End of school day. I left a class, ran in a locker room where my mother waited for me: it also took away me home until the end of academic year.
Generally, the whole year of occupations passed in the first class interestingly and interestingly. First graders always learn something new, to them the whole world of knowledge, stories opens. And there passed the whole year. We studied, taken knowledge. All as usual, all as always.
New year. We prepared number. Father Frost and Snow Maiden. Outside the window there was a frost, at windows it decorated windows in fancy white patterns. We addressed in the class the parents. Each of us wanted not to lag behind another, to play if it is not better, then and it is not worse than the partner. All had a joyful mood. New Year! Children's holiday of fun and good mood!
Outside the window the moon lit a way to the wanderer, stars flickered in a night firmament. Calm around, it is only heard a snow crunch. The hare little rogue runs on the night wood. In the house there is a fir-tree decorated with toys. It blinks multi-colored fires. New year!!!
Last call! Joyful mood for graduates of school. As I envied them! Here they, enter adulthood, school days behind. How many knowledge did they gain? And how many still will receive? We gathered in the big gym that was in school. There were all: from us first graders to graduates of the tenth classes. There was a big gala concert. All of us congratulated graduates of the tenth class on the termination of academic year and their introduction in adulthood. I remember how they took us on hands, and then put to themselves on shoulders and carried by on all hall, and we, first graders, rang a small hand bell. The last call for tenth-graders − farewell school, hi adulthood.
Vacation! Summer vacation! What can be better, than vacation? Perhaps, for the person who passed into the second class nothing the best can exist as three months to take a walk before new academic year. Fun! Mischief! What can be better, than be heated on the lake under a bright sun? Trip to giving? To have a rest on the personal site. To kindle a fire in a brazier, on coals to make brochettes, and then to enjoy them. Silence. Wood and silence. It is heard somewhere the woodpecker with a red beak knocks on a tree trunk. Birds sing the morning song. The rooster uttered a crow five o'clock in the morning. It is time to milk a cow. Life is fine! Who could brag of all this?
And here again school. Now I am already a vtoroklashka. What new waits for me this year? What new will be opened by me for myself? What knowledge will I acquire? Everything was interesting, and I with new forces began to learn lessons and to receive estimates. The second class differed from the first. If in the first class treated us with degression and forgave certain errors in study, then in the second class we received less privileges, and I had to comprehend an event and not to lag behind others. My five which I received in the first class in the first quarter some became the fours, and only at the end of the half-year I corrected them on the five.
Here I am obliged to tell the story which happened in the second class. Our teacher could not be present at the first lesson or at the second, I do not remember. To us entered a class the director of studies. The young woman, that that on the first of September last year was told by the speech on steps of school. It entered not one, with it there was a senior pupil, I knew it. Sometimes, when it was cold in the winter, I ran on a ladder where there were senior pupils and, having leaned the elbows on the warm battery, were heated and kept order. However, it was impossible to tell whether they kept order. They just stood and, without paying attention to anybody, went about everyone the own business. Who stirred about today's task, who discussed it. Someone reduced gossips, and someone just read. Generally, did not do nothing. But we will return to a class where now there was a director of studies and the senior pupil. The director of studies told us that Valentina Semenovna will not be able to be present at this lesson and it will be carried out by the schoolgirl of the tenth class Lena. Then it left. Lena, having looked that we passed, told that today it will not ask us concerning last material. It will be better if we just sit and we will write something from the textbook. She read some story from a teacher's notebook and told that we retold it in writing, that is wrote statement. There passed a quarter of hour, one pupil raised a hand and asked how the letter "e" is written: I do not know whether he really forgot how this letter "e" is written or just decided to check Lena? I do not know. We were second-graders and quite could forget how this letter, the letter "e" is written. It is so similar to other letter of the Russian alphabet, especially capital. This letter "e". Yes, they are twins in specular reflection, and it played a dirty trick with Lena. She took chalk and having drawn the letter "e" on a board, told that so it is written. Then, having seen in eyes at pupils a puzzled look, Lena, looked at a board, thought, erased the letter "e", and, having written the letter "e", again thought. It seemed what she does not know how in general this letter is written, its specular reflection of other letter of the Russian alphabet, "э", and the letter "e" − they are so similar. Both of them are two vowels, a sin not to be mistaken to us, pupils of initial classes. But how Lena could forget? Schoolgirl of the tenth class? There is a shame! What only it was taught to? She looked stupidly at a board for a long time, trying to think how this letter of the Russian alphabet is written? Anyway? Question? Eventually, after long five-minute reflections on a subject as this letter is written, it was resolved. She agreed with though she was not sure for all hundred percent that this letter is written quite so. "Э". Then she added that this option is more real, or something in this spirit. Then I thought that Lena just never taught so many children. She just became puzzled. However, there could be also other reasons. Who knows why she forgot how this letter is written. Letter, "э". Thirtieth letter of the Russian alphabet.
So I studied at school three years.
Days developed in weeks, and those − in months. Year after year, and here I passed into the fourth class.
In high school there was such history. I will tell it as I remember. At a biology lesson. The teacher − the representative woman who graduated the polytechnical university and working at school, teaching biology. Her name was rare − Nesle. She was the leading expert of the business. And honestly taught children. Once, when I wrote the term paper, having checked it, she told that my work is the best of all. Once she asked: tell when the sun heats is hotter? Having raised a hand I answered: the sun heats is hotter if it is higher. All burst out laughing. And the teacher was surprised, told: what do you laugh? She speaks truly. The sun is higher, the is hotter.
Everything would be nothing, but? Always is but? Even if it is absent, it steadily is present everywhere and always. And at me. My family was the English family. But do not think that all of us were from England. No. Just all my family learned English. My mother and the father knew it on teeth, from "A" to "Z". And I was forced to study German. Do you ask why? I just had no choice. I got in a year when at school learned two German. Tell why so do, alternate the English and German languages, in one year study either English, or German language. I cannot understand it, and you? There was nothing to do to me, and I began to learn German. But I hoped when I graduate from school, I will learn English.
My school days passed rather quietly. In them there was everything: both first kiss, and fight. However what to tell − school. As we were said by Valentina Semenovna that school − our second house. Here you learn everything that you have to awake the nobility when time to abandon her comes.
