Slava Brodsky - Funny Children's Stories

But then I calmed down a little because my tooth actually did hurt. So it turned out that I had not lied.

And when Mom asked me how my tooth was, I said that it hurt only a little. And that was also true. And Mom suggested that I should not drink or eat anything hot or cold and we would see how I would feel then.

That evening, as I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, I did not feel well. I did not feel well because of this whole story with the money and my tooth. And I tried to imagine what would have happened if I had told Mom that I had lost the money.

Probably, Mom would have immediately said that she knew I would lose my money. But this is what I do not like most of all. I really do not like when Mom tells me “I knew that.” Because it makes it seem like I am plain stupid. It is as though it was immediately clear to Mom that I could lose my money but it did not even cross my mind.

Actually, I also thought that I could lose the money if I put it into the same pocket as my handkerchief. I am not as stupid as Mom thinks I am. The problem was that my other pockets were even worse.

In my jacket, for example, in one pocket, I kept coins mixed in with mud, while in the other, I kept a copper wire. And this wire made a pretty big hole in that pocket. Well, of course, I did not tell Mom about this. I did not say anything about it because I was late to school and because in the morning my tongue does not want to move at all.

That was what I was thinking about as I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep late last night. And I thought that if I had just told Mom that I had lost the money, I would not have had to deal with all these problems yesterday and maybe even the following day too. And with these thoughts, I fell asleep yesterday.

Today, when I woke up, I immediately recalled the whole story of what happened yesterday. And I also recalled the handkerchief, which caused me to lose my money. What was going on? It seems that I blew my nose, wrapped it up into the handkerchief, and put it all in my pocket. That was just ridiculous. Something was definitely wrong here. It should not be like this. Something was not right.

Pygmies

Today we had a homeroom session. Actually, a few days ago we knew that we would soon have a homeroom session. Because someone eavesdropped as our Russian literature teacher was being told off by our principal for not having it every month. It turned out that we had not had homeroom for a long, long time.

And those of us who were not doing well in school became a little bit nervous. The guy who was nervous the most was Pudovkin. He was usually picked on more often than anyone else.

The very first day, when Pudovkin showed up in our classroom, we gave him the nickname Pud. Not just because of his last name. Pud is a very big guy. His fists are especially big. They are as heavy as a pood.* So Pud certainly lives up to his nickname.

Pud always sits in the back row. He sits there because only in the back are there desks large enough to fit him.

He is used to everyone blaming him for something. When his name is mentioned on any occasion, he replies from the last row, “Why Pudovkin? I didn’t do anything.”

He says it so often that our teachers have a ready comeback for him. Most often they answer, “It's not good that you did not do anything. In school, you must learn!”

The person who makes fun of him the most is our math teacher. As she sees him there, dozing off in the back, she comes up to him and loudly says, “Pudy!”

Pud shudders, raises his head and looks at her, astonished. And the math teacher curtseys in front of Pud, spreads out her skirt, and says, “Hellooo!” And each time, it sounds very funny. After our math teacher makes a curtsey and says “Hellooo!” to Pud, she takes him by the collar and drags him to the blackboard.

And at the blackboard, we witness a very funny scene. She starts to ask him, “Tell us, Pudy, where are all the Bs? Where are all the Cs?” Then she takes him by the collar again, rubs his nose into the blackboard, where the formulas are written in chalk, and says, “Here are all the Bs! Here are all the Cs!” And when our math teacher rubs Pud's nose into the blackboard, we laugh so hard that tears stream down our faces.

Afterwards, our math teacher becomes tired of dragging Pud around. So she lets him go, saying, “Get out of here, you dummy!”

Once, after this happened, Pud rushed to the door. But the math teacher yelled, “Where are you going, Pudy?!” And Pud stopped, not knowing what he should do next. And the math teacher said, “Get out of here! Back to your desk!”

Usually, all these scenes end the same way. As Pud walks back to his desk, the math teacher says, “Wretched idiot! Bring your Mamsell here tomorrow.” This means that she wants Pud to have his mother come to school the next morning.

Once, after she said “Bring your Mamsell here tomorrow,” she asked him whether he understood what she said to him. And Pud said “yes”, but he shook his head “no.”

Of course, we all guessed what he meant by that. He answered “yes” because he understood what the math teacher told him. But he shook his head “no” because he was scared to even think of telling his mom about all that.

And the math teacher, of course, noticed this right away and told Pud that he spoke like a Bulgarian. It turns out that in Bulgaria, everything is backwards. When they say “no,” they nod. But when they say “yes,” they shake their heads from side to side.

Well, anyway, today Pud became very nervous as soon as he heard the news about homeroom.

But Pud was not the only one. Usually, we expected that Pud would be scolded, and everything would end at that. But this time nothing special had happened to Pud. And because nothing special had happened to Pud, everyone became nervous. Everyone tried to guess what our teacher would talk about. And I too became a little bit nervous.

And so the time came for our homeroom session. Our homeroom teacher — our Russian teacher — entered the classroom, greeted us, stood near the first row of desks, crossed his arms, moved his glasses to his nose, looked at us over the rim of his glasses, raised his pencil, and said, “Some students behave like pigs. For example, Pudovkin.”

Pud immediately replied, “Why Pudovkin? I didn't do anything.”

Of course, our homeroom teacher said, “It’s not good that you didn't do anything.”

But Pud paid no attention to that and again began to mumble that he did not do anything.

Then our homeroom teacher said, “Shhhhhhh! Don't talk so much! You’ll have my comments on your report card.”

And all of us immediately started to plead, “Please, don’t. Please, please...” Because we knew that Pud’s mom is very strict. She gives him a heavy beating for each bad comment in his report card, so that Pud comes to school covered in bruises.

And here our homeroom teacher took out a notebook and started to tell us about what we had already covered and what additional topics we would learn in his class this year.

About half an hour later, the door to our classroom was unexpectedly opened and our principal entered the room. Everyone immediately stood up. The principal said, “Hello.” Usually, our teachers say, “Hello class, you may sit down.” But the principal only said, “Hello.” Still some of us sat down. But I continued to stand, and several others continued to stand too.

Then the principal looked directly at me and asked, “What’s so funny?” And I realized that I was smiling. As soon as the principal asked “What’s so funny?” I immediately stopped smiling. But it was already too late, of course.

And here someone asked, “May we sit down?”