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Translated from the Russian by John P.Mandeville
Russian original title: Необычайные приключения Карика и Вали
Leningrad 1937
OCR: Tuocs
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Granny is difficult - Mother is worried - Jack gets on a hot scent - A
strange discovery is made in the Professor's study - The Professor
disappears
MOTHER SPREAD A BIG WHITE CLOTH ON THE TABLE. GRANNY went over towards
the sideboard. In the dining-room knives and forks jingled cheerfully and
plates clattered.
"Is it egg and onion pie?" asked Granny.
"Yes. The children have been begging and begging me for it," said
Mother, as she put out the plates.
"And is the sweet strawberries, and cream? "
"No. To-day we are going to have ice cream pudding for a sweet! The
children do love it so."
"All the same," mumbled Granny, "in the summer it is better for the
children to have berries and fruit. . . . When I was a little girl. . . ."
But Mother, apparently, was quite convinced Granny never had been a
little girl. Shrugging her shoulders she went over to the window and,
looking out into the courtyard, shouted loudly:
"Ka-a-ari-ik! Va-alya-ya! Lu-unch!"
"When I was a little girl . . . . " continued Granny, offended; but
Mother, not listening to her, leaned out on the window-sill and shouted
still louder:
"Karik! Valya! Where are you?"
In the courtyard all was silent.
"There you are," grumbled Granny. "I knew it would happen. . . ."
"Karik! Valya!" Mother shouted again, and not waiting for an answer sat
down on the window-sill and asked, "Didn't they tell you where they were
going to go?"
Granny bit her lip angrily. "When I was a little girl," she announced,
"I always said where I was going, but nowadays . . . ." She straightened the
cloth on the table, frowning. "Nowadays they just do as they like . . . if
they take the fancy they'll go off to the North Pole; and sometimes even
worse. . . . Why, only yesterday they announced on the radio. . . ."
"What did they announce?" asked Mother, hastily. "Oh, nothing! Just
that some boy was drowned - at least that was what they said."
Mother shuddered. "That's all nonsense," she said, sliding off the
window-sill. "Fiddlesticks! Rubbish! Karik and Valya would never go off and
bathe."
"I don't know, I don't know!" Granny shook her head. "Only they should
have been here ages ago and there is no sign of them. They ran off early and
haven't had anything to eat this morning."
Mother put her hand up to her face, and not saying anything more went
out of the dining-room quickly.
"When I was a little girl . . . ," sighed Granny.
But what Granny did when she was a little girl Mother just didn't hear,
she was already out in the courtyard and screwing up her eyes in the bright
sunlight was peering in all directions.
On a yellow mound of sand lay Valya's green spade with the bent handle,
and beside it was flung Karik's faded beret.
No sign of the children.
Under the rusty gutter pipe, warming herself in the sun, was the big
tortoise-shell cat - Anyuta. She lazily wrinkled her forehead and stretched
out her paws as if she wanted to give them to Mother.
"Karik! Valya!" shouted Mother, and actually stamped her foot.
Anyuta, the cat, opened her green eyes widely, stared at Mother, and
then, yawning luxuriously, turned over on the other side.
"What has become of them?" grumbled Mother.
She crossed the courtyard, glanced into the laundry room, peeped
through the dark windows of the cellar where the firewood was kept. No sign
of the children.
"Ka-ari-ik!" she shouted once again.
There was no reply. "Va-a-lya!" Mother cried out.
"Wough-ough, woof!" sounded quite close at hand. The door at a side
entrance slammed violently. A big sheep-dog with a sharp pointed nose leaped
out into the yard with his chain dragging behind him. With one rush he was
on the mound, rolling in the sand, raising a great cloud of dust; then up he
jumped, shook himself and with loud barking hurled himself at Mother.
Mother stepped back quickly.
"Back! No, you don't! Get away with you!" She shooed him off with her
hands.
"Down, Jack! To heel!" a loud voice resounded in the doorway.
A fat man wearing sandals on his bare feet and with a lighted cigarette
in his hand had come into the yard.
It was the tenant from the fourth floor, the photographer Schmidt.
"What are you up to, Jack, eh?" asked the fat man. Jack guiltily wagged
his tail.
"Such a fool you are!" grinned the photographer. Pretending to yawn,
Jack came up to his master, sat down and with a jingling chain set about
scratching his neck with his hind leg.
"Grand weather to-day!" smiled the fat man. "Aren't you going to your
country cottage?"
Mother stared first at the fat man, then at the dog and then said
rather crossly:
"You have let that dog out again, Comrade Schmidt, without his muzzle.
He behaves just like a wolf. He just looks around to see at whom he can
snap. . . ."
"What, Jack?" said the fat man, apparently most surprised. "Why, he
wouldn't harm a child! He is as peaceful as a dove. Would you like to stroke
him?"
Mother waved him away with her hand.
"You think I have nothing else to do but to stroke dogs! At home, lunch
is getting cold, none of the housework is done and here I am unable to get
hold of the children. Ka-a-ri-ik! Val-a-alya!" she shouted once more.
"You just stroke Jack and ask him nicely. Say: 'Now then Jack, go find
Karik and Valya.' He'll find them in a wink!" Schmidt bent down to his dog
and rubbed his neck affectionately. "You'll find them, won't you Jack?"
Jack made a little whimpering noise and, quite unexpectedly, jumped up
and licked the full lips of the photographer. The fat man staggered back,
fussily spat out and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
Mother laughed.
"You need not laugh," Schmidt gravely assured her, "this is a
sleuthhound. He follows the scent of a human being just like a train running
on rails. Would you like me to show you?"
"I believe you!" said Mother.
"No, no!" the fat man was getting agitated. "Allow me to assure you
that if I say it is true, it is true! Now then, just give me something
belonging to Karik or Valya - a toy - coat - beret. It does not matter what.
. . ."
Mother shrugged her shoulders, but all the same she stooped down,
picked up the spade and beret and, smiling, handed them to Schmidt.
"Splendid! Excellent!" said the fat man, and gave the beret to the dog
to smell. "Now, Jack," he continued loudly, "show them how you do it! Go
find them, boy!"
Jack whimpered, put his nose to the ground and, sticking up his tail,
started to run round the courtyard in large circles.
The photographer cheerfully puffed along behind him.
Having run up to the cat Anyuta, Jack stopped. The cat jumped up, bent
herself into a bow and flashing her green eyes hissed like a snake. Jack
tried to grab her by the tail.
The cat bristled up, gave Jack a box on the ear; the poor dog squealed
with pain, but at once recovered himself and with a loud bark flung himself
at Anyuta. The cat again hissed and raised one paw as if to say: "
Sh-sh-sh-shove off! I'll s-s-slap you s-s-such a one!"
"Now, now, Jack," said the photographer, "you mustn't get put off!" and
he tugged so hard at the lead that the dog sat back on his hind legs. "Get
on, now! Go find them!" he ordered.
With a parting bark at the cat, Jack ran on ahead. He ran around the
whole yard and once more stopped by the gutter pipe and loudly sniffed the
air, looking at his master.
"I understand, I understand!" said the photographer, nodding his head.
"They sat here, of course, playing with the cat! But where did they go
afterwards? Now, go find them, go find them, Jack!"
Jack started wagging his tail, twisted himself around like a top,
scraped with his paws at the sand under the pipe and then, with a loud bark,
dashed to the main entrance to the flats.
"Ha-ha! he's got on the scent!" shouted Schmidt, and with his sandals
slithering he leaped after the dog.
"If you do find the children, send them home!" Mother called after him,
and started walking back through the yard. "Of course they are in one of the
neighbouring courtyards," she thought to herself.
Pulling hard on his lead, Jack hauled his master up a staircase.
"Not so fast! Not so fast!" puffed the fat man, barely able to keep up
with the dog.
On the landing of the fifth floor, Jack stopped for a second, gazed at
his master and with a short bark threw himself at a door which was covered
with oilcloth and felt.
On the door there hung a white enamelled plate with the inscription:
IVAN HERMOGENEVITCH ENOTOFF
Underneath was pinned a notice:
Bell does not work. Please knock.
Jack with a squeal jumped up, scratching at the oilcloth covering the
door.
"Down, Jack!" shouted the fat man. "It says knock, and not squeal."
The photographer Schmidt smoothed his hair with the palm of his hand,
carefully wiped the perspiration off his face with a handkerchief and then
knocked cautiously at the door with his knuckles.
Behind the door shuffling steps were heard.
The lock clicked.
The door opened. A face with shaggy eyebrows and a yellowish white
beard appeared in the widening gap.
"Do you want me?"
"Excuse me, Professor," said the photographer in some confusion, "I
only wanted to ask you - "
The stout man had not succeeded in finishing his sentence before Jack
tore the lead out of his hand and, almost knocking the Professor off his
feet, dashed into the flat.
"Come back! Jack! To heel!" shouted Schmidt.
But Jack was already rattling his chain somewhere at the end of the
corridor.
"I am so sorry, Professor, Jack is only young. . . . If you will let me
come in, I'll soon get hold of him."
"Yes, yes . . . of course," replied the Professor, absent-mindedly,
letting Schmidt into the flat. "Come in, please. I hope your dog does not
bite!"
"Hardly ever," Schmidt assured the Professor.
The photographer crossed the threshold and having closed the door
behind him, said quietly: "A thousand apologies! I won't be a minute. . . .
The children must be with you - Karik and Valya, from the second floor. . .
."
"Allow me, allow me! Karik and Valya? Yes, of course, I know them well.
Very fine children. Polite and eager to learn.. . "
"Are they here?"
"No, they haven't been here to-day; in fact I am waiting for them!"
"Very odd !" muttered the stout man. "Jack has so certainly followed
their trail. . . . ."
