Fanyasha: Why Do Angels Need People?

“My person will definitely fly, I will draw her wings for sure,” thought Fanyasha and smiled in her sleep.

Chapter 6:

A Day of Humility Makes Femininity

Fanyasha’s room was full of soft rose-colored light in the morning. A bright ray of sunshine playfully touched her eyes, and she opened her fluffy eyelashes and smiled. Stretching sweetly in her soft white bed, she suddenly remembered that a new life would start for her now, and that she should now get ready for school.

This thought almost made her worry, but suddenly Fanyasha saw an amazingly beautiful dress shimmering in all the colors of the rainbow on her chair. She immediately remembered her grandmother’s words that the main thing for girls is to be in a good mood and have a neat appearance.

Fanyasha bolted out of bed, grabbed her new dress, held it to her chest, and fluttered around the room, singing cheerfully: “La-lala-lalala!”

Then she got comfortable in front of the mirror and began to comb her beautiful long hair.

“There really is something special about going to school after all,” she thought to herself with a smile, braiding her hair. “The important thing is that now I have a new dress!”

It’s important to note that angels have to wear the same outfit every day until they reach school age. This outfit always remains clean, and gets bigger along with its owner, as if by magic. Thus it was that Fanyasha wore her light-purple dress with the white lace collar for 10 years. It’s easy to picture how happy she was to finally try on a new, unusually beautiful rainbow dress!

“Goodness, I look so good! I look fabulous!” Fanyasha purred, turning round and round in front of the mirror.

“The other girls are going to love me right off the bat! It’s going to be so great to be friends with the other girls, and definitely a lot more fun than with Bosya! And our teacher probably looks like a kind old lady, and will tell us interesting stories.”

“Efaniya!” her father’s voice rang out from the hallway. “Get moving! The cloud bus is already here!”

Fanyasha rushed to make her bed, since girls have to keep their rooms neat and tidy after all. As she was running out of the room, she stopped at the window. Outside she saw an unusually long orange cloud with many small doors and windows. There was a sign on the cloud that said:

Cloud Bus 11

City of Urbazium

Elementary School of Angels

“Wow! Wow! Wow! How wonderful! It’s come for me! For me!”

Fanyasha clapped her hands out of glee and saw another girl in a rainbow dress just like hers. She was also looking out of the window of the small house to the left, in which there were just two rooms.

“Oh! Probably she’s in the same class as me!” thought Fanyasha happily, and waved to the girl. But the girl looked back at Fanyasha with a sad face, brushed her long white bangs over her eyes with one quick motion, and pulled the curtain shut.

“Yuck, what a nasty girl, and with no manners. I definitely won’t ever be friends with her,” thought Fanyasha with a grimace, and jumping down from the window, flew out of the room.

The whole family accompanied Fanyasha to the bus, some with tears, some with kisses, some with words and wishes of success.

When the cloud bus, puffing with all its might, flew away from the house, Fanyasha suddenly felt a sinking feeling inside, and became very sad. Through the little window she saw how her loved ones were getting farther and farther away, becoming smaller and smaller.

Inside, the cloud bus was made up of little compartments separate from one another, each of which had a door with a window and a seat. Therefore, Fanyasha could only guess how many other girls and boys were flying together with her to school. Several times the cloud bus stopped quickly at other angels’ houses, then continued on its way. There were thick clouds for almost the whole way, so nothing could be seen out of the window.

Despite the sadness of saying goodbye to her loved ones, Fanyasha was looking forward to the long-awaited sweet taste of freedom, which she had been dreaming of for so long. She imagined how wonderful and interesting it would be to spend time at school now, how great it would be to fly and sing with her classmates, how they would think up all kinds of games together, or just laugh and chatter about all kinds of pleasant things.

Then the sky cleared and the cloud bus rolled up to the large pearl-white arch on which there was a sign written with silver letters:

SCHOOL CAMPUS

Below, there were three arrows pointing to the left, straight, and right:

Elementary School of Angels

Middle School of Angels

High School of Angels

The cloud bus turned sharply to the left, and Fanyasha was barely able to see a large round cloud ahead with a narrow top that rose high above the other clouds, and to the right, very far in the distance, she saw a long spiraling cloud, the top of which was also impossible to see, as high as it was. Fanyasha realized that these were the middle and high school.

