Dad grumbled that my Sloth-Mommy got born a moment before me and all I was good at was basking on the big sofa all day long gripping a book, like, a true copy of Oblomov!. But Mom protested that reading was beneficial and because of it I might become a doctor and look so very elegant in the white smock.
I did not want to become a doctor, I never liked the smell in doctors’ offices…
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At school, Seraphima Sergeevna showed us a plywood frame 10 cm x 10 cm, like, a prototype of a loom with two rows of small nails on two opposite sides. A thick wool thread, stretched between the nails on different sides, served the warp. Motley other threads interwoven across the warp formed rainbow streaks in a miniature rug. Our home assignment was to make a similar frame and bring it for the next lesson, the parents would certainly help us in manufacturing the tool, the teacher said.
However, Dad was not home, he worked the second shift that week, and Mom was busy in the kitchen. Yet, she helped with finding a piece of plywood from an old parcel-box and she allowed taking the saw from the storeroom in the hallway.
I worked in the bathroom pinning the workpiece with my foot to the stool. The saw got stuck so too often, and it kept tearing out small chips and scraps from the plywood, but after long tedious labor efforts a crooked, zigzag sided, square was sawed off.
Putting the tool aside, I got aware of the major problem – how could you ever cut out a smaller square inside the readied one so as to turn it into a frame?
I tried to hack out the square hole within the readied plywood square by use of a kitchen knife and a hammer, but only split the piece cut off with so many ‘a hem!’ in the intense exertion. By the time when I had to go to bed, all of the plywood supply was spoiled in fruitless attempts, and I realized that I was not fit to be a master. The disappointment was so bitter that I raised a mournful howling in the kitchen before Mom.
Lying in the folding bed, I tried not to fall asleep but stay awake till Dad was home after work and ask for his help. However, I overslept his coming, though at some point through overpowering drowsiness I did hear Dad’s voice in the kitchen, giving Mom an angry reply, “What? Again “Kolya”? I know I’m “Kolya” so what?” And I fell back asleep.
In the morning at breakfast, Mom said, “Look at what Dad has made for you to take to school.”
It was a flood of happiness and admiration, when I saw the plywood loom-frame finished with neither a split nor a chip, nor a crack anywhere, and smoothed with sandpaper. The rows of small nails along two opposite sides were aligned straighter than a ruler…