"But may be it is yesterday's trail?" politely suggested the Professor.
But Schmidt did not succeed in replying. In the further room, Jack was
barking resoundingly, then something rattled, crashed and jingled as if a
cupboard or table had fallen with crockery on it.
The Professor started.
"He may break up everything!" he shouted as if he was going to cry, and
seizing Schmidt by the sleeve pulled him along the dark corridor. "Here!
through here!" he barked, pushing open a door.
No sooner had the Professor and the photographer crossed the threshold
of the room than Jack threw himself at his master's chest with a whimper and
then at once dashed back with a bark. All around the room he darted with his
lead behind him, smelling the bookshelves, jumping on the leather armchair,
twisting himself under the table, all the time throwing himself from side to
side.
On the table, tubes and retorts jingled as they bounced up and down,
tall glass vessels swayed and fine glass tubes shivered. From one violent
jolt the microscope, with its brass sparkling in the sun, started to rock.
The Professor only just succeeded in catching it. But in saving the
microscope, he caught with his sleeve a gleaming nickel container full of
some sort of complicated weights. The container fell and the weights jumped
out and scattered with a jingle over the yellow parquet floor.
"What are you up to, Jack?" gruffly jerked out the photographer. "You
are making an ass of yourself. You're barking, but what is the use? Where
are the children?"
Jack put his head on one side. He pricked up his ears and looked most
attentively at his master, trying to understand what it was that they were
scolding him about.
The photographer shook his head disapprovingly.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, Jack! They said you were a
sleuthhound! With a diploma! And all you can do is to chase cats instead of
following a trail. Now, come home! Be generous enough to forgive us. Comrade
Professor, for this disturbance!"
The photographer bowed awkwardly and made towards the door. But here
Jack became possessed as of a devil. He seized his master by the breeches
with his teeth, and planting his feet on the slippery parquet floor, tugged
towards the table.
"What on earth is up with you?" complained the fat man in amazement.
Squealing, Jack once more darted around the table, but then leaped on
the small divan which stood in front of the open window and putting his paws
on the window-sill, barked with short, jerky barks.
Schmidt got angry.
"Come to heel!" he shouted, seizing the dog by the collar; but Jack
stubbornly shook his head and again darted to the divan. "I can't understand
it!" The photographer threw up his hands.
"Probably there is a mouse behind the divan!" the Professor guessed.
"Or maybe a crust of bread or a bone. I often have my dinner there."
He went up to the divan and pulled it towards him. At the back of the
divan, something rustled and softly padded to the ground.
"A crust!" said the Professor.
Jack at that moment tore himself forward and squeezed, with his tail
sticking up, between the wall, and just managed to shift the divan. He
seized something in his teeth.
"Come on, show us what it is!" shouted the photographer.
Jack backed out, shook his head, turned abruptly to his master, and
laid at his feet a child's down-at-heel sandal. The photographer perplexedly
turned the find over in his hand.
"Apparently some sort of a child's shoe. . . ."
"H'm . . . strange!" said the Professor, examining the sandal. "Very
strange!"
Whilst they were turning the find over in their hands. Jack pulled out
from behind the divan a further three sandals, one the same size and two
smaller ones.
Unable to follow what had happened, the Professor and the stout man
looked first at each other and then at the sandals. Schmidt knocked the hard
sole of one sandal with his knuckle, and for no apparent reason said:
"Strong enough! They're good sandals!"
But Jack meanwhile had pulled out from under the divan a pair of blue
shorts and, pressing them with his paws to the floor, barked softly.
"Something more?" said the Professor, quite perplexed.
He bent over, and would have stretched out his hand for the shorts, but
Jack bared his teeth and growled so threateningly that the Professor very
quickly withdrew his hand.
"What a very unfriendly nature he has, to be sure!" said the Professor
in some confusion.
"Yes, he is not over-polite to me!" agreed the photographer.
He took the shorts, shook them, and, folding them neatly, laid them
before the Professor.
"Please take them."
The Professor looked sideways at Jack.
"No, no, it is quite unnecessary," said he. "I can see everything. . .
. Well, now . . . well, now . . . there are the markings V and K. Valya and
Karik!" And he touched with his fingers big white letters sewn in the belts
of the shorts.
The stout man wiped his face with the palm of his hand.
"Is there a bathroom in the flat?" he asked in a businesslike way.
"No," replied the Professor, "there is no bathroom. But if you want to
wash your hands, there's. . . ."
"Oh, no," panted the stout man, "I can wash at home. But I thought they
might have undressed and were bathing themselves. Do you see what I mean?"
"Certainly." The Professor nodded his head.
"But where have they hidden themselves? Naked . . . without shorts,
without sandals? I don't understand it at all!" Schmidt made a gesture of
hopelessness.
Then he put his hands behind his back, spread out his feet, lowered his
head and gazed solidly at the yellow rectangles of the parquet; then he
suddenly straightened himself up and said confidently:
"Don't worry! We'll find them any minute now. They are here, Professor.
They are simply hiding! You can be sure of that! My Jack has never been
mistaken yet."
The Professor and the photographer proceeded on a tour round all the
rooms; they examined the kitchen and even looked into the dark larder.
Jack listlessly tailed along behind them.
In the dining-room, the stout man opened the doors of the sideboard,
poked his head under the table, and in the bedroom searched with his hands
underneath the bed. But there was no trace of the children in the flat.
"Wherever can they have hidden themselves?" muttered the photographer.
"In my opinion," said the Professor, "they have not been here to-day."
"That's what you think?" questioned Schmidt thoughtfully. "You think
they have not been here? But what do you think, Jack? Are they here or
aren't they?"
Jack barked.
"Here?"
Jack barked again.
"Well, go find them! Go find them, you dog!"
Jack at once cheered up. He threw himself round and once more led the
Professor and Schmidt into the study. Here he again jumped on to the
window-sill and started to bark loudly, and then to whimper as if he wanted
to assure his master that the children had left the room through the window.
Schmidt got angry.
"You're nothing but a dunce ! Just a puppy ! You actually think that
the children jumped out into the yard through a window on the fifth floor?
Or perhaps you think they flew out of the window like flies or dragonflies?"
"What !" The Professor started. "They flew? What dragonfly?"
The photographer smiled.
"Well, that is what Jack thinks!"
The Professor seized his head in his hands.
"What an awful thing!" His voice was hoarse.
The photographer gazed at him in amazement and asked:
"What is the matter with you? Here, have a drink of water! You are not
well."
He stepped towards the table on which stood a glass jug full of water;
but here the Professor positively screamed as if he had trodden on red-hot
iron with bare feet.
"Stop! stop! stop!" he yelled.
The photographer, now frightened, froze in his tracks.
The Professor shot out his hand and grabbed a glass containing what
appeared to be water, hastily raised it to the level of his eyes and looked
through it towards the light. Then he hastily produced a huge magnifying
glass with a horn handle from his pocket and shouted to Schmidt:
"Don't move! For goodness' sake, don't move! And hold the dog tight !
Better take him in your arms. I beg you!"
The fat man, thoroughly frightened, was completely bewildered. Without
further ado, he picked up the dog in his arms and pressed him tightly to his
chest. "The old man has gone off his head!" he thought.
"Now, stay like that!" shouted the Professor.
Holding the magnifying glass in front of his eyes, crouching down, he
started to examine the rectangles of the floor carefully one after the
other.
"Shall I have to stand long like this, Professor?" timidly asked the
photographer as he followed with alarm the strange movements of the
Professor.
"Put one foot here!" the Professor yelled at him, pointing with his
finger at the nearest rectangles of the parquet.
Schmidt awkwardly moved his foot and pressed Jack so tightly that he
wriggled in his arms and started to whimper.
"Shut up!" whispered Schmidt, watching the Professor with growing
fright.
"Now - the other foot! Put it here!"
The fat man followed without protest.
Thus, step by step, the Professor conducted the photographer, who was
quite dumb with astonishment, to the doorway.
"And now," gruff-gruffed1 the Professor, throwing the door wide open,
"please go away!"
Schmidt had hardly got outside before the door banged in his face. He
could hear the lock being turned.
The fat man dropped Jack, spluttered with fright and dashed down the
stairway, losing his sandals, out of breath, looking over his shoulder every
minute.
Jack, with a great bark, plunged after him.
And they did not stop running until they reached the nearest militia
post.2
* * * * *
A motor-car with blue stripes on its sides drove at high speed into the
courtyard. Several militiamen sprang out, called out the caretaker and
hastened to the fifth floor home of Professor Enotoff.
1 Russians make use of words which show what they mean by their sound.
"Gruff-gruff" has been made up and is used in various places to illustrate
this. - Translator.
2 In the Soviet Union "policemen" no longer exist; in their place are
"Militiamen" who occupy "Militia posts," not "police stations."
But the Professor did not appear to be at home. On the door of his flat
there hung a note, pinned up with new drawing pins:
Don't look for me. It will be quite useless.
Professor J. H. Enotoff.
The wonder-working liquid - The bewildering behaviour of shorts and
sandals - A very ordinary room is transformed in a very extraordinary way -
Adventures on the window-sill - Karik and Valya set off on an amazing
journey
WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS JUST THIS. On the evening of the day previous to
that on which the children had vanished, Karik was sitting in the study of
Professor Enotoff. The evening was a good time to have a chat with the old
man.
The study was in semi-darkness and long dark shadows appeared to be
climbing to the ceiling from the black corners of the room: it seemed as if
someone was hiding up there and was gazing down at the circle of light on
the big table. Blue flames of a spirit lamp leaped up, flickered and swayed
underneath the curved bottom of a glass retort. In the retort something
gurgled and bubbled. Transparent drops were falling slowly and musically
from a filter into a bottle.
