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“Listen, Yur—you are coming tonight, right? I wanted to ask you something.”

“What?”

“I keep worrying about that toothpaste. They’re still little kids, they don’t know it could cause an injury.”

Yurka nodded. “That’s pretty much true ... A couple of years ago, some smart aleck toothpasted me right in the eye. It burned so bad, I thought I’d go blind. My eyelid was swollen for a week.”

Upon hearing this, Volodya’s expression changed so drastically that Yurka immediately regretted his words. To reassure Volodya, he quickly added, “But don’t you worry! We know about their dastardly plan, so we can put a stop to it.”

“But stopping it won’t help. We keep them from playing their trick today, they’ll just do it tomorrow. The important thing is that they know never to toothpaste anyone in the eyes, ears, or nose. So I realized we need to tell them a scary story about toothpasting.”

“Ah, but yesterday you didn’t want me to scare the little squirts.”

“Well, Yur, I’d rather my troop pee their beds if it means that nobody chokes on toothpaste. And especially that nobody’s eyes get burned!”

Yurka scratched the back of his head. “But what’ll we tell them? What’s so scary about toothpaste?”

“We’ve got buckets of time until junior lights-out. We’ll think of something.”

“Pcholkin!” called Volodya in a stage whisper as he leaned down over the boy’s bed. “Sit up, you!”

“Why? What now?” the boy grumbled, but sat up obediently.

Volodya felt around under the boy’s pillow and pulled out a tube of toothpaste. “This is why.” He stood up and surveyed the rows of beds. “Who else has something hidden under their pillow? Sash! You?”

“Hey, why me?” came a squeak from the left-hand row by the wall.

“Because you’re always so well-behaved.”

Yurka watched all this from his comfortable perch on an empty bed by the window.

“Now, boys,” Volodya intoned sententiously, “don’t even think of toothpasting anyone! It could be dangerous. Do you understand?”

The response was a couple of listless “Yeahs” and “Sures.”

Volodya sighed heavily. Then he took a deep breath and was about to say something else, but suddenly there was a loud shriek from the girls’ room, followed by the sounds of trampling feet and a slamming door. And muffled sobs.

“I’ll be right back,” said Volodya. He jumped up and ran out of the room, flinging “Yur, look after them!” over his shoulder as he left.

“Oh, Yuuuuwaaaa!” Olezhka sang slyly as soon as the door shut.

“Hm?”

“You pwomised us a scawy stowy!” “Yeah, you promised, Yura!” “Tell us another scary story!”

Yurka scoffed and crossed his arms. “Well, now ... I don’t know ...” he said slowly. “Yesterday, Volodya said I couldn’t tell you scary stories anymore, he said you’re still too little. And you are still little! You all couldn’t even get your toothpasting stunt figured out ...”

“But how was I supposed to know he was going to look under my pillow?!” Pcholkin protested.

“Maybe some people shouldn’t have blabbed about it loud enough for the whole theater to hear!” Yurka replied, adopting the same defensive tone.

“That wasn’t me! That was Sashka!” insisted Pcholkin, scowling.

“I’ve still got my toothpaste, though!” The chubby boy waved the little tube over his head triumphantly.

“Put that away, you!” Yurka shushed him, then continued ominously: “You can’t even imagine the kind of horrible things that happen in the Barn Swallow to jokesters who go out toothpasting! And these aren’t just stories: I saw them myself ...”

The room went silent. The only sound was the rustle of Sasha putting the toothpaste back under his pillow.

“So what exactly happens to them, Yuw?” Olezhka stuck his head out from under his blanket and looked at Yura, intrigued.

In a show of bravado, Pcholkin crossed his arms on his chest and asked, “What have you seen?”

Knowing that the boys could see his silhouette backlit against the window, Yurka narrowed his eyes and turned his head to survey the room. “Are you sure you want to know?”

The silence in the cabin held for a good thirty seconds. Finally there was one hesitant “Yes,” followed by a few others.

