No Way Out at the Entrance

“This is useless, gentlemen! I quit!” Danny announced melodramatically and climbed back into the cabin. He sat down there like an idol and arranged his hands with palms up on his knees. Something that in no way could be grasped stirred in his memory. Something important, elusive.

Cigarette butts were floating in a glass jar a third full of water. Through the paint-spattered glass – cracked, with a whistling draft living in the crack – the Moscow courtyard well-defined by paint looked stingy to Danny. A golden bee was sitting in a sunny spot and cleaning its wings with its legs. Danny blew on it. The bee took off and, angrily hitting against the glass, bounced like a ball to the edge of the frame.

“I said: we’ll all die!” the girl in the black tank top said with deep satisfaction. Frost dripped from her voice.

Cyril touched the dog tags with a finger. “Listen, sunshine!”

“I hate sunshine!” Dog tags” cut him off.

“And don’t you be mad! Canna ask somethin’?”

“NO!”

“Were you ever smothered by a pillow earlier? Eh, sunshine?”

The girl pushed his hand away. “What are you, stupid? I’m not sunshine! I’m Alice, idiot!”

It was not possible to offend Cyril. “Idiot!” he said, turning to himself. “Get acquainted! This is Alice, who has never been smothered by a pillow!”

“Ass!”

“And who actively learns the names of animals!” Cyril looked around triumphantly.

Alice turned away, lapsing into silence. Cyril clearly considered himself the victor; however, Sashka doubted this. A guy must not fight with a girl on the same level and with her weapon: the tongue. They deliberately exist in different dimensions. Well, what does an eagle brag to a dolphin? That it knows how to fly? But a dolphin knows how to swim. Cyril behaved like the bearded philosophy professor, who, after putting on a skirt, set off for the earthen bench and said, rubbing his hands, “Well, grannies, hold on! Now I can argue with all of you!!!”

“I’ll try to jump out! Since the phones don’t connect here, perhaps they will outside!” Sashka shouted and tugged at the door. Asphalt with small puddles gleamed. Sashka stepped back. He did not imagine that they would be going so fast. Freda, with the idea of recording everything, directed the round eye of the cell phone at Sashka.

“Don’t!” Rina shouted, unable to control herself.

“Why not? Must! Jump! What are you waiting for?” Freda demanded impatiently.

Sashka estimated the distance to the lawn. Grass is tempting, of course, but you could miss the mark and splatter all over the tall barrier. Asphalt would be better. He put his head out. The wind cut his cheek. It hit his eyes, blinded him for an instant. “When it’s thirty kilometres, shout!” he ordered Danny.

Danny rolled over on his stomach to the driver seat and stared at the speedometer. “Ninety! Damn! Why no traffic jams? Aha! Traffic light soon! Maybe it’ll brake slightly at least… Yes! Going down! Seventy! Sixty!”

“Jump!” Makar pushed Sashka slightly from behind.

“Tough guy first!” Sashka turned and grabbed his turtleneck. He was so fed up with Makar that he was actually capable of throwing him off the minibus.

“Let go of me!” Makar ordered quietly.

“But why?”

Makar slapped his own pocket with a threat. “Bluff!” thought Sashka. “He puts his hand in the pocket and will fly from the minibus together with me!”

“Forty!” shouted Danny. “Thirty-five!” Sashka pushed Makar away and returned to the door. The speed no longer seemed so great. He will run several metres and then roll. The main thing is that no driver behind decides to pass them on the right.

“Come on!” Danny yelled. Sashka rushed forcefully into the opening and… here something incomprehensible happened. An elastic force caught him and threw him back like a kitten. Sashka realized that he was sitting on the floor of the minibus, clutching Makar’s leg like a lifesaver.

“Full protection, pity! Even if you yank the wheels off, you’ll end up on the bottom!” Rina recalled Kuzepych’s words.

