On the ninth floor of the new building, the air smelled of fresh renovation—glue, whitewash, and cardboard boxes from Leroy Merlin. Outside the windows, there were gray garage roofs and in the distance, a barely noticeable strip of forest, still asleep from its winter slumber. Spring was somewhere nearby but hesitated to enter.
Lena stood by the window, holding a cup of warm linden tea with both hands. The apartment was too quiet. No sound, no rustle—not even the electric kettle hummed, as if it too was listening to this unfamiliar silence. Maxim was still asleep—exhausted from the late-night task of moving things. Sasha was peacefully breathing in her crib under a blanket with pink hedgehogs.
It was the first morning in their new home. Their own home. No neighboring walls hidden behind thin drywall, no scent of someone else’s borscht in the hallway. Lena smiled—finally.
But inside, it was as if there was a splinter. Quiet, but sharp.
Today, Sasha was supposed to go to the new kindergarten for the first time. Lena tried to sound cheerful as she described the future brightly:
“There will be new friends, toys…” — but the words trailed off, hanging in the air like an unfinished portrait.
The kindergarten was tucked away in the courtyard, as though it was tired of its own existence. Its fence was peeling in places, and cracks marred the porch. The building looked like a backdrop for a long-forgotten school play. A faded sign with drawings of flowers leaned crookedly, as if trying to hide from all of this.
Lena held her daughter’s hand tightly. It was warm, slightly damp—Sasha seemed to want to break free but didn’t dare. She wore a new light yellow coat, one that Lena had chosen with hope: maybe it would help? But now it felt too bright, too vivid against the dull grayness of everything around.
A woman appeared from the doorway. Tall, thin, with neatly tied-back hair and a gaze that held no warmth.
“Tamara Lvovna,” she introduced herself, barely glancing at the child. “Who’s our new one?”
Sasha immediately hid behind Lena’s leg.
“This is Sasha,” Lena said softly. “We just moved here. She’s been looking forward to meeting you.”
“Sasha,” the teacher repeated coldly. “Here, the kids say hello when they enter and go to the group by themselves. Mums stay outside. No tears. You can cry during recess. Understood?”
Each word was like a blow—precise and indifferent.
Lena felt something tight knot inside her. She wanted to say something. Ask: “Is this how you always greet the little ones?”—but Sasha was there.
Her daughter silently clutched her soft toy, Shurik, her new protector.
“Sweetheart, I’m right here. I’ll come back in a couple of hours. And Shurik will stay with you. He’ll remember everything, won’t he?”
Sasha nodded. Quickly. Not from encouragement, but to make the tension end sooner.
The door closed.
Lena was left alone in the stairwell. She stared at the cloudy window through which her daughter had disappeared.
On the wall, a bright poster hung: “Our kindergarten is the territory of happiness!”
And in the corner, someone had added in marker: “in quotation marks.”
A memory flashed: “The swings are better!”—and Sasha’s agreeing nod. But lately, her eyes had been different—anxious, like a kitten in an unfamiliar place.
By the threshold, there stood a bright pink backpack with bunny ears, and from its side, the head of a little dog, Shurik, stuck out. They had bought them a week ago in the underpass, and Sasha had immediately said:
“He’ll protect me.”
Lena slowly exhaled, pressing the cup to her lips. The tea was warm, slightly bitter. She tried to catch that thin thread of hope within herself that usually hides at the start of something big. As if someone had recorded it on an old tape:
“It will be fine,”—but the voice came through static.
She didn’t know that in a week, she would stop hearing Sasha’s songs. That her drawings would fade, and the house would fall into a dense, heavy silence.
For now, it still seemed possible.
And that was the scariest thing.
The first two days, Lena waited for a call. From the teacher. From the nurse. At least from Sasha—any sign that the fear was unfounded.
The call never came.
Every evening, Sasha left the group silently. Not happily, not sadly—just silently. No tears, but no smiles either. She didn’t run to Lena, didn’t talk about her day, didn’t ask for ice cream. She just took Lena’s hand—and they went home.
