Early on Saturday morning, Alexey was already at the stable and busily collected equipment for loading into a horse-carrier. Petrovich found him during this occupation.
“Lyosh. There is a conversation.”
Alyosha froze with a saddle in his hands, feeling that something was wrong with Petrovich’s voice.
“On Vienna, her mistress will jump. She called me late yesterday, said she wanted to go to the start. She will come to Bitsa to the beginning of the competition.”
“But she seldom trained ... and can't cope with the horse...”
“She is the mistress. She pays for the horse and pays you for training her horse. She wants to jump, and I can’t contradict her. And she will pay you for this day as a groom. You will be there with her. You’ll give her a saddled horse, and then will pick it up after the route.”
“But after all, on one horse two horsemen can appear on starts.”
“The mistress is against it.”
Alyosha listened to this in perplexity, knowing that Vienna was a private horse, and indeed neither Petrovich, nor, all the more, he could cross the will of its owner. Then he remembered.
“Well, at least I jump on Tokha,” he said happily and saw how Petrovich averted his eyes.
“The client paid for Badminton. You know him, Kirill, he occasionally jumps on it. He decided to go on it on these starts. And the second rider cannot jump on Tokha because of its health, the horse will not stand. Yes, you know it yourself.”
“And who am I going to jump on?” Lyosha asked naively, not yet fully understanding what had happened.
“He will also pay you a day for the work of the groom,” seeing Alyosha’s lost face, Petrovich explained, giving his voice austerity. “He’s a client. He pays for these competitions. You don’t pay. Here rejoice that you will have a side job this Saturday and it is not bad at all.”
“But I have been preparing so much...”
“Nothing. In the next competition, you will go. And now take horses; horse transport has already arrived.”
Alexey turned away, nodding, and quickly carried the saddle into the horse transport that approached. There, inside the car, he slyly brushed away the tears of resentment and disappointment in front of his eyes. After all, he was preparing for these starts, waiting for them. He knew he could win...
Alyosha sadly sighed and went to the stables for the horses, knowing that he needed to do the task assigned by the coach. At these competitions, he would not be an athlete, but only a groom.
***
In Bitsa it was lively, like in a beehive. Inside it was overcrowded along the stable aisle. Everywhere there were horses tied in the aisle, ammunition was piled on the side of the loose boxes, and between them, athletes, helping girls who came here from the stables, and horse grooms like Lyosha were constantly hanging about.
After attaching the horses to free cross ties in the center of one of the aisles, he ran for ammunition, then for a bale of hay, then brought a bucket of water. He watered the horses, hung up the haynet so that Tokha could reach it and slowly chew the hay in it, as Vienna jumped first.
So he took up her. He cleaned her skin to shine with different brushes, combed the mane, chose sawdust from the tail, and then saddled to a white numnah, and then waited for her owner, who was obviously not in a hurry to come early in her competition.
After agreeing with another groom to look after Tokha, Alexey led Vienna to the warming-up arena, since it was time to flex muscles.
He looked at the start schedule in advance, who and when was jumping, and seeing that their time was coming, led the horse.
There they were found by the owner of Vienna, dressed up for such an occasion in all the new expensive equipment for the rider. She wore white breeches, beautiful red riding coat. Yes, it was the riding coat, a special jacket for equestrian sports, and not just a jacket, as everyone who didn’t have money for a sports uniform dressed as usual. Under the riding coat, she was wearing a white shirt with a white special tie and a beautiful brooch on it. She wore fashionable boots for jumping with a brown lacing on her legs, and she was holding in her hands brown gloves to match.
She greeted Lyosha with disdain and, putting on her helmet, waited for him to take her horse to the special steps, which were more comfortable to sit on in the saddle.
The girl vaguely imagined the meaning of warming up the horse before the start. She was aimlessly riding about in a small warming-up arena, disturbing other participants of the competition. Finally, it was stopped by Petrovich, who all this time, as usual, having met his friends, celebrated competitions with them. Petrovich was already on the positive, but at the same time, he was clearly aware of and controlling everything.
When he took control of a careless pupil, things seemed to go well. She, listening to his tips and hints and doing it for sure, successfully jumped over the barriers that stood apart for the warm-up. Encouraged by her success, the girl, again casting a scornful glance at Lyoshka, proudly rode out into the competitive field.
The competitions themselves were held in a large indoor Bitsa arena. Throughout its space, there were obstacles that had to be overcome. Lyosha squeezed to the side of the manege, knowing that as a groom he should have been there, although with great pleasure he would go and would not look at all of this.
