Chapter One
The Sun was setting – I say setting because it seemed to be setting its bed in the soft, interminable depths of the clouds. The sky was fire-coloured, reflecting itself in the dirty patches of snow still remaining in March. It had been a cold year.
If you had a bird's eye view of the small Russian village where our story takes place, you would have seen a small, blond boy with large eyes, running about from bare tree to bare tree, in a carefully patched coat and pants that were quite too small for him. Every now and then, he would stop, drop to his knees and begin digging.
If you had a bird's eye view of the small boy, you might have thought he was either quite hungry or quite mad. He was neither.
However, if you had a storyteller's eye view of Ivan, the small boy, I assure you, your Ivan-directed thoughts would flow an entirely different way.
Ivan was searching for hidden treasure.
Being very young, about nine or ten physically, he did not know that, at the level and random search areas he was digging in, he didn't have much of a chance. Neither did he know that he was about to find it, be the chances one in a million. The treasure that Ivan was about to find was very different from the one that he expected to find and was envisioning – but much more valuable.
Now that you, reader, and Ivan are suitably introduced, let me return to my narrative.
Exhausted from his treasure hunt, Ivan sank to the ground under a tall, gnarled tree, let out a low whistle and ran his half-frozen fingers through his hair.
He was still thinking about his treasure. Oh, how the thought of fame and fortune, hidden but possibly right beneath him, haunted his mind! „When I find my treasure-" (for there was no question of NOT finding a treasure) „I'll buy the warmest gloves in Russia, warmer than the tsar's!"
The excited, red-cheeked boy was so absorbed in designing the perfect gloves that he didn't notice a yellow-brown caterpillar crawl up his leg.
But what he DID notice, to his dismay, was a shrill cry of „Ivaaaan! Come in NOW, it's dinner-time!"
Reluctantly, Ivan rose to his feet and started trudging towards the cottage where he, his older sister Anya and baby sister Natalia, who wasn't really his biological sister but his cousin, lived together. He didn't have a mother or a father, like most the other boys in the village did, but that was just the way things had been, as far back as he could remember. Anya had never spoken about the reason, and Ivan didn't dare ask, so he had always blamed it on sickness. But he'd never thought about it much, as Anya was just like a mother - kind, caring, hard-working, and a master in the art of annoying calls to come inside.
As he plodded through the frozen grass and muddy snow, he became gradually aware that something was tickling his leg.
„Oh no," Ivan thought, hoping it wasn't some nasty bug or insect. He bent down swiftly to check what it was, but before he had the time to spot anything, Anya's voice resounded again, „COME IN!" making him jump and hurry up just a little. As Anya's head, complete with faded red headscarf, peeked out from behind the door, Ivan broke into a run.
„I'm coming, I'm coming!" he called, waving his arm in the air. The tickle was moving up his pant leg now.
By now Anya, wrapped in a shawl, had stepped into the tiny front yard and was walking towards him.
Ivan gulped. Anya would never leave the warm house for no apparent reason in the cold Russian spring, unless something was seriously wrong.
Trotting up to Ivan, Anya laid a slim hand on his shoulder, holding him fast. Those hands didn't look like much but they could chop wood, knead black bread, and carry heavy pails any day. Anya had a very strong grip.
She turned him around to face her.
„Where have you been all day?" she scolded, half-leading, half-dragging Ivan toward that prison, his home.
„Heh, heh...Zdravstvuyte, Anya," Ivan stuttered, smiling guiltily. „I was...I was..."
„I hope you weren't out hunting for that treasure of yours again," she interrupted him. „You were going to break the soil today, remember?"
„No, I was supposed to do that yesterday," Ivan bravely but feebly attempted.
„Yes," Anya let out with an exasperated sigh, „but when I was angry with you for not doing it yesterday, you promised me to do it today." She looked about ready to burst into tears. „What am I to do with you? Where have you been all day?!"
