Immortal Ash

Chapter 5

The desired rest did not come. As soon as Sonya sat down in the armchair with a book, Wolf, who had dozed off after the walk, suddenly jumped up and wiggled his nose worriedly. Then he rushed to the window and stood with his front paws on the sill.

"What is it, Wolf?" Sonya jumped up. She didn't see anyone outside, but Wolf stretched his neck as if he were looking at something and snorted. It looked like he behaved on New Year's Eve: the first volleys of firecrackers intrigued him, and then, when the 'firefight' began, frightened him. At the height of the cannonade, the poor dog became hysterical: he did not respond to calls and consolations, but only beat his paws powerfully at the door, trying to make a dig, and whimpered quietly.

Wolf snorted again and jerked his powerful body. Something continued to unnerve him. Sonya opened the window and peered out through the waist-high window, but again saw nothing suspicious. Her house was the penultimate in an even row of similar houses: to the right there was a row of identical buildings with small unfenced yards, to the left was the last house, distinguished by its large size and spacious territory. Just beyond the meadow was the forest. Wolf was looking there, snorting anxiously and cocking his ears. And then suddenly he gave a long howl. What is it? He rarely spoke.

"Wolf, hush, hush!" murmured Sonya, hugging the dog. "There's no one there! Everything is calm and quiet."

But the dog thought otherwise. With two howls, he scurried around the living room, and then tried to dig at the front door.

"What's the matter with you?"

He didn't respond to the treats or the entreaties. He continued to thrash around anxiously and calmed down a bit only when Sonya put a harness on him, pulled him away from the door and sat down on the floor next to him. With some coaxing and stroking, she calmed the dog down. It didn't really take that long, but Sonya was exhausted for half an hour, because she didn't understand what was happening to her pet: on New Year's Eve he was scared by firecrackers, and now what?

But it was barely over when someone banged on the door. Wolf immediately jumped up and snorted, and Sonya cursed with annoyance.

"Hello! Didn't expect it so early? It's us!" Tanya announced the neighborhood.

Her friend appeared like a firework - deafening and bright. She didn't know how to do otherwise. And all the time that Sonya was coping with the dog, Tanya was laughing, gibbering and waving her arms, making the dog even more nervous. There had been a time, back in her student days, when Tanya had pissed Sonya off to a tee. But then something in the noisy, agile and frivolous fellow student strangely began to attract, perhaps just such a striking dissimilarity to herself. And wary communication turned into friendship. Or maybe they were brought together by Lena, who had everything in moderation: and noisy Tanya's energy, and Sonya's calm reasoning.

"Tanya, don't fuss, I've barely calmed Wolf down," asked Sonya, when her friend almost hit the dog's nose with her hand.

"I'll just be a minute! To say hello and introduce you to Vitaly!"

From behind Tanya's back came a short, pot-bellied man with a shiny bald spot and arrogantly pinched lips. Sonya mentally sighed: here it was, Vitaly. Love and pity. But, wanting to hide her true thoughts, she smiled radiantly. Vitaly in response only frowned his bushy eyebrows more.

"In general, hello, hello, hello!" Tanya fussed. "We have a rest and settle down! We'll call you later!"

She took her unfriendly beau under her elbow and dragged him to the neighboring house. The couple looked comical: Tanya was tall and large, and her new boyfriend could barely reach her ear. Sonya shook her head. Her friend flew frivolously from one affair to another, parting from her beau without any regrets or losses. It was quite possible that soon she would replace the unrepresentable looking Vitaly with some Slavik - a testosterone mountain of muscles.