Charlie Marik's mom was getting ready to send her youngest son to first grade in school. Dad, a gamekeeper by trade, tall, broad shouldered, sporting a long gray beard, called out: "Okay Mama, we have to head out. We have an hour's journey, and hopefully we'll have time to still stop in at church."
Charlie's mother crossed his forehead and admonished him: "Now Charlie, be good and behave and stop at Aunt Albina's to remind her to come in for the goose! Remember to greet everybody! And don't wipe your nose on your sleeve! You have a handkerchief in your pocket for that. And now with God, you two be on your way!"
Charlie didn't really want to go. Until then grew up in the country, in the woods, in his parents' orchard. His mother let him get away with more than the others who were all grown. Dad had been nearly the whole day in the woods, and when Charlie heard that must go to school, shook his curly head and declared, "But Mom I can't go! Where would I find the time?"
It took a long while before Kaja understood that he's going to have to go. And when his mother told him: "In a week you must go," he curled red lips and smiled: "Gee, a week! That's still a long time! Mom that's like a year, right? " And he ran off into the woods.
But the week to flew by like an hour, today the day arrived in which Kaja had to set-out with his father to go to school. The only thing that consoled him were the pockets that his mom had sewn on his jacket and his pants.. He proudly told his dad: "Look, I'm already like a big man. I must have a hundred pockets!"
"A hundred?" replied his father. "You've got three."
"And isn't more than a hundred, Dad?"
"Just wait, you'll learn all about this in school!"
Charlie skipped alongside his father and by his tall, sturdy figure, seemed to be like a little hříbek (a classic kind of edible mushroom. The Czechs like most Slavs traditionally love picking mushrooms) under an oak tree. But he was far more excitable than a little hříbek.
As soon as he spotted the steeple of the church, Chalie stopped: "But Dad, I don't really have to go there! Let's go back! Mom's going to miss me. And I'm not going to be able to sit still in school!"
"Oh, if it could only be so, Charlie! Just come along nicely! And don't worry. In case you don't like it in school, I'm bringing your teacher a miraculous ointment. He'll put it on you and you're going to like school just like that!"
"This ointment, father, where do you have it?
"Under my jacket, son, I can't let the wind blow it away."
The church bells were ringing as they entered the town square. In town, Charlie only knew the church, where his parents sometimes took him on Sunday and below the church, he knew Aunt Albina's shop, a bakery.
"Now straighten your pocket and come along! The other boys are going to be impressed that you already have pockets!"
Kaja smiled to himself, "If only my father knew that I have something in every one of those pockets? In one a small green frog, the other a box with a couple of hairy caterpillars, and in the third on my jacket some ground beetles! "
He smiled happily and walked with his father to church. There were a lot of kids. There by the gate they were swarming around. Dad, the gamekeeper, pushed Charlie among them, sat himself in the first pew, and said to himself, "I have to see how our little savage behaves."
After Mass, went to school. Mr. Marik presented Charlie: "I'm signing up my son for school. Charles
Marik is his name, but we call him Charlie. He can't pronounce Charles. When talking about himself, he's always said, 'I Charlie', and so it stuck with him. Please understand, Sir teacher, he is a child of the forest, he's almost always away from home, he's like a little wild-man savage. So that can control him, I bring you and ointment for him," and pulled out from under his coat three nice brisk rods.
"Oh, I doubt that it'll be necessary," replied the teacher, who took a look at the energetic Charlie with big dark eyes and instantly took a liking to him.
"It will be necessary dear Sir. Just don't be stingy with the ointment! It grows quite readily out by us in the woods. "
After registering Charlie up for schook, he admonished him and started his walk home.
For the time being, Charlie greatly enjoyed school. He took his assigned seat and looked around the class.
"It's a really big room here," he thought, "as big as our whole house. And in the middle on the wall is a cross just like at home, and all around pictures -- very nice pictures."
The teacher writes and writes at his desk, and the suddenly gets up and asks, "Who of you can pray The Our Father? "
Charlie pops up: "I can and I know the Apostles Creed, and the Hail Holy Queen, the Prayer to the Guardian Angel, and oh teacher, I know a lot of prayers - I bet you don't know as many as I do!"
The teacher smiled and counted the raised hands: "Ok then, everyone, let us pray!" And the class prayed the Our Father.
After that everyone had be quiet, and this Charlie did not like. He listened for a while, looked around for a while longer, and suddenly he remembered that he hadn't seen a squirrel or a rabbit the whole day. He remembered, too, that my father brought the teacher a couple of hazel nut rods. For the time being, they lay quietly in the closet, but if the teacher took one in his hand and whacked someone with it, oh boy, would there be singing! At home, they also have a supply of those rods in the pantry. So that was the ointment! He didn't care for that much. He gets plenty of that at home.. Petey, the dog, surely must be looking for him . It's no use, he must go home. Charlie grabbed his cap in his hand, and shot like an arrow from his desk.
"Where are you going?" shouted the teacher.
"I'm sorry I no longer like it here. I must go home! I just don't have the time! "
The door closed quickly behind him, and before the teacher could get up to run after him, Charlie was already a street away. First he sprinted, then slowed to a steady run, and once outside the town he was able to settle down to a comfortable pace.
"I was supposed to remind my aunt to come by for the goose. I have to go back!" He looked around carefully. No one was chasing him. So he headed back again to the church. As he opened the door of Aunt Albina's bakery a bell rang, it was beautiful! Oh he had pleaded with dad to buy a bell for their door as well, but to no avail!
He opened and closed the door several times and enjoying the sound of the bell. Aunt Albina came out: "Well hello there, little school boy! I was thinking it was you. The teacher you out pretty early! "
Kaja paused: "No, aunt, he did not let us out, I left by myself. And you're to come to pick-up the goose!"
"So you ran away! Well, that's just great! Well go ahead and tell you're mom that I'll come by on Sunday!"
So Charlie left. He didn't even get a hot-bun and slowly trudged home. That was his first day of school.