“Okay,” Yurka acquiesced grudgingly. “Then I’ll share another genuinely scary secret with you ... The ghost of the countess I told you about yesterday isn’t the only one that wanders around Camp Barn Swallow at night. The truth is that—I read this somewhere—this area has an elevated rate of ... wait, what’s the word again? ... oh, yeah: of anomalous activity! All kinds of supernatural forces and unclean spirits are drawn to this place, especially at night.”

In a nearby bed, someone’s teeth were chattering.

“What? Is this scary?” asked Yurka.

“Well ... ,” someone in another bed began hesitantly.

“No!” said Sasha boldly.

“Tell us!” urged Pcholkin.

Yurka paused for dramatic effect, listening to the utter silence in the room. Then, slowly, he whispered: “Four years ago a girl named Nina came to the Barn Swallow. She was a regular girl, nothing about her was all that memorable—except for her eyes. She had really, really pretty eyes. Big, and a very clear blue, just like the sky.”

Olezhka interrupted him. “Did you know hew, Yuwa?”

“Of course I did,” Yurka confirmed without hesitation. “We didn’t talk or anything, because back then I was just a little older than you all, but she was fifteen, a senior camper, basically a grown-up ... Anyway, Nina was a very solitary and unsociable girl. She never did make any friends. Some people are just like that, withdrawn and socially awkward. And because she wasn’t able to make any friends and was always by herself wherever she went in camp, everyone started thinking of her as a loner and making fun of her. Everyone teased her and called her names. They even came up with a special nickname for her: the Crusty Old Codger.”

The boys giggled. Yurka shushed them.

“One night the girls from Nina’s troop decided to toothpaste the boys. This is almost a ritual for the senior troops, you know: if your troop hasn’t been toothpasted at least once during your session, the session’s a failure.”

The boys perked up. Questions rained down on Yurka from all sides: “Have you ever been toothpasted?” “Has anybody ever toothpasted Volodya?” “Have you ever toothpasted anyone?” This wasn’t the time for them, though. Yurka quickly answered a few, then ordered the boys to be quiet and continued. “Anyway, nobody ever asked Nina to go out toothpasting. It hurt her feelings a lot to hear the other girls in her troop giggling and describing the patterns they’d drawn on the boys’ faces. And so she was overcome by her hurt feelings, or maybe she wanted revenge, but in any case she used up almost all her toothpaste the next night toothpasting the girls. But because nobody’d ever asked Nina to join them, she didn’t know the ground rules. For example, that you never get toothpaste in people’s hair, since when it dries it gets hard as concrete and you can’t get it out; sometimes you just have to rip the hair out. Sure enough, the next morning two girls couldn’t get the toothpaste out of their hair! And revenge, you know ... revenge is contagious ... At first the girls thought it was the boys from their troop and were getting ready to get revenge. But then somebody noticed that Nina’s toothpaste tube was almost empty and that the Crusty Old Codger herself had gone untouched on the night they were all toothpasted ... All that day she heard the other girls in her troop whispering and discussing their plans for revenge on the boys, but that night they got their revenge on the completely unsuspecting Nina! She woke up because suddenly she felt this burning sensation all over her face, especially on her eyelids. Still groggy and half-asleep, she opened her eyes and rubbed them, but the burning got so bad that she burst into tears. Trying to clear out her eyes, she rubbed them even harder, but that only made it worse! Nobody lifted a finger to help her. All she heard around her was snickering. So she got up and, unable to see a thing, felt her way out of the cabin and ran away. But the next morning”—Yurka held his breath and let the dramatic pause linger—“the next morning, Troop Three, the first to show up for morning calisthenics, saw Nina in the swimming pool. She was floating face down, in her white pajamas, with her arms stretched wide and her hair gently swaying in the water ... and she was dead! They pulled Nina out of the pool, rolled her over onto her back, and saw that where her beautiful sky-blue eyes had once been, now there were just red, burned-out sockets!”

“Oh, that’s awful!” someone squeaked in the corner of the room. “But how did she end up in the pool?”

“Because she was running with her eyes closed and fell in. And Nina couldn’t swim very well, and also her eyes were burning. And so she drowned.”

“Yuwa, you saw it youwself, didn’t you?”

