My Own Revolution Read Online Free PDF Page A

pretty shoulders, driving away her troubles. At the thought, my heart does a quick somersault.
    Emil goes very quietly to the record player. He lifts off the single and slips it into the jacket.
    Karel picks up the old guitar and begins to pluck the strings.
    Danika turns to him, saying, “Don’t do that. Just don’t.”
    “Danika.”
I get up from my chair and lower myself onto the bed, sitting next to her. She’s pale, and her blue eyes are moist. Maybe it’s her monthly time. I consider drawing her close, even without the excuse of the jacket.
    But she abruptly tilts away from me and flings herself down on the bed. “It’s no use,” she says. “This isn’t something you can fix, Patrik.”

In the school gymnasium, we’re marching with our knees high, our hands behind our backs. Suddenly, as we’re drilling to make us better Young Pioneers, training to take on challengers of the Communist state, there’s a stranger among us. His curly hair covers his ears. Like a Beatle. Like the way I sometimes imagine my own hair. I run my hand over my close-trimmed head. “Who’s that?” I ask Karel without moving my lips.
    “Bozek Estochin. From Bratislava.”
    Bratislava is the big city where anything can happen. Whereas Trencin is like the tiny moon of some far-out planet like Neptune, Bratislava is like the sun. Someone new and exotic has landed in our midst.
    After school, Bozek comes down the steps while Karel is bragging about how we got our Beatles single on the black market. Bozek doesn’t walk like he’s the new kid. He’s not shy at all. His legs move loose and jaunty as he comes to us, saying, “I have that single. And I have ‘Please Mr. Postman.’ I even have a Monkees album.”
    We shut up and look hard at this guy.
    “I even know where in Bratislava people can get real American blue jeans,” he says. “The price is high, of course. The lines are long. But you can get them.”
    Emil squints.
    I squint, too. What kind of life does this city boy lead?
    Karel leans against the railing, frowning. Maybe he’s thinking that Bozek could get him the model-train parts he can’t find in Trencin.
    Even though people are trying to get by, Bozek stands with his hands in his pockets, his elbows jutting out, taking up space. “In Bratislava, I listened to three Beatles songs in a row. Just waiting around outside a Bratislava apartment window I heard that.”
    I shade my eyes to better see this guy. Maybe he’s for real. Or maybe he’s only bragging.
    Bozek glances around. “The girls in Bratislava even wear miniskirts. Of course there would be none of that here,” he says. “Nothing like that here in an out-of-the-way place like Trencin.”
    “Then why did you come here?” I can’t help but ask.
    He shrugs, says from the corner of his mouth, “It’s just for a little while.”
    “How long?” Emil asks. Maybe he wants another Beatles single. Maybe a whole album.
    “As long as my father is assigned here.”
    “And what does your father do?” I ask.
    “Can’t say.” Bozek lifts his eyes to Lenin’s statue.
    Can’t say
means he’s a party member. His father is one of the boots that trods on us. Treads on us. I tread down a step, backing away.
    Behind Bozek, along the wall, the repaired slogan blares: LONG LIVE THE USSR!
    A group of girls has gathered at the bottom of the stairs, huddling and giggling. Over the tops of the piles of books in their arms, they peer up at the new boy. One of the girls is Danika. She’s staring at Bozek as if he’s dropped from the heavens.
    Danika, my very own Gypsy. My sweetheart.
    Bozek pauses in his storytelling. His eyes shift to the girls. His eyes glide over them. Will he really care about Trencin girls when the ones in Bratislava are wearing miniskirts? He settles on one girl.
    He raises his hand, as if about to wave at her.
    She blushes.
    What the hell is going on?
    And then, in a flash, my whole world changes. I look at Danika and see Janosik’s