Irisha sat holding the card for a long time, she guessed someone else had written out the address on the envelope, but she looked back at the card, each letter had been neatly formed just like in kindergarten, thinking how much effort it must have cost him. It was not something that had come up in conversation, but somehow he had found the courage to confide in someone at the Squat, and seek their help in order to send the card.

She hadn't picked up any clues when they had been out, but now looking back, when they had been to see the film she thought he was just being gallant to let her choose, and when they ate he had not actually studied the menu, having seen what others were eating he would say this or that dish looked good. Now it was plain for her to see, Taras was unable to read or write, the card showed clearly the unpractised hand, like a child copying the words laid out by his teacher.

Aside from the sudden shock it was the thought that he held her in such regard he would lay himself open to ridicule in order to say how he felt about her, in his position she wondered if she could have done the same. Marta had come into their lives and changed them both, but Taras as the leader of his small band of brothers looked out for them, were the rest also saddled with illiteracy, if so their lives would be blighted as they grew older.

She needed to talk to Marta, but Marta's number was engaged and she didn't want to leave a message, Anna was likewise phoning someone, last of all she called their home number. Ella answered, and could sense her distress, and before long she had poured out her concerns about Taras, and about all his mates, how their life on the streets had caused them to miss part or even all of their schooling, as they each had different sad tales of how they had come to their current situation.

It was a load off her mind having spoken to Ella, she had so totally understood, had even thanked Irisha for bringing it up, previously everyone had been so busy that it was not a topic anyone had raised. She had agreed for the boys to get on they needed to learn new skills, and reading was central, after that they could learn for themselves. At least she would be able to sleep now, knowing people were prepared to help, and to think only five months ago she didn't have a friend in the world, and scared her mum was about to die.

Taras had got the hint she expected a card, in the fact she had told him not to waste any money on buying her a present, it would be more fun instead to spend time together over the following weekend. Up to now he had always got away with it, he knew the alphabet, and a few simple words, so he blagged it, as none of the others could read either. Now in the Squat he knew most of the men there could read some, and he thought all the women could, as they wrote out a new menu each day on a blackboard.

He had helped out the ladies right from when they had first started up the café, flattening out the big catering tins to go for scrap, and loading up the kitchen peelings that Melenki took round to Gramps for compost, doing odd jobs to keep in their good books, and now he had to make a big ask, hoping they wouldn't laugh.

Kejan being the oldest was in charge, she ran the café and didn't stand for any messing about, but she did treat people fairly, she was a good role model for how to lead a team, so he respected her for that. He waited for the right moment, till she went down the corridor to the store room, telling the others he would go and help her, in case she needed anything heavy. There was no point in hesitating and he had blurted it out, she didn't make fun of him, just said to get the card, or she would get one, then they would sort it out quietly together in her little office where no one need know.

He had tried the joined up letters but it looked really awful, not like the flowing script she had written on the blank practice sheets, it was easier as individual letters that he was more familiar with seeing every day, even if they did cause him such a problem. He nearly didn't post it, he wasn't sure which would be worse, but as it slid through the the hole in the post box, it was done, now she would know, and there was no going back. How would a smart girl like that react when she found out she had such a dumb boyfriend?

A lot of work had been done on the Squat since late November when they'd moved in, Luka the old man ran the place, with Kejan and her women running the café and laundry, so conditions were improving all the time. There had even been talk of having a phone installed, as at present messages to anyone living there had to be relayed either through Melenki, or Gramps, who would then need to turn up in person to pass on the news.

Taras expected to be in a state of limbo until the weekend when they had next planned to meet, so the message from Melenki the next day was unexpected.

"Hey Taras I've got a message from Irisha for you, she said she loved the card, and she would be round to sort out your little problem on Saturday."

This caused a chorus of whoops and jeers from his gang, any ribald comments they kept to themselves as their were some women present in the room. Taras was startled at the quick response, and the way she thought his little problem could be sorted out, she had in her answer acknowledged that she knew of his difficulty, and the fact she thought in some way she could help him. He was grateful on two counts, in that he still had a girlfriend, and that she had been subtle in her reply, rather than spelling it out for his friends to hear.

Anna was the first to hear about Irisha's call, and phoned her friend back with an idea for a plan of action, soon many of the local models had been called to enlist their help, and all of them were seeking out primary school books younger siblings had outgrown to form the basis for a library. The little army that had been mobilised divided the tasks between them, visiting book stores and stationers to organise the supplies they would need.