Vienna, coming out of a small warming-up arena into a large manege and seeing before it space where it could roam, immediately turned into an energetic horse from a calmly melancholic one.
Alexey saw how the girl turned pale on it, frantically clinging to the reins and constraining Vienna in place. And then there was a strike of the bell, which meant the beginning of the course.
Perhaps, if Petrovich were there and told the horsewoman what to do and how it would have gone differently. But at the competitions, the coach could only stand and watch the results of his pupil.
Petrovich also saw his athlete, pale, with frightened eyes, trying to cope with the horse, which simply began to carry her to obstacles. Surprisingly, the first three barriers they jumped even successfully. The poles were not knocked down, and the horsewoman miraculously did not fall, keeping herself in the saddle. But when she directed Vienna to a system consisting of a series of obstacles standing behind each other, which had to be jumped one after another, it happened what had already been foreseen by everyone, even by the audience. When the horse landed again, the rider slid to the side, and with the next jump, she flew into obstacles, knocking them down with herself. Poles with a crash scattered in different directions. Vienna, vigorously kicking up, quickly rode around the arena, and the rider began to clumsily rise from the sand.
Alexey ran to catch a horse, and Petrovich went to the athlete. She had already got up, and with her face red with anger and shame, she walked through the whole arena to see the entire public in the stands. Her perfectly white breeches were yellow from the sand, just like the fashionable red riding coat.
Alyosha, having caught the horse, led it to her, as it was a tradition to sit on a horse after falling, and, after jumping over any obstacle, to leave the battlefield. This had to be done in order for the horse to remember in its memory that it should jump over the barrier clearly and only then the horseman would leave it alone. But, apparently, today the hostess of Vienna was no longer going to sit in the saddle.
“Go, walk the horse in the stable,” Petrovich waved his hand to Lyosha him to disappear out of sight.
Alexey led Vienna to the stable, pitying that this girl had fallen, and if she went to the training more often, she could have jumped off the entire course. This Lyosha knew, he felt Vienna, its potential. He was sure that on this horse it was possible to win this route meter ten, to pass it clearly.
***
After the break, the following course, meter twenty high, was installed in the arena. Kirill, who was supposed to jump on Badminton, arrived in advance and was constantly getting underfoot, giving Alexey advice on how to clean the horse, how to saddle it and in general many, many tips. Lyosha silently endured everything, did not contradict and was doing his job. At the appointed time, Kirill sat down on Tokha in the preparation ring and, quite competently was doing a warm-up, under the guidance of Petrovich, who was already very drunk.
When Kirill on Badminton went to the manege, Alyosha squeezed again to the board to see how Tokha was jumping. He liked to look at the technique of jumping of this horse.
The bell sounded, Kirill spurred Tokha, and they went to the first obstacle. The first three they passed clean, the fourth obstacle called “Verticals” Badminton touched with a hind hoof. Alexey saw why, it was a rider's mistake, he too quickly shifted his weight into the saddle, when he had to stand still in the stirrups with an emphasis on the knee. It was his weight that made an imbalance, and the horse hind hoof grazed the pole, knocking it down. But one fault was not scary for such starts. Of course, they would no longer get into the lead, but there were still chances of winning.
In the course of their movement, there was a wall, this obstacle visually resembled a brick wall, over which it was also necessary to jump.
Kirill led the horse on the wall, and at the last moment, Badminton abruptly went aside, not jumping over it, but running alongside it.
Petrovich spat an oath.
“He has to work with legs. But he sits gaping,” the coach waved, already realizing that these starts were lost.
Although the rider had a chance of another attempt, but Tokha, taught by the first successful run-out past the obstacle, repeated the same thing for the second time. And for the third time, they just crashed into this decorative wall made of plywood bricks, smashing it all, because in the process of fighting the rider with his horse it was not even noticed.
At this, the Badminton starts were over.
Alexey honestly fulfilled the function of the groom assigned to him. He, taking the horse from Kirill, walked it and set in order, put it under the side-reins in the passage and the rug to wait for the loading order.
On this day, Petrovich was as drunk as the devil. Well, the horse carrier driver helped Alyosha with loading horses and Petrovich. The hostess of Vienna and Kirill left immediately after their performance, and therefore everything was on Lyosha.