“But that’s not the end of the story!” Yurka announced, interrupting the boys’ sudden clamor. “They tried to hush up what happened as fast as they could so word wouldn’t spread. They cut the session short and sent everyone home, but the rumors spread like wildfire! And now, any Pioneers or troop leaders who happen to be by the pool late at night, at a specific time—at three seventeen in the morning—see a blue light floating above it. The light hovers there in the air for exactly four minutes, and then, as though blown away by a strong gust of wind, it flies off toward the senior troop cabins. And on the nights it does that, strange things happen there: in the morning, someone always wakes up with toothpaste on their face, on their cheeks and forehead. And it’s always just one person, the biggest prankster in the troop, and the smears of toothpaste are sort of weird, as though somebody’d been aiming for the eyes but couldn’t quite get it right. And then the pranksters tell about their dreams, which are always about the exact same thing. They hear the splashing of water and they feel someone’s fingers touching their faces. And then they hear a girl’s soft voice calling to them: ‘Let’s go play some tricks ... I have a full tube of toothpaste ...’ And nobody has the shadow of a doubt that it’s the ghost of the little girl Nina, the Crusty Old Codger, who walks the earth on those nights, searching the camp for someone to play with. People say Nina makes sure to pick the most mischievous kid at camp, because they’re the most fun, but also because she wants to get her revenge. So first she calls to them to come out and play, but then she toothpastes them and drowns them! And she wants to toothpaste them right in the eyes, but she can’t, because she can’t see.”

“But Nina only searches for culprits in the senior cabins—right, Yur?” Sasha clarified.

“Where’d you get that idea?” said Yurka indignantly. “I’m thinking she might come and visit us now, since you’re all planning on a little mischief. So just be careful with that toothpaste!”

“Can it really burn out your eyes?”

“Why don’t you try it, Sash, and then we’ll ask Nina to come and check—”

“No way!”

“That’s what I thought! Now drill this into your heads, all of you: Never toothpaste anyone in the eyes, nose, ears, or hair. Not at all, not for any reason.” Yurka stood up from the bed, cracked his back, and stretched.

“Why not the nose and eaws?” asked Olezha.

“Think about it, Olezh! After you toothpaste somebody, the toothpaste dries and they can’t breathe through their nose or get it out of their ears! All right: I’m off to find Volodya, he’s disappeared somewhere. Do you all promise to stay quiet in bed and not play tricks?”

“We promise!”

Yurka headed for the door, but paused at Sasha’s bed and stuck his hand under the pillow. “I’ll just go on and take this anyway,” he said, pulling out a tube of toothpaste. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Fine, take it. I changed my mind anyway. I’m not going to toothpaste anyone ... for now ... ,” grumbled the chubby boy.

The narrow hall was pitch-black. Yurka felt his way to the door to the girls’ room, opened it carefully, and looked in. The room was silent, all the girls sleeping peacefully, but neither Volodya nor Lena was with them. Yurka turned and tiptoed to the troop leaders’ room, which Volodya shared with Zhenya, the handsome physical education instructor.

The room was at the far end of the hall. Yurka couldn’t see a thing and groped his way along the wall toward the thin strip of light showing underneath the door. It was always interesting to see how the troop leaders lived, especially Volodya. And now he finally had a reason to go visit the troop leader.

As he approached the door to Volodya and Zhenya’s room, Yurka heard a whisper: “No I didn’t! Lena’s the one who asked me to dance!” He recognized Zhenya’s voice. He carefully felt for the door in preparation for knocking. But he accidentally bumped the door, which swung slowly and soundlessly open, gradually revealing the troop leaders’ room.

The first thing he saw was a neatly made bed, its brown bedspread drawn perfectly taut, a poster for the band Mashina vremeni—Time Machine—on the wall above it. Next, the nightstand was revealed. Volodya’s extremely battered notebook and his glasses case were on it, along with a glass of water and a tiny bottle of valerian extract. But Volodya himself wasn’t there. Where was he? Yurka took a step back and turned to leave, but he heard the whispered voice again—“All I did was dance with her!”—and through the open door he saw the phys ed instructor’s close-cropped hair and broad back, clad in a blue tracksuit jacket.

