying to mom. But Raya wasn’t mad at me, later we even became friends, and she locked the rooster in the dark barn, where he cried in rage, no doubt dreaming of pecking me to death. This is how our friendship came to be.

I was playing outside in the sand pit while Raya sat on her wooden bench, petting her goat Zoya. Funny, the goat had my mom’s name! Zoya (the goat, not mom) just had a little goatling, and it was the cutest thing. I kept staring at his soft fur and little baby hooves, until Raya noticed and beckoned me to come closer, the rooster was locked away, she said, and Muchtar would never hurt you, that’s her dog – Muchtar. He is a good looking dog, like Lassie from tv, but I had never seen him run, only walk. I ran over to the baby goat and pet him, he responded with a gentle head butt. He had no horns yet, only small bumps, so it didn’t hurt. I asked what the baby goat’s name way, and Raya said Antosha, I guess. Is his father’s name Borya then, like my father, I asked. Raya laughed for a long time and then said yes, but don’t tell anyone I said that. Later she brought me a glass of goat milk, it was very good, thick like the starchy kissel* they gave us in kindergarten, and strong-smelling, nothing like cow milk I was used to.

Me and Raya became great friends. I visited her almost every day. She showed me a secret spot she knew that grew white mushrooms*, but told me to never let my grandpa know where I found them because he was the sneaky type she said, and there would no mushrooms left for her. The secret spot was along the ditch, under the great big pine trees littered with crows’ nests, where crows always perched and cawed loudly. It wasn’t only white mushrooms either, I found all sorts of them: russula, goat’s beard, milk mushroom, birch mushroom… I came home with a great loot, but never uttered a word about where I found it to anyone at home. Grandpa even got mad at me because it was always him who brought home white mushrooms he usually found behind our vegetable garden, along the fence. And still I kept my secret. Grandpa decided I found them near the fence of evil Raya. Forgot to mention her! Her fence was two meters higher and so dense you couldn’t see through it. She had a dog too, but not Muchtar, her dog didn’t even have a name, it was a big scary wolf hound chained to the side of the house. Her house was across the street from ours too, on the side of the well. Grandpa believed that evil Raya’s fence was a good spot for mushroom hunting too, I realized. Maybe I should go look. I wouldn’t be friends with evil Raya though, she never even says hi to us. Sometimes when me and the boys rode our bikes through the village, and maybe yelled, just a little bit, she would jump out holding a stick and shriek that we were good for nothing dead beats who ought to be put in prison. Grandpa even told her off in front of us once, said she should stay inside her hole and stop harassing the children, said we didn’t need a jailer. That’s why I was scared to look for mushrooms near her fence even though sometimes we found very big white ones there. One time I saw her through a crack in the fence, she was coming at me fast, hissing that she will throw me in jail for stealing. I asked grandma if one could be thrown in jail for stealing mushrooms that were on the other side of the fence, not inside someone’s garden, but grandma told me to stop going to evil Raya’s fence, just to be on the safe side. How did she know I was talking about that fence?