“How was your day, bunny? Who was next to you? What did you draw today?”
“I don’t remember.”
The answers were short, as if they’d been cut at the edges. The pauses between the words—long and heavy.
On the third day, Lena brought homemade strawberry pastries to the kindergarten—neatly packed in a beautiful box:
“To make friends.”
Tamara Lvovna took it without even looking inside and coldly said:
“We have children with allergies. These kinds of surprises aren’t allowed. Thank you.”
And she shut the door in their faces.
Sasha barely touched her dinner. She poked at her pasta with a fork, then suddenly buried her face in Shurik. Her songs were gone—the ones that used to flow endlessly, like from a radio: “Let the clumsy ones run,” or made-up lines:
“Mama, I’m a star on the elephant’s hat!”
Now—only silence.
Lena tried to compensate. She took her to the park where the squirrels jumped, bought new modeling clay sets, gave her a bubble bath like the sea. But Sasha only smiled weakly—as if she were learning to play the role of the “good girl.”
A week later, Lena saw the first drawing.
On the paper—a house. But without windows. Without doors. Next to it, a tree—just a pencil line. No leaves, no color, no hint of a cloud in the corner.
“And who lives there, little one?”
“No one. Everything is asleep there.”
Another day later—a little person. Or rather, the outline of one. No face. Short arms, long legs, like wires. Silent, foreign.
Maxim tried to calm her:
“It’s stress. A transitional period. She’ll get used to it. She’s always had a rich imagination. Over time, everything will return.”
But Lena saw: this wasn’t just adaptation. This was disappearance. Gradual, like light fading bit by bit.
Sasha started waking up before the alarm. In the dimness of the room, she sat in her crib, hugging Shurik—her soft protector. She no longer yawned like a child, no longer rubbed her eyes. She just stared at one point—like an adult person, tired of life.
“Sweetheart, it’s still too early…” Lena sat beside her, stroking her hair. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Sasha was silent. Her face was like someone who had aged in a single night. Only the wrinkles were missing.
That evening, after Maxim returned from work, he sat on the edge of the sofa and said:
“That’s it. We need to change something. I can’t watch her… melt away.”
“What can we do? File a complaint? The director will say everything’s fine.”
“There’s another way,” he said with a slight smirk, but determination in his eyes. “Remember the old mini-microphone? From the days when we recorded sounds for commercials?”
He stood up, went to the closet, rummaged through the boxes, and took out a case. Inside—a tiny black button, a couple of wires, and a microphone the size of a button.
“It works on a battery. Bluetooth transmission. Old, but alive.”
Lena looked at him as though he were offering to step over a boundary.
“We’ll be eavesdropping?”
“We’ll be saving. If someone pulls a child by the hand—you don’t ask permission, you pull them away. It’s the same thing.”
That night, when Sasha was sound asleep, they carefully slit Shurik’s lining. They sewed the microphone into his ear, hiding the stitches. They checked the connection: background rustling, voices, children laughing—the signal was working.
Maxim listened. Lena sat beside him, squeezing a teaspoon in her hands, almost bending it in half.
“Tomorrow, the test begins. We’ll see what’s happening behind those doors.”
The next day, Lena lived as if in a dream. She watched her phone, checked the signal, caught every sound. The recording was going. Somewhere far away. In a place she couldn’t enter.
Maxim came for Sasha at four. She left, as usual—quietly, obediently. Her face no longer expressed anything. An adult girl in too bright a coat.
That evening, when the child was asleep, they sat at the laptop. Lena held a cup with the unfinished tea. Maxim started the recording.
First—ordinary noise: children’s footsteps, a toy squeaking, indistinct voices. Someone was singing about a bear. Sasha was silent. Only Shurik rustled across the floor.
And then—a voice.
Sharp. Cold. Hard as ice underfoot.
“I said: everyone on the carpet, no talking!”
