Chapter 8

The ball rolled out of the gate and we ran after it. When I turned around, I saw that everyone was leaning out of the castle windows and waving at us. Even His Majesty the Verb. I waved back to them and rushed to catch up with Kuzya.

I could still hear the Exclamation Mark as we were walking away. Then, all at once, we couldn’t hear anything as the castle disappeared behind a hill.

Kuzya and I started discussing everything that happened to us, as we followed the ball. I was very glad that I didn’t call Geography, but instead, saved myself using my own knowledge.

“Yes, it worked out well,” Kuzya agreed. “I can recall a similar story. One of my cat friends named Troshka lived in the meat department of a grocery store. He never waited for the seller to suddenly become generous and throw him some meat. Troshka served himself: he treated himself to the best cuts of meat every time. This cat always said: ‘No one will ever take care of you better than yourself.’”

Kuzya had a very nasty habit of telling me all kinds of ridiculous stories about some tattered street cats. In order to educate him, I started telling him about the friendship between people and animals. For example, he himself acted like a true friend when I was in trouble. From now on, I will be able to rely on him. The cat purred as he listened to my explanation. Apparently, he liked to be praised. But then, he quickly remembered some orange tabby named Frisky, who always said: “For the sake of friendship, I will give up my last mouse.” It quickly became apparent to me that there was no way of educating him. Kuzya was untrainable. Even Zoya Fillipovna could not have done anything with him. I decided to tell him another story that I had heard from my dad.

I told Kuzya about how cats and dogs became friends with humans. How humans chose them among all of the other wild animals. And what do you think my cheeky cat told me? Dogs, in his opinion, were chosen by the humans. The humans made a terrible mistake in making this choice. Cats, however… With cats, things were completely different: the cats chose the humans and not the other way around.

Kuzya’s explanation made me so angry that I fell silent for a very long time. Had I continued our conversation, he would have probably told me that cats, not humans, were considered to be the King of the Jungle. No, I have to seriously think about Kuzya’s upbringing and education the minute we get back! Why haven’t I thought about this before? Why haven’t I thought about anything at all before this?

The Comma told me that if I put my mind to it, then the problem will always make sense. In reality, she was completely right. I really thought about the problem at the gate — I remembered a rule I had almost forgotten, and it came in handy for me. Doing this helped me even as I was deciding on where to put the comma in my sentence. I would probably become the best student in the class if I just thought about what I was doing. Of course, for this to happen, you need to listen to what the teacher says in class, instead of playing tic-tac-toe on the side. Am I ‘stupider’ than Zhenchik? If I develop my will and really buckle down, I’ll probably have the highest grades in the class by the end of the year.

I wonder how Katya would have managed, had she been in my shoes. It’s a good thing that she didn’t see me at the castle with His Majesty the Verb. She would have told everyone! But yet, I’m very pleased that I got sent to this land. First of all, I will always remember the double consonant rule. Secondly, I realized that grammar rules are very important. They may come in handy in the most unusual situations. Lastly, it turns out that punctuation marks are necessary! Imagine trying to read a whole page of text without any punctuation. Would people actually be able to read and understand it? They would simply read, read, read without taking even a single breath, until they suffocated. What’s the good in that? In addition, one would probably not understand anything that was read.

I was just thinking to myself, as I had no reason to say all of this to Kuzya. I was so entrenched in my own thoughts that I didn’t immediately notice that the cat began to complain about the heat. It has, in fact, become very hot and dry. To somehow cheer Kuzya up, I started singing and Kuzya quickly picked up the song:

We are walking, walking, walking,

We’re singing our ole song.

While hating all the dangers,

And trucking right along!

We stopped singing, because we couldn’t sing anymore. My mouth was dry. I was very thirsty. The grass under my feet turned yellow. Leaves curled into little straws. The earth became hard, almost like a concrete sidewalk, and in some places even cracked apart.

Oh, how terribly thirsty I was, but there wasn’t any water in sight. Kuzya was thirsty as well. I would give anything for a glass of flavored carbonated water. Even just plain water. But we could only dream about it.

We walked past a dried riverbed. On the bottom, as if in a frying pan, there lay many dried fish.

“Where did the water go?” Kuzya asked with an air of concern in his voice. “Are there really no pitchers, kettles, buckets, or sinks? None of these useful things from which water is extracted?”

I was silent. My tongue seemed to dry up and couldn’t move.

Our ball kept rolling ahead. It only stopped at a clearing that was scorched by the sun. A single bare, twisted tree stuck out in the middle of the clearing. All around us, there was a bare forest, with trees that creaked with their dry black branches.

