“Well, I don’t know if that’s great,” Sayash hesitated. “It’s a very large city. I’ll lose you.”
“No, you won’t, Mr. Sayash, we promise!”
“We won’t leave your side, or Lucky’s!” the children shouted out.
“What grade are you anyway?” Sayash suddenly wondered.
“First, Mr. Sayash,” Larisa said.
“First? Well then the big city is out of the question!”
“Why?” they shouted all at once.
“What do you mean ‘why’? You’re too small. You don’t even know the alphabet. You’ll need to read all the signs… you know which ones… and all that…”
“We know how to read!”
“And write, Mr. Sayash!”
“Aha! And how do you know?” Sayash didn’t believe the children.
“Well, we know. We learned in preschool,” said Sib.
“Hmm… You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Sayash smiled, already giving in to the children.
“What can we do - we’re smart!” Ekene smiled.
“Well, even if we didn’t know how to read, you’ll read the signs for us, Mr. Sayash,” said Mariam.
“Me?” Sayash was shocked. “Oh, children, you’re so naïve! You think that when you are as old as Mr. Sayash you’ll still be able to keep all the letters in your head. You won’t. They fall out… For example, the letter L is still in my head. I mean, in addition to the letter S. That’s why I named Lucky - Lucky; in case I had to sign our names somewhere. So that we are not embarrassed…”
“So how would you read the signs in Megapolis, if you didn’t have us, Mr. Sayash?” Milan asked.
“I wouldn’t read them. Lucky and I don’t need that. The two of us aren’t interested in where we are… or where we’re going. No… we never part…”
“We’ll do the same, Mr. Sayash! We’ll never part from you and Lucky! We too aren’t interested in the signs. Here, the letters have already fallen out of my head!” Flavia said out loud.
“Oh, you’re so nice…” Sayash was getting soft. “OK, so let’s get going. This is how we’ll do it. Now listen to me very carefully. I’ll go at the head of the group. You follow me, in pairs. And hold hands. I’ll hold Lucky in my hands, but backwards. He won’t look forward but back at you, over my shoulder. As soon as someone lets go of their pair or leaves the group, Lucky will whack me with his tail. And if I turn around…”
“No one will, Mr. Sayash. We’ll be good. We’ll listen you!” said Nirmala.
“And if someone did let go, Lucky wouldn’t give us up, would you, Lucky?” asked David, holding Lucky to his chest.
“You’ve really grown close, haven’t you?” Sayash smiled.
YOU ARE READING
The Grasshopper
Science FictionImagine living in a world where Consumerism is the constitutional order, and where the Inspectorate is in charge of destroying goods whose season has passed, so as to maintain the Balance. In this world you can survive only if you work and buy goods...
