Мариам Петросян - The Gray House

Grasshopper ran back out into the hallway and dashed toward the principal's office. He kicked the door—and there they were. Wolf, Elk, and Blind. They were sitting on the windowsill, and didn't seem surprised to see him. It was as if they knew he'd come. Wolf smiled, and Elk nodded very slightly, in approval of his choice. They shifted and made space for him. Grasshopper squeezed in and finally felt completely happy. And also that the summer was going to be a gorgeous one.

And it was, it was. It had mornings in pink and gold, and the soft rains, and the scents wafting into the room between the curtains. And the bird.

They saw it that one time on the back of the bench under the oak tree. It was beautiful, bright as a painted toy, all striped and with an orange crown and a curved beak. The whole summer was like that bird.

Elk drove them out to the country in his Bug. Bug was a car seemingly assembled from parts of ten different cars, all of them picked up at the junkyard. It leaked from the top and the bottom, it got winded on long drives, and sharp turns sometimes made it shed its mysterious components. It liked to choose for itself where it would go next, and they had to concede, otherwise the engine would just quit, and Bug would be stuck in the most inopportune places and remain silent and inert until granted full independence again.

But wherever Bug decided to park itself, it was fine with them. They would lie under the warm sun, explore the roadside puddles, eat sandwiches. They never returned to the House empty-handed. In the bed of a dried-up creek, Blind unearthed an ancient candlestick, green with age. Grasshopper found a pack of cards on a trash heap, but they had naked ladies on them so Elk tossed them right back out. Wolf took to hauling in scary-looking insects; no one knew where he got them. Elk found an old looking glass in a leather case.

In the evening they set up tea on the deck and told scary stories. And one time they didn't make it back for dinner. Bug threw a fit and they had to spend the night inside it, with only the remains of sandwiches and one bottle of water between them. That night all the stories were about victims of shipwrecks and getting lost in a desert. The water had to be rationed. Blind said he heard hyenas laughing in the distance, and Wolf maintained he saw a mirage of three palm trees and a stone well.

After another excursion, they became five. A plump white puppy of an emphatically mutt lineage became their best discovery, so that's what they named it. She turned out to be a girl. Discovery was hopelessly plebeian and hopelessly bad mannered. The boys' pants were soon covered in white hairs and greasy stains. The legs of the principal's desk acquired a shabby, distinctly chewed look. Elk whittled chewing sticks for Discovery. They were strewn everywhere, and the dog gnawed on them rapturously, but the desk legs, boys’ ankles, and Elk's boots never escaped her attention either.

A couple of times they took sleeping bags up on the roof and spent the night there. Elk told them about the stars and their names. They packed flashlights, thermoses, and blankets, and once even took Discovery, because otherwise she missed them and howled pitifully in the empty office. They tied her to the chimney up there, but she liked this even less than being alone downstairs.

And there was the flying of the kite. It was yellow and purple, and it had narrow, slit-like eyes. It hung over the yard, smiling mysteriously and fluttering its tail. They took turns yanking its cord and observing how the wind changed the expression on its face. And one time their dinner featured food prepared according to customs of the Australian aborigines. They tried to obtain fire by rubbing sticks together, but eventually gave up and used the lighter. The food was expectedly horrible, but the aborigines did not mind and were completely satisfied. That was when the strange bird came. It also brought the rain that lasted for three days, and the air smelled of autumn. Bug went back into the garage and they had to wash Discovery's paws every time she came in from the yard.

When the Grayhouse folk finally returned, excited, tanned, and overflowing with stories and experiences, their arrival was met with resignation. Because it meant that this summer was over, and because all of them, except the grown-up, knew that there would never be another one like it.

The seniors and the juniors, the cooks, and the counselors filled out the House quickly and expertly, as if there was never a time when they weren't there. The principal's office ceased being the most interesting place in the whole House and became just the principal's office, a place of daily pilgrimage for teachers and counselors, of plans and phone calls. Became that which it was supposed to be. Discovery was exiled down to the yard. The narrow-eyed kite flew a couple more times, then ended up forgotten in the attic. The tale of the wondrous bird and the three-day rain failed to interest anyone. The walls of the Poxy room were now taken up with strings of seashells and tree nuts.

The silence that had devoured the world once the pack moved to the Sepulcher continued even after they'd returned. The noisy morning dissolved in it without a trace. After classes, Sphinx and Blind both climbed on the windowsill and smoked there without a single word, each using his own ashtray. Humpback took Tubby out for a walk. Alexander hid himself on Humpback's bunk. Tabaqui sat there like a prairie dog, all hushed and mournful, his sorrow on full display. The boombox hissed idly. The nastiest silence there is, the silence of many people being silent together. We stewed in it until lunch, and in the canteen I realized I couldn't stand it anymore. It weighed on me like something that was alive, something suffocating. Then I noticed that ours was not the only quiet table. The entire canteen was silent. Even the music, usually thunderously loud, seemed hushed. I could hear cooks talking and jangling the cutlery in the kitchen behind the wall. This is where I got really scared. Trembling-hands scared.

The lunch-end bell clanked once and went dumb, as if by magic. Usually it was followed by an immediate explosion of clatter, with the Second rushing to the door tripping over themselves, clearly showing that the air in the canteen had suddenly become impossible to breathe. They didn't go anywhere this time. A couple of wheelchairs peeled off the Pheasants' table, circled the exit, and returned.

“I detect a whiff of mayhem,” Jackal observed. “Can you feel it?”

It was hard not to. As soon as we rose to go, we were intercepted by the delegation arriving from the table of the Sixth, three Hounds in all, and Laurus solemnly presented Sphinx with some kind of note.