Residents at the Squat were surprised by the sudden invasion on Saturday when Marta and Anna turned up with a bunch of their friends, to commandeer the last unused office space. Anyone not expected out on a job was roped in to help bring in furniture and supplies, including several bookcases, shortly after a delivery arrived from the girls favourite book store, which gave a clue as to what was happening.

Igor also made a brief appearance delivering the combined efforts of the collection made by all the models. As the organised mayhem began to resolve itself, trays of hot drinks were brought up from the café, and Anna got up to speak. It had been decided this would be best, rather than Irisha open the subject, and throw the spotlight onto any one person in the audience.

She made a very nice well thought out speech about how she and her friends thought now would be an ideal time to help the MMC gang, and those among the adults who had missed out on the opportunities to attend any form of sustained schooling. Anna was quick to say that they expected to find many residents would have trouble reading through no fault of their own, and they were there to help get them started. Once they got over that first hurdle she expected the more literate and numerate in their midst to help bring on those who had received less in the way of formal education.

Now the problem had been aired, it was no longer an individual issue for each person, as the elephant in the room had been laid bare. In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king, and Karl now saw that his situation was not as bad as most of his younger friends who didn't even know their alphabet, so at least he had a head start. Irisha had sorted out his little problem without making him feel foolish, and had included everyone who needed help learning to read.

Now with the materials and resources available it would soon become self sustaining with those who could read mentoring those on the lower rungs of the educational ladder. Anna may have stood at the front that day but Taras knew who had started the ball rolling and he thanked Irisha, saying how ashamed he had felt, that he had to seek help even to fill in a simple card, and his bigger shame at thinking she would give up on him because of his illiteracy. Irisha wasn't sure she could ever raise the subject of her shame, but at least she could assist in helping to erase one issue that blighted Karl and his friends.

Igor had been happy to help his daughters and their friends in their latest scheme, for he was all to well aware of the pitfalls of a poor education, which was why he had always drummed it in to his kids how important it was. With such vast numbers of homeless and unemployed it was necessary to have a good education, and as many qualifications as you could in order to gain an advantage. As much as he had struggled, he continued to persevere trying to master learning English, seeing his daughters as an inspiration.

Each new achievement, grade, or school report from his children was a source of joy, and he let them know how proud he was of their progress. He thought about the new computer skills he had been learning, it was like changing from a spanner to a torque wrench, now he could apply the correct resources to each job at hand without any wasted effort, which gave him an edge over the other managers.

Though the girls had started it, within a few weeks the women of the Squat took over the role of teaching, and as none of the residents, men or boys wanted to get on their wrong side, they knuckled down to the tasks they were set. There would be less snow falls as the month progressed, and by mid March the snow would be gone as the weather began to show an upturn, and hopefully other types of work would become more prevalent.

Karl's insight had caused Marta to have a long conversation with her mum, then there had been the Valentines day surprises less than a week later, Marta loved the flowers, and was bowled over to receive a pendent as well, it had both their pictures inside. That week she ensured he knew how much she liked the gift, on two consecutive afternoons.

The next important item on her agenda was another visit to the health centre on Saturday of the following weekend with her mum, as asked she had kept a record of her cycle, and any related issues to ensure she had the most suitable type of pill. Reviewing the notes she had made and talking of the increasing incidence of cramps she had experienced. The doctor was fairly confident she knew now which brand of pill would reduce the discomfort her current prescription had been causing, and wrote Marta a new one for the alternate product, with advice about the changeover. She was glad this visit hadn't entailed another examination.

Having such an amazing service available to the models and their families was something they had been grateful for, as the crumbling and overworked state healthcare system was a nightmare, even for a simple thing like Sofia's broken arm, she could have been waiting around all day. Sofia had been collected quickly in an ambulance, checked out on the scene and been given pain medication straight away, and they expected no complications.

Anna's recent interest in geography lead her to look more closely at aspects of their own country, and how it could relate to the studio, in the way Marta was always viewing things. The Ukraine had always been known as Russia's bread basket, because wheat and other cereal crops did well in their rich soil, they also grew a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, but Anna was looking at other regions. The mountains and limestone uplands were very scenic, there were also lots of forest areas with pretty lakes, and it went without saying the many coastal locations that Anna thought would make lovely backgrounds for summer pictures in the coming year.

