- Gri-ishka!!! ... ... Gri-ishka-a-a-a!!! - Grandma Nyura squinted blindly, looking into the distance. - He ran away! Ai-yay! Where the hell are you!
- Be, - a short bleating was heard, but the deaf grandmother did not hear it, stood a little longer, looking at the empty vegetable garden, a lonely haystack and wandered with a shuffling senile gait into the yard.
The wavy red hair of a neighbor boy appeared from behind a stack.
- She's gone! - whispered the tomboy, - Run!
- Aha!" whispered back his friend, a skinny kid with a short haircut, dressed in what looked like his father's oversized T-shirt and dirty, torn jeans. With one hand he held Baba Nyura's old goat by the collar, and with the other his gray sweater wrapped around the goat's face. - You'll run away with him! Though old, but still strong!
- Shall we drop it?
- Yeah, right on! That's not why we trapped him all over the garden! Grab his collar!
The still warm, but already autumn sun was timidly trying to warm the chilled old hands. Baba Nyura sat on the porch and stared lost at a bowl of soaked barley, so beloved of Grishka.
- What an accident, forgetting to lock the gate! Where can I look for him now? I wish he hadn't run off into the woods!
There was a knock at the street wicket.
- Ilyinishna," Olga's neighbor shouted from behind the gate, "are you home?
- Home! Where should I be at such a time as this? - Nyura called back, and, coming to the wicket, pulled back the bolt and opened the door.
- Hello Ilyinshna!
- Good luck to you, Petrovna! Come in!
- Wasn't that your goat galloping through the garden? - leaning on a stick, slowly stepping, Grandma Olga entered the neighbor's yard.
- That's right! I forgot to close the gate to the garden, so he ran away! Did you see where he went?
- Ducked your Grishka kids, neighbor Mishka and his friend, what's-his-name...I forgot....
- Alexei?
- Yeah! They wrapped a sweater around his face and took him away!
- Those bastards! Where did they take you?
- They pulled me to Moiseyevna's, and I couldn't see, so I ran to you.
Nyura glanced at the hunched Olga with the cue in her hand. How long had she been stomping toward her, ten or fifteen minutes? Baba Nyura shuffled outside to the neighbors.
- Run Ilyinishna! Maybe you'll be in time. Maybe your Grishka hasn't been slaughtered yet.
- You've got a bad tongue, Petrovna! You'll say such things! - Nyura replied, quickening her step.
Mishka and Lyosha were walking down the street, leading Grishka by the collar. By the neighbor's house stood Mishka's mother with a whip in her hand.
- Hello, Grandma Nur! - Mishka shouted loudly, "We found your Grishka!
- Hello, boys! I've been looking all over for you! Where did you find him?
- He ran into our garden," the red-haired Mishka blushed thickly, "that's where he and Lyokha sparred.
- Well, take you into the yard, and I'll treat you to milk and gingerbread!
- Huh, scoundrels? Did you come by yourselves? - squinting at the sun, Grandma Olga, sitting on Nyura's porch, hissed menacingly.
- Let it be, Olga!" Nyura smiled, "they found Grishka and brought him.
- Yeah, well, they found it!
- Come in, boys, sit down. I'll get some milk.
- We'll go, Baba Nur," said Mishka, blushing thickly.
- Sit down, I said, don't listen to her!
The juvenile hooligans obediently sat down on the step. Nyura slowly climbed the porch, entered the house, and after a minute called out:
- Mishka, help me!
The neighbor kid jumped to his feet and ran into the house.
- And Lyosha, your parents never came back? - Grandma Olga asked, looking sternly at the skinny boy.
- No, Baba Olga, they didn't come back.
- You're still living at Semyonich's?
- Uh-huh.
- Did you go mushrooming yesterday?
- We did. How'd you find out?
- It doesn't matter. Got any mushrooms?
- Well, we've got a little bit of it.
Mishka came out onto the porch, carefully carrying two glasses full of white delicious milk.
- Here, Lyokha!
Lyosha carefully took the glass with milk from his friend's hand and slowly, with pleasure, sipped a sip, squinting with pleasure.
Baba Nyura came out on the porch with two gingerbread men in her hand.
- Here you go, kids, eat up!
- Thank you, Grandma Nyura! - the tomboys replied with glee, taking the gingerbread from their grandmother. They took a small bite each and drank a sip of milk with pleasure.
Nyura looked at them with both sadness and joy. It was good that they had at least one cow left in the village, her cow Glashka, and she understood how much the children missed milk. God willing, everything would get better after the end of this long war.