Royal night

The old, old cemetery lived out its mournful life next to the Ogonyok summer camp. No one had been buried there for a long time - the cemetery church, where the dead were once buried, was cracked and askew. Wild pigeons now lived in it, their alarming hooting on quiet summer evenings could be heard throughout the entire area. Often, for no apparent reason, sensitive pigeons suddenly became frightened of something. They noisily jumped out of their seats, flapping their wings with a loud whistle, screaming in alarm - and, flying out through broken windows and holes in the dome, they rushed over the area for a long, long time. Their plaintive voices were heard above until darkness.

There was a village at the same distance from both the abandoned cemetery and the camp. The road from the camp to it went around the forest, which significantly lengthened the path. Therefore, local residents rarely visited Ogonyok.

However, the guys relaxing at the camp did not notice this. They saw the villagers only sometimes - when they went swimming. The meetings were mostly peaceful; the water of the local pond and its shore did not have to be shared.

The path to this pond ran right through the cemetery. Of course, it was possible not to walk past rickety monuments and rotten crosses, but to go around the old churchyard along the edge of the forest, but for some reason none of the vacationers did this. To shorten the road and shorten the travel time, everyone walked through the cemetery. Not feeling their feet under them, the kids rushed along it, trying not to look around; Also hastily, but every now and then, glancing sideways at the graves and looking around anxiously, older boys and girls passed by.

The cemetery was fascinating. On humid evenings, white fog curled between the tall cemetery birches and wide-legged spruce trees. Twitching, he skirted the trees, sat down on rusty fences, shuddered gloomily, landing on graves overgrown with grass.

Many of the campers looked at him from above - from the mountain, from the windows of the second floor of the building, facing the cemetery. But no one dared to go out to the cemetery in the evening, much less at night. Go out, wander, shrouded in cemetery fog, look at the abandoned graves, stand, wait, listen...

Or maybe there was simply no time for this - after all, the cheerful life in Ogonyok did not subside for a minute. Music thundered there until darkness, there were discos, games and competitions were held. Having played enough and walked around, everyone, young and old, was so tired that they literally fell off their feet and fell asleep in a sweet sleep, barely touching the bed. After all, the next morning new entertainment awaited them.

Today, too, the camp was filled with lights, festively decorated, and the music was especially loud from the speakers installed on the disco area and on the roof of the dining room. Royal Night - the end of the second summer shift, that's what the population of Ogonyok celebrated!

No one ever sleeps on Royal Night! Many, in order to have fun at closing, patiently sit in the camp for the entire shift. After all, on the Royal Night, ANYTHING was possible!!!

It was almost dark, bright illumination bulbs were burning on the street, here and there there were trays with pies and soda, which the catering workers poured out to everyone who wanted it. Even the ice cream was not over yet - although some had eaten so much of it that they could no longer move and partially scattered to their buildings and fell asleep, while some sat on benches and listlessly waved away mosquitoes.

The festive concert had ended - they had been preparing for it almost since the middle of the shift - but the disco, which was usually closed at eleven o'clock in the evening, today promised to last long after midnight, and therefore they danced there with special enthusiasm.

The children of their teachers were chasing their teachers around the camp, screaming and hooting. They ran as fast as they could, because they knew: if the little one caught them, he would certainly roll them in the grass, smear them with toothpaste, cream from cakes and pastries, throw ice cream down the collar - in a word, make a mockery of their glory. There were a lot of products for this, and the former wards of the unfortunate teacher had even more fighting spirit - so the poor adults were now running around like crazy.

The teacher of the ninth squad, Nathan, for example, today, out of despair, climbed to the top of a dry pine tree without lower branches, which only one other person had conquered - a few years ago, the same unfortunate uncle, a physical education teacher, climbed it. The children chased him for a particularly long time, having tormented him with his morning exercises and many kilometers of cross-country for prizes in the form of posters of rock singers he no longer liked. They divided into groups, and when one got tired of running after the harmful guy with ominous hooting, the other took over. So, the physical education teacher ran around the territory in zigzags. Neither the head of the camp nor any of the teachers could save him - such was the law of the Royal Night. The physical education teacher asked the children to stop and not run after him, but thin children’s voices commanded: “Forward! Cross! Health! Don't slow down! Don’t change the rhythm!”, and the race continued... When the physical education leader finally reached the last stage of fatigue, resentment and despair, a dry pine tree caught his eye. In one last powerful burst, breaking away from his pursuers, he screamed like a monkey and climbed to the top of the tree.