Karik climbed up on to the biggest leather armchair.
Pressing his chin on the edge of the table, he gazed attentively at the
skilful hands of the Professor, trying hard not to breathe, and not to move.
The Professor worked away, whistling, or telling Karik amusing stories
of his childhood, but more often talking about what he had seen in Africa,
America or Australia - it was all very interesting, whatever he said.
Then, rolling up the white sleeves of his overall, he bent over the
table and slowly, drop by drop, he poured out a thicky oily liquid into
narrow little glasses. From time to time he threw into these glasses some
sparkling crystals, and then little clouds would appear in the liquid,
slowly circle round and drop to the bottom. After this, the old man poured
something blue out of a measure and the liquid became, for some reason, rose
coloured.
All this, naturally, was most interesting, and Karik was ready to stay
there all night.
But suddenly, the Professor hastily dried his hands on a towel, grasped
the large retort by the neck and rapidly covered it up with blue paper.
"Well, that's that!" he said. "At last I can congratulate myself on a
success."
"It's ready?" asked Karik, cheerfully.
"Yes. All that remains now is to take the colour out of it, and . . ."
The Professor snapped his fingers, and in a weird voice sang:
0 beauteous, miraculous fluid!
They'll all ask: How did you do it?
Karik could not help frowning: the Professor sang so loudly, but
unfortunately he had no ear for music and sang a melody which resembled the
wailing of the wind in a chimney pipe. "Suppose the rabbit won't drink it?"
questioned Karik. "Won't drink it!" The Professor just shrugged his
shoulders. "We'll make it drink . . . but that must wait for to-morrow . .
.but now. . . ." The old man looked at the clock and started to fuss:
"Oh-oh-oh, Karik! We've stayed up far too late. Eleven o'clock. Yes. It's
two minutes past eleven!"
Karik realised that it was time to go home. With a sigh, he climbed
down reluctantly from the armchair and demanded:
"You won't begin without me to-morrow?"
"Not under any circumstances," assured the Professor, shaking his head.
"That I promise you."
"And can Valya come?"
"Valya?" The Professor thought over this. "Well, why not . . . bring
Valya. . . ."
"Nothing will happen very suddenly?"
"Everything will happen," said the Professor confidently, as he blew
out the spirit lamp.
"And will the rabbit turn into a flea?"
"Oh, no," laughed the Professor. "The rabbit will remain a rabbit."
"But tell me, Professor. . . ."
"No, no, I will not tell you anything more. Quite enough. We can leave
our conversation until to-morrow. Go home, my young friend. I am tired, and
it is high time you were in bed."
All night long, Karik tossed from side to side. He dreamt he saw a pink
elephant, so tiny that you could put him in a thimble. The elephant was
eating jam, then ran along the table, round a saucer, playing such pranks
that he upset the salt and nearly got drowned in the mustard. Karik rescued
him from the mustard pot and started to clean him up, standing him in a
little dish, but the elephant wrenched himself away and gave Karik a blow on
the shoulder with his trunk. Then he suddenly jumped up on to Karik's head
and said in a queer girlish voice, vaguely familiar: "What is the matter,
Karik? Why are you shouting?"
Karik opened his eyes. Beside his bed, in a dressing-gown, stood Valya.
"Aha! you - awake already?" said Karik. "Grand! Dress yourself
quickly."
"What for?"
"We must start. Going to the Professor's. Oo-oo, what will happen
to-day . . .? Such wonders! . . . miracles!"
"But what?"
"Dress yourself quickly."
"I'll put on shorts and sandals," said Valya.
"And I'll do the same."
Looking under the bed for his sandals, Karik told her in a whisper:
"Understand: Professor John has invented a pink liquid."
"Does it taste nice?" asked Valya, buckling the strap of her sandals.
"I don't know . . . it's for rabbits . . . he is going to give it to
them to-day . . . make them drink it, and then. . . . Oo-oo, my word!"
Valya's eyes opened widely.
"And what will happen to them?" she asked in a whisper.
"He doesn't know yet. This is just an experiment. Come on quickly!"
The children quietly tiptoed through their mother's room. Mother
shouted something after them, but Karik grabbed Valya by the hand and raced
off with her.
"Keep quiet," he whispered, "or she'll make us clean our teeth, wash,
and wait for breakfast. Then we shall most certainly be late."
Having dashed across the courtyard, they darted into the main entrance
of the flats, up on to the fifth floor, stopping at last in front of the
door, where the bell did not work and callers were instructed to knock.
Karik knocked - no one answered. He pushed the door - it opened.
The children went into the semi-darkness of a hall. On the wall a large
mirror glittered. Immediately opposite the children, a bronze idol gazed out
of a glass case. The Professor had brought it from China, where some of the
Chinamen actually pray to these hideous dummies. In the Professor's
household it served as a doorkeeper. And a most excellent doorkeeper it was
and never grumbled "shut the door after you."
In all other respects, it was very like one of the living doorkeepers,
and like them could watch the door silently all day.
On the hall-stand there hung the Professor's heavy winter fur coat, his
overcoat and some sort of a raincoat with big checks like a chess board.
All was silent in the flat; except that the tick-tock of a clock
sounded a measured beat in the dining room, and in the kitchen, water was
dripping musically from the tap.
"We'll go in," said Karik. "The Professor is certain to be in his
study."
But in the study there was no Professor. The children decided to wait.
The windows of the study were wide open. The sun lit up the white
table, covered with curving jars, vessels and retorts. Fine glass tubing
stood up like flowers in the glass vessels. Nickel-plated cups gave blinding
reflections of the sun. The brass of the microscope sparkled cheerfully, and
on the ceiling the sunbeams frolicked.
Along the wall, there was fixed a glass case full of books - thick
books and thin books. The titles were hard to understand:
The Ecology of Animals, Hydrobiology, Chironomidae, Ascaridae. They
were the sort of books children do not touch.
The children wandered round the study, twisted the screws of the
microscope, sat in the leather armchair, on which, with its empty sleeves
flung apart, lay the white overall of the Professor; and then they started
to look at the jars.
Between two retorts, Valya noticed a tall, narrow glass. It was full to
the brim with a silvery clear liquid. Little bubbles, which glittered, rose
from the bottom and burst on the surface. It was very like soda water.
Valya carefully took the tall glass in her hand. It was as cold as ice.
She raised it to her face and smelt it. The liquid had a scent like peaches
and something else she could not recognise. It was very appetising.
"Oh, how good it smells!" cried out Valya.
"Put it back in its place," said Karik, crossly. "You mustn't touch
anything. That may be a poison. Come away from the table. Do you hear?"
Valya put the glass back in its place, but she did not leave the table;
the liquid smelt so delicious that she wanted to sniff it again.
"Valya, come away!" said Karik. "Or else I'll tell Mother. Honour
bright, I will!"
Valya went round the table, sat in the armchair, but quickly returned
and found herself once more opposite the delicious liquid.
"Do you know, Karik, it is soda water!" she said, and she suddenly
wanted desperately to drink it, just as if she had been eating salted
herrings all day long.
"Don't touch it!" shouted Karik.
"But if I want a drink?" asked Valya.
"Go home and drink tea."
Valya didn't answer a word. She went over to the window, looked out of
it, down at the courtyard; but when Karik turned away, she quickly skipped
over to the table, seized the tumbler and took a sip.
"I say, it's delicious!" she half-whispered.
"Valya, you are mad!" snapped Karik.
"Oh, Karik, it's so nice! Try it!" And she held out the tumbler to her
brother.
"Cold and so nice . . . never tasted anything like it."
"And suppose it suddenly poisons you!" said Karik, looking doubtfully
at the silvery fluid.
"Poison would be bitter," smiled Valya, "but this is so delicious."
Karik shifted from foot to foot.
"It is sure to be some sort of rubbish!" he said, stretching out his
hand for the glass in an undecided way.
"It is certainly not rubbish. You try it. It smells like peaches but
the taste is like lemonade. Only much nicer."
Karik looked round. If the Professor were to come in at this minute, a
rather unpleasant conversation would ensue. But as there was nobody in the
study except Valya, Karik hastily took a few gulps and put the glass back in
its former place.
"But it certainly tastes nice!" said he. "Only we mustn't drink any
more or the Professor will notice it. Let's sit in the window. He will
surely be back soon and we shall begin the experiments.
"All right," sighed Valya, and looked sadly at the glass and its tasty
contents.
The children climbed on to the divan and from thence on to the
window-sill. With their heads hanging out they lay, 'their feet dangling
behind them, and gazed down on the courtyard below.
"Oo, what a height!" said Valya, and actually spat so as to watch
something fall. "Would you jump down?"
"Jump?" answered Karik. "I would with a parachute."
"But without a parachute?"
"Without a parachute? No, without a parachute you cannot jump from such
heights."
Suddenly, against the window pane there banged a blue dragonfly which
fell on to the window-sill.
"A dragonfly!" shouted Valya. "Look, look!"
"Mine!" shouted Karik.
"No, mine!" screamed Valya. "I saw it first."
The dragonfly lay on the window-sill between Karik and Valya,
helplessly moving its tiny feet.
Karik stretched out his hand towards the dragonfly, and suddenly he
felt that his shorts were dropping off. He stooped quickly but could not
catch them: the shorts slid off and after them fell his sandals.
Karik then wanted to jump off the window-sill on to the divan standing
by the window, but the divan suddenly started to drop away down, just like a
lift leaving the top floor. Unable to grasp what was happening, Karik looked
around in confusion, and then saw that the whole room was suddenly expanding
both upwards and downwards.
"What's happened?" he screamed.
Walls, floor and ceiling were moving away from each other like the
bellows of a huge concertina. The electric light was hurrying away up with
the ceiling. The floor was falling precipitately down.
