Comrade Principal let Iron Fist borrow his car, so we went in that, and Iron Fist let me sit up front, never in my life had I sat up front in a car, but I wasn't able to enjoy it, not now, because I kept thinking more and more about Feri, and Iron Fist kept smoking the whole way, and he didn't say a thing.
School No. 16, where they were holding the competition, wasn't far, so we got there fast, but before we got out of the car Iron Fist showed me the valve one more time, not that I was about to say anything if I could help it, and then we went into the school and out to the yard, which was decorated with pine boughs and panels of red felt with pictures and all sorts of quotations on them about the armed forces and about the nation's youth and about the Party General Secretary and about peace, and we got there just in time because the woman commander of the school's Young Pioneers was already greeting "all those assembled here today," she even gave a little speech, not that I paid much attention, no, I had my eyes on the firing positions. Judging from the blankets that had been laid out, it looked like we'd have to shoot lying down, but the targets hadn't been put out yet, and so I couldn't estimate the distance, and in the meantime the Young Pioneers commander was saying something about solidarity and peace, and then all of a sudden her speech ended and everyone saluted, and then we sang the national anthem, not only the first stanza and the last, as usual, but all the way through, I didn't even know the middle stanzas so well, they said something about some plows and, I think, some swords, but then that ended too, and then the school principal wished everyone much success, and then the competition really did begin.
First we drew lots for the weapons, all of us had to pull a number from out of a gas mask to decide which weapon we'd get to fire with and in which half, I pulled the number thirteen, but that didn't worry me because thirteen always brought me luck, besides, it now meant I'd be shooting in the second half with rifle number three. There were ten air rifles and ten ranges in all, and on purpose I didn't look to see how the person using rifle number three in the first half shot, although that would have given me an idea of how accurate that rifle was and which way it would take my hand, but I figured, what the hell, it didn't matter anyway, and so I didn't look there at all, no, instead I just walked around the yard and took a good look at the Corner of Peace, the word peace was written there in a whole bunch of languages, and it also said that the world's children wanted peace, and at the top were the pictures of the Party General Secretary and the commander in chief of the armed forces, and underneath there were pictures of war heroes and generals, and a couple of pictures of tanks and airplanes and of the armed forces' May Day parade, of all those tanks and mortars and missiles passing by the grandstand, the picture of the generals seemed strange, and when I took a better look, I noticed that it had been cut to pieces and taped back together again, which was pretty obvious because of how the wall behind the generals looked, and then it occurred to me that I knew this picture because it was in the appendix at the end of our fifth-grade textbook, but back then the picture still had seven generals on it, and now there were only five, meaning two generals had disappeared from the picture, and it wasn't like I'd even heard anything about them being traitors, and in the meantime I saw that everyone had just about stood up already at their firing positions, which meant that they were done shooting and our round was coming right up, so I began moseying back there, and I noticed the teachers standing around and chatting away by the school entrance, Iron Fist was there too, he was still smoking, and he must have sensed it when I looked that way because he turned toward me and gave a smile and a wave of the hand, with the same hand that was holding the cigarette, and the whole time his other hand was in his pocket, and I knew he was holding the valve, and then all of a sudden I felt this heat surge through me, and as I stood there someone behind me said, "Horáciú," and I got really scared, but I turned around all the same and saw that it was the woman commander of the Young Pioneers, and when I noticed that she was reading my name from a sheet of paper I calmed down a bit because I figured she didn't know the real Horáciú, and so it wouldn't turn out that I wasn't really him, so I said, "Yes, that's me," and then she asked me what I'd been looking at in the Corner of Peace, and I said, "Nothing, Comrade Commander, it's just that before competitions I always look at the picture of the commander in chief of the armed forces, to bring me luck, I mean, because he's my role model," and then the commander of the Young Pioneers nodded and said, "It's just such patriotic thoughts that take the country forward on the path of peace," and then she jotted something down on a notepad and wished me much success, and I went over to my firing position and got down on the blanket.
One of the competition officials quickly handed out the three practice pellets because by then the practice targets had been set up, and I took the rifle, it was Czechoslovak, sure enough, but in really good condition, it was really easy to close, and on purpose I didn't aim for the center of the target but for the white line between the circles worth five points and six points, and as I squeezed the butt of the rifle to my shoulder, the rifle's weight was enough to calm me down, and when I aimed I didn't even need to pay attention to my breathing because everything just took care of itself, I fired the shot right when I exhaled, and when the competition officials then handed out the twelve competition pellets and gave us the practice targets to look at, I saw that every one of my shots really had gone right where I'd aimed it, so I knew I really could shoot a perfect score if I wanted, and then the other competition official set up the official targets, and I was really surprised because never before had I seen any like them, they were much bigger than plain targets, and each one looked like a human torso, and you had to aim for the left side, where the heart is, and I thought of the plastic model of the heart behind the glass, and it seemed to me that the bull's-eye, all ten points, was right between the two arteries, between the red and the blue blood vessels, and as I then took aim, somehow all I saw before me was that plastic model, and it did no good trying to aim at the circle worth six points because all I saw were those two holes, the red hole and the blue hole, and somehow it seemed like those two holes were Iron Fist's eyes, and then as I pulled the trigger for the first time, I knew the pellet would go there, right between Iron Fist's eyes, and that if I was in the Wild West, he'd drop dead just like that, and then I could also make out the tiny black hole in the middle of the bull's-eye, it looked only as big as a pinprick from where I was, but I shot there a second time, right into the circle worth ten points, and a third time and a fourth too, and even without looking at the target I knew that my every shot was there inside the bull's-eye, all ten points each time, and at the end I looked at the target, after all, and I saw that they really were all there, right beside one another, I'd shot 120 points, or 119, and as I set down the rifle I knew that meant big trouble, and I thought of the generals and I thought that Mother and I would now also disappear, and I would be removed from our class picture.