Читать книгу Fanyasha: Why Do Angels Need People? - Марианна Россет - Страница 10

Fanyasha’s room was full of soft rose-colored light in the morning. A bright ray of sunshine playfully touched her eyes, and she opened her fluffy eyelashes and smiled. Stretching sweetly in her soft white bed, she suddenly remembered that a new life would start for her now, and that she should now get ready for school.

This thought almost made her worry, but suddenly Fanyasha saw an amazingly beautiful dress shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow on her chair. She immediately remembered her grandmother’s words that the main thing for girls is to be in a good mood and have a neat appearance.

Fanyasha bolted out of bed, grabbed her new dress, held it to her chest, and fluttered around the room, singing cheerfully: “La-lala-lalala!”

Then she got comfortable in front of the mirror and began to comb her beautiful long hair.

“There really is something special about going to school after all,” she thought to herself with a smile, braiding her hair. “The important thing is that now I have a new dress!”

It’s important to note that angels have to wear the same outfit every day until they reach school age. This outfit always remains clean, and gets bigger along with its owner, as if by magic. Thus it was that Fanyasha wore her light-purple dress with the white lace collar for 10 years. It’s easy to picture how happy she was to finally try on a new, unusually beautiful rainbow dress!

“Goodness, I look so good! I look fabulous!” Fanyasha purred, turning round and round in front of the mirror.

“The other girls are going to love me right off the bat! It’s going to be so great to be friends with the other girls, and definitely a lot more fun than with Bosya! And our teacher probably looks like a kind old lady, and will tell us interesting stories.”

“Efaniya!” her father’s voice rang out from the hallway. “Get moving! The cloud bus is already here!”

Fanyasha rushed to make her bed, since girls have to keep their rooms neat and tidy after all. As she was running out of the room, she stopped at the window. Outside she saw an unusually long orange cloud with many small doors and windows. There was a sign on the cloud that said:

Cloud Bus 11

City of Urbazium

Elementary School of Angels

“Wow! Wow! Wow! How wonderful! It’s come for me! For me!”

Fanyasha clapped her hands out of glee and saw another girl in a rainbow dress just like hers. She was also looking out of the window of the small house to the left, in which there were just two rooms.

“Oh! Probably she’s in the same class as me!” thought Fanyasha happily, and waved to the girl. But the girl looked back at Fanyasha with a sad face, brushed her long white bangs over her eyes with one quick motion, and pulled the curtain shut.

“Yuck, what a nasty girl, and with no manners. I definitely won’t ever be friends with her,” thought Fanyasha with a grimace, and jumping down from the window, flew out of the room.

The whole family accompanied Fanyasha to the bus, some with tears, some with kisses, some with words and wishes of success.

When the cloud bus, puffing with all its might, flew away from the house, Fanyasha suddenly felt a sinking feeling inside, and became very sad. Through the little window she saw how her loved ones were getting farther and farther away, becoming smaller and smaller.

Inside, the cloud bus was made up of little compartments separate from one another, each of which had a door with a window and a seat. Therefore, Fanyasha could only guess how many other girls and boys were flying together with her to school. Several times the cloud bus stopped quickly at other angels’ houses, then continued on its way. There were thick clouds for almost the whole way, so nothing could be seen out of the window.

Despite the sadness of saying goodbye to her loved ones, Fanyasha was looking forward to the long-awaited sweet taste of freedom, which she had been dreaming of for so long. She imagined how wonderful and interesting it would be to spend time at school now, how great it would be to fly and sing with her classmates, how they would think up all kinds of games together, or just laugh and chatter about all kinds of pleasant things.

Then the sky cleared and the cloud bus rolled up to the large pearl-white arch on which there was a sign written with silver letters:

SCHOOL CAMPUS

Below, there were three arrows pointing to the left, straight, and right:

Elementary School of Angels

Middle School of Angels

High School of Angels

The cloud bus turned sharply to the left, and Fanyasha was barely able to see a large round cloud ahead with a narrow top that rose high above the other clouds, and to the right, very far in the distance, she saw a long spiraling cloud, the top of which was also impossible to see, as high as it was. Fanyasha realized that these were the middle and high school.

