(c) Vladislav Krapivin  1975,2000
(c) Translated by Jan Yevtushenko, 1984



                         Vladislav Krapivin

                          The Magic Carpet



                                                             To my little
                                                           drummer Pavlik



    I sometimes wake  up in the  middle of the  night feeling tremendously
happy and then lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to remember why.
    Why of course! Only a moment ago Vitalka was laughing here beside  me.
No, not that tall thin man by the name of Vitaly Andreyevich who  recently
came to stay:  I mean the real  Vitalka - a young lad in a blue  tee shirt
with  shaggy  fair  hair,  peeling  sunburnt  shoulders and scratched bony
elbows.
    Yes, only a moment ago  we were flying over familiar  streets together
with  our  legs  dangling  from  the  carpet.  The  warm wind seemed to be
beating its  soft furry  wings against  our legs  and the  morning sun was
warming our backs.
    Drifting past  down below  were dark  green clumps  of poplars,  brown
iron roofs  and the  silver dome  of the  town circus.  Rising out  of the
scanty yellow clouds  and heading towards  us was the  white belfry, which
looked like a fortress  tower, and looming in  its top windows were  bells
which had  withstood the  passage of  time. Its  convex roof  was made  of
rusty iron squares, some of which had come off and were sticking up as  if
the roof had been ruffled by the wind.
     Vitalka and  I sat  with our  arms round  each other's  shoulders and
laughed.   How funny  that ruffled  roof looked!   How funny  those  small
toy-like barges and  launches were on  the river below!  How funny one  of
Vitalka's old canvas shoes had dropped  off his foot! It was worn  down at
the heel  and had  developed a  little hole  in the  part covering his big
toe, so we  did not bother  chasing it. After  landing on the  circus dome
and swishing downwards  like a toboggan  down a slope,  it jumped off  the
cornice as off a ski-jump and somersaulted into the dense poplars.
    "Kick the other one off!" I yelled for what good was one shoe?
    But Vitalka shook  his head, got  a reel of  cotton out of  his pocket
and tied it to his shoe.
    "I'll tow it!" he said.
    We swooped sharply  down towards the  river and flew  so low over  the
water that our  feet dipped into  it and swept  up fountains of  spray and
foam. Vitalka let go of his shoe and skimmed the water behind us as if  it
really was in tow. What fun that was!
    "A hydrofoil!" I shouted  and laughed so much  I fell flat on  my back
and kicked my wet feet in the air.
    The thread snapped  and the shoe  went on swimming  along on its  own.
Sooner or later some  unlucky fisherman was bound  to fish it out  instead
of a gudgeon.  What a joke!  We flew under  an old wooden  bridge creaking
under the  weight of  heavy lorries,  and began  climbing towards some old
white walls and towers on a grassy slope...
    ... My memories gradually  fade but I still  feel happy and lie  there
smiling in the  dark because, you  see, it all  actually happened. And  so
what if it's over! What really matters is that it actually happened!
    Yes, it really did.



                               Chapter One

    I spent my childhood  in a small northern  town spreading on the  bank
of  a  large  river.   The  houses  were  mostly  made  of wood with plank
pavements running along their  board fences and intricate  patterns carved
on  their  lopsided  old  gates.  And  behind the gates stretched spacious
yards  covered  with  soft  grass  and  dandelions  with dense burdock and
nettle  patches  around  their  edges.  In  the yards stood sheds and long
stacks of pine and birch logs which smelt of forests and mushrooms.
    What a lot  of space there  was. There was  even enough for  a game of
football - unless some had hung out their washing on the lines.
    Of course, there were new  districts in the town as  well, five-storey
houses made out of multi-coloured  blocks. Here and there you  came across
old brick buildings with columns and patterned balconies, but most of  the
streets were lined  with one and  two-storey wooden houses,  which, unlike
peasant cottages, had large, two-metre-high windows.
    The  streets  ran  down  to  the  steep  riverbank where stood a stone
monastery which had been built on the orders of Peter the Great(*). It

                         * Peter the Great (1672-1725) -
                         Russian tsar; it was on his instructions
                         that a navy was formed in Russia, towns
                         and fortresses built, factories and workshops
                         opened and the Academy of Sciences founded. (Tr.)

was not only a  monastery but also a  fortress with high walls  and towers
with narrow loopholes.
    Rising high over the walls and  towers and church's domes was a  white
belfry with a huge round black clock, about three metres in diameter.   It
was a pity that the clock did not work.
    It  had  stopped  a  very  long  time  ago,  in 1919, during the Civil
War(**). Word has it that a machine-gunner climbed to the top of the

                             ** The Civil War (1918-1920) - the struggle
                             waged by Russia to defend the state of
                             workers and peasants established after
                             the Revolution of 1917 against counter-
                             revolutionary forces attempting to restore
                             the rule of the rich in the country. (Tr.)

belfry and  kept half  the town  under fire  for a  long time.  Finally, a
steam  tug,  which  had  been  converted  into  a gunboat and named "World
Revolution", chugged round Stony Cape and  let rip at the belfry from  its
gun.
    What happened to the machine-gunner  is anyone's guess, but the  clock
was  damaged  and  stopped  ringing.  Nobody  tried to mend it. Its wooden
beams  and  staircase  were  badly  burnt  and  wrecked  and  so  it   was
practically impossible to  get near the  clock. And even  if you did,  how
could you fathom out  its complex mechanism? You  see, it had been  forged
from bronze,  turned and  assembled by  a self-taught  clock-maker back in
the time of Catherine II(*) and he had not left a draft behind him.

                             * Catherine II (1729-1796) - Empress of
                             Russia from 1762.

    Anyway, who had  time for clocks  in those days?  In the '30s  someone
decided to blow the  whole monastery up and  take it apart brick  by brick
as had been done with several  churches. True, the plan was never  carried
out but nobody thought of repairing the belfry a shipyard and a new  port.
Then  the  war(**)  broke  out  and  afterwards there were plenty of other
things that needed doing.

                                ** Second World War in Russia (1941-1945).

    That is why  the hands on  the huge clock-face  looming over the  town
like a black moon stood at five to one for over forty years.
    But  all  the  same  the  belfry  was  beautiful  and  famous.  It was
especially admired by ship captains. All the motorships going  down-stream
from Stony  Cape set  their course  on the  belfry and  it was  on all the
pilots' charts.
    Motorships often passed by.  Vitalka and I would go to sleep and  wake
up to the sound of their drawn-out and rather sad hooting.
     Vitalka and I  lived together or,  at least, in  summer we did,  ever
since we made friends. And that  was simply ages ago and two  years before
the adventure with the carpet. I  was then going on eight and  Vitalka had
only just turned nine.   He saved me then.   It's a long story with  a sad
beginning but a happy ending.
    Before I was born, my father had fought in the war against the  nazis.
He returned home alive but  he had had a lung  wound. At first it did  not
cause  him  much  pain  and  he  started  working as a physics teacher and
married. Then I came along. The years rolled quietly by and then all of  a
sudden he fell ill again and died.
    Mother and I lived alone for almost three years but when I was in  the
first  year  at  school,  Uncle  Seva,  Vsevolod Sergeyevich, that is, and
five-year-old Lena appeared  on the scene.  He worked in  the river-port's
administration and wore a cap with an anchor.
    But neither this cap nor its  owner appealed to me. Nothing about  him
did, not  even his  manner of  talking, rather  muffled and hollow, almost
the same as Dad's.
    Ha had  a thin  face, a  beard, to  straight wrinkles  above his thick
brows, and large brown eyes. If you weren't trying to find fault with  it,
you could say it was a perfectly normal and even pleasant face.  His  eyes
weren't angry-looking but quite the reverse and he used to gaze  adoringly
at Mum and rather guilty at me.
    Who wanted his looks, guilty or not!
    Don't imagine  I was  rude to  him or  sulked. No,  I always said good
morning and  good night  to him  and even  started calling  him Uncle Seva
instead of Vsevolod  Sergeyevich.  Because  Mum asked me  to. But whenever
Uncle Seva tried to pat my shoulder or stroke my head, I shied away as  if
I had  been stung.  And I  could do  nothing about  it, and,  to tell  the
truth, did not want to.
    And then there was  Lenka! She immediately fastened  to Mum as if  she
had always  been her  daughter. Even  started calling  her Mummy! Whenever
she did that, I  shuddered as if cold  drops of water were  trickling down
my  neck.  Mum  once  took  me  aside,  stood  me in front of her and said
quietly,  "Oleg,  darling...  She's  only  little.  And  she  doesn't even
remember her own mother. Can't you  understand how hard it is not  to have
a mother?"
    I did understand. Oh yes, I understood that perfectly well! Of  course
I did! Even  in my last  year at kindergarten,  I was ready  to burst into
tears if mother was held  back and did not arrive  in time to pick me  up.
And whenever  she went  out to  the cinema  in the  evening, I was plunged
into grief as into icy water.
    That's why I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. But it  makes
no difference how often you nod if you still feel resentful.
    I wasn't mean to Lenka. Sometimes  I even went to the kindergarten  to
collect  her.  And  once  I  showed  her  how to make two-funnelled little
steamers out of paper. But when Lenka took my china kitten without  asking
and  dropped  it  smashing  it  to  smithereens  that  was the last straw.
Silently, choking back my tears, I gathered all the pieces in a  newspaper
(thinking I might  glue them back  together later) and  got my old  school
satchel from under the sofa.
    I stuffed the bits  of china into my  satchel along with a  sweater, a
book entitled "The Snow Queen", a  bottle of water, half a loaf  of bread,
a length  of sliced  sausage, a  box of  matches and  Dad's "For  Victory"
medal on its black  and orange ribbon. Then  I took my school  uniform out
the wardrobe: trousers with  a neat patch over  the left knee, shirt  with
buttons like army ones except without stars, and belt with a brass  buckle
inscribed with twigs, a book and  the letter "S". Over the long  months of
school life I had  got fed up with  this uniform, which was  lumbering and
heavy like a knight's armour. But what could I do? You won't get far on  a
long journey without warm clothes.
    "Are you going to school?" Lenka asked dejectedly.
    "You  fool,"  I  said  vindictively.  "Who  goes  to school during the
holidays?"
    I wiped my eyes, snapped my  buckle and dug my feet into  Mum's rubber
boots, which were  far too big  for me. I  turned back their  tops so that
they  look  like  hunters'  or  musketeers'  boots and poked the long thin
dagger I had  made from a  metal hacksaw down  the right one.   Its handle
was wrapped  in insulating  tape and  its hilt  was made  of copper  wire.
Finally, I put a small spade down my left boot.
    I  also  took  the   gun  with  a  tight   rubber  band  which   fired
aluminium-wire pellets. One of them  could go right through a  thick sheet
of paper thirty  feet away. And  if you hit  a wild animal  in the eye, it
was as good as dead.
    Without saying  another word  to Lenka,  I left  home, stamping loudly
along in my boots and silently bidding farewell to childhood.
    I decided to  head for the  woods on the  other side of  the river and
make a dugout  among the roots  of an old  tree. I would  sleep on bedding
made of sweet-smelling forest  grass, hunt hares and  sit by a small  cosy
camp-fire in the evenings, talking to  my faithful dog and reading it  the
fairy-tale about the Snow Queen. After covering a whole block at a  fairly
brisk pace, I began to feel less sure of myself.
    In  my  heart  of  hearts  I  knew  perfectly well that I would hardly
manage to make  a real dugout  suitable for living  in not only  in summer
but also winter.  I also realised  it would be terrifying to sit alone  by
a campfire.   And, what's  more, I  felt very  bad about  killing  lovely,
sweet little hares which I had read tons of stories about.
    But most of  all (why make  a secret of  it) I felt  sad about leaving
Mum.
    My faithful  dog Jim  (which lived  in our  street and  was not really
mine)  treacherously  left  me  as  soon  as  I  had fed it my last bit of
sausage. I stopped at a crossroads  completely at a loss about what  to do
next.
    I would have been simply delighted  if Mum and Uncle Seva had  spotted
me then: they should have been coming back from the cinema at any  moment.
Mum would have taken me firmly by  the hand, led me home, given me  a good
scolding and  perhaps even  put me  in the  corner behind  the wash basin.
But I wouldn't have minded! I  would have been captured but not  defeated.
But how could I go  home myself!  It would  be such a disgrace and  such a
defeat!
    But Mum and Uncle  Seva did not appear,  and all that was  left for me
to do was lie down in the  gutter and die of grief. However, this  was not
a very suitable place to die in, firstly, because passers-by would see  me
and, secondly, because although it was evening, it was very hot and I  was
sweating in my trekking gear. Just try lying down to die in such  stifling
heat! You wouldn't lie there long, I assure you.
    So nothing was left to do  but keep going. I wandered on,  and another
half block later destiny sent me Vitalka, who was trotting along the  edge
of the pavement, rolling  a barrel hoop ahead  of him. He stopped  a short
distance away from me and spun the hoop round and round until it became  a
transparent ball.  Then  he burst out laughing,  banged the "ball" on  its
head, stopped its spinning, looked up and spotted me.
    "Hey, Oleg! Where are you off to?"
    We knew  each other  by sight  but had  never been  friends. We simply
played in the same crowd sometimes. I did not even know where he lived.
    But it just so happened that it was he I ran into on my sad journey.
    "Going to camp?" he asked.
    I knew if I started speaking, I  would burst into tears and so I  just
shook  my  head.   Vitalka  stopped  laughing  and enquired in a different
tone, "Going to the woods?"
    I nodded.  Vitalka grew serious  and for some reason or other  put the
hoop over his  shoulder, looked me  over, taking in  my boots and  satchel
and asked quietly, "For good?"
    I did not  even wonder how  he had guessed,  as all that  mattered now
was keeping my tears back and so I nodded again.
     Vitalka walked around me, carefully touched my satchel then stood  in
front of me again. For the very first time I had a good look at  Vitalka's
eyes.
    He was a wise fellow even in those days.
    "What'll you  do along  in the  woods? he  asked. "Better  come to  my
place."
    If I had  not been afraid  of opening my  mouth, I would  have started
arguing. How could  I go home  with someone I  hardly knew? He'd  probably
get into hot water with his folks who would say he had brought a tramp  in
from the street.
    But  I  could  not  say  anything  and  standing  there in silence was
ridiculous and so, with  hanging head, I set  off beside Vitalka.
    He took  me into  an old  house, through  its hall  and up  a creaking
staircase to a small low-ceilinged room furnished with a couch on  blocks,
a lopsided table and  an antiquated chair with  voluted arms and a  spring
sticking out of  its bottom. Its  walls were lined  with pictures of  some
sort but I did not pay any attention to them at the time.
    Vitalka dragged my satchel off  me and said, "Look, you're  sweaty all
over. Slip your things off and go and wash."
    It  was  a  relief  to  clamber  out  of my armour-like trekking gear.
Vitalka gave me his old slippers to  wear instead of my boots and took  me
downstairs to the wash basin.
    The basin turned out to be  just like the one at home:  blue enamelled
with a long bolt for a tap which you pushed up and then a stream of  water
gushed into your palms.
    So familiar and homely was the  basin that I hurriedly dipped my  face
into my palms full of water.
    At once I began feeling better.
    "Perhaps everything will sort itself out after all," I thought.
    Vitalka obviously sensed that I had cheered up for he slapped his  wet
palm on  my back  above the  low neck  of my  tee shirt and said brightly,
"Quick march!"
    We "quick marched" into a  room with a cut-glass chandelier  which was
on although it was still quite light outside. This sparkling glassy  light
was all I noticed at first.
    "Auntie Valya,  this is  Oleg. Give  us something  to eat,  will you?"
said Vitalka.
    And then I spotted Auntie Valya.
    "Go-od ev-en-ing..." I stammered in terror.
    Auntie Valya  was looking  at us  over her  spectacles. She  was tall,
hook-nosed and  wearing a  blue dress  with a  stand-up collar. Her smooth
hair was  gathered in  a tight  bun at  the back.  I had  seen stern  thin
ladies like her in an English  film about a boy called David  Copperfield,
but never before had I met anyone like her in real life.
    She  nodded  in  reply  to  my  "good  evening"  and  said to Vitalka,
"Something to eat? Well... But have you washed your hands?"
    Vitalka stretched out his palms spread wide and waved them about,  and
as I did  not dare to  he took my  hands and showed  them to Auntie  Valya
too.
    "Well, in that case..." she said. "Off you go to the kitchen."
    Then  we  ate  sausages  and  hot  potatoes  and  drank  cold  milk. I
remembered mother's lessons on how to behave at other people's houses  and
sat straight with  my elbows off  the table and  tried to handle  my knife
and fork properly.
    But Vitalka dangled his legs and drank the milk noisily.
    "You ought  to learn  some table  manners from  your friend," remarked
Auntie Valya.
    "He's just feeling  shy because it's  his first visit  here," retorted
Vitalka fearlessly. (Alas, he later proved to be right.)
    "Do you live far away?" Auntie Valya asked me.
    "Why, no!" Vitalka hurriedly intervened.  "He lives in our street,  at
Number Fourteen where that dog Jim comes from. Know where I mean?
    I expected Auntie  Valya to angrily  ask why she  should remember dogs
called Jim, but she simply nodded.
    "He's going to stay here tonight," said Vitalka in a very casual  sort
of way.
    Auntie Valya raised her brows slightly.
    "Here we go," I thought with dread and got ready to be bombarded  with
questions. Auntie  Valya glanced  at Vitalka,  however, lowered  her brows
and said, "Take another pillow upstairs."
    ...We lay down on Vitalka couch. It was rather cramped but it did  not
matter...
    "Out with it then," ordered Vitalka.
    I knew I would have to tell  him. The only problem was I did  not know
how to explain everything.
    "Left home for goods?" Vitalka whispered.
    I sighed.
    "Had a thrashing?" he asked understandingly.
    "Why, no! Nobody even laid a finger on me!"
    "But you've been hurt in other ways, have you?"
    I swallowed the lump in me throat again.
    "No, it's not that... It's because of Lenka... Well, not only her  but
things in general. And because of the kitten..."
    And so  I began  telling him.  And very  soon, of  course, burst  into
tears. Vitalka did not  try and comfort me  but simply asked me  to repeat
certain things when I  paused. And after hearing  me out, he said  wisely,
"Well, never mind. This sort of thing often happens..."
    "Yes, that's true!" I thought. "But whatever's going on at home  now?"
I threw back the blanket.
    "Where are you off to?"
    "I'm going home. Mum's probably out searching for me..."
    Vitalka drew the blanket over me.
    "She  knows.   Auntie  Valya  went  and  told  her.  You  can  go home
tomorrow."
    I felt  absolutely exhausted.  Gratefully I  nuzzled against Vitalka's
bony shoulder and fell fast asleep.
    I woke up very early,  left Vitalka asleep and carefully  tiptoed down
into the hall and unlatched the door.
    And then I rushed  home like the wind!  Mum was waiting for  me by the
gate. She took hold of my shoulders. Her palms were dry and hot.
    I smiled inanely and looked down at my feet in Vitalka's slippers.
    "Oleg, darling," she said, "promise me  that you won't set off on  any
distant journeys without warning me first. Agreed?"
    "Okay..." I replied hoarsely and buried my face in mother's blouse.
    Later that day I  ran over to see  Vitalka. He must have  been waiting
for me  because he  was sitting  on the  porch under  the patterned awning
watching me walk up.
    "Come for your things?" he said.
    "No. I've just dropped round... Is that alright?"
    He smiled and at once seemed the same age as me and no older.
    "Let's climb up to my watchtower!"
    ... In the evening  we persuaded mother to  let me sleep at  Vitalka's
again.
    "He's got a telescope. We're going to  look at the moon," I said in  a
pleading tone, hopping with impatience.
    "And we haven't finished making our soldiers," Vitalka chimed in.
    Mum signed for some reason and gave in.
    ... And so my things stayed at Vitalka's. Even Mum's boots, and  Dad's
medal, and the  gun, the dagger  and the kitten,  too.  Vitalka's  father,
Andrei Nikolayevich, glued it together when  he came back from one of  his
trips. He  also knocked  together another  bed opposite  Vitalka's, pulled
his  cap  (just  like  Uncle  Seva's)  over  my  ears  and  said,   "Enjoy
yourselves, lads..."


                               Chapter Two

    Andrei Nikolayevich Gorodetsky was the captain of the cargo  motorboat
"Tobolsk".   He  sailed  down  the  river  from  our  town to the sea, and
sometimes even sailed across the  sea.  Vitalka's mother always  went with
him, working either a cook or a  waitress.  They were away for a  month or
more at a time and spent only a few days at home between trips.  And  thus
they worked from springtime until the rivers became icebound.  While  they
were away Vitalka and Auntie Valya lived alone (and then I appeared).
    They lived in  a spacious old  house which Auntie  Valya's grandfather
had bought in his  youth. Auntie Valya told  how her grandfather had  been
most reluctant to  buy it but  was then appointed  principal of a  grammar
school  and  it  was  considered  improper  for  a headmaster to live in a
rented apartment. In the  small town he was  regarded as a very  important
person.  Later, however, he got the sack because revolutionaries had  been
holding meetings  in his  house. Nevertheless,  the house  continued to be
known  as  the  "principal's"  right  up  to  the 1917 Revolution, and the
authorities always regarded it as a "dangerous den".
    There  were  many  old  things  in  the  house. Staring down grimly at
Vitalka and me from  framed photographs on the  walls were bearded men  in
long  uniform  coats  and  ladies  in  ankle-length  dresses.   Behind the
coloured-glass  panels  of  the  dresser  sparkling cut-glass goblets were
lined.   Auntie  Valya  cherished  them  greatly.   There  was  a bookcase
containing thick tomes and journals. The books seemed boring to us but  we
sometimes browsed through the bound collections of literary journals.
    Auntie Valya had a cuckoo clock with a large cuckoo covered with  real
feathers, which  used to  spring or  rather flop  out of  a little  window
every  half-hour  and  hang  on  a  thin spring, hoarsely crying something
halfway between  "cuckoo" and  "quack-quack".   Vitalka and  I were  often
woken  up  at  night  by  this  eerie  cry,  but  Auntie Valya never awoke
although she slept in the same room  where the clock was.  She was  a deep
sleeper, and this often saved us from a scolding.
    The  kitchen  was  dominated  by  a  huge  bronze  samovar with medals
stamped in its round belly.  Whenever he was at home,  Andrei Nikolayevich
enjoyed "stoking the works",  as he put it,  and we would spend  the whole
evening  sitting  at  the  table  while  the samovar hissed and puffed and
pretended to be angry.
    But the gramophone with its huge horn stood completely idle as  Auntie
Valya played even  her favourite old  records of Chaliapin  and Sobinov(*)
on an  ordinary modern  record player. And  so the  old gramophone  simply
dozed under a crocheted napkin on a little table in the corner. Of  course
it felt  neglected! After  all, its  mechanism and  powerful spring worked
just as well as they had done years ago.

                                   (*)  Fyodor Ivanovich Chalapin
                                        (1873-1938) and Leonid
                                        Vitalyevich Sobinov (1872-1934) -
                                        famous Russian singers

    When Auntie Valya  went out, we  used to stand  the gramophone on  the
floor, unhook its  horn, wind its  handle as far  as it would  go and then
take  turns  to  sit  on  its  turntable,  which  was covered with crimson
velvet. Slowly and  then faster and  faster the gramophone  would spin you
around.
    Oh, what fun it was! The  room whirled round and round and  everything
would turn into  multi-coloured stripes.   The main thing  was not to  get
frightened and keep  your balance so  you did not  fly off the  turntable.
Well, and if you  did, it did not  matter much: you simply  crashed to the
floor,  sat  there  until  your  head  stopped  spinning, and then got up.
Getting on his feet, Vitalka always used to slap the back of his  trousers
in a business-like manner  to make sure the  record pintle had not  made a
hole in  them and  then say,  "What good  training it  is! Just like being
test pilots!"
    Nowadays any boy  would say, "Just  like being astronauts",  but there
weren't any at that time for, you see, Vitalka and I became friends  three
months before the first sputnik was launched.
    Auntie  Valya,  it  seemed  to  me,  guessed about our antics with the
gramophone.   In  fact,  she  guessed  about  many things and forgave many
things, too, because she only looked strict.
    Incidentally, she was the sister of Vitalka's grandmother and not  his
aunt, and Vitalka's father was her  nephew. He had lost his parents  at an
early  age  and  she  had  brought  him  up.   And now she was bringing up
Vitalka, and me  into the bargain  because I used  to stay at  their house
for days at a time during the summer months.
    So how  did she  go about  our upbringing?  Well, she  considered that
boys  should  not  smoke,  gamble  or  swear,  and that was all she really
minded about.
    As for smoking... Well, we did try  once.  I found a sealed packet  of
cigarettes in a  ditch one day  and we hid  behind the shed  and lit up...
It was ghastly! I went around for the rest of the day feeling as if I  had
drunk  a  bowl  of  soapy  water  and  everything  around was wrapped in a
revolting pea-green fog. Vitalka did not feel any better either.  I  never
touched a cigarette since even when  I grew up. I once asked  Vitalka when
he was much older if he had started smoking and he replied as he had  done
as a young lad, "Do you think I'm bonkers?"
    We never  gambled either.  More often  than not  we did  not have  any
money and if  we did, we  shared it. So  what was the  point of winning it
off each other?
    We sometimes  used swear  words but  Auntie Valya  did not  understand
them because we made them up on the spur of the moment, depending on  what
had  happened.  Sometimes  they  sounded  like  the curses, she would say,
"Vitalka and Oleg! You're quite impossible people."
    That meant she was really angry and we had to keep quiet and mind  how
we behaved. And if we  did not, she would say,  "I'll turn you out of  the
house and you  can sleep in  the yard until  you learn to  behave decently
again."
    But not once did she ever drop a hint to me that it was her house  and
not mine  and that  I ought  not forget  this, for,  to tell  the truth, I
sometimes did.
    Mum felt I was running away from home because of Uncle Seva and  Lenka
and this upset her, but it was no longer true. You see, Vitalka and I  had
become inseparable and there was nothing else to it.
    Mum finally realised this but  something else continued to worry  her.
You see, I had never suffered from lack of appetite, and I ate more  meals
at Auntie Valya's than at home.
    "How  can  she  feed  the  two  of  you on her pension?" Mum would ask
anxiously.
    She was not reassured when I informed her that besides Auntie  Valya's
pension, she  also had  Vitalka's parents'  wages. I  found out later that
Mum had even tried  to offer Auntie Valya  money for my "keep"  but Auntie
Valya had firmly said, "We'll let this matter drop."
    Auntie Valya never said much in general and if everything was  running
smoothly, we knew  beforehand what she  would say.   For instance, in  the
mornings she  used to  thump the  ceiling with  her mop  handle and  call,
"Gentlemen! The sun's up! It's time you were, too!"
    And before breakfast she was bound  to say, "I do hope you've  washed,
even if it was a lick and a promise?"
    And in the evenings when we came in from the street after a hard  day,
she always said, "Lord! Just look at yourselves!"

    Well, and if we  had, what would we  have seen? The likenesses  of our
Mums  and  Dads,  I  suppose  (although  I  only saw my dad on photographs
then).  Otherwise,  ordinary  little  boys.  Each,  of  course,  something
special as well.
    Vitalka was slightly  taller than me  with fair hair  which was always
far too long and unkempt. He  had long greyish-green eyes, a large  mouth,
thick  lips,  but  a  thin,  very  slightly  hooked  nose with five yellow
freckles on it. If you looked at his eyes, mouth and nose separately  they
somehow  did  not  seem  to  go  together,  but  if you looked at them all
together, you got Vitalka.
    I hardly remember what I was like, The only photograph of that time  I
still  have  is  of  mother,  Uncle  Seva,  Lenka  and  me.  On  it  I  am
well-groomed, lobster-eyed and amazingly  clean and tidy. Vitalka  used to
say that  apart from  my sticking-out  ears, I  did not  look at  all like
myself in that picture.
    And, anyway, I hardly ever looked in a mirror.
    True, there was one mirror I was always passing: it stood in the  hall
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and was cloudy, tarnished and full-length.
Whenever I dashed past  it to run up  the stairs, a puny,  thin-legged lad
with peeling sunburnt shoulders would dash past with me in this mirror  as
if it were a dark narrow doorway.
    But I never got a really  good look at myself because there  was never
time. I was always hurrying  upstairs to our cabin, our  headquarters, our
fortress and kingdom, our watchtower. It was like a little house built  on
top a larger one and consisted of  only one small room, its walls made  of
bare boards.  All sorts  of tiny  creatures, such  as spiders, beetles and
crickets, lived  in the  cracks between  these creaky  old boards,  but we
weren't afraid of them and did them no harm.
    The  walls  were  decorated  with  my  wooden  weapons  and  Vitalka's
paintings - not  all of them,  of course, but  the best ones  - and I  was
especially  fond  of  "The  Flying  Dutchman"  and  "The  Revolt  of   the
Gladiators".
    "The Flying Dutchman" showed  a mysterious dark frigate  with tattered
sails. The pointed end of a crescent moon was peeping through the  largest
hole in  the sail  and a  small yellow  light was  burning faintly  on the
stern.
    The "Gladiators" was even  better. It showed rebellious  gladiators in
Roman circus chasing rich men in long robes down marble steps.
    Hanging  there,  too,  was  a  huge  old-fashioned  watch belonging to
Auntie Valya's  grandfather. It  was silver,  bulbous and  French-made and
she had given it to us so that we learnt to appreciate the value of  time.
However, she did not let us touch it and always wound it herself.

    The room had two windows facing  south and north. The bright sun  used
to shine  through the  south window  all day  long and  in the  evenings a
large star whose name we did not  know used to twinkle in the radiant  sky
seen through the  north window. Sometimes  a pink porous  moon peeped into
that windows from the east.
    We  used  to  study  the  moon  through  a small brass telescope which
Auntie  Valya  had  also  inherited  from  her  grandfather and we used to
imagine how  long, long  ago his  pupils had  observed the planets through
similar telescopes.
    Despite its  venerable age,  the telescope  was still  in good working
order and the moon  through it looked like  a huge crispy round  loaf, and
seemed so close you felt you could reach out and touch it.

    ... I  only have  to shut  my eyes  and I  remember everything  in the
minutest detail. No,  more than that,  it's as if  I am back  in the small
room again.
    It is  quite dark.   The telescope  is standing  on a  window-sill and
Vitalka and  I are  squatting down  in front  of it.  In the  gloaming our
beetles and crickets  are rustling and  scrapping about in  the cracks and
under the  pictures on  the walls.   The telescope  smells sourly  of  old
brass.  Vitalka is breathing rapidly as he looks through the eyepiece  and
I am sitting beside  him, with my cheek  pressed against his, waiting  for
my turn. His shaggy hair is tickling my temple.
    All of  a sudden  Vitalka says  in a  whisper, "Those  schoolboys, all
those years ago, d'you think they studied the planets in the same way?"
    "Of course they did!"
    "But it was so long ago... It's even hard to imagine. After all,  they
didn't even have electricity then."
    "So  what?  The  telescope  was  invented  by Galileo even longer ago.
You've  been  looking  through  it  for  a  whole  hour now, Vitalka. More
over..."
    He moved his head aside and I pressed my eye to the eyepiece.
    ... Looming before  me all of  a sudden was  a terrifyingly mysterious
and alien world. A bumpy desert  with stone rings and craters... What  was
it like? Who lived there? Would we ever find out?
    Vitalka and  I were  firmly convinced  that space  flights would start
any day now. After all, several Sputniks were already circling the  Earth.
However, this did not make the Moon seem any less mysterious.
    "... You've been looking for a whole hour," grumbled Vitalka.
    I tore myself away from the telescope with a sigh. What's that?  Could
that golden rosy disc shining high above the attics and aerials really  be
the same planet that was so close only a moment ago?
    Vitalka sat by the eyepiece  while I climbed onto the  warm windowsill
and sat next to the telescope  with my legs dangling outside. Close  by my
elbow  its  dark  lense  seemed  like  a  huge bulging eye, and the moon's
reflection was floating deep inside it like a golden seed.
    I grinned craftily and covered  the lense with my palm.  The telescope
jerked angrily.
    "What are you doing?" asked Vitalka.
    "It's a Martian spaceship flying by."
    "You'll  be  flying  yourself  if  you  don't  watch  out," threatened
Vitalka. "Down to the planet Earth. How about that?"
    "No, I'm fine  up here, tanks...  Look, Vitalka, there's  a motorship.
Perhaps it's the "Tobolsk?""
    Over the roofs, firs and poplars  the silhouette of a ship with  three
coloured lights appeared round the bend of the light bank of the river.
    Vitalka quickly climbed through the window, sat down next to me,  took
the telescope off its stand and looked through it. We often did this  when
we wanted to watch the things going on around us. True, everything in  the
telescope was upside down but this made it even more interesting.
    After  gazing  for  about  half  a  minute  through  the eyepiece like
Admiral Nelson  in the  film "Lady  Hamilton", Vitalka  shook his  head in
disappointment  and  said,  "So  much  for  your  motorship!  It's  a tug.
Land-lubber, that's what you are!"
    I  should  have  shoved  Vitalka  into  the  room for saying this, sat
astride him and  pulled his ears.  But, first of  all, I'm not  sure I was
strong enough and, secondly, I  felt rather awkward because my  mother was
just across the  road whereas his  parents had been  far away for  a whole
month and I had aroused a false hope in him.
    To take his mind off it,  I said, "There definitely aren't any  people
on the Moon. But as for Mars... Well, if there are..."
    "Then what?" asked Vitalka.
    "If there are... It means there must be boys on it, too?"
    "Well.. I suppose so..."
    "I wonder if they play at soldiers?"