I sat down to rest on a mound covered with yellow leaves. Kuzya jumped into my lap. Oh, how thirsty we were! I didn’t even realize that you could be this thirsty. All of the while, I seemed to see a cold stream of water in front of me. How beautifully it pours from the tap and bubbles. I also remembered our crystal pitcher and even droplets of condensation on its sides.

I closed my eyes and, as if in a dream, saw Aunt Lyubasha: she would sell sparkling water on our street corner. In her hands, she held a glass of cold sparkling water with cherry syrup. How nice would it be to get that glass of water! Even without syrup, even without carbonation… Forget the glass, I think I could drink a whole bucket right now.

Suddenly, the mound beneath us began to stir. Then it started to grow and sway from side to side.

“Hold tight, Kuzya!” I shouted, as I tumbled down the mound.

“Even the mounds are crazy around here,” Kuzya grumbled.

“I’m not a mound, I’m a camel,” we heard someone’s sad voice.

Our “mound” came to its feet, shook off the leaves, and we actually saw a real camel. Kuzya immediately arched his back and asked:

“Are you planning on eating the boy and his faithful cat?”

The camel was very offended.

“Do you really not know, cat, that camels eat only grass, hay, and thorns?” he asked mockingly. “The only real trouble that I could cause you is I could spit on you. But I’m not going to do that. I can’t. Even I, a camel, can die of thirst.”

“Please don’t die,” I pleaded with the poor camel, but he only moaned in response.

“No one can endure a drought longer than a camel. But there comes a time when the camel kicks the bucket too. Many animals in the forest have already died. Some are still alive, but they won’t last long, unless somebody saves them right away.”

There were soft moans coming from the forest. I felt so sorry for the unfortunate animals that I completely forgot about my own thirst.

“Can I do anything to help?” I asked the camel.

“You can save them,” the camel answered.

“Let’s go, then! Let’s run to the forest,” I said.

The camel was overcome with joy, but Kuzya was not at all happy.

“Think about what you’re saying,” he hissed with displeasure. “How can you save them? You don’t even know them!”

“You are very selfish, Kuzya,” I calmly replied. “I’ll definitely go and save them. The camel will tell me what needs to be done, and I will save them. As for you, Kuzya…”

I was about to give Kuzya a piece of my mind, as something started cracking right next to us. The twisted black tree in the middle of the clearing straightened its dry branches and turned into a shriveled thin old woman in a torn dress. Dry leaves were sticking out of her tangled hair.

The camel groaned and ran away. The old woman began to examine me and Kuzya. I was not at all afraid, even when she started singing in a very deep voice:

Who dares to scream and disturb my peace?

Let me know who you are… or cease!

“Don’t tell her that you’re Perestukin,” Kuzya whispered in fear. “Tell her that you are Kittenovich.”

“You yourself can be Kittenovich. But my name is Perestukin, and I have nothing to be ashamed of!”

As soon as the old woman heard this, her mood immediately changed. She bent down in a bow, formed her lips into a crooked smile, and became even more repulsive. And all of a sudden… she began to praise me in every way imaginable. As she was shouting her praises, I stood motionless and the camel just let out a moan. She told me that it was I, Viktor Perestukin, who was her best friend and partner in crime. It was I, who said the magic words during class…

“I knew it!” Kuzya screamed frantically. “You probably blurted out something stupid, without even thinking!”

“Your master,” the camel groaned, “told everyone in class that the water that evaporates from the surfaces of rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans, disappears forever.”

“The water cycle in nature,” I suddenly recalled. “Zoya Fillipovna! My fifth F that day!”

The old woman straightened out, arms at her sides, and started singing once again:

He correctly stated,

That water will be gone.

After all life has parted,

All will be done.

For some reason, this scarecrow spoke only in rhymes. Listening to her words made me even more thirsty once again. I heard moans from the forest. The camel came up to me and whispered in my ear:

“You can save the unfortunate animals… Just remember the water cycle, remember!”

It was easy for him to say: remember. Zoya Fillipovna kept me standing in front of the class for a solid hour and I still couldn’t remember anything.

“You have to remember!” Kuzya said angrily. “It is because of you that we are all in this mess to begin with. After all, it was you who said these stupid things during the class.”

“Nonsense!” I shouted back at the cat. “What can simple words do?”

The old woman creaked with her dry branches and, once again, started to speak in rhymes:

This is what the words have done:

The grass dried up as hay,

Rain is completely gone,

Lives have gone away,

Waterfalls are dry as bone.

This is what I own today -

A world of death and stone.