Zhenya was kneeling in front of the other bed, on which, wiping her red eyes, sat none other than Ira Petrovna. Her green circle skirt covered her legs down to the ankle. The red neckerchief over her white turtleneck had gone crooked. Her long hair was loose and messy instead of being pulled back in her usual high, tight ponytail, and her eyes were squeezed shut as though she was trying to decide whether to do something.

Zhenya stood up, leaned close to her, and whispered something in her ear. Ira finally gave in. She reached out to the phys ed instructor, folded her arms around his neck, and kissed him full on the lips.

“Get a load of that!” breathed Yurka, flabbergasted. He groped for the doorknob, thinking to hide the pair from prying eyes— god forbid any children see this! —and was pulling the door shut when he banged his elbow loudly on the doorframe. Ira flinched. As the door clicked shut, a commotion ensued behind it.

Some troop leader she is! thought Yurka indignantly as he flew down the hall to the door of the cabin. He’d only seen them by accident, but he still felt awkward and wanted to get out of there as quick as he could. As if Ira would know what’s going on in her troop when she’s all wrapped up in her own personal life! Out gallivanting all night herself, devil knows where! How could Volodya allow such outrageous behavior in his own room?

When Yurka got outside, he finally found Volodya, who was coming back to the cabin, dragging a little girl from his troop behind him. The little girl was sniffling and whimpering. Volodya’s lips were pressed in a thin line. The brooding troop leader, immersed again in dark thoughts, didn’t even look at Yura but called into the darkness behind the cabin: “Lena! I found her!” In the distance, the second leader of Troop Five said “Thank god!” in a voice shaky from worry.

Yurka had no intention of getting involved in the troop leaders’ drama, so he just waved at Volodya in parting. Volodya responded with a silent nod and went into his cabin. Yurka headed off to his own.

But Ira Petrovna still managed to head him off before he got there. She was standing on the ground in front of his cabin’s porch, and even in the dim glow of the weak porch light he could see she was blushing as red as the petunias growing in the flower beds by the porch steps.

“Yura, a word,” Ira called quietly.

“What?” he said curtly.

Ira Petrovna, usually so forthright, was now at a complete loss: she shifted from foot to foot and kept opening her mouth, then closing it again without saying a word. She was horribly embarrassed. But even though she couldn’t talk, Yurka knew what she wanted to tell him.

“I didn’t see anything,” he announced firmly, poking the little triangles of brick edging the flower bed with the toe of his sneaker.

Ira sighed in relief. “It’s good you understand! Of course you saw everything. And you’re right, it’s not exactly appropriate—this is a camp, there are kids here. But you’re a senior camper, you’re a grown-up, after all! You see—”

“There’s no reason to go into all this, Ira Petrovna,” interrupted Yurka, to prevent her from continuing her awkward monologue. “You’re the grown-up, and I ... actually I just want to go to bed. The kids wore me out.” And with that, he headed to his bed.

Yurka was well aware that whatever Ira did with the phys ed instructor was none of his business, but it was still very useful for him to have the information. Just let her try to falsely accuse him now!

Nevertheless, as he fell asleep, Yurka again found himself thinking not about Ira but about Volodya. It was too bad they hadn’t had a chance to say good night to each other. But it wasn’t a big deal; they’d see each other the next day and write another scary story, even better than the first one. It’ll be so great to sit there with Volodya on the merry-go-round, chewing the fat and thinking up stories. If only it were already tomorrow ... As he anticipated the coming day, imagining how Volodya, deep in thought, would chew on his pencil, Yurka fell asleep.

It felt like only a second had passed when Vanka suddenly shook his shoulder: “Go out on the porch. Someone’s asking for you.”

“Ira again?” grumbled Yurka.

It took all his willpower to make himself get up and slowly, listlessly, his eyes still closed, start feeling around for his clothes.

“No. Volodya.”

“Volodya?” Yurka’s eyes flew open all by themselves.

He went outside and saw Volodya sitting on the bench by the flower bed. He heard the moths flying into the porch light, felt the soft thrum of their wings, saw the flickering shadows they cast. Yurka breathed in deeply through his nose—the fresh night air smelled of damp needles and fragrant flowers—and walked down the porch steps.