                              Chapter Three

    Playing at soldiers  was our favourite  game. We started  it the first
summer we  made friends  and two  years later  had several large shoeboxes
containing a  huge army:   about three  thousand infantrymen,  cavalrymen,
gunner and scouts. Our brave men  were about the size of a  little finger.
We drew them on cardboard and then cut them out with nail scissors.
    Or, to be more precise, it was Vitalka who drew them for even then  he
was  already  a  fine  artist  and,  most  importantly, he had a fantastic
imagination  and  made  tons  of  different-coloured  uniforms,  feathered
helmets, drums and banners...
    However,  it  was  I  who  made  the entire artillery for both armies.
Auntie Valya used to give us  empty cotton reels which at once  became gun
barrels and wheels. From the  cannons we fired peas, dried  ashberries and
the tiny glass beads which Auntie Valya also gave us and which were  heavy
and especially lethal shells.
    Whenever it was drizzling and we  did not feel like going outside,  we
would lay out  a battlefield on  the floor, spreading  a mounted formation
of  dragoon  and  hussar  regiments  over  a wide front, hiding scouts and
observers   in   little    nooks   and   crannies    and   standing    our
different-coloured infantrymen and chasseurs in square formation. Next  we
laid out our batteries, put a  pile of shells by each cannon  and attached
rubber bands to the barrels...
    The  artillery  would  ruthlessly  mow  down the cardboard troops, and
defensive  breastwork,  redoubts  and  bulwarks  would  have to be quickly
erected.
    Then one  day Vitalka  hid his  army behind  a high  thick paper  wall
which  had  bricks  painted  on  it  and  looked  just like an impregnable
fortress.
    In their brightly-coloured mauve  and blue uniforms my  generals were,
like me, completely nonplussed for  a while. Then, however, they  hid from
enemy fire  behind an  upturned stool  and held  a council  of war  (while
Vitalka's artillery kept  up a barrage  from loopholes). And  five minutes
later we declared to  our enemy, "Ha-ha! We  aren't afraid of the  big bad
wolf!"
    Then  we  lifted  the  cannons'  wheels  onto  supports  so that their
barrels  were  pointing  upwards  and  opened high-angled mortar fire. The
shells flew  into the  air and  then rained  down on  our enemies'  heads.
Panic  broke  out  behind  the  fortress  wall. Falling into the soldiers'
midst, the shells bounced off the floor and struck someone or other  every
time.
    Entering upon negotiations,  Commander-in-Chief Vitalka accused  us of
violating the honourable rules of warfare. He argued that our shells  were
bouncing off the ceiling and this was making their blows harder.
    "Well, that's great!" I said ruthlessly. "That's just what we want."
    "But it's  not fair.  In real  life the  sky isn't  hard and so shells
can't possibly bounce off it."
    "But we're  playing at  old-fashioned war.  At that  time people still
didn't know that the  sky wasn't hard. On  the contrary, they were  always
talking about the heavenly firmament!"
    "Well, so what! It still  wasn't hard then either," retorted  Vitalka,
smashing my cunning argument.
    "How do you know?" I blurted  out. "Perhaps it was. After all,  nobody
flew up and checked, did they?"
    Vitalka blinked, obviously at a loss,  then came up with a real  plum,
"How do you know nobody did? Perhaps they did!"
    "Ha, ha!" I said. "Well, what did they fly in, then?"
    "Ho,  ho,"  replied  Vitalka  gloomily,  realising  he  had  lost  the
argument. "Magic carpets."
    I glanced at him with pity and sighed.
    If only we had known...
    But we did not know anything  yet and were completely absorbed in  the
battle.
    "Take your wall away and I'll lower my cannons," I suggested.
    "Get  stuffed!"  graciously  rejoined  Field-Marshal  Gorodetsky   and
swiftly  re-formed  his  troops  in  long  columns with large gaps between
them. His  losses at  once diminished.  Then he  opened his fortress gates
and led a troop of silver-foil armoured knights into the attack.
    To protect  my left  flank, I  hurriedly set  about building a redoubt
out of dominoes...
    And so on and on raged the battle.
    The floor in our  room was made of  large blocks of some  sort of wood
which was not found locally. Over the years the soft wood had become  worn
and grooved and  its surface was  now streaked with  hard prominent veins.
It was painful crawling across it on all fours but we did not think  about
ourselves in the heat of the battle. Changing positions, rushing from  our
infantry to our  cannons and from  one flank to  another, we crashed  onto
the floor  this way  and that,  making such  a racket  that the  cut-glass
tinkled in  Auntie Valya's  dresser downstairs  and our  elbows and  knees
became deeply imprinted with red patterns from the wooden floor.
    We regarded  these imprints  and bruises  as war  wounds and were even
proud of them. But looking us over after yet another battle, Auntie  Valya
would  shake  her  head  and  wince.  Women  always  feel  sorry  for  war
casualties. However, if  you ask me,  it was her  dainty glasses and  jugs
that Auntie  Valya felt  really sorry  for. Once  she even  said, "My dear
generals! I want to save you from injury and the house from destruction."
    Vitalka and  I exchanged  glances. Had  we really  driven poor  Auntie
Valya to such a state  of despair that she had  decided to turn us out  of
our watchtower?
    "There's a carpet in my  box-room," she informed us. "Of  course, it's
not very new but if you beat the dust out of it and clean it, you can  lay
it  on  the  floor  upstairs,  and  then  there'll  be  much  less din and
battering."
    A carpet? Hurrah!  We could have  wrestling matches on  it, simply lie
side-by-side on it  and talk about  everything under the  sun. Or drag  it
out onto  the roof  and sunbathe  on it  without worrying about scratching
our stomachs on iron sheeting. Or make a tent or shelter of some kind  out
of it and live in it like nomads!
    It's only grown-ups  who think carpets  can only be  hung on walls  or
laid on floors. But we, you see, knew the true value of things!
    The  carpet  was  standing  in  a  large  roll against a corner of the
box-room.   We had,  of course,  been there  several times  before but had
never taken  any notice  of it  because it  was partly  hidden behind  all
sorts of junk. As we forced  our way towards it, I scraped  myself against
a broken birdcage and a holey silk lampshade fell on Vitalka's head.
    The roll  was certainly  impressive-looking. I  patted its  woven back
and it was hard and rough to the touch.
    "It's probably terribly heavy," I sighed.
    "Yes, you're right there.  If it falls on  us, we'll be squashed  like
flies," Vitalka consoled me. "Well, let's have a go..."
    The carpet turned out to be amazingly light.
    "It's as light as a feather!" said Vitalka in surprise.
    We dragged it out into the corridor in no time at all and then  lifted
it onto our shoulders and solemnly  carried it out into the yard,  Vitalka
walking ahead  with the  red silk  lampshade swaying  on his  head like  a
bell.
    "Give it a good beating now," Auntie Valya called after us.
    We unrolled it  on the grass  and saw it  was about three  metres long
and two metres wide, a dingy  grey colour and smelt of store-rooms,  mould
and old sacks.
    "It stinks,"  said Vitalka  and broke  off a  large old  burdock stalk
while I went to look for the mop stick by the porch.
    We began beating it  from both sides and  the dust flew up  like smoke
from a  volcano. The  carpet shook  and wriggled  as if  it were alive. We
sneezed and giggled  and from the  porch Auntie Valya  kept admonishing us
not to  beat it  so hard  or else  the neighbours  would call out the fire
brigade.
    Finally we grew  tired and stopped  sneezing. The breeze  carried away
the cloud of dust. Now we could  make out the carpet's pattern.  Well,  it
was just  like any  other and  nothing to  write home  about, with various
jagged triangles,  and angular  squiggles round  its edges,  and two large
superimposed squares in its centre  formed an octagonal star with  another
star inside it like a cog-wheel. After being cleaned the carpet was  still
grey,  and  its  pattern  a  faded  reddish-brown.   It still smelt of the
box-room, and its pile where it had not been worn out now looked wiry  and
springy.
    But what did it matter! We  were exhausted!  We looked at  one another
and both flopped onto  the carpet. I collapsed  with my eyes tightly  shut
and so my first sensation was particularly amazing. It seemed as if I  had
fallen onto  something soft,  silky, warm  and alive  and not  onto an old
carpet.
    I opened  my eyes  in surprise  and sat  up. My  palms slid across the
carpet's bristly surface which  looked hard and prickly  but felt as if  I
was stroking  an affectionate  wild animal  with a  short but fluffy coat.
Vitalka was squatting nearby and staring at me in bewilderment.
    I silently lay  face downwards, pressed  my check, bare  arms and legs
against the lovely warm carpet, and cuddled it. Then I felt that it  smelt
not only of mould  and mice but also  of something mysterious and  strange
that reminded me of the South. It  was as if someone had rubbed the  seeds
of some foreign plants into its fibre.
    Sighing, I opened my eyes and saw that Vitalka was lying there in  the
same way with his nose pointing towards me.
    Why, this is really something," he said, smiling with his cheek  still
pressed against the carpet.
    I said nothing because Vitalka was certainly right.
    "Auntie Valya's granddad probably brought it back from somewhere  like
Persia,"  Vitalka  went  on.   "Auntie  Valya  told  me  he  did  a lot of
travelling when he was young."
    "Yes, it  was probably  made by  some old  craftsmen whose  secret has
since been lost," I said.
    "Probably..." said Vitalka.
    We turned over slowly onto our backs.
    "But didn't  Auntie Valya  know that  it's... like  this? Why  did she
stuff it in her box-room?"
    "Perhaps  she  did  but  then  forgot,"  replied  Vitalka. "After all,
she's... well, you know,  not as young as  she used to be.  Elderly people
forget a lot of things."
    "But she's got a good memory," I stood up for her.
    "Well, yes,  she has...  But perhaps  she didn't  realise what  it was
like. After all, she didn't roll on it like us."
    "Why not?" I asked in surprise.
    Vitalka grinned and said,  "Well, you've seen that  photo of her as  a
young girl, haven't you?  In a dress almost  down to her ankles,  with all
sorts of frills and lace and a  bow at the back, and high buttoned  boots.
Just try and roll about dressed like that!"
    Feeling  sorry  for  Auntie  Valya,  who  had  been  deprived  of such
pleasure, I blissfully stretched out  on the carpet and began  stroking it
again.
    "It  feels  alive,  doesn't  it?  And  we  beat  the  poor  thing with
sticks..."
    "Never  mind,"  said  Vitalka,  consolingly.  "It's clean now - unlike
us!"
    He bent his grimy arm and blew on  it and I spotted a red drop on  his
elbow.
    "Look, you've scratched yourself," I said.
    Smiling, Vitalka touched the drop with his little finger and the  drop
snapped in  half, releasing  a pair  of transparent  little wings and flew
off into the thick grass.
    "Ladybird,  ladybird,  fly  away  home..."  said  Vitalka after it had
already disappeared.
    "I wonder if  ladybirds can fly  high up in  the sky like  planets," I
said.
    "Nope," said Vitalka. "Why should they? They live in the grass,  after
all."
    "Yes, but what if it wanted to? All of a sudden?"
    "It  never  would  want  to,"  said  Vitalka. "You may perhaps because
you're a person. But it's just an insect."
    I was lying with  my arms spread out,  with my left palm  in the grass
and the  tall stem  of a  dandelion between  my fingers. Absent-mindedly I
started playing with it while thinking about how I would still try to  fly
higher  and  higher  even  if  I  were  a ladybird. Of course, high up the
pressure's different and it's cold and there's not enough air but I  would
still keep on flying until my breath ran out.
    I imagined  myself lying  here like  this and  slowly starting to rise
towards a solitary cloud pierced through with July sunlight.
    All  of  a  sudden  the  ground  under  the  carpet seemed to stir and
everything around  moved. Something  similar happens  when you  feel giddy
for a moment or two.  The dandelion stem I was holding dived down and  its
fluffy  head  slipped  through  my  fingers,  spilling  its  seeds. Then I
noticed that a cracked old barrel standing nearby was sinking down too.
    "Mummy!" I shrieked and tumbled into the grass.
    I had quite a painful fall  because the carpet was already about  five
feet off the ground!..

    Even now I feel embarrassed when I recall this incident. You see,  the
fact remains that I took fright and ditched Vitalka. The only  consolation
I have is  that Vitalka did  the same:   he shrieked and  flopped into the
grass, only from the other edge of the carpet.
    And then we sat  in the flattened grass  and stared in horror  at each
other.
    "What are you up to?" asked Vitalka.
    "What do you mean?" I asked.
    "How did you do it?"
    "I didn't  Honest, I  didn't," I  replied because  I realised  at last
that Vitalka thought I had been playing a trick on him.
    The carpet landed smoothly between us  like a large sheet of paper.  I
hiccuped and said, "That's who did it."
    Vitalka looked round thoughtfully,  glanced under the carpet  for some
reason and then stared enquiringly  at me again. All sorts  of conjectures
and  fantastic  ideas  flashed  through  my  mind: Perhaps it was a little
earthquake  that  shook  us  up?..  Perhaps  we  were  both  dreaming   or
hypnotised?..  Perhaps...  Perhaps...  But  what  on  earth  could it have
been?!
    I hiccuped again and asked Vitalka, "Shall we have a go?"
    "Well... all right..." he said unenthusiastically.
    Slowly we sat down on the carpet as if it were a hotplate.
    "It's not g-going up," said Vitalka.
    "That means, we just imagined it did."
    "Both of us?"
    I hiccuped  a third  time and  rubbed my  bruise. Had  I imagined  my
bruise too?
    "Did you do  anything when it...  well, you know  what?" asked Vitalka
in a whisper.
    "No, nothing. I wasn't even thinking of it."
    "What were you thinking of, then? asked Vitalka exactingly.
    "Wait a mo... well, of the  ladybird, I think... And whether it  would
fly up to the clouds or not."
    "You WERE thinking about  flying," said Vitalka excitedly.  "So that's
it... Let's  have a  go!" He  screwed up  his eyes  and ordered. "Come on!
Let's try!"
    The carpet lay still.
    "Off we go!" Vitalka  said and began rocking  as if urging the  carpet
on.
    But it did not move.
    "I want to go  up to the roof,"  said Vitalka, almost pleading.  And I
did, too. It was rather frightening but I still wanted the carpet to  move
and the wall of the house  to slide down smoothly and the  patterned eaves
to loom before us.
    And then... And then we were  lifted up by a gentle, caressing  force.
We saw straight ahead the edge of the iron roof and the wooden eaves  with
their dainty carving and  round openings from one  of which a sparrow  was
curiously peering at us as though from a port-hole.
    My first instinct was to do my trick again, holler and tumble off  but
Vitalka grabbed  hold of  my shirt  and yelled,  "Don't!   We're too  high
up..."
    I froze and the carpet began to descend slowly.
    "That's it," whispered Vitalka. "You can't jump off every time.  We've
got to get used to it."
    And with these words we landed.
    "If only we know what makes  it fly," said Vitalka in a  whisper again
and then had another go, "Well, come on! Let's fly!"
    Then I guessed...
    "You don't have to order  it!  You just have  to want to fly. I  mean,
you just have to imagine you're flying... Wait a mo..."
    I looked at the clumps of  wormwood and burdocks growing by the  fence
and thought how  we would be  rising and skimming  over the grass  towards
them... And off we went!
    I  mentally  did  a  complete  turn  by  the  fence and imagined I was
circling and the carpet obeyed!
    "Faster!" I  not so  mush commanded  as willed  it. The  oncoming wind
began rustling as we flashed by the log, the porch, the shed and past  the
log pile again... Then  I landed in the  middle of the yard.  My heart was
booming like a drum. Vitalka was sitting close to me and clinging onto  my
shoulder.
    "Now you have a go," I  said generously.  "You know how?  Just imagine
you're flying all by yourself and that's all there is to it."
    "I see," he said hurriedly. "Right... now..."
    We  gently  rose  again  and  the  carpet  cut  across  the yard, flew
smoothly over the fence and over the street and I noticed a square  shadow
racing along the road below.
    "What are you doing? We'll be spotted!" I yelled.
    We flew back into  the yard and landed  smoothly in the same  place as
before.
    "It does as it's told..." said Vitalka in a quiet delighted voice.
    "Does as it's  told! I said  reproachfully. "Why on  earth did you  go
over the street? Somebody might see us!"
    Vitalka beamed and shrugged his shoulders.
    "So what. After all, it's only a dream..."
    He sprawled on his  back, and, dreamily kicking  his legs in the  air,
said with a wistful sigh, "It's a lovely dream. If only it would last  for
a long time."
    I glanced at his shaggy hair,  grabbed hold of a fair lock  and pulled
it quite hard.
    "Ow!" he roared, "What did you do that for, you jammy toadog?"
    "See,  you're  not  dreaming!"  I  said  but  then  all of a sudden an
alarming thought occurred to me: what if I was?!
    "Now you pinch me," I said quickly.
    Vitalka got his own  back by pinching me  really hard above the  elbow
and I  yelled not  so much  with pain  as with  joy for  it meant I wasn't
dreaming after all!
    And so,  delirious with  joy, we  hugged one  another and romped about
the carpet, bashing all the remaining  dust out of it with our  elbows and
feet. Then we stopped  for it suddenly occurred  to us both that  we might
be hurting it, and so we quietened  down and began stroking it like a  big
dog. Vitalka thoughtfully touched the lock of hair I had tugged and  said,
"You mean this is really happening and it's not a dream?"


                              Chapter Four

    We laid the  carpet between the  camp-beds in our  watchtower and then
began anxiously to wonder if it would fly again. So we sat down and  tried
to fly up to the ceiling.
    "Hurrah! We've done it!"
    Then Auntie Valya  banged on the  ceiling and called,  "Soldiers! Your
dinner's getting cold!"
    Catching sight of us, she gasped  and ordered us to fill the  tub with
water and wash each other clean. We meekly did as we were told.
    That  meal-time  we  behaved  so  perfectly  that  Auntie  Valya began
worrying we might have  swallowed some germs with  the dust and gone  down
with something. However, after feeling our foreheads and setting her  mind
at rest,  she told  us to  go and  buy some  potatoes at  the market after
lunch. Now, this  was the chore  we hated most  - dragging a  heavy basket
right across  town in  the baking  heat. This  time, however,  we joyfully
jumped at the idea.
    Anything to make the time pass more quickly!
    Anything to make  the night come  sooner! For we  could only test  the
magic carpet out properly at night. If  we did so in the daytime, you  can
imagine what a rumpus we would cause in the town!
    Of  course,  we  did  not  wait  until  it  grew  completely  dark. In
midsummer the nights  here are silvery  as if the  air has been  sprinkled
with aluminium  dust. Sometimes  you can  even see  well enough  to read a
book, especially if it  is printed in bold  type.  At night,  however, the
streets become deserted and there is less risk of being noticed.
    We brought  back the  potatoes and  loitered about  in the  yard for a
while. All of a sudden a  frightening thought occurred to us: what  if the
carpet had  lost its  magic powers?   So we  ran up  to our  watchtower to
check. The carpet dutifully lifted us up to the ceiling. Feeling  slightly
dazed again, we tiptoed  downstairs and sat down  to a game of  chess, but
we could not concentrate.   Then we went into  a nearby side-street  where
some lads were playing  football, but our heart  was not in the  game, and
five minutes later my  sixth-former neighbour Klim told  us to sit on  the
reserves bench.
    Then we went  down to the  river for a  swim but it  did not seem much
fun that day.
    And what  on earth  had happened  to time?!  It seemed  to be standing
still to torment us.
    We went to  bed well before  sunset, alarming Auntie  Valya once more.
She  felt  our  foreheads  again,  and  we  had  to assure her we had worn
ourselves out playing football. She shook her head and left us.
    "How  on  earth  does  it  work  though?"  Vitalka  whispered  for the
thousandth time, and this made me angry.
    "What does it matter! The main thing is that it works!"
    Ignoring my bad temper, Vitalka  said, "We've always been taught  that
fairy-tales are only make-believe. Does this mean the carpet isn't?"
    "Oh, yes it is. Only it's real as well," I objected.
    "But perhaps it's a kind of machine? Remember that book THE SECRET  OF
THE YELLOW STAR?  Its  inhabitants had similar flying machines  controlled
by the  mind! Ratioplanes,  they called  them! They  invented... well, you
know, against gravity! What did they call it?.."
    "Antigravitation. But that was on  another planet!" I said. "I  wonder
where our carpet came from?"
    "Perhaps some  astronauts flew  here on  it from  another star  a long
time ago and then left it behind..."
    I lowered my head from  the bed and had a  look at the carpet, at  its
brownish-grey pattern and  frayed edges. Here  and there brown  threads of
its warp were showing through its worn pile. But there was nothing out  of
the ordinary about the threads or the carpet...
    "Look here, Vitalka,  stop talking nonsense.   If it was  from another
planet, it would be in better  shape. Do you think they're fools?   They'd
have made seats and port-holes and a cockpit..."
    "But perhaps they  don't need them.  Perhaps they don't  have seats on
their planet!"
    "Well,  all  right.  But  where's  the  piece  of  equipment making it
antigravitational? Do you reckon they made it out of wool?"
    "Yes, that's a real  mystery," said Vitalka gloomily.  "It's something
new for  science... And  in that  case we  ought to  inform the Academy of
Sciences about it so that they can study it and come up with the answer."
    I had not thought  of that! But Vitalka  was right: we ought  to write
to the Academy or else it might  turn out we had been hiding an  important
scientific discovery.
    "But that  will be  the last  we see  of our  carpet! They'll  take it
away," I said sadly.
    Vitalka sighed.
    "But perhaps there's  nothing scientific about  it?" I said  unsurely.
"It's just an ordinary magic carpet..."
    Vitalka sighed again.
    But sighing got us nowhere.
    And then I had an idea.
    "Vitalka! It'll  be tested  scientifically, won't  it? Scientists will
have to discover how it flies, won't they?"
    "Yes, of course!"
    "Well, and who's going to test it?"
    "Why... test pilots."
    "Test pilots know how to  fly planes, but they've never  flown carpets
before. And we  have!" I said  triumphantly. "They won't  be able to  cope
because they're used to all those levers and pedals!"
    Vitalka propped himself up on his elbow and gazed at me admiringly.
    "It means,  we should  carry out  the tests!  After all, we discovered
it, so we  should do it!  And when we've  done a thorough  job, we'll tell
them all about it!"
    Vitalka even jumped up.
    "That's  right!  First  we've  got  to  learn everything about it! And
learn to fly it well, too. Then they'll perhaps let us do some more  tests
on it while they're studying it!"
    These  thoughts  made  us  feel  less  guilty. We decided to spend the
summer testing out  the magic carpet  and inform the  Academy about it  in
the autumn.
    While we  were arguing  and making  plans, the  windows grew  slightly
darker and downstairs Auntie Valya's cuckoo cried out eleven times.
    We waited another half-hour and  then very carefully put our  trousers
and sweat shirts on.
    Our south  window looked  out onto  the flat  roof of  the rear of the
house and this roof  now became our take-off  strip. We spread the  carpet
on it.

    Our first attempt  was a flop:  the carpet jerked  off the roof,  slid
sideways towards the  fence, landed on  the springy tops  of some burdocks
and I rolled off it.
    "Why did it do that?" asked Vitalka in a whisper.
    "It's your fault," I said angrily. "Where did you want to fly to?"
    "Over the fence and down the street."
    "Well,  and  I  wanted  to  circle  round the yard first! The carpet's
can't tear itself to pieces to please us both at once!"
    It was stupid to  get angry as we  quickly realised: we simply  had to
work things out beforehand so that the carpet was controlled by one of  us
at a time.
    "You have a go," said  Vitalka magnanimously. "You're better at  it so
far."
    We sat down on the carpet again and I imagined us skimming slowly  and
smoothly along the fence, past the porch and log pile, circling round  and
gradually gaining altitude...
    The carpet raised its edges  slightly and gently lifted us  higher and
higher...
    We flew over the fence, across  the street and up to the  chimneys and
then quietly over the vegetable plots.
    I sat  with one  arm round  Vitalka's shoulders,  holding on  tightly.
Neither of us said anything.  Vitalka was breathing rapidly and his  heart
was pounding away  under his shirt.   The carpet sagged  softly under  us,
and we felt as if  we were sitting in a  soft, silky hammock. I let  go of
Vitalka's shoulders, and  crept towards the  edge because I  wanted to see
what was  down below.   The edge  of the  carpet rose  slightly and became
harder.
    "It's protecting  us. Isn't  that splendid  of it,"  Vitalka said in a
whisper.
    I sat down very carefully on the edge and dangled my legs. The  carpet
kept  its  balance  and  its  edge  became  quite  hard,  and supported me
springily under my knees.
    Vitalka lowered  his legs  over the  other side  and repeated,  "Isn't
that splendid  of it!"  Then he  stroked the  carpet and  asked, "But what
will happen if we sit down next to each other?"
    "We'll turn over."
    "Let's try carefully."
    And he began  edging towards me  and finally sat  down beside me.  The
carpet continued flying smoothly along, without listing. It obviously  was
not affected by the normal laws of equilibrium.
    Vitalka crawled back to the  middle, stood on all fours,  kneeled and,
finally, stood upright calling cheerfully to me, "It's fine. Get up."
    I crept towards him, grabbed hold of his sweat-shirt and  straightened
my (slightly trembling) knees.
    The carpet  sank gently  under our  bare feet,  but we  had no problem
standing as we were flying smoothly along in a straight line.
    Suddenly it dawned on me that  the carpet was flying all by  itself! I
had stopped controlling it  a long time ago.  So it could fly  on its own?
And you only had to show it which way to go?
    But what if the carpet had simply lured us away and was now taking  us
off to a magic kingdom far  beyond the dark wooded horizon? I  immediately
decided to turn round. And the carpet instantly obeyed.
    "How clever you are!" I said affectionately, and joyfully seized  hold
of Vitalka's shoulders again.
    We flew  so close  to a  dark fir  in someone's  yard that  one of its
shaggy branches grazed me across the shoulder. A cat sitting by a  chimney
pot on a steep iron roof  heard the rustling sound and, catching  sight of
us, arched its back  and spat. And a  dog down below started  barking, but
we had already flown by.
    Thrilled to feel safe, I put  on speed, and we started rising  steeply
over the town.
    The oncoming wind whistled and beat against our chests and swept  back
our hair. We swayed slightly but then stood firm again, holding onto  each
other. All around,  above and below,  we were surrounded  by emptiness but
we did not feel frightened. All at  once we had firm faith in our  carpet.
It was our friend and would not let us down.
    We sped  through alternating  layers of  hot and  chilly night air. At
times it  felt as  though we  were flying  through warm  cottonwool and at
others, along a  draughty corridor. And  at others still  we seemed to  be
wading waist-high through warm water,  while our elbows and necks  covered
in gooseflesh from the cold.
    Down below  loomed the  town studded  with little  shining squares  of
windows and tiny bead-like lamps strung along its main streets.
    On three sides the town was enclosed by a wide river, which  reflected
the silvery sky and yellow dawn glowing above the northern horizon.
    It  suddenly  occurred  to  me  that  from  the earth we now looked no
bigger than a postal stamp, but all the same...
    "What if we're spotted?" I whispered. "The sky is so light."
    "Who will spot us?" replied Vitalka. "The streets are empty."
    "Not completely, you know..."
    "Well, so what if we are,"  said Vitalka in a carefree tone.  "They'll
think it's a flying saucer."
    "But there's no such thing as a square saucer."
    "There isn't here but why not on Mars?"
    We both burst  out laughing. The  carpet was sweeping  us up into  the
light sky towards the two brightest stars, twinkling together like  liquid
lights.


                              Chapter Five

    I woke up  smiling but feeling  sad: smiling because  all night I  had
had a wonderful dream about a magic carpet and sad because it was over.
    Vitalka  was  snuffing  quietly  with  his  face to the wall. A fluffy
sunbeam was lying on the back of his shaggy head.
    I screwed my pillow  into a tight ball,  raised it over my  head, took
aim and, to be quite sure, rested my left hand against the floor. My  palm
touched something  amazingly soft  and silky.   I started  and dropped the
pillow, which fell onto the greyish-brown woollen carpet.
    The carpet was spread on the floor between our beds!
    With a  palpitating heart  I crawled  down onto  it and  wished I  was
rising to the ceiling.
    And the next moment I was!
    Then I carefully landed again.
    So  my  dream  wasn't  over,  after  all?  No, I could not possibly be
dreaming now!
    There was  the tattered  corner of  Vitalka's old  blanket.  There was
the  flaky  skin,  peeling  like  bits  of  cigarette  paper off Vitalka's
sunburnt shoulders.   There was  a little  black beetle  with a  fleck  of
sunlight on  its round  back scurrying  across the  wall. Could you really
see everything in such detail in a dream?
    I lay down,  pressed my cheek  against the carpet  and started looking
up. Then I stared at  Vitalka and tried to get  him to wake up but  it did
not work.
    So I  yelled, "Get  up! It's  not a  dream! Do  you hear?  It's not  a
dream!"