Hardly a minute had passed, but the room was already almost
unrecognisable.
High above overhead, there swung a gigantic glass balloon hung around
with huge transparent icicles which gleamed in the sunlight.
This was the chandelier.
Far below, there stretched a boundless yellow field divided into
regular rectangles. On the rectangles were piled square wooden blocks with
burnt ends. By them lay a long white tube on which there was printed in huge
letters "Navy cut." One end of this was burnt and covered by a great cap of
grey ash. Nearby, like immense leather mountains, stood the dark armchairs,
on one of which lay the Professor's white overall looking like snow covering
the mountain.
Where lately had been the bookcase there now stood a skyscraper of
glass and brown beams. Through the glass could be seen books as big as
five-storied houses.
"Karik, what is all this?" Valya asked quite calmly, looking with
curiosity at the amazing transformation of the room.
It was only then that Karik noticed Valya. She was standing beside him
without sandals and without shorts.
"Look, Karik, isn't it funny!" she giggled. "It must be the experiment
beginning. Ooh!"
Before Karik succeeded in answering, something beside them started to
make a noise and to thump. Thick clouds of dust rose from the window-sill.
Valya clung on to Karik's shoulder. At that moment there was a puff of wind.
Dust flew up and slowly started to settle.
"Ooh!" shouted Valya.
In the spot where just a moment or two ago there had lain a tiny
dragonfly, there now moved a thick, long, log-like, jointed body with a huge
hook at the end of it.
The brown body, covered with turquoise blue splashes, was contracting
in spasms. The joints moved, sometimes sliding over each other, sometimes
turning sideways. Four huge transparent wings, covered with a dense web of
glittering threads, trembled in the air. A monstrous head hammered upon the
window-sill.
"Kari-ik!" whispered Valya. "What is this?"
"Sh-sh-sh!"
Treading carefully, Karik started to cross the window-sill which now
was like a wooden motor road, but, having taken a few steps, he stopped
aghast.
He was standing on the edge of a precipice. It seemed to him that he
was looking down from the height of the St. Isaac's Cathedral. It was then
that Karik realised what had happened. He returned to Valya, took her by the
hand and, hiccupping with fright, said:
"It... it must have been the water for the rabbits... do you understand
. . . the Professor's experiment has succeeded . . . only you and I have got
small and not the rabbits."
Valya didn't understand anything.
"But what is this?" she asked, pointing at the monster which was now
lying motionless on the window-sill.
"That? The dragonfly!
"So enormous?"
"Not at all enormous," gloomily replied Karik, "it is the same as it
was. On the contrary it is we who have become tiny . . . like fleas. . . ."
"Isn't that interesting?" said Valya cheerfully.
"You fool!" Karik was really angry. "There is nothing at all
interesting about it. They'll put us in ajar and start looking at us under a
microscope."
"In my opinion," said Valya confidently, "they will not have a chance
to look at us. The Professor will come and make us big again."
"Oh, yes, big again! He won't even notice us!"
"But we'll shout!"
"He won't hear us!"
"Won't hear us? Why? He is not deaf, is he?"
"No, he is not deaf, but our voices are just about as strong as a
midge's voice."
"Is that so?" Valya smiled unconvinced, and then shouted at the top
other voice: "Oho! Here we are!" She looked at Karik and asked: "What about
it? Difficult to hear?"
"All right for us, but no good for the Professor."
"But what will happen to us?"
"Nothing particular. They'll whisk us off the window-sill with a duster
and trample us underfoot, that's all. . . ."
"Who will whisk us off?"
"The Professor himself."
"Whisk us off with a duster?"
"Yes, certainly! He'll start to clear up the dust with his whisk! And
off we'll go with the dust!"
"But we . . . but . . . we - Listen, Karik, I have already thought of
something . . . . Do you know what - we can sit on the dragonfly. The
Professor will notice the dead dragonfly and most certainly will take it
over to his table, and then we can get on to his microscope and he will
catch sight of us - of course he will catch sight of us! And then he will
make us big again. Let's climb on to the dragonfly quickly."
Valya clutched Kari& by the hand and they ran to the dragonfly.
"Get up on to it!"
Helping one another, the children nimbly clambered up on to the
dragonfly, but they had only just sat down when the dragonfly started to
quiver, to beat its lumbering wings, to turn heavily and pant and puff like
some machine. The children could feel a strong muscular body bending beneath
them.
"Oy, it's still alive. Jump down quickly!" screamed Valya.
"Don't worry, don't worry. Hold on tighter."
The children clung with hands and legs to the body of the dragonfly,
but it wriggled its whole body, endeavouring to free itself from the
unpleasant burden. Karik and Valya rocked and bounced as if they were on
springs.
"It will throw us off! Oh, it will throw us off any minute!" whimpered
Valya.
"Just wait!" shouted Karik. "I'll throw it off. . . . There, stop it!"
He slid up to the head of the dragonfly, bent over and hit it with all
his strength several times in its eye with his fist.
The dragonfly shuddered, twisted itself and sank down.
"It appears to be dead again," said Valya.
"We shall see."
Karik slid off the dragonfly, went all around it and then seized with
both hands one of the clear, mice-like wings and tried to raise it. The
dragonfly didn't stir.
"It's dead," said Karik, confidently clambering up on to the dragonfly.
For some time the children sat silently, looking every now and then at
the door, but they soon became bored and began to examine the dragonfly.
Karik perched himself on the wing and tried to tear it away from the body.
But the wing was too strong. Then he jumped on the head of the dragonfly and
knocked its eyes with his heels.
"0-ooch, what huge eyes! Look, Val! Aha!"
Valya timidly stretched out her hand and touched an eye which was as
cold as if it had been moulded out of crystal glass.
"Dreadful things!"
The dragonfly certainly had wonderful eyes - huge and protruding like
glass lanterns. Covered with thousands of even facets, they seemed to be lit
with bluey-green light from within.
These strange eyes looked at both Karik and Valya at one and the same
time, and indeed were looking also at the courtyard, at the sky, at the
ceiling of the room and at the floor. It seemed that in each eye there shone
a thousand separate greenish eyes, all of which were watching attentively
like a hawk. In front of those enormous eyes, on the very edge of the head,
were three more small brown eyes, and these also attentively followed the
children.
"Do you know," said Valya, "it is alive in spite of everything. It's
watching, Karik, don't you see?"
"Well, what about it?"
"You must kill it again. It will suddenly come to life. Do you know
what dragonflies feed on?"
"On grass or the sap of flowers, I should think," said Karik, rather
uncertainly. "I don't really remember. Why?"
"I was afraid that if it came to life it might eat us. Who knows what
it really does eat. It would be better for us to kill it once again."
Valya was getting down in order to get away from the dragonfly when
there appeared to be the noise of some explosion in the room. Then there
sounded regular heavy thuds.
"What is that?" Valya stood stock-still.
"That . . . hurrah! It's - the Professor. He is coming!" shouted Karik
at the top of his voice.
Valya hastened to occupy her former place. The door banged. A wave of
air from the window struck them. A man-mountain with a beard like a stack of
white flax came into the study.
Then Karik and Valya screamed with all their strength.
"Professor!"
"Professor!"
The man-mountain stopped. The palm of a hand the size of a dining-room
table shot upwards and stopped at a twisted, shell-like ear out of which
there protruded tufts of grey hair as big as drawing pencils. He looked all
around, listened carefully and shrugged his shoulders perplexedly.
"Professor! Pro-fess-ess-or!" Karik and Valya shouted together.
The man-mountain sighed noisily. In the rooms everything buzzed. The
children were both very nearly thrown off the dragonfly into the stone
courtyard below.
"He-ere we are! Over here!"
The man-mountain stepped towards the window.
"Hurrah!" shouted Karik. "He has heard us!"
The man-mountain stopped.
"Come here! Here we are! Here! We are here!" screamed the children.
The man-mountain came over to the window.
But suddenly the dragonfly started to move. It started beating its
mica-like wings, raised a cloud of dust on the window-sill and then - with
Karik and Valya on its back - it swooped away down into the blue airy ocean.
"Hold tight!" screamed Karik, clutching Valya by the neck.
Adventures in the airy ocean - The gluttonous aeroplane - The unwilling
parachutists - After the big splash - The submarine prison - In the clutches
of an eight-eyed monster
THE DRAGONFLY FLEW ON, ITS TRANSPARENT RIGID WINGS BEATING as noisily
as if they had been made of sheet iron.
The wind they met seemed like elastic, it plucked at their hair and
whistled shrilly in their ears. It beat in their faces and blinded their
eyes.
It became difficult to breathe.
Clinging desperately to the dragonfly, gripping it with their arms and
legs, the children rode on in mortal fright.
"Karik!" shouted Valya amid the howling of the wind. "How can I hold
on, it's pulling me off - pulling me down - the wind!"
"Shut up! We'll fall off!" screamed Karik, and nearly choked in the
wind.
The wind was blowing so hard that it seemed that it would either tear
the heads off the children or sweep them away. They bent down to the very
back of the dragonfly but that did not help.
"Lie flat, Vally!" shouted Karik, stretching himself out full length.
Valya followed his example.
"How's that?" shouted Karik, "better now?"
"A little!"
And certainly the blast of the wind seemed to have lessened at that
moment. It was even possible to open their eyes and look around.
Not raising her head, Valya shouted, "This if too awful'"
Amid the noise of the wind, Karik could only hear one word, "awful." He
turned slightly back and said as loud and calmly as he could: "Its all
right, hold on tighter!"
The dragonfly hurried on, smoothly swooping up the sides of aerial
mountains and then rapidly plunging down again.
"Oy, Karik," screamed Valya, "it's like an American switchback."
