He can go fetch the boy who lent him the hammer and held the board.

Yet again they come and complain.

“He broke a window. He threw a stone.”

“I saw him running away. He threw it at a dog.”

“It wasn’t a dog, it was a cat! It wasn’t a stone, it was a piece of brick! A completely different boy broke the window.” They had just run away together.

Kaytek knows who did it, but he won’t tell.

“Why can’t that lady look properly?”

And even so, she still comes and complains, and says he has to pay for the window!

It looks as if no one else ever does anything bad, as if it’s only Kaytek who does all those things.

But there are worse kids than him!

The people say: “If he didn’t do it, it was one of his pals.”

So what? Is he responsible for all of them, or just for himself?

One time, when he was little, before he went to school, he went for a swim in the river, leaving his clothes on the sand.

He had his swim, and then he got out of the water. And in the distance he saw some rascals running away.

They’d taken everything: pants, shoes, cap, even his shirt.

A man took pity on him, wrapped him in his jacket, and took him home.

And there was quite a fuss.

So little boys can be thieves too.

But Kaytek never touches other people’s stuff. He can’t stand thieves.

He’s just had lots of adventures.

When Helenka was alive, they used to jump down the stairs; from one step up, from two, from three, from four, and from five.

He wanted to prove he could jump without holding the banister.

And he did it – he jumped from five steps up. He’d have been fine, but he was wearing new shoes . . . with slippery soles . . .

He had to stay in bed for a long time after that.

Now the hair in that spot on his head never grows.

Because of the scar.

Kaytek has another scar on his leg where the butcher’s dog bit him.

Because the boys said no one could pet that dog.

“He’s a bad dog.”

“I’ll try, I’ll be really careful. It might work.”

He had tried being really careful. And it hadn’t worked.

He once made a bet he could dash across the road in front of a tramcar.

“You might trip. Better skip it.”

“Why should I trip?”

“You won’t make it.”

“All right then, I bet you.”

But the bet never happened. The tram driver slammed on the brakes and stopped in time, and Kaytek was escorted home by a policeman.

He was forbidden to go outside for a whole week.

Once he was left alone in the apartment.

He wanted to surprise everyone by chopping firewood with an ax.

That didn’t work either.

That was how Kaytek got his third scar, on a finger on his left hand.

But it could have been much worse. Next time he was left at home, he tried to light the gas-lamp in front of the holy icon,* but the curtain caught fire. Luckily, just then Grandma came home and put out the fire.

Kaytek just has that sort of nature – he has to see and know, and then try for himself.

Mom told him a fairy tale about Ali Baba.

Ali Baba was the leader of the thieves.

He was an Arabian bandit. There were forty of them. Ali Baba was the chief – the ringleader.

The thieves had an underground cave in the forest. They called their cave Sesame.

That was where they hid the treasure they had stolen. There were sacks full of ducats and gold and precious jewels and diamonds.

There was a magic doorway into the cave.

If you said: “Open, Sesame,” the door opened by itself.

The fairy tale was very interesting.

So that night Kaytek was lying in bed, thinking about hidden treasure.

And then he asked his dad: “Is there really treasure?”

Not in a fairy tale, but for real.

Because when Mom and Grandma don’t explain things properly, he checks with his dad.

“Yes, there is,” said his dad. “There were wars fought on our lands. The enemy went around burning and robbing the houses, so people buried anything valuable. Not so long ago it said in the newspaper they’d found a pot full of coins in a field.”

His father said the government minister prints paper money because gold is too heavy to carry, so gold bars are kept hidden in cellars.

Kaytek didn’t understand this very well, because it was too hard. Or maybe he was sleepy at the time.

Well, I had better give it a try, he thought.

All right. So that day he went into the cellar of the apartment building with Grandma to fetch some coal.

You have to go downstairs, under the ground. And there’s a door and a long corridor. And there are various small doors, each leading into a separate cellar.

Grandma lights a candle. Along they go, and there in the corner of the corridor stands a barrel.

Kaytek hides behind the barrel.

Grandma has put some coal in the bucket and she’s leaving. But Kaytek has vanished.

“Antek! Antek!” calls Grandma.

Where has the boy got to?

But he’s crouched down behind the barrel, waiting quietly.

Grandma thinks he must have gone outside already. So she padlocks the cellar shut.

Kaytek is left in the dark corridor. But he’s not afraid. He wonders if he’ll be strong enough to lift a heavy gold bar.

He looks in the barrel – it’s empty.

He feels his way to the first door and says: “Open, Sesame!”

Nothing happens. He feels his way to the second door and says: “Open, Sesame!”

Again nothing happens.

He walks up and down.