    Why, oh why, had  we been given so  much joy? We were  so thrilled, we
felt like  hugging everyone  in the  world and  wanted to  do nothing  but
good, and be good ourselves.
    We frightened  Auntie Valya  again by  going downstairs  as quietly as
mice and then voluntarily washing our necks and ears (with soap!).
    After  breakfast  we  took  a  large  tin  can and set off to buy some
kerosene. Auntie Valya had been telling us to do it for a whole week.
    After  bringing  the  kerosene  back,  we  dashed over to my house and
helped mother with  her weekend chores.  She, too, was  rather startled at
first and  then announced  that my  friendship with  Vitalka was having an
ennobling effect on me. I started giggling and poked Vitalka in the  ribs.
Then he sat astride me and a tin tub fell off the wall onto us and  mother
chased us outside.
    The day had  only just begun  but we already  knew it was  going to be
marvellous. We no longer needed to urge the time to pass quickly  because,
sooner or later,  the evening was  sure to arrive  and we would  again set
off on a flight!
    We would spend the  day swimming, playing football,  watching cartoons
on TV, flying paper birds from the roof and racing along the grassy  lanes
with the other lads, playing at scouts. Life was wonderful!
    We decided to start off by running down to the river for a dip.
    And so off we ran  and bumped into the Vetka  on a corner. She was  in
the same form as I, only in a parallel class.
    She  was  small  and  thin  with  short mousy hair that was completely
straight  -  nothing  special,  in  other  words.  She often danced in our
school concerts. I wasn't at all  interested in dancing, just as I  wasn't
in  girls  but  Vitalka  liked  her  and  had  told me so on more than one
occasion.
    "What DO you see in her?"  I would ask. "She's not even  pretty. She's
got a stubby nose and a mouth like a frog's."
    "You silly goon! So what if she's not pretty?"
    Oh well, what did I care!
    Vetka was walking along with  a large checked bag bumping  against her
knees, and the tufty stalks of some spring onions sticking out of her  bag
like green tails. She was staring at her toes. If I had been by myself,  I
would simply have  muttered "hello" or  passed by without  saying anything
for, after  all, we  hardly knew  each other.  But Vitalka glanced quickly
into her face and said, "What's wrong?"
    Vetka stopped and looked up. Her cheeks were stained with tears.
    "What's the  matter, Vetka?"  Vitalka asked  again as  if he  knew her
well, although she probably did not even know his name.
    Yes, and he  was right to.  If a person's  face is tear-stained,  what
difference  does  it  make  if  he  knows  your name or not? Two years ago
Vitalka and I had  hardly known each other  either, but he had  still come
to my rescue.
    Vetka said in a whisper, "My bicycle's been taken away from me."
    "Who by?" we both exclaimed.
    "Well, by some called Razikov."
    "What form's he in?" I asked in a business-like manner.
    Vetka smiled slightly  with her large  frog-like mouth and  said, "Why
no... he's grown-up... he's an old man... he's called Ivan Ivanovich..."
    "And who exactly is he?" asked Vitalka angrily.
    "Well... just  someone who  used to  be a  fire brigade-leader, but is
now retired and is always picking on everyone..."
    What  on  earth  was  going  on  in  the world? While some people were
feeling happy, others were having  their bicycles taken away from  them by
some Ivan Ivanovich Razikov or other! It just wasn't fair, was it?
    "Why did he do it?"
    "I was riding along the pavement  because there was a pot-hole in  the
road and  he started  shouting at  me: "You  hooligan! You're breaking the
Highway Code! A girl  too!' Then he grabbed  hold of my bicycle  and said,
'And I won't give it back until you fetch your parents!'"
    "Well, why don't you?" I asked. "Won't they stand up for you?"
    "Well, yes, they may, but I'll  still get a scolding from Mum  because
she told me not to cycle to market."
    "Well then,  come on,"  said Vitalka  sternly. "Who  does he  think he
is!"
    Vetka did as she was told and turned round and we set off to see  that
justice was done.
    Vetka  walked  between  us  and  the  stalks of her spring onions kept
tickling my leg.  I  glanced askance at the bag  and saw that it was  full
and rather heavy-looking.
    "Come on, let me carry that!"
    Vetka looked surprised but did not say no. Gosh, it weighted a ton!  I
bent right over on one side wondering how on earth she could carry such  a
weight. At once I began to respect her.
    When we reached  the corner, Vetka  suddenly stopped and  said, "There
he is... there's Razikov..."
    A tall thin  man with a  bony skull and  gristly face, wearing  an old
green jacket was mending a bench by a gate.
    We squatted on the other side of the fence.
    "He'll never listen to reason," Vitalka whispered. "Remember the  time
we were playing at scouts and he started chasing after Vovka Rybin?"
    Didn't I!
    Vetka looked at me and then at Vitalka pleadingly.
    "Never  mind,"  he  said.  "We'll  think  of something. Where's he the
hidden your bike?"
    "He put it by the porch in his yard... You'll never get to it  because
he's got a huge dog on a chain..."
    "Never mind," Vitalka said again. "We'll see you home now to find  out
where you  live and  in an  hour's time  we'll deliver  your bike  to your
door."
    "But how?"
    "Look," Vitalka said  rather grandly. "This  is Oleg Lapnikov  and I'm
Vitaly Gorodetsky. If  we promise something,  it means, you've  nothing to
fear."
    Vetka  lived  nearby  in  a  small  house  with  a  fence  round it in
Chelyuskintsi Street. We dragged her bag all the way for her and then  ran
off home.
    I immediately guessed what Vitalka had in mind.
    "We'll be spotted," I said as we ran along.
    "We'll stick close to the fences so  we won't be seen and then fly  up
once, dive down, grab the bike and whizz off again!"
    "But what about the dog? He'll jump up and won't half bite!"
    Vitalka stopped running and began striding along.
    "Are you scared?" he asked.
    "You must  be bonkers,"  I said  in an  offended tone.  "Who's scared?
It's just that we've got to think everything out."
    "We'll make a lasso  out of a rope,  throw it over the  handlebars and
pull the thing up. Then the dog can jump up as much as it likes."
    "But it'll bark."
    "So what?"
    "Its owner's bound to come running."
    "Well, what of it?"
    "What of it! Why, he'll raise the alarm! And then run off to  complain
about us."
    "Who to?" asked Vitalka gloatingly. "And what will he say? 'Two  louts
flew  up  and  grabbed  the  bicycle...'  "What  were  they on?' 'A flying
carpet!'  And  then  he'll  be  told  to  go  along  to the hospital for a
check-up!"
    I burst out laughing. Yes, who indeed would believe him?
    Among the various bits and pieces  in our watchtower we had a  clothes
line, which we now fished out and tied a loop at one end. Then we  carried
the carpet onto the roof and laid it out.
    "I'll pilot it. I know how," whispered Vitalka.
    "Right then."
    We  swooped  down  into  the  yard,  hopped  over  the  hedge into the
neighbours' vegetable  garden and  skimmed over  the black-currant bushes.
After glancing round and checking if the coast was clear, we slipped  into
the shadows and "hopped" over  another hedge. After making sure  there was
nobody in the next lane either, we  swept down its long fence so close  to
the ground that the grass rustled  underneath us.
    And then we flew across some more yards and vegetable plots,  sticking
close to the shadowy fences and rustling bushes.
    Here and  there women  were working  on their  vegetable-beds but they
did  not  look  round.  And  only  once  a little boy called out joyfully,
"Mummy, look!"
    But we, of course, did not wait around for his mother to do so.
    Razikov's house  stood in  the middle  of a  spacious yard.  Stretched
between the porch and  the gate was a  wire with a chain  running over it,
and  at  the  other  end  of  the  chain  sat  a  huge,  ferocious-looking
muddy-grey dog.
    We slipped  into the  farthest corner  and hid  in the  shadows of the
shed.
    Razikov was nowhere  to be seen.  A blue bicycle  was standing by  the
porch. Vitalka got the rope ready and said, "Let's go!"
    We  flew  up  and  hovered  next  to  the  roof above the bicycle. The
carpet's shadow  fell directly  on the  dog. It  lifted its  head, sat up,
silently leapt about  three feet in  the air, crashed  down and let  out a
gurgling bark.
    "Yap, yap,"  said Vitalka  intrepidly and  then lowered  the loop over
the  handlebars  and  pulled.  The  dog  was  frantic. I suddenly wondered
anxiously if the  carpet would hold  the extra weight  but it did  without
even wobbling.
    Then Razikov came running from the gate, brandishing a hammer.
    "Help me," said Vitalka.
    I grabbed  hold of  the rope,  too, and  we flew  slowly over the yard
with the bicycle twirling on the rope about a metre off the ground.
    Razikov tried to grab one of  its wheels but missed. It was  only then
that he realised something incredible was happening.
    "Oh!" he  gasped loudly  and sat  down with  his bony  legs spread out
wide.
    We  pulled  the  bicycle  up  and  laid  it on the carpet. The old man
suddenly squealed with  laughter, wagged his  finger menacingly and  threw
his hammer at us.
    The hammer  dropped down  and hit  him on  the foot  and he  let out a
muffled howl and clutched onto his foot.  And that was the last we saw  of
him before  diving into  a neighbouring  yard and  speeding home along the
same route.
    No sooner had we  landed in our yard  than Auntie Valya came  out onto
the porch and asked, "Boys, whatever are you doing with the carpet?"
    "We've decide to  clean it some  more," Vitalka lied  quickly and beat
the carpet with his palms.
    "But where did you get that bicycle from?"
    "It belongs to a girl who asked us to mend it."
    "That's all  well and  good," remarked  Auntie Valya.  "But why  put a
dirty bicycle on the carpet? Especially as you're cleaning it..."
    After taking the carpet back to our watchtower, we fiddled about  with
the bike  for a  while for  form's sake  and then  wheeled it  outside the
gate.   Vitalka got  onto the  saddle and  I sat  in front  of him  on the
frame. Three minutes later we rolled up at Vetka's house.
    We called out  her name and  she opened a  window and jumped  out into
the front garden.
    At  the  sight  of  the  bicycle  she  gasped.   Her  green eyes began
sparkling with joy and her  face lit up in a  lovely smile.  Why was  it I
had thought her mouth was like a frog's? It wasn't in the slightest.
    "How did you do it?" she asked quietly.
    Vitalka glanced enquiringly at me and I shrugged my shoulders to  show
it was up to him.
    "You won't tell anyone?" he asked her. "It's a real secret..."
    If she  had started  gushing and  making promises,  we would certainly
have invented something  but she simply  said, "Of course  not! I'm not  a
chatter-box!"
    "All right," Vitalka decided. "Come on."
    And then there were three of us.


                               Chapter Six

    When I first started writing  this story, I felt an  irresistible urge
to make something  up. For instance,  I would describe  how Vitalka and  I
had a  row once  and how  the carpet  stopped obeying  us. Or I could have
even invented how after our  row we cut the carpet  up so that each of  us
had his own half. And then, it goes without saying, it would not fly,  and
we realised we had ruined the  best adventure of our childhood because  of
some stupid quarrel, and, of course, made it up but it was too late...
    This would make an instructive ending but it would not be true.
    Vitalka and I never had rows.  Well, at the worst we sometimes  argued
a little and called  each other all sorts  of strange names but  you could
hardly call that rows, could you?
    And we never had a quarrel with Vetka either.
    She turned out to be a marvellous  pal.  She looked ever so quiet  and
even  rather  scared  but  was,  in  fact,  not  at  all timid and, on the
contrary, had a strong character.
    ... Later that day we showed  her the magic carpet and then  flew over
to fetch her at midnight.
    "Oh, I'm so  nervous," she said  in a hushed  voice after jumping  out
the window.
    "There's no need to be  scared," Vitalka said reassuringly. "We  won't
fly high until you've got used to it."
    But she  said, "I  don't mean  that. It's  just that  Mummy might wake
up..."
    We burst out laughing for it seemed she was more scared of her  mother
than of flying.
    She looked at  us in turn,  cocking her head  on its thin  neck like a
bird, and then started laughing too...
    We flew straight up into the  sky from Vetka's front garden. How  high
we flew!   And the  rustling air,  now ever  so warm  and now  bracing and
chilly, rushed  past us.   And the  town, girded  by the  river, opened up
below us again. And  on the river were  little black ships with  twinkling
red and  green lights.   Large ruby-coloured  lights were  shining on  the
television  transmission  tower  and  yellow  ones  were  gleaming  in the
streets and in houses whose occupants were still awake.
    We came to  a standstill, and  the air stopped  rustling and puckering
our shirts,  and softly  and caressingly  enveloped us,  warming us up. It
was very quiet.
    We clasped Vetka's hot hands and she stood up beside us.
    "How beautiful the earth is," she  said. "And the sky, too. It's  even
better."
    Glowing beyond the river and the  dark mists of the wooded horizon  to
the north was the yellow dawn, and higher up floated a transparent  cloud,
and slightly to one side, scarcely  visible, was the silver sickle of  the
young moon.   And higher  still in  the indigo  grey sky  were two blazing
white stars.
    We drifted  very slowly  north.
    "I've been learning a dance  called 'The Little Star' for  a concert,"
Vetka suddenly  said in  a whisper.   "Do you  know why  I thought  of it?
Because of these stars."
    "Well, dance then,"  said Vitalka seriously.  "With a name  like that,
the dance is meant for the sky."
    She never tried being coy and making excuses as girls usually do,  and
only said, "But how can I without music?"
    "Well, just think of it and imagine it's playing," I advised.
    "I can but what about you?"
    "We'll do it, too."
    "Well... but are you really serious? You won't laugh?"
    "Of course not!" said Vitalka.
    We moved right back to the edge  of the carpet and Vetka stood on  the
other edge which at once rose solicitously.
    Of course, not being used to  such an altitude, she felt scared.   She
had been all right as long as we held her hands but now she found  herself
alone with  nothing but  stars and  sky all  around... However,  she was a
brave girl and, perhaps, really imagined she was a star or thought it  was
all a dream and in dreams you sometimes get over your fear of heights.
    At first she stood hugging her  shoulders and then flung out her  arms
and began  spinning round.   I don't  know whether  she danced  well and I
simply could not imagine what the music was like. She wore a yellow  dress
and it looked as if a  large shiny butterfly was fluttering over  the edge
of the flying carpet...
    Well, no matter what she looked like. As long as I live I shall  never
forget how a girl danced in the glowing sky of a summer night, high  above
the slumbering earth...
    Panting slightly, she sat down beside us.
    "You were great," said Vitalka.
    And I told her so, too, and you could see she was delighted. When  she
got her breath back, she said cheerfully, "If I become a ballerina when  I
grow up, I'll  tell everyone how  I danced 'The  Little Star' in  the real
sky... Oh,"  she glanced  anxiously at  Vitalka and  me. "No,  I won't,  I
promise. I just forgot for a moment that it was a secret."
    "You can if you like," said Vitalka. "It won't matter then... But  are
you really going to be a ballerina?"
    Vetka's thin shoulders rose slightly.
    "I realise that's what almost all girls dream of. Only it's very  hard
you  know.  On  stage  it  seems  lovely  and  easy but it's really a hard
slog... Day in day out... I don't know if I'll make it..."
    "You will!" said Vitalka.

    We  went  flying  every  night,  sometimes  with  Vetka  and sometimes
without.  Vetka  was  frightened  her  family  would  find  out  about her
nocturnal adventures. Her  father was easy-going  and kind but  her mother
was  quick-tempered.  It  was  hard   to  believe  that  Vetka  was   this
loud-voiced, red-faced woman's daughter.
    We realised Vetka might get into hot water and so did not press her.
    You would  be wrong  to think  we simply  rode high  over the town: we
tested  out  carpet.  We  would  lie  face  downwards,  hold  tight to the
carpet's front  edge and  fly faster  and faster.  Rushing towards us, the
air tried to tear  our clothes off and  knock us off the  carpet.  Vitalka
called this an "earripping speed".
    We could not  fly like this  for long because  the wind took  away our
breath, and our ears really seemed to be about to be ripped off.
    One  night  we  got  ready  for  a  high-altitude  flight,  put on our
sweaters, ski trousers, and winter hats and flew straight up into the  sky
from the roof. At  first everything seemed just  the same as usual  except
that we kept  climbing higher and  higher. We were  not afraid because  we
had complete faith in  our carpet but, all  the same, my heart  was faster
and faster - perhaps because the air was getting thinner.
    I don't  know how  high we  climbed for  we had  no instruments.  From
above, the  town looked  almost the  same as  it had  on previous  flights
except that  the lights  of the  TV tower  had blended  with all the other
little lights.  The  horizon became very hazy  and began to curve  upwards
like the edge of  an enormous saucer. And  as always a thin  crescent moon
was shining serenely above this misty edge.
    It  became  hard  to  breathe  and  the  air  grew cold and even began
smelling  of  winter.  Icy  cold  forced  its way through our sweaters. We
stubbornly flew  on for  a few  more minutes  and then  Vitalka sighed and
said, "I've had it... The carpet's fine!  It will probably make it to  the
moon but we won't..."
    "If only we could get hold of  some space suits... we'd be able to  go
into space..." I muttered through chattering teeth.
    "Where from?.."
    A space suit isn't like a  fancy-dress costume: you can't make it  out
of cardboard. We were perfectly aware of this.
    Well, after all,  it wasn't the  carpet's fault. It  was we who  could
not fly any higher. Even pilots can only fly so high.
    And so  we swooped  sharply down  into the  warm air  and towards  the
trees, and the lights in the houses and the kind old earth which we  could
not live without...

    Several times we saw in the sun rise.
    The hazy horizon merged  with the sky and  the flaky clouds along  its
edges,  light  grey  and  greyish-blue,  became  golden, orange and mauve.
Other, on the contrary, grew darker and became deep lilac. Then the  sun's
crimson edge  appeared above  the lowest  layer of  cloud, quickly growing
lighter  and  more  dazzling  and  shooting  straight  white rays into the
middle of the sky. And high  up the invisible clouds were at  once flooded
with the sunlight.
    And we were soon bathing in sunlight, too.
    "Hurrah!"  we  shouted  and  Vitalka  jumped  up  and burst into song,
making up the words as he went along:

                 We're flying over the town,
                 And nobody will ever reach us!
                 Because we're flying highest of all!
                 So long live the sun
                 Because we were the ones
                 to see it first!
                 We are the Flying Wanderers
                 Because we can fly as fast as the wind!
                 We're already in the sun
                 while it's still dark in the town!
                 But here it's already morning!

    The town really was still asleep in the twilight of approaching  dawn.
The rays  of sunlight  had not  yet reached  the roofs  and even  the high
belfry was still in shadows.
    But we were already in the sun!
    Orange on  account of  the sun's  rays and  his suntan,  Vitalka would
stand on the edge of the carpet, waving his arms and singing his song.
    It  once  occurred  to  me  that  Vitalka  looked like the first perky
cockerel to crow at dawn. There  was no mockery in this comparison,  I was
delighted with the  thought.  With  his hair blazing  in the sun,  Vitalka
really did look like a golden cockerel.

    "How long can  you go on  sleeping?" asked Auntie  Valya in amazement.
"I just can't wake you up!"
    No wonder! We had only gone to sleep at dawn.
    Even if we flew a short while  and got to bed earlier, we still  could
not  drop  off  straightaway  as  we  were  tingling  all over with joy of
flying. Caressed by the  warm wind, each and  every one of our  skin cells
seemed to be  electrified. You only  had to close  your eyes and  the vast
earth with its little lights, river and dark wooded edges began  revolving
underneath you again.  A cricket would  start chirring and  it seemed that
Vetka was laughing quietly...
    During breakfast our heads almost  dropped into our plates and  Auntie
Valya stared  at us  anxiously. "What's  the matter  with you?"  she would
ask.
    One day Vitalka  shook his head  to dislodge some  grains of buckwheat
from his hair and asked gravely,  "Auntie Valya, what would you say  if we
suddenly got hold of a magic carpet?"
    I froze.
    Auntie Valya  smiled ironically  and said,  "I would  tell you  not to
forget to clean it. You're terribly sloppy..."
    "No,  seriously,"  said  Vitalka,  ignoring  my kicks under the table.
"Would you be awfully scared?"
    Auntie Valya gazed attentively at Vitalka and then said  thoughtfully,
"No, I wouldn't A lot of children have their own magic carpets. The  ones,
that is, who know how to find them..."
    "And did you?"
    Auntie Valya chortled, pressed Vitalka's nose with her forefinger  and
went out the room. Then  he turned to me and  said, "See! No need to  kick
me!"
    "All the same, I wouldn't tell  her yet," I said. "She's talking  this
way because she doesn't  know but if she  sees us flying, she'll  get ever
such a shock."
    "Yes, I realise that," agreed Vitalka.
    At  first  we  did  not  dare  to  fly  far away from the town but the
distant woods kept enticing us. Then one day we made up our minds to  try.
So we flew over the river  (with our black reflection gliding across  it),
skimmed over the meadows along the low bank and rose over the tops of  the
totally black  and silent  wood.   Everything below  was impenetrable  and
quiet but it seemed as though  someone large was breathing very gently  in
his sleep under the  branches. The oldest pines  and firs loomed over  the
wood like the  towers of bewitched  town, and drifting  to the left  of us
was a yellow half-moon.
    Once an owl lashed noiselessly by below us.
    At last we caught  sight of a clearing  among the trees and  landed in
the grass  among the  dark trunks  and bushes.   Vitalka switched  on  his
torch  and  boldly  set  off  into  the  unknown.  But the second later he
shrieked and jumped back  onto the carpet.   "Imagine coming all this  way
to be stung by nettles.  There're enough nettles in our yard."
    How had  nettles got  here? After  all, they  usually grew near houses
and certainly were not woodland plants.
    We shone the torch around  and spotted a strange round  building among
the trees. After  flying closer, we  saw that it  was a tumble-down  stage
above a  wooden dance  floor. There  was obviously  a settlement of summer
cottages somewhere nearby  and we had  got into a  corner of an  abandoned
woodland park.
    "So much for exploring the jungle," I said in dismay.
    We  climbed  over  the  railings  and  saw  that  the  dance floor was
directly on the  ground and not  raised on a  platform as was  usually the
case. Tufts of grass were sprouting through its rotten planks and a  small
crimson flower with five indented,  black-flecked petals swayed on a  thin
stalk. Most likely, it was a wild carnation like the ones we used to  call
"little clocks" because it  was said you could  tell the time by  them but
nobody knew exactly how.
    We were thrilled to  see it because we  felt sure it was  a mysterious
crimson flower out of a fairy-tale  and not just an ordinary one.  Nothing
magic happened, though. We simply flew back to town and tosses the  flower
through Vetka's window to give her a lovely surprise...

    "We must fly in the daytime," said Vitalka. "We can't see anything  at
night."
    "That's true," I agreed. "We might do worse than landing in nettles."
    And so we started pondering what we should do.
    It  would  be  simplest  of  all,  of  course, to fly off to the woods
before dawn while  the town was  still asleep and  then explore the  woods
after  sunrise.  Nobody  would  see  us  there  and even if they did, they
wouldn't believe their eyes.
    But just try disappearing before breakfast. Auntie Valya would tap  on
the ceiling and hit the roof when she discovered we weren't there!
    Vitalka eventually had an idea. He insisted it was possible to fly  in
the daytime. All  we had to  do was pick  lanes with fewer  people in them
and fly just above the ground, over  the tops of the grass. And if  anyone
suddenly  appeared,  we  just  had  to  flop  into the grass as if we were
sitting on the  carpet.  And  if anyone asked  questions, we could  say we
were taking it to the cleaners and had stopped for a rest on the way.
    And perhaps they would not even ask. After all, nobody had spotted  us
as we were flying to rescue Vetka's bicycle.
    We decided to risk it. After  breakfast we flew off our roof,  swooped
over the fence and flew along  Anchor Street, keeping under the hedges  of
the  front  gardens  and  just  above  the  dandelions  growing  along the
pavements.
    And we did actually have to "sit snug" in the grass several times.
    But  passers-by  took  no  notice  of  us  for,  after all what was so
special about  two boys  sitting on  an old  carpet by  a gate?  Obviously
their mother had  told them to  take it out  into the street  and clean it
but they were just playing about...
    Then the  street became  completely deserted  and we  grew bolder  and
flew just above the road towards a crossroads.
    The  silence  was  suddenly  shattered  by  a policeman's whistle.  We
stopped in surprise. Where had the policeman come from?
    "Breaking the Code, are you?" he said rather unsurely.
    We cringed at first but the  policeman was young and not very  strict,
it seemed. And so  Vitalka asked rather cheekily,  "In what way?   We were
going along the right side."
    "But have you got a license?"
    "What for? This isn't a car!"
    "What is it, then?" asked the policeman caustically. "A cart?  Where's
your horse, then?"
    "Well, if it's a car, where're its wheels?" asked Vitalka.
    We were  hovering a  couple of  feet above  the ground.  The policeman
glanced underneath the carpet, straightened up and blinked.
    "How are you doing it, lads? Huh?" he asked quietly.
    "The principle of the air cushion," Vitalka replied promptly.
    "And it's... anti-gravitational," I added.
    "Has such  a thing  already been  invented?" asked  the policeman with
respect. "I thought it was  still something out of science  fiction... Are
you from the Pioneers' club?"
    "That's right.  From the  young technicians'  workshop," said  Vitalka
glibly. "We're trying out a new model."
    "Well... do take more care... And keep off the roadway!"
    "Right, we shall!" we called out cheerfully and set off home. And  the
policeman remained standing on the  corner, full of admiration for  modern
science.

    "No, it's better  flying high up,"  said Vitalka. "If  we climb a  bit
higher, we may not be noticed. Grown-ups don't usually look up at the  sky
much because they're kept so busy by things down on the ground."
    "But what about other children?" I asked.
    "Well... they'll think it's something flying... a kite perhaps!"
    "Without a tail?"
     "Well, we'll make a tail. That won't take long, will it?"
    What a good idea!
    We tore an old  sack into strips and  made a tail like  a real kite's,
only about  fifteen metres  long, and  sewed it  onto the carpet's corners
with thick thread.
    We were  rather scared  that the  carpet might  take offence  at being
pricked by  a thick  needle or  we might  accidentally harm  it, and so we
sewed the tail on  as we flew over  the floor because we  reckoned that if
it disliked  our idea,  it would  land at  once. But  the carpet stood the
operation without even flinching.
    Leaving Vitalka on the  roof, I flew up  until he became as  tiny as a
cardboard soldier.   The strong  warm wind  coming from  beyond the  woods
caught up the sacking tail and began twirling and flapping it.
    It was the  first time I  had flown so  high in a  sunny sky. The vast
green earth stretched  out for thousands  of kilometres around  and was so
lovely and bright  that I wanted  to take a  good look at  everything. But
tiny Vitalka  was dancing  about our  minute roof  and waving  his arms to
make me come down at once.
    So I had no choice but to fly back.
    "It's fantastic!" he cried. "It looks just like a kite! Only why  were
you sitting on the edge? Kites don't usually have anyone sitting on  them,
do they?"
    We decided to fetch Vetka and then set off on our first big flight  in
daylight.
    But Vetka had cycled over herself  and, ringing her bell at the  gate,
called out, "Did you see that kite in the sky?!"
    We roared with laughter. Kite, indeed!  What a joke! So it really  did
look like one.
    "What's up with you?" asked Vetka in surprise.
    "It's not a kite!" we cried joyfully. "It's not a kite! Got it?"
    "What do you mean it's not?  Have a look for yourselves. No,  not that
way! Look, over there!"
    We turned  round. Sure  enough, soaring  among the  puffy clouds was a
brightly-coloured rectangular kite with a thin forked tail.


                              Chapter Seven

    There was nothing special about seeing a kite in the sky because  lots
of  children  in  the  town  flew  them.  And  so  Vitalka  and  I weren't
surprised. But Vetka said, "Lovely, isn't it? What a beauty!.."
    The  kite  certainly  was  beautiful.   Large  and  red-  and  yellow-
patterned, it glided smoothly and almost motionlessly in the sky.
    But so  what? If  we had  wanted to,  we could  have made  one just as
good.
    But then Vetka said again, "Let's have a look at who's flying it."
    "Why?" asked Vitalka rather jealously.
    "Well... it'd be interesting."
    "What difference does it make who it is?"
    But then  an alarming  thought flashed  through my  mind and  I asked,
"Listen, what if he saw me taking  off? After all, he's looking up at  the
sky all the time."
    Vitalka glanced dazedly at me.
    "That's true...  But what  can we  do?.. Well,  never mind!  If he saw
you,  he  probably  thought  it  was  another  kite. But perhaps he didn't
because he was looking the other way."
    "All the more  reason to scout  about and find  out whether he  did or
not!"
    Scouting was a different proposition. It was a kind of adventure,  and
Vitalka agreed at once.
    "Off we go!" Vetka cried happily and dashed towards her bicycle.
    "So that's your  game!" said Vitalka.   "You'll cycle while  we'll run
along  on  foot?   No,  let's  go  and  look  through the telescope in our
watchtower. Come on up!"
    After Vetka had climbed up the ladder to the roof, we crawled  through
the window into our "cabin".
    Through the telescope it  looked as if the  kite was just outside  the
window. We could even see splashes  of paint and spots of glue  and little
knots in its criss-crossed threads...
    "It really is beautiful, isn't it?" said Vetka. "Come on, let me  have
a look, too."
    Next it was Vitalka's turn. He  barely glanced at the kite, moved  the
telescope  to  one  side  and  down.  I  realised  he was sliding down the
thread.
    The telescope stopped, moved again and then stopped for good.  Vitalka
looked through  it for  a few  seconds and  then smiling  for some reason,
said, "There he is... Don't know him. Look!"
    I looked through  the lense. I  remembered that everything  was upside
down in it but I still started  at first:  a fair-haired boy was  standing
upside down  on an  inverted roof  and staring  at the  overturned sky. It
seemed that  any moment  now he  was going  to plunge  head-first into the
blue abyss. But  he remained standing  firmly as though  his old plimsolls
were magnetised to the sloping plank roof.
    He was moving his fingers and elbows as he fed out the thread and  his
lips were moving as though he were murmuring something. He was dressed  in
a bright-green open shirt. The wind  was pressing it against his back  and
flapping its open ends.
    He looked like a little green flag or a small wind-blown tree and  was
probably about as big as us.
    Although old, our telescope was still  in fine shape and I could  even
make out  the mole  on the  strange boy's  ear-lobe and  a scratch  on his
cheek. I could not see his eyes, however, as he was standing sideways  and
his head was turned away from us.
    Then all of  a sudden he  glanced round. Someone  must have called  to
him. He smiled and said something in  reply. I thought he had a very  nice
face but I could not get a  good look at it because everything was  upside
down. And I very much wanted to!
    So as I  could not turn  the picture round,  I decided to  turn upside
down. Leaning  on Vitalka's  shoulder, I  jumped onto  the window-sill and
bent down over the telescope.
    But my head  overbalanced and I  went crashing to  the floor telescope
and  all,  bashing  my  forehead  against  the  boards  so  hard  that   I
immediately saw lots of stars.
    I sat on the floor shaking my head dazedly.
    "Oh," Vetka gasped quietly.
    Then  I  picked  up  the  bronze  telescope  in silence and pressed it
against the bump on my forehead,  but Vitalka grabbed it, saying that  the
bump was not serious, put it  back on the window-sill and started  looking
through it himself.
    "Look!" he  said (although  we couldn't,  of course).  "He's tied  the
string to an aerial and is going down..."
    "He's probably  gone to  lunch," said  Vetka. "He  always has lunch at
this time."
    I  forgot  about  my  bump  and  Vitalka  tore  himself  away from the
telescope and we both asked in unison, "How do you know?"
    "Well..." began  Vetka, blushing  so much  that we  had to  turn away.
"Well... I... I was once going by and I saw... him flying planes from  the
roof. And then someone called to him."
    Vitalka and  I exchanged  glances. Once,  my foot!  She said he ALWAYS
had lunch at this time.
    It would have taken only a  couple of questions to drive Vetka  into a
tight corner  but we  simply glanced  questioningly at  each other  again.
Although we felt  rather sad, we  pretended nothing was  wrong and Vitalka
merely asked, "Well, what's his name?"
    "Sanya... or  Sasha. I  don't know!  I only  heard with  half an ear."
    Vitalka shook his shaggy head and glanced mischievously at me,  "Well,
let's find out! Let's all get acquainted with this fellow! We'll give  him
a surprise first and then make friends!"
    Vetka was, of course, very keen to get to know him and so was I for  I
had instantly  taken a  liking to  him. But  why give  him a surprise? And
how?
    "While he's  sitting at  home, let's  fly over  to the  kite and tie a
message to its tail," explained Vitalka.
    "Oh, yes, let's!" said Vetka joyfully.
    "But what if he spots us?" I asked.
    "There you  go again!"  said Vitalka  in annoyance.  "If we're  always
scared to do things, we'll spend our life sitting in a dark corner."
    I shrugged my  shoulders. After all,  I was only  asking. Let him  see
us, for all  I cared. There  was no point  hiding from a  nice person, was
there?
    We scribbled the following message on half a sheet of paper:

                         WE WANT TO GET
                         TO KNOW YOU,
                         WHAT'S YOUR NAME?
                         WRITE IT ON THE KITE.
                              THE FLYING TRAMPS

    Then we made a bow out of the note with a length of string knotted  in
the middle rather like the kind you  dangle in front of a kitten. We  left
Vetka to keep an  eye on the roof  through the telescope, climbed  through
the  window,  lay  flat  on  the  carpet  and soared up into the sunny sky
towards the kite.
    We had completely forgotten that  our flying carpet was also  meant to
resemble a kite. If anyone had  spotted us, they would have been  terribly
surprised, for kites never fly at such a terrific speed. But we were in  a
hurry and the only thing that worried us then was that the boy should  not
come up and see us.
    From so high up we could not spot his roof and so had no idea  whether
he was on it  or not. And there  wasn't time to examine  the ground below.
We flew up to the kite. Large, red and yellow, glowing in the sun, it  was
hanging  almost  motionlessly  in  the  air  with only its tail fluttering
gently.
    Vitalka seized hold of its wispy end, which was weighted down by  some
pebbles, and  fixed the  note to  it with  a wire  hook. The  kite angrily
jerked its tail away and then  hung motionlessly again in the currents  of
air. We rushed back home.
    "Everything's fine!" Vetka called  out from behind the  telescope. "He
hasn't come up yet!"
    We waited and about  twenty minutes later the  boy in the green  shirt
climbed out  onto the  roof and  sat down  beside the  aerial to which the
string of his kite was attached. We were even angry - was not he going  to
spot the note? After all the paper  bow was blazing like a white spark  on
the end of the kite's tail.
    "That's it!" cried Vitalka in  delight, for he happened to  be looking
through the  telescope at  the time.  I shoved  him aside  and took a look
myself.
    The boy was hurriedly winding up the thread.
    "The kite's  coming down!"  Vetka cried  excitedly and  pushed me away
from the  lense. "Oh,  it's down  now... Oh,  how huge  it is...  Oh, he's
untying the note..."
    "Stop gasping and give us the facts," ordered Vitalka.
    "He's reading it... Gosh, he  looks surprised! He's glancing round  as
if  looking  for  us...  Oh,  he's  reading it again... He's looking round
again... And now he's climbing down from the roof with his kite..."
    "What if he got scared?" asked Vitalka anxiously.
    "Oh, whatever next!" replied Vetka in a slightly offended tone.
    And I agreed with her. Although I  had only seen the boy for a  couple
of seconds, I was sure  that he was not at  all the timid type. And  now I
wanted to get to know him even more.
    He was just like us...
    "We'll see," said Vitalka.
    We kept our eyes out and waited.
    Half an  hour later  the kite  rose up  again and  flew up quickly and
smoothly as if it had an engine. We banged our heads together in front  of
the lense again.
    On the  kite's red  and yellow  patterns we  spotted some  large black
letters spelling.

                             SASHA VETRYAKOV

    "Now what?"  Vetka asked  impatiently. "Are  you going  to tie another
note to the tail?"
    After a moment's thought Vitalka replied, "No, we mustn't do the  same
thing twice... Let's leave him a letter tonight."
    "Oh, that's  such a  long way  off," I  objected, and  Vetka gave me a
grateful look.
    But Vitalka said, "Well, tomorrow's not so long to wait for. But  then
it'll be fun.
    Then we composed the following message:

                         IF YOU WANT TO GET
                         TO KNOW US COME AT 12 NOON
                         TO THE CORNER OF ANCHOR
                         AND MAY THE FIRST STREET.
                                  THE FLYING TRAMPS

    That night Vitalka  and I flew  off and found  the house belonging  to
the kite's owner.  Then we tied our  note to an old ski stick and sent  it
swishing downwards.   It stood  upright in  the wooden  roof next  to  the
aerial.