There he sat, changing the landing site from time to time - the dry branches creaked, threatening to crack and break off, the wind swayed the pine tree...

Or rather, it was not the wind, but the children who were shaking the tree, trying to shake the physical education leader off it. The pine tree survived, after a while the kids ran away to look for other entertainment... And the athlete sat on the pine tree until the pink morning clouds. Only then, having become bolder, he somehow went down - and already at the next shift his spirit was no longer in Ogonyok. They said that the tyrannical physical education teacher joined the guards, accompanying concrete products that were transported from Siberia to desert areas of the near abroad.

But no one in the camp was sad about it. He, a harmful tormentor, was driven out in revenge. And all the rest, in principle, beloved teachers and educators, just like that, to maintain the tradition.

No one could predict how long the unsportsmanlike Nathan was going to sit on the pine tree. Because they had driven the teacher up a tree, but the kids clearly had no intention of removing him. In the meantime, help from the service personnel will arrive... The guy who jumped onto the tree had no choice but to sit and howl at the big round moon rising over the forest...

The grown-up guys were no longer surprised by this. During the entire shift, they were not particularly obedient, so it was no longer interesting for them to take it out on their leaders, whom they already had a fair amount of trouble with.

And even more so after one of them came up with a wonderful idea.

“Guys,” Vovka, a boy from the fourth detachment, turned to his friends, “wouldn’t you rather go to the cemetery?” Right now!

“So we were going to smear our girls with toothpaste,” Mishka was surprised, tossing a tube of toothpaste in his palm. “I keep it warm in my pocket on purpose.”

“We’ll have time to smear them,” Vovka answered. - Later. It’s even better - while we’re at the cemetery, by the time we get back, they’ll definitely go to bed.

“The disco isn’t even over yet,” Andryushka added. - And all of us are at the disco.

“There might be a disco all night,” Vovka noted. “But not everyone will stay on it.” I want to smear Nikiforova. I don’t think she’ll be able to dance all night at a disco. She will go to the side. This is where I’ll paint it with patterns.

“And Petrushkina always leaves the disco early, it would also be good for Petrushkina to be specifically smeared so that she doesn’t show off,” Mishka grinned.

- Let's spread it. But first, to the cemetery,” Vovka said. - Today is the time.

“But you can’t take over the territory!” Andryushka scratched the back of his head.

– Today is Royal Night, everything is possible! And run around the territory, and in general! – Vovka exclaimed. “So we won’t get anything for this.” They will no longer be expelled from the camp or sent home. The shift is over!

“Well, yes...” the guys agreed.

– What are we doing there, in the cemetery? – Andryushka asked.

“Test your courage,” Vovka answered. - Just go ahead and walk through the entire cemetery from beginning to end.

“Oh, that’s any fool!” Mishka exclaimed.

And he stopped short.

A strange howl came from somewhere.

- What is this? A? - Mishka muttered timidly.

“I don’t know,” Andryushka answered barely audibly. - It seems from the side of the cemetery...

12 answers

Well, everyone knows about the gypsy night and the lightning, but I personally had the experience of a conditionally successful escape.

The thing was that I lived in Ulan-Ude and, as a matter of course, I was sent to a sports camp on Lake Baikal for 3 weeks. They woke us up at 6:30 in the morning, forced us to run 3-4 km (I was 11 years old and I didn’t have any good training at all, plus they put me in the senior group), then for some reason they put us in splits, they had sparring sessions ( The camp was with Taekwondo ITF) and a lot of other not very pleasant things. In general, after a week of such bullying, I thought that I had to get out. Every morning while jogging for three days, I dropped off my things in a certain place (we were running outside the camp territory), collected Snickers, Twixes and two bottles of liter mineral water, found one like-minded person, and somewhere in the middle of the second week at 2-3 at one o'clock in the morning I crawled out through the window, since they were closing us for the night. And a like-minded person had a point, so I ran alone. Half an hour later, I packed my things and moved along the road towards the house, where, according to my calculations, I should have reached in 3-4 days. Well, my escape was conditional, because my like-minded person handed over all my route plans to the counselors and at 8 a.m. on the highway, a little ahead of me, a jeep stopped from which a face crawled out and so seriously asked, “Are you Artem Puchkov?” I nodded, the man got out of the car and gave me a nasty slap on the back of the head, stuck it in the car, and the whole time we were driving back, he lectured me about how bad it was to do that and that I had raised hell with the whole camp.

