Marianna Rosset - Fanyasha - Why Do Angels Need People?

“Fanya, hey, Fanya, you’re like, different, somehow,” he noted with interest. “How was school? Did you like it?”

“You know what, brother,” Fanyasha grinned. “You could have at least warned me! I didn’t know everything was like that there!”

“Like what?” asked Bosya.

“Like what, like what!?” laughed Fanyasha. “The way it was! So tough! So strict! And so dark and gloomy! And you can’t talk to anyone! All you can do is sit, be silent, learn the rules, do the exercises, and… well, it was totally different than I imagined it would be.”

“Silly goose!” said Bosya with a smile, and gently pulled his sister’s braid. “Sounds like the lesson you had today was the kind, I don’t know, where they teach girls first, maybe, patience or humility. Basically, don’t worry, tomorrow everything will be completely different, every day is different than the one before in school. Every day is a surprise! It’s like an amusement park! Incredibly cool! You’ll definitely love it!”

Bosya’s words inspired Fanyasha, and she looked at him gently and asked: “What did you, boys, do on the first day?”

“Let me think,” said Bosya, scratching his curly nape. “Oh ya, I remember! In our class on the first day the wind broke all the windows, smashed the walls down, and scattered the furniture, and we had to make repairs the whole day without complaining, and build everything back up, and patch it all. I was very upset, and it seemed terribly unfair that instead of learning and acquiring new knowledge, I had to do what seemed to me to be useless work. But then I realized that all that was very important for developing the necessary skills. And I became good friends with the other guys while we helped each other.”

“You see! So the boys are luckier than we were! At least you weren’t forbidden to talk to each other!” said Fanyasha sadly.

“Fanya, don’t worry, you’ll get to talk together soon too!” Bosya soother her. “Boys and girls are just different by nature, and they are educated to develop different qualities. You know, maybe for girls communication is harmful at first. Well, it’s true, judge for yourself, you won’t learn anything then, all you’ll know how to do is just chatter and giggle. You’ll understand later how everything at school is done at the right time, and is super well-thought out. So now let’s get some sleep, tomorrow is another day, and you’ll get new and important knowledge.”

“I’d love to,” answered Fanyasha with a yawn, “but we have to study all the rules, and there’s a whole thick notebook full of them.”

“Well, don’t even worry, here’s a secret: read the rules once, and then put the notebook under your pillow. In the morning you’ll know everything. I know because it worked for me,” shared Bosya, lovingly.

Fanyasha kissed her brother on the cheek, wished him good dreams, and flew to her own room.

Falling asleep, she thought about how lucky she was that she had an older brother who was so amazingly kind and nice, and always ready to help and support her.

Fanyasha felt very tired, as if she had to go through and learn more in a single day at school than she could have imagined in her wildest dreams. After all, there was nothing there that she was used to.

It must be said that in such beautiful, complete families, like Fanyasha’s, in which all members of the family give the child a lot of love, there is a high probability that the favorite child will grow up spoiled, petulant, selfish and stubborn. Therefore, it really was difficult for Fanyasha to accept and understand what humility was.

The first day at school got her acquainted with this quality. Surprisingly, just one day of humility gave her a new, previously unknown sensation of softness and femininity. This filled Fanyasha with pride. She knew that she had touched something secret and important. Not that she suddenly decided to become a prudent and silent type – no way! Fanyasha just felt that now there were new tools for communication in her arsenal.

“Bosya, hey Bosya, tell me, what did you boys learn in school on the second day of class?” asked Fanyasha with a cunning smile, jumping into the cloud bus.

“Oh come on, Fanya, what do you care? No matter what, you girls will have something different!” muttered Bosya.

“But Bosechka, please, please just tell me. I’m interested! I really want to know,” said Fanyasha, still dying to hear her brother’s explanation.

“Well, as far as I remember, we were given all kinds of different tasks all day long the second day, and we were supposed to make a decision really fast and act on it. That’s really important for men! So it was really cool, although at that moment I still couldn’t understand when we would finally start our studies. That’s it.”

Fanyasha didn’t hear her brother’s last words, as the cloud bus had already taken off high into the sky and was racing to the school.

Fanyasha was thinking and imaging the whole way to school about what other skills could be important to girls, and about what she could expect to learn in school today.

At first, she was imagining how they would all be forced to wash and clean up, since girls should look after cleanliness and order. Then she guessed that everybody would be given the opportunity to demonstrate their talent at dancing or singing. That’s when she would surprise everybody! Her grandmother Nakomis had been working with her all throughout Fanyasha’s young life, teaching her to sing beautifully and to dance, so Fanyasha was absolutely sure that no one was better than her at singing and dancing.

She got so engrossed in her thoughts about her talents that she didn’t notice that she had wound up next to her school, and a strong gust of air once again threw all of the students into the right classrooms.

“This is amazing! It’s so beautiful! It’s just incredible beauty!” said a girl with a long red braid, and clapped her hands.

Fanyasha took a look at the girl, and together with the other students she started looking around their classroom with delight. The whole room was shining and transfused with light. There was not a bit of yesterday’s greyness and dampness left! In place of yesterday’s hard chairs, all of the schoolgirls got to sit on soft red armchairs. In front of them on the little cream-colored tables were white notebooks and colored pencils. It was hard to hold back one’s emotions, but Fanyasha had figured out yesterday that silence was like gold for a girl in school.

A raspberry-colored cloud appeared unexpectedly in the middle of the classroom, and in a flash turned into Horda Etyudizovna. However, today her dress had a deep raspberry hue, and her dark hair was wrapped into a tight bun, with a pearl hairpin shining in it. A playful twinkle was flashing in her large black eyes.

Despite that, her voice and facial expression were still serious and cold.

“Good morning, students. I want to start by recognizing one of you, and by giving away our first pink cloud. Krygoliya Zorge, I’m talking about you! You demonstrated your knowledge of rule number seventy-six with dignity! Congratulations!

With these words, the teacher pointed with her long index finger on her right hand at the girl with the red-haired braid, and in her other hand their immediately appeared a large scroll with the names of all the schoolgirls.

Horda Etyudizovna touched the scroll with her finger across from Krygoliya Zorge’s name, and a small pink cloud immediately appeared on the paper.

“Who can tell me why Krygoliya got a pink cloud?” the teacher slowly turned round and round, and looked fixedly into the girls’ faces.