    We were sure the boy would  come and when he didn't, we  were terribly
disappointed, and Vetka  especially so.   We made our  way home in  gloomy
silence.
    Then Vetka  cheered up  and said,  "Why, we're  so stupid!  Suppose he
didn't even go up onto the roof today and hasn't seen the stick? He  can't
be flying his kite every day!"
    Of course! Why hadn't we thought of that before?
    We all looked up at the sky to check there was no kite in it.
    But there was, only this time it was white with black spots.
    We tore off home to our telescope.
    The  following  words  stood  out   on  the  kite  which  was   almost
transparent in the sunlight:

                          I WANT TO BUT I CAN'T

    We exchanged glances, and Vitalka  said, "Well, if he can't,  we'll go
ourselves."
    The house was in Timber-Rafters' Street. It was ordinary and old  with
shutters  and  lopsided  gates  bearing  the  oval  tin  emblem  of an old
insurance company. A green flag was fluttering over the house: it was  the
kite's  young  owner  on  roof  duty.  He  did  not  see us because he was
standing with his back to us and looking at the kite.
    We stood in a  line along the edge  of the road with  Vetka in between
Vitalka and myself and glanced enquiringly at one another, wondering  what
to do next. For some reason  Vetka turned aside and giggled. Then  Vitalka
said loudly, "Sasha Vetryakov!"
    The boy turned round  at once and his  shirt flaps flew up  behind him
like green wings.
    He smiled slightly  at first and  then more and  more happily and  you
could tell at once that he was a good fellow.
    "Is that you?" he asked and walked  right to the edge of the roof  and
let go of the thread. The kite began somersaulting down.
    "Yes, it's us,"  Vitalka said seriously.  "But why did  you let go  of
your kite?"
    "Oh, never  mind that,"  he replied.  "Now that  you're here,  nothing
else matters... So you're the Flying Tramps?"

    We climbed up  a rickety ladder  standing by the  porch, and scrambled
onto  the  roof  because  Sasha  had  said  he  could not come down to the
ground.
    "Why ever not, Sanya?" asked Vetka as soon as she was on the roof.
    She at  once started  acting as  if she  knew him  well and called him
Sanya instead of Sasha. She probably thought it suited him better.
    He wrinkled his nose  in embarrassment and explained  light-heartedly,
"It so happened... I  cut up a polythene  sheet of Granny's, thinking  she
didn't  need  it  but  it  then  turned  out  she  did need it to cover up
vegetable beds on cold nights. Granny didn't even scold me but Mum said  I
was to stay indoors for three days  and go no further than the porch.   So
that's why I'm living up on the  roof.  How could I possibly stick  it out
on the porch?"
    Vetka glanced  cautiously down  and moved  away from  the edge  of the
roof.
    "But won't we catch  it hot from your  Mum and Granny? They'll  ask us
what we think we're going, climbing up onto someone else's roof?"
    "Well, first of all, they  wouldn't say that and, anyway,  they're not
at home. They've gone off to my  other granny in the country for a  couple
of days."
    "And left you all on your own?" asked Vetka.
    "What of it? I'm used to it. In Leningrad I often lived alone."
    "But why  are you  staying indoors  if you're  alone? After  all, they
don't know what you're doing," Vitalka asked.
    Sanya glanced hesitantly at us as if afraid we might find it funny.
    "Well, you see... You see, I sort of gave my word..."
    "I see," said  Vitalka hurriedly. "I  was only asking...  And, anyway,
it isn't bad up here on the roof."

    No, it wasn't bad  up on the roof.  A warm breeze was  blowing over us
and the sun was nice and hot.  There was a small bench by the  chimney-pot
on the steep slope.  The roof smelt of  heated wood and the  brick chimney
of lime and soot,  but strongest of all  were the smells of  damp sand and
warm wormwood carried by the wind from the riverbank.
    Sanya sat  between me  and Vetka  and glanced  at us  in turn.  He was
probably wondering what to say next.
    "Why haven't we  seen you around  before?" I asked.  "We know everyone
in the streets round here. Are you from Leningrad?"
    Sanya nodded.
    He had lived  with his parents  in Leningrad while  they were studying
at college. After graduating  earlier in the year,  they had come to  work
in our  shipyard.   But shortly  after starting  work, Sanya's  father had
left town again to take part in some races. He was an ace racing driver.
    "He spent  more time  racing than  studying in  Leningrad, too,"  said
Sanya cheerfully. "Mum  says he wrote  his diploma work  on the saddle  of
his motorbike..."
    As we sat and  chatted with him like  this, the three of  us grew more
and more surprised. Vitalka finally  leaned forward and gave me  a puzzled
and impatient look. I got the message and said, "I say, Breezy, why  don't
you ask how we attached the note to your kite?"
    I don't know how this name escaped me. I had secretly called him  this
the  very  first  time  I  set  eyes  on  him  firstly  because  his name,
Vetryakov, suggested  it(*), and,  secondly, because  he was  so light and
airy, and an ordinary  name like Sasha or  Sanya did not suit  him at all.
And now this name had just slipped out somehow.

                                 (*) Vetryakov is a derivative from
                                     the Russian word "veter" - wind. -Tr.

    Breezy's  eyebrows  were  slightly  arched  as  if  he  was constantly
wondering if we were  poking fun at him.  And now his eyes  opened wide in
complete astonishment.
    "Why... why did you call me that?" he asked.
    I became  embarrassed like  a silly  little girl  and started mumbling
some sort of nonsense.  Then Sanya smiled and  said, "My nickname used  to
be Windmill at school."
    "Well, you certainly  don't look like  one!" said Vitalka.  "Windmills
look like this!" He stood up  and started waving his arms. "Oleg's  name's
better."
    And so from then on Vitalka and I always called him Breezy.
    "And I guessed about your  note straightaway," said Breezy. "You  must
have a model plane with remote control, is that so?"
    The  three  of  us  exchanged  glances  and  bit our lips so as not to
laugh,  and  Vitalka  hurriedly  said,  "Yes,  that's  right.  With remote
controls"
    "We'll show it to you soon," Vetka promised.
    "I've made models,  too," said Breezy  and sighed. "Only  it's no good
flying them from the  roof because they don't  come back. But kites  do...
You know, people  sometimes fly on  big kites -  I've seen them  in films.
Have you?"
    "We've seen stranger  things..." I began  saying proudly but  catching
Vitalka's disapproving stare, stopped in  mid-sentence.  He thought I  was
boasting.
    Breezy picked a flat  chip off the roof,  tossed it up in  the air and
watched  the  wind  twirling  it.  "I  think..." he said gingerly, "if you
built a  large model...  I mean,  a really  large one,  about five  metres
long, you could probably fly it just like a plane, couldn't you?"
    "Then it would be a plane and not a model," I said.
    "Planes are hard to build but you can make models - even large ones  -
quite easily... And then you can build on a seat and a control lever..."
    He screwed up his eyes slightly  and staring ahead, drew up his  legs,
put  his  feet  up  on  the  bench  and  placed  his clenched fists on his
tucked-up knees as if clutching onto the steering-wheel of a plane...
    We understood  him very  well because  each of  us dreamed of becoming
someone when he grew  up: Vetka wanted to  be a ballet dancer,  Vitalka an
artist and I a  sailor or better still,  a sea captain. And  Breezy wanted
to fly planes.
    Then it occurred to me that each  of my friends was trying to see  his
dream come  true! Vetka  was taking  dancing lessons,  Vitalka was drawing
pictures and Breezy was  making models. Only I  was loafing about and  did
not even know how to  be a sailor. I kept  putting things off but not  any
more! That  very next  day I  would start  doing exercises  and learn  all
about knots.

    I was  distracted from  these unhappy  thoughts by  Breezy who started
telling us  how last  year he  had joined  the young  pilot's group at the
regional Young Pioneers' club.
    "I'd heard that everything there  was real... Well, they certainly  do
have proper suits for high-altitude flights. And they've built a  cockpit,
just like in a real plane. But all the work's done on the ground and  they
don't let anybody fly, not even the older boys."
    "Children aren't allowed to fly planes," said Vitalka.
    "Why not?"  demanded Breezy.  "A boy  can pilot  a plane! Remember the
film 'The Last Inch'?"
    Of course we did!  We'd seen it three  times. I was about  a young lad
like us, a pilot's son who flew a plane when his Dad got wounded  fighting
sharks in the sea. But it was only a film...
    "I've seen  it three  times, too,"  said Breezy.  "And I  could see it
another hundred times..."
    "Well then, let's,"  suggested Vetka. "It's  on at the  outdoor cinema
this evening. It just so happens  Mum's working in the second shift  today
so I'm free."
    "We won't be let in to the evening showing," I said.
    Vetka  gave  me  an  angry  glance  and  tapped  her forehead with her
finger.
    "It's  not  indoors,  you  know.  And  there're  birches  all  around.
Nobody'll spot us among the branches."
    "I still can't go," said Breezy sadly.
    "Yes, you can,"  said Vetka determinedly.  "What were you  told not to
do? Not to set  foot on the ground  outside the porch. Well,  don't worry,
you won't!"


                              Chapter Eight

    He had not believe us at first but who would?!
    Even when we had carried the carpet  over in a roll and laid it  among
the dandelions growing thickly in  the yard, he smiled in  a comprehending
and slightly guilty way  as if to say:  "I can see you're  joking and want
to cheer  me up  but why  go to  so much  trouble? Fancy  dragging over  a
carpet..."
    "Sit down," said Vitalka.
    Smiling awkwardly, Breezy  stepped off the  porch and onto  the carpet
and sat down.
    "Don't be afraid," I warned.
    We rose about a  half a metre and  flew low over the  ground, sweeping
up a whirlwind  of dandelion seeds  behind us. Breezy  did not cry  out or
jump off the carpet: he simply  opened his eyes wide and gripped  my elbow
tightly.
    It was a wonderful day, a real  red-letter day.  We had a new  friend!
And everything in  the world -  the grass, the  sun, the puffy  clouds and
rustling rowan  bushes -  everything seemed  to be  rejoicing with  us. We
flew over the spacious yard,  making sharp turns and several  times soared
off  the  roof  into  the  sky  pierced  with  blazing sunrays. The carpet
carried all four of us without a murmur.
    The  only  thing  that  upset  us  slightly  was that Breezy could not
control the magic carpet. Vetka had  not learnt to either but she  did not
mind in the least  about it. Breezy, however,  was really upset. He  tried
again and  again to  make it  fly properly,  but it  either slid  sideways
under the fence or rose very slightly and then flopped down again.
    "Never mind," Vitalka and I consoled  him. "You'll get used to it  and
learn."
    "Yes, I will."
    When  we  grew  tired  of  flying,  we  settled  on the roof again and
started  talking  about  life  and  planets  and ships, paper soldiers and
Australian kangaroos, stamps and atomic energy, school and Sputniks...
    Then the light evening came.
    This may sound splendid but, you see, we wanted it to be dark  because
we had to get all the way to the town's park and get settled in the  thick
birch tops where we would have an excellent view of the screen.
    We  weren't  worried  we  would  discover  other  spectators among the
branches  because  the  birches'  trunks  were  straight  and  smooth  and
impossible to climb up.
    "It's time," said Vitalka.
    We sat  down on  the carpet.   Vetka carefully  checked to  see Breezy
jumped straight off the  steps and onto the  carpet as he had  done in the
afternoon and did  not break his  promise by accidentally  stepping on the
ground.
    We had to  fly low over  the ground, picking  quiet lines as  we went.
We had rolled the tail up and put it on top so that it did not get  caught
in the weeds.   Several times, at the  sight of passers-by, we  landed and
pretended to be  simply playing. The  passers-by shrugged their  shoulders
and wondered what sort of a game children could be playing on a carpet  in
the middle of the street. At long last we flew deftly up onto the roof  of
a three-storeyed  house across  the street  from the  park. When the coast
was clear, we swept like the  wind over the street and the  iron railings,
over the bushes and  flower beds and ploughed  our way into the  middle of
the birches.
    It  was  like  being  in  a  green  hut. Although you couldn't see the
ground through the branches, the light sky was peeping through the  leaves
above. Several branches were covering the screen and so we edged  forwards
slightly, broke off a couple and that did the trick. The film began...
    Once  again  a  little  plane  was  swaying  over the yellow sands and
deep-blue sea.  Once again  the azure  depths of  the sea  with its bright
shoals of tropical  fish and ominous,  shadowy sharks splashed  across the
screen. Once  again ten-year-old  Davy, straining  himself to  the utmost,
dragged his wounded father over to the plane while a plaintive song  about
being all alone in the world rang over the impassive sands.
    The boy was  our close friend.  We were with  him heart and  soul, and
his very  step made  us either  happy or  sad. We  knew every  sequence by
heart but still felt thrilled when he lifted the plane into the air.
    We did not  notice it get  dark, indeed, much  darker than it  usually
was  even  late  at  night  in  summer.  Then  all of a sudden I shuddered
because a raindrop  had plopped onto  my neck like  a cold grape,  and was
rolling down the back of my collar.
    The rain suddenly came pouring  down, crashing through the leaves  and
branches and beating down on our shoulders and backs, and on the carpet.
    Glassy threads  of rain  shone like  silver in  the projector's light.
Then a commotion broke out in the audience and the screen went back.
    Vitalka was the first to sense trouble.
    "Let's go!" he exclaimed and we tore out of the wet branches and  sped
at an angle over the street, barely clearing the fences.
    "Higher! We  must fly  higher!" I  yelled, thinking  that Vitalka  was
keeping close to the ground on purpose.
    But it was the rain keeping us down. The drenched carpet grew  heavier
and heavier until it finally flopped down onto the wet granite  flagstones
in a yard.
    "We're landed," I said in despair. "Now what are we going to do?"
    "We can go the  rest of the way  on foot," said Vetka.  "We are soaked
as it is."
    Did she  really think  I was  worried about  getting wet?  I could not
have cared  less about  the rain!  All I  was thinking  about was what was
going to happen to  the carpet. Suppose it  never flew again? It  was such
an appalling thought that I did not even dare utter it aloud.
    The carpet looked  limp and lifeless.  Everyone except Breezy  stepped
off it and stood on the stone flags.
    "You can't," said Vetka sternly. "You promised, don't forget."
    "But what shall I do?" he asked.
    "He  promised,"  Vetka  repeated,  staring  exactingly  at Vitalka and
myself.
    With a sigh  Vitalka offered Breezy  his back with  his shirt sticking
to it.
    "Get on"
    "Oh no, I can't..." said Breezy sadly. "Really I..."
    "Get on," repeated Vitalka. We'll carry you home. After all, it's  our
fault you've got into this mess."
    "No, it's my own fault."
    "Get on," I said.
    A few moments  later Breezy was  riding along on  Vitalka's back while
Vetka and I carried the roll  of carpet on our shoulders. It  was terribly
heavy because of all  the water it had  absorbed. But it wasn't  really so
much the weight that  was getting me down  as the thought that  the carpet
might not fly again.
    Every now and then Breezy demanded  to be put down but, Vitalka  would
tell him to stay put.
    The rain stopped. In the  distance thunder rolled over the  roof-tops,
as  we  silently  splashed  along  the  wet  pavements all the way back to
Vetka's house. Then Vetka got out  her bicycle, told Breezy to get  on the
back seat and said she would take him right to his porch while we  dragged
the carpet home.
    "Will you come tomorrow?" Breezy asked hastily.
    "Yes," I promised, and it then occurred to me that even if the  carpet
did not fly again, we had still been blessed with a wonderful new friend.


                              Chapter Nine

    How nerve-racking the next day was! The carpet lay on the roof in  the
sunshine and the  steam rising from  it smelled like  mists in a  tropical
forest (or, at least,  that's what it reminded  us of). It dried  out very
slowly and when we tried flying on it, it did not budge an inch.
    Gazing at  me with  wistful eyes,  Vitalka asked,  "Has it  really had
it?"
    I just shrugged my  shoulders. To tell the  truth, I was choking  back
my tears, but I  said courageously: "Its magic  is so strong, a  few drops
of rain can't possibly do it any harm!"
    Vetka came by and tenderly  stroked the carpet's damp coat.  We called
on Breezy  several times,  and each  time he  called down  from the  roof,
"Well?"
    "It's still  not dry.  We'll just  have to  wait," we would cheerfully
reply. "Perhaps it'll be dry by the evening."
    But that evening the carpet still refused to fly.
    But  the  next  morning  held  a  wonderful  surprise in store for us.
Vitalka and I woke up at exactly the same time, dashed towards the  window
and climbed onto the  roof. The carpet was  once again light, silky,  soft
and ready to fly. In  fact, lying there it looked  as if it had been  just
waiting for us!
    We flopped onto its  caressingly warm coat and  flew up into the  sky.
It was still early, and the cockerels were crowing joyfully in the yards.
    Later that day  Breezy's mother returned  home in a  cheerful mood and
was not at all angry with him.
    "You poor  little mite!  Have you  been sitting  on the  roof all this
time?" she  exclaimed hearing  that Breezy  had stayed  under house arrest
all these days. "I quite forgot to tell you you were free to go! Don't  be
angry with me, darling, I won't do it again!"
    And so Breezy  at once asked  permission to go  over to our  place and
spend the night there.
    We  showed  him  our  cardboard  soldiers,  Vitalka's  paintings,  our
weapons, telescope and all  our other treasures. We  put on a show  battle
of our  armies which  lasted until  the evening.   And late  that night we
stole Vetka away from home and set off flying. And we felt as happy as  we
had done the very first time because we were now discovering the sky,  the
town at  night, the  twinkling evening  stars and  streaming warm  air all
over again together with Breezy.

    At  that  time  nothing  marred  our happiness and friendship. Nothing
that is,  except Breezy's  unsuccessful attempts  to fly  the carpet which
made him feel  angry and us  rather guilty. You  see, our carpet  wouldn't
obey him.
    "I can't," he would say unhappily. "Somehow I don't believe that  it's
going to take off. Now if only it had a steering wheel..."
    We understood what  he meant. All  his life he  had dreamed of  planes
and imagined  himself holding  control levers,  and could  not think  of a
flight in any other way.
    But we couldn't attach a steering wheel to our carpet.
    "But I'll learn!" Breezy kept  assuring us. "I will, honest!  And does
it matter who pilots the carpet? We fly on it all together, don't we?"
    "Wouldn't it be great to go on a long flight?" said Vitalka.
    And we all agreed. Vetka  and Breezy did so perhaps  without thinking,
but I really meant it. After  all, that's what we had been  dreaming about
for so long!
    We were often lucky that summer,  and were certainly so in the  matter
of our distant flight.  One  day Auntie Valya received a postcard  from an
old friend  in a  nearby town.   After going  about the  whole day  with a
pensive expression on her face, she asked  us if she could rely on us  and
if we could manage on  our own for two days  while she went to visit  some
friends of her youth.
    "On our  own? Why,  we can  live at  my place.  Everything'll be fine,
Auntie Valya," I replied, giving Vitalka a meaningful look.
    Two whole days! We'd be able to fly far away into the unknown!
    We gazed so sincerely at Auntie Valya that she did not suspect any  of
our wicked  plans. I  ran home  and back  again and  informed Auntie Valya
that Mum said  she was not  to worry about  us. In fact,  Mum did not even
know Auntie Valya was  leaving. She was busy  at work in the  library from
early morning  till evening  because half  of her  colleagues were away on
holiday.
    Next morning we  saw off Auntie  Valya at the  station and then  raced
over to  Breezy's.   Vetka and  he were  fixing a  strange contraption  of
narrow  criss-crossed  wooden  laths  covered  with  polythene film onto a
bicycle frame.
    "Whatever's that?" I asked in amazement.
    Breezy and Vetka looked rather embarrassed.
    "Well, they're...  sort of  wings," said  Breezy. "If  you go downhill
fast enough, you may take off... like a plane."
    I  blinked  in  surprise.  Take  off?  Why  bother  with this creaking
thingumajig when we had the magic carpet?
    "Why..." I began but stopped  because I saw Vitalka looking  sadly and
sympathetically at Breezy and Vetka  or, rather, mainly at Vetka.  And for
some  reason  she  was  blushing  and  standing  with her back towards us,
twisting a long curl round her finger. Oh, Vetka, Vetka...
    I did not say anything because  I realised Breezy and Vetka had  found
a magic  carpet of  their own  or, rather,  were making  one. True, it was
very clumsy-looking and  heavy but what  did that matter?  They were happy
together and had a fairy-tale all of their own.
    And so that was that. But I still said, "Auntie Valya's gone away  for
two days. Why don't we fly to the far woods and spend all day there?"
    Breezy raised his honest  eyes and it was  obvious he did not  want to
fly there but dared not say no as he was afraid of offending us.
    "Or if  you'd rather,"  I said  hurriedly. "We'll  fly there  first on
reconnaissance and then all fly there together next time."
    He smiled gratefully.
    "Right!" he  said with  relief. "And  meanwhile we'll  finish this off
and then all go together..."
    No, we did not  hold it against Breezy  and Vetka. Only once  while he
was putting some food  for our journey into  a string bag did  Vitalka say
sadly, "So that's that."
    And then all of  a sudden I pictured  Vetka dancing "The Little  Star"
on the edge of the carpet.
    "I  do  hope  they  don't  break  anything  when  they're trying their
thingamy out," I said anxiously.
    "They won't  have time  to," Vitalka  replied. "We'll  be back  by the
time they've finished it."

    It  was  our  longest  and  happiest  flight.  We  flew  over  a  vast
uninhabited forest  and the  town gradually  disappeared behind  the birch
and fir tops. I  now seemed as if  the whole world was  covered with thick
branchy trees.
    What  was  it  like  skimming  slowly  over  the tree tops? Well, when
you're on a train going along a steep embankment over a forest, the  trees
drift by below in a somewhat  similar way. Stick your head out  the window
and have a look:  if the embankment's steep,  it feels rather like  you're
flying but, of course, it's not really the same.
    The train  carriage is  clanking and  jolting along  and the  oncoming
wind reeks  of fumes  and you  can't stop  and admire  the trees or have a
closer look at a squirrel in a  dark round hollow or a nest full  of funny
scrawny-necked fledglings.
    We were drifting along in silence  and only the trees all around  were
rustling quietly and evenly.   The dry sou'wester sent  waves of warm  air
rolling over us. We were lying flat on the carpet, leaning our heads  over
the side and peering  down into the deep  dark forest.  It  was like green
glass with orange spots of sunlight swaying on the grass and bushes.   The
rose hips were  glittering like little  lights and the  resin on the  pine
trunks glinted and sparkled.
    All of a sudden we caught sight of a bright red fox which spotted  us,
too, and bolted through trees. I  had most likely mistaken the carpet  for
a huge bird  of prey. We  chased after it  until it dived  under a pile of
branches and vanished.
    Every now and  then we dipped  down into the  shadowy wood and  danced
like red Indians among the bushes  and ferns. Sometimes we made a  halt in
a clearing densely covered with wild strawberries or an old cutting  where
bumble-bees were droning  like heavy bullets  among the high  willow-herbs
and snap-dragons.
    And we also enjoyed stopping  above a big tree and  carefully tweaking
the topmost leaf of a birch or  a soft pine sprig as if tickling  the pate
of a sleeping giant.
    The forest's  little secrets,  the slow  flight and  warm wind  cast a
spell on us and caused  us to lose all track  of time. We had not  taken a
watch with us but could tell by the sun that it was well past midday.
    And our stomachs were clamouring for food.
    "Let's fly  over and  have lunch  at that  tower," suggested  Vitalka.
"And then make our way home. We've had enough for the first time."
    The large  geodesic log  tower was  looming above  the wood  about two
kilometres away. It did not look  at all like our watchtower but  the mere
word conjured up a cosy and relaxed atmosphere.
    "All right but let's get a move on," I agreed.
    We let the carpet  fly at top speed.  The wind, ceasing at  once to be
warm, flattened our hair, blocked  our ears, shoved its hairy  paws inside
our shirts  and whistled  like a  gale. It  grew chilly,  and we were soon
covered in goose flesh.
    Of course, we had not thought of taking any warm clothes along, so  we
were obliged to slow down.
    "Never mind," said Vitalka. "What's the hurry? Here we are!"
    We had intended to  land and have lunch  on one of the  tower's wooden
landings but, drawing nearer, we spotted a forest lake encircled by  strip
of sandy beach nestling among the pines.
    We, of course, whooped with joy, skimmed over the sand and rolled  off
the carpet. The  sand was warm,  dry and mixed  with brittle pine  needles
and  little  hedgehog-like  cones  but  we  did  not mind that at all. The
bottom of the lake was hard and  flat and its dark clear water was  lovely
and warm.
    We had a dip,  ate half of our  supplies, dug ourselves into  the sand
and dozed  for a  while. Then  we had  another dip,  ate a little more and
swam again.
    "We ought to be leaving..." said Vitalka reluctantly.
    "Mmm," I replied. "Let's have just one more dip."
    At last we pulled our clothes  onto our wet bodies and flew  higher up
so that the wind and sun should dry us quickly.
    "Look!" shouted Vitalka.
    Standing along in a large clearing  not far from the lake was  a house
with nothing but trees all around.
    "Shall we check it out?" asked Vitalka.
    So we  cautiously flew  down very  close to  the dark  humpbacked roof
whose rotten planks were covered with velvety green moss.
    We could  tell at  once that  nobody had  lived there  for a long time
because untrampled long grass was growing all around its sagging porch.
    So far we had come across little forest mysteries, but this  abandoned
house presented us with a serious one.
    So how could we fly off without finding out about it?


                               Chapter Ten

    Unlike an ordinary village hut, the house had big windows,  ornamental
railings round its porch and carved wooden doors. And as these doors  were
ajar, we carefully stepped inside.
    The entry was empty except for  a brown butterfly sitting on a  racked
dry tub and as soon  as we came in, it  flew out through the sunny  gap in
the door.  We walked  into the  kitchen and  were confronted  by the  dark
gaping oven  of an  old-fashioned stove  whose upper  part was inlaid with
green  tiles.  Some  unpainted  wooden  stools  were  scattered about in a
corner. Sitting on the broad table  was a little grey creature, which  was
gone in a flash through the  broken window before we had time  to identify
it. And all that was  left on the table were  the shells of some seeds  or
other.
    We tiptoed  round the  two rooms,  and the  floor-boards sagged gently
underfoot. Here and there the remnants  of paint still on them glinted  in
the sunlight. The  rooms contained a  few pieces of  furniture, such as  a
rusty bedstead,  some shoddy  chairs, and  a book-case  with broken  glass
panels standing about half  a metre away from  the wall as if  someone had
tried to carry it out of the house and then given up.
    I was just going  to look behind the  case when all of  a sudden there
was a loud rumbling  sound outside.  We  both started. The rumbling  sound
came again, the windows grew darker and the golden spots on the cobweb  in
a corner vanished.
    We rushed  out onto  the porch.   Rolling towards  us from  behind the
trees came a  dark-blue stormcloud, which  had just swallowed  up the sun.
Only straight narrow rays were shining out over the shaggy ridge of  cloud
heading towards us fast.
    "The carpet!" I cried.
    We quickly rolled up our carpet and dragged it inside. And we were  in
the nick of time. Huge drops of rain began pelting the tops of the  grass,
the porch and the window-panels and then the rain began pouring down.   It
crashed against  the roof  and we  felt as  though we  were inside a drum.
Then came a pink flash  and a bang so loud  that we clapped our ears  shut
and huddled against a wall.
    "Now we're caught," whispered Vitalka.
    "Perhaps it'll stop soon?" I  said not very confidently and  sank even
lower because there was another, even louder clap of thunder.
    It became chilly and draughty.  Stinging splashes of rain were  flying
through the broken  panes and the  damp wind was  forcing its way  through
the doors which we  could not shut because  they had sunk on  their hinges
and become wedged long ago. And, anyway, with such a storm raging  outside
it was rather frightening to tear yourself away from the wall and go  over
to the doors.
    The storm  raged for  a long  time. In  fact, it  seemed as if a whole
week had passed  and not just  one thunderstorm but  all the thunderstorms
in the world had brewed over the  old house in order to drench, blind  and
deafen two little boys...
    At last  the thunder  claps grew  quieter and  the sound  of the  rain
steadier.
    "It's moving away," said Vitalka with a sigh of relief.
    But  he  was  wrong.  The  rain  was  now  quiet and monotonous but it
refused to stop.
    "What a  nuisance!" said  Vitalka despondently.  "What if  it goes  on
like this for several days?"
    It was fearful  to contemplate. It  would take us  at least a  week to
get home on foot and, anyway, we  did not even know the way. Poor  Mum and
poor Auntie Valya  would be imagining  the most terrible  things! And poor
us, of  course!   We'd get  the worst  punishment of  our lives.  And poor
magic carpet - it was bound to be taken away from us...
    "But perhaps it won't go on  for that long. It doesn't sound  like the
kind  that  drags  on  and  on,"  said Vitalka more cheerfully. "Why worry
about it now?"
    Not wishing to seem  dejected, I remarked that  we used to only  dream
of having adventures and now here we were actually having one.
    "After all,  we were  lucky to  find the  house," said  Vitalka. "What
would've happened if we'd been caught out in the wood?"
    Yes, indeed!   The chilly old  house seemed more  friendly at once.  I
stared  gratefully  up  at  the  peeling  ceiling and listened to the rain
pattering above it.
    "We can sleep here tonight," I suggested. "And still get home in  time
tomorrow, and we've got some bread left..."
    It was growing  dark outside. Something  was groaning and  creaking in
the corners. It was rather scary and  we were chilled to the bone, but  at
least we were together and our flying-carpet was with us.
    We rolled it out  along the wall opposite  the book-case, lay down  on
one half and covered ourselves completely with the other. Then we  huddled
closely to one another in its soft warmth, and, although our feet were  in
a draught, on the whole, we  were fine. And even the rain  echoing through
the empty house now sounded harmless and soothing.
    It was  an interesting  house. Who  could have  lived here? Foresters?
Hunters? Geologists? Or just someone who enjoyed peace and quiet?
    And why  and when  did they  leave? Who  knew? Perhaps,  a year ago or
perhaps long before we were even born...
    Vitalka and I whispered  about this for a  while and then dropped  off
to sleep.