Everything ended well. Although there was a wild scandal that day, the next day my father took me and after a small scene in front of the counselors, he put me in the car and, of course, scolded me a little, and said that he was proud of me. That instead of whining and enduring all this, he began to look for a solution and was well prepared, thought through almost everything. That's how it goes.

My brother and I once went to a camp where they had boring discos every evening, and sometimes a “cinema”, which no one went to, since all the films and cartoons were quite old. We decided to diversify our holiday and came up with the idea of ​​throwing slippers onto the balconies: whoever gets to the 4th floor (last) wins. Guys from other squads also joined us. As a result, two out of 14 people were able to throw the ill-fated slippers onto that same 4th floor balcony. It turned out that this floor was closed, and before the counselors burned us, we decided to climb up the window ledges ourselves and get our shoes. They climbed in, but they pulled us out of there only in the evening.

I didn’t go to camps as a child, but it so happens that now I run them myself :). And probably the most powerful prank that we (adults) played with the children was “A Day Without Adults.”

The fact is that over many years we have developed a powerful children's self-government. The guys from the team help in preparing the camp, then work in it as squad leaders, and even the “Camp Commander” (elected every 3 days) is an experienced child.

And then one day towards the end of the camp, in 2013 I think, we decided to conduct a stress test of this very self-government. Waking up around 6 am, all the adult teachers and counselors packed their backpacks and left the camp (the security, the doctor and the cooks remained, we are not animals). We settled down about a kilometer from the camp in the forest, set up tents, a fire, and began preparing for the next day. And in the camp...

The children woke up and saw “chain letters” in front of them. And an emergency phone number. The letters contained brief instructions for the day, something like this: “Dear Camp Commander! Now you know everything. We are gone. There is no need to look for us. We will return tomorrow. The keys to the Theater are under the pillow. The video camera is charging. The kayaks - do not touch. Plan of the day you know. All the best! With love, your instructors."

And the camp went on as usual :). The children did not touch the kayaks, carried out pre-prepared events themselves, played in the theater, filmed films, went to the canteen, and so on and so forth...

I must say that there were no incidents). And the alarm phone only rang twice a day. The first one was to check that it was not a joke, and the second one was when someone sprained their leg and the doctor warned us about it (those are the rules).

I must say that the draw was quite a success). By dinner we returned to the base, marching solemnly through the camp territory. The children, feeling the burden of responsibility, were happy to see us :).

Well, as for draws on a smaller scale, we have them every day. That is lightning with a sudden rise in alarm of the entire camp. It’s a role-playing game where everyone is repainted in different colors using face painting. That is the day of poetry with a residential building painted with poetry. It's just a ball...in Irish style. It's a fire with guitars until the morning. The main thing is that both children and adults have fun together :).

I was only in the camp once and it was a military sports camp in Divnomorsk. I finished the fifth or sixth grade, they lured me there with stories about how great it was to stand at a post at night with a machine gun, sing drill songs, run cross-country in the morning and learn to shoot accurately, after which they handed me a ticket with a beautifully drawn young Budenovite.

On the very first day, I really didn’t like it at the camp, because there were no songs or machine guns, but there were mesh beds that we were forced to take into the houses while waiting for the rest of the young military athletes. That evening we went on an escape.

They decided to spend the night by the river, near a fire in a hut they made with their own hands in the bushes. But when it got dark, it turned out that spending the night by the river was boring, so we walked home twenty kilometers. At the same time, when the headlights of a rarely passing car appeared, we shouted “Cops!” They jumped into the nearest thickets of bushes, losing their flip-flops, although personally I didn’t feel anything criminal behind me, except for the occasional light bulbs broken from slingshots. When I came home in the morning, for some reason my parents were not happy about the prodigal son and said that since I didn’t get a job at the post office delivering telegrams in the summer, then there was no point in hanging around and that they wouldn’t tolerate a deserter in the house.

I, the only one of our four fugitives, had to return to the camp voluntarily. Life was already slowly boiling there and I was surprised to discover that I was the only one who had come here twice voluntarily. The rest of the stream camp inmates were hard-to-educate people from the entire Gelendzhik region, sent there by the police children's room for various misdeeds. At first I honestly said that I came voluntarily, they looked at me like I was an idiot and, it seemed, didn’t believe me. Then I invented a criminal legend, according to which I am hanging here, and I never spoke such nonsense again. The contacts I made there turned out to be very useful in my later life. Although, many of my then acquaintances now associate the word “camp” with a completely different institution.

