The Ugly Duckling

There was no escaping flights of fancy, either. You can’t constantly run after people with a notebook in your hand and, with stenographic accuracy down to the very last detail, write down everything they say or do. Especially since the story is about children, and children are so unpredictable. It all began with the fact that on a rainy autumn day, gentle little boys’ hands picked up a stray kitten. A wet, fluffy lump, orphaned too early, squeaked pitifully, hoping in vain to find its whiskered mother. The poor thing got under the wheels of a car and lay by the roadside. A dramatic beginning was conceived to underline my hero’s family situation. He himself grew up without a mother, and therefore especially sympathized with the kitten, lapping up milk. Now he was sweetly dozing in a soft slipper. Let’s not disturb him—especially since he has already fulfilled his part of the task, squeezing tears out of you.

In general, I advise you to keep a handkerchief handy—I’m sure it will come in useful.

Now, interesting question: how do you imagine my main character? Following logic, you’ll say that since the boy loves animals, he’s probably kind to people too, and therefore he must have lots of friends. Psychologically, you’d be right, but logic often doesn’t get along with indifference and hypocrisy. That doesn’t apply to my boy at all—alas, he was very lonely. Tell me, which boy would save on ice cream in order to buy sausage for stray cats afterward? Most owners of pampered animals don’t even notice stray creatures. You have to have such a big heart as Artem had. Looking from the balcony at someone else’s noisy yard and sighing heavily, he would return to the room, sit in an armchair, and with a thick geography encyclopedia spread across his knees, plunge into dense jungles. That’s where animals lived—much kinder than people.

But why, you ask, did the loud yard seem like a strange place to a modern thirteen-year-old boy? For that, we’ll have to rewind events a month.