You can’t admit to knowing too much. If the grown-ups understood better, things would be different.

Kaytek says: “I don’t know what they want from me.”

Although he knows perfectly well.

He says: “All lies, from beginning to end.”

Although there is some truth in it.

They say: “He hit the boy so hard he couldn’t move afterward.”

“How come he couldn’t move? I didn’t kill him, did I?”

“He almost broke his arm.”

So you’re supposed to answer not just for what you really did, but also for what could have happened.

Of course, there are some serious boys, but they’re stuck on themselves.

They’re either the silent type, or the touchy kind.

At once they say:

“Lay off.”

“Stop that.”

“Get lost.”

Kaytek’s in the third grade at school.

But there are non-stop complaints here too.

When he joined the first grade, the teacher praised him.

“You can read already. Who taught you?” she asked.

“I taught myself.”

“All by yourself?”

“It’s not hard at all.”

He sat in the front row.

And then it began:

“Sit up straight. Don’t fidget. Don’t talk.”

And again:

“Don’t fidget. Sit quietly. Don’t play with your pencil. Pay attention.”

The start of the class is easy. But then it gets harder and harder.

When will the bell finally go?

The teacher tells them something interesting. She gets awfully riled if they interrupt. She starts to get so mad you don’t want to listen any more.

At home you’re allowed to lean against the table while Dad is telling a story, you’re allowed to lean against the bed while Mom is telling a fairy tale, and lean against a chest while Grandma is reminiscing about the past.

At home you’re allowed to bend and stretch, and ask a question if you don’t understand.

But at school if you want to say something you have to put two fingers in the air and wait.

Well, all right. There are lots of kids in the class and the teacher can’t talk to you separately because the others will start to make a noise. And that’s a terrible drag.

“Well, Antek?” asks his father. “How did you get on at school today?”

“Humph.”

“What’s up at school?”

“Nothing.”

He doesn’t even like talking about school much.

The teacher moved him to the fourth row by the window.

But you’re not allowed to look out of the window.

In the front row his neighbor was quiet, but the kid in the fourth row keeps pestering him, tugging the back of his ear. It doesn’t hurt, but what’s his game?

Kaytek tries telling him to stop, and at once the teacher says: “Don’t turn around.”

“What if I have to?”

“Go stand in the corner.”

“But you don’t know the facts,” mutters Kaytek.

“Leave the room.”

Until finally they send for his father.

“What have you been up to?”

“I had a fight with a boy. He started spreading it around that I’m called Kaytek.”

“Because it’s true – that’s what they call you.”

“So what if it’s true? The yard at home is one thing, school’s quite another.”

“You should have explained that to him.”

“And how. Sure he’ll listen next time.”

“You mustn’t fight.”

“I know.”

“Oh, Antek, you’re making a bad start. Oh, Antek, I’m going to lose my patience . . .”

At the school office the teacher does a lot of complaining.

“He doesn’t do as he’s told. He behaves badly to his classmates. He asks for trouble. He bad-mouths the others.”

His father is worried.

“You have to make an effort.”

He does, but what of it?

It’s all right for a few days, but then there’s another fuss.

Someone sits in front of Kaytek and jogs him with their elbow; not him, but his exercise book.

“Get your arm off,” says Kaytek.

“Why should I? It’s not illegal,” says the kid.

“Just you wait – I’ll get you after the bell.”

“Gee, I’m so afraid.”

Kaytek just pushes him a little, but the boy knocks his elbow against the inkwell and spills the ink. And lies about it too.

But the teacher doesn’t believe Kaytek.

The other guy gets away with it, but Kaytek doesn’t.

Kaytek does make an effort.

All for nothing.

If he’s quiet in class, he’ll make trouble in the recess.

Until eventually his anger gets the better of him.

And then it’s not worth making an effort any more.

And he can’t always restrain himself when something tempts him or a joke occurs to him.

So one time Kaytek got bored during arithmetic.

Even the teacher was looking at his watch and waiting for the bell.

What can I do to make the lesson end sooner? thought Kaytek.

He jumps up on the bench.

“Eeek, sir, there’s a mouse! In the hole by the stove.*** You can still see its tail.”

The teacher falls for it.

“You should be ashamed. A big boy like you, afraid of mice.”

The whole class starts laughing. Just to suck up to the teacher.

“He’s afraid of mice. He’s yellow!”

Kaytek gets down from the bench and says:

“Phooey! There wasn’t a mouse, I was just kidding.”

“There was one too,” they say.

“Then you look for it, in the hole by the stove.”

They take a look; there really isn’t one.

He thought the teacher was sad, so he was just trying to cheer him up.

But the teacher was annoyed.

At once he started writing a note to Kaytek’s father.

Only the bell saved him.

They say he’s a clown.

It’s not true.

He reads a lot, and he does some serious thinking, and asks smart questions in class. But his classmates don’t respect him for that at all, only for the nonsense.

* Some Polish homes used to have holy pictures with a light or a candle burning in front of them.

** See Translator’s Afterword for more about Kaytek’s name.

*** Buildings used to be heated by large stoves, even in classrooms.

Chapter Three

The world is strange and mysterious – A magical clock – Kaytek taught himself to read

Kaytek likes anything fun.

He likes things that are hard.

But most of all he likes things that are mysterious.

The first mysterious fairy tale his mom told him was about Little Red Riding Hood.

From this fairy tale he found out there are wolves. Wild animals.

He saw a wolf in a picture. It looked like a dog.

After that he saw a wolf in an iron cage.

He wanted to put his hand between the bars; he wanted to try. But his mom wouldn’t let him.

Another fairy tale was about Sleeping Beauty.

This time he found out there are fairy godmothers.

The third one was about Cinderella.

The fairy godmother touched Cinderella with her wand and the poor little orphan girl changed into a princess.

Later on, Kaytek saw a real magician’s wand.

It was at a show in the park.

The man struck the wand against some water, and the water changed into wine.

Then the man cut up a handkerchief and put the pieces in a hat. He tapped the hat with his wand and said: “Hocus pocus.”

And the handkerchief was whole again.

Kaytek’s dad says those are magic tricks.

“But how’s it done?”

Kaytek is very curious to know.

“Mom, tell me a fairy tale,” he asks.

It’s the story of Puss in Boots.

In the one he heard earlier a wolf talks to Red Riding Hood, and in this one a cat talks to the miller’s son.

“Can you really talk to a cat?”

Mom says it’s just a fairy tale.

Grandma says hermits talk to animals.

Dad says there are talking birds.