Crane and Lightning

In the small town of Kartisk lives eleven-year-old Yura Zhuravin, nicknamed Zhurka. His father is a driver, his mother is a typist, whose favorite pastime is to sew costumes. In the regional center lives a grandfather on the mother's side. Zhurka is rarely seen with his grandfather because of the difficult relationship that has developed between Zhurka’s grandfather and father.

That summer, when Zhurka enters fifth grade, his grandfather dies. After him remains the apartment. Zhurka's parents decide to move to this apartment, all the more so since they live in a communal apartment in Kartisk , and grandfather’s apartment is not only separate, but also one-bedroom.

The apartment they moved into is full of books - my grandfather has been collecting books for many years. In the room where Zhurka settled, there is a rack full of books that grandfather personally bequeathed to Zhurka. Among these books are many old ones published in past centuries, and Zhurka is imbued with the romance of those eras. The father does not understand the son’s hobbies with dusty folios, believing that it would be much more practical to sell all these books and furnish the apartment humanly with the money raised.

Flipping through the "Three Musketeers" , Zhurka discovers a letter that his grandfather wrote to him shortly before his death. In the letter, the grandfather urges Zhurk to be persistent and not be afraid to go against the opinions of others, if he is sure that he is right.

In the first three days, Zhurka met his peer Irinka - the daughter of a local artist, as well as the son of a policeman Gorky (short for Gorislav), who at one time was very friendly with Zhurkin’s grandfather. Gorky has a difficult life, since his father educates him severely and flogs him for misconduct - the late grandfather of Zhurka hid Gorky more than once when he had another conflict with his father. This time, Gorky was hiding from the Blue Lightning yard squad, which sentenced him to be shot from toy machines for desertion (Gorky was supposed to hand over the packet with the password to the guard, but he had to leave home, as he was punished). In the early morning, Zhurka and Gorky set up an ambush, driving the squad patrolling the area to a standstill, and "shot" them.

On the same day after Zhurka’s acquaintance with Gorky, the latter got into trouble - a local punks under the command of Corporal (nickname) persuades Gorky to steal a bottle of cognac for them from the store (for hangover after the birthday of one of their friends). Bitter comes across at the crime scene and ends up at the police station. Upon learning that Gorky is the son of a policeman, he is released and called to his father to deal with his son himself. Zhurka knows that his new comrade will face severe beating, and stands up for him, explaining to Gorky’s father that Gorky tried to steal the bottle at the instigation of Corporal and his company, and by no means on his own initiative. This saves Gorky from retaliation, but Zhurka himself is captured by the corporal on the same day. However, contrary to Zhurkin’s fears, Corporal prevents the reprisal against Zhurka and tries to explain to him that he is mistaken only in one thing - according to Corporal, Gorky was punished not for stealing , but for being inept and caught . All kinds of small thefts and bribes, according to Corporal, are engaged in absolutely everything and no one considers it wrong. When Zhurka does not believe, Corporal calls him an idealist and lets him go in peace.

The school year begins, and Zhurka is in the same class as Irinka, Gorky and the other guys he met in the summer. Zhurkina’s friendship with Irinka is growing stronger, and her father Igor Dmitrievich is painting with Zhurka and Irinka a picture called “Summer Day”. Gradually, Zhurka learns that Igor Dmitrievich has a tense relationship with his bosses, which puts him in the wheel every now and then - prevents him from opening his own workshop and joining the Union of Artists.

Once Zhurka comes home and discovers the loss of a valuable book inherited from his grandfather. Father vowingly assures Zhurka that he has nothing to do with the loss of the book. Then Zhurka suspects the loss of the book to Gorky, since he was the only one who visited Zhurka’s house the day before. Bitter is offended by Zhurka and, in his absence, brings him all the books that he took from him to read just a few days ago. Gorky sees the injustice of the situation - someone stole a book from Zhurka and because of this deprived Gorky of Zhurkina’s friendship - and decides to find the book at the second-hand bookstore by all means. He succeeds, but he cannot find out exactly who handed over the book to the store, because he is afraid of the harsh elderly shop assistant. Gorky runs home and tries to attract his father, a policeman, to the cause, but he refuses. Then Gorka reports the location of the missing book to Irinka.

The next day, Zhurka, accompanied by Irinka and her father Igor Dmitrievich, goes to a second-hand bookstore and there he learns that the book was handed over to none other than Zhurka's father, who needed money to pay the loaders to deliver the mirror. Zhurka is shocked by the information received, and he begins to understand that Corporal in his speech about universal theft was not so wrong. Arriving home, Zhurka exposes his father in a lie and calls him a thief. For this, father for the first time in his life cruelly smacks Zhurka.