Translated from the Russian by John P.Mandeville
Russian original title: Необычайные приключения Карика и Вали
Leningrad 1937
OCR: Tuocs
______________________________________________
Granny is difficult - Mother is worried - Jack gets on a hot scent - A
strange discovery is made in the Professor's study - The Professor
disappears
MOTHER SPREAD A BIG WHITE CLOTH ON THE TABLE. GRANNY went over towards
the sideboard. In the dining-room knives and forks jingled cheerfully and
plates clattered.
"Is it egg and onion pie?" asked Granny.
"Yes. The children have been begging and begging me for it," said
Mother, as she put out the plates.
"And is the sweet strawberries, and cream? "
"No. To-day we are going to have ice cream pudding for a sweet! The
children do love it so."
"All the same," mumbled Granny, "in the summer it is better for the
children to have berries and fruit. . . . When I was a little girl. . . ."
But Mother, apparently, was quite convinced Granny never had been a
little girl. Shrugging her shoulders she went over to the window and,
looking out into the courtyard, shouted loudly:
"Ka-a-ari-ik! Va-alya-ya! Lu-unch!"
"When I was a little girl . . . . " continued Granny, offended; but
Mother, not listening to her, leaned out on the window-sill and shouted
still louder:
"Karik! Valya! Where are you?"
In the courtyard all was silent.
"There you are," grumbled Granny. "I knew it would happen. . . ."
"Karik! Valya!" Mother shouted again, and not waiting for an answer sat
down on the window-sill and asked, "Didn't they tell you where they were
going to go?"
Granny bit her lip angrily. "When I was a little girl," she announced,
"I always said where I was going, but nowadays . . . ." She straightened the
cloth on the table, frowning. "Nowadays they just do as they like . . . if
they take the fancy they'll go off to the North Pole; and sometimes even
worse. . . . Why, only yesterday they announced on the radio. . . ."
"What did they announce?" asked Mother, hastily. "Oh, nothing! Just
that some boy was drowned - at least that was what they said."
Mother shuddered. "That's all nonsense," she said, sliding off the
window-sill. "Fiddlesticks! Rubbish! Karik and Valya would never go off and
bathe."
"I don't know, I don't know!" Granny shook her head. "Only they should
have been here ages ago and there is no sign of them. They ran off early and
haven't had anything to eat this morning."
Mother put her hand up to her face, and not saying anything more went
out of the dining-room quickly.
"When I was a little girl . . . ," sighed Granny.
But what Granny did when she was a little girl Mother just didn't hear,
she was already out in the courtyard and screwing up her eyes in the bright
sunlight was peering in all directions.
On a yellow mound of sand lay Valya's green spade with the bent handle,
and beside it was flung Karik's faded beret.
No sign of the children.
Under the rusty gutter pipe, warming herself in the sun, was the big
tortoise-shell cat - Anyuta. She lazily wrinkled her forehead and stretched
out her paws as if she wanted to give them to Mother.
"Karik! Valya!" shouted Mother, and actually stamped her foot.
Anyuta, the cat, opened her green eyes widely, stared at Mother, and
then, yawning luxuriously, turned over on the other side.
"What has become of them?" grumbled Mother.
She crossed the courtyard, glanced into the laundry room, peeped
through the dark windows of the cellar where the firewood was kept. No sign
of the children.
"Ka-ari-ik!" she shouted once again.
There was no reply. "Va-a-lya!" Mother cried out.
"Wough-ough, woof!" sounded quite close at hand. The door at a side
entrance slammed violently. A big sheep-dog with a sharp pointed nose leaped
out into the yard with his chain dragging behind him. With one rush he was
on the mound, rolling in the sand, raising a great cloud of dust; then up he
jumped, shook himself and with loud barking hurled himself at Mother.
Mother stepped back quickly.
"Back! No, you don't! Get away with you!" She shooed him off with her
hands.
"Down, Jack! To heel!" a loud voice resounded in the doorway.
A fat man wearing sandals on his bare feet and with a lighted cigarette
in his hand had come into the yard.
It was the tenant from the fourth floor, the photographer Schmidt.
"What are you up to, Jack, eh?" asked the fat man. Jack guiltily wagged
his tail.
"Such a fool you are!" grinned the photographer. Pretending to yawn,
Jack came up to his master, sat down and with a jingling chain set about
scratching his neck with his hind leg.
"Grand weather to-day!" smiled the fat man. "Aren't you going to your
country cottage?"
Mother stared first at the fat man, then at the dog and then said
rather crossly:
"You have let that dog out again, Comrade Schmidt, without his muzzle.
He behaves just like a wolf. He just looks around to see at whom he can
snap. . . ."
"What, Jack?" said the fat man, apparently most surprised. "Why, he
wouldn't harm a child! He is as peaceful as a dove. Would you like to stroke
him?"
Mother waved him away with her hand.
"You think I have nothing else to do but to stroke dogs! At home, lunch
is getting cold, none of the housework is done and here I am unable to get
hold of the children. Ka-a-ri-ik! Val-a-alya!" she shouted once more.
"You just stroke Jack and ask him nicely. Say: 'Now then Jack, go find
Karik and Valya.' He'll find them in a wink!" Schmidt bent down to his dog
and rubbed his neck affectionately. "You'll find them, won't you Jack?"
Jack made a little whimpering noise and, quite unexpectedly, jumped up
and licked the full lips of the photographer. The fat man staggered back,
fussily spat out and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
Mother laughed.
"You need not laugh," Schmidt gravely assured her, "this is a
sleuthhound. He follows the scent of a human being just like a train running
on rails. Would you like me to show you?"
"I believe you!" said Mother.
"No, no!" the fat man was getting agitated. "Allow me to assure you
that if I say it is true, it is true! Now then, just give me something
belonging to Karik or Valya - a toy - coat - beret. It does not matter what.
. . ."
Mother shrugged her shoulders, but all the same she stooped down,
picked up the spade and beret and, smiling, handed them to Schmidt.
"Splendid! Excellent!" said the fat man, and gave the beret to the dog
to smell. "Now, Jack," he continued loudly, "show them how you do it! Go
find them, boy!"
Jack whimpered, put his nose to the ground and, sticking up his tail,
started to run round the courtyard in large circles.
The photographer cheerfully puffed along behind him.
Having run up to the cat Anyuta, Jack stopped. The cat jumped up, bent
herself into a bow and flashing her green eyes hissed like a snake. Jack
tried to grab her by the tail.
The cat bristled up, gave Jack a box on the ear; the poor dog squealed
with pain, but at once recovered himself and with a loud bark flung himself
at Anyuta. The cat again hissed and raised one paw as if to say: "
Sh-sh-sh-shove off! I'll s-s-slap you s-s-such a one!"
"Now, now, Jack," said the photographer, "you mustn't get put off!" and
he tugged so hard at the lead that the dog sat back on his hind legs. "Get
on, now! Go find them!" he ordered.
With a parting bark at the cat, Jack ran on ahead. He ran around the
whole yard and once more stopped by the gutter pipe and loudly sniffed the
air, looking at his master.
"I understand, I understand!" said the photographer, nodding his head.
"They sat here, of course, playing with the cat! But where did they go
afterwards? Now, go find them, go find them, Jack!"
Jack started wagging his tail, twisted himself around like a top,
scraped with his paws at the sand under the pipe and then, with a loud bark,
dashed to the main entrance to the flats.
"Ha-ha! he's got on the scent!" shouted Schmidt, and with his sandals
slithering he leaped after the dog.
"If you do find the children, send them home!" Mother called after him,
and started walking back through the yard. "Of course they are in one of the
neighbouring courtyards," she thought to herself.
Pulling hard on his lead, Jack hauled his master up a staircase.
"Not so fast! Not so fast!" puffed the fat man, barely able to keep up
with the dog.
On the landing of the fifth floor, Jack stopped for a second, gazed at
his master and with a short bark threw himself at a door which was covered
with oilcloth and felt.
On the door there hung a white enamelled plate with the inscription:
IVAN HERMOGENEVITCH ENOTOFF
Underneath was pinned a notice:
Bell does not work. Please knock.
Jack with a squeal jumped up, scratching at the oilcloth covering the
door.
"Down, Jack!" shouted the fat man. "It says knock, and not squeal."
The photographer Schmidt smoothed his hair with the palm of his hand,
carefully wiped the perspiration off his face with a handkerchief and then
knocked cautiously at the door with his knuckles.
Behind the door shuffling steps were heard.
The lock clicked.
The door opened. A face with shaggy eyebrows and a yellowish white
beard appeared in the widening gap.
"Do you want me?"
"Excuse me, Professor," said the photographer in some confusion, "I
only wanted to ask you - "
The stout man had not succeeded in finishing his sentence before Jack
tore the lead out of his hand and, almost knocking the Professor off his
feet, dashed into the flat.
"Come back! Jack! To heel!" shouted Schmidt.
But Jack was already rattling his chain somewhere at the end of the
corridor.
"I am so sorry, Professor, Jack is only young. . . . If you will let me
come in, I'll soon get hold of him."
"Yes, yes . . . of course," replied the Professor, absent-mindedly,
letting Schmidt into the flat. "Come in, please. I hope your dog does not
bite!"
"Hardly ever," Schmidt assured the Professor.
The photographer crossed the threshold and having closed the door
behind him, said quietly: "A thousand apologies! I won't be a minute. . . .
The children must be with you - Karik and Valya, from the second floor. . .
."
"Allow me, allow me! Karik and Valya? Yes, of course, I know them well.
Very fine children. Polite and eager to learn.. . "
"Are they here?"
"No, they haven't been here to-day; in fact I am waiting for them!"
"Very odd !" muttered the stout man. "Jack has so certainly followed
their trail. . . . ."
