Stameskin was drawing airplanes. Incredible, fantastically proud airplanes, soaring straight up into the cloudless sky. The whole table was littered with drawings, with those that didn’t fit overflowing onto the narrow metal cot. When Iskra came into the tiny room with its single window, Sasha covered his drawings with a jealous hand, and, unable to cover everything, got angry.

“What do you want?”

Iskra evaluated the situation with typically female alacrity: the dirty dishes on the stool, the crumpled bedding covered with drawings, the pot on the windowsill with a spoon sticking out of it - all of it indicated that Sasha’s mom was working the second shift, and that Iskra’s first meeting with her charge would take place with no witnesses. But she did not permit herself to quail, and aimed her attack directly at Sashka’s weak spot, a weak spot no one in school had any idea about: his romantic infatuation with aviation.

“Planes like that don’t exist.”

“What do you know about it!” Sasha was yelling, but his voice clearly betrayed interest.

Iskra, imperturbated, took off her hat and coat - her coat was slightly too small, the buttons drifting all the way to the side, and this always embarrassed her - and, straightening her dress with an accustomed motion, headed straight for the table. Sasha watched her sullenly, mistrustfully, and irately. But Iskra did not wish to take note of his glances.

“An interesting construction,” she said. “But the plane won’t fly.”

“What do you mean it won’t fly? What if it flies?”

“‘What if’ is a forbidden concept in aviation,” she said sternly. “In aviation, the most important thing is calculation. You obviously don’t have enough lift.”

“What?” cautiously questioned the failing Stameskin.

“The lift generated by the wings,” Iskra repeated firmly, even though she was not at all confident in what she was saying. “Do you know what it depends on?”

Sasha said nothing, overwhelmed by her erudition. Until now, aviation had existed in his life the way birds did: planes flew because they were supposed to fly. His planes functioned according to the laws of aesthetics, not mathematics: he liked shapes that thrust themselves into the sky.

Everything started with planes that could not fly because they relied on fantasy and not on science. And Sasha wanted them to fly, wanted climbs, barrel rolls, and loops to obey his planes, the way his own body obeyed him, Sasha Stameskin, footballer and scrapper. Only the merest trifle stood in his way: calculation. It was for this trifle that Sasha reluctantly dragged himself to school, smiling crookedly.

But for Iskra, it was not enough that Sasha came to love mathematics and physics, tolerated literature, suffered through history, and drilled German words with obvious disgust. She was a sober-minded girl, and could clearly imagine the day when her charge would get sick of it all and return to the back streets, to suspect company, and his customary “v. poor” marks. Not waiting for this day to come, she headed to the district Palace of Pioneers.

“I don’t take kids who are behind,” the stern supervisor of the airplane model club told her. “Let him first…”

“It doesn’t matter that he’s behind,” Iskra interrupted, though interrupting her elders was very impolite. “Do you think only straight A students become good people? What about Tom Sawyer? See, Sasha is Tom Sawyer, he just hasn’t found his treasure yet. But he’ll find it, on my komsomol honor, he will! Just help him out a bit. Please, help him.”

“You know, my girl, I think he has already found his treasure,” smiled the club supervisor.

At first, Sasha flatly refused to go to the club. He was afraid that there, he would get proof once and for all that all his dreams were nonsense, and that he, Sasha Stameskin, the son of a dishwasher from a factory-kitchen and an unknown father, would never in his life have the chance to touch the silvery duralumin of a real plane. Simply speaking, Sasha did not believe in himself and was being desperately cowardly, forcing Iskra to stomp with her plump legs.

“All right,” he sighed wretchedly. “But you come too. Or I’ll run off.”

So they went together, though Iskra was far more interested in the sonorous poetry of Eduard Bagritsky than in model airplanes. Indeed, she was not simply interested, she had recently begun to write her own epic poem, “Song of the Commissar”:

Above the ranks, the crimson banner blazes true
Commissars, commissars, our country follows you

And so on for two pages, the hope being to end up with twenty pages or so. But just now, the important things were aircraft models, ailerons, fuselages, and the somewhat bewildering concept of lift. So she did not lament her postponed poem; she was proud of silencing her own song.

This, the necessity of subordinating one’s petty personal weaknesses to the main goal, the joy of overcoming oneself, was what Iskra spoke of as they walked to the Palace of Pioneers. And Sashka did not speak, torn by doubt, hope, and more doubt.

“We cannot come into this world just for the sake of pleasure,” Iskra explained, meaning the future, not the past, when she said “pleasure”. “Otherwise we will have to admit that nature is just a heap of coincidence that cannot be scientifically analyzed. And admitting this means meekly obeying nature’s whims, becoming its humble servant. Can we, as members of the Soviet youth, admit this? I’m asking you, Sasha.”

“We can’t,” said Stameskin gloomily.

“Correct. And this means that every person - every single one! - is born for some particular goal. And you need to seek your goal, your calling. You need to learn to discard all that is random or minor, to define your life’s great task…”

“Hey, Stameska!”

Three boys peeled themselves out of an alley; though one of them should rather be called a young man than a boy. They moved lazily, with a swaggering, lopsided walk.

“Where’re you off to, Stameska?”

“Got stuff to do.” Sashka shrunk in on himself, and Iskra immediately caught this.

“Maybe think about it first?” The eldest spoke almost reluctantly, as if he was having trouble finding the right words. “Get rid of the girl, we need to talk.”

“Back!” Iskra’s cry was clear and bright. “Go back to your dark alleys yourselves!”

“What’s this?” the young man drawled mockingly.

“Out of my way!” Iskra pushed his chest with both hands.