"Homesickness"

Anna Lupan

 A teacher at a boarding school. A little boy who is liked by no one. He keeps running away. Why? No one knows. After his latest runaway, she finds him and he confesses his reason for running away. He wants to see an elm tree. All this for an elm tree?

He runs away again—while he is sleeping with his teacher in the room. She seeks the help of a forester. They search everywhere, but cannot find him.

After a week, he returns. Bedraggled and wet with dew. She asks him if he has seen the elm tree. He says he has not because it has been cut down. Then why did you come back? ”I missed--you.”

About the Author: “Anna P. Lupan was born in 1922 in the village of Mikhuleny, Rezinsky district, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. She graduated from Agricultural College and then the High Literary Courses of the Soviet Writers’ Union. Her works began appearing in the middle 50’s. Several books of short stories and novels have been published. Her plays have been a great success in Moldavian theaters. The writer is fond of depicting life in a modern village.”

Short Story International #30. Sylvia Tankel, Ed. February 1982, pp. 95-102.