“Sasha, are you even listening, or did you forget your ears at home?”
Children’s laughter. One, frightened:
“Tamara Lvovna, can I go to the bathroom…”
“Too late. You should have asked earlier. Let your mom wash up after you.”
Sasha’s voice—barely audible, quiet, like a whisper:
“Sorry…”
“Sorry, she says! First, do it right, so you don’t have to apologize later!”
A long pause. Then—footsteps. A chair scraped across the floor. Something fell. Plastic hit the floor. And a quiet sigh from the child.
Maxim switched off the recording abruptly. His fists clenched so tightly, his knuckles turned white.
“That’s it. I’m going to see her tomorrow. No more.”
Lena covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders trembled slightly.
“This isn’t just strictness… It’s like in a barracks. Only instead of soldiers, it’s children.”
They were silent for a long time. But in this silence, there was more shouting than in any siren.
On Shurik’s backpack, in the glow of the nightlight, the inscription still glowed: “Best friend ever!”
And now, he was truly a friend. The one who first told the truth.
The morning was gray. Heavy, as if the ceiling were in the basement. Lena and Maxim didn’t take Sasha to the kindergarten—she stayed home, modeling with clay, almost whispering an old song to herself—carefully, as if testing her voice for strength.
They came to the kindergarten together. No smiles. No gifts.
The director’s office smelled of old furniture and linoleum of an unclear color—it must have been orange once, now it looked like boiled carrots. On the windowsill, a ficus sat lonely, long asking for help. On the wall was a sign: “Our priority is safety and care.”
“Come in…” the woman’s voice was polite, but tense, like a string before it snaps. “Is this about adaptation?”
“We have proof,” Maxim interrupted. “A recording from the group.”
He placed a flash drive on the table.
The director froze. Slowly inserted it into her laptop. Voices poured out of the speakers—quiet, but clear.
“I said: everyone on the carpet, no talking!”
“Sasha, are you even listening, or did you forget your ears at home?”
Minutes passed like hours. Lena watched the expression on the woman’s face: first, cold disbelief, then a tremor at the corners of her lips.
“This… this is Tamara Lvovna’s voice?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure this happened in the group? That the recording is real?”
“Our daughter stopped talking. Stopped laughing. Stopped being a child. We’re not the ones making this up.”
The director carefully took out the flash drive. Placed her hands on the table.
“This isn’t the first time. There were complaints before, but without evidence. Everyone talked about feelings. But now—it’s a fact.”
“And what’s next?” Lena’s voice was calm, but inside, everything was trembling.
“We must remove her from her duties. Bring in a psychologist. I’ll officially write a memo.”
Maxim gritted his teeth. He wanted more. He wanted a trial, punishment, public condemnation. He wanted to hear someone apologize to his child. But in this system, where even the rules were held together by paperclips, the truth itself sounded like an apology.
“We’re taking Sasha. Transferring her to another kindergarten.”
“Of course. I’ll help. I’ll give a recommendation, prepare the documents.”
On their way out, Lena stopped and turned back:
“You knew.”
The woman lowered her eyes.
“I suspected. But without evidence…”
“Sometimes, just one look at a child is enough to understand—they’re in pain.”
And she left without letting her finish.
A week passed. Sasha was already attending the new kindergarten, where it smelled like warmth, apples, and homemade food. In the changing room hung a child’s drawing with a rainbow, the sun, and the inscription: “Here, we are loved!”
Lena walked down the street with a bag of mandarins and a small backpack in her hands. From the side pocket, Shurik’s head poked out—now just a soft toy, without the microphone.
At the pharmacy, she nearly bumped into a woman.
She stood alone. A gray coat, a pale face, tightly pressed lips. Tamara Lvovna. No strict hairstyle, no commanding intonation, no authority.
“Lena,” she said, looking directly at her. Not defiantly, not with sorrow—just like a person who could no longer pretend.
