Slava Brodsky: Funny Children's Stories

And now I think that the same story happened with the ink pencils. They probably came to us from a place where they were used for some very important purpose. But here no one knew about that. Then people just started to use them to write numbers on the palms of people waiting in line. It just fit the purpose.

The Hole

When I grow up, all of my clothes will be nice and without holes. And very often I dream about the day when I will not have a single hole anywhere. Nowhere – not a single hole.

I thought about holes today because my Mom mended the back of my pants. And when Mom finished, we decided to check whether it was visible that my pants had been mended. Mom thought that nobody could see the stitching. But I did not agree with her. So Mom said that she would put the iron on the gas stove, iron the pants, and then nobody would be able to see the stitching.

And so, Mom put the iron on the stove. And when the iron heated up and Mom ironed the stitching, she told me, “You see? It is not noticeable at all.” And I agreed with her. But I agreed with Mom only because I did not want to upset her. I did not want to tell her that the stitching was still very obvious.

Needless to say that mended pants always look mended. And the most important thing in this story is that the hole was right on my behind.

And a hole on the behind is the most disgraceful hole in the world. No hole could be worse than that.

For example, what can you say about a hole in the sleeve? You can only dream about such a hole. Well, of course it depends on where on the sleeve your hole is. If, for example, the hole is on the elbow, then it is, surely, the next worst hole after the hole on the behind. A hole on the elbow means that you wore the jacket so long that the elbows wore out.

It is much better when a hole is at the end of the sleeve. Then it could just be that you were not too careful about wearing the jacket and the sleeves wore out. But the jacket itself is really not old at all.

The best hole is one that is close to the shoulder. That might mean that you accidentally caught your jacket on a nail somewhere and that is why you have a hole. But overall, your jacket is as good as new. So this hole is not really a hole at all.

The hole in my pants, the one on my behind, started to wear out a long time ago. And I kept my eye on it. Once Mom noticed that I was looking at it and offered to mend it even then. But I did not let her do it. Because when a hole is mended, it is a completely different thing than when it is not.

If a hole is not stitched over, then you can always pretend that you have no idea it is there. And if someone happens to notice your hole and tell you about it, you can just pretend that you do not really care about it since your parents are going to buy you new pants soon.

But if a hole is mended, it means that everyone knew about it long, long ago. It also means that no one is going to buy you new pants anytime soon. Because if your parents were going to buy you new pants anytime soon, no one would bother mending the hole.

And now, because of this mended hole on my behind, I will always have to think which way to turn. I will never be able to forget about it.

It is especially annoying because just recently Mom bought me a new pair of shoes. I was overjoyed when Mom bought new shoes for me. Because I did not have to worry, as I did with my old shoes, that someone would see that they were completely worn out to the point of having huge holes in them. With new shoes, I was able to run as much as I wanted and kick up my feet in any which way possible.

And it made me so happy that sometimes I thought it was too good to be true. And from time to time I had dreams that my shoes, once again, had huge holes in them. But when I woke up, it was always so wonderful to realize that it was only a bad dream.

Now everything is backwards. When I wake up in the morning, my first thought is: “What if my pants are not really mended and this was just a bad dream?” But then, unfortunately, it dawns on me that it was not a dream.

And I often lie in bed for several minutes with my eyes closed and think about the time when I will be grown up. I have no doubt that I will not have holes in my clothes. But how it will happen, that my clothes will not have any holes, I do not yet know.

Anton

In our yard, there is a boy. His name is Anton. He is one year older than I am. On the one hand, there is nothing special about him. But on the other hand, all the boys treat him differently from everyone else.

For example, if he is not outside, then everyone asks about him and wonders where Anton is and why he has not shown up. When he shows up, all the boys immediately gather around him. Once, when I decided not to do that, I found myself alone. So in the end I had no choice but to join everybody.

For whatever reason, it is up to Anton to decide what we do and what games we play. If he says “Let's go!” then everyone follows him. Not everyone knows where he is running to. Nevertheless, if he says “Let's go!” then everyone, immediately, and without thinking, starts to run after him.

This does not mean that no one else has good ideas. But if someone does have an idea, this “someone” will most likely ask Anton what he thinks about it. And Anton decides whether this idea is good or not. And the same question keeps spinning around in my head all the time, “Why is Anton always the one in charge? Why is it always him and only him?”

Once I told Anton that it would be a good idea to play soccer. And I have to say that Anton often agrees with me when I suggest something. And I think I know why.

Anton has a sister, Lisa. She and I are in the same class. And once Anton told me that Lisa mentioned something about me. He did not tell me exactly what she said. But I think that Lisa told him something good about me. Because after that, Anton started to be much nicer to me. Well, he began to take notice of me. Before, he just never noticed I was there.

So, when I suggested playing soccer, Anton seemed to agree with me. But before he had the opportunity to yell out his usual “Let's go!” I asked him why he was always the one to take charge. Maybe I should be the one to yell out “Let’s go!”, especially since it was my idea to play soccer in the first place.

And I thought Anton would never agree to that. Because so far, no one other than Anton had ever yelled “Let’s go!” And I was ready to argue with him and tell him that it was unfair that he and only he was always in charge. But to my surprise, Anton was very indifferent to my suggestion. He did not bother to argue with me but simply told me to go ahead and take charge.

Immediately after he told me this, I realized that it was not so easy. It was not easy to suddenly yell out “Let’s go!” Apparently, you sort of had to prepare yourself and only then yell “Let’s go!”

So, I readied myself and shouted, “Let’s go!” and no one even thought to run. I started to ask everyone why they did not run. But Anton asked me why I, myself, did not run.

And it was only then that I realized that I was doing everything wrong. Anton, when he yelled out his “Let’s go!” ran himself. But when I yelled, I had remained still in the same spot. And since I remained standing in the same spot, no one ran either.

Then I again yelled, “Let’s go!” and started to run. But again, no one followed me. And I felt very embarrassed, and it seemed to me that even Anton felt embarrassed for me. And everyone felt embarrassed.

I did not know what I could do. Finally, I told Anton that he should be the one in charge. And I think Anton was glad to hear me say that, and he right away suggested that we would play soccer.