    I  do  not  know  why  I  woke  up. Vitalka was breathing warmly on my
cheek.  The  rain  had  stopped  and  ragged clouds were speeding over the
black trees outside.  Every now and  then a bright  moon bounced out  from
behind them like a little ball and lit up the room.
    There was a strange incomplete silence which was being disturbed by  a
loud ticking sound.
    I prodded  Vitalka. He  mumbled something,  smacked his  lips and woke
up.
    "Listen!" I ordered.
    Tick-tock,  tick-tock...  It  was  coming  from  somewhere  behind the
book-case.
    "Raindrops? A cricket? No it's..."
    I became scared. I  don't know why but  I became really scared.  And I
think Vitalka did, too. But it  was even more frightening lying there  and
not knowing whether  it was someone's  light footsteps or  someone's heart
beating...
    Vitalka slowly threw back the carpet  and got up. And then I  did too,
shivering in the damp and chilly night air.
    Holding  hands  tightly,  we  tiptoed  towards the book-case. The moon
bounced out again and  dutifully shone through the  window. And as was  to
be expected in a spooky house the floorboards creaked.
    We glanced behind  the book-case and  saw another door  leading into a
third room which we had not noticed before.
    And it was from that room that the ticking was coming.
    Shoulders abreast,  we squeezed  through the  door into  a small  room
with one window, which was dark because the moon was shining on the  other
side. Vitalka switched  on his torch  and a yellow  disc of light  slipped
across the wall and fell upon a wall clock.
    So  that  was  what  was  ticking  in  the  silence  with its pendulum
swinging regularly to and fro!
    We clutched onto  each other. We  couldn't have been  more scared even
if we had seen a ghost or a robber.
    Yes, the clock was working!
    The house had been abandoned long  ago and was standing empty but  the
clock was ticking away  in the same peaceful  and ordinary way as  the one
in our kitchen at home!
    Who lived here?  Whose invisible hand  had pulled the  clock's weight?
Who had weighted it down with a large old-fashioned key? (We did the  same
at home with a pair of broken pliers. You often had to with old clocks).
    We probably  would not  have felt  so terrified  in the  daylight, but
this ticking clock  in the abandoned  house now seemed  very eerie indeed.
We quietly  backed away  from it,  our shoulders  still close together and
our shoulder-blades pressed against the wall by the window.  Vitalka  went
on  lighting  up  the  clock  with  his  torch as if afraid that something
dreadful might happen if he let it slip out of sight.
    "Perhaps someone  came here  before us  today?" I  asked in an anxious
whisper. "And got it going?"
    Vitalka's shoulder  twitched in  annoyance -  he obviously  disagreed.
After all, there were no footprints anywhere in the house or in the  grass
by the porch.
    "Then  perhaps..."  I  began  again,  not  knowing what I was going to
say...
    Vitalka nudged me with his elbow.
    Besides  the  ticking  sound  there  was  also  a  light patter on the
floorboards  as  if  someone  was  coming  towards  our  room. Quietly but
confidently.
    Vitalka switched  off his  torch and  we held  our breath and squatted
down.
    Although  my  eyes  had  still  not  get  used to the semi-darkness, I
already made out the  gap of the open  door, the window ledges,  the white
clock-face, the large cracks in the  dull grey wall and then suddenly  the
outline of the newcomer against it.
    It was a wild animal.
    It came  into the  room tapping  across the  floor with  its claws and
stopped warily.
    Vitalka flicked on his torch, whether  on purpose or from fright I  do
not  know  and  the  light  wavered  about  the  room and then fell on the
animal.
    It was a  dog. A large  ginger dog with  long ears! It  shook its head
and blinked in the light but did not jump back, snarl or bark and then  it
came up silently and poked its wet nose into my knees.
    It was such a pleasant surprise that my fear vanished instantly and  I
at once felt sure  it was a kind  dog and that it  was pleased to see  us.
And no longer  in the least  scared, I hugged  its neck, tousled  its long
ears and, delighted by the happy end to our terrifying adventure, said  to
it, "What a fright you gave us, doggie, nice dog you."
    The dog wagged its tail so hard that we felt a breeze about our legs.
    Vitalka asked, "Who are you? Where's your master?"
    But it went on wagging its  tail, poking its nose into my  arm-pit and
pressing its shaggy side against me.
    Yes, where indeed  was its master?  He would most  likely show up  any
moment. What would he be like? What if he wasn't as friendly as his dog?
    A short loud thud  made us start, but  it was only the  clock's weight
which had jerked down several centimetres and was now swinging to and  fro
with the heavy key just above the floor.
    But the  dog lifted  its head  from my  arm-pit, pricked  its ears and
then did something that took our breath away.
    It went up to  the clock, stood on  its hind legs with  its front ones
propped up  against the  wall, grabbed  the chain  between its  teeth, and
sent the weight and key whirring upwards.  Then it jumped down, waved  its
tail and glanced at us.
    "Why, you clever dog!" I said.
    "It hasn't got a master," Vitalka said with relief. "They've all  gone
away and left it all on its own. That's who winds up the clock."
    "But why?"
    "Who knows? Perhaps it's used to  a clock ticking in the house.   It's
waiting for  people to  come back  and reckons  the clock's something very
important. Maybe it used  to wind it up  when there were people  about and
doesn't want to stop going so now..."
    I felt sorry for  the dog and wanted  to do something nice  for it, to
help it in some way.
    "Come here, dog," I called. "Have you been ditched?"
    It came  up again  and put  its head  on my  knees. Some  fur and tiny
feathers were sticking round its mouth.
    "It's just wolfed something up," said Vitalka.
    I hated to think that such a lovely dog could eat another animal,  but
Vitalka went on, "Of course, it has. What else can it do? Since it's  been
abandoned, it's got to feed itself, so it goes out hunting."
    Fancy abandoning a dog like this! What sort of people were they?!
    "Fancy  abandoning  a  dog!"  I  said indignantly. "It's probably been
living here alone for years waiting..."
    "How do we  know what happened?"  Vitalka argued reasonably,  "Perhaps
it was nobody's fault..."
    But I did not  want to think it  was nobody's fault. How  could it be?
The  dog  had  been  abandoned  and  was  now  living  all  on its own and
endlessly waiting. And  it wound the  clock up so  that the house  did not
feel completely dead. It was taking  care of the house for the  people who
had forgotten about it. So how come it was nobody's fault?
    "Look how thin it is," whispered Vitalka, stroking the dog's back.
    We  fed  it  almost  all  our  supplies which it gulped down greedily,
glancing guiltily at us as if apologising for not using more restraint.
    Then  we  dragged  the  carpet  into  the small room, which now seemed
cosier than the others.  The clock was ticking  away just like the  one at
home and the  master of the  house was walking  about with us,  so all our
fears vanished.
    We wrapped  ourselves up  in the  carpet and  the dog  lay down at our
feet and started breathing evenly.
    "Good dog," I said in a loud whisper.
    The dog wagged its tail in reply.
    "It's happy people have come," said Vitalka.
    "Shall we take it with us tomorrow?" I asked.
    "Of course."
    We talked a little more about  the dog, the old house, the  people who
had once  lived here,  and made  guesses as  to why  they had left without
taking the dog  with them and  who it was  waiting for. Later  on we often
made  up  all  sorts  of  stories  about  this, but we never found out the
truth.

    I  was  awoken  by  the  hot  sun  beating  down  on  the  rain-washed
window-panes and ricocheting  into the room.  Golden dots were  blazing on
Vitalka's eyelashes.  He blinked,  smiled, threw  back the  carpet and sat
up. I at once felt chilly and sat up, too, hugging my shoulders.
    According to the clock ticking away, it was half-past five but we  had
no idea, of course,  if it was keeping  time. The dog was  still asleep at
our feet.  Its ginger  coat was  matted and  dirty brown  in parts and its
ribs were sticking through it.
    "It must be awful hungry," Vitalka said pityingly.
    The dog opened its eyes and looked at us. It had a sad, kind and  very
intelligent face.
    "Do  you  want  to  come  with  us, dog?" asked Vitalka. "Don't worry,
Auntie Valya won't boot you out."
    The dog got to its feet slowly and wagged its tail.
    "It's saying yes!" exclaimed Vitalka, overjoyed. "Let's go!"
    We carried the carpet outside with  the dog at our heels. Still  damp,
the high grass entwined  our legs with what  seemed like cold fingers.  We
rolled the carpet  out on the  porch's dry boards  so that it  did not get
wet, and sat down on it.
    "Come here, dog," I called.
    It obediently sat down beside us and I put my arms round its neck.
    We flew up very slowly and smoothly so as not to frighten the dog  and
it sat very still, looking down,  but did not take fright. However,  after
we had  flown about  a hundred  yards, it  started getting restless, freed
its  head  from  my  arm,  turned  round  and  glanced anxiously at me and
Vitalka in turn.
    "Don't be scared," I said tenderly.
    But the dog wasn't scared: it was  asking to go back. It crept to  the
very edge of the carpet, whined and barked softly.
    "It doesn't want to leave," said Vitalka.
    "We can't leave it all on its own!" I said angrily.
    "That's its  home. What  can we  do if  it doesn't  want to  leave it?
It'll come back here even if we take it away."
    I realised this  myself. It was  such a pity  to leave the  dog behind
but what  else could  we do?  So we  landed near  the house,  and the  dog
jumped off the carpet and looked round as if inviting us to go with it.
    "We can't," said Vitalka. "You can't  leave and we can't stay. Do  you
understand?
    The dog looked sad: it understood.
    "We'll come and visit you," I promised.


                             Chapter Eleven

    A thunderstorm  was again  passing over  the western  part of the sky.
Black and lilac  clouds were piled  up there and  every now and  then from
their  midst  came  flashes  of  branchy  lightning, and then after a long
interval a grumbling travel-weary thunderclap reached us.
    As the sun was shining,  the stormclouds seemed especially gloomy  and
the lightning dull and hardly  noticeable. We weren't afraid to  be caught
in the storm because an east wind was blowing it out of our way.
    Then slanting strips of rain  appeared on the stormy horizon  and soon
it grew lighter  there. A large  rainbow appeared, it  ends straddling the
forest like the gates of a giant's palace.
    "Let's fly over to it!" yelled Vitalka.
    "Yes, let's!" I cried back, trembling with joy and fear that we  would
not get there  in time. But  we did! Yes,  we flew into  a rainbow! I  had
heard grown-ups  say that  you could  not get  near a  rainbow because  it
always ran away from you and then vanished like a mirage.
    Well, don't you believe it! Go  up to a babbling fountain where  there
are lots of little rainbows playing  in the spray and put your  hands into
their midst and they  will start playing on  your palms. So why  shouldn't
you be able to touch a big rainbow?
    Of course,  it's hard  to catch  one up  if you're  running along  the
ground but, you see, we were flying with the wind behind us.
    As we  flew up  to the  rainbow, we  felt as  if a  silent transparent
waterfall was tumbling  down on us  from the sky.  Then everything around,
the earth, clouds  and we ourselves  turned lilac and  different shades of
blue, and nearby  little blue lights  began sparkling like  glass dust and
very gently pricking our skin.
    Then everything  became gentler  and warmer  and a  green wave  rolled
over  us  with  bright  green  lights  playing  in  it like tiny leaves on
rain-washed trees trembling in the wind and sunshine.
    And then the little leaves became little suns glowing on the  carpet's
pile and on the minute hairs on our skins and in the air itself.   Vitalka
was laughing opposite me.  His light blue shirt  was now bright green  and
his hair was studded with fiery lights.
    The yellow air grew  denser and redder and  we felt a wave  of heat as
we flew through the orange mist. And then all of a sudden music seemed  to
burst forth as  the whole wide  world was a  wonderful festive and  bright
red studded with little twinkling lights.
    We passed right  through the rainbow  and flew under  its shining arc,
and then  it lured  us back,  and we  swept into  it again, diving through
different-coloured waves all along its bow.  And this took us a long  time
for  the  bow  seemed  to  stretch  on  and  on for ever. We bathed in the
caressing iridescent light as  in the river, and  it seemed to be  beating
its coloured wings before our eyes,  each colour with a warmth and  even a
smell of its own. For instance, the yellow air, if you ask me, smelled  of
young  pine  sprigs,  the  orange  of  tangerines  and  the  green of damp
grass...
    It's hard  to believe  this now,  but at  the time  I was  not in  the
slightest surprised for I was sure that  was how it ought to be. You  see,
at that time I felt the life of  the earth and air with every fibre of  my
being. I  was conscious  of the  way they  breathed, rustled,  stirred and
gave light and warmth. I could feel the fleeting shadow of a passing  bird
with my shoulder  and pick out  the right stalk  among hundreds of  others
blindfolded. I knew  now each of  the four winds  smelled and, on  waking,
could tell whether the rain was warm  or cold by its sound.  When  I waded
down  a  stream,  I  could  count  how  many warm and cold little currents
jabbed my legs. I could keep a  sunbeam in my palm for a whole  second and
when it  slipped through  my fingers  and sat  on the  back of  my hand, I
could feel its downy flutter with my skin.
    I could tell what sort of clouds were in the sky with my eyes  closed.
And Vitalka could do all this, too...

    We waved good-by  to the rainbow  and headed home,  flying low between
the dark  old firs,  stroking the  tops of  the shiny  birches and peeping
into birds'  nests. We  invited all  the different  woodland birds to come
nearer, but for some reason they took fright, the silly creatures.
    Only a large  woodpecker on a  dry pine looked  fearlessly at us  with
its black beady  eye and then  pecked the trunk  so fiercely that  a whole
layer of bark flew off and plunged down into the dark wood below.  Vitalka
later  tried  to  convince  me  that  the  force of this blow had made the
woodpecker's red crest slip to the left.
    We were flying  slowly, but time  was simply speeding  by, and it  was
already evening when the town at last drew near.
    Along some young birches a little  way from the river we caught  sight
of a  round glade  covered with  ox-eye daisies  which seemed particularly
large and splendid because they were growing far apart.
    "Let's pick  some," said  Vitalka. "You  know how  Auntie Valya adores
flowers..."
    I flew the carpet  low over the grass,  searching for a place  to land
where we would not  crush a single flower  and had already found  one when
Vitalka called out in fright, "No, don't it'll get wet!"
    The  grass  was  indeed  glistening  wetly  and drops of moisture were
nestling in the  daisies like in  tiny dishes. There  had probably been  a
brief sunny shower here a short while before.
    "Stay in  the air,"  I ordered  Vitalka and  we hovered  on the carpet
about a metre off  the ground while I  jumped down into the  tangle wet of
leaves and  stalks. My  plimsolls were  soon soaked  but I  picked a large
bunch of flowers smelling of warm rain, forest and the rainbow.
    On the way home I clasped the flowers to my chest and the front of  my
shirt soon became wet and plastered with tiny leaves.

    We flew up very  high from the glade,  lowered our "kite's tail"  as a
disguise and swept over the town. It was sunset, and although the sun  was
still shining on us, the town  was already in shadows. We dived  into them
very fast and almost fell onto our roof.
    The  house  was  completely  still  except  for the crickets and other
insects scraping  in the  cracks. We  went downstairs,  got out an antique
cut-glass vase and put the bouquet in the centre of the table.
    "I only  hope it  doesn't wilt  before tomorrow..."  began Vitalka and
suddenly stopped in mid-word.
    "What's wrong?"
    He gulped and  pointed to a  corner where Auntie  Valya's suitcase was
standing.
    "So she... um... got back this morning."
    "Where is she then?" I asked foolishly.
    "Where!" exclaimed  Vitalka tearfully.  "Why, she's  running all  over
town, looking for us. Where else could she be? Here she is!"
    Through  the  window  I  caught  sight  of Auntie Valya walking slowly
across the yard from the gate.
    We  rushed  up  to  our  watchtower,  tore off our plimsolls and dived
under the  blankets. We  could hear  Auntie Valya's  heels clicking on the
stairs. My wet  footprints had told  her that the  travellers had returned
home.
    Half a  minute later  we were  lying completely  still with  our faces
towards the wall, and Auntie Valya was standing in the middle of the  room
and  delivering  an  unusually  long  and  extremely  harsh lecture to our
backs.
    She said  we were  impossible, cruel  little boys  and that we thought
only of our  own pleasure and  never about how  grown-ups could get  badly
ill from worry.  It was a  good thing at  least that Valentina  Sergeyevna
(my mother) had  not heard about  our disappearance because  she and Uncle
Seva were at work all day long (I gave a sigh of relief), but she,  Auntie
Valya, had aged ten years in  that one day. But the really  terrible thing
was that we were growing up into heartless egoists. Nothing that was  said
to  us  had  the  slightest  effect.  So  there  was  only one way left of
teaching us and that was to get hold of two strong switches, one for  each
of us, and give us a really good, sound hiding.
    Unfortunately, however,  she could  not do  this. She  had no right to
beat me as  I was not  her relative although  she often forgot  this (here
she paused slightly and sniffed  suspiciously). And it was unfair  to beat
only Vitalka because we  were probably both equally  to blame. And so  all
she could do was to go away and leave us alone with our conscience (if  we
knew what that was, and if we had any left).
    I evidently  had because  I felt  terribly sad  and remorseful.  I was
even  ready  to  accept  Auntie  Valya  as  a  close relative with all the
ensuing consequences.  But Auntie Valya  blew her nose loudly and after  a
reproachful  silence  went  downstairs  where  she  saw  the  bouquet  and
relented.
    "Rascals," she said in a gentler tone. "What rascals..."
    We crept downstairs and stopped  in the doorway.  Auntie  Valya raised
her face  from the  bouquet and  looked at  us over  her shoulder. We must
have looked very guilty, small, and pathetic.
    "You villains," said  Auntie Valya. "Where  have you been?  I got back
here at five this  morning and guessed at  once that you hadn't  slept the
night here. I tried  to get Sasha and  Vetka to tell me,  but they mumbled
something incoherent... I almost died."
    "But we didn't know you'd come back earlier," said Vitalka.
    Auntie Valya turned  to us, sat  down firmly in  a chair, straightened
herself and said  in a stringent  tone, "Come here,  you horrid boys,  and
tell me all about the tricks you've been up to. I want all the detail  and
no fibs.
    She was no  longer angry at  all. In fact,  she was happy  we had come
back. We went up to her and she grabbed hold of our hands as if afraid  we
might run off again. We sighed, exchanged glances and started telling  her
about the magic carpet.
    "After  all,  it  was  you  who  gave  it to us," Vitalka whispered in
conclusion.
    And I added, "And it's quite safe..."

    I don't know whether Auntie Valya  believed us or not but I  think she
probably did. She neither  seemed surprised nor asked  us to show her  how
we flew but she squeezed our  hands and said, "Magic carpets are  found in
fairy-tales, and fairy-tales are written to make people happy. So how  can
you make a fairy-tale bring people grief?
    So we promised never to do  anything again with the carpet or  without
it that would bring Auntie Valya grief.
    For some reason  or other, she  smiled, shook her  head, looked at  us
and then  at the  daisies and  then at  us again  and said that she really
ought to  teach us  a lesson,  but unfortunately  she could  not very well
throw away the presents she had brought us.
    And then she presented  Vitalka with some paints  and me with a  mouth
organ and us both  with a compass with  a luminescent face, and  we let go
restrained whoops of joy.
    She  had  also  brought  Vitalka  a  blouse  with  a  silk sash and an
embroidered pattern  on its  collar and  hem. It  was made  of some  silky
light yellow fabric that was glossy like satin.
    She told to  try it on  at once.   It turned out  to be rather  on the
large side and hung  baggily on him, making  him look a litle  like a girl
in a party frock.  I frankly  told him as much while Auntie Valya  went to
fetch her glasses.
    "So  what?  Just  as  long  as  she's  not  angry  any  more," Vitalka
retorted.
    He told Auntie Valya that the  shirt fitted him perfectly and that  he
liked it very much and was simply thrilled by her present.
    "Really?" she asked  joyfully. "Why, that's  marvellous. I thought  it
was rather too wide  and long. I'm very  pleased you like it.  You wear it
tomorrow when we go to the circus."
    "The circus?!" we both exclaimed in unison.
    And then Auntie Valya  informed us that she  had bought the tickets  a
week ago but had wanted to keep it a surprise.
    Vitalka rushed over to kiss her, and as I was too shy to do the  same,
I thumped him between the shoulder-blades to show how thrilled I was.
    And  then  he  charged  at  me  like  a  bull  and sat astride me. The
chandelier  started  clinking  and  the  cuckoo,  scared  out of its wits,
flopped  out  fifteen  times.  And  Auntie  Valya  clutched  her  head and
shrieked, "Stop it  this instant! You're  mad savages, not  children! I'll
turn you out the house  and you can sleep in  the yard until you learn  to
behave like decent people!"


                             Chapter Twelve

    "Are you really going to the circus?" asked Mum in a strange tone.
    "Yes... Why?" I asked.
    "Just look at your knees."
    I looked down out of the corner of my eye and gave a short sigh.
    "Exactly!" she said and  then added that I  would only get out  of the
house with  knees like  that over  her dead  body, especially  since I was
going to the circus  where there would be  a large crowd with  quite a few
people who knew whose son I was.
    When Mum started speaking in that tone to argue was useless.
    A minute  later I  was standing  ankle-deep in  hot water  in a  large
wash-basin and groaning  piteously as Mum  scrubbed my knees  with a nylon
net sponge.   Just try and  scrub off accumulated  layers of street  dust,
rust  form  Vitalka's  roof,  earth  from woodland glades, deeply embedded
gritty sand and ingrained green grass stains.
    Mother  soon  grew  tired  and  bad-tempered.  And  then there was the
basin! It behaved really rottenly.  Its bottom was slightly convex  and it
kept turning round under me. When  mother pressed my left knee, the  basin
spun to the left, and when  she tackled my right one, it  immediately spun
back again.
    "Stop twisting!" mother snapped.
    "I'm not, it's the basin..."
    "Don't argue!"  she said  threateningly and  pressed so  hard with the
sponge that I let out a howl like a cat whose tail has been trodden on.
    "Maybe I'd better do it myself?" I asked timidly.
    "Yourself?!"  exclaimed  mother.   "If  you  could  do anything at all
yourself, I'd be the happiest person in the world."
    But when she had  finally worn herself out,  she handed me the  sponge
and stalked out of the kitchen.
    My knees stung as if I had been crawling across a red-hot tin roof.  I
had to give them  a rest and while  I was doing so,  I decided to see  how
many times I could spin round in the basin if I gave a strong push.
    I grabbed the edge of the table and spun round.
    The  basin  turned  half  round,  slipped  from  under me, shot like a
flying saucer diagonally across the  kitchen and crashed into the  corner,
splashing the wall with  water. And I, too  went crashing down and  struck
the floorboards with an almighty thump.
    I got a  terrible fright.   I imagined Mum  bursting into the  kitchen
and giving  me a  rocket. And  the circus  would be  off, of  course. So I
started howling in terror and pain.
    It was  Uncle Seva,  who ran  in.   He grabbed  hold of me, pressed me
against his uniform  jacket and said  in a loud  whisper, "My poor  little
Oleg! What happened, laddie?"

    He had never spoken  like that to me  before, or perhaps he  had but I
had not taken  a blind bit  of notice. Now,  however, I was  so terrified,
wet and miserable that  I couldn't be huffy  especially as at that  moment
Mum appeared and exclaimed ominously, "I thought as much!"
    "Wait,  wait,"  said  Uncle  Seva.  "What  did  you think? He's banged
himself so hard, he's crying. Aren't you sorry for him?"
    For  several  seconds  mother  stared  incredulously at me clinging to
Uncle Seva as if he was the only  person I had in the world to defend  and
protect me. Then, pretending  to be annoyed, she  said, "Sorry my foot!  I
just wonder why nobody is ever sorry for me?"
    She  started  mopping  up  the  water,  declaring  that  all  men were
absolutely ridiculous and  helpless. And the  most amazing thing  was that
whenever  they  did  anything  foolish,  they  always came to each other's
rescue, and there was no way of getting at them!
    But  I  could  tell  she  was  really  pleased for she was fed up with
watching my silent battles against Uncle Seva and now it seemed I was  fed
up with them, too.
    I gazed shyly  into Uncle Seva's  face through my  wet lashes, and  he
smiled at me and I smiled back.
    Then  he  carried  me  into  the  next  room, sat down on the sofa and
settled me on his knees.
    "Did you bang yourself hard?" he asked quietly.
    "No... not very," I whispered.
    "Feel better now?"
    "Yes..."
    A large button with an anchor was  digging into my rib, but I did  not
move away. I felt so good!
    Lenka opened her eyes so wide when she caught sight of us that I  felt
like sticking my tongue  out at her. But  I didn't, which was  a dignified
and wise  thing to  do. Instead  I looked  up slowly  and gazed into Uncle
Seva's face, and we both smiled at each other again.
    Mum  entered  the  room  and  began  ironing  my Sunday suit. Then she
examined my  knees. All  dirt had  been scraped  off them,  and only  some
scabs remained - but you can't scrub them off, can you?
    "Get dressed, cry-baby!"
    My suit smelt of a hot iron and joy. It was pale blue and as light  as
a little silk parachute  you can launch from  a catapult. And it  had gold
buttons,  which  shone  like  new  coins,  shoulder-straps,  buckles and a
little embroidered star  on its breast  pocket. These suits,  which looked
like cadet uniforms, were only just  coming into fashion at the time,  and
Mum had brought this one  back from Leningrad with some  white knee-length
socks, a dark  blue cap. Mum  also gave me  a pair of  squeaky new sandals
which were so springy  you felt you simply  had to start running  about in
them.
    The silk tassel of my cap  tickling my left brow, I looked  cheerfully
at mother, Uncle  Seva and Lenka,  spun round on  one foot, waved  to them
all from the doorway  and set off to  Vitalka's in the best  of moods. And
even when two boys on the way called me a show-off, I did not mind.
    I thought about Uncle Seva, and felt joy well up in my heart.
    And then there was the circus! That was fantastic too!
    But life has a way of spoiling things whenever you feel happy.
    In the  circus entrance  the grey-haired  old ticket-collector refused
to let  us in.  After turning  the tickets  over, and  looking at the back
side,  he  said  to  Auntie  Valya,  "Your  tickets  are  for   tomorrow's
performance, not today's."
    "How's that?"  retorted Auntie  Valya sternly  and indignantly. "Where
does it say so?"
    "Here! You see this stamp..."
    Auntie Valya  started pulling  at her  lace cuffs  and saying, "I just
don't  understand  it...  It  must  have  been  the cashier... But I asked
her..."
    The old man  sighed sympathetically and  said, "It can't  be helped...
There aren't any tickets left now, and the ticket office is closed."
    "How disgraceful,"  said Auntie  Valya and  looked guiltily  at us. We
were hanging our heads.
    People  were  pressing  on  us  from  behind  and  someone called out,
"''ere, what's up, love? Don't block the way, we've all got to get in!"
    "What's the hurry?" the old man suddenly flew up. "You'll all get  in.
But they've got to be looked after too."
    He  looked  at  us  and  said,  "I  can  let  you  in,  of  course.  I
understand...  The  boys  have  been  looking  forward  to  it... The only
trouble is you'll  have to stand  because we're fully  booked. The kids'll
be all right, but at your age, lady..."
    "No, thank you,"  replied Auntie Valya  very drily.   "We'll wait till
tomorrow. Come along, boys..."
    We  made  our  way  out  of  the  circus compound and walked home very
dismally.
    "Never mind,"  said Auntie  Valya hesitatingly.  "We'll definitely see
it tomorrow."
    Tomorrow! But what  about today? Everything  was going so  swimmingly,
and then all of a sudden...
    Vitalka was walking along, staring at his feet, winding his silk  sash
round his finger and angrily pulling at it.
    I was  not feeling  so sad,  though, for  I remembered  Uncle Seva and
thought  about  how  I  would  have  a  good  evening at home. So, when we
reached our place I told them I would spend the night at home.
    But inside another disappointment awaited  me: Mum and Uncle Seva  had
invited Auntie Lyuba,  our old neighbour,  over to look  after Lenka while
they went out to the cinema.
    Then I thought about how sad  Vitalka would be feeling on his  own and
decided to take "The  Snow Queen" along to  his house. So that  we read it
aloud. It was my  favourite fairy-tale and Vitalka  liked it, too, but  we
had never read it  aloud together before and  that would, most likely,  be
great fun.
    I started hunting for the book on the shelf but it wasn't there!
    "Lenka!" I said ominously. "Have you taken "The Snow Queen"?
    "Yes..." she stammered.
    "Where did you put it?"
    "I gave it to a girl to read."
    I was so  stunned by her  cheek that I  lost my breath.  Lent it to  a
girl! My "Snow Queen"!
    When I got my breath back, I  screwed up my eyes and asked, "Do  I let
boys play with your dolls?"
    Lenka began blinking faster, obviously about to burst into tears.
    "But Mummy... said we shared all the books."
    If it  had been  the day  before, I  would have  put her right on that
score but because of what had  happened between Uncle Seva and me,  I just
gave her a warning, "If she tears it up or loses it..."
    "No, she  won't," Lenka  promised hastily.  Grumbling for appearance's
sake,  I  got  out  "The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer" which would also be
suitable for reading that evening.
    "Tell  the  folks  I'm  at  Vitalka's,"  I  called to Lenka who looked
astounded to have been left off the hook so lightly.

