Awakened Heroes

“Autumn stubbornly didn’t want to take its place. Or, alternatively, summer wasn’t in a hurry to give up its positions. The sun still shone in the street, and Muscovites didn’t rush to put on coats or pull their autumn shoes and umbrellas out of the attic. It was supposedly early October, but the weather was absolutely July-like—heat, greenery everywhere, and a wild desire to run from the dusty city to the water, for barbecue.

All this pleasant weather really didn’t cheer up Zhenya Mezentseva today. Morning absolutely refused to become kind: the girl darted around the duty room from the safe to the kettle and couldn’t figure out what she wanted.

Yesterday evening she got into a huge argument with yet another young man and now she was lost in the question: ‘Where have all the real men gone—or at least the princes on a white horse?’ It’s hard to say Zhenya had a shortage of male attention. On the contrary, even since school a slender athletic red-haired girl with huge green eyes attracted practically all representatives of the opposite sex. But once they got pulled in, they usually bounced off her just as quickly—regardless of weight, age, or social status.

‘You’re a bomb with a broken clockwork mechanism,’ one of her suitors declared during an argument. ‘You never know when you’ll blow and on what bump.’

Zhenya didn’t fit any of the standards men tried to fit her into. She didn’t like night clubs, she didn’t roll her eyes languidly at modern art exhibitions, and she didn’t try to admire a guy just because he was ‘cool’ and into motorcycles or weapons. On the contrary, she herself understood weapons no worse than those ‘cool’ guys and handled any vehicle that could actually drive quite confidently. And one macho man who tried to call her ‘a wild mare’ and pin her down by force simply broke his arm. And then, with a languid voice, she whispered into the ear of the admirer whining from pain that at their next meeting she would seat him for attempted rape. Or just shoot him during an arrest.”