"But may be it is yesterday's trail?" politely suggested the Professor.
But Schmidt did not succeed in replying. In the further room, Jack was
barking resoundingly, then something rattled, crashed and jingled as if a
cupboard or table had fallen with crockery on it.
The Professor started.
"He may break up everything!" he shouted as if he was going to cry, and
seizing Schmidt by the sleeve pulled him along the dark corridor. "Here!
through here!" he barked, pushing open a door.
No sooner had the Professor and the photographer crossed the threshold
of the room than Jack threw himself at his master's chest with a whimper and
then at once dashed back with a bark. All around the room he darted with his
lead behind him, smelling the bookshelves, jumping on the leather armchair,
twisting himself under the table, all the time throwing himself from side to
side.
On the table, tubes and retorts jingled as they bounced up and down,
tall glass vessels swayed and fine glass tubes shivered. From one violent
jolt the microscope, with its brass sparkling in the sun, started to rock.
The Professor only just succeeded in catching it. But in saving the
microscope, he caught with his sleeve a gleaming nickel container full of
some sort of complicated weights. The container fell and the weights jumped
out and scattered with a jingle over the yellow parquet floor.
"What are you up to, Jack?" gruffly jerked out the photographer. "You
are making an ass of yourself. You're barking, but what is the use? Where
are the children?"
Jack put his head on one side. He pricked up his ears and looked most
attentively at his master, trying to understand what it was that they were
scolding him about.
The photographer shook his head disapprovingly.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, Jack! They said you were a
sleuthhound! With a diploma! And all you can do is to chase cats instead of
following a trail. Now, come home! Be generous enough to forgive us. Comrade
Professor, for this disturbance!"
The photographer bowed awkwardly and made towards the door. But here
Jack became possessed as of a devil. He seized his master by the breeches
with his teeth, and planting his feet on the slippery parquet floor, tugged
towards the table.
"What on earth is up with you?" complained the fat man in amazement.
Squealing, Jack once more darted around the table, but then leaped on
the small divan which stood in front of the open window and putting his paws
on the window-sill, barked with short, jerky barks.
Schmidt got angry.
"Come to heel!" he shouted, seizing the dog by the collar; but Jack
stubbornly shook his head and again darted to the divan. "I can't understand
it!" The photographer threw up his hands.
"Probably there is a mouse behind the divan!" the Professor guessed.
"Or maybe a crust of bread or a bone. I often have my dinner there."
He went up to the divan and pulled it towards him. At the back of the
divan, something rustled and softly padded to the ground.
"A crust!" said the Professor.
Jack at that moment tore himself forward and squeezed, with his tail
sticking up, between the wall, and just managed to shift the divan. He
seized something in his teeth.
"Come on, show us what it is!" shouted the photographer.
Jack backed out, shook his head, turned abruptly to his master, and
laid at his feet a child's down-at-heel sandal. The photographer perplexedly
turned the find over in his hand.
"Apparently some sort of a child's shoe. . . ."
"H'm . . . strange!" said the Professor, examining the sandal. "Very
strange!"
Whilst they were turning the find over in their hands. Jack pulled out
from behind the divan a further three sandals, one the same size and two
smaller ones.
Unable to follow what had happened, the Professor and the stout man
looked first at each other and then at the sandals. Schmidt knocked the hard
sole of one sandal with his knuckle, and for no apparent reason said:
"Strong enough! They're good sandals!"
But Jack meanwhile had pulled out from under the divan a pair of blue
shorts and, pressing them with his paws to the floor, barked softly.
"Something more?" said the Professor, quite perplexed.
He bent over, and would have stretched out his hand for the shorts, but
Jack bared his teeth and growled so threateningly that the Professor very
quickly withdrew his hand.
"What a very unfriendly nature he has, to be sure!" said the Professor
in some confusion.
"Yes, he is not over-polite to me!" agreed the photographer.
He took the shorts, shook them, and, folding them neatly, laid them
before the Professor.
"Please take them."
The Professor looked sideways at Jack.
"No, no, it is quite unnecessary," said he. "I can see everything. . .
. Well, now . . . well, now . . . there are the markings V and K. Valya and
Karik!" And he touched with his fingers big white letters sewn in the belts
of the shorts.
The stout man wiped his face with the palm of his hand.
"Is there a bathroom in the flat?" he asked in a businesslike way.
"No," replied the Professor, "there is no bathroom. But if you want to
wash your hands, there's. . . ."
"Oh, no," panted the stout man, "I can wash at home. But I thought they
might have undressed and were bathing themselves. Do you see what I mean?"
"Certainly." The Professor nodded his head.
"But where have they hidden themselves? Naked . . . without shorts,
without sandals? I don't understand it at all!" Schmidt made a gesture of
hopelessness.
Then he put his hands behind his back, spread out his feet, lowered his
head and gazed solidly at the yellow rectangles of the parquet; then he
suddenly straightened himself up and said confidently:
"Don't worry! We'll find them any minute now. They are here, Professor.
They are simply hiding! You can be sure of that! My Jack has never been
mistaken yet."
The Professor and the photographer proceeded on a tour round all the
rooms; they examined the kitchen and even looked into the dark larder.
Jack listlessly tailed along behind them.
In the dining-room, the stout man opened the doors of the sideboard,
poked his head under the table, and in the bedroom searched with his hands
underneath the bed. But there was no trace of the children in the flat.
"Wherever can they have hidden themselves?" muttered the photographer.
"In my opinion," said the Professor, "they have not been here to-day."
"That's what you think?" questioned Schmidt thoughtfully. "You think
they have not been here? But what do you think, Jack? Are they here or
aren't they?"
Jack barked.
"Here?"
Jack barked again.
"Well, go find them! Go find them, you dog!"
Jack at once cheered up. He threw himself round and once more led the
Professor and Schmidt into the study. Here he again jumped on to the
window-sill and started to bark loudly, and then to whimper as if he wanted
to assure his master that the children had left the room through the window.
Schmidt got angry.
"You're nothing but a dunce ! Just a puppy ! You actually think that
the children jumped out into the yard through a window on the fifth floor?
Or perhaps you think they flew out of the window like flies or dragonflies?"
"What !" The Professor started. "They flew? What dragonfly?"
The photographer smiled.
"Well, that is what Jack thinks!"
The Professor seized his head in his hands.
"What an awful thing!" His voice was hoarse.
The photographer gazed at him in amazement and asked:
"What is the matter with you? Here, have a drink of water! You are not
well."
He stepped towards the table on which stood a glass jug full of water;
but here the Professor positively screamed as if he had trodden on red-hot
iron with bare feet.
"Stop! stop! stop!" he yelled.
The photographer, now frightened, froze in his tracks.
The Professor shot out his hand and grabbed a glass containing what
appeared to be water, hastily raised it to the level of his eyes and looked
through it towards the light. Then he hastily produced a huge magnifying
glass with a horn handle from his pocket and shouted to Schmidt:
"Don't move! For goodness' sake, don't move! And hold the dog tight !
Better take him in your arms. I beg you!"
The fat man, thoroughly frightened, was completely bewildered. Without
further ado, he picked up the dog in his arms and pressed him tightly to his
chest. "The old man has gone off his head!" he thought.
"Now, stay like that!" shouted the Professor.
Holding the magnifying glass in front of his eyes, crouching down, he
started to examine the rectangles of the floor carefully one after the
other.
"Shall I have to stand long like this, Professor?" timidly asked the
photographer as he followed with alarm the strange movements of the
Professor.
"Put one foot here!" the Professor yelled at him, pointing with his
finger at the nearest rectangles of the parquet.
Schmidt awkwardly moved his foot and pressed Jack so tightly that he
wriggled in his arms and started to whimper.
"Shut up!" whispered Schmidt, watching the Professor with growing
fright.
"Now - the other foot! Put it here!"
The fat man followed without protest.
Thus, step by step, the Professor conducted the photographer, who was
quite dumb with astonishment, to the doorway.
"And now," gruff-gruffed1 the Professor, throwing the door wide open,
"please go away!"
Schmidt had hardly got outside before the door banged in his face. He
could hear the lock being turned.
The fat man dropped Jack, spluttered with fright and dashed down the
stairway, losing his sandals, out of breath, looking over his shoulder every
minute.
Jack, with a great bark, plunged after him.
And they did not stop running until they reached the nearest militia
post.2
* * * * *
A motor-car with blue stripes on its sides drove at high speed into the
courtyard. Several militiamen sprang out, called out the caretaker and
hastened to the fifth floor home of Professor Enotoff.
1 Russians make use of words which show what they mean by their sound.
"Gruff-gruff" has been made up and is used in various places to illustrate
this. - Translator.
2 In the Soviet Union "policemen" no longer exist; in their place are
"Militiamen" who occupy "Militia posts," not "police stations."
But the Professor did not appear to be at home. On the door of his flat
there hung a note, pinned up with new drawing pins:
Don't look for me. It will be quite useless.
Professor J. H. Enotoff.
The wonder-working liquid - The bewildering behaviour of shorts and
sandals - A very ordinary room is transformed in a very extraordinary way -
Adventures on the window-sill - Karik and Valya set off on an amazing
journey
WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS JUST THIS. On the evening of the day previous to
that on which the children had vanished, Karik was sitting in the study of
Professor Enotoff. The evening was a good time to have a chat with the old
man.
The study was in semi-darkness and long dark shadows appeared to be
climbing to the ceiling from the black corners of the room: it seemed as if
someone was hiding up there and was gazing down at the circle of light on
the big table. Blue flames of a spirit lamp leaped up, flickered and swayed
underneath the curved bottom of a glass retort. In the retort something
gurgled and bubbled. Transparent drops were falling slowly and musically
from a filter into a bottle.