Then, finally, she saw her school up ahead. It looked like a beautiful flower, the center of which was like a large ball with high windows, and was probably a playroom or hall, and all around this large ball, like flower petals, there were round rooms attached. All the rooms to the right had square-shaped windows, and all the rooms to the left had round windows.

Fanyasha already knew that the round windows are usually made in the girls’ rooms, and that boys’ rooms have square windows.

“Well, that’s fine,” she thought. “It’s good that the girls and the boys don’t study together in elementary school, since the boys are probably all tiresome and boring, while the girls will be fun to be with!”

The cloud bus stopped in front of the school entrance, opened its doors wide, and noisily spat out all the passengers. Several dozens of girls and boys, as if saddling a strong air current, flew one after another into the huge iridescent hall.

All the children were twisting together in a vortex in the center of the hall, and, obeying the quite cold, biting wind, were whirled away in all directions. This was all extremely unpleasant, especially for Fanyasha, who had dreamily imagined her new wonderful life the whole way to school.

After a few moments, the air current dropped Fanyasha down, and she wound up behind a desk on a hard little chair that hung in the middle of a gloomy gray and cold room, alongside other such chairs and desks, arranged in a circle. The other girls in rainbow dresses flopped onto the nearby chairs and turned their heads to look around, trying to understand what was happening. Nobody was expecting such a cold reception on the first day of school.

Fanyasha looked for anything attractive in this uncomfortable large circular room, and, convinced that her search was hopeless, began to look around at her classmates. She wanted to make a new friend right away and share her emotions.

Fanyasha regretfully found her rude neighbor with the white bangs to her right, and decided instead to speak to the girl to her left.

“Hey, girl, you, girl, what’s your name?” whispered Fanyasha.

“Silence!” a sharp and loud voice boomed from the middle of the room.

Along with the voice, there was all of a sudden a thick, grey smoke in the room as well, which instantly turned into a long, dark grey cloak with a very strict and unpleasant woman’s face that shouted:

“There are strict rules of behavior in the elementary school of angels! Rule number forty-two states: no talking with your classmates! You can only speak when you are asked to by your elders. Do you understand?!

The cloak bent over Fanyasha’s table, and she closed her eyes out of fear.

“Rule number thirty eight! When the teacher asks you a question, you need to answer clearly and quickly! Do you understand, Efaniya Aros?!” the teacher asked over Fanyasha’s head with a leaden voice.

“Yes,” she squeaked, and opened her eyes just enough to see with relief that the cloak had now moved back to the center of the room.

The classroom was absolutely quiet. None of the girls wanted to feel the cold breath of the cloak next to them.

“So, starting from today, you are all students of the elementary school of angels. I am your homeroom teacher. My name is Horda Etyudizovna. You’re all going to have to work hard over the next nine months to ensure that you learn the main rules for dealing with people, and the basics of behavior on earth.

“You must understand that being an angel is a hard job with lots of responsibility! You can say goodbye to your carefree childish amusements. It’s time to start studying! To do a lot of hard work! You will learn a lot during training, get acquainted with the nature of earth, master the art of signs, and meet the family of your future child, and choose a name and key talents for it. At the end of elementary school, you will be presented with the book of life of your child, and get the honor of being present at its birth. But above all, you must learn to unconditionally comply with the rules of behavior at school. I ask you to please read and learn them by tomorrow.

After these words, thick black notebooks appeared on the desks of all the students with the inscription:

Basic Rules of Conduct for Girl Angels in Elementary School.

“The punishment for breaking the rules will be determined each time by me personally, and keep in mind that it’s not in my best interest to be soft, or meet you half way.”

The teacher’s ominous words did not fit in Fanyasha’s head in any way. How could it be, how was it possible, that anyone would treat little girls like that? This was totally unfair and wrong. Girls deserve better treatment than that; after all, they’re made for beauty and for love!

She terribly wanted to stamp her feet, wave her arms and scream out loud that she did not agree with these terms and conditions, but the teacher’s hard, cold face, her leaden voice, the uncomplaining silence of the other girls, the dullness and darkness of the room, the cold hard chairs, the black notebook on the table, and even the hopeless lack of any support – in short, everything around – forced her to accept any terms of her new life.

The teacher began loudly and monotonously reading the basic rules of behavior in school, and this went on for many hours.