I was 7-8 years old. She loved to be with her grandparents. We lived in the same village not far from each other, but my sisters and parents lived in a two-room apartment by the pond, and grandmother and grandfather had a small house with a courtyard, fenced in by a fence. It was difficult to call him a house, just a house, since it consisted of one room and a passage.
In the passage there was a large chest, everyone called it granary. In one compartment of the chest was stored flour, and in the second - corn. Thanks to this chest, I had a clear idea of what the boobs from the fairy tale about the kolobok looked like, and how they scrubbed them.
And in the passage there was a underground. Usually the cover of the sub-floor was closed, as it was just on the way to the room. But in the summer it was often ventilated, the lid was thrown back, and in order to enter the house comfortably, a wide board was placed across the pit diagonally. Not once did I just pass, but ran along this board. So it was this time. True, not quite.
When I got to the middle of the board, I saw that it lay too obliquely and the corner of the barn chest interfered with the passage through it. Back and fix the board with his hands was lazy. And I, standing just above the pit of the underground, began to bounce slightly, trying to change the position of the board with my legs. By the way, I did it more than once and everything worked out. But now, at some point, when the board had already started to turn a little, as I needed, it swayed and I thundered down. Rather, the board rattled, since in flight I absolutely did not hurt anything. I would even say that I gently landed.
The main thing I thought about when I found myself in a subfield: if only my grandparents would not know anything. And I slipped under the stairs - it was the darkest place in the underground - hid.
The noise from my fall was heard and grandfather jumped out in the shade. I saw that the board was not in place, shouted in a hoarse voice, “The grab has fallen!” And sighed down. Here that ringing, the roar that the grandfather made, saving me, heard, probably, not only close, but also distant neighbors.
I must say that my grandfather was tall, I would even say long. Falling down, he demolished several cans with twists, dropped the ladder, and even korogaz with a pan of cooling borscht, which stood in the vestibule next to the basement, touched either with his hands or with his feet. Oh, how long my grandmother reminded him of this pot of borscht! Not once did she speak to him later: well, how could you even reach out to this kerogas, he was only a meter from the underground.
So, I'm quietly standing by the wall. The ladder fell somewhere sideways. Grandfather, all in a borsch, grunting rises from the floor and at some point our heads are on the same level. He asks me: "Are you alive?"And I, it is not clear why, I say: "No."Grandfather is changing in the face - "And I?".“You are alive” - I answer. And then the grandfather again falls to the floor and begins to laugh. Then it seemed to me that he laughed for ages, and I didn’t know what to do next - either laugh or cry.
Grandmother interrupted all this fun. She stood on all fours from above, hanging over the underground, and was also ready to jump in order to save two of them now.
I do not remember how my grandfather and I got out of the basement, this moment did not remain in the memory. I only remember that after that the underground could not be closed at all - the mixture of the smell of pickled vegetables and kerosene did not disappear for a long time.
The most amazing thing is that both I and the grandfather got out of the cellar safe and sound. I have no scratches, no bumps, no bruise. Grandpa, however, for some time limped. The only victims were pickled jars and kerogases. He, as they say, could not be restored. I had to buy a new one.
P.S.Photos for those who do not know what is korogaz:
House by the pond 