Karik climbed up on to the biggest leather armchair.
Pressing his chin on the edge of the table, he gazed attentively at the
skilful hands of the Professor, trying hard not to breathe, and not to move.
The Professor worked away, whistling, or telling Karik amusing stories
of his childhood, but more often talking about what he had seen in Africa,
America or Australia - it was all very interesting, whatever he said.
Then, rolling up the white sleeves of his overall, he bent over the
table and slowly, drop by drop, he poured out a thicky oily liquid into
narrow little glasses. From time to time he threw into these glasses some
sparkling crystals, and then little clouds would appear in the liquid,
slowly circle round and drop to the bottom. After this, the old man poured
something blue out of a measure and the liquid became, for some reason, rose
coloured.
All this, naturally, was most interesting, and Karik was ready to stay
there all night.
But suddenly, the Professor hastily dried his hands on a towel, grasped
the large retort by the neck and rapidly covered it up with blue paper.
"Well, that's that!" he said. "At last I can congratulate myself on a
success."
"It's ready?" asked Karik, cheerfully.
"Yes. All that remains now is to take the colour out of it, and . . ."
The Professor snapped his fingers, and in a weird voice sang:
0 beauteous, miraculous fluid!
They'll all ask: How did you do it?
Karik could not help frowning: the Professor sang so loudly, but
unfortunately he had no ear for music and sang a melody which resembled the
wailing of the wind in a chimney pipe. "Suppose the rabbit won't drink it?"
questioned Karik. "Won't drink it!" The Professor just shrugged his
shoulders. "We'll make it drink . . . but that must wait for to-morrow . .
.but now. . . ." The old man looked at the clock and started to fuss:
"Oh-oh-oh, Karik! We've stayed up far too late. Eleven o'clock. Yes. It's
two minutes past eleven!"
Karik realised that it was time to go home. With a sigh, he climbed
down reluctantly from the armchair and demanded:
"You won't begin without me to-morrow?"
"Not under any circumstances," assured the Professor, shaking his head.
"That I promise you."
"And can Valya come?"
"Valya?" The Professor thought over this. "Well, why not . . . bring
Valya. . . ."
"Nothing will happen very suddenly?"
"Everything will happen," said the Professor confidently, as he blew
out the spirit lamp.
"And will the rabbit turn into a flea?"
"Oh, no," laughed the Professor. "The rabbit will remain a rabbit."
"But tell me, Professor. . . ."
"No, no, I will not tell you anything more. Quite enough. We can leave
our conversation until to-morrow. Go home, my young friend. I am tired, and
it is high time you were in bed."
All night long, Karik tossed from side to side. He dreamt he saw a pink
elephant, so tiny that you could put him in a thimble. The elephant was
eating jam, then ran along the table, round a saucer, playing such pranks
that he upset the salt and nearly got drowned in the mustard. Karik rescued
him from the mustard pot and started to clean him up, standing him in a
little dish, but the elephant wrenched himself away and gave Karik a blow on
the shoulder with his trunk. Then he suddenly jumped up on to Karik's head
and said in a queer girlish voice, vaguely familiar: "What is the matter,
Karik? Why are you shouting?"
Karik opened his eyes. Beside his bed, in a dressing-gown, stood Valya.
"Aha! you - awake already?" said Karik. "Grand! Dress yourself
quickly."
"What for?"
"We must start. Going to the Professor's. Oo-oo, what will happen
to-day . . .? Such wonders! . . . miracles!"
"But what?"
"Dress yourself quickly."
"I'll put on shorts and sandals," said Valya.
"And I'll do the same."
Looking under the bed for his sandals, Karik told her in a whisper:
"Understand: Professor John has invented a pink liquid."
"Does it taste nice?" asked Valya, buckling the strap of her sandals.
"I don't know . . . it's for rabbits . . . he is going to give it to
them to-day . . . make them drink it, and then. . . . Oo-oo, my word!"
Valya's eyes opened widely.
"And what will happen to them?" she asked in a whisper.
"He doesn't know yet. This is just an experiment. Come on quickly!"
The children quietly tiptoed through their mother's room. Mother
shouted something after them, but Karik grabbed Valya by the hand and raced
off with her.
"Keep quiet," he whispered, "or she'll make us clean our teeth, wash,
and wait for breakfast. Then we shall most certainly be late."
Having dashed across the courtyard, they darted into the main entrance
of the flats, up on to the fifth floor, stopping at last in front of the
door, where the bell did not work and callers were instructed to knock.
Karik knocked - no one answered. He pushed the door - it opened.
The children went into the semi-darkness of a hall. On the wall a large
mirror glittered. Immediately opposite the children, a bronze idol gazed out
of a glass case. The Professor had brought it from China, where some of the
Chinamen actually pray to these hideous dummies. In the Professor's
household it served as a doorkeeper. And a most excellent doorkeeper it was
and never grumbled "shut the door after you."
In all other respects, it was very like one of the living doorkeepers,
and like them could watch the door silently all day.
On the hall-stand there hung the Professor's heavy winter fur coat, his
overcoat and some sort of a raincoat with big checks like a chess board.
All was silent in the flat; except that the tick-tock of a clock
sounded a measured beat in the dining room, and in the kitchen, water was
dripping musically from the tap.
"We'll go in," said Karik. "The Professor is certain to be in his
study."
But in the study there was no Professor. The children decided to wait.
The windows of the study were wide open. The sun lit up the white
table, covered with curving jars, vessels and retorts. Fine glass tubing
stood up like flowers in the glass vessels. Nickel-plated cups gave blinding
reflections of the sun. The brass of the microscope sparkled cheerfully, and
on the ceiling the sunbeams frolicked.
Along the wall, there was fixed a glass case full of books - thick
books and thin books. The titles were hard to understand:
The Ecology of Animals, Hydrobiology, Chironomidae, Ascaridae. They
were the sort of books children do not touch.
The children wandered round the study, twisted the screws of the
microscope, sat in the leather armchair, on which, with its empty sleeves
flung apart, lay the white overall of the Professor; and then they started
to look at the jars.
Between two retorts, Valya noticed a tall, narrow glass. It was full to
the brim with a silvery clear liquid. Little bubbles, which glittered, rose
from the bottom and burst on the surface. It was very like soda water.
Valya carefully took the tall glass in her hand. It was as cold as ice.
She raised it to her face and smelt it. The liquid had a scent like peaches
and something else she could not recognise. It was very appetising.
"Oh, how good it smells!" cried out Valya.
"Put it back in its place," said Karik, crossly. "You mustn't touch
anything. That may be a poison. Come away from the table. Do you hear?"
Valya put the glass back in its place, but she did not leave the table;
the liquid smelt so delicious that she wanted to sniff it again.
"Valya, come away!" said Karik. "Or else I'll tell Mother. Honour
bright, I will!"
Valya went round the table, sat in the armchair, but quickly returned
and found herself once more opposite the delicious liquid.
"Do you know, Karik, it is soda water!" she said, and she suddenly
wanted desperately to drink it, just as if she had been eating salted
herrings all day long.
"Don't touch it!" shouted Karik.
"But if I want a drink?" asked Valya.
"Go home and drink tea."
Valya didn't answer a word. She went over to the window, looked out of
it, down at the courtyard; but when Karik turned away, she quickly skipped
over to the table, seized the tumbler and took a sip.
"I say, it's delicious!" she half-whispered.
"Valya, you are mad!" snapped Karik.
"Oh, Karik, it's so nice! Try it!" And she held out the tumbler to her
brother.
"Cold and so nice . . . never tasted anything like it."
"And suppose it suddenly poisons you!" said Karik, looking doubtfully
at the silvery fluid.
"Poison would be bitter," smiled Valya, "but this is so delicious."
Karik shifted from foot to foot.
"It is sure to be some sort of rubbish!" he said, stretching out his
hand for the glass in an undecided way.
"It is certainly not rubbish. You try it. It smells like peaches but
the taste is like lemonade. Only much nicer."
Karik looked round. If the Professor were to come in at this minute, a
rather unpleasant conversation would ensue. But as there was nobody in the
study except Valya, Karik hastily took a few gulps and put the glass back in
its former place.
"But it certainly tastes nice!" said he. "Only we mustn't drink any
more or the Professor will notice it. Let's sit in the window. He will
surely be back soon and we shall begin the experiments.
"All right," sighed Valya, and looked sadly at the glass and its tasty
contents.
The children climbed on to the divan and from thence on to the
window-sill. With their heads hanging out they lay, 'their feet dangling
behind them, and gazed down on the courtyard below.
"Oo, what a height!" said Valya, and actually spat so as to watch
something fall. "Would you jump down?"
"Jump?" answered Karik. "I would with a parachute."
"But without a parachute?"
"Without a parachute? No, without a parachute you cannot jump from such
heights."
Suddenly, against the window pane there banged a blue dragonfly which
fell on to the window-sill.
"A dragonfly!" shouted Valya. "Look, look!"
"Mine!" shouted Karik.
"No, mine!" screamed Valya. "I saw it first."
The dragonfly lay on the window-sill between Karik and Valya,
helplessly moving its tiny feet.
Karik stretched out his hand towards the dragonfly, and suddenly he
felt that his shorts were dropping off. He stooped quickly but could not
catch them: the shorts slid off and after them fell his sandals.
Karik then wanted to jump off the window-sill on to the divan standing
by the window, but the divan suddenly started to drop away down, just like a
lift leaving the top floor. Unable to grasp what was happening, Karik looked
around in confusion, and then saw that the whole room was suddenly expanding
both upwards and downwards.
"What's happened?" he screamed.
Walls, floor and ceiling were moving away from each other like the
bellows of a huge concertina. The electric light was hurrying away up with
the ceiling. The floor was falling precipitately down.