    Even  now  as  an  adult,  I  often  marvel  at  the  changes trifling
incidents can work in your life. If we hadn't picked up "Tom Sawyer"  that
evening probably nothing would have happened.
    Everything began quite  normally. We settled  down on the  bed, turned
on the bedside  lamp, and opened  the book, which  we had read  many times
over, in the middle...
    "There comes a  time in every  rightly constructed boy's  life when he
has a  raging desire  to go  somewhere and  dig for  hidden treasure..." I
read out and stared in amazement at  Vitalka and he at me. We were  normal
boys - why hadn't we ever thought of this before?
    Probably because  we did  not have  a magic  carpet then.  But on  the
carpet we  could get  to places  where there  really just  might be buried
treasure!
    "But where?" I asked.
    "In the old house," said Vitalka thoughtfully.
    Why, of  course!   Like in  "Tom Sawyer",  the old  house was an ideal
place! Perhaps  its mysterious  owners had  left some  gold coins and guns
behind in the  cellar when they  were leaving?   And the dog  was guarding
them? But the dog knew us, didn't it?!
    The only  trouble was  that it  was a  long way  away, and we felt the
itch to  go looking  soon. Since  we had  not got  to the circus, we could
even start that night.
    And then Vitalka said in a conspiratorial whisper, "The belfry..."
    Of course! Why hadn't  we thought of that  before? How was it  that we
had never thought of looking inside  the belfry where nobody had set  foot
for forty whole years?!
    Vitalka and I hugged each other  in joy and started rolling about  and
fell off the bed but, fortunately, landed on the carpet.
    But once we'd flopped down, I began to have doubts.
    "Treasures are usually buried under  ground. But we can only  get into
the top part and not the bottom. So what's the good of that?"
    "But the  clock's up  there. Perhaps  we'll find  the machine-gunner's
skeleton?.."
    I shuddered and asked him what the dickens we needed that for!
    "Well, you never know...  We could take the  skull and stick a  candle
in  it  so  that  its  eyes  blazed  and then hang it up outside Razikov's
window. Just imagine what a lovely surprise he'd get!"
    Yes, I could  certainly imagine that!  But I was  not too keen  on the
idea of coming face to face with a skeleton in that dark spooky tower.
    "Oh, of course  there's no skeleton  there," Vitalka said  to reassure
me. "If there was, it would  have crumbled apart and its bones  would have
fallen  to  the  ground  by  now...  But  the machine-gun's probably still
there.  After all, machine-guns  are jolly tough... And there're  probably
some cartridges left  in it too.   If we find  any, we'll bring  them back
here  and  if  anyone  tries  to  get  in  here,  we'll  let  rip  at them
bang-bang-bang-bang!"
    "Who on earth'll  try and get  in there? And  if they do,  and you let
rip  at  them  just  once,  you'll  get  banged  yourself so hard you know
where..."
    "I was only joking... It's probably  broken anyway.  But we can  still
play with it!"
    Of course,  playing with  a real  machine-gun, even  a broken one, was
just as good as finding treasure! And quite different from a skeleton...
    So that was the end of the argument!
    We started preparing for our adventure.
    From under our beds we dragged  out a skein of rope, some  torches and
our weapons box.
    It never occurred to  us, of course, to  change our clothes. I  simply
took off my cap so that it didn't get knocked off by the wind and  Vitalka
pulled off his  sash so that  it didn't get  caught on anything.   Just as
paratroopers stick their weapons down  the tops of their boots,  I stuffed
mine down my new white  socks: a long-barrelled plastic revolver  down the
left one and a long knife made from a hack-saw blade down the right.
    However, Vitalka made me leave the revolver behind, saying we did  not
need a toy as we were off  on a serious expedition. My knife on  the other
hand, was perfectly all right.
    And I  knew that  myself. Bound  with insulating  tape, the handle was
sticking out impressively just below my  knee and the thin blade lay  flat
against my leg  and chilled my  skin pleasantly.   This sensation gave  me
confidence and strength to face anything - even a skeleton...
    We  flew  off  the  roof  just  before midnight, when Auntie Valya was
already sound asleep.
    It was the end  of July, and the  lightest summer nights were  already
over but it was not really dark yet. The sky was bluish-grey and only  the
largest stars were visible in the  sparkling silvery air. To the east  low
clouds were shimmering like quicksilver around a dull-pink moon.
    We flew just above  the wires, avoiding the  black firs and pines  and
spiky television aerials.  After a  while Vitalka grew bored of flying  so
low and took the carpet up another hundred metres or so.
    A host of little lights began twinkling below us and stretching  round
the  edge  of  the  town  was  the  light river bend with its little black
ships.   Their little  coloured lights  seemed to  exist quite  separately
like stars which had fallen there by chance.
    And  the  belfry  loomed  above  the  clear  water like the tower of a
mysterious castle. In the  upper tier's semi-circular embrasures  we could
clearly see the outlines of its  bells, which from a distance looked  like
the little bells hung on fishing-rods.
    "Lovely, isn't it?" said Vitalka.
    I nodded. But all  of a sudden we  flew into a strip  of freezing cold
air and were  swiftly brought back  to reality. There  was nothing for  it
but to fly down towards the roofs again.
    At last  the monastery's  wall flashed  by below,  the weather-vane on
the pointed peak  of its corner  tower drifted by  and straight ahead  was
the belfry advancing on us like a giant.
    We hovered by its wall about  ten metres off the ground. All  day long
it had been basking in the sun and was now as hot as an oven and smelt  of
heated bricks, lime and fresh wormwood.
    As  we  rose  slowly  upwards  and  the  wall  slipped down past us, I
pressed my palm  against it and  instantly felt a  rough burning sensation
on my skin and saw that my palm was covered in chalk. I was just about  to
rub it off  against my trousers  when I remembered  about my new  suit and
simply rubbed it against the other palm.
    "What  are  you  clapping  for?"  asked  Vitalka.  "We  haven't  found
anything yet."
    "We will," I said.
    And I really was sure we  were bound to find something interesting  in
such  a  mysterious  old  tower.  Of  course,  I  hoped  it  wouldn't be a
skeleton...
    The clock's  huge face  loomed above  us and  we stopped  dead in  the
centre,  opposite  the  spindle  its  mighty  hands  were attached to. The
minute  hand  was  about  the  same  size  as  me and smelt, just like our
telescope, of brass. The iron clock-face smelt of rust.
    "How's that for a little alarm-clock!" Vitalka whispered admiringly.
    I nodded and flew the carpet up to the face's top edge.
    Both hands were  pointing up -  the minute one  at just before  twelve
and the hour one  at one. The gunboat's  shell had hit it  just before one
in the afternoon.
    I touched the minute hand's ornate tip. It felt cold. Brass  obviously
cooled faster than iron.
    "What huge numbers!" said Vitalka in the same whisper.
    The brass Roman numerals were each the size of a large book. I  wanted
to touch  them, too,  but the  carpet rose  smoothly as  Vitalka guided it
towards the bells.
    We  stopped  by  an  arch  partitioned  off by a railing of metre-high
carved pillars and a thick cross-beam. High above the railing hung a  dark
bell under which Vitalka, Vetka, Breezy and I could have easily hidden.
    Only from a distance did the arch look like an ordinary  semi-circular
window with a little bell inside.  Close-up it looked more like some  tall
gateway. It suddenly occurred  to me that if  you were to shout  out, your
voice would carry into the vaults,  strike the bell and echo right  across
the town.   For some  reason or  other this  thought made  me feel  rather
weird.
    However, while I  was pondering this,  Vitalka boldly stepped  off the
carpet and onto the railing and sat astride them.
    "Come on," he said. "I'm holding onto the carpet."
    So I also  climbed onto the  railing, which was  rough and prickly  to
the touch. If you  did not watch out,  you could easily get  a splinter in
your palm. We pulled the carpet towards us, folded it in half and hung  it
on the railing.
    "Well, here we are," said Vitalka.
    He pulled up his shirt, fumbled  about, dragged a little torch out  of
his pocket and switched it on.
    "Look, there's a floor!"
    I also  turned on  my torch,  which was  hanging on  a string round my
neck.
    Yes, sure enough  down below us  stretched a plank  floor. But what  a
state it was in! It was  pitted with dark holes, which had  obviously been
made by shell splinters, and in  the middle there was a large  gaping hole
with charred beams sticking out of it.
    We had heard grown-ups say that  the shell had struck the arch's  side
wall and exploded in the midst of the bells. Two of the smaller bells  had
been hurled  into the  monastery's courtyard  and one  large one which had
hung  under  the  dome,  had  broken  free  and plunged down to the ground
crashing through the  flooring. The other  bells plaintively droned  for a
while but stayed put.
    After cautiously lighting up all the corners with my torch and  making
sure there was no sign of a skeleton, I cheered up.
    "It certainly made a mess," I said.
    "The machine-gunner  must have  got thrown  out by  the blast. And his
machine-gun, too," replied Vitalka in dismay.
    "We could search for  treasure," I suggested half-heartedly  because I
could not imagine where we might find any here.
    "Let's have a look round first," said Vitalka.
    He  bravely  dangled  his  legs  over  the railing and jumped onto the
planks which trembled slightly but without giving way. I followed suit.
    Then we  rolled up  the carpet  and laid  it on  the floor against the
wall and had another look round.
    There  was  nothing  to  search  for  on  the  upper landing. Its most
interesting feature was its bells. But treasures aren't usually hidden  in
bells, and we would always be able to examine them properly later.
    I crawled on all fours towards the black hole and shone my torch  down
it, but all was dark and empty.
    I felt rather small  about Vitalka always doing  things first as if  I
was scared to, and so I boldly said, "Let's have the rope. I'll go down."
    But Vitalka replied that  it was foolish to  go down a hole  on a rope
when you could go downstairs in a perfectly normal manner.
    And, sure enough, by  the wall there was  a small square hatch  with a
ladder. However, I still got to  it before Vitalka and hastily lowered  my
feet onto the top rung.
    The explosion  had not  damaged the  ladder and  it did  not even rock
under me. My torch  snatched some floorboards out  of the darkness, and  I
boldly jumped down although I had terrible butterflies in my stomach.  And
no wonder! Nearby there was a black gaping hole similar to the one on  the
upper landing.
    Vitalka jumped down after me.
    Quite unlike the upper landing, it was very dark and eerie here.  Only
one tiny window gleamed  dimly in the thick  wall and cracked, broken  and
charred beams  were strewn  all around.  Our torch  beams darted along the
brick walls, floorboards, steps and then all of a sudden...
    I don't remember  who called out  first but I  think we probably  both
did: "Gosh, look at that! It's the clock!"
    It was, in fact, the clock's mechanism - pile of brass cogged  wheels,
which had gone green here and there,  and ranged in size from saucer to  a
wash-basin...
    "Look, it's all  right. It's just  stopped, that's all,"  said Vitalka
in the same tone  as one would say  of a large placid  wild animal, "Look,
it's alive - it's just asleep..."
    "It was probably shaken up by the blast and something's snapped  off,"
I remarked.
    "But what?"
    We examined the old brass mechanism as if it was a sleeping elephant.
    I was  wrong to  call it  a "pile  of cogged  wheels" because this was
merely a first impression  and it was, in  fact, nothing of the  sort. All
cogs  and  cylinders  were   beautifully  designed  and  fitted   together
perfectly.
    It looked as if the clock had not been damaged by the explosion.
    Many towers have clock-faces on all four sides, but ours had one  only
in its west  side.  The  old monastery had  been built to  the east of the
town with its clock facing it so that everyone could see it not only  from
the town but also from aboard ships going upriver, homebound from  distant
sea voyages. Well, and as it only had one face, its mechanism was  located
in a deep  niche in the  wall and not  in the tower's  centre. And so  the
heavy  bell,  as  it  crashed  through  the  floors,  had  not  so mush as
scratched it.
    "Let's crawl  inside," whispered  Vitalka, "and  have a  good look  at
it." He started crawling towards the mechanism with me close behind.
    As bad luck  would have it,  on this landing  the black hole  was very
close to the  niche and the  only way of  getting to it  was along a dusty
and slightly charred beam.
    But  what  did  Vitalka  care!  He  had  black trousers on so the soot
wouldn't show on  them. Rolling up  the hem of  his shirt, he  sat astride
the beam as  if it were  a gym horse  and made his  way towards the  niche
with his weight on his hands.
    However, I could not  possibly sit down because  I was wearing my  new
blue suit and, what's more, had  white socks on, blast them! What  could I
do?
    My heart in my  throat, I stood upright  on the beam; it  was wide and
did  not  sway  under  me,  but  even  so... I simply don't remember how I
walked across that terrible dark hole. I knew that it was a sheer drop  of
about forty  metres down  to the  ground! It's  fine when  you've a  magic
carpet under you but your legs buckle down when you haven't.
    More dead than alive, I jumped  down beside Vitalka who was gazing  at
me with admiration. At once I felt  proud of myself for even though I  had
been scared out of  my wits, I had  still accomplished a heroic  feat. And
so that Vitalka should not think  I was boasting, I said casually,  "Well,
anything interesting here?"
    We were literally  right inside the  giant clock, surrounded  by brass
gears and  levers, and  facing two  cogged shafts  with huge chains across
them which disappeared through openings in the brickwork.
    "They're like the windlasses aboard Dad's ship," whispered Vitalka.
    And in my mind's  eye I also saw  the anchor drums in  the motorship's
prow.
    "But what are they doing here?"
    "Why, they're weights, of course!"
    "Very well, one chain's got a weight on the end of it, but what  about
the other?"
    "The other one probably has one,  too. One weight's for the hands  and
the other for the  bells - just like  the special chain for  the cuckoo in
Auntie Valya's clock. Have you forgotten?"
    Goodness, how dim I was!..
    I  imagined  the  powerful  pig-iron  weights, a hundred stone apiece,
dozing on chains deep inside the tower. What would happen if they got  fed
up of hanging there  and pulled the chain  a little harder? The  idea made
me feel rather frightened and excited.
    "Vitalka!" I  said in  a scared  whisper. "What  if the clock suddenly
starts ticking! These cogs will make mincemeat of us..."
    "It  won't,  replied  Vitalka  coolly.  "Look,  the beam's holding the
pendulum back."
    The sharp broken end of the  beam we had crawled along appeared  to be
jammed in the mechanism's lower part. Down  below, on the end of a rod  we
could see a bronze cymbal-like disc - a pendulum!
    "So that's why it's stopped..." said Vitalka thoughtfully.
    We at once glanced at one  another because we had both thought  of the
same thing at the same time: what if we removed the beam?
    "But how?" I asked.
    "Saw it off with a hack-saw."
    "But where do we get the saw?"
    "Why, at home, of course!"
    "So we'll have to fly back for it?"
    Vitalka shrugged his  shoulders. After all,  flying back was  no great
hardship, was it? Imagine people  walking up the next morning,  and seeing
that the clock was going over the town!
    Vitalka sat astride the beam again, hopped along it like a frog,  took
off the rope  which was hanging  over his shoulder  and tossed one  end to
me.
    "Tie it round just in case..."
    I did as I was told - I'd done enough heroics for one day.
    We climbed  onto the  top landing,  slipped through  the arch and flew
straight off home.
    We got there quickly because we  did not pause to admire the  moon and
the town lights. All was quiet at home. Auntie Valya was asleep.   Vitalka
dragged the tool box out ever so  carefully so as not to make a  noise and
found the saw.
    "It's blunt... Well, it'll have to do. But what's the time?"
    We  looked  at  the  watch  which  had  belonged  to  Auntie   Valya's
grandfather. It said half-past twelve.
    "Gosh!" Vitalka said. He took the watch off the nail, slipped it  into
his pocket and attached its chain to his belt.
    "What do we need that for?"
    "What time is it on the big clock?" asked Vitalka.
    "What? Well, five to... or three minutes to one..."
    "See! Going by this one, we'll  start it off at three minutes  to one.
But we'll have to look sharp because if we are late, how will we turn  the
hands? Any idea?"
    I had none.  It would, of course, be impossible to move them  manually
and we hadn't sorted out the mechanism yet.
    "Off we go!" ordered Vitalka.
    We flew back fast  and were chilled to  the bone, but then  the belfry
now seemed cosy and familiar.
    We  hurriedly  climbed  down  to  the  mechanism again and, forgetting
about our tidy new clothes, crawled on our knees, valiantly collecting  on
the way old soot,  cobwebs, lime, brick dust  and the green film  from the
brass.   And  these  layers  of  dirt  would  later  testify  to  all  our
adventures.
    Vitalka  told  me  to  take  hold  of  his  shirt,  and  picked up the
hack-saw.
    The saw was really blunt, and the wood turned out to be hard.
    Soon Vitalka  was wet  with perspiration  and started  muttering in an
angry hoarse voice, and so I took over.
    The  saw  kept  getting  stuck  and  I  had  to jerk it out each time,
muttering words which would have made  Auntie Valya fall in a dead  faint.
Vitalka sympathetically breathed down my neck and said as a reminder  once
in a while, "Six minutes left... Three... Two."
    But what could I  do? I was working  hard, wasn't I? I  was just about
to tell Vitalka to go and jump in the hole which was gaping below us  when
all of a sudden the beam  snapped! The heavy pendulum had pressed  against
the almost sawn-off end  and it snapped off,  crashed down and struck  the
flag-stones on the ground floor. The whole tower rumbled.
    I sprang back so  as not to crash  down with the broken  beam-end. And
then a loud ringing sound struck out overhead. Once! Twice!
    Twang! Twang! And off it went!
    It was the pendulum swinging to  the left and hitching a little  brass
hook onto  a small  sunflower-shaped wheel,  which in  turn moved  another
gear.
    "Hurrah!.. It's going..." said Vitalka in a whisper.
    "Hurrah!" I roared.
    "Hurrah!" we yelled together.
    I very much wanted to write about how a flock of birds, frightened  by
our shouting, flushed up into the  sky, but if the truth be  told, nothing
of the sort  happened. For some  reason or other  there weren't any  birds
living here and only  an echo rang round  the tower. But so  what! We were
like birds ourselves!  Flying magicians!  We had brought the old clock  to
life  and  its  brass  wheels  were  now  clanging cheerfully as if saying
"thank you".
    "It's  almost  right,"  said  Vitalka,  pulling  his  watch out of his
pocket. "Look, it's five to one."
    Five to one! The middle of the night!
    "Let's go home, Vitalka.  If Auntie Valya wakes  up and finds out,  we
won't half catch it."
    "All right," Vitalka  agreed cheerfully. "We've  done what we  set out
to do."
    He tried  to climbed  onto the  beam and  exclaimed in surprise, "Hey,
what are you holding onto me for?"
    "Me?"
    "Who else?" He  tried to turn  round but couldn't.  I looked over  his
shoulder and saw  that his long  shirt was caught  in a gear  and two cogs
were turning slowly and "gobbling up" his embroidered hem.
    "Your shirt..." I whispered very faintly.
    Vitalka glanced over  his shoulder and  seeing what was  wrong, pulled
hard but it was well and truly caught.
    And the wheels  were moving quite  fast and chewing  up more and  more
material with their sharp teeth. In  a couple of minutes' time they  would
get to Vitalka himself.
    "Well, do something!"  shrieked Vitalka in  despair and pulled  again.
"It's a new shirt!"
    Fancy, he was still thinking of the shirt!
    I was  now well  and truly  scared and  for the  first time in my life
felt my legs shaking with fear. It  felt as if a large engine was  revving
up underneath the floor.
    But I simply had  to collect my wits!  So I angrily shifted  from foot
to  foot  to  stop  them  shaking  and  then  felt  the handle of my knife
wobbling by my right knee. How could I have forgotten it!
    I grabbed my dagger and chopped off a piece of the hem.
    "Have you gone off your rocker?" Vitalka wailed wretchedly.
    "Have I?" Look!"
    Vitalka stared  down at  the scrap  of material  being devoured by the
sharp cogs and wiped his sweaty brow.
    "Phew... The  clock sure  went and  bit a  chunk off  me! Oh  well, at
least it's working."
    "Let's get going," I said.
    At that very  moment a tremendous  booming sound came  from the bells.
We squatted and I dropped the knife which went hurling downwards.
    "It's striking!" Vitalka exclaimed joyfully and triumphantly.
    "Aren't we clever!"

    Back at  home we  felt slightly  less happy  after we  had counted our
losses and reckoned some of the possible unpleasant consequences.
    Our cuts and  scratches didn't count  because they'd heal  in no time,
but it was a  pity about the knife.  However, that wasn't the  main thing.
A glance at myself in the mirror set me thinking hard and I realised  that
if I did not  wash my things fast,  I'd certainly be in  for a whale of  a
time the next day...  My suit was miraculously  still intact but my  white
socks were anything but white.
    "Let's get some hot water and a basin," I said in despair.
    "Why, that's nothing  at all," replied  Vitalka. "But what  am I going
to do about my shirt? You've lopped off half the hem..."
    "Crikey," I said sympathetically.
    There was indeed  a piece missing  at the back  of his shirt  as if he
had  been  chased  by  a  shark.  However,  Vitalka  was  a  strong-willed
individual, and  it was  not until  he helped  me warm  some water  on the
stove that he gave way to his grief.
    "Perhaps  it  can  be  mended  somehow?"  he  asked  and then answered
hopelessly himself, "Oh dash it! Of course it can't!"
    "But maybe we could make a tuck behind?" I suggested, as I sembled  my
socks in the basin. "You know, like fitted shirts have?"
    "A tuck,  my foot!"  he said  sarcastically. "What  kind of  tuck will
cover a whopping  great hole like  that? Couldn't you  have chopped off  a
bit less?"
    "No, I  couldn't," I  said confidently,  splashing the  water out  the
window. "If I had you'd have been turned into pulp."
    "But Auntie Valya's going to do  that to me now anyway," said  Vitalka
dismally.
    "Well... We'll think of something tomorrow morning."
    Vitalka sighed and hung his shirt on  the back of his chair in such  a
way that the hole was not visible.
    Over the town the clock struck half past one.


                            Chapter Thirteen

    We did  not, however,  think of  anything the  next morning because we
overslept, and as  she could not  wake us by  tapping the ceiling,  Auntie
Valya came upstairs.
    We were awoken by the sound of her steps and remembered everything  in
a flash. Vitalka  jumped into his  trousers in a  trice, cheerfully called
out "good morning" and stood between  her and the chair with his  shirt on
it.
    "Good morning... What's  made you sleep  so late again?"  asked Auntie
Valya in a slightly suspicious tone.
    "We  got  carried  away  reading  "Tom  Sawyer" last night," I replied
hastily.
    Auntie Valya shook her head,  which meant that little boys  should not
stay up late reading if it's a very good book but that she, Auntie  Valya,
did not intend to  say anything about this  as she hoped we  would realise
ourselves that we had  acted wrongly and would  not make the same  mistake
again.
    "Get washed and come have your breakfast," she said.
    "Right!" rapped  Vitalka rather  too loudly  and Auntie  Valya pressed
her fingertips to her temples and hurried downstairs.
    That morning  Vitalka and  I tried  to be  obedient and well-mannered,
but nothing good ever comes of trying too hard. Vitalka was in so much  of
a hurry to get to  breakfast that he forgot to  take the watch out of  his
pocket. His pockets  were frayed and  threadbare, and the  watch heavy and
when we came in for breakfast,  it finally dropped through his pocket  and
hung on the end of its chain which was attached to his belt. What's  more,
the  chain  was  long  and  his  pants  short, and the watch could be seen
dangling below his knees.
    "My word!" exclaimed Auntie Valya  in surprise. "Why are you  carrying
Grandpa's watch  about with  you? And  in such  a strange  manner, too! It
might be old but it's still valuable."
    Vitalka awkwardly mumbled  something about him  only needing in  for a
moment. Generally speaking, he  was a sharp enough  fellow, but he was  no
good at lying to his aunt, and, what's more, he loathed doing it.
    I realised I had to come to his rescue fast.
    "Auntie  Valya,  we  wanted  to  synchronise  it  with  the one on the
belfry! You know, while we were  sitting up last night, we suddenly  heard
the clock strike. Fancy being silent  for all this time and then  suddenly
working again! Strange, isn't it?"
    "Yes,  that  is  strange..."  agreed  Auntie Valya perplexedly. "But I
don't understand..."
    At that moment, however, the sound of striking bells came through  the
open windows. Ding-dong!  Ding-dong!.. Ten times.  (Yes, we certainly  had
slept late that morning!)
    "Amazing!"  said  Auntie  Valya.  "I  didn't  even  notice. So they've
mended the town clock..."
    "We were going  to run out  and find out,"  muttered Vitalka. "Because
we can't see it from the window."
    Auntie  Valya  had  a  habit,  however,  of  getting  to the bottom of
things.
    "Why  did  you  have  to  see  it?  You  can find out the time when it
strikes."
    Vitalka started blinking confusedly.
    "But,  you  know,  it  sometimes  strikes  late," I came to his rescue
again. "Or too early like your cuckoo, which starts popping out when  it's
still five to."
    Auntie Valya enjoyed intelligent explanations.
    "I see," she said. "Well, have breakfast first before you go out,  and
do take care of the watch."
    Outside  Vitalka  said  gloomily,  "What  am  I  going to do about the
shirt?"
    I had no idea. "Maybe she won't be very angry?" I asked hesitantly.
    "What's that got  to do with  it? She'll start  asking questions about
how it happened!  And then she'll  find out where  we were last  night. If
you ask me, she's already guessed something."
    "Well, what  if you  say you  just caught  it on  something and ripped
it?"
    "But where's the missing bit, then? It could be sewn on, you know."
    "Well, you lost  it! She's bound  to ask, 'And  who allowed you  to go
off at night, my dears?'"
    I began feeling gloomy, too.
    "'Ripped it,' he says!" Vitalka  grumbled, "Anyone can see it  was cut
off with a  knife... She is  sure to find  out. I've never  really lied to
her. Do you think  she believed what you  said about the clock?   I'm sure
she didn't!"
    "Let's own up," I said.
    He twisted his head and sighed, "But what about the carpet?"
    "What about it? Do you think she'll take it away?"
    "Well,  we  did  promise  not  to  get  up to any more pranks with the
carpet... No, she won't take it  away. She's kind - you know  that. She'll
just tell us not to fly anywhere without her keeping an eye on us  because
she's afraid for us. Or make us  promise only to fly about the yard.   Can
you imagine it?
    "Yes, the future did  not look very bright...  But it was a  sunny day
and there was masses  of time left until  evening and so, deciding  it was
not worth getting totally despondent  yet, we ran over to  Breezy's place.
You see, we had not seen him and Vetka since our journey and adventure  in
the old house.
    They were sitting  on the porch,  mending the bicycle's  buckled frame
and front wheel.
    "So you tried it out after all," I said in dismay.
    Vetka  and  Breezy  were  thrilled  to  see  us and, interrupting each
other,  told  us  that  their  flying  bicycle  had successfully taken off
downhill but then nose-dived and crashed into a patch of ashberry  bushes.
After that  Breezy had  limped all  day and  Vetka had  gone about  with a
scratched nose.  But this  was not  a serious  set-back because  they knew
where they  had gone  wrong: they  had made  wings but  forgotten about  a
stabiliser. Next time they would know better though.
    Then we told them about our adventures and they were sad they had  not
been with us, especially on the belfry, and asked us why we had not  asked
them along.
    "We had  to leave  fast, and  it was  night-time," explained  Vitalka.
"Never mind,  we'll fly  together some  other time...  if everything works
out all right."
    "Why do you say that?" asked Vetka anxiously.
    Vitalka sadly told them  about his shirt, and  the four of us  put our
heads together and tried to think of a way out.
    "But why do you have to  wear it outside?" asked Breezy. "If  you tuck
it into your trousers, it'll look even better! And when you get back  from
the circus, you can stuff it away somewhere and then see how things go."
    Vitalka  scratched  the  bridge  of  his  nose  with his nail and said
pensively, "That's an idea..."
    But the idea did not appeal to Auntie Valya. We were all set to  leave
for the circus when she suddenly exclaimed, "Vitalka! What have you  done!
The hem's got such a lovely folk-style embroidery on it."
    "So what if it has!" replied Vitalka. "I like it better like this."
    "You just don't  understand anything. It's  very beautiful. You  can't
see it like others can."
    Vitalka tried arguing  but Auntie Valya  said, "Vitalka, you're  quite
impossible."
    And so he quickly pulled the shirt out from inside his belt, hung  his
head and joined  his hands behind  his back to  hide the missing  piece of
hem. He looked like a guilty little girl and I felt sorry for him.
    "I'll cover you from behind," I whispered.
    "Right."
    So off  we set  to the  circus and  along the  way Auntie  Valya asked
several times why I was  lagging behind Vitalka instead of  walking beside
him.
    But everything  went off  all right  and after  we had  settled in our
seats in the  fourth row, Vitalka  pressed his spine  against the back  of
his seat and relaxed a little.
    I am not going to describe  the performance because it has nothing  to
do  with  our  adventures.   Suffice  it  to  say  that  the famous clown,
Karandash, was on the arena, and  it was wonderful. Vitalka and I  laughed
so much that we forgot about all our troubles.
    But we remembered again as soon as the interval came.
    Auntie Valya informed us  she would stay put  but we could go  and get
an ice-cream if we wanted to.
    Well,  of  course  we  did.   So  Vitalka  took  the money and, like a
courtier before a queen, backed out  of the row onto the staircase.   Then
we formed a "close column" with me right behind him and set off in  search
of ice-cream.
    There was quite a crush and a queue in the refreshment room.  We  were
pushed and  jostled on  all sides  and had  no need  to worry about anyone
spotting the hole in  the hem. About ten  minutes later our turn  came and
we bought three ices  - one and a  half each - and  pushed our way out  of
the crowd.
    We squatted under  a cupboard containing  a fire tap  in a far  corner
and slowly devoured all three ices.
    We were  already sadly  licking the  bare sticks  when someone came up
and stood by us  and we heard someone  say in an insinuating  tone, "Young
men, would you be so kind as to answer one question..."
    Standing  near  us  was  a  dark-haired,  beaky fellow in narrow lilac
trousers, bright orange socks and  a huge vivid shirt with  palm-trees and
monkeys on it, the latest rage among fashion worshippers.
    We disliked  show-offs. We  got up,  Vitalka hitched  up his shirt and
nonchalantly shoved his hands in his  pockets. And as I did not  have any,
I  crossed  my  arms  over  my  chest  like  Napoleon, moved one foot in a
squeaking sandal to one side and asked,
    "What do you want?"
    "My, what badly-mannered children,"  said the fellow benevolently  and
then at once grew  more serious and said,  "All right. Now, joking  apart,
I've  got  business  to  discuss  with  you.  Want  to  know  what kind of
business?"
    We did, but we did not let on. Beaky smiled condescendingly and  said,
"Got  no  questions?  Well  then,  I'll  ask  mine - just one for the time
being..."
    Drilling holes in  each of us  in turn with  his eyes, he  enunciated,
"How did you get inside the belfry, messieurs?"
    To this day I am proud to remember that Vitalka and I did not so  much
as bat an eyelid. But it's impossible to describe how cold I felt  inside!
Later on Vitalka told me he had felt just the same.
    "Mum's the word?"  asked Beaky. "Well  done. Silence is  golden. But I
urge you to be perfectly frank with  me - it's in your own interests.  And
so that  there's no  misunderstanding, allow  me to  show you  this bit of
evidence."
    And he brought out missing piece of Vitalka's shirt.
    Yes, the  very same  piece! Crinkled,  stained green  by the brass and
embroidered...
    We stared at it  as we would have  done at the words  "Conduct - Poor"
in a school report.
    Beaky smirked, leant  over and, raising  the edge of  Vitalka's shirt,
fitted the piece into place.
    A perfect fit," he said. "So now what? Are we going to cooperate?"
    Vitalka gulped and  said in a  rather hoarse but  bold tone, "But  why
must we speak to you?"
    "Oh!" said  Beaky. "I  forgot to  explain. This  isn't just  a private
conversation, it's official-like."
    He took a little red book out  of his pocket and waved it in  front of
our noses without opening it.
    We kept a dejected  silence and then all  of a sudden a  piercing bell
rang out overhead, making us jump.
    "Jumpy, aren't  we," said  Beaky. "That's  our hectic,  mad world  for
you... Did we come here on our own?"
    "No, with our aunt..." muttered Vitalka.
    "With Auntie Valya," I said.
    "Well, we won't  make auntie worry,  shall we," decided  Beaky. "She's
not to blame. Off we go now  and we'll meet here tomorrow by the  bench to
the left of the entrance. At nine. O'kay?"
    "O'kay," Vitalka replied gloomily.
    Beaky smiled craftily and said,  "That's right. Got out heads  screwed
on properly, we have! Now, mum's  the word. Got it? Notice I'm  not asking
your names or where you live. Why?  Because I trust you. Well, and if  you
don't turn  up... this  isn't a  big town,  you know  that yourselves, and
it's not hard to find a person. Got it?"
    We most  certainly had  and that's  why we  did not particularly enjoy
the second part of the show  featuring a famous lion tamer and  her lions.
And, worst of all,  we could not discuss  our latest predicament in  front
of Auntie Valya and so just had to suffer in silence.
    We were also quiet  on the way home  and Auntie Valya anxiously  asked
if we  were feeling  all right.  Without thinking,  I replied  that we had
stomach-ache probably from  the ice-creams.   Auntie Valya then  grew even
more alarmed and said she would make some hot water-bottles for us, if  we
did not mind them.
    Vitalka was  also lost  in thought,  and forgetting  he was talking to
Auntie  Valya  and  not  me,  exclaimed  absent-mindedly, "What's there to
mind? Water-bottles aren't like enemas, are they!"
    Auntie  Valya  gasped  and  declared  that  Vitalka  had  become quite
impossible.  Obviously,  he  was  approaching  that  awful  age  which all
teachers dreaded and she, Auntie Valya would have to reassess her idea  on
upbringing.
    Vitalka hastily replied that she had no need to do so and said he  had
not meant to be rude.
    At home we turned down supper  and went off to bed early,  saying that
sleep would be the best healer.
    But we certainly did not feel like sleeping.
    "So  this  is  where  all  our  flying's  landed  us..."  said Vitalka
gloomily. "The police isn't like Auntie Valya, you know. We won't  wriggle
out of this one."
    "But what have we done that's so awful? Surely fixing the clock  isn't
a crime? On the contrary, we've done everyone a good turn."
    "They'll take our carpet away and that's all the thanks we'll get..."
    "But what right have they got?  It's our carpet! Auntie Valya gave  it
to us as a present, and that's that!"
    "So  what  if  she  did?  But  are  we allowed to fly? You're not even
allowed on a motorbike until you're sixteen, let alone in the air..."
    "But we won't mention the carpet."
    "But what will we say then? How did we get inside?"
    "Any old how...  We climbed up.  Perhaps the ladders  are still intact
in it. And  if they're not,  then we used  ropes. It's hard  for grown-ups
but we're light..."
    "But how did we get to the ladders? The door's locked, isn't it!"
    "Well... we found the key."
    "We did, did we? Then they'll at once ask where it is."
    "And we'll say we lost it."
    "Found it, lost  it... Do you  reckon they're fools?  They'll ask what
it was like."
    "Well, so  what? We'll  make something  up. We'll  say it  was sort of
large and..."
    "Sort of large! Do you know what the lock on the door looks like?  No,
you don't  and neither  do I.  We've never  even been  near the  door. And
perhaps it doesn't have a lock and is just nailed up..."
    Then Vitalka raised himself on  one elbow and said resolutely,  "We'll
have to fly  over and take  a look at  the door." And  he added sadly, "If
you're going to lie, you must make it sound like the truth."
    We did  not, however,  fly anywhere  that night,  because Auntie Valya
spent a long time pottering  about downstairs, washing the dishes,  and we
had both fallen asleep by the time she had finished.


                            Chapter Fourteen

    Whether we  liked it  or not,  we had  to go  and meet  Beaky the next
morning.
    On the  way there  Vitalka went  on and  on about  the police. Did not
they have anything better to do  than bother about the old belfry?  They'd
do better to catch the thieves who had recently burgled a household  goods
shop and two booths  at the market. The  whole town was talking  about it,
but they obviously had other fish to fry...
    The clock on the  belfry struck nine but  the sound no longer  gave us
any joy.
    "I wonder how the police got up there," I said.
    "Perhaps they didn't..."
    "But what about the scrap of material?" I said.
    "What about it?" Vitalka snapped.  "Perhaps it slid through the  works
and  floated  through  the  holes  all  the  way down to the ground... Why
couldn't it have got caught on something on the way?"
    Beaky was waiting for us sitting on the bench with another fellow  who
also had a long nose, except that  it was straight and very thin as  if it
had been patted on both  sides for a long time.  In fact, it looked as  if
you  would  be  able  to  see  through  it  in  sunlight. He had fair hair
sparsely covering his shiny pink scalp.
    "You're late,  gentlemen," Beaky  said reproachfully.  "It won't do...
Well, time's  money, so  don't let's  waste it.  Sit down  and give us the
facts. Honesty's great virtue, you know."
    And then Vitalka did something unexpected. Ho stood in front of  Beaky
and said  boldly, "If  you're from  the police,  please show  me your book
again."
    Beaky blinked in confusion and his friend suddenly blushed and  little
beads of sweat broke out on his paper-thing nose.
    "Look'ere... cut it out," demanded Pinky quietly.
    But  Beaky  suddenly  burst  out  laughing  jovially and said, "We are
experienced, aren't we... Well done! Only we're from the municipal  museum
and  not  the  police.  Got  it?  I'm  a junior research worker, and Fedya
here's a fitter and electrician. In fact, he's a jack of all trades."
    "Jack" sighed for some reason and wiped the beads off his nose.
    We felt a wave of relief. At least, they weren't from the police.
    "By the way, my name's Edik," said Beaky. "What're yours?"
    We named ourselves.
    "Well, you see it's like this," explained Edik. "Our museum's  decided
to  repair  the  belfry  and  get  the  clock  going.   It's  an important
historical site  in the  town, you  realise. But  nobody knows  how to get
inside. Its lock's old and valuable and it's a shame to break it. But  the
key's lost...  But while  we were  thinking things  over and guessing, the
clock started working  again! Who on  earth could have  mended it? What  a
marvellous thing to do! And then suddenly last night I spotted this  young
lad in the shirt which this here scrap comes from..."
    "If you've never been in the  belfry, how did you come by  the scrap?"
Vitalka interrupted him.
    Edik burst out laughing again and even shook his head.
    "My, oh my! You're a real sharp  detective!  Who said we haven't?   He
has!" And Edik glanced at Fedya, who had been keeping very quiet.   "After
the clock  started working,  he climbed  up the  outside wall  to the top.
Fedya here's a steeplejack and an ace mountain-climber."
    Lanky  fair-haired  Fedya   certainly  did  not   look  like  an   ace
mountain-climber but you never can tell...
    "And  now,  gentlemen,  let's  get  down  to  brass tacks," said Edik,
hugging our shoulders and sitting us  down beside him.  "Have you  brought
the key along?"
    "What key?" I asked stupidly.
    "You git!" said Edik slightly annoyedly. "From the belfry, of  course.
Or did you open it with your finger?"
    "No,  with  a  key,"  said  Vitalka  hastily  and gave me a meaningful
glance. "We found it in Auntie  Valya's attic where she keeps tons  of old
things."
    "I'm afraid you'll have  to hand it over,"  Edik informed us. "As  you
know, the belfry's  a branch of  the museum and  so we're responsible  for
it.   And  if  people  start  climbing  up  there and maybe breaking their
necks... Well, never mind, that's not the main thing. The keys are  needed
for the  job in  hand.   First, so  that the  tower can  be repaired  and,
secondly,  so  that  the  clock  can  be  wound up. How much longer do you
reckon it can keep going? When the chain comes all the way down,  there'll
be nobody to pull up the weight. Right?"
    That was true. We hadn't thought about the weights.
    "It'll be a pity if the clock stops..." said Edik pensively.
    And then Fedya  the mountain-climber unexpectedly  piped up and  said,
"You know, I...  won't go up  there again. I  almost crashed down,  I did.
And... our chiefs are getting hopping mad."
    "We understand,"  replied Vitalka.  "But we  haven't got  the key.  We
lost it."
    I was afraid he  would get into a  muddle and so hastened  to butt in,
"To tell you the truth, we didn't  even lose it... You see, it was  really
scary  up  in  the  tower.  We  almost  fell down. And it was dark... Well
and... what  if the  machine-gunner's skeleton  was somewhere  about... We
started the clock and then after we got downstairs again, we decided  we'd
never climb it again and so threw the key away."
    "Where?"
    Vitalka forestalled me: "In the grass somewhere."
    "Well, maybe you'll find it?"
    Vitalka shrugged his shoulders.
    "It was dark. Well, maybe we shall. I doubt it though..."
    "Do us a favour, lads,"  said Edik. "You understand, our  work depends
on it. Do your best. O'kay?"
    "O'kay," said Vitalka.
    I threw him an angry glance.
    "If you  find it,  bring it  here tomorrow,"  said Edik.  "At the same
time. Is that a deal?"
    We said it was and set off home.
    "That was a fantastic story  about the key," Vitalka said  admiringly.
"Sounded really true.  I'll never learn to lie like that. You'll  probably
be a writer."
    I  replied  that,  first  of  all,  writers  did  not  lie  but merely
fantasised and that, secondly, he,  Vitalka, was a holey sack  of sawdust.
Why did he  stick his foot  in it? He  should have said  we threw the  key
into the river and that would have been the end of it.
    "But what if we really do find the key?" asked Vitalka.
    That made me stop in my tracks.
    "Where? If we never had it in the first place!"
    "Well, any old key then. It just might fit the lock, mightn't it?"
    "But why?"
    "Well, what about  the clock? Everybody's  already saying how  good it
is that it's been put right. It won't do if it stops, will it?"
    That was true. I had not  thought about the clock. But where  could we
find the key?
    "We must look  at the lock  first," explained Vitalka.  "We'll be able
to tell more or less by the keyhole what kind of key we need."
    "Right!"