Then, finally, she saw her school up ahead. It looked like a beautiful flower, the center of which was like a large ball with high windows, and was probably a playroom or hall, and all around this large ball, like flower petals, there were round rooms attached. All the rooms to the right had square-shaped windows, and all the rooms to the left had round windows.

Fanyasha already knew that the round windows are usually made in the girls’ rooms, and that boys’ rooms have square windows.

“Well, that’s fine,” she thought. “It’s good that the girls and the boys don’t study together in elementary school, since the boys are probably all tiresome and boring, while the girls will be fun to be with!”

The cloud bus stopped in front of the school entrance, opened its doors wide, and noisily spat out all the passengers. Several dozens of girls and boys, as if saddling a strong air current, flew one after another into the huge iridescent hall.

All the children were twisting together in a vortex in the center of the hall, and, obeying the quite cold, biting wind, were whirled away in all directions. This was all extremely unpleasant, especially for Fanyasha, who had dreamily imagined her new wonderful life the whole way to school.

After a few moments, the air current dropped Fanyasha down, and she wound up behind a desk on a hard little chair that hung in the middle of a gloomy gray and cold room, alongside other such chairs and desks, arranged in a circle. The other girls in rainbow dresses flopped onto the nearby chairs and turned their heads to look around, trying to understand what was happening. Nobody was expecting such a cold reception on the first day of school.

Fanyasha looked for anything attractive in this uncomfortable large circular room, and, convinced that her search was hopeless, began to look around at her classmates. She wanted to make a new friend right away and share her emotions.

Fanyasha regretfully found her rude neighbor with the white bangs to her right, and decided instead to speak to the girl to her left.

“Hey, girl, you, girl, what’s your name?” whispered Fanyasha.

“Silence!” a sharp and loud voice boomed from the middle of the room.

Along with the voice, there was all of a sudden a thick, grey smoke in the room as well, which instantly turned into a long, dark grey cloak with a very strict and unpleasant woman’s face that shouted:

“There are strict rules of behavior in the elementary school of angels! Rule number forty-two states: no talking with your classmates! You can only speak when you are asked to by your elders. Do you understand?!

The cloak bent over Fanyasha’s table, and she closed her eyes out of fear.

“Rule number thirty eight! When the teacher asks you a question, you need to answer clearly and quickly! Do you understand, Efaniya Aros?!” the teacher asked over Fanyasha’s head with a leaden voice.

“Yes,” she squeaked, and opened her eyes just enough to see with relief that the cloak had now moved back to the center of the room.

The classroom was absolutely quiet. None of the girls wanted to feel the cold breath of the cloak next to them.

“So, starting from today, you are all students of the elementary school of angels. I am your homeroom teacher. My name is Horda Etyudizovna. You’re all going to have to work hard over the next nine months to ensure that you learn the main rules for dealing with people, and the basics of behavior on earth.

“You must understand that being an angel is a hard job with lots of responsibility! You can say goodbye to your carefree childish amusements. It’s time to start studying! To do a lot of hard work! You will learn a lot during training, get acquainted with the nature of earth, master the art of signs, and meet the family of your future child, and choose a name and key talents for it. At the end of elementary school, you will be presented with the book of life of your child, and get the honor of being present at its birth. But above all, you must learn to unconditionally comply with the rules of behavior at school. I ask you to please read and learn them by tomorrow.

After these words, thick black notebooks appeared on the desks of all the students with the inscription:

Basic Rules of Conduct for Girl Angels in Elementary School.

“The punishment for breaking the rules will be determined each time by me personally, and keep in mind that it’s not in my best interest to be soft, or meet you half way.”

The teacher’s ominous words did not fit in Fanyasha’s head in any way. How could it be, how was it possible, that anyone would treat little girls like that? This was totally unfair and wrong. Girls deserve better treatment than that; after all, they’re made for beauty and for love!