So, my camp term began. Instead of detachments, as in other pioneer camps, we had platoons, which in turn were divided into sections. We didn’t have pioneer leaders that girls fall in love with. Instead of them there were sergeants - ordinary post-army men who loved to drink and swear. However, there were no girls who could fall in love with them either - the camp contingent consisted exclusively of boys. I ended up in the second squad of the third platoon.

What seemed interesting and even romantic to me turned out to be completely different in the camp. Standing at a post with a wooden machine gun, under a mushroom at the entrance to the camp, alone, at night was boring, and sometimes even scary. Fortunately, this only happened to me once. Getting up early and running around the stadium was also not pleasant. The crowd ran past the washbasin, leaving those trying to smoke on the sly, then those addicted to the bad habit were expelled from there with obscenities, kicks and slaps from the sergeants. On the next lap everything happened again.

Then breakfast, which was eaten all. I don’t really remember how tasty it was, but I really wanted to eat it all the time. Then we were taken to work - to garter grapes. I didn’t become a leader, I hated it since childhood, but I learned how to tie grapes. Daily norms were given, the majority, including me, did not even try to fulfill them, but there were also those who exceeded them. For example, a guy from Kabardinka who was in my platoon. The head of the camp even called him to the line, expressed gratitude and handed him a metal ruble with Lenin. I don't remember being jealous of this idiot.

After work there was lunch, then a quiet hour. After a quiet hour, you could go swimming in the sea or the river, play football and pioneer ball. Sometimes they shot from small guns, ran around in gas masks, disassembled and reassembled a machine gun, and did many other interesting and useful things for the Motherland. And of course, a daily activity in quiet time is pillow fighting.

If someone says that pillow fights are fun and funny, I will agree with them. But let me clarify – a day or two. And then only when you win. And if eleven Kabardian Stakhanovites with hairy armpits fly into your cubicle, where the four of you live, and the pillow fight smoothly flows into the destruction of the room and the beating of those who did not manage to jump out the window, after a week it begins to get boring. This was terribly tiring, considering that by that time I myself had not published a heroic article. My genetic inheritance is such that I always looked younger than my age. This is for dad. This is probably good and gives hope for later fading, but as a child it did not make me happy. Until the tenth grade, I could not grow at the same pace as my classmates. Now I’m about eighty meters tall, but back then I was not only the only one in my class who went to school at the age of six, but I was even shorter than the girls and stood last in physical education. But I never ran out the window during the battle and honestly stood until the end. One day, while working in the vineyards, I remembered the upcoming daily battle with the first section of our platoon. But, since I still had little understanding of army terminology and was confused about the names of the units, I mixed up the words “squad” and “platoon.” It turned out that the first platoon was going to attack us - boys older than us, living in another house. The message had an effect I never expected. The platoon immediately forgot the old feuds between the squads and began to prepare for defense against an external enemy. The external enemy was not aware and was very surprised by the warlike shouts and name-calling addressed to them coming from the territory of our platoon. A big war was brewing.

To my surprise, no one remembered where the rumor about the upcoming attack came from, the information was enriched with new details and evidence and no longer raised any doubts in anyone. I didn’t intend to convince anyone and remind them of my role in starting the conflict. The quiet hour passed without the usual destruction of our cockpit, in anticipation of external aggression. They were clearly afraid of the enemy, it was noticeable. Yes, this is understandable - in the first platoon the boys were a year or two older than us, and besides, there were more of them. I alone did not show any concern, which even earned the respect of my comrades. I even tried to put forward the idea that no one was going to attack, but it was rejected as defeatist and the platoon came to the conclusion that if they didn’t attack, it meant they were chickening out. The end of the day passed under the impudent grins of my fellow soldiers and the bewilderment of the enemy about the clearly insolent youngsters. The next day everything was repeated - preparation for defense and no attack. This fact strengthened the defenders’ thoughts about the enemy’s cowardice and added impudence. And only on the third day, which also passed in anxious but bloodless anticipation, the senior men from the first platoon could not tolerate another impudent demarche of my comrades. Well, right at the evening movie show, they broke one of our beautiful Greek nose. After which the global conflict was settled.