Upon arrival at the stable, he was helped by Makha and the girls. The girls took the coach and led him to sleep in the storeroom, and Makha said that she would do it with horses, already knowing that Lyosha had placed his grandmother in the hospital, and he had to go to her, while the hours of visiting the patients were not over.
***
This Saturday, Nazar was in a great mood after a report from their accountant of Sarychev Bank. Yes, and their manager, put in the casino "Golden Paradise", also pleased with the successful business there.
Nazar went to an old Lincoln from their rented apartment, which was located in Kuntsevo. He did not change it after removing Varlam from the affairs. This apartment was convenient for their secret meetings, tested and habitable. In it, they gathered, resolved problems discussed future plans.
Late in the evening, Nazar decided it was time to leave, although the guys offered to stay for killing the bottle and to order wenches on-site. But for some reason, Nazar was not attracted by this. He decided to go home today, to visit his father and mother. Though they didn’t talk to him, at least to see them - and that made his heart feel easier.
Leaving the courtyard, characteristic clicks rang along the side of the car. Their sound Nazar could not confuse with anything. These were machine gun shots. Then he heard the crunch of the glass and cracks were spreading over it.
He instantly orientated himself and, sharply spinning the steering wheel, stepped on the gas. And then he saw the location of the bullet holes on the windshield, that if it were not for the lighter in the glove compartment, to which he reached out, he would have been already dead. A bullet would have knocked his brains out. All this flashed through his mind in a split second, while he was driving at full throttle along the streets towards the railway station. In an extreme situation, his military skills, which he had acquired during the war, instantly woke up in him.
Realizing that these people did not plan to leave him alive, he calmly calculated the situation and what to do. His pursuers did not lag behind him. The next machine gun fire pierced the car body, and Nazar could barely hold the steering wheel, as the Lincoln began to skid. It meant that the wheel was pierced. On the side, he saw the flashes of a police UAZ car, which, attracted by these events, was driving toward them, turning on the siren. It was even worse. One thing was to dismantle with those who wanted to kill him, and quite another - cops. He did not want to get to them at all. Nazar pressed the gas, getting the maximum out of the car, hearing the flat tire wheel was drawing on the asphalt. The lights of the station Workers' Settlement and railway tracks could be seen ahead. He directed the car there. His pursuers did not lag behind, continuing to shoot. Obviously, the presence of the police on the tail did not bother them. Another automatic gunfire burst through his Lincoln, and he felt a pain in his left shoulder.
Seeing the entrance to the yard in front of him, Nazar abruptly turned into it, so much that his car skidded, and the pursuers, not expecting such a maneuver from him, rushed forward at full speed, and only then slowed down and began to turn around. Nazar had won a few seconds.
He jumped out of the car, rolled over the roadside lawn and, ducking, dived behind the parked cars at the curb. Seeing a darkened doorway near the houses in front of him, he ran, ducking, and soon turned behind the house.
On the run he took off the scarf and slipped it under the jacket from the left shoulder, feeling that a bullet had passed there and it was bleeding. He did not want to leave a trail of blood in the snow. In the distance, shots, and sounds of sirens were heard. Nazar did not know how the events were developing there, but judging by the shootout, those who pursued him were now shooting at the cops, and he did not know who would be the winner of this fight. But he decided that he had time while they were busy and did not follow his trail, and he also assumed that these were complete scumbags, out of control and fear. Not only did they openly attack him, unleashed a massacre on the road, they also were shooting representatives of the law. Nazar was aware of the seriousness of his position.
Having strayed still around the dark courtyards, he stopped. A police siren sounded in the distance. No shots were heard, but he saw two guys on the opposite side of the street and noticed a gun in the hand of one of them. The fact that they came for his head, he immediately guessed. Nazar slowly retreated into the shadow of the house and turned the corner.
It meant that his worst fears were confirmed. These people put out a police patrol’s light and were looking for him.
Nazar looked around. The terrain seemed familiar to him. He remembered - this was Lyosha's yard...
Looking around again, he saw the entrance, his entrance. Staying in the shadow of the houses, he quickly headed to it. There was no other way out. His leather winter jacket was punctured by a bullet, and blood was flowing down his sleeve inside. Like this, he could not appear in the subway, and it was stupid to catch a car either. This would immediately attract attention to him. And in general, he did not know how many of them there were. Now the safest thing was to lie low, not run hither and thither.
But he could do a disservice to this Alyosha and his grandmother if they found him there ... Nazar froze for a second and then removed this feeling of guilt from himself. Why the hell would he become interested in the fate of some guy? He always did what he needed, and now he would do the same, and what would happen to those with whom he would be hiding ...well, he didn’t care.