She terribly wanted to stamp her feet, wave her arms and scream out loud that she did not agree with these terms and conditions, but the teacher’s hard, cold face, her leaden voice, the uncomplaining silence of the other girls, the dullness and darkness of the room, the cold hard chairs, the black notebook on the table, and even the hopeless lack of any support – in short, everything around – forced her to accept any terms of her new life.

The teacher began loudly and monotonously reading the basic rules of behavior in school, and this went on for many hours.

***

When the setting sun started glittering in the small round windows, Fanyasha all of a sudden felt a hitherto unfamiliar sense of peace and tranquility. She noticed that her teacher’s facial features seemed to become softer, and she even managed to see something good in her teacher’s big black eyes.

This, in fact, was the first lesson, and a very important one at that, for the girls at school. It just so happens that in order to teach a little girl the important feminine quality of humility, you need a lot of time. In the world of people, even a whole lifetime is not enough to learn humility for some.

Time is valued differently in the world of angels. It’s not possible to wait for the girl-angel to come to an understanding of all the various issues on her own. Therefore, the school system for training angels is designed in such a way so that little, inexperienced angels can acquire the necessary knowledge and turn into an adult angel who can be trusted with human lives as soon as possible. The school program provides all the necessary conditions for practicing a particular skill or knowledge.

Fanyasha came home in a quiet and peaceful mood.

Her mother, father, and grandmother weren’t home when she arrived. Bosya came out of his room to meet his sister and immediately noticed that she had changed.

“Fanya, hey, Fanya, you’re like, different, somehow,” he noted with interest. “How was school? Did you like it?”

“You know what, brother,” Fanyasha grinned. “You could have at least warned me! I didn’t know everything was like that there!”

“Like what?” asked Bosya.

“Like what, like what!?” laughed Fanyasha. “The way it was! So tough! So strict! And so dark and gloomy! And you can’t talk to anyone! All you can do is sit, be silent, learn the rules, do the exercises, and… well, it was totally different than I imagined it would be.”

“Silly goose!” said Bosya with a smile, and gently pulled his sister’s braid. “Sounds like the lesson you had today was the kind, I don’t know, where they teach girls first, maybe, patience or humility. Basically, don’t worry, tomorrow everything will be completely different, every day is different than the one before in school. Every day is a surprise! It’s like an amusement park! Incredibly cool! You’ll definitely love it!”

Bosya’s words inspired Fanyasha, and she looked at him gently and asked: “What did you, boys, do on the first day?”

“Let me think,” said Bosya, scratching his curly nape. “Oh ya, I remember! In our class on the first day the wind broke all the windows, smashed the walls down, and scattered the furniture, and we had to make repairs the whole day without complaining, and build everything back up, and patch it all. I was very upset, and it seemed terribly unfair that instead of learning and acquiring new knowledge, I had to do what seemed to me to be useless work. But then I realized that all that was very important for developing the necessary skills. And I became good friends with the other guys while we helped each other.”

“You see! So the boys are luckier than we were! At least you weren’t forbidden to talk to each other!” said Fanyasha sadly.

“Fanya, don’t worry, you’ll get to talk together soon too!” Bosya soother her. “Boys and girls are just different by nature, and they are educated to develop different qualities. You know, maybe for girls communication is harmful at first. Well, it’s true, judge for yourself, you won’t learn anything then, all you’ll know how to do is just chatter and giggle. You’ll understand later how everything at school is done at the right time, and is super well-thought out. So now let’s get some sleep, tomorrow is another day, and you’ll get new and important knowledge.”

“I’d love to,” answered Fanyasha with a yawn, “but we have to study all the rules, and there’s a whole thick notebook full of them.”

“Well, don’t even worry, here’s a secret: read the rules once, and then put the notebook under your pillow. In the morning you’ll know everything. I know because it worked for me,” shared Bosya, lovingly.

Fanyasha kissed her brother on the cheek, wished him good dreams, and flew to her own room.

Falling asleep, she thought about how lucky she was that she had an older brother who was so amazingly kind and nice, and always ready to help and support her.