The next day, the quiet hour began with the traditional raid of the first squad on our cockpit. The four of us held the door, nailed a hook onto it, then a second one - it was all useless. The constant result was our bruises and destruction of the room. Life was returning to its normal course again. One day, while putting things in order in the cockpit, wiping blood from my lips and rubbing bruised places, I suggested that next time we move the fighting to the territory of the aggressor, and to do this, attack first. That's what we did. I was the first to burst into the camp of the stunned enemy, jumping on the beds and smashing my pillow left and right. However, in view of the numerical superiority of the enemy, the lack of coherence of our actions, as well as the ordinary cowardice of my comrades, who retreated, abandoning me, I was captured by the adversary, crucified on the bed in the pose of the Savior and cynically painted with watercolors in the style of “Vinitu - son of Inchuchun " With all due respect to the art of body art and the Apache tribe, it was offensive and humiliating. I immediately went to seek support from senior comrades from my area, who, by the will of fate, were also here and in that very first platoon. The Greek profiles of my offenders, which had begun to heal, were again corrected, instructions were received that it is not always wise to offend younger ones, and relative peace reigned in our platoon.

Once I even received a real leave of absence for a day. I don’t even remember for what reason and for what merit. That's probably how it was supposed to be. I was given a uniform consisting of pants, a jacket and a cap made from domestic denim, as well as a letter of dismissal. The note was a document that indicated that I had not escaped from the camp in this form again, but that I was on leave by right and must return back on time. This was probably necessary to reassure my parents. The family greeted the hero somehow coldly and I hardly remember my one-day vacation. But I remember how we, all of us in jeans, went on two excursions. The first was not far away - near Novorossiysk, to the battery of Captain Zubkov. Guns are, of course, great. Only each of us had already been there at least five times before and knew every gun, probably better than the hero fighters of the defense of Novorossiysk. But the second excursion was to Kerch. You had to go there by bus and then by ferry. I remember the Adzhimushkai catacombs and the shell turtle that I bought for some reason. Here, the same exact turtles were sold on every corner. But this was Crimea. Even though it was not ours then, as it is now, it was still ours - Soviet, and everyone wanted to visit it.

This was my first, and so far only visit to the glorious peninsula. And I never went to the pioneer camp again. Somehow, I even managed to skip the sports and labor camp where the whole class went, it seems, after the eighth grade. So far God has had mercy on the rest of the camps.

I spent every summer in children's camps from the age of 8 to 17. So there will be stories)

When I was 8, I went to an Orthodox children's camp for the first time. We lived in wooden one-story buildings, one per detachment. Each building had two huge rooms - for boys and for girls, and each room had 8-10 beds. Opposite the building grew a huge apple tree, one large branch of which bent strongly under its own weight and created a kind of “secret place”, a gazebo of branches. We (the girls) picked and tore the mosquito net on the window and at night began to crawl out through it into the street, climbing into the gazebo and telling horror stories there. We were small and thin and easily climbed through, something that adults could not think of for a long time. A few days later we were burned to death by boys who, out of envy, handed us over to the teachers. They installed a new net for us and covered our trips, which is a pity) Such memories)

I have two older brothers, so my parents somehow managed to place me in their squads, and due to the fact that I was always several years younger than everyone else, they treated me in a special way, at the same time, many fun things were not available to me, due to this same factor. Each shift ended with a “royal night”, after which everyone woke up with toothpaste all over their bodies, girls and boys staged raids almost every night in the opposite wings of the building, stole clothes and hygiene items in the “enemy camp”, and at night from time to time gathered in secluded corners with lanterns, and while the counselors were relaxing, they told horror stories, called the queens of spades and learned to kiss. In one camp, the shift ended with a day of self-government, when the camp turned into a city with its own money and all kinds of entertainment and ways to spend and earn it. It was possible to hire guys for any kind of work, massage the legs, get to another building on a stretcher, etc. Since I was the youngest on the shift, the head counselor made me the queen of the day, and I was allowed to do and buy whatever I wanted. The day ended around the fire, around which they sang songs, told poems and all sorts of stories. In one of the camps in Alushta, they ran away from the camp at night to swim in the sea at night, and went to local discos. Almost all of my childhood birthdays took place in the camps, and when my parents came to congratulate me, they prepared all sorts of gifts and gifts, since I celebrated it with the whole detachment, these were also feasts, because everyone on that day was allowed to drink and eat whatever they brought. parents, no restrictions. And probably not the most pleasant thing is that, having quarreled with one boy, I received a scar on my forehead, because he pushed me into a 3-meter basement, although he later received it from both the counselors and my brothers. In short, it was a fun time, something like that.