She knew the studio had done outside shoots for some girls living in remote areas, but to make best use of resources, and to make it fun, a photographer and make-up artist could take three or four girls out for a location shoot, rather than one at a time as they had done in the past. All that would be needed was a little planning to make it work. This and a few other ideas were among the items she and her sister planned to put forwards to Ivan when Marta got back from her morning appointment.

With the growing popularity and success of the various web site brands within the studio network, they could now afford to be more experimental, opening new specialised niched web titles, and allowing a greater movement of models between those various sites to find where the girls felt most comfortable. Most of the girls at Ivan's branch of the network felt at home where they were, but they gained a few recruits from the softer panty flashing web site who had gained the confidence and will to move on.

Some of their older girls did a few trial shoots with the more daring site that specialised in multi-girl sets in the fourteen to eighteen age group, and for a while would work for both sites before finally moving to the sister studio with the raunchier style of presentation.

Alina had joined the sisters in Ivan's office, as she did most of the leg work to discover if the ideas from their think tank produced a favourable response from their members, and was now a regular visitor. The nervous tension of her first visit long forgotten, as the results from the research they did, pointed the way for many future productions.

Looking ahead in the calender their audience wouldn't know of Women's day on the 8th of March, that honoured all women, whereas they did have Mother's day in May, but the next themed sets would be for March the 17th, St Patrick's day. The ideas were for costumes of elves, sprites, and leprechauns with a predominantly green colour scheme, and having an Irish flavour, that is if the designers could fathom that out.

For April Fool's Day, Alina was looking for classic inspiration from drama, myth and legend for costume ideas, but felt it would be better served in video rather than stills sets, and several writers were working on skits for that date. Victory Day on May the 9th would likewise bypass their audience, but May Day celebrations were universally common, and that was about the same time as Mother's day, and would entail a lot of flowery themes.

They got as far as Easter, when variations of bunny costumes, Easter bonnets and giant eggs would be the major aspects of set and costume design. Work on other festivals or holidays would continue on a rolling basis as they got closer to the relevant dates, but the writing circle were now coming forwards with a steady stream of new material that gave the costume and set designers plenty to work on.

Each Ukrainian city has its City Day, the day when the city was founded, and Kiev Day was usually celebrated during the last weekend of May, but the idea of any photo set to reflect this was vetoed, as they didn't want their members to focus on the location of one of the main hubs of the studio network, thinking it was better to remain nebulous.

After the meeting Alina wanted to show Marta some breakdowns of some of the trends she had been following by the use of statistical analysis, at which point Anna bowed out in fear she would get bored to death, and went to see various friends around the complex, and just generally be nosey. She spent a pleasant half hour in the costume department, then walked around the scenery workshop to see what they were currently working on, but only four guys were covering that day. On her way back she stopped in to say hello to the scheduling manager, although she didn't know him as well as many other people in the building, she was curious to see which models were working that day in case there were any she spoke to on a regular basis.

The two nine year old girls that Marta had thrown together were working in studio three that afternoon, and Carina was doing make-up for them, but with a photographer that Anna didn't know very well. The two models careers individually had been mediocre, but as a twosome they had proved very popular indeed, to the point where they now only worked as a team for both photos, and on video, though they had yet to learn sufficient English to make videos in the new series.

She called through to the studio, where the phones just had a small blinking light rather than a loud ring tone that would be distracting. Carina answered, and told her the set was just winding up, and to come over and say hello. The cute pair had now finished, and were so pleased to meet one of the goose sisters, looking up to Anna, in that by association she had boosted their careers, and in the fact she was taller. Admittedly she had grown over, the past year, but also these two girls were also short for their age, and like peas in a pod, other than their hair colour.

The two respective mothers were also happy to meet Anna, they had both turned up as the two girls came from towns that were on different rail lines into the city, so they only got together on set, but phoned each other all the time. Both girls would be getting computers to help with learning English, and Anna told them of how the models met and talked together in their own special chat room.

Finally with make-up removed, and dressed again in their street clothes, three models and two mums went off to the canteen for refreshments. Knowing it would make their day Anna phoned her sister to say there were two girls in the canteen who would love to see her.

Marta shortly joined their table, the mothers if not their daughter's had expected Anna's sister to be much older, but were none the less pleased with the results of the upturn that had occurred. Marta deflected the praise saying that it was her colleague Alina who had seen the potential of placing the girls together. When she went on to say how all the top models were concentrating on their education, and especially learning English, the mums were even more pleased, sure this pronouncement would have an effect on their awe struck youngsters.