    The monastery was right across the other side of town. We tried  going
there by bus, but as we did not have any money, the conductress turfed  us
off. Then we took a short cut along the riverbank. Every now and again  we
had to cross vegetable  plots and we were  shouted at by their  owners but
we arrived there in no time at all.
    The  monastery's  cobbled  courtyard  was  warm, sunny and empty. Tall
blades  of  grass  were  sticking  out  between  the  cobble-stones   with
butterflies swaying  on them.  Two doves  were lazily  flying between  the
peeling domes of the old church.
    The belfry's  broad shadow  was stretching  across the  cobble-stones.
Keeping out of the sun, we walked along it to the door as if were a path.
    There was nobody  about. We had  heard that there  were some workshops
in the monastery's long building, but it looked empty at present.
    However, it  still seemed  that we  weren't alone.  All of  a sudden a
large,  shaggy  grey  dog  came  round  the  corner  of a house and headed
straight towards us. We froze, wondering what it was going to do.
    It came up, stared hard at as, sniffed Vitalka's plimsolls and my  new
sandals and then yawned, wagged its tail and walked away.
    "There's a clever dog! It recognises good people," said Vitalka.
    "I wonder how our dog is back there in the woodland house?" I said.
    "I often  think about  it, too,"  replied Vitalka.  "I'm so  sorry for
it..."
    We went up to  the door, which was  made of strong blocks  and hung on
massive cast-iron hinges. Its lock  was massive, too, and consisted  of an
iron hexagonal  plate with  superimposed brass  patterns and  a keyhole in
the middle, about the size of my little finger.
    "Why, it's certainly some key we've got to find," Vitalka said with  a
sigh.
    He fumbled in his  pocket and brought out  the silver wrapping of  one
of the  ices we  had eaten  at the  circus the  day before.  He placed  it
against the keyhole and  rubbed it with his  finger so that a  rubbing was
left on the paper.
    "It'll be easier picking a key this way," he explained.
    "Picking a key!" I said sceptically. "But where?"
    The dog came up again, sat down  and looked kindly at us as if  taking
in everything we said.
    Vitalka  opened  his  mouth  to  say  something but at that moment the
clock started striking. Ding! Dong! Ding! Dong! Ten times...
    We stood, craning  our necks and  gazing up at  the clock-face and  so
did the dog. Clock... dog... key...
    "Vitalka! Do you remember the clock in that house?"
    "Well?.."
    "What was hanging on the weight?"
    Vitalka blinked, scratched  his nose as  if trying to  get rid of  his
freckles, and then yelled joyfully, "A key!"
    Luck was  on our  side once  again for  Auntie Valya  wasn't at  home.
Vitalka wrote  the following  on a  paper napkin:  "Auntie Valya, we'll be
out till evening and will lunch at Oleg's."
    "Do you think she'll believe it?" I asked.
    "Well, what  else can  we do?"  asked Vitalka  resolutely jabbing  the
note onto the spear of an  old cast-iron knight (under which Auntie  Valya
kept letters and various receipts).
    We were in a hurry, but this time had the sense to dress up warmly  so
as not to get chilled by the wind when flying very fast.
    "Just as long as it doesn't rain again," I muttered, slipping into  an
old school shirt.
    "It  won't,"  replied  Vitalka  confidently.  "Today's  a good day and
everything'll be  fine. We'll  get the  key and  spend some  time with the
dog..."
    I don't  know why  we decided  that the  key from  the woodland  house
would fit the lock  on the belfry door.  In my heart of  hearts I realised
there was no hope or almost  none, but this whole story was  becoming more
and more like a mysterious fairy-tale and whoever would refuse to be in  a
fairy-tale? What's more, since we had a flying carpet why shouldn't  there
be other wonders in the world?
    But I would still have thought twice about flying there if it had  not
been for the  dog.  I  felt sorry for  it and somewhat  guilty, as if we'd
abandoned it...
    From the fridge  we took three  raw rissoles, added  to it a  chunk of
bread and five lumps of sugar for the dog and then unrolled the carpet  on
the roof.
    "Perhaps we should  tie on the  tail?" I suggested.  "After all, we'll
be flying in daylight..."
    "We  haven't  time,"  said  Vitalka.  "Let's  just  fly  low  over the
vegetable plots and then dive under the steep bank..."
    And so  we sped  along the  lanes, keeping  close to  the fences, flew
over the vegetable  plots and wattlefences,  dived into the  shadow of the
steep riverbank, then under the bridge and then, skimming the tops of  the
grass, headed for the edge of the wood.
    It's quite likely someone spotted  us and gazed in bewilderment  after
us, but this no longer worried us.
    Once we reached  the wood, we  soared over the  tops of the  trees and
headed towards the geodesic tower.
    We flew very fast and the oncoming air literally howled about us.   In
order to fly  at top speed,  we lay flat  against the carpet  and the wind
pressed Vitalka's beret against  his head and tried  to rip my school  cap
off mine but I had its strap under my chin.
    It was really weird:  the oncoming wind was  blowing cold air over  us
while the sun was warming our  backs through our shirts, and on  the whole
we felt hot rather than cold.
    The flight did not  seem as long as  the first time. It  took us about
one and a half hours to reach  the dark lake where we caught sight  of the
old house's roof.
    We landed by the porch. The door was ajar just as it had been  before.
We went  in. I  no longer  felt scared,  but still  slightly nervous.  The
sun-light was lying in squares on the dusty creaking floor. We paused  and
listened but could hear nothing except for our own breathing.
    Then all of a sudden Vitalka said, "The clock's stopped."
    We tore into the small room.
    The clock really had stopped. The chain with the weight and key on  it
had sunk all  the way down  to the floor.  And lying on  the floor beneath
the clock with  its face buried  in its outstretched  paws was the  ginger
dog.  A yellow caterpillar was crawling along the back of its neck.
    "It's  asleep,"  Vitalka  whispered  and  then  smacked  his  lips and
called, "Hey, dog! Get up! Come here!"
    But the dog  did not even  stir, so we  went up ourselves  and at once
realised that it was not asleep for its eyes were open and still.
    "Poor  thing,"  said  Vitalka,  squatting  down  and  quite fearlessly
stroking the dead dog.
    I also ran my  palm over its ginger  coat and flicked the  caterpillar
off it. The  dog was very  thin and you  could feel its  hard ribs through
its skin.
    And yet it could not have died  of hunger for it had lived so  long on
its own. No, it had died either of loneliness or old age or perhaps  both.
It probably knew it  was dying but could  not leave as it  was waiting for
someone and did not want to abandon the clock.
    I stood up and took hold of  the chain in order to puff the  weight up
for I wanted the clock to tick in memory of the dog.
    "Don't," said Vitalka.
    "Why not?"
    "Well... it's not our clock, you know. It's the dog's..."
    Yes, he was right.  We shouldn't touch it  and, in fact, had  no right
to. On the other  hand, our clock over  the town should not  be allowed to
stop.
    As I squatted down again and  unhitched the heavy key off the  weight,
it occurred to me that the key  was hanging there as an extra weight,  and
the clock could not work without it.
    I told  Vitalka as  much but  he pooh-pooh  it saying,  "So what! They
could have hung a stone on  it and, anyway, it makes no  difference now...
But what shall we do with the dog? We can't leave it like this."
    "We need a spade," I said.
    We found one behind the stove  in the kitchen. It was rusty  and blunt
but there was nothing to sharpen it with.
    Then we started digging a grave under a rose briar at the back of  the
house. Its  roots got  in our  way and  the ground  was quite  hard but we
silently took turns to toss up the black earth and clay without ever  once
grumbling.
    When  the  edge  of  the  hole  came  up  above our knees Vitalka said
hoarsely, "That'll do, I think..."
    We picked some burdocks near the house, lined the inside of the  grave
with them and then carried the dog out and laid it in it.
    We then had to fill  in the grave, but I  could not stand the idea  of
clods of clay falling  into the dog's open  eyes and getting entangled  in
its ginger  fur. So,  as there  were no  burdocks left,  I pulled my shirt
over my head.  It was the  one I had  been wearing that  day two years ago
when I decided to run away to the  woods, so it was quite old and did  not
matter.
    "Grab hold of the collar and pull," I ordered Vitalka.
    We  ripped  the  shirt's  front  in  half  so that it was like an open
jacket, and covered  the dog with  it. Its tail  and paws still  stuck out
but there was  nothing we could  do about that.  Then we filled  the grave
in.
    "I saw a piece of plywood lying about somewhere..." Vitalka said.
    He went off  to the house  and came back  carrying an oblong  strip of
plywood. Then he got  out a pencil stub  for, like all artists,  he always
carried a pencil around just in case.
    He scratched the bridge of his  nose with the stub, stared through  me
and then bent over the strip of plywood and wrote: "Here lies a dog."
    After a  moment's thought,  he crossed  out "a"  and changed the small
"d" into a big one.
    "As it hasn't got a name, let's call it that. Agreed?"
    I nodded.
    He wrote the following in large straight letters:

               Here lies Dog. It lived in this house.
               After everyone else had gone away,
               it stayed on and wound the clock.

    Then he put a full-stop, glanced very gravely at me, and asked,  "What
else shall I write?"
    "There's no need for anything else," I replied.
    Then we  pulled two  nails out  of the  rickety door  (which were half
out, anyway), found half  a brick under the  porch and used it  to fix the
plywood board to  the spade handle.   It took us  a long time  because the
plywood was  hard and  the rusty  nails kept  bending. We  both banged our
fingers with the brick  and scraped the skin  off our knuckles, which  was
enough to make anybody cry. But we fixed it in the end and then drove  the
spade deep into the mound and pounded the earth all over with our fists.


                             Chapter Fifteen

    On the day back I felt rather low and did not notice at first that  we
were flying slowly.  And when I  did and tried  to urge the  carpet on, it
seemed reluctant  to obey  and I  realised Vitalka  was keeping  it firmly
under control.
    "Do buck up," I said. "Why waste time?.."
    "But you haven't got much on and you'll catch cold in the wind."
    "No, I won't. The air's warm. Get a move on..."
    "Buck up! Get a move on!"  he mimicked angrily. "You've already got  a
snuffle as it is."
    But it was not because of a cold that I was speaking huskily:  it  was
because I was choking back my tears. I wasn't shy of Vitalka and told  him
the truth: "It's just that I feel like crying."
    "Well, go ahead then," he said understandingly.
    My eyes were  brimming but I  held back my  tears and even  managed to
smile. "No, I'm not going to. The carpet'll get wet."
    I knew he was also smiling although  I could not see his face. He  was
sitting in front with his legs over the side and I was lying with my  head
against his back.  He had a  thin back and  I could feel  his sharp spinal
cord even through his thick sweater.   The heady woodland air was  flowing
over me  like a  river and  its motion  was the  only indication of speed.
The white July clouds were perfectly still overhead. The sun was  lighting
up iridescent rings on my wet lashes  and I had to blink very often  to be
able to see the clouds. But the wind soon dried my lashes.
    "I feel sorry  for the dog,  don't you?" said  Vitalka without turning
round.
    "Yes," I whispered.
    But if you really thought about it,  was it such a great loss? An  old
dog we had hardly known had died.  What was there to be so sad  about? You
cry  when  something  really  terrible  happens  like  when  I was told in
hospital about my Dad...
    I shook my head to drive away all these gloomy thoughts.
    "Stop fidgeting!" said Vitalka. "You'll bash my spine to bits."
    "You poor spine!"  I sighed and  sat up cross-legged  and put the  key
which I had been gripping, down  in front of me. About twenty  centimetres
long  and  hexagonal  like  a  thick  pencil,  it  had  a voluted ring, an
intricately patterned end and freckle-like spots of rust all over it.
    "What's more, it was heavy. No wonder it had been hung on the weight!
    But towards the  end the weight  and the key  had probably proved  too
heavy for the ailing dog and so it had lain down under the clock never  to
rise again. Then the clock had  stopped, and it was now standing  silently
in the completely empty and totally unwanted house.
    It's a  bad thing  when a  house is  totally unwanted.  While the  dog
lived in it, it was still a house but heaven know what would happen to  it
now...
    And it's also  a bad thing  when a clock  isn't working when  it could
be.
    Here  I  go  again!  I  hit  my  leg  with the key to chase away these
depressing thoughts, and Vitalka glanced round again.
    "Here, let me shove it in my pocket, or else you'll lose it."
    "Your pockets are full of holes,  and always will be!" I said  glumly,
opened my buckle and hung the key on my belt. "It'll be safer here."
    "Oh, aren't we dim!" exclaimed Vitalka. "We haven't checked it!"
    He pulled  the silver  wrapping with  the keyhole  rubbing out  of his
pocket and we put the end of the key against it.
    "It seems to fit all right,  doesn't it?" Vitalka said in a  surprised
whisper.
    "Well, it certainly fits on the  outside but do you reckon it'll  turn
inside?"

    Well, it did.
    And most amazingly,  it turned smoothly  and effortlessly and  without
making a sound, as if the lock had been greased only yesterday.
    Vitalka and I glanced at each  other, more in fright than in  joy, and
then took hold  of the brass  door ring and  pulled. The door  also opened
easily and soundlessly.
    It was as if we were standing  in front on a giant who had  just woken
up  and  started  breathing  deeply  again:  dusky  humid air came gushing
towards us out of the door as if it were a dark cavernous mouth...
    After  standing  in  the  doorway  for  a  few  moments,  I asked in a
whisper, "Well, shall we go in?"
    Vitalka  nodded  and  glancing  round,  shook  his  fist at Vetka, and
stepped into the shadows, with me close behind.
    Vetka stayed behind in hiding  among the burdocks and thistles  by the
monastery wall.
    We needed someone,  you see, to  keep a look-out  for us because  many
inexplicable things were going on and the situation was beginning to  look
dangerous. And this is why...

    The day before  we arrived home  early without any  mishaps and Auntie
Valya had not even begun to worry.  It would seem we should be feeling  as
pleased as Punch but  Vitalka was in a  gloomy mood, and eventually  said,
"I don't like it..."
    "What?"
    "Oh, those fellows from the museum. Why did Fedya keep going pale  and
stammering? And he doesn't look like a mountain-climber."
    I thought how true that was - he really did not look like one.
    "Have you got a coin to make a phone call?" asked Vitalka.
    I  found  one  in  my  breast  pocket.  It  was  the  change  from our
ice-lollies at the circus.
    Without  explaining  anything,  Vitalka  took  me  to  a call-box at a
crossroads, dialled Enquiries  and calmly said,  "Could I have  the number
of the town museum, please... Thank you."
    I always  envied the  confident way  he spoke  on the  phone, while  I
became shy when speaking to strangers and began stammering.
    Vitalka put the coin in the slot and began dialling.
    "Do you reckon they're still  at work? It's already eight  o'clock," I
said, catching on.
    "It's a museum, not an office," said Vitalka. And he turned out to  be
right because someone answered.
    "Good  evening,"  said  Vitalka  in  an  eager, top-of-the-form voice.
"I'm a member of a regional studies' group. Would it be possible,  please,
to connect me with your junior research worker... I'm sorry, I don't  know
his surname but he's called Edik."
    Vitalka moved the receiver away from his ear so that I could hear  the
reply. A  distant voice  was crackling  down the  receiver, and  I at once
pictured a little grey-haired old man in a black scull-cap.
    "I'm sorry, young  man, but you've  obviously made a  mistake. There's
no research worker of that name here..."
    "I'm sorry but he's dark-haired,"  Vitalka prattled on. "And his  nose
is sort of... beaky..."
    "No, no," crackled  the phone. "You're  mistaken. What school  are you
from?"
    "Number 10," Vitalka replied at random, hung up and turn to me.
    "And you used to envy me  for lying well," I cracked. "You're  just as
good."
    "Got a good teacher, haven't I?!" he promptly replied and then  asked,
"Well?"
    "Well what?"
    "They're not from the museum, those... bloodhounds."
    "You mean, they are cops, after all," I said glumly.
    Vitalka shrugged his shoulders.
    "Don't know... Don't look like it.  I don't think we should give  them
the key. We must first see for ourselves if it fits. And if it does,  have
a look at what's inside..."
    "Now?" I asked.
    We glanced  guiltily at  one another:   we were  very tired  after our
flight and it was almost evening and right now the shadowy old belfry  did
not seem at all inviting. What's  more, Uncle Seva and Mum were  expecting
me at home because I had not seen them for two whole days!
    "Tomorrow morning,"  Vitalka decided.  "First thing,  before Edik  and
Fedya show up."

    Early next morning  I whistled up  to Vitalka from  the street and  he
climbed over the  roof and jumped  down to me.  Jingling some coins  in my
pocket, I said, "Let's go by bus! It'll be quicker!"
    Vitalka scratched his nose and said, "Let's get Vetka first."
    "Why?"
    "She can keep a look-out for us."
    "Well, then Breezy would be better."
    "He won't go without asking  permission, and his mother won't  let him
out until she's made him eat breakfast. And then she'll start feeding  us,
too. And we'll waste a lot of time..."
    Yes, he was right.
    So we ran over  to Vetka's, climbed into  her front garden and  peered
through the  window. Vetka  was doing  exercises in  her blue swimsuit but
not ordinary exercises: she was holding onto her bedstead and standing  on
tiptoe and doing  all sorts of  ballet steps. Sunbeams  were prancing over
her shoulders and blazing on the nickel bedstead.
    Vitalka sighed and gazed  at her in admiration,  and I must say  I did
too because she was doing it so  well. But remembering the job in hand,  I
prodded Vitalka with my elbow and rapped the pane with my knuckles.
    Vetka  glanced  round  in  confusion  and then evidently became rather
annoyed. She flung open the window and demanded, "What do you want?"
    "Help," said Vitalka.
    "But where's Sanya?"
    "He's  probably  still  snoring  his  head off," replied Vitalka. "Get
dressed. It's  no joking  matter. We  need someone  to keep  a lookout for
us."
    Shrugging  her  shoulders,  she  pulled  her  dress  on in a flash and
jumped outside.
    "What exactly do you mean? What's going on?"
    "We  don't  really  know  ourselves,"  said Vitalka gravely. "The main
thing is that  you keep watch.  If needs be,  we'll shout instructions  to
you."
    Vetka  was  marvellous.  Instead  of  pestering us with questions, she
simply said, "Right!"
    So off we ran to the bus stop.
    The streets were  deserted, fresh and  sunny, and the  wind got caught
in  our  hair  and  fluttered  Vetka's  short frock. The heavy key bounced
about on my belt and banged against my hip.  And so we hurried towards  an
adventure.

    Once inside the  belfry we closed  the door behind  us so that  it did
not look unlocked.
    Then we looked  round. There were  narrow apertures like  loopholes at
different levels in the thick  wall. The sun was shining  brightly through
them and slicing the shadows with flat razor-like blades of light.
    The floor was covered with  granite flagstones which were cracked  and
badly crushed in  the middle where  the bell had  fallen. We stared  up at
the hole in the  ceiling and broken beams.  There was a brick  stairway by
the wall leading up to a hatch.
    "Shall we climb up?" asked Vitalka.
    "Let's."
    So up we went  to the second storey,  which, like the first,  had slit
windows in its walls  and smelt of limestone  and damp bricks but  was not
as quiet. We became aware of a regular tapping sound and a shrill jingle.
    "It's the clock tapping away," whispered Vitalka. "Oh, Oleg, look!.."
    I glanced behind  and spotted a  large deep niche  containing a cogged
wheel with  a metre-long  lever, or,  to be  more precise,  a cogged  drum
fixed  to  an  axle  sticking  out  of  the  wall.   Colossal  chains were
stretching  out  on  both  sides  of  the  drum  and it was they that were
jingling as the mechanism moved.
    Three chains were  descending through round  apertures in the  vaulted
niche's ceiling and  disappearing through similar  apertures in the  brick
floor, all of them,  that is, except one  which had a rusty  weight on it,
the size a large milk can.
    "Look," whispered Vitalka, "it's moving..."
    The weight was going  down very, very slowly  but you could still  see
it moving, and it  only had half a  metre left to go  to the floor.   This
was obviously the end of its journey. Soon it would touch the brick  floor
and the clock would come to a standstill.
    The weight had most likely  never touched the floor before  for, being
so heavy, it would have surely left a dent in it.
    Vitalka was  about to  say something,  but all  of a  sudden the clock
overhead struck half past seven... Another weight crawled out through  the
empty round hole in the niche's vault, and began swaying gently.
    I guessed  at once  that it  was attached  to the  clock's bells,  for
whenever the  cuckoo popped  out of  Auntie Valya's  clock a  weight would
come swaying down in exactly the same way.
    "It's got no more than two hours left," I said.
    Vitalka gave me a firm look  and said, "This thing's used to  lift the
weights." He nodded to the lever and the drum.
    I had realised that myself but had no idea how it worked.
    Vitalka, however, had already guessed.
    "Let's fit the chain onto the cogs."
    We had no  difficulty at all  swinging one chain  over and fitting  it
onto the drum's cogs. Then we seized hold of the handle at the end of  the
lever.
    "Heave-ho!"
    It was like  turning a windlass  and pulling a  heavy bucket out  of a
well, only instead of  a bucket we had  a weight and it  was creeping away
from us and not towards us.
    The  whole  tower  was  vibrating  with  rumbling  and clanking. Scaly
particles of rust came showering down from the chain as it began  slipping
down from the drum and  we could hear it clinking  as it curled up on  the
basement's stone floor. Meanwhile the  weight slipped up through the  hole
in the ceiling.
    "We've done it!" breathed Vitalka.
    In order to turn the handle we  had to first stand on tiptoe and  then
squat  on  the  floor.  It  wasn't  easy  work and I automatically started
counting the turns. After the tenth  I said, "Phew!.. Let's rest. Will  we
have to turn it much longer?"
    Vitalka screwed up his eyes and stared at the drum.
    "If you  measured it  all the  way round,  it would  probably come  to
about a metre. And how far it is up to the clock?"
    "About  thirty  metres...  That  means,  we've  got to wind it another
twenty times."
    Well, so we turned  it and then paused  for a rest and  then turned it
again, first lifting  the weight attached  to the hands  and then the  one
attached to the bells.
    Finally we straightened up, wiped  our wet brows with our  rusty brown
palms and smiled for it seemed to  us that the clock was now tapping  in a
cheerful and grateful manner.
    And  then  all  of  a  sudden  another  sound  was  added to the brass
clanking:  two  iron  objects  were  being scraped together somewhere down
below.
    We could  not guess  what it  was at  first but  as the scraping sound
continued, it soon became clear that someone was playing about with a  key
in the lock but not our key for ours was hanging from my belt.
    We froze on our hands and knees at the edge of the hole.
    The  door  finally  opened  slightly,  letting  sunlight  in,  and  we
recognised our old acquaintances, beaky-nosed Edik and pink-scalped  Fedya
the mountain-climber.
    "It ain't locked,"  Edik said peevishly.  "Couldn't you turn  the key,
sap?"
    "Shut up," Fedya replied gruffly.  "I almost bust turning it  - twice!
Someone's been in 'ere..."
    "The shrimps," said Edik in a half-whisper, glancing up.
    I stared  at Vitalka,  wondering what  to do  next. Perhaps  we should
make our presence known at once?  After all, there was no way  of escaping
now...
    But Vitalka was looking somewhere  beyond me and pressing a  finger to
his lips.
    I looked round and saw something  we had not noticed at first  because
we were busy  with the clock.  In the other  wall there was  a niche, too,
with plywood boxes and tight bales in sacking stacked in it.
    Vitalka and I could understand each other at a glance.
    "It's clear who they are, isn't it?" Vitalka asked with his eyes.
    I  recalled  the  conversations  about  the burgled shops and, feeling
rather chilly and even slightly sick, winked back, "Yes."
    Meanwhile the two of them were standing down below and gazing up.


                             Chapter Sixteen

    Yes, they were standing there and gazing up...
    I have to  admit that in  tricky situations Vitalka  was quickerwitted
and  braver  than  me.  And,  as  it  turned  out,  this  occasion  was no
exception: now, too, we had different plans in mind.
    While I was  wondering how to  escape, Vitalka was  thinking something
quite different.
    He suddenly stood up on the  edge of the hole and called  out casually
as if to friends, "Hi there! We're already here!"
    Beaky-nosed  Edik  started,  stared  round  and then smiled belatedly,
while Fedya blinked and said, "What are you up to?"
    "We were winding up  the clock!" Vitalka explained  cheerfully. "Phew!
Are we whacked! It's a shame you're too late..."
    He yanked my collar to get me off my knees and so I had to get up.
    "My word!"  exclaimed Edik  with a  forced grin.  "What early birds we
are! Flew here before us! Well, come on down and have a chat."
    "What about?" asked  Vitalka cheekily. "So  you have got  a key, after
all. Why have you been taking the mickey out of us?"
    Edik sighed and said  with a forced laugh,  "My, you are sharp!  Don't
miss  a  trick,  do  you?  Just  like  spies.  We  found  the key. We were
rummaging about in the museum's basement this morning and had a stroke  of
luck."
    Vitalka pointed  to Fedya  with his  chin and  asked, "And  how did he
lock the door yesterday? With his finger?"
    The  smile  vanished  from  Edik's  face  and  he  said in a quiet but
menacing tone, "Come down and have a talk."
    "We've plenty of  time," replied Vitalka  playfully. "We've still  got
to tidy up here: someone's knocked over your boxes."
    "What d'you mean?" yelled Fedya and dashed over to the stone stairs.
    Vitalka tugged  me by  the elbow,  and we  flew up  the rickety wooden
ladder to  second floor  and then  Vitalka dragged  me over  to the gaping
hole again. Was I exasperated by Vitalka's stupidity!
    "Why did you say that about the boxes? They won't let us out now."
    Vitalka gave me a glance that was both angry and merry.
    "But who  said we  want to  be let  out? We've  got to  make sure they
don't get  out! If  they do,  they'll scamper  and we'll  never find  them
again!"
    "But now..." I began.
    But Vitalka looked down through the hole and  said in a mocking tone,
    "Poor little mites!  Scared, are we?  Don't worry, we  haven't touched
your goods. It's up to the police to bother with them."
    Edik and  Fedya glared  at us  furiously. Shiny  little beads of sweat
appeared again on Fedya's nose, and Edik clenched his teeth.
    "Rats," said Fedya hoarsely. "You want  to grass on us, do you?  Well,
I'm going to wind your guts round your flipping necks first."
    Without waiting around for that to happen to our guts, we dashed  over
to another ladder to  discover it was half-broken  and only its top  rungs
were still intact.   Vitalka jumped up,  caught hold of  one and  shouted,
"Push me up!"
    I grabbed his legs  and pushed them as  hard as I could.  Then Vitalka
pulled himself up and sat on the rung and stretched a hand out to me,
    "Come on!"
    Gosh, how my heart was pounding  away! I was sure that any  moment now
Edik and  Fedya were  going to  grab me  by the  ankles. Wildly kicking my
legs, I somehow  managed to hoist  myself up to  Vitalka. Then we  grabbed
hold of the edge of the hatch and crawled onto the third floor.
    "Quick!" ordered Vitalka, bending over  the hatch and seizing hold  of
the charred bar to which the rickety rungs were fixed.
    I got the message and, joining  forces, we shook loose the bar  and it
crashed down, almost  crushing Edik and  Fedya who were  crawling up after
us.
    "Well, kids, that's going cost you," promised Edik.
    "How much?" asked Vitalka fearlessly.
    "What you deserve... Look, lads,  come down here yourselves and  don't
make matters worse."
    "Why should we?" asked Vitalka. "We like the air up here."
    "Well, you'll be  flying through it  in a minute...  And you'll be  in
such  a  mess  when  you  hit  the  ground  nobody'll be able to stick you
together again..."
    "Catch us first!"
    Edik and Fedya started  leaning the bar against  the wall to climb  up
after us.
    "That's it," said Vitalka. "Work hard. Get the feel of it. After  all,
you'll have to do a lot of work where you're going."
    Fedya  gasped  and  gave  us  such  a bloodcurdling look that my teeth
started chattering.
    "Don't be scared," said Vitalka.
    "I'm not," I somehow  managed to mumble although  I had never felt  so
scared before in my life.
    I could not understand what Vitalka  was trying to achieve and why  he
was goading these crooks on. How would we get away from them?  Perhaps  he
had forgotten that we did not have our carpet with us?
    These thoughts were jumping  around higgledy-piggledy in my  head, but
what difference  did it  make now?  We couldn't  get down  anyway. All  we
could  do  was  keep  on  going  up  so  as  not  to fall into the crooks'
clutches.
    Puffing  and  swearing,  Edik  and  Fedya  started climbing up the bar
towards us.
    "That's  the  stuff!"  said  Vitalka.  "Exercises never did anyone any
harm. Edik, mind you don't tread on Fedya's nose, it's almost  transparent
as it is."
    "Let's push the bar away," I said hurriedly.
    "All in good  time," Vitalka whispered  back. "We've got  to make sure
they have a hard time getting down. Come on, up we go!"
    We started climbing  up to the  fourth floor.   There wasn't a  ladder
and,  quite  honestly,  I  don't  remember  how we clambered up the beams,
brick projections  and charred  planks.   Vitalka pushed  me up  first and
then overtook  me and  pulled me  through the  hatch by  the scruff  of my
neck.
    The hollow vibrant  sounds of the  clock's mechanism were  coming from
the fifth floor overhead reached  by a strong ladder, which,  however, did
not quite touch the floor as its bottom rungs were missing.
    We climbed  onto it  and Vitalka  said, "Hold  me really  tight," and,
pressing his  stomach against  the ladder,  kicked the  floor with all his
might. The rickety boards and beams began shuddering and squeaking.   Then
he banged  it a  second time  and the  semi-dilapidated floor  creaked and
began sinking for it  was obviously on the  verge of collapse. Then  there
was a crack and the old wooden floor plunged downwards.
    Howls and violent swearing broke out below.
    "Great!" said Vitalka, genuinely pleased.
    "What  is  so  great?"  I  asked  tearfully.  "How are we going to get
down?"
    "We will - somehow or other. But we've got to go up first! Come on!"
    We passed the floor containing the clock's mechanism without  stopping
and got up the landing with the bells.
    There was  sunshine and  blue sky  everywhere! And  clouds, green land
and river, too!  Were there really  some crooks messing  about down below?
Could  anything  bad  really  happen  to  us  up here in the lovely bright
light?
    Vitalka quickly unfastened my belt,  pulled the key off, dashed  up to
the railing, and bent down over them.
    "Vet-ka," he yelled.
    Of course, Vetka was down there! I was so scared, I had forgotten!
    I caught a glimpse of Vetka's dress by the monastery wall. She  jumped
out of the burdocks and stood still, craning her neck.
    "List-en!" shouted Vitalka  loudly and clearly.  "Catch the key!  Lock
the door! You must  lock the door! Then  run and get the  police! There're
some crooks in here!"
    The key  went whistling  downwards and  clanked loudly  as it  hit the
cobblestones. Vetka grabbed it fast.
    Down below there was some  cursing and trampling on the  boards. After
hearing about  the police,  our thieves,  who were  evidently still in one
piece, were making down towards the door.
    "Lock it quick!" yelled Vitalka. "Don't ask questions, just lock it!"
    We leant over the  railing as far as  we could but we  still could not
tell whether Vetka had managed to lock the door.
    There was a lot of crashing  and banging down below, but we  could not
even see  what Vetka  was doing  because she  was concealed  by the door's
overlapping.  It  felt  as  if  simply  ages  had gone by when she finally
appeared in the sunlight, waving the key and shouting, "Done it!"
    "Run and get the police!" yelled Vitalka.
    "What about you?"
    "We'll hang on! They won't get up here!"
    I don't know what Vetka  was thinking or what emotions  were expressed
on her  face because  she was  too far  away, but  without saying  another
word, she  tore off  towards the  monastery gates  and we  could hear  the
staccato tapping of her shoes fading away.
    Hollow blows rang  out below: it  was Edik and  Fedya pounding on  the
door.
    We lay down on the floor  and looked through the hole. After  being in
the sunshine, we could not  make anything out, but the  pounding continued
and someone shouted, "Open up! You rats! We'll get you!"
    I smirked. My fear had vanished for I was sure they would not get  us.
How could  they? They  couldn't get  up here  because we  had wrecked  the
floor down  below. And  if they  did, say,  would they  really dare  lay a
finger on  us? They'd  get into  even more  trouble if  they did! And they
couldn't escape because you  could only break down  a door like that  with
the help of a cannon! How cleverly Vitalka had worked everything out!
    I glanced at him and saw he  was smiling and the freckles on his  hose
were shining  like rubbed  brass. Mind  you, he  also had  a bruise on his
nose, and soot  on his cheeks  and a hole  in his shirt  through which his
scratched tummy was showing.
    "You look grand!" I said.
    "You're not bad either,"  he replied jovially. "Auntie  Valya's really
going to lay into us!"
    I sat down  on the edge  of the hole  and, casually dangling  my legs,
started whistling a song from the film "The Last Inch":

                   In a far-off northern country
                   Where the winter's long and grim,
                   Splashing in the freezing water
                   is
                   a
                   tiny little
                   seal!