There was a "career guidance day" at the children's camp. In fact, each squad simply did their own “business” (some set up a post office, some were a taxi, there were origami training groups and much more), and the task was to collect the maximum amount of game money.
We had either a circus tent or a leisure center. I had a deck of cards and a very great desire to win... I wondered.

At first there was a queue of 5 people. Then 20, then 40. In total there were 220 people in the camp, and 170 passed through my “fortune telling table”. In general, for two days of this event I was busy to capacity.
At the end of 2 days, many people ran out of game money and I agreed to take “gifts” and real money. Our room was provided with sweets for the week ahead :) And the early passion for psychology and criminology, and a little - the ability to analyze, are to blame for everything. In general, it was cool!)

By the way, about jokes and practical jokes. A milk chocolate under a blanket on a warm summer morning is more invigorating than toothpaste and causes a storm of emotions in the victim. I myself never joked or mocked, but there were precedents around me)))

At nine years old, I found myself in a standard children's camp in the Ivanovo region. During sleep time, one of the informal leaders of the detachment, a large boor G., persistently persuaded some small boy (not in good health, judging by his face and behavior) to have, excuse me, oral sex with him (in a passive position for the holy fool) for some a small thing like a day of undivided use of a portable console. It was obvious to everyone that this was a prank, but the little guy had clearly prepared himself for a difficult and humiliating process, and not out of motivation in the form of a toy, but from the hopelessness and assertiveness of that freak.

There was a lot of things, and almost everything happened on the Royal Night. During the shift itself, I didn’t want to misbehave and ruin the counselor’s life, but in the last couple of hours - why not! Ahah

One day, the girls from the room and I pulled off a cool plan: we went to bed on time, without disturbing anyone and pretending that we knew nothing about the tradition of smearing ourselves with paste. But they foresaw that the boys from the detachment would trample towards us at night, and they placed plastic cups on the door in such a way that when the door was opened, they would all fall on those entering. Of course, they came to us at night as scheduled. When the glasses fell, everyone got scared and ran away to sleep. We, pretending that we were still sleeping, waited for a while until everyone returned to sleep, and then went to smear everyone ourselves. The whole squad got it from us: D And, most importantly, no one even woke up (there were about 20 people)! And in order to completely confuse everyone, we smeared ourselves a little with the paste, and no one thought that it was us)

It was the last, royal night at the camp by the lake, which I went to with my class. The camp was located in the forest, on the shore of a lake (I’ll hide the name). We lived in tents, got wood, fire, in general, all the conditions for a “wild” life.

Unfortunately, the forest guards did not allow us to make a fire due to the high wind, and therefore the entire camp sat in the dark. Someone was dancing on the playground, someone was sitting in their tent, and someone, like me, was sitting at the table and chatting with the class teacher, Svetlana Ivanovna. Svetlana Ivanovna told us her stories from her life, and we, her beloved and uneducated children, listened to her. Suddenly Svetlana Ivanovna stopped her story and began to speak more quietly:
- Do you hear a howl in the forest?
“No,” I answered. Maybe I'm deaf? But in reality, no howling was heard.
“Listen,” Svetlana Ivanovna said even more quietly. I still didn’t hear anything, but I pretended to be scared.
- And who is it? - asked my classmate Nastya.

Monster. Inna Viktorovna told me that when she and Nadezhda Nikolaevna were looking for sticks in the forest, they heard a howl. A monster stood before them. Inna Viktorovna said that he was dark, shaggy, he had visible cheekbones, a slightly lowered chin and small eyes.
- Tsoi, or what? - Daniil asked cheerfully. Svetlana Ivanovna looked at him tiredly and continued the story.
- So, he walks around the tents. So be careful.
I looked at the forest in fear and crossed myself. Yes, I did it on purpose.

