The Endless steppe

 I was told to continue an extract from the story the endless steppe, by Esther Hautzig, here's how it went.

The following day, in the morning before sunrise, I woke up with a blood-curdling dream. Heart pounding. I sat for a while thinking of the moments of horror in my dream when suddenly I remembered yesterday's school day.

I sighed to myself, trying to recall what I planned the night before. "This time, I'm not going to be a poor victim again," I told myself while getting off my sleeping mat. I had believed in myself, I am strong. Three giants that had been daunting me all night would not be able to do so by this very day.

I ate my oats and in a jiff, I took my academic possessions and quickly picked a couple of berries around 5, and a handful of apricots and cherries and wrapped it in a small cloth bundle, and headed to school. While walking on the frosty roads, I was reminding my self the Russian alphabet, repeating it time by time. I noticed the more I repeated it was becoming easier to remember.    I quickly picked a half-dried yet fresh, pretty squashed flower that someone had trampled, wondering how it got there in the middle of the icy streets.

Again, in-room number five, the children that I saw last were sitting with bent backs. My heart was shaking. The time had come. I slowly walked in, before getting into my seat, I was walking towards the teacher, Raisa Nikltovna. She gave me some peculiar look which made me think again, should I back off? I gingerly placed the flower on her table, I wasn't sure how to say "for you" in Russian but I managed to. To my surprise, I saw a gentle smile push through her morose face, she looked at me straight to the eye with an even more kind smile. " Thank you''.  "Maybe she isn't the person who I thought she is, maybe she's an approachable person?" I thought to myself.

She told me to go to the last desk of the third row, she wasn't rude nor mean but in fact, she spoke in a gentle manner which made all the eyes of the class on me, including Svetlana.   

Svetlana was the second challenge.   I said a polite hello and sat next to her, she looked sort of surprised to see me carrying an old cloth bundle, I picked it up and opened it as she was looking at her books. Knowing she had to share her books with me, she slid it quite towards me, '' Thank you'' I responded in Russian and handed her the open cloth bundle of fruits. I  told her that it's for her. She looked very astonished and impressed with my behavior. She simpered and took two berries. I rolled two more, she giggled while it rolled, rolling it back and then tossed it into my mouth. I laughed while I chewed, coughing with my laughter, wondering if Svetlana had turned into a  new friend to me.....