Iskra took Zina around the corner of the school, squeezed her into the nook at the entrance to the boiler room, and asked without preamble:

“Which are you, an idiot, a gossip, or a traitor?”

Instead of answering, Zinochka immediately summoned tears. She always sought their help in difficult situations, but in this case, this was a mistake.

“So you’re a traitor.”

“Me?” Zina stopped crying at once.

“What did you blab about to Valendra?”

“Did I blab? She caught me in the bathroom in front of the mirror, and started telling me off for making faces and… flirting. That’s what she said, but I don’t flirt at all and don’t even know how it’s done. So I tried to explain. I tried to explain and she started asking me horrid questions, and I didn’t want to say anything, honest to goodness, but I… did. I didn’t tell her on purpose, Iskorka, it wasn’t on purpose.”

Carefully sniffling, Zinochka kept talking, but Iskra was no longer listening. She was thinking. Then she ordered, 

“Wipe your face, we’re going to the Lyuberetskiys’.”

“Where?” Zinochka instantly stopped sniffling in surprise.

“You let Vika down. Tomorrow, Valendra will start questioning her, and she needs to be ready.”

“But we’ve never been to the Lyuberetskiys’!”

“And now we will. Let’s go!”

Vika was no less proud of her father than Iskra was of her mom. But where Iskra was proud quietly, Vika’s pride was open and triumphant. She was proud of his awards, of the Order of the Red Banner for civil war service and of the medal for significant achievement in peacetime construction. She was proud of his numerous personalized gifts from the Narkom, of the photo cameras and watches, radios and gramophones. She was proud of his papers and articles, his combat achievements in the past and his admirable actions in the present.

Vika’s mother had died a long time ago. At first, her aunt, her father’s sister, had lived with them, but then she married, moved to Moscow, and rarely visited the Lyuberetskiys. The household was run by the help, day-to-day life was ordered and settled, the girl grew and developed normally, and the aunt had nothing much to worry about. Lyuberetskiy did all the worrying himself. Every year, he worried more and more, specifically because his daughter grew and developed normally.

His worry expressed itself through extremes. Fear for her was the cause of the car that delivered Vika to school and from school, to the theater and from the theater, out to the countryside and back home. The desire to see her be the most beautiful led to the outfits from abroad, the hairstyles and fur coats that would be more appropriate on a young woman, and not on a girl only just beginning to grow to adulthood. He inadvertently hurried her towards maturity, took pride in that maturity overtaking that of her agemates, and fretted over her aloofness, not guessing that Vika’s aloofness was the direct result of his parenting.

Vika took a lot of pride in her father, and was very weighed down by her loneliness. But she was proud, and feared most of all that someone would take it into their head to pity her, and so she found the girls’ sudden visitation unpleasant.

“Sorry, we’re here about something important,” Iskra said.

“What a mirror!” gasped Zina. Mirrors were her weakness.

“It’s an antique,” Vika couldn’t resist saying. “Dad got it as a gift from an academy member he knows.”

She was about to take the girls to her room, but the sound of voices brought out her dad, Leonid Sergeevich Lyuberetskiy.

“Hello, girls! Well, I see my Vika finally has friends, instead of it all being books and more books. I’m very glad, very! Come into the dining room, I’ll serve tea.”

“Polya can serve tea,” said Vika with a hint of displeasure.

“She can, but I can better,” smiled her father, and went into the kitchen.

Over tea, Leonid Sergeevich looked after the girls, coaxed them to eat fancy little cakes and sweets that came in decorated boxes. Iskra and Zina were discomfited by the cakes: they were used to only eating such things on great holidays. But Vika’s father made jokes and smiled and gradually, the sense of being uninvited guests at a stranger’s celebration left the girls. Zinochka soon began to spin around, curiously examining the crystal displayed behind the glass of the oak cabinet, and Iskra’s tongue unexpectedly loosened, and soon she told them all about her conversation with their teacher.

“Girls, this is all unserious.” But despite this, Vika’s father for some reason became sad and sighed heavily. “Nobody banned Sergey Yesenin, and there is nothing criminal about his poetry. I hope your teacher understands all this herself, and this conversation happened, as they say, in the heat of the moment. If you want, I can call her.”

“No,” Iskra said. “Excuse me, Leonid Sergeevich, but we should take care of our own business ourselves. We need to develop our character.”

“Good. I must admit that I have long wanted to meet you, Iskra. I have heard a great deal about you.”

“Dad!”