***
Returning from his grandmother, Alexey sat down to study his lessons, thereby trying to occupy his head with the right thoughts and not to think about the fact that today his dream of competition crashed due to reality.
The doorbell rang. He, without thinking, went to open. Usually, a neighbor on the floor came, she was a friend of his grandmother and, probably, now wanted to know what the grandmother health was. Opening the door, Alyosha froze. Nazar stood on the threshold. Lyosha's breathing went astray, his heart sank strangely and beat faster. From this, he was confused.
Nazar had already assured himself that he didn’t care, and, having rung, waited quietly, knowing that there was definitely someone at home because of the light in their windows. The door opened, and he saw those eyes, as clear as the sky, and all his confidence began to fade.
But it was only a second when he stopped, looking at the boy standing in front of him in the same T-shirt and sweatpants, then, roughly pushing him aside, went into the flat, carefully locking the door behind him.
“Where is your grandma?” He asked coldly.
“In the hospital,” Alexey stood like that, pushed to the clothes hanger, and looked at Nazar.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Will you let to spend the night?”
“Yes ...” Alyosha looked away from the face of Nazar to the floor, attracted by the fact that something was dripping, it was blood. “Are you injured?!”
“A scratch. Do you have a first-aid kit?”
Alexey nodded. And seeing that Nazar went to the bathroom, he quickly rushed to the first-aid kit, knowing that he needed his help.
Nazar came out of the bathroom and sat on the kitchen stool under a lamp hanging on the ceiling. In the bathroom, he took off all his clothes and now he was only in jeans. He washed his arm and shoulder from blood, but it continued to trickle through an open wound on his shoulder.
Seeing a pale guy with the first-aid kit in his hands, frozen in indecision, he asked, “I hope you don't faint from the sight of blood?” He shook his head. “So, you will be able to sew. This is just a scratch, but it is necessary to debride and tighten the edges of the skin, then it will heal quickly. Can you help? It is awkward for me.”
Indeed, the wound was behind the left shoulder, and it was impossible to sew it by yourself.
Lyosha slowly walked around Nazar in a circle and looked at the wound.
“I sewed horses. When Bystryi tore his flank, he had hooked himself the wire, we had to sew it... But it will hurt you...”
“Have a drink?”
“No ... we do not drink,” Alyosha meant himself and his grandmother, and then remembered. “They gave French brandy to my grandmother two years ago. I will bring it now.”
Lyoshka darted into the grandmother's room on the jump and brought the cognac, hidden in a cupboard with clothes, with the inscription Napoleon and the strange letters V.S.P.P. on the top of a bottle.
“It will do,” Nazar opened the bottle and took a few sips right out of the neck. “Well, why are you standing? Sew. Do not be afraid, imagine that you sew up how it is there ... Bystryi, but not me.”
Alexey grouped, realizing the full responsibility that he should help. After all, a person was injured, he needed help. He had to do it. Although Alyosha was sick of blood, and the realization that he pierced the skin of a living person with a needle, horrified him, but he held on. Just finishing all this and wiping the seam again with a gauze napkin, he sank down on a stool, feeling how his hands and feet were shaking.
“Probably, I need to bandage?” Lyosha looked at Nazar, who carefully was examining him.
“Yes, and tight. Can you? Drink cognac, and you are totally pale.”
“I don't drink ... never drank it. I do not want to drink it,” Alyosha was completely embarrassed under his gaze. “You probably want to eat later.”
“Let’s speak as equals. Yes, it would be good to eat.”
“There is soup ... chicken noodles and I can fry dumplings,” Lyosha began to rewind Nazar’s shoulder with a bandage.
“Ok!”
Nazar, despite all this, felt brutal hunger, and when the boy finally set a bowl of soup in front of him, he eagerly pounced on it.
“Do you or grandmother cook?” feeling how delicious the soup was, Nazar quickly swallowed it, despite the fact that it was hot.
“I'm cooking now. Grandmother used to cook but now she can’t...”
“What about her, why is she in the hospital?”
“She felt bad yesterday, the neighbor called Ambulance. Doctors said it was better not to risk and took her away. And today I was at her. The doctor said that she feels rather well and suggested putting her in a sanatorium near Moscow after the examination. Only it is necessary to pay. But now I’ve got money, and therefore she will be transported to the sanatorium before the New Year, and she will be there in the New Year ... and I'm here, alone ...”