Ivan hesitated. He couldn't tell Anya he'd been treasure – hunting, that much was obvious. But hadn't Markov the Priest told him that lying was a sin, and that little children who lied would go to hell when they died?
„When I find my treasure," Ivan murmured, „I'll buy the strongest shovel in all of Russia and garden every day..."
Anya sighed heavily and hauled him inside, slamming the door behind them.
„Ivan, there is no treasure," she angrily told him. „Now go back and bring me some wood for the fire, since you seem to like the outdoors so much... THEN and only then you can come back for dinner, and don't forget to wash your hands in the wooden bucket."
As the creaking door swung shut behind him, Anya added „And if I find you hunting for treasure again when you have things to do, you'll catch it from me."
Ivan knew she was bluffing, but fortunately had enough sense to keep his mouth shut. He knew he'd done enough talking-back for the day.
It was almost night-time now, and so cold it made Ivan gasp. Sending him out to gather wood and wash his hands in the well-bucket, in the water that was probably colder than ice in this weather, was Anya's most usual way of punishing him. Poor dear, she could never quite bring herself to hit him, so she sent him to punish himself, in a way. Perhaps that is why Ivan did not fear or respect her enough to obey her without question.
He rarely did.
As usual, Ivan did not mind Anya's 'punishment' in the least. Now at last he had a chance to find the source of the tickle that had been driving him mad all through Anya's scolding... hoping that nobody was watching, Ivan stuck his hand down his pant leg.
When he felt something squishy and wormlike crawling up his left leg, he jerked his hand away in surprise, but then, with increasing curiosity, put it back.
The mysterious tickle was a caterpillar that had found a warm place, a shelter from the freezing Russian weather. Ivan smiled and let the critter crawl around his hand, shielding it from the cold with his other hand.
„You are sort of cute," he whispered gently, watching the brown caterpillar crawl around. The caterpillar turned its head toward Ivan as if looking at him, as if thanking him for the compliment...
And from that moment, Ivan knew he had found a friend.
Suddenly, Ivan remembered that he had a ‚job' to do. Knowing Anya would go out of her mind if she found a caterpillar in the house, which she prided herself on keeping brilliantly tidy at any time, Ivan quickly shoved his friend down his pocket and started collecting wood at record speed.
Once this task was complete, Ivan,, knowing that a wash in the wooden well-bucket would set his already-freezing hands throbbing for minutes, headed over to the barn. He laid his large offering of firewood beside him and dunked his hands into the cow's trough, even though he knew it wasn't the best place to wash his hands. Rubbing his grimy hands together heartily, he mentally declared that the animals' water, shielded by the sturdy wooden walls, was infinitely warmer than the wooden bucket. He then scooped up the bundle of sticks and headed for the small cottage.
Suddenly, a thought flashed across his mind (which was rare, as Ivan's unwritten life motto was 'do first, think later'). If he was letting Anya believe that he had washed his hands in the wooden bucket by the gate, but had actually washed them in the trough, was that not lying, too?
With a deep breath, Ivan sprinted towards the wooden bucket. He laid his firewood down again, and, albeit hesitantly, dunked his hands into the ice-cold water.
He sucked in his breath at the bite of the freezing water and jerked them out almost immediately. As he blew on his fingers desperately, his conscience whispered, much more quietly now She said WASH your hands Ivan, NOT dip them in.
Was it really necessary? Ivan asked himself in dismay. He looked at his hands, and they seemed clean enough.
But if you're going to do something, do it all the way, his conscience pleaded. (As is becoming clearer, I am sure, Ivan had a very strong sense of conscience.)
So Ivan scrubbed at his hands with the sand in the smaller bucket beside the wooden one (oh, how Ivan detested that bucket! It was like his own personal cup of suffering). He then reluctantly rinsed his hands out with the ice-cold water.
„I didn't lie," Ivan triumphantly told himself. With a half-smile spreading across his red-cheeked face, he scooped up his firewood and returned to the house.
Never once did he think of hiding the caterpillar as lying.