Fanyasha felt very tired, as if she had to go through and learn more in a single day at school than she could have imagined in her wildest dreams. After all, there was nothing there that she was used to.

It must be said that in such beautiful, complete families, like Fanyasha’s, in which all members of the family give the child a lot of love, there is a high probability that the favorite child will grow up spoiled, petulant, selfish and stubborn. Therefore, it really was difficult for Fanyasha to accept and understand what humility was.

The first day at school got her acquainted with this quality. Surprisingly, just one day of humility gave her a new, previously unknown sensation of softness and femininity. This filled Fanyasha with pride. She knew that she had touched something secret and important. Not that she suddenly decided to become a prudent and silent type – no way! Fanyasha just felt that now there were new tools for communication in her arsenal.

Chapter 7:

Maximum Readiness for Action while Keeping Inner Calm

“Bosya, hey Bosya, tell me, what did you boys learn in school on the second day of class?” asked Fanyasha with a cunning smile, jumping into the cloud bus.

“Oh come on, Fanya, what do you care? No matter what, you girls will have something different!” muttered Bosya.

“But Bosechka, please, please just tell me. I’m interested! I really want to know,” said Fanyasha, still dying to hear her brother’s explanation.

“Well, as far as I remember, we were given all kinds of different tasks all day long the second day, and we were supposed to make a decision really fast and act on it. That’s really important for men! So it was really cool, although at that moment I still couldn’t understand when we would finally start our studies. That’s it.”

Fanyasha didn’t hear her brother’s last words, as the cloud bus had already taken off high into the sky and was racing to the school.

Fanyasha was thinking and imaging the whole way to school about what other skills could be important to girls, and about what she could expect to learn in school today.

At first, she was imagining how they would all be forced to wash and clean up, since girls should look after cleanliness and order. Then she guessed that everybody would be given the opportunity to demonstrate their talent at dancing or singing. That’s when she would surprise everybody! Her grandmother Nakomis had been working with her all throughout Fanyasha’s young life, teaching her to sing beautifully and to dance, so Fanyasha was absolutely sure that no one was better than her at singing and dancing.

She got so engrossed in her thoughts about her talents that she didn’t notice that she had wound up next to her school, and a strong gust of air once again threw all of the students into the right classrooms.

“This is amazing! It’s so beautiful! It’s just incredible beauty!” said a girl with a long red braid, and clapped her hands.

Fanyasha took a look at the girl, and together with the other students she started looking around their classroom with delight. The whole room was shining and transfused with light. There was not a bit of yesterday’s greyness and dampness left! In place of yesterday’s hard chairs, all of the schoolgirls got to sit on soft red armchairs. In front of them on the little cream-colored tables were white notebooks and colored pencils. It was hard to hold back one’s emotions, but Fanyasha had figured out yesterday that silence was like gold for a girl in school.

A raspberry-colored cloud appeared unexpectedly in the middle of the classroom, and in a flash turned into Horda Etyudizovna. However, today her dress had a deep raspberry hue, and her dark hair was wrapped into a tight bun, with a pearl hairpin shining in it. A playful twinkle was flashing in her large black eyes.

Despite that, her voice and facial expression were still serious and cold.

“Good morning, students. I want to start by recognizing one of you, and by giving away our first pink cloud. Krygoliya Zorge, I’m talking about you! You demonstrated your knowledge of rule number seventy-six with dignity! Congratulations!

With these words, the teacher pointed with her long index finger on her right hand at the girl with the red-haired braid, and in her other hand their immediately appeared a large scroll with the names of all the schoolgirls.

Horda Etyudizovna touched the scroll with her finger across from Krygoliya Zorge’s name, and a small pink cloud immediately appeared on the paper.

“Who can tell me why Krygoliya got a pink cloud?” the teacher slowly turned round and round, and looked fixedly into the girls’ faces.

“Efaniya Aros,” she suddenly snapped, “tell me, what is rule number seventy-six about?!”

Here Fanyasha shook out of fear, and she was extremely hurt that her brother’s advice didn’t work. After all, she had honestly read all four hundred rules for girls’ behavior in elementary school, and she honestly put her notebook under her pillow, but now she couldn’t remember a thing that she had read.