Zhurka decides to leave home, because after what has happened, he does not want to be left alone with his father (his mother is in the hospital). Through the window he gets into the street, and a passing car sprinkles dirt on him. Zhurka furiously takes a piece of rubble and tries to throw it into this car. At this moment, the corporal holds his hand in, he immediately notices Zhurka’s restlessness, offers him his jacket and invites him to come. For a moment, Zhurka thinks it would be nice to spite the whole world to contact the Corporal company, but still decides not to. He thanks Corporal for the help, but settles for three days not with him, but with his former teacher, who had also moved to this city a year before.

With the return of his mother, Zhurka moves back home, but he avoids his father. The father is trying to establish relations with his son, but he does not succeed. Soon, his father goes on a long business trip, earns extra money and buys a color TV. On a new TV, Zhurka accidentally sees the program “Teenager - worries and worries,” in which close-ups show the father of Irinka Igor Dmitrievich, who was detained while intoxicated. Zhurka remembers the unusual name of the director of the program - Kerguelen.

The next day, Zhurka is afraid that Irinka will be persecuted for the fact that her father, known in the city, was shown in such an unpresentable form. When one of the students by the name of Tolka really mentions this fact, he gets from Irinka, Gorky, and Zhurka, and another classmate named Rake. For beating the “comrade”, the head teacher wants to put an unsatisfactory mark on behavior for all participants in the couples, but the director, striving to be fair, cancels this punishment.

At the same time, it’s from Zhurka that Zhurka learns that on the eve of Corporal they arrested him for a fight on New Year’s Eve, and a member of his gang laid down Corporal. Zhurka feels some remorse, as Corporal treated Zhurka well and was ready to help him at a difficult moment, and Zhurka did not accept his help then.

Meanwhile, Zhurka and Irinka play the main roles in the school play based on the remake of the fairy tale about Cinderella , written by a teacher of literature and part-time director of the school drama circle. The performance is successful, but after the premiere in early May, Irinka and her family urgently need to leave the city, since Igor Dmitrievich after the story of getting into the detoxification and showing it on television in this city no longer shines. Irinka leaves a day earlier than planned, and Zhurka does not have time to say goodbye to her. Upon learning that Irinka and her father left only half an hour ago, Zhurka persuades his father to catch them in a car in order to say goodbye at the airport. Unfortunately, they do not reach the airport, as someone throws a stone at the car and breaks the windshield. As a result, his father’s face was cut and he has to go to dressings every day.

Soon the culprit of this crime is discovered - a boy a little younger than Zhurka, named Valerik. His mother leads him to Zhurkina’s father at home, but only Zhurka’s at home. Zhurka is trying to understand what made him throw the stone (since Zhurka himself half a year before, after a quarrel with his father, he nearly launched the stone into someone else's car). To this end, he spends several hours with Valera and even accompanies him to the dentist. He sees Valerka the next day, which causes a certain jealousy of Gorky.

It was decided to shoot the performance about Cinderella on television. A few minutes before the start of the shooting, Zhurka accidentally learns that the director is none other than Kerguelen, who shot the very program “Teenager - worries and worries” that caused so much trouble and forced Irinkin to leave the city. Having learned the name of the director, Zhurka flatly refuses to act, and no persuasion and threats from teachers and the director can shake his confidence - he firmly follows the covenant that his grandfather wrote in his last letter. Gorky also refuses to act, especially since his father left the family, and fear left with him.

Zhurka and Gorky, having disrupted the shooting, leave school. It rains, on one of the streets - a failure. Zhurka is standing near a dangerous place so that no car gets into a catastrophe, and Gorka runs to school to call high school students for help.

In the novel, Gennady Koshkaryov, one of the main characters of another famous work by Krapivin, “Lullaby for Brother”, appears as an episodic character. Despite the fact that Gennady appears on the scene only once in Zhuravlyonka, his role is important - it was at his request that Zhurka ended up in the teacher's room, where he learned, accidentally hearing a piece of a telephone conversation, the name of the director; then, when the director threatens Zhurka with financial liability for simple television equipment, Koshkaryov intervenes and explains that no one can force Zhurka to pay anything, since he did not sign the shooting agreements. Also, Koshkaryov is clearly mentioned in the house of the teacher Zhurka - Lydia Sergeevna. It was he who composed the song that her husband and son sang for Zhurka. At this point, Koshkaryov’s brainchild is also mentioned - the Captain Grant hafel ketch. However, no other characters from “Lullaby for Brother” appear in “The Crane” and “The Crane” does not continue the “Lullaby” event, so it is not known whether these two works can be considered a dilogy .

• The novel "Crane and Lightning" on the writer's official website

Criticism

• Alexey Kopeikin. Vladislav Krapivin. Crane and lightning (rus.) . Biblioguide (January 2, 2012). Date of appeal April 23, 2018.
• Meshavkin S.F. Boys of the Universe (Strokes to the portrait of Vladislav Krapivin) // Ural . - 1988. - No. 10 .