Coolness - Erick Poladov

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boy shuddered in surprise.

      – Go inside.

      He began to walk towards the porch, continuing to look back every few meters, although Penelope’s silhouette had already disappeared somewhere.

      At that very time, Wilhelm was approaching the house, returning from the barn. He noticed two figures approaching, in one of which he recognized his youngest daughter.

      Seeing her father, Wanda quickened her pace and ran, shouting as she went:

      – Dad, look! – Wanda held out the basket, bragging about the number of berries she had managed to collect.

      Wilhelm squatted down, kissed his daughter on the forehead and said emotionally:

      – Wow. Admit it, who did you steal it from?

      – Hey! – Wanda was indignant. – I’m not a thief.

      A smile flitted across Wilhelm’s face. He kissed Wanda again and hurried her home.

      – Thank you – he addressed Penelope.

      – Hi, Penelope! – Ava called from the doorway, hugging Wanda. – Will you come in? We have fried chicken and pheasant.

      – Thanks, but better some other time. I have to go. They’re already waiting for me.

      3. Lead eyelids, steel hands

      – When I say it’s time to go home, it means you have to go home. Straight home – Karl scolded his eldest daughter in a quiet but menacing tone.

      – I was seeing Wanda off. She…

      – I DON’T CARE! – Karl shouted at the top of his voice, slamming his palm on the table. His shout was so loud that Regina, who was sitting next to him, and Ursula, who was at the other end of the table, flinched. Penelope, who was standing next to her father, with her eyes fixed on the floor, barely moved a finger. – It’s enough for me to have to work every day in the field to the point of exhaustion! Enough!

      Penelope continued to stand, still staring at the floor. Regina and Ursula tensed, as did their pounding hearts in moments when Karl was angry.

      – Sit down! – Karl ordered.

      Penelope quietly walked to the plate that stood to the left of her father, opposite Regina, and sat down, maintaining a guilty look. Her eyes were difficult to see even under the light of the oil lamp that stood on the table, since strands of hair partially covered her face, and therefore Karl did not see this almost calm look.

      – When we finish, you’ll clean up and wash all the dishes. – Then Karl looked at Regina and said: – And you go straight to bed. – After that, Karl sighed with a tired look and said: – Let’s have dinner. Penelope reached for the spoon only after everyone had already started eating, so that her father wouldn’t think that she was sitting during dinner as if nothing had happened and didn’t care about his educational shouts.

      Karl did not often vent such outbursts of anger towards his eldest daughter. As a rule, this happened due to accumulated fatigue, and Penelope, over time, when she began to mature physically and morally, began to pay attention to this and understand the reason for her father’s sudden anger towards her, due to which (either from getting used to it, or having begun to show the patience of an adult girl) she no longer took such outbursts of indignation to heart. Penelope admitted that she gave more reason for indignation in the house than anyone else, since she was far from puritanical manners and behaved too freely to be called modest, as Karl wanted. Penelope was far from modest, since she found a common language with everyone, was willing to make contact, loved to chat, smiled, laughed, and most importantly, went on dates, having decided on her fiancé, and did not wait for her father to make the choice for her. She understood that her father needed to find someone to take it out on at such moments, and she didn’t complain that he always chose her as a target, since she would have liked even less for her father to address her mother or sister in the same way. Plus, as Regina had told her since childhood, Karl dreamed of having a boy as his firstborn, and Penelope, with her mere presence, reminded her father every day that she was the one who stole his dream by being born. Karl understood that it was no one’s fault, just as Penelope understood that she had nothing to do with it. However, everyone also understood that every person buries their dreams very reluctantly, and sometimes a whole life is not enough to come to terms with the will of fate.

      Regina, unlike her husband, did not try to impose any qualities on her daughter and did not have any specific expectations. Penelope helped her with the housework; she never objected to the tasks that Regina assigned her and was very quick at work; she willingly helped when Ursula was little, babysitting her sister from morning to night. For Regina, her eldest daughter grew up to be a hard-working girl, friendly, sociable and without bad habits. She did not want more. Whenever Penelope wanted to leave the house, but understood that her father would object, she asked her mother for permission, and Regina said that she would cover for her, telling Karl that she sent their daughter on some errand that would take almost half a day to complete.

      While Penelope went home, politely declining the invitation to dinner, Ava hurried to the girls, who wanted to pounce on the strawberries picked by Wanda. She put the basket on the floor to show off to her sisters, who pounced on her with bulging eyes and joyful exclamations. Ava immediately hurried to tear her daughters away from the berries:

      – Now, quickly wash your hands and sit down at the table.

      – Come on, Mom! – the eldest of the sisters, thirteen-year-old Irma, said in a pleading, but at the same time indignant tone.

      – Quickly, I said – Ava repeated in a firmer tone, taking the basket of berries. – Now you’ll ruin your appetite. We’ll have dinner, then you can gobble up the strawberries.

      The second oldest was Astrid, aged eleven, followed by Frida, aged ten, and Wanda, the youngest. All four of them ran to the basin to wet their hands; no one was particularly bothered with washing, since they all wanted to quickly swallow a couple of small pieces at dinner, so they could tick off the box and move on to the strawberries. Meanwhile, Ava hid the basket of berries away from her daughters’ eyes. Just by the sight of it, she herself felt a wild desire to try at least a few berries. More precisely, this is what the fetus in her womb wanted. She was thirty-two years old and still wanted to make Wilhelm happy by giving birth to a son. Whenever she told Wilhelm about this, he always replied that he was doing well enough, since he was the only man in the entire village who lived in a flower garden out of five women. He came up to her from behind, grabbed her with his arms, folded his palms on her stomach, and pressed his nose into Ava’s neck. Taking a deep breath, he said:

      – Let’s have YOU become my dinner today? You smell better than this pheasant.

      Ava smiled, but more from the tickling that Wilhelm’s nose was causing on her neck than from his words. She barely managed to hold back her laughter enough to say:

      – Stop it. Let’s sit down already. You’ll swallow me in bed. I’ll be your dessert.

      Wilhelm extended his chin, after which Ava turned her face to him, kissed him on the lips and added:

      – Okay, let’s go.

      – Boys, come to the table! – Charlotte said loudly, so that each of the four men of their family could hear her.

      Willie was already sitting at the table, pressing his chin to the tabletop. A grimace of boredom still did not leave his face. He wanted winter to come soon, and the boat no longer aroused any interest.

      Charlotte had just placed a plate of vegetable stew in the center of the table when the middle brother, Morten, who was fifteen, came up to the table. Erikson came next, and then Andreas. Before sitting down at the head of the table, he stroked his fingers through the hair of his youngest son, who was being eaten away by melancholy

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