Alex, having fried the dumplings, put them on Nazar's plate and took out mayonnaise from the fridge.
“Why aren't you eating?” Nazar gladly bit off the roasted dumpling, which crunched in his mouth. “Well, sit down and eat. Moreover, the dumplings have left, otherwise, you are only skin and bones... You, probably, have stopped eating all alone here?”
“I eat, only it is bad to be alone...”
“Is that why you are so gloomy? Is it due to the fact that at New Year you will be alone? So on the contrary, invite friends, the hut is free.”
Alyosha, after smearing the dumplings with mayonnaise, quickly began to eat them, feeling suddenly that he was probably very hungry or eating with a company was different than doing it alone. Maybe that was the point.
“My friend Genka ... Gena. He leaves according to a voucher for all the winter holidays. And I don’t have other friends. And then, on the first of January, I need to come early to the stable. There are horses after vaccination, they need to be walked on a rein.”
“So, will you celebrate alone?”
“I will not celebrate ... I will go to bed.”
Nazar had already eaten his portion and put the rest of the dumplings from the pan into his plate.
“By the way, how are you doing in sports? Petrovich said, you had to go to the competitions today, and you have to jump there. Well, have you knocked spots off? Petrovich has dinned into our ears what a great sportsman you are.”
Alyosha sighed dejectedly and began to smear mayonnaise on a plate by a dumpling, impaled on a fork.
“On Vienna, the mistress jumped, and she did not allow me to take part in the competition as the second rider on it. And on Tokha, Badminton, Kirill jumped, he paid for the starts. I went with them there as a groom...”
“And how did they jump?”
“It’s hard to cope with Vienna, her mistress doesn’t get along well with her ... she fell off her. Kirill jumped well, but he rarely went to the training, and Tokha hit the obstacle, and then broke the wall, and they were removed from the competition for disobedience of the horse.”
Nazar carefully examined the face of the boy, which reflected all the emotions. He had not yet learned how to hide them from others. Everything from grief to disappointment flashed across his face. Nazar averted his eyes, and then said detachedly, “Will you give me some tea?”
Alyosha caught himself and, getting up, started fussing with the kettle, cursing himself for having gone into his own problems, although he had a guest to take care of. So grandmother always taught him, explaining how hospitable hosts behaved when they had guests.
Nazar saw his fussiness, how he took out the cups from the dish drainer above the sink from the hinged locker, then took out the sugar bowl and froze in confusion.
“But there's nothing for tea ... only jam...”
“Come on jam. Which one?”
“Cherry or the Chinese apple ... the grandmother often cooked jam before.”
“Let’s try Chinese apple jam, and do you have white bread? We will eat jam with bread.”
Lyoshka quickly rushed into the room and took a dusty jar of jam under the bed. After rubbing it in the kitchen with a cloth, he put the jar on the table.
Nazar took the jar and a bottle opener from the Lyoshka’s hands, began to open the jam with the inscription one thousand nine hundred and eighty-seven, the year of his return from the army ... from the war.
Jam spread on slices of white bread was very tasty. Nazar enjoyed eating it and having tea. Lyoshka also screwed up his eyes and ate, apparently, he did not eat jam often, only on such holidays when the guests came. Nazar understood that he needed to explain to him his presence here finally.
“I need your help,” Alyosha stopped chewing, looking up at Nazar in surprise, “can I live with you for a few days? It is better for you not to know why and not to ask anything. And be silent that I am here with you if anyone asks. Got it? Well, that's good. Can you go to Yefim tomorrow? He lives in Yasenevo. I will write to him, and you will hand over the paper and that's all. Then he will know what to do. And here's the money ... take it, you’ll buy the products, there is nothing in your fridge... buy with all the money. Do not save, well, buy a drink,” seeing the question in the eyes of Alexey, he explained. “Do you know Smirnoff vodka? If you do not know, then take a bottle with an eagle, with a white eagle. Got it?”
“Well, then I will go to Yasenevo in the morning, and then to my grandmother, and afterward to the stable ... tomorrow is Sunday, there will be a horse rental. Petrovich promised to give me a little money, and then I’ll go home in the evening.”
Nazar chuckled to himself, the boy reported to him as if he was his parent about what he would do.
“Everything is clear ... Just don’t go to the city to rent out a horse. Got it?”
“Well,” Alyosha dutifully nodded.
