It’s dark in there.

He wanders about, searching. He doesn’t even know where he is any more. He just blunders about in the dark, in silence.

“Open, Sesame!”

But then he starts to cry. Suddenly he’s feeling scared.

Because what if there are ghosts or rats in there?

He was little then. It was before he went to school.

He shouted, and banged his hand against the wall.

He thought he’d never get out of there.

“Momma, Grandma!”

And he might really have sat there for a long time, because Grandma wasn’t looking for him. It wasn’t exactly the first time Kaytek had been out in the street or at a neighbor’s house.

He was starting to lose his voice.

“Grandma, Dad, Momma!”

But the people on the stairs couldn’t hear him for the clatter of their shoes. And Kaytek wasn’t standing by the door, but at the far end, somewhere near the barrel.

Then along comes the mailman. He stops in the hallway and sorts the letters in his bag. And he hears something. He listens. What’s that? Someone’s shut in the cellar.

Probably a kid.

And he calls out.

“Why didn’t you respond when Grandma called you?” they asked afterward. “Why did you creep behind the barrel?”

He didn’t answer, not because he was afraid of being punished, he just didn’t want to. He had suffered enough already. But they were still laughing at him.

“Oh, Antek, Antek, always up to something!”

Kaytek’s real name is Antek. That’s what they call him at home.

He became Kaytek out in the yard with the boys.

Because one day he was standing by the gate smoking a cigarette.

He drags on it and puffs, drags and puffs.

And he’s trying to make lots of smoke. Because he paid five groshys for the cigarette, so he wants it to look neat.

He could have bought chocolate, but a cigarette is more interesting.

And along the street comes a soldier.

He stops, looks and laughs.

“Well I never!” he says. “Look at little Kaytek puffing away like a steam train!”**

“So?”

Antek was embarrassed and offended.

And at once the boys were saying: “Kaytek! Kaytek!”

They were annoyed because he wouldn’t let them have a drag. They were afraid to smoke themselves, but they envied him.

And so that’s how it stayed: not Antek, but Kaytek.

That’s how it is with nicknames. If you’re not annoyed, they usually forget about it and stop. But if you get riled, they use it all the more. Because they love to tease.

At first Kaytek fought back – he wasn’t going to let them change his name. But how can one guy alone beat everyone else?

What’s more there were two Anteks in the yard, so it was more convenient for one of them to be Kaytek. They’d know who was being called. Eventually he got used to it, but not entirely. And on the whole he didn’t like his playmates much anyway.

Kaytek is in his third year at school now, but he’s never had a good friend for long. There are very few really decent ones. Because they just pretend to be. They’re toadies.

And that’s because they’re afraid. They’re quiet out of fear, because at home they get shouted at or beaten. That type tells the most lies.

Kaytek has learned to fib and pretend too.