Closer to midnight, everyone went to their tents. I lived in a tent with Marina. We decided to stay up all night because our classmates were supposed to cover us with paste, so we read the news on VKontakte. This went on until one o'clock in the morning. Suddenly, not far from our tent, a branch broke. Marina and I didn’t pay attention, you never know. But when a shadow hung over our tent, which we simply felt, it was almost invisible, but someone’s presence was felt. I was the first one who couldn't stand it:
- Guys, if you came to smear us with paste, then go to bed.
Silence in response. But no one left. And then a howl. He was plaintive, reminiscent of a wolf, but a little softer. Not a simple “oooh”, but something real that cannot be described in words. Marina turned off the phone and hid in her sleeping bag.
- Hey, where are you going? - I asked.
- If you’re so brave, sit down and solve the problem. And I'm afraid. I'm going to sleep.
And suddenly hands reached out to us through the walls of the tent. It was impossible to determine whose they were. We just hid in the corner of the tent and quietly screamed. By the way, I still don’t understand how Marina managed to jump out of the bag in a second and move to the other end of the tent.
- Hey, hamadryas! Let's go away! - I screamed. And silence. Marina began to push me towards the “doors” of the tent. - What are you doing?
“Go check it,” Marina said without emotion. I swallowed and pulled the lock. Carefully she opened the zipper and looked out. There was no one on the street. - What's there?
“There’s no one there,” I answered, closing the tent.
- Exactly guys. Well, I'll arrange it for them tomorrow.
“We heard, hamadryas, we’ll arrange something like this for you tomorrow,” I added.
And suddenly Svetlana Ivanovna’s voice:
- If you don’t fall asleep now, I’ll bring you such a hamadryas!

Marina’s and my faces should have been seen. After that, we lay for another hour and thought that we had suddenly said something wrong and that tomorrow we would get a scolding from the class teacher.

August 14th, 2015 , 05:23 pm

"Royal Night" in the (pioneer) camp. This is the last night before departure. None of the adults installed it, but it exists behind the scenes. Sometimes the children themselves ask the counselors: “Will we have a royal night?” What can the counselors do? Take away and hide toothpastes, since on the “royal night” it is customary to smear each other with toothpaste. And this is the most innocent “fun”.

This is reminiscent of a rite of passage in traditional societies.

Teenagers in traditional societies are initiated by spirits. Adult, experienced members of the community only help initiation and create conditions for meeting with spirits. In the children's camp, of course, no one has ever heard of any kind of primitive “initiations,” but, nevertheless, the children themselves, at their own peril and risk, try to create some semblance of initiation. Adults prohibit it, but it’s like “the devils are inciting them.”

It is clear that children do not succeed in anything, and cannot succeed, but what is extremely remarkable is this unconscious attempt to create rite of passage. Actually, all the traditional signs of initiation are present here: a break with parents, a temporary stay in the unknown world of camp life, here the teenager must prove his willpower, not cry, and pass tests. But these tests are “not scary”, and so at the end of the race the children themselves give themselves and each other additional “super tests”. The last night before departure is chosen, of course, because the tests must be “terrible”, maybe even criminal. Well, in the morning we will “go home” and no one will hold us accountable for our crimes: yesterday our parents were not there, and today there are no teachers.

We should not forget that all the “fun” of the “royal night” has a sexual connotation. For the queens spent their nights as they pleased and with whomever they pleased. Of course, all this is more in fantasies and, as a rule, things don’t go further than smearing girls with toothpaste, but erotic arousal does take place, like the night before Ivan Kupala. On the "royal night" some miracles are expected, like the story from the film "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath." Without the expectation of such miracles, there would be no “royal nights”.

Health complexes, sanatoriums and recreation centers on the Black Sea coast, in valleys in the middle of the Carpathians or in Vorzel near Kiev. Summer camp, where everyone and us were sent at least once in our lives, is new acquaintances, unprecedented adventures, first confessions and simply a way to become more mature.

Do you remember how, returning home, we felt like slightly different people, because in 21 days away from our parents we gained so much experience that we could no longer be the same mummy’s boys and good girls? Of course, for some, the camp became a serious test and quite an exercise in social adaptation. But we are sure that now you remember those times with the same warmth and trepidation as we do.

Squad chants

And also chants, buzzers, squeaks and whistles, which were invented on the first day, as soon as we were divided into “crazy hedgehogs”, “wild penguins” and “cool cucumbers”. These distinctive quatrains had to be pronounced as amicably and loudly as possible 10–15 times a day - before and after meals, at competitions, concerts and even discos.

“Heels together, toes apart!”