Nazar grinned again at such an easy approach. It was clear that Lyosha was a very obedient child, he didn’t argue back what the older ones said.
“Where can I spend the night?”
Lyosha was confused, and then realized, “There is a comfortable sofa in the grandmother’s room...”
“Ok. Show me.”
Nazar followed Alexey, but, passing by his room, he stopped and went into it. He was again struck by this cleanliness and accuracy in everything. Everything was poor but so cozy and soulful. He thoughtfully leafed through notebooks lying on the table.
“How do you study? Are there twos?”
Alexey froze at the door and began to answer with the guise of a guilty student, “There are satisfactory marks... true, there was a D in biology ... but I corrected myself, retook, and now I’ve got a three. And also there are fours.”
“So, you are a mediocre pupil, but I got four or five. Why are you so weak? Is it because of horses?”
“Yeah...”
“And what do you want to do later? After school?” It was strange for Nazar that he was interested in it, it was really interesting to hear the plans for this shorn boy, whose blond hair was stuck on his head so funny.
“I wanted to go to the army, but now I don’t know ... how I will leave my grandmother ... she won’t live without me. And after the army, I want to work.”
“An apartment, a car, a cottage. Do you have such plans?”
“No, I want to buy a horse. I want to have mine, to jump, to take part in competitions ... maybe then I’ll go abroad, to compete there. I want to work with horses.”
Nazar took his eyes off him, wondering how sincere this boy was in everything. So, he naively told everything the first person he met, without even doubting him, and entrusted to him all his plans and dreams.
Lyosha, seeing that Nazar was again looking at his notebooks, said that he would go to make the bed, and quickly slipped out of the room.
Nazar looked around, the room was like a room: a narrow bed, a small table at which Lyosha worked. There was a shelf with books, and on all the walls, closing the faded wallpaper with flowers, posters from the magazine with horses were glued. Pictures of horses were different, large and small, horses galloping on them, some with riders, and some just against the background of nature. Nazar smiled and looked, continuing to look around: a wardrobe with clothes, curtains on the window and flowers in pots on a peeling but clean window sill. For some reason, he wanted to stay here, maybe because of the feeling of calmness and tranquility in everything.
He forced himself to leave this room. Lyosha had already laid the sofa and held out a towel.
Nazar silently took a towel.
“My clothes are in the bathroom in the blood. They are now soaking in water. You’ll squeeze them and put in the package, and tomorrow throw them out. Got it?” Alexey nodded and ran out somewhere, then came back, holding a thin dark gray v-neck sweater in his hands.
“Here, my grandmother knitted for sale. It is new and in size, it will probably fit ... otherwise, my things will be small for you.”
Nazar took a sweater, glanced at Lyoshka, agreeing that his broad shoulders and biceps were clearly not squeezing into the things of a boy whose shoulders are not wider than the hangers.
“Thank. I'll take a bath and go to sleep. And you go to bed, understand?”
“I have to finish the lessons ...it won’t take much time, can I?”
“Ok.”
***
Lying on the sofa, Nazar, falling asleep, felt for the first time in his life a strange calm in his soul, despite everything that happened to him. Despite the fact that today he did not die by chance, and now he would have to deal with all this, and it was not yet clear who would win whom. But for some reason, now all this was unimportant to him. He was just fine, quiet, calm and so comfortable as if he was at home...
Alyosha, having quickly washed the dishes, sat down to study. He did not want to leave homework for the next day. Everything he needed to do for Monday, he decided to do today. What he could not solve at all, he had thought over that day and would not worry about it, but would copy it off from Genka’s exercise book, who would always help him to cope with it, having copied it off from one of the best pupils’ one.
When he went to bed, for some reason the slumber disappeared, and all events at once fell on him in the chaos of memories: today's competition, the disappointment that he was left out of things when everyone was jumping, and he was just standing and watching. That was the news that the grandmother would be in the sanatorium all New Year's holidays, and he would be alone for the first time during the New Year. And another moment was this Nazar. He remembered how he had been sewing his wound, but he did not even lift his shoulder, although it must have hurt a lot. Then he smiled at how his guest ate everything quickly, rating the soup cooked by him. And he was also pleased that Nazar was in his room, watched notebooks and was interested in his life, his plans and dreams of his horse.
It was strange, but today Lyosha was so warm and calm at heart. Despite everything that had happened, he was fine. He did not know why. Covered tightly with a blanket, he began to fall into a dream, where he rode on a horse, and spectators sat in the stands and watched him jumping and winning...
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