118
TALES FROMTHE FUTURE
An elderly woman who looked like a teacher took the floor and began
talking about how bad it is to indulge and flatter children for the sake of
their self-esteem.
“Any lie will be exposed in time, and then how are we all going to look?
This is not simply a lie, it is cowardice,” the woman said.
The red-haired girl latched onto the lapels of her father’s jacket. She
began shaking him, nearly crying, repeating in a breaking voice, “Papochka,
you lied about energy. Did you lie, Papochka? Because we’re children? The
lady said you were being cowardly. Is being cowardly a bad thing?”
Silence fell in the open-air hall. The professor lifted his head, looked into
his daughters eyes, put his hand on her little shoulder, and said softly, “I be-
lieved what I said, my daughter.”
The red-haired child fell silent again. Then she quickly climbed up on the
seat and her high child’s voice shouted to the hall, “My papa is not cow-
ardly. My father believed it!He believed it!”
The little girl sent her gaze around the now quiet hall. No one looked in
their direction. She turned toward her mother. But the young woman had
turned away and lowered her head, buttoning and unbuttoning the buttons
on her jacket sleeve. The little girl again sent her gaze around the silent hall
and turned to her father. The professor continued as before to look help-
lessly at his little daughter. The red-haired girl’s voice was heard again in
the absolute silence, but now it was kind and not loud.
“The people don’t believe you, Papochka. They don’t believe it because
an energy still hasn’t appeared on Earth that could open the flowers’ petals
like the nice Sun. But when it does appear, all the people will believe you.
When it appears, they will believe you.”
She straightened her bangs with a quick movement, jumped into the aisle,
and ran off. When she reached the edge of the open-air hall she headed for
one of the nearby houses, ran in the door, and a couple of seconds later ap-
peared in the doorway again. She was holding a pot with some kind of plant
in it. She ran with it to the now empty table for the speaker. She put the pot-
ted plant on the table, and her child’s voice, loud and confident, was heard
over the heads of those present.