“You knew. You knew you were causing pain. Why didn’t you stop?”
Pause. People hurried past. The bus roared at the traffic light.
“I was a child too,” she finally answered. “The one who was beaten. Locked away. For not being able to remember letters. No one heard me.”
Lena silently looked at her. There was no monster before her. Just a tired woman, in whom the girl had died many years ago.
“I’m not making excuses,” Tamara Lvovna continued. “It’s just… when you stay silent for so long, you start shouting. And not always knowing—to whom.”
Lena wanted to say:
“It’s too late. You’ve caused too much pain to others. You don’t heal your wounds at the expense of children.”
But instead, she asked:
“Are you going to see a psychologist?”
“I’ve already signed up. Next week. Not for myself. For inner peace.”
They parted ways. Without words. Without farewells.
Only the wind touched Shurik’s ear, sticking out of the backpack—as if he was still listening, still remembering.
The new kindergarten was completely different. It smelled of cookies, spring, children’s voices. Instead of peeling walls—colorful wallpaper with animals. Instead of shouting— a kind voice that simply said:
“Sasha, don’t hurry. We’ll wait for you.”
Anna Sergeevna—her new teacher—wore a dragonfly hairpin and spoke to the children as though they were adults, but kindly, with warmth.
Her voice was soft, like a blanket on a cool evening. Sasha adjusted to it slowly.
At first, she just observed. Didn’t hide, didn’t cry—just silently. Like a kitten that had just found a home: warming by the heater but ready to hide at the first sharp sound.
Lena didn’t rush her. Maxim quietly rejoiced at every gesture from their daughter. And Shurik became just a toy again—without wires, without a microphone, with funny ears and a warm belly.
One evening, while Lena stood by the stove stirring soup, Sasha came up with a piece of paper in her hands.
“Mama, look.”
On the drawing was a house. With real windows, a chimney, from which smoke rose. Nearby—a tree, with a bird sitting on it. And in the corner—the sun with eyes and a smile.
“And who is this?” Lena pointed at the figures.
“That’s us. And here’s Anna Sergeevna. She says I have a voice like a butterfly. So light.”
Lena smiled, but a lump rose in her throat.
“Why does the sun have eyes?”
“It can see everything now. And it doesn’t sleep anymore.”
Every morning, Sasha carefully returned her voice. She sang softly, unsurely—but she did it. Every sound was a step back, towards life.
And one day, she suddenly asked:
“What if someone is scared, but still moves forward… are they a hero?”
“Of course,” Lena replied. “The truest hero.”
And the next morning, Sasha opened the group door herself. Without tears, without hesitation. She just entered. Holding Shurik—not out of fear, but out of habit.
Now, he was a friend. A real one. Not a spy who had to learn to listen to other people’s pain.
Spring came unnoticed. Not with noise and celebration—just one day, it became easier to breathe. The air stopped smelling of anxiety, and in the park, the buds swelled—just as timid as her morning songs.
On one of those days, they went for a walk together. Maxim carried Sasha on his shoulders, Lena carried a thermos of tea, apples, and soft Shurik in her backpack. On the girl’s jacket, a button in the shape of the sun swung—just like the one in her drawing.
“Mama,” Sasha suddenly said, watching how the thin branch bent in the wind, “what if the tree is too fragile… can it be saved?”
Lena stopped. Placed the bag on the bench. Sat next to her to be at her level.
“Yes. If you stay close. Protect it. Don’t break it. Wait for it to grow strong. Even if it stays quiet for a long time—it still hears.”
Sasha nodded, as if she had found the answer to a question she had asked herself many times. And she went on—towards the swings, towards the light, towards life.
When they returned home, Lena took a plywood board from the top shelf. The words were carefully burned into it:
“The one who helped hear.”
She gently placed Shurik on the bookshelf—next to photos, a seashell from the sea, and children’s postcards.
The stuffed dog looked ahead. Silent.
But in this silence, there was no longer fear. Only peace.