Twenty Years Under the Bed

Original title: Dvadtsat’ let pod krovat’yu

Twenty Years Under the Bed by Viktor Dragunsky is a humorous short story from the Deniska’s Stories cycle. The children decide to play hide-and-seek in a communal apartment. Denis hides under a neighbor’s bed, but the game ends before anyone remembers about him. Left in the dark and surrounded by old things, he starts to imagine what it would be like to stay there for years.

The illustrations by Viktor Chizhikov emphasize the everyday setting of the story: crowded rooms, familiar Soviet interiors, piles of clothes and furniture. Characters are drawn with lively expressions that reflect both the playful mood of the children and the comic tension of Denis’s long hiding. Text and images work together to capture the atmosphere of childhood games in a very specific domestic world.