Listening to her was unbearable! I began thinking that I really did do something wrong. I’ll have to remember the water cycle. And I started thinking out loud:

“The water that evaporates from the surfaces of rivers, lakes, seas…”

The old woman, afraid that I might remember everything, started dancing around me. Her dancing was so intense that dry branches and leaves flew in all directions. She spun around in front of me and shouted:

I despise the water,

Rains I can’t stand.

Withered nature ’n’ slaughter,

Is what I think is grand.

My head was spinning, I was getting more and more thirsty by the second, but I did not give up and stop thinking. I kept trying to remember:

“The water that evaporates turns into steam and…”

The old woman suddenly ran up to me, waved her hands in my face, and began to hiss:

In this very moment,

Into oblivion you’ll fall.

Everything that’s known,

You will never once recall.

What was I just arguing with the old woman about? Why was I so angry with her? I couldn’t remember anything.

“Remember, remember!” Kuzya shouted desperately, jumping around on his hind legs. “You were talking, recalling…”

“What was I talking about?”

“The fact that the steam was turning into…”

“Ah, yes! The steam!” I suddenly remembered everything: “The steam cools, turns into water, and falls on the ground in the form of rain. It rains!”

Suddenly, clouds appeared overhead and large drops of rain fell to the ground. They began to fall more and more often, and the earth darkened with moisture. The leaves on the trees and the grass under our feet turned green. Water started flowing in the river. A waterfall poured from the top of the cliff. I could hear joyful voices of birds and animals from the forest.

I danced around the old woman-drought, along with Kuzya and the camel, shouting into her ears:

Rain, rain, rain more!

Kick the drought out the door!

Animals will drink a lot,

Give us all you got!

The old woman suddenly bent in half, spread her arms, and, once again, turned into a dry, twisted tree. All of the trees around us rustled with their fresh green leaves and only one tree — the drought — stood bare and dry. Not a single drop of rain fell on it.

All of the animals ran out of the forest. They drank the water from the river. Bunnies hopped around and cartwheeled through the forest. The foxes waved their red tails. The squirrels galloped along the branches. Hedgehogs rolled around like balls. And the birds chattered so loudly, that I could not understand a word from all of their chatter. My cat was absolutely ecstatic. After seeing him, one would have thought that he ate a lot of catnip.

“Drink! Lap up the water!” Kuzya cried. “It was my master who brought the rain! It was I, who helped my master get so much water! Have a drink! Or two! Drink as much as you’d like! My master and I are treating everyone!”

I’m not sure how much time we would have spent having fun like this, if there hadn’t been a terrible roar that came from the forest. The birds immediately disappeared. All of the animals ran away, and only the camel remained. But even he trembled with fear.

“Save yourselves!” cried the camel. “It’s an angry polar bear. He got lost. He wanders around here and scolds Viktor Perestukin for sending him here. Save yourselves!”

Kuzya and I quickly hid ourselves in a pile of leaves. Unfortunately, the poor camel did not have time to escape.

A huge polar bear stumbled into the clearing. He moaned and fanned himself with a branch. He complained about the heat, growled, and cursed. Finally, he spotted the camel. We lay under the wet leaves, not daring to even breathe. We saw and heard everything.

“What is this?” the polar bear roared, pointing its paw at the camel.

“This is… I’m sorry, I am a camel. I’m an animal. A herbivore.”

“That’s what I thought,” said the bear with disgust. “A humpback cow. Why were you born such a freak?”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“I’ll forgive you, if you tell me which direction is North.”

“I’ll be very glad to tell you, if you could only explain to me what North is. Is it round or square? Red or green? What does it smell and taste like?”

Instead of thanking the polite camel, the bear roared and charged at him. The camel used all of his might and long legs to gallop into the forest. Within a second, both animals disappeared from sight.

We crawled out from under the leaves. The ball started slowly rolling and we wandered after it. I was a little bit upset that we lost a good companion on account of the bear. The camel was a really good guy. But Kuzya didn’t regret losing the camel at all. He was still going on about me “making water”. I half-listened to his senseless chatter. I was still thinking. So, this is what they meant by the water cycle in nature! It turns out that the water doesn’t actually disappear, it just turns into steam, and then falls to the ground in the form of rain when it cools. If it had completely disappeared from the face of the Earth, then the sun would have dried up the planet and we: humans, animals, and plants, would have dried up. Just like those fish that I saw at the bottom of the dried riverbed. It turns out that Zoya Fillipovna gave me a well-deserved F. The funny thing was that she said the same thing to me more than once during the class. Why didn’t I understand it and remember? Probably because I was hearing, but not listening. I was looking, but not seeing.