Operation Medovukha

See that boy over by the bench? Covered in burrs, one trouser leg higher than the other, hair sticking up like straw after a storm, and eyes like a colonel's after a lost battle. That's Nazar. Today he and Hrytsko pulled off such an operation that if it weren't for Did Tolia's testimony, I'd never have believed it. He says nothing. I ask: "What, stepped in the nettles again?"

And Nazar heaved a sigh and said: "Today we uncovered something even the Cossack scouts would have envied." Well, I say, tell me. Though I can already see: these are no ordinary burrs. These are battle scars. Baba Toma hired me and Hrytsko for a job so serious that if we'd been real scouts, they'd have issued us each a new sabre. As it was, we got a pyrizhok apiece and the order: "Track Did Tolia." Because every evening the old man came home strangely cheerful.

Sang some little song about a cherry tree. Winked at the neighbours' cat. And smelled of garlic so strongly that even the cat stepped aside with respect, as if before it stood not an old man but a whole otaman of the garlic host. Baba Toma kept pinching her apron and muttering: "Garlic he smells of, you see. And what he's masking with that garlic - now that's the question." Hrytsko and I knew: the case was tricky and dark. And far too fragrant.

So in the morning Baba Toma summoned us to the house and spoke in a whisper, though the old man wasn't home: "Boys, my old man is hiding something. Find out where. Only quietly. Because if he spots you, he'll feed you garlic too, to muddle the trail." Hrytsko and I exchanged glances. He whispered: "If they're covering medovukha with garlic, that's a military ruse." I nodded. We named the operation simply and menacingly: "Garlic Grandpa."

But later we changed it to "Fragrant Grandpa" - owing to the circumstances of the operation. The reward was a serious one: cabbage pyrizhky and the old woman's promise not to tell our parents that yesterday we'd climbed in to steal cherries from Baba Sonia. We agreed. Because scouting is scouting, but a parent's truth sometimes stings worse than nettles.

At two in the afternoon Did Tolia left his yard. He walked slowly. Kept looking around. Coughed a little, as if he'd merely "stepped out for some air." But Hrytsko and I knew: only a guilty man walks like that. We lay low in the nettles behind the wattle fence. I felt at once that a scout's glory burns not only the soul but both legs up to the knee. Hrytsko hissed: "Don't move!" - while tugging a burr off his sleeve so hard he nearly tore the sleeve clean off.

The old man stopped and looked at the sky. We froze. Even the mosquito, it seemed, settled down more quietly. The old man went on - toward the old shed behind the orchard. We followed. Proudly. Silently. And slightly in a crouch, because the nettles were still making themselves remembered. We crept up as quietly as anyone possibly could.

But the operation nearly collapsed when a dry twig cracked underfoot, dust began tickling my nose, and a goose suddenly stepped out from around the corner. White. Furious. With the eyes of a senior guard at the tsar's treasury. He looked at us and had already drawn breath for the most dreadful "honk-honk-honk." I did the only right thing an experienced scout could do.

I darted behind the nearest pumpkin, which lay by the fence under its broad leaves, round and dignified, as if it had been left there specially for an ambush. The pumpkin turned out to be smaller than my courage. Behind it I managed to hide only my head and one knee. Hrytsko dashed after me, tripped over a whip, fell down beside me and whispered: "I'm covering the rear." His rear was covered all right - in dirt.

The goose stood a while, decided we were probably wretched enough as it was, and went away. But then the dog Riabko came running - up to that point he had merely been contemplating our courageous struggle with circumstances. He must have decided we'd come to play. He kept climbing in to lick us, wagged his tail and very nearly gave us away for good. I pushed his nose away from my ear and thought: traitor. And the old man was already going into the shed.

We crawled up to a crack in the boards. I looked in first, because I was the chief scout. Hrytsko looked too, but lower down, because a burr was getting into his eye. Did Tolia opened an old chest in the corner. Took out something wrapped up. Hrytsko and I held our breath. This is it, we thought. Here comes that very secret medovukha they've been covering with garlic. And the old man unwrapped the cloth. And we made out... Pampushky. Garlic ones.

Round, golden-brown, and very shiny. The old man sniffed them and said to himself, but very loudly: "Now that's living." I was so astonished I sneezed - it came out far too loud, and an onion fell off the shelf. Thump! The old man turned around. We froze at the crack. The old man came out, looked at us, at my head all in cobwebs, at the burr in Hrytsko's hair, scratched the back of his neck and burst out laughing: "The old woman sent you? Thinks I'm hiding medovukha?

And what am I? I'm an honest man. But she's banned garlic from the house. Says that after it even the pillow runs away from me." And he held out a pampushka to each of us. We exchanged glances. But a scout cannot be bribed. Especially not with garlic pampushky that would give away our position from a verst off. We returned to Baba Toma and reported: "No medovukha found. But the garlic crime is confirmed in full."

Baba Toma was silent a moment, sighed and said: "Then tonight he sleeps by the open window." And the old man was just then crossing the yard, cheerful and fragrant, winking at the neighbours' cat again and wearing the look of a man who regrets nothing. And so Hrytsko and I understood an important thing. Not every cheerful grandpa is hiding something. Some simply know where the best pampushky are kept.

And we also understood that Baba Toma understands everything, even if she never goes behind the shed. Because in the evening she set a bowl of borshch before Did Tolia and said: "Eat. Only breathe out the window." The old man nodded. Hrytsko and I sat nearby, ate our cabbage pyrizhky and kept quiet, like true scouts. Because a true scout never gives away secrets.

Having finished his story, Nazar took the heel of bread that Paraska had brought out from the kitchen and went home proud. A fine operation it turned out to be, but the boys never guessed that the craftiest one in the whole affair was in fact Did Tolia himself. Because the very next day he went back to the shed. Only now, on the cloth, there also stood a little jug of medovukha.