Written in my Heart: Sash

Chapter 3: First year with Sash

And from that day I loved to go to school and to the school club and I loved to hang out with friends, just like she did. I did not gain just one friend- her, but she introduced me to her two years older brother Maxim. So, we three were the best friends and I thought I was the happiest kid in the universe to have them.

It did not bother me that our teacher did not like neither Sash nor me. She did not give us any additional task, any homework, any books to read as I was used from my previous school. So, it was just like Sash said, lessons were boring and so was our teacher. But Sash brought her own books to school, or books from a library. And we read them and discussed them. But our teacher did not like it. She sent us behind the door or to director's office, or she shouted on us to be quiet.

In the end of October our parents were invited to school to the director's office to discuss our situation and our bad manners. They decided to make some special tests for both of us. After this test they sent me to the class 3.A and Sash to class 3.B. I was sad that I was not anymore with Sash but at this class I met Max, so it was not bad at all for me. But Sash was very disappointed and maybe also sad, but she did not want to admit it. Kids in her new class did not like her. They made lots of minor bad things to her, such as taking her books away of her, hiding her slippers and PE clothes, eating her snacks and even pouring dirty water on her hair. She used to hate school and acted furious at school. We used to fight a lot these times. Max, Sash and few guys of our class fought against jerks from her class. Sash used to be mad, sometimes she even cried, when she had came from school, but I always knew how to calm her. She used to call me an Angel. My parents were angry with me very often too. I came home often very dirty even with holes on my cloths. There were lot of punishments in my life. But I did not mind. I felt myself truly living! Like my real life, there were real adventures, not only those from books I have read. Deep in my heart I felt like a knight fighting for his lady. And that was great, worth all shouting of angry parents and teachers, all those fights, bruises and little injuries.

In February, Sash came home only with one of her originally two braids. Some guys from her class cut it off. And this was the first time when her parents intervened. Her father came to school and talked to teachers, the school director and some kids of her class. Sash was moved into our class. I could not be happier. Life looked much better with Sash sitting next to me in desk. But there was another big change at school. Our teacher started to bring books to us so we read at school on our lessons whenever we had done our duties. Then, she made special homework for both of us. So, school started to be great place full of new and interesting things, we definitely had fun. When I did not understand anything, Sash explained it to me, she understood almost everything. And, when we found something that was not clear to us we went to the library and searched in books and encyclopaedias. Lot of time we spent outside, I felt me as a member of a gang. There always were Max, Sash and me. I usually spent my summer holidays on our farm, no camps, no sea, no mountains. But that summer was different. And it was the first in a queue of perfect summers till my final year of the high school.

Mr. and Mrs. Delar were nice to me from the very first moment their kids brought me to their house. They treated me like their own child what was very surprising for me. They were kind, interested and caring. They invited my family to their house for a dinner and asked my parents to allow me to spend a part of holidays with them. My parents were taken aback by this and a bit in shock. But Max and Sash started shouting and jumping for joy and clapping their hands. So, my parents agreed. We spent two weeks in a rented cottage in the High Tatras. We were hiking, discovering nature of the oldest Slovak National Park. We visited also some nearby places. Then, we spent two weeks at Terchova, where Mr. Delar parents lived. It was really great time. They lived in a small farm and we kids helped them. I knew a lot about farm, because I had lived there almost my whole life, but my parents never needed any kind of my help. My brothers helped them by taking me out, so my parents did not need to care and worry about me. But grandma and grandpa Delar prepared for us a program based on many little but serious duties. We fed poultry, pastured gooses, raked cut grass, we went shopping every day two of us with a very long shopping list, and we helped in the garden, cropped potatoes and a lot of other works. We felt very important and if we had some free time we felt that we really deserved it. Then, we went camping near Sturovo. It was a language learning camp and we were the youngest kids there, but everybody was nice to us. We had a great time; I won chess match in boys' category and Sash won girls' one. And Sash with Max won a singing contest. I did not know that they could sing. We swam a lot, because we went to these open air thermal swimming pools every day. There was really scary night game. And there was disco dance party almost every evening after dinner. We did not dance but only talk about everything what happened to us that day. I dreamed how it would be to dance with Sash. To be that close to her, maybe I could hear beating of her heart... But I was afraid what if she would reject me? Last night there was a disco carnival. It was actually my first carnival. I did not know what to be. Then, Max came and suggested that we could be fighters. We made black-eyed patch with two holes for eyes and paper scimitars and knives for both of us. When I was in this disguise I felt myself as somebody else, more comfortable, self-confident and more courageous. And when the music played slow songs and Max went to ask some girl for dance, I asked Sash for dance. And she did not reject me. She did not. I almost died of lack of oxygen, because while we danced I had almost stopped breathing. I could not dance but I did not bother, because she moved so I moved along with her. I did not hear beating of her heart because my own heart pulsated in my ears. We did not talk; we did not look into each other eyes. But it was amazing. I was sure I loved her and I always would. But of course I did not tell her. I was not this courageous. She was adorable, smart, cute, and funny and she could sing like an angel. I liked her from the very first day I had met her, but from this dance I was lost forever from my age of nine. The next day we went home and the last three weeks I spent with my family, like usually as a burden for my brothers, with too busy parents. I read a lot of interesting books and each day till the school started again I wrote a letter to Sash that I had never sent her.