Freda tore herself away from the cell phone screen. “Shot it!” she shouted excitedly. “You were separated from the minibus for about half a metre and then it pulled you back! Did you feel anything?”

“The joy of flight!” Sashka answered in annoyance. The minibus again picked up speed.

“Let’s lean out and yell! Someone will hear for sure! Only better from the other side! More cars there!” Cyril in the heat of the moment wanted to hit the glass with his fist, but Makar held him back.

“No, why? Must take care of the hands!” Makar said peacefully. Leaning over, he pulled out a fire extinguisher from under the seat and competently knocked with one end on the glass four times. The glass was covered with a tangle of cracks, but it held. Makar, not embarrassed, continued to peck persistently. On the tenth blow, the glass collapsed, after hanging onto the rubber retaining it.

“And now we yell! All together! With feeling!” Makar ordered the girls. He himself did not begin to yell. He did not want to compete.

The girls shouted, waving their arms. Lara, whom Sashka was holding by her legs, finally leaned out of the window up to her waist and found herself by the open window on the side of a car unhurriedly passing them. Sashka was convinced that the driver did not see such girls often, but he did not even turn his head.

“Drove past like a robot! Could at least move a little!” Lara said with annoyance, when Sashka and Cyril pulled her back into the minibus.

“You’re too noisy for him. He likes quiet dames with slippers in their teeth!” Cyril butted in.

“Okay, gophers! Don’t want to notice in a friendly way, notice in a bad way!” Makar warned with a threat. Before anyone had time to understand what this “bad way” was, Makar had already rested a foot against the back of the seat and kicked it off. Sashka had never seen anyone stripped down a minibus with this composure.

Makar leaned out the window. The seat back hit the windshield of the Toyota moving in the adjacent lane and flew away to the curb. A crack appeared on the glass. The driver twisted the wheel. Sashka, very near, saw a puzzled fat face and trembling cheeks.

Sashka could not control himself. He leaned out, yelled, and waved the hanky torn from his neck. He was convinced that it would be impossible not to notice him. He could even describe the ballpoint pen sticking out of the stout person’s pocket. Someone pulled his sleeve. Pushed him down into a seat. Danny.

“Calm down! He doesn’t see us! And you calm down! Put the extinguisher back!” Danny took the fire extinguisher from Makar, who intended on finally finishing the Toyota with it.

“He even twitched!” Sashka said dejectedly.

“He twitched because he heard a bang!” explained Danny. “We don’t exist for him.”

“And those people who tried to stop the minibus at the stops? They were doing what, waving their hands at a void?” Sashka had his doubts.

“I suspect that they see the minibus itself. But us and what we throw, no!” Danny followed with his eyes the fire extinguisher, which the agitated hands of Makar nevertheless flung out of the minibus. “Sit down and place your paws on your knees!” he peacefully advised Makar.

“I understand why it’s route D minibus! D for devious!” Alice said suddenly.

Danny snorted with suspicion. It is rare to meet mystics taller than two metres. Otherworldly things usually do not stray into a head placed so high. This is a height of practical things. “Well, ‘devious’, so ‘devious’! Gentlemen! Let’s stop running and howling, and try to figure this out! Has anyone been on the route D minibus before?” Silence. “Then something must exist that ties all of us together. If we understand this, then let’s also understand why we’re gathered here. Let’s determine what we have in common.”

“Besides me, everyone here is a freak,” Alice muttered under her breath.

“Age,” Freda voted. “Who here is older than sixteen, raise your hand.”

Cyril immediately jerked up his hand. “You’re all small fry!!! I’m seventeen!” he stated.

“Cyril! Well-a show that pass again!” Lena asked softly.

“Certainly!” Cyril’s hand eagerly dived into one pocket, then another, and a third. The search was carried out with exceptional determination, but the pass did not appear. Lena waited mockingly.

Danny lost patience first. “Fine, age!” he nodded. “But age is too obvious. There are 300 thousands like us in Moscow.”