They probably wanted to raise us to be healthy and strong members of society. But at 13 years old, waking up at 7am defied common sense and seemed nothing less than torture. For one truant, the entire squad could be fined - deprived of some points or even not allowed to go to the disco. No matter how painful it was to wake up early in the morning, you still had to walk and turn the “mill” and imitate a swallow along with everyone else.

"Mom, I'm not hungry"

Every meal in the camp is a whole ritual. You couldn’t just come to the dining room and eat in peace. First, we had to line up, report to the counselors that everyone was assembled, arrange a battle in the spirit of “whose squad has worked up the biggest appetite,” and only then start eating. After breakfast, lunch and dinner, it was customary to shout: “Thank you to our chefs for cooking so deliciously for us!” And it was truly delicious. Remember navy pasta? What about rubber pancakes with condensed milk? For some reason, neither my mother nor my grandmother ever succeeded in doing this.

Quiet hour

We went to all sorts of lengths to save ourselves from napping after lunch: play the tricky “fool”, have a pillow fight, feast on “stuff” from the nightstands saved from home, or get a dragon on our shoulder (temporary, of course) ). The bravest managed to escape beyond the camp territory, where they could indulge in forbidden leisure activities - meet the locals, smoke and drink low-alcohol drinks.

Shop 5 km from the camp

Even if it was on the other side of the world, we would still go there. No, not because five meals a day in the canteen were not enough for us. Well, how can soups and porridges with cutlets compare with the treasured pack of crab-flavored chips or huba-buba chewing gum?

Inspection of rooms

God forbid, someone’s pillow won’t stand up like a boat or there will be a candy wrapper from “Rachka” lying on the bedside table - such mistakes could result in fines and additional checks. And who needed them? It was necessary to maintain cleanliness not only outside, but also under the beds and in the nightstands - places for spoiled sandwiches, rotten apples and dirty socks.

"Gypsy Night"

This fun took place after midnight. Its essence is to sneak into someone else's room, find red things there and take them with you. The item was returned to the owner only for a kiss.

Spend a day at the infirmary

We used the skill of simulating migraines and abdominal pain, honed at home (when we didn’t want to go to school), in summer camps, especially when your friend got sick and was bored in the isolation ward alone. The unpleasant thing was that I had to drink potassium permanganate or even undergo an intramuscular injection. But then you didn’t have to go to exercise and spend the whole day doing other activities.

Exchange of clothes

Then we weren’t snobs and didn’t bother with the fact that today everyone saw you in this top, and tomorrow one of your friends is embroidering in it. And although this was mainly practiced by girls, guys also did not hesitate to borrow jeans from a neighbor with a large waistband (like Timothy’s) in order to sketch on the disk.

Discos

Everyone was looking forward to the evening program with special excitement. The girls tested cosmetics borrowed from their older friends, and the boys took dance lessons and practiced kissing on tomatoes. Timid hesitations, awkward kisses and sudden fights. For some, harmless dancing in the assembly hall continued in secluded places where teenagers had their first sexual experience.

Gatherings by the fire

At every shift there was a handsome counselor or a boy from the senior group who played the guitar and made all the girls suffer from unrequited love. The luckiest ones got to hang out with him and his company. They were the ones who taught you how to smoke and introduced you to the work of “Spleen”, “Bi-2” and “Night Snipers”. For a snack there was always the favorite “Lish vona, lish vona, sit down sumna...”.

Night entertainment

After lights out, when the lights went out, a completely different life began in the camp. We told horror stories, summoned a foul-mouthed gnome, a king of diamonds and a queen of spades, and overcame a road full of roadblocks with counselors to the next block to play strip cards with boys/girls.

Farewell evenings

There's nothing sadder at summer camp than a breakup. In three inseparable weeks, we managed not only to become friends, but to literally become relatives - brothers and sisters, sometimes even by blood. To consolidate this status, on the last evening we arranged an exchange of all sorts of trinkets, signed photographs and filled out forms (these homemade ones, in notebooks). The counselors lit a fire the height of a three-story building, on which we roasted sausages.

"Royal Night"

No, no one was appointed kings and queens. This was the name of the last night of the shift, when all the remaining toothpaste in the camp was smeared on the sleeping people. In order not to wake up the victims of the massacre, the paste was heated, and then the person’s face and body were painted with it.

A unique collective experience

Despite almost army discipline, we managed to work together to find loopholes and circumvent strict rules. We practiced our intelligence and developed together, which made us aware of ourselves as individuals. True, some still cannot close the gestalts of that time, but that is a completely different story.