“I just stopped by for five minutes.” Volodya stood up from the bench and peered through the flickering light, then frowned, concerned, when he saw the rumpled Yurka. “Did I wake you?”

“No, it’s fine,” said Yurka, stifling a yawn and trying to smooth his tousled hair. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, I just stopped by to say good night, that’s all. We didn’t get a chance earlier ...”

“Where were you so long?” Yurka asked as he sat down on the bench.

“I was looking for my little runaway girl.”

“A girl runaway?”

“Yes, if you can believe it! This little girl Yulya in my troop. It’s Troop Five, so this is everyone’s first-ever session of camp, but Yulya’s having an especially hard time of it; she can’t settle in and won’t even try ... She isn’t friends with anyone, all she does is ask to be sent back home to her parents, and now she actually went and took off. When I found her, she admitted she’d tried to run away but got lost.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have helped you look. We’d have found her in two shakes if we’d both been looking.”

“There was nobody else to stay with the boys. But there’s no need for you to worry about it. First of all, we’ll be calling her parents tomorrow, so she can at least hear their voices over the phone. And secondly, it’s parents’ day soon. Yulya’s mother will come and calm her down. Or else take her back home. That’d be the best thing ...”

“Yeah ...”

The conversation faltered. It wasn’t awkward. They just didn’t feel the need to talk. It was too calm and peaceful to talk. The crickets were chirring brightly in the cool of the night. Far away there was a mournful howling, of either a dog or a real live wolf. Yurka didn’t know whether this was all actually happening or whether it was some trick of the imagination. He could’ve sworn he even heard the hooting of an owl. The only thing this night was missing was the crackle of a campfire.

“What do you think? Will the scary story work?” Volodya asked, breaking a long but comfortable silence.

“I don’t think so,” Yurka admitted frankly. “I’m afraid it’ll make them want to experiment and test whether toothpaste really does dry hard as concrete on hair.”

“Who cares about hair?” said Volodya, waving his hand dismissively. “As long as they don’t do the nose or eyes.”

It looked like the sky was resting on the roofs of the little one-story troop cabins. The Milky Way’s blanket of colorful stars glittered. Satellites and airplanes blinked their white, red, and green signal lights on and off, looking like flashes of sunlight on water. If Yurka’d had a telescope, he could’ve made out the galaxies that looked from this distance like tiny, indistinct clouds. He might’ve even fulfilled his childhood dream of seeing Asteroid B-612 and shaking the Little Prince’s hand. Why not? This kind of quiet summer night was the best time for believing in fairy tales ...

But Yurka didn’t have long to enjoy the sky’s nearness. After a few minutes, Volodya sighed and stood up. “Well, time to go. I have to get up early tomorrow for the staff meeting, and I can’t be late.”

Yura stood up, too. While Volodya’s right hand grasped his in the customary parting handshake, Volodya reached his left hand up to Yurka’s shoulder. Yurka expected Volodya to clap him on the shoulder with it, but instead the troop leader did something that was neither squeezing it or petting it but sort of a combination of both.

“Thanks for everything,” Volodya whispered, a bit awkwardly.

“I’ll sneak out after lights-out tomorrow,” Yurka blurted out. “Will you be at the merry-go-round?”

Volodya chuckled and shook his head, but didn’t bother rebuking him. “Yes.”

It felt like their parting handshake lasted for an eternity. But as soon as Volodya ended it, Yurka’s mood plummeted. It hadn’t been enough. Yurka had never really thought about the fact that when you’re shaking someone’s hand, you’re holding it. But he thought about it now. And suddenly he realized he wanted to hold Volodya’s hand a little longer.

But, drowsy and lulled by the nighttime quiet as Yurka was, he didn’t get all worked up thinking about that or trying to get to the bottom of it. He was too sleepy and too ready for it to be tomorrow already.

As he wrapped himself in his thin blanket, Yurka literally plunged into a deep dream, landing not on his hard camp bed, but on soft, fluffy dandelions.