Hardly a minute had passed, but the room was already almost
unrecognisable.
High above overhead, there swung a gigantic glass balloon hung around
with huge transparent icicles which gleamed in the sunlight.
This was the chandelier.
Far below, there stretched a boundless yellow field divided into
regular rectangles. On the rectangles were piled square wooden blocks with
burnt ends. By them lay a long white tube on which there was printed in huge
letters "Navy cut." One end of this was burnt and covered by a great cap of
grey ash. Nearby, like immense leather mountains, stood the dark armchairs,
on one of which lay the Professor's white overall looking like snow covering
the mountain.
Where lately had been the bookcase there now stood a skyscraper of
glass and brown beams. Through the glass could be seen books as big as
five-storied houses.
"Karik, what is all this?" Valya asked quite calmly, looking with
curiosity at the amazing transformation of the room.
It was only then that Karik noticed Valya. She was standing beside him
without sandals and without shorts.
"Look, Karik, isn't it funny!" she giggled. "It must be the experiment
beginning. Ooh!"
Before Karik succeeded in answering, something beside them started to
make a noise and to thump. Thick clouds of dust rose from the window-sill.
Valya clung on to Karik's shoulder. At that moment there was a puff of wind.
Dust flew up and slowly started to settle.
"Ooh!" shouted Valya.
In the spot where just a moment or two ago there had lain a tiny
dragonfly, there now moved a thick, long, log-like, jointed body with a huge
hook at the end of it.
The brown body, covered with turquoise blue splashes, was contracting
in spasms. The joints moved, sometimes sliding over each other, sometimes
turning sideways. Four huge transparent wings, covered with a dense web of
glittering threads, trembled in the air. A monstrous head hammered upon the
window-sill.
"Kari-ik!" whispered Valya. "What is this?"
"Sh-sh-sh!"
Treading carefully, Karik started to cross the window-sill which now
was like a wooden motor road, but, having taken a few steps, he stopped
aghast.
He was standing on the edge of a precipice. It seemed to him that he
was looking down from the height of the St. Isaac's Cathedral. It was then
that Karik realised what had happened. He returned to Valya, took her by the
hand and, hiccupping with fright, said:
"It... it must have been the water for the rabbits... do you understand
. . . the Professor's experiment has succeeded . . . only you and I have got
small and not the rabbits."
Valya didn't understand anything.
"But what is this?" she asked, pointing at the monster which was now
lying motionless on the window-sill.
"That? The dragonfly!
"So enormous?"
"Not at all enormous," gloomily replied Karik, "it is the same as it
was. On the contrary it is we who have become tiny . . . like fleas. . . ."
"Isn't that interesting?" said Valya cheerfully.
"You fool!" Karik was really angry. "There is nothing at all
interesting about it. They'll put us in ajar and start looking at us under a
microscope."
"In my opinion," said Valya confidently, "they will not have a chance
to look at us. The Professor will come and make us big again."
"Oh, yes, big again! He won't even notice us!"
"But we'll shout!"
"He won't hear us!"
"Won't hear us? Why? He is not deaf, is he?"
"No, he is not deaf, but our voices are just about as strong as a
midge's voice."
"Is that so?" Valya smiled unconvinced, and then shouted at the top
other voice: "Oho! Here we are!" She looked at Karik and asked: "What about
it? Difficult to hear?"
"All right for us, but no good for the Professor."
"But what will happen to us?"
"Nothing particular. They'll whisk us off the window-sill with a duster
and trample us underfoot, that's all. . . ."
"Who will whisk us off?"
"The Professor himself."
"Whisk us off with a duster?"
"Yes, certainly! He'll start to clear up the dust with his whisk! And
off we'll go with the dust!"
"But we . . . but . . . we - Listen, Karik, I have already thought of
something . . . . Do you know what - we can sit on the dragonfly. The
Professor will notice the dead dragonfly and most certainly will take it
over to his table, and then we can get on to his microscope and he will
catch sight of us - of course he will catch sight of us! And then he will
make us big again. Let's climb on to the dragonfly quickly."
Valya clutched Kari& by the hand and they ran to the dragonfly.
"Get up on to it!"
Helping one another, the children nimbly clambered up on to the
dragonfly, but they had only just sat down when the dragonfly started to
quiver, to beat its lumbering wings, to turn heavily and pant and puff like
some machine. The children could feel a strong muscular body bending beneath
them.
"Oy, it's still alive. Jump down quickly!" screamed Valya.
"Don't worry, don't worry. Hold on tighter."
The children clung with hands and legs to the body of the dragonfly,
but it wriggled its whole body, endeavouring to free itself from the
unpleasant burden. Karik and Valya rocked and bounced as if they were on
springs.
"It will throw us off! Oh, it will throw us off any minute!" whimpered
Valya.
"Just wait!" shouted Karik. "I'll throw it off. . . . There, stop it!"
He slid up to the head of the dragonfly, bent over and hit it with all
his strength several times in its eye with his fist.
The dragonfly shuddered, twisted itself and sank down.
"It appears to be dead again," said Valya.
"We shall see."
Karik slid off the dragonfly, went all around it and then seized with
both hands one of the clear, mice-like wings and tried to raise it. The
dragonfly didn't stir.
"It's dead," said Karik, confidently clambering up on to the dragonfly.
For some time the children sat silently, looking every now and then at
the door, but they soon became bored and began to examine the dragonfly.
Karik perched himself on the wing and tried to tear it away from the body.
But the wing was too strong. Then he jumped on the head of the dragonfly and
knocked its eyes with his heels.
"0-ooch, what huge eyes! Look, Val! Aha!"
Valya timidly stretched out her hand and touched an eye which was as
cold as if it had been moulded out of crystal glass.
"Dreadful things!"
The dragonfly certainly had wonderful eyes - huge and protruding like
glass lanterns. Covered with thousands of even facets, they seemed to be lit
with bluey-green light from within.
These strange eyes looked at both Karik and Valya at one and the same
time, and indeed were looking also at the courtyard, at the sky, at the
ceiling of the room and at the floor. It seemed that in each eye there shone
a thousand separate greenish eyes, all of which were watching attentively
like a hawk. In front of those enormous eyes, on the very edge of the head,
were three more small brown eyes, and these also attentively followed the
children.
"Do you know," said Valya, "it is alive in spite of everything. It's
watching, Karik, don't you see?"
"Well, what about it?"
"You must kill it again. It will suddenly come to life. Do you know
what dragonflies feed on?"
"On grass or the sap of flowers, I should think," said Karik, rather
uncertainly. "I don't really remember. Why?"
"I was afraid that if it came to life it might eat us. Who knows what
it really does eat. It would be better for us to kill it once again."
Valya was getting down in order to get away from the dragonfly when
there appeared to be the noise of some explosion in the room. Then there
sounded regular heavy thuds.
"What is that?" Valya stood stock-still.
"That . . . hurrah! It's - the Professor. He is coming!" shouted Karik
at the top of his voice.
Valya hastened to occupy her former place. The door banged. A wave of
air from the window struck them. A man-mountain with a beard like a stack of
white flax came into the study.
Then Karik and Valya screamed with all their strength.
"Professor!"
"Professor!"
The man-mountain stopped. The palm of a hand the size of a dining-room
table shot upwards and stopped at a twisted, shell-like ear out of which
there protruded tufts of grey hair as big as drawing pencils. He looked all
around, listened carefully and shrugged his shoulders perplexedly.
"Professor! Pro-fess-ess-or!" Karik and Valya shouted together.
The man-mountain sighed noisily. In the rooms everything buzzed. The
children were both very nearly thrown off the dragonfly into the stone
courtyard below.
"He-ere we are! Over here!"
The man-mountain stepped towards the window.
"Hurrah!" shouted Karik. "He has heard us!"
The man-mountain stopped.
"Come here! Here we are! Here! We are here!" screamed the children.
The man-mountain came over to the window.
But suddenly the dragonfly started to move. It started beating its
mica-like wings, raised a cloud of dust on the window-sill and then - with
Karik and Valya on its back - it swooped away down into the blue airy ocean.
"Hold tight!" screamed Karik, clutching Valya by the neck.
Adventures in the airy ocean - The gluttonous aeroplane - The unwilling
parachutists - After the big splash - The submarine prison - In the clutches
of an eight-eyed monster
THE DRAGONFLY FLEW ON, ITS TRANSPARENT RIGID WINGS BEATING as noisily
as if they had been made of sheet iron.
The wind they met seemed like elastic, it plucked at their hair and
whistled shrilly in their ears. It beat in their faces and blinded their
eyes.
It became difficult to breathe.
Clinging desperately to the dragonfly, gripping it with their arms and
legs, the children rode on in mortal fright.
"Karik!" shouted Valya amid the howling of the wind. "How can I hold
on, it's pulling me off - pulling me down - the wind!"
"Shut up! We'll fall off!" screamed Karik, and nearly choked in the
wind.
The wind was blowing so hard that it seemed that it would either tear
the heads off the children or sweep them away. They bent down to the very
back of the dragonfly but that did not help.
"Lie flat, Vally!" shouted Karik, stretching himself out full length.
Valya followed his example.
"How's that?" shouted Karik, "better now?"
"A little!"
And certainly the blast of the wind seemed to have lessened at that
moment. It was even possible to open their eyes and look around.
Not raising her head, Valya shouted, "This if too awful'"
Amid the noise of the wind, Karik could only hear one word, "awful." He
turned slightly back and said as loud and calmly as he could: "Its all
right, hold on tighter!"
The dragonfly hurried on, smoothly swooping up the sides of aerial
mountains and then rapidly plunging down again.
"Oy, Karik," screamed Valya, "it's like an American switchback."