The following day Irisha had invited Taras round to fit in some additional coaching, as her mum was working all day Sunday at the studio, though she expected they would end up necking on the sofa. Lessons at the Squat had only started the previous weekend, but they all saw the value of learning, and Taras wanted to keep the respect of the others in leading by example. He swallowed his pride, if reading books meant for five year old's is what it took, then that is what he would do.

The alphabet, and the words might be different, but it was still pretty much, 'The cat sat on the mat', style of reader, as in primary schools all over. Taras found it hard to concentrate on the pages with the hot pixie sat so close to him, but she had stated they couldn't move on to anything 'more interesting' until he finished the work she had set out for that day.

Life on the streets had been hard, but despite his bluster, and his leadership of a small gang, this was his first real friend of the opposite gender, and he was doing his best not to screw-up. The attraction had been from the first day he saw her at Marta's house project, but it had been a slow and tentative relationship, if that was the right word, for they hadn't got much past kissing, and although he had brushed his hand over her tits, she was wearing a lot of clothes at the time.

Irisha had over the past months been coaching many of her classmates in English, and was now going through the process in her own language, but at least this student was familiar with all the words, they just had to be linked to the symbols on the page. He was doing fairly well, and she encouraged him with the odd kiss, that led to more kissing until the books were forgotten.

The soft modern sofa was new and comfortable, and soon they were leaning over then laying down hands from both parties roaming about, clasping each other closer, with the heat rising and pulses quickening. Without conscious thought his hand slid up her side to find the swelling flesh under the light jumper she was wearing, suddenly she went rigid, stock still, next thing she had bolted for the bathroom.

Shit what had he done! Had he pushed things too far, or too fast, he had hadn't squeezed her, he didn't think he had done anything to hurt her, and now he didn't know what to do. He sat there confused and stunned wondering how to deal with this turn of events, he didn't have anyone who had ever given him advice on girls so he was flying blind.

She seemed to have been in there a long time, and he couldn't be sure if she was waiting for him to leave, so he just sat there feeling helpless.

Irisha felt so foolish, she had got herself into this, he wasn't mean to her, and he showed her respect. She thought their friendship was moving slowly forwards at a pace she could handle, and then she just freaked out. The touch on her breast for an instant brought a flashback of one of the punters groping her as if checking out fruit in the market, he had been so rough with her she had been bruised for days afterwards. She sat there crying, would it never go away?

Tap, tap, tap.

"Irisha are you OK? I'm sorry if I did something to upset you. I wouldn't do anything to hurt you, please come out."

"Are you crying? Please don't cry. I'm sorry if I rushed you, I'll keep my hands to myself, I wont do anything you don't want me to do."

The silence remained apart from the odd muffled sob or sniff so he tried once more.

"I know I don't deserve to have a girlfriend as smart and beautiful as you, but please give me another chance."

He waited a while longer, then as he was about to give up and leave he heard the click of the lock, and the bathroom door opened.

His favourite pixie emerged, eyes red and puffy clutching some tissues.

It wasn't fair that he thought he was to blame she should put that right at least, then he could find a girl that wasn't damaged goods.

"Taras please sit down, it wasn't your fault, it was all down to me."

He couldn't work out what she meant, but he sat back on the sofa to find out what this was about, and if he could make amends for whatever had caused this upset.

"I'm sure you'll make someone a great boyfriend, but I'm not the girl you think I am." She put up her hand to stall his interruption.

"I thought I could do it, but I'm not ready for a boyfriend, it's too hard to explain, but you can find someone better than me."

"Please Irisha don't say that, I don't wont to find someone else, I couldn't find someone better than you, you're kind and pretty and cute, that's the girl I think you are. So unless you're going to tell me you're a boy, what's the problem?"

He looked so concerned, pleading, and she could see he was sincere, so against the advice she was given to leave the past where it belonged she told him...

One other thing of note happened that Sunday, Anna fell in love!

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Probably to be continued in Chapter 54.

Chapter 51 has so far garnered 8 comments which is a new record for me, that level of interest provides the impetus for me to struggle through the bouts of writers block. As always your reviews, comments, debate, arguments, conjecture, speculation, and defence of my honour are all welcomed.