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TOP TO BOTTOM, BACK AND FORTH!

The summer before I started school our apartment house was being repaired. There were heaps of bricks and boards in the yard and a big pile of sand which we took over whenever we played games or made tunnels.

We were having a lot of fun and got to know the workers. We even helped them renovate the house. One day I took down a kettle of water to them and another time Lena showed the electricians where the back stairs were. We helped them in a lot of other ways, too, but I've forgotten which now.

Then one day they were all through with the job and were leaving. Before he left one of the men even shook hands with us and gave me a big bolt I needed.

After the workers were gone three young women showed up. They had on wonderful clothes: men's pants which had different colored paint splattered all over them and that made them hard and stiff. When they walked their pants sounded like sheets of iron rattling on a roof. They also wore paper hats made of folded newspapers which were very beautiful. They were house-painters and were called a team. They laughed a lot and sang, and one of the songs they sang was "Lillies of the Valley". I don't like that song. Lena and Misha don't like it, either. But we did like to watch them working, because they did everything so fast and so good. Their names were Sanya, Raya and Nellie.

We were watching them one day and Sanya said,

"Will one of you please go and find out what time it is?"

I went and found out, and came back, and said, "It's five to twelve."

"Time for lunch, girls! I'm going to the cafeteria," Sanya said and left. Raya and Nellie followed her out of the yard. They left the big can of paint open, and the pump and rubberhose. We went up real close to have a look at the part of the house they'd been painting. It looked fine. It was very even and brown, with a little red mixed in. Misha looked at it for a long time.

"D'you think if I pump this pump the paint'll spray out of the hose?" he said.

"I bet it won't," Lena said.

"I bet it will!" I said.

"Don't argue," Misha said. "Let's see. You hold the hose, Dennis, and I'll pump."

He pumped up and down a couple of times and paint suddenly began spraying out of the hose! It made a loud hissing sound like a snake, because the nozzle at the end of the hose had a lot of little holes in it, just like a watering can, except that these holes were very small and the spray was very fine.

"Go on! Start painting something!" Misha shouted.

I aimed the hose at an unpainted part of the wall. The paint sprayed out over it, leaving a light-brown splash that looked like a spider.

"Hooray!" Lena shouted. "Look at it spurt!" and she held her leg up under the spray.

It only took a second for me to cover her leg from shoe to knee with paint. In a flash all her scratches and bruises disappeared under a shiny, even brown coat of paint that made her leg look like a shiny wooden tenpin.

"Hey, that's great! Hurry up! Hold up your other leg!" Misha shouted.

Lena held up her other leg and I gave it two good coats of paint, top to bottom.

"Isn't she beautiful!" Misha said. "Her legs are like a real Indian squaw's. Go on, paint her!"

"All over? All of her? From top to bottom?" I asked.

Lena squealed delightedly at the very thought of it. "Come on! Top to bottom! I'll be a real Indian squab!"

Misha began pumping like mad, and I began spraying Lena. I did a real fine job on her back, arms, shoulders, stomach and shorts. She became brown all over, except for her hair, which was blond.

"How about her hair, Misha?"

"Sure! Go ahead!"

"Sure, go ahead!" Lena shouted. "And don't forget my ears!"

I finished painting her in no time flat and said, "Go stand in the sun and dry, Lena. What else can we paint?"

"See my mother's wash on the line? Let's paint it!" Misha said.

That was an easy job. It only took about a minute to spray the two big bath towels and Misha's shirt to make them look beautiful. Misha was pumping away like mad. "Come on, don't stop now! "See the new door downstairs? Let's paint it!"

I started spraying the door. Top to bottom! Bottom to top! Back and forth!

Just then, while we were still working on the door, it opened. The manager of our house stood there in a white summer suit.

He was thunderstruck. So was I. We stood there staring at each other, and I was so stunned I kept holding the hose on him, spraying him up and down, down and up, back and forth. I was too scared to trail the hose on the ground. His eyes were as big as saucers. But he didn't have the sense to jump aside, either.

Meanwhile, Misha was pumping away, shouting, "Come on! Paint everything!"

And Lena was prancing up and down, singing, "I'm a squab! I'm a squab!"

It's the truth.

I hate to even think of what happened after that. Misha had to wash the bath towels every day for two whole weeks. Lena was scrubbed in seven tubs of water and turpentine. Our parents had to buy the manager a new suit.

Mommy wouldn't let me out of the house at all, but I sneaked out anyway. When Sanya, Raya and Nellie saw me Raya said,

"Hurry up and grow up, Dennis, and you can join our team. You'll be a fine house painter!"

I've been trying to grow up real fast ever since.


 
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