“Murisa Laucar, maybe you can answer me?”

The teacher shifted her glance to Fanyasha’s neighbor with the white bangs, and Murisa answered her quickly and precisely, “Rule number seventy-six says a girl should always speak out loud about her positive emotions!”

Within an instant, there were two new symbols on the scroll: a pink cloud next to Murisa’s name, and a black mark next to Efaniya’s name.

“I can’t believe it,” thought Fanyasha, offended. “This repugnant, uneducated neighbor even managed to learn the rules. I was wrong to listen to my over-confident brother! I got into this stupid situation because of him! I’ll give him what for tonight! He’ll get a beating from me!”

“I’m warning all of you,” sounded Horda Etyudizovna’s metallic voice, “the rules of behavior are the basis of the elementary school program. They have to be not only known, but also clearly executed. I’m going to mark every one of your achievements or successes in my gradebook with a pink cloud, and I’ll give a black mark for every failure.

“Fifty pink clouds will give you the chance to visit the school library and park. Fifty black marks will be a straight path to getting expelled from our school, and going right to a remedial school. And keep in mind, I’ll never let any angel graduate from elementary school if she doesn’t know the rules or hasn’t completely learned any one of the subjects we teach here! Believe me, it’s better to delay the birth of your person than to make this person suffer all throughout life with an angel who doesn’t understand the rules.

“That’s why I encourage all of you to know and execute the rules, and try your best in your studies!”

Fanyasha was interested by her teacher’s words.

“What could that mean,” she thought, “to delay a person’s birth. Hmm, if that’s possible, then, maybe, it’s possible to stop the child from being born altogether. In that case, I won’t even have to go to school! It would be good to know what goes with what. Ahh, I know! I’ve got it! I’ll make Bosya tell me everything he knows about that, since he let me down with learning the rules.”

Meanwhile, Horda Etyudizovna continued.

“Yesterday’s class, as you could probably guess, was dedicated to humility, one of a woman’s most important qualities. Thanks to the special conditions we created, you all learned the skill of humility one way or another. And we’ll see as time goes on how well you can use it in life.

“However, here’s my advice: always follow the sincerity of your feelings in your actions. Any fake behavior, or acting, can lead to irreparable consequences. The words “angel’ and “sincerity’ should become synonyms for you.

“You will learn to feel and to understand with sincerity during your time studying in the elementary school,” said Horda Etyudizovna, and with these words started swaying from side to side, and dancing, and she waved her long arms from side to side, and climbed higher and higher, right up to the ceiling. “You’ll learn to appreciate, to accept, to let go, to forgive, and finally, to love, all with sincerity.”

Here she pointed her finger at Murisa and asked her very strictly:

“Whom should an angel love most sincerely of all?”

“Rule number one: an angel should love her person more than anyone else,” the girl responded quickly.

“Well ya, ya, that’s all well and good,” Fanyasha thought, rolling her eyes. “That all sounds nice, but it’s hard to live like that. Really, how can you sincerely accept something that you don’t like at all, or sincerely love a person and dedicate your life to him or her, if that is completely not a part of your plan? If you have to love someone more than anyone else, it should be yourself.”

“Efaniya Aros!” the teacher barked, and flew down into the center of the classroom. “What are you mumbling down there? Are you really that desperate to fill your report card with black marks, and transfer to remedial school?”

Krygoliya exchanged looks with her neighbor and laughed. “Oh please, what a mean teacher, and my classmates are even worse,” thought Fanyasha with self-pity, and dropped her head guiltily, then started nervously writing the words “s-i-n-c-e-r-e-l-y l-o-v-e y-o-u-r p-e-r-s-o-n.”

“Well that’s better,” noted Horda Etyudizovna, then added a pink cloud to Murisa’s line, and continued talking.

“So, sincere love for a person is the meaning of life for an angel. And an angel’s main task in life is to accompany her person throughout life, from birth to death. A person is born, lives, and dies in a special place created for him or her, which is called planet Earth. This planet is situated in a different dimension of space. I’ll teach you in a few months how to get there.”