    "Whistling,  are  you?"  someone  asked  loudly below. "Well, just you
wait, you pests!"
    I  was  at  once  seized  with  fear  again, but Vitalka remarked in a
matter-of-fact manner, "Looks as if they're coming up here again..."
    He  went  up  to  the  railing,  grabbed  hold of a baluster and began
rocking it to and  fro. As it was  obviously rotten, it soon  gave way and
cracked.
    "Help me," said Vitalka.
    I quickly came to his aid and we pulled the shoulder-high post out  of
its base,  and then  did the  same with  another two  but that  was all we
could manage.
    Balancing it in his arms,  Vitalka said thoughtfully, "It makes  quite
a good club."
    Then we heard hushed voices and heavy breathing down below and  looked
through the  hole again.   We saw  Fedya and  Edik making  a ladder out of
broken beams on the third floor.
    Edik looked up. A ray of light from a loophole fell on his face and  I
was paralysed with fear. His face was really terrifying.
    "Well, kiddies, you've  had it. We're  going to make  mincemeat out of
you," he said hoarsely, and I saw  that he was holding a long thin  knife.
Why, it was mine! The one I'd dropped down the hole that first night!
    For the first time  Vitalka gave me anxious  look.  We were  really in
trouble. The crooks  were evidently so  desperate that they  would stop at
nothing.
    The most  natural thing  for us  to do  now would  have been  to start
screaming with  fear at  the top  of our  voices.   To this  very day I am
proud that I  didn't.  And  neither did Vitalka.   Instead, he jumped  up,
grabbed a baluster and hurled it at the crooks like a torpedo.
    But it missed, bounced off a beam and crashed downwards.
    The two  crooks went  on climbing  up without  even glancing  at it. I
grabbed hold of another baluster.
    "Wait. We've got to save our ammunition," said Vitalka gravely.
    We had made a  mistake. We should have  gone down to the  fourth floor
and  repulsed  our  enemies  while  they  were  crawling  shakily up their
makeshift ladder. But  we had stayed  at the top  expecting a blue  police
car to race into  monastery yard at any  moment as it always  happens in a
good film.
    But there was no help coming  down below and only the tiny  figures of
pedestrians flashed by in  nearby streets. But we  could not call to  them
for help because they were too far away...
    I  have  no  idea  how  much  time  passed  but probably not very much
because the clock had  not struck once since  our enemies appeared in  the
belfry. It seemed to us, however, as if we had been up there all day.
    Edik and Fedya  climbed up to  the fourth floor  and we lost  sight of
them behind a pile  of wrecked beams and  floorboards and could only  hear
them swearing in hushed voices.
    And these hushed voices gave me the shivers.
    At long last Fedya's  fair head popped up  over the hatch. I  aimed my
"torpedo" at him and he yelled and  vanished.  There was a loud thud  down
below.
    "He'll have a fine bump!" said Vitalka gleefully.
    But  there  was  no  time  to  celebrate  because  at that moment Edik
crashed his way through the planks and up the hatch. He was scratched  and
torn and in a  tearing rage. What's more,  he was holding my  knife in his
fist.
    All that was between  us now was one  floor and a strong  ladder which
you could not possibly wreck.
    Vitalka  stood  over  the  hatch,  straddling  his  legs,  raised  his
"torpedo" and said shrilly, "Just you try coming near me, you thug..."
    I looked  round for  a weapon  such as  a stick  or a  stone but there
weren't any! And there was still nobody in sight!
    And even if we  screamed at the top  of our voices, would  anyone hear
us?
    However, despite the danger, I  could not scream for some  reason. No,
I could not imagine myself shrieking "help" right across the town!
    But what about striking  a bell? I jumped  onto the railing and  tried
to reach the bell  hanging in the arched  aperture. The largest one  still
intact, it could certainly make a really startling din...
    But how  could I  reach it?   A thick  rope had  been attached  to its
cast-iron  tongue  but  all  that  was  left  of it now was a rotten scrap
hanging about two metres above us.
    I held onto a brick projection  and stood upright on the railing.  All
of  a  sudden  the  brick  moved  under  my  fingers.  The  projection had
obviously been damaged in the blast forty years ago.
    Afraid to lose my  balance, I jumped down  onto the floor and  a brick
fell at my feet and broke into three pieces.
    I grabbed one, took aim and hurled it at the bell as hard as I  could!
Dong!..
    And again! Dong!..
    My ears  became blocked  and although  I could  see Vitalka was saying
something to me, I could not hear a  word. I felt just as if the bell  had
fallen and covered  me with its  booming dome. I  squatted, shook my  head
and picked the third bit of the brick off the floor.
    Dong!..
    I  needed  more  stones.  I  jumped  back  onto  the railing and began
pulling at  a brick,  but it  would not  budge. My  fingers slipped  and I
almost lost my balance, but straining  my muscles hard, I managed to  hang
on. I glanced down in desperation.
    Our  magic  carpet  was  rising  swiftly  towards  us.  Breezy   stood
intrepidly on it, his green shirt flapping in the wind.
    "Vitalka! The carpet!" I yelled without hearing myself.
    The carpet with its pilot hovered on a level with the banisters.
    Vitalka spun  round and,  grinning from  ear to  ear, threw his weapon
down the hatch, roared with laughter and rushed towards us.

    We  flew  down  fast,  keeping  close  to the belfry, skimmed over the
cobblestones, scaled the  wall, slipped behind  the steep bank  and landed
on a secluded ledge among tall weeds.
    My ears were  still buzzing, and  at first I  could not make  out what
Breezy was saying in an excited  and breathless voice: "... trod on  a bit
of glass and was limping... And she told me to fetch the police fast!  But
what if the thugs got hold of you in the meantime, I thought. So I  dashed
over to get the carpet!"
    "So you've learnt how to fly it!" exclaimed Vitalka joyfully.
    Breezy smiled and said, "I didn't  even think about it. I just  had to
rescue you. I climbed  over the roof to  your watchtower, dragged it  out,
unrolled it and  shouted, 'Off we  go!' And then  I just flew  off as if I
wasn't even on it... But when I looked down I saw the carpet under me."
    "Did anyone spot you?" Vitalka asked.
    Breezy shook his head.
    "I didn't fly  straight. I first  headed for the  river and then  kept
behind the steep bank. I know what I'm doing, you know."
    "What do you know?" asked Vitalka. "You don't know anything! You  have
no idea what a fantastic fellow you are!"
    He slapped  Breezy on  the back  and laughing  loudly, pushed him onto
the carpet. And then  I burst out laughing,  too, and collapsed in  a heap
on top of them. And we  rolled about, shrieking with joy until  we tumbled
off  the  carpet  into  the  weeds.  Then  we  calmed down and fell silent
because we suddenly remembered about Vetka cutting her foot.
    "Has she cut it badly?" Vitalka asked.
    "Not very," Breezy replied.  "She just can't run very fast...   What's
that? Up there. Can you hear?"
    It was the horns and sirens  of police cars blaring louder and  louder
as they raced towards the tower.


                            Chapter Seventeen

    We never did find  out what exactly happened  to Edik and Fedya.   All
sorts of fantastic rumours were  spread around the town, and  someone even
said that a band of thieves had set up their den in the belfry and  stored
huge quantities  of gold  and weapons  there. According  to many versions,
there had been a shoot-out between the crooks and the policemen. Some  old
women whispered that the  large bell struck all  by itself to make  people
remember their sins and  catch the thieves in  the belfry while they  were
at it.
    Vitalka, Vetka, Breezy and I listened to these stories and laughed  up
our sleeves. True, we sometimes  felt rather scared about someone  finding
out about the carpet, but nobody ever did.
    It was a  good thing that  Auntie Valya and  Mum disliked rumours  and
gossip, or else they would have  quickly quessed that we simply had  to be
involved in the belfry incident.
    And we  even felt  rather sorry  for Edik  and Fedya  when we imagined
them telling the  police about the  two boys who  had climbed right  up to
the  bells  and  then  suddenly  vanished  into  thin air. And, of course,
nobody believed  them! It's  terrible when  you're telling  the truth  and
nobody believes you.
    A  few  days  later  the  rumours  began  to  die  down,  and the town
gradually  forgot  about  the  mysterious  episode,  but the clock went on
working...
    After our  adventure on  the belfry  we did  not fly  for a  long time
because of the rains. First came warm showers, which caused steam to  rise
from the cobblestones and made  splashes like glass crowns as  they danced
on the  puddles. Then  the rain  began pouring  steadily down, the puddles
grew darker, and  little bubbles began  floating to the  surface like tiny
electric light bulbs. This meant we were in for a long spell of rain.
    We were never bored, though, because we used to set out our  cardboard
armies  and  organise  battles  which,  even  through the carpet, made the
trimmings on Auntie Valya's chandelier jingle wildly.
    Breezy and Vetka  used to run  in, wet and  cheerful, and join  in our
battles.
    Then Breezy  brought "The  Three Musketeers"  over. It  was a new copy
and its  covers decorated  with dark  crossed swords  creaked slightly and
smelt of  glue and  calico. And  such wonderful  adventures were inside it
that we  could not  put it  down for  hours on  end. We  used to  sit in a
circle on the carpet like nomads round a camp-fire and take turns  reading
it aloud, and then everything else  in the world ceased to exist.  One day
after such a reading session I tried to get up too quickly and crashed  to
the floor because my legs had gone to sleep without me realising it.
    In the evenings  Vitalka worked on  his pictures from  the musketeers'
life, depicting dark  houses with little  yellow windows, a  large moon, a
hunch-backed bridge  and riders  in hats  and feathers,  streaming in  the
wind.   Vitalka's horses  were not  very good  and looked  more like large
dogs but everything else he drew beautifully.
    And I planed  some thin musketeer  swords and made  guards out of  tin
cans.
    All this time  the magic carpet  dozed on the  floor between our  beds
just like any ordinary carpet.
    Towards the  middle of  August the  rains stopped  and it became sunny
and windy again but not as  warm as before. Small dark clouds  with fluffy
golden edges came scudding from the north, and although beautiful, such  a
cold sky was not tempting to fly in.
    It  was  only  at  the  very  end  of  the  month that summer returned
bringing serene warm days, fluffy  seeds and cobwebs floating through  the
air  and  the  heady  perfumes  of  overripe  grass.  The  school term was
approaching fast.
    On the  thirty-first of  August we  were summoned  to a school meeting
and  lined  up  in  classes  in  the  yard.   Then  our head-teacher, Vera
Severyanovna, made a speech from the porch, and told us that we must  work
particularly well that coming year. She said it at the beginning of  every
school year.  Nobody  could explain why she  called every new school  year
special and  why we  were supposed  to have  done worse  last year than we
would in  the next.   However, nobody  ever asked  Vera Severyanovna  that
because they did not dare to.
    You could not say  she was very sharp-tempered,  it was just that  she
always seemed dissatisfied. Large  and heavily-built with very  light hair
namely (but not grey) and a  fluffy scarf on her shoulders, she  paced the
corridors like a  large snowman, catching  culprits. In her  opinion, if a
person had not done anything naughty yet, he was bound to sooner or  later
and the same applied if he had  not yet received a bad mark. She  made the
culprits stand by a wall all through break and took the "worst  offenders"
off  to  her  office  where  she  scolded  them  in  a monotonous tone and
summoned their parents.
    To make up for  it, we were very  lucky with our teachers.  My teacher
in the fourth form would again  be Maria Vasilievna, who had us  in charge
from the very  first form, and  I thought she  was the kindest  teacher in
the  whole  wide  world.   But  Vitalka,  in  the  fifth  form, would have
different teachers now, the most  important of them the home  teacher, who
was young  and jolly  like a  summer-camp leader,  and taught  history and
drawing. Vitalka had  fallen in love  with her on  the very first  morning
and  this  was  what  caused  all  the  trouble.   But more of that later.
Suffice it to say that the first days of September were happy ones.
    Our lessons ended early, we were  not given much homework, and it  was
still summer. True, the light evenings  were over and it was already  dark
by nine, but  the dusk was  warm and pleasant,  and a full  moon rose over
the roof tops.
    We would fly in currents of  air which looked green in the  moonlight,
and the flying seeds would tickle our faces like fluffy insects.
    Mum now knew about the flying  carpet. I don't know how she  found out
about our adventures but one day she asked, "What is it you fly on?"
    I had to own up and show her the carpet, and she sighed and shook  her
head. I tried to reassure her by  saying that it was not a bit  dangerous,
but she said, "It's not that  that's worrying me, it's that you've  become
so... secretive. Couldn't you tell me? You didn't want to, did you?"
    "Well... I thought Auntie Valya had told you," I replied evasively.
    "Auntie Valya..." said Mum, smiling  ironically. "What a shame I  have
to find out all about my own son from other people."
    "I won't do it again, Mum," I said sincerely.
    "All right... Only don't break your necks, you high fliers."
    Uncle Seva came  up and remarked  that a lot  of people flew  in their
childhood but none of them ever broke  his neck, so there was no need  for
mother to worry...
    From then on we did not go to too much trouble to hide our carpet  for
a lot of  people already knew  about it or,  at least, a  lot of boys did.
Even boys  we did  not know  used to  come up,  glance round  and ask in a
whisper if they could have a ride.  And simply as a formality, we used  to
warn them that it was a secret and they would promise never to say a  word
about it and, indeed, nobody ever did.
    Sometimes  in  the  evenings  we   organised  rides  down  the   steep
riverbank.
    About seven people  would pile onto  it and sweep  down the bank.  The
carpet  would  swish  downhill,  brushing  the  tops  of  the  bushes, the
currents of air  sparkling in the  moonlight. Our friends  would squeal in
fright and delight as the river  studded with green spots of light  rushed
towards us...
    Then we would skim over the  water, turn round and land on  the narrow
sandy bank.
    The carpet could not carry so  many passengers upwards so they had  to
scramble up the  overgrown paths to  the top again  but nobody minded.  It
was rather like downhill tobogganning  except that, unlike in winter,  the
evenings were caressingly  warm, and abounding  in green verdure,  moonlit
clouds and our friends' merry laughter.

    But a few  days later something  dreadful happened: Vitalka  broke his
leg. It happened in a quite  ridiculous manner and had nothing to  do with
the carpet: his foot slipped down a wide crack in a wooden pavement.
    He had to keep his leg in plaster for three weeks and although it  did
not prevent him from  flying, it meant he  could not go to  school. He was
fairly cheerful about it for two days until he realised he would miss  his
drawing class on  Saturday and then  he became really  miserable. You see,
he remembered he had promised to show his pictures to his teacher.
    He grumbled  and whined  so much  that I  lost my  temper and  yelled,
"You're just like a little baby! You can wait, can't you?"
    "No, I can't! I really miss her!" Vitalka snapped back.
    Out  of  respect  for  his  feelings,  I  went  to  see  my ninth-form
neighbour  Klim,  a  cyclist  who  practically  lived  on his bicycle, and
explained that Vetka's bicycle was  being mended after yet another  flying
test but that  Vitalka had to  be taken to  school and brought  back after
lessons were  over. Klim  turned me  down by  saying his  bicycle had weak
tyres and would  not take an  overload. I then  reminded him that  he gave
rides to  his class-mate  Galya and  she was  certainly no  featherweight.
Without batting an eyelid, Klim then explained that he carried her on  the
wings of love  and not on  his bike. He  talked down to  me as if  I was a
small  child  and  I  lost  my  temper  and  remarked  that no wings could
possibly support someone Galya's  size.  This put  a slight strain on  our
relationship and I had to beat a hasty retreat to Vitalka's.
    After a great deal of thought, we decided to risk it.
    Early in  the morning  I took  Vitalka off  to school  and dropped him
right  outside  the  first-floor  window  of  his  class-room,  and   then
collected him after school and raced  home with him. Nobody spotted us  in
the  morning,  but  in  the  afternoon  we  flew  off,  accompanied by the
delighted whoops and envious whistles of many onlookers.
    And at the  first lesson on  Monday Maria Vasilievna  said, "Oleg, all
sorts of  stories have  been circulating  about you  for a  long time. Are
they true? Do you really fly about on something? And if so, how?"
    "It's just an  ordinary flying carpet,"  I said. "Nothing  special. At
first Gorodetsky and I marvelled at it, too, but then we got used to it."
    "Well I never!" said Maria Vasilievna.
    She was surprised but not too  much. Over the past three years  we had
given her so many different surprises that nothing could really shake  her
any more.
    "Will you show me your flying carpet?" she asked.
    "Why of course! We can even give you a little ride on it."
    The class sprang to life.
    "Quiet now,  children," said  Maria Vasilievna  because discipline had
to be maintained wonders or no wonders.

    After this conversation I began think that we had got off easily,  but
I was wrong.
    It was  late afternoon  and I  was waiting  in my  yard for Breezy and
Vetka to turn up so  that we could all go  over to Vitalka's. And while  I
was waiting I was slashing  the nettles and pretending they  were Cardinal
Richelieu's guards.   It was an  honest match:   I had a  new sword and my
"opponents" had  poisonous stings  and prickly  leaves. My  arms and  legs
were covered with  painful red blotches  and my blade  was green from  the
enemies' "blood".
    I fenced my  way through a  dense formation of  men to the  Cardinal's
captain - the highest bush with a venerable grey top.
    "Hey, soldier boy! Come over here!" someone called.
    Klim and Galya were standing by the gate.
    "What do you want?"
    "We don't want anything," said Klim spitefully. "But the  head-teacher
certainly does.  She's ordered  me to  deliver you  to her  dead or  alive
without delay."
    I could tell he was not lying.
    These summons gave me a shock  although I did not show it.  Jabbing my
sword in the ground,  I strode boldly towards  the gate and even  remarked
in passing that lessons were over and the head-teacher could have had  the
decency not to bother a person when he was otherwise occupied.
    Galya gave me a sympathetic look,  but Klim said with a smirk,  "Never
mind, your harvesting can wait."
    He sat Galya on the frame, told me to get on his luggage-carrier,  and
we set off for school.
    And the nearer we got, the more nervous I became.
    "Stop fidgeting," said Klim. "She's not going to eat you, is she?"
    But that was beside the point:  I knew no good could await  me either,
but could not very well run away, could I?
    Klim  and  Galya  dropped  me  by  the  school entrance and Klim said,
"Well, off you go. I presume you know where her office is."
    Yes I did! I had been there before but never of my own free will.
    I started feeling ill at ease on the staircase, and it was not  simply
that I expected trouble, but that I always came to school decked out  from
head to toe in my grey  cloth uniform, whereas now I had  been "snatched",
so  to  speak,  straight  off  the  street  and  transferred here from the
holidays in a time-machine. Tousled, and scratched, with blots on my  skin
where my suntan was  peeling off, I looked  quite out of keeping  with the
school and its austere walls, posters and paintings of famous writers  and
a large  sheet of  school rules  in a  frame just  like a  picture.  I now
yearned  for  my  hateful  rough  school  shirt  and  prickly ankle-length
trousers  as  for  reliable  armour  against  Vera Severyanovna's piercing
eyes, her wrath and, in general, against all kinds of mishaps.
    Unfortunately, the  only piece  of uniform  I now  had on  was my dark
shiny brass-buckled belt with a wooden dagger frivolously sticking out  of
it. A dagger like that wasn't going to get me out of trouble. I felt  just
as if  I had  been stood  in an  unheated corridor  in winter  in my light
summer clothes.
    With butterflies in my  stomach I knocked on  the study door and  Vera
Severyanovna called out, "Come  in!" and, well, so  I went in -  what else
could I do!
    "Good afternoon," I muttered.
    Vera Severyanovna was sitting at  her huge desk and her  reflection in
the desk  glass looked  like an  iceberg in  a square  patch of  water.  A
bearded man in  spectacles was sitting  by her desk  and looking at  me in
normal, kind sort of way while Vera Severyanovna stared at me accusingly.
    "Come over here," she ordered.
    I walked  into the  middle of  the room  but for  some reason or other
could venture no further.
    "Well, here he is," Vera Severyanovna said to the man and then  turned
to look at me again  as if she had really  meant, "Just look what a  sight
he is!"
    I felt completely  defenceless, and I  moved my dagger's  handle round
to the front to cover  a hole in my tee shirt  and folded my arms to  hide
my grubby hands but there was nowhere to hide my grass-stained elbows.   I
also wished I could pull up  my dusty stung legs like aircraft  wheels but
as this  was not  possible either,  I simply  shifted restlessly  from one
plimsoll to the other.
    "Stand up straight. Stop prancing about and put your arms down,"  Vera
Severyanovna ordered.
    Sighing, I did as I was told.
    "Now listen here, Lapnikov," she said. "We'll discuss your conduct  on
another occasion, but right  now I should like  you to tell me  how you do
it and about all these flights of yours."
    I shrugged my shoulders and wondered what I could tell her.
    "We just fly..."
    Whereupon  she  angrily  snapped,  "Stop  twitching your shoulders and
reply  when  you're  asked  a  question.  This  gentleman  has  come  here
specially from an  institute to find  out all about  your tricks. And  you
can rest assured, he will. Vasily Matveyevich is a Doctor of Physics."
    "Oh is he,  is he?" I  thought. "Now he's  going to start  quizzing me
about how we overcome the force of gravity and that sort of thing..."
    "Are you going to keep silent for long?" she asked sternly.
    The  scientist  looked  at  me  and  then  at  her  and suddenly said,
"Perhaps we could have a confidential talk?"
    The head-teacher  looked offended.   I could  tell so  by the  way she
blushed and began tugging at the shawl on her shoulders. However, she  did
not snap at her visitor because he  was not a pupil, you see. In  fact she
even smiled  as she  said, "You  want to  have a  man-to-man talk, do you?
Very well then..."
    And out she went.
    "Come  over  here,  lad,"  Vasily  Matveyevich  said  quietly,  and  I
suddenly noticed he looked very like  Uncle Seva. He stood me between  his
knees, touched my dagger handle  with his fingertips, spotted the  hole in
my tee shirt, grinned ever so faintly and looked up.
    "Now start from the  very beginning and tell  me how it all  happened.
And don't be afraid of anything."
    So I told him about how we found the carpet and how we went flying  on
it. However, I did not tell him  the part about the belfry because it  was
of no importance to science.
    He sat and listened and when  I finished, said, "So you don't  give it
any orders? You  don't say anything  to it? You  just have to  will it and
off you fly?"
    I nodded  and he  smiled for  some reason  and then  said in a strange
voice,
    "And is the carpet new?"
    "No, it looks very old... but it's still in good shape."
    He  suddenly  burst  out  laughing,  squeezed  my  elbows  tightly and
rumpled my hair, but I was in no laughing mood.
    "Are you going to take the carpet away now?" I whispered and  realised
I might burst into tears at any moment.
    Still laughing, he shook his head.
    "No, don't worry!"
    I believed him and stopped worrying.
    In came Vera Severyanovna.
    "Well, gentlemen? May I come in now?"
    The physicist politely said she  could because we had already  cleared
everything up.
    "Have you now!" she exclaimed in surprise. "So soon?"
    "Yes. You see, physics does not deal with problems of this kind."
    "Really? That's odd... Which science does, then?"
    The physicist smiled and shrugged.
    "No science does,  I'm afraid. Well,  perhaps, poetry, but  it's not a
science in my  opinion. Science does  not attempt to  explain phenomena of
this nature, and there is nothing really to explain here. A lot of  people
fly when they're children - on  magic carpets or without any apparatus  at
all..."
    "And... what's  going to  happen now?"  Vera Severyanovna  asked in  a
nervous tone, and gave me such a look that I stepped back into the  middle
of the room again.
    The physicist followed me with his eyes.
    "Nothing. Unfortunately, childhood passes quickly."
    "Yes but... before it does, can you imagine the things they'll get  up
to? Besides,  I don't  understand the  most important  thing here, namely,
how they do it?"
    "Well... Evidently, by using their imagination."
    "What  does  that   mean?"  Vera  Severyanovna   asked  in   vexation.
"Everyone's got imagination but they're  not leaping up into the  sky, are
they now? I'm absolutely sure that  no matter how much imagination I  had,
I still wouldn't be able to fly."
    "Yes, I can easily believe," said the physicist politely.
    Vera Severyanovna stared for  a long time at  him and then at  me, and
then through the window,  tapped her fingers on  her desk and then  looked
at me again in the same accusing way as always and said, "You may go  now,
Lapnikov. Come back with your mother tomorrow."
    Well, blow me down!
    "But what have I done?" I asked by dint of habit.
    "No questions,  please!" she  rapped irritably,  "I told  you to bring
your mother and that will do. We'll go into exactly what you've done  with
her."
    And then I got really angry but did so in a quiet way, inside me,  and
realised I was no longer afraid of  her because she had no right to  shout
at me for no reason. Had I  broken some glass, or written graffiti on  the
walls, or smoked in the breaks, or  got lots of low marks? No, nothing  of
the kind! All  right, I had  flown with Vitalka  on a magic  carpet but so
what! It was our carpet, not hers.
    I was sick to death of this  whole business and wanted to get it  over
as quickly  as possible,  so I  stared unflinchingly  at her, scratched my
right ankle with  my left plimsoll  and said nonchalantly,  "Mother's busy
tomorrow. If you like, I'll bring her today."
    The physicist smiled at me.
    "Bring her today then!" Vera Severyanovna snapped back.
    "Is now all right?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, that's fine then," I  said, straightened the dagger in  my belt
and walked out.
    Back at home I told Mum  that the head-teacher wanted to see  her, but
that I had  not done anything  wrong and it  was all to  do with the magic
carpet.
    "I knew as much,"  she said and left  off her work in  the kitchen and
went into  her room.  Five minutes  later she  reappeared in the beautiful
dress she wore out to friends'  or the theatre. She glanced quickly  at me
and said, "Well, at least change your shirt. You look like a scarecrow."
    But I  quickly explained  that I  had already  been to  school looking
"like a scarecrow"  and that it  had nothing to  do with my  clothes. They
wanted to ban our flying. So mother simply waved her hand and off we set.
    We walked  along side  by side:  beautiful, determined-looking  mother
and her  good-for-nothing son  in a  faded tee shirt,  crumpled shorts and
with a wooden dagger in his belt.
    I  could  see  that  Mum  was  slightly  annoyed  but could not decide
whether I or someone else was the cause.
    When  we  appeared  in  the  head-teacher's  office, the scientist had
already left.
    "Do be seated," Vera Severyanovna said to Mum.
    Mum sat  down while  I remained  standing by  the door.  However, I no
longer felt defenceless - because Mum  was there and because of things  in
general... I stood and waited and Mum sat and waited, too.
    "I  want  to  have  a  word  with  you  about  your  son,"  began Vera
Severyanovna. "I must say he's giving me concern."
    "Really?" said mother  in a restrained  manner and looked  attentively
at me.
    "Yes. As far as I remember, he was one of the top pupils in his  class
last year but I'm afraid he won't be this year."
    "But the term's only just begun," remarked mother.
    "But it's  begun in  a bad  way for  him!" Vera Severyanovna retorted.
"Look at what he  and Gorodetsky have got  up to! Flying through  the air,
indeed!"
    "But, you know, children will..." Mum began carefully.
    "That's the  whole point  - they're  children! Let  them finish school
first and then start flying. We  can hardly control them on the  ground as
it is, but what if all children start racing through the air?"
    "All  children  won't,"  I  butted  in.  "Not  everyone's got a flying
carpet..."
    Vera Severyanovna  looked at  me as  if she  had only  just noticed my
existence and said, flatly, "Go out into the corridor, Lapnikov."
    What a mean trick to play! They were going to discuss my magic  carpet
with me out in the corridor! I looked at Mum in confusion.
    "Go on, Oleg," she said sternly.
    I strode out  in a huff  and stood by  the window. Through  the door I
could hear Mum's quiet voice and Vera Severyanovna's loud one but did  not
try  to  work  out  what  they  were  saying.  Eavesdropping  was below my
dignity!
    Then the  voices stopped  and Mum  came out  and quietly  said, "Let's
go."
    And so we  walked side by  side down the  corridor and the  stairs and
across the school yard in silence.
    Outside in the street  Mum put her hand  on my shoulder and  said in a
rather strange way, "Well, darling..."
    I looked up.
    "What?"
    She paused and then asked gravely, "Do you really have to fly?"
    "Of course, we  do," I said  hastily. "Well, Mum,  how can we  not fly
when we've a flying carpet..."
    "Well, keep on with it, then," said Mum.
    And so we did,  all that warm September  and the following summer  and
the one after that...
    Then we went flying  less often.  We  had grown older and  had various
other new interests.  In the eighth  form Vitalka started  falling in love
every month and had his head  in the clouds without flying on  any carpet.
And I  started writing  poetry and  was always  feeling down  in the dumps
because the local newspaper had just turned down yet another poem.
    The carpet  was packed  away in  the box-room  again and  Auntie Valya
started storing her broken furniture in the attic room.
    We  left  school  and,  before  we  knew  it, had completely grown up.
Things  did  not  quite  work  out  as  we  had  dreamed:   Vetka became a
children's doctor and not a ballerina.  Mind you, a very good one and  all
the children in her district in Leningrag are fond of her. Breezy did,  in
fact, end  up doing  what he  wanted to  - he  became a  navigator in  the
Arctic air  force. He  now has  a chubby  little three-year-old son called
Alyoshka who is not at all like the Breezy we knew.
    After  listening  to  my  heart,  the  doctors  on  the naval training
school's selection committee  advised me to  consider a profession  on dry
land. So  I started  writing books  for children  and I  must say I am now
very pleased about my profession.
    Vitalka  or,  rather,  Vitaly  Andreyevich  now  lives near Moscow and
teaches  art  at  a  school  supervising  lessons,  taking the children on
excursions and  teaching them  to draw  rainbows, sunsets,  moonlit lakes,
green groves, and blue rivers and to appreciate the world's beauty.
    However, that is by no means all  that he does. He recently sent me  a
copy  of  a  thick  art  magazine  containing insets of paintings by young
artists which  had been  awarded prizes  at a  national exhibition.  Among
them was Vitaly Gorodetsky's "Childhood Memories".
    Drifting over the  green earth, motley  roofs and clumps  of trees and
under the  bright morning  clouds is  a magic  carpet carrying  two little
boys; one is sitting  on the edge with  his tanned legs dangling  over the
side, one foot bare and the other  just about to lose its sandal. The  boy
is  laughing  with  his  head  thrown  back  and looking up at the clouds.
Blazing in  the sunlight  under the  clouds is  a rectangular  kite.   The
other little boy is lying on his stomach with his feet in the air,  gazing
down below  at a  little girl  standing by  a porch  made of  fresh yellow
planks. From high up  she seems very tiny  and in actual fact  is not very
big either.
    The girl is not  looking at the flying  carpet but at the  roof of the
house where  a boy  in a  green shirt,  which is  flapping in the wind, is
pulling on the string of the kite. It is the height of summer, so much  so
that the painting  seems to smell  of goosefoot, wormwood,  river sand and
sun-drenched wooden fences.
    Gazing at  the painting,  I felt  a mixture  of joy  and sorrow  - joy
because  the  painting  radiated  it,  and  sorrow  because I felt as if a
window looking out onto childhood - a  land of no return - had been  flung
open for an instant.
    And  I  also  felt  envious  of  Vitalka for describing the fairy-tale
world of our childhood so wonderfully  well in his painting! But what  had
I done? How had  I thanked our magic  carpet? I decided there  and then to
write a book about it and this  is the result. However, in order to  write
it,  I  first  had  to  go  back  and  visit  my  home  town  and remember
everything.
    But I was  afraid to. I  felt the town  would be different  from how I
remembered it. The  houses would be  low and old,  the streets narrow  and
the river small and murky.
    But I was  wrong.  The  town was just  the same as  before. The wooden
houses  and  their  large  glittering  windows  were  like tall fairy-tale
palaces and  their yards  were still  spacious and  green. And the washing
was flapping in the wind like  festive flags and little boys were  playing
rowdy  games.   There  were  less  wooden  pavements and more multi-storey
apartment blocks,  and new  white motor  ships were  tooting on the river,
but the off-shore breeze  still smelt of wet  sand, tarred boats and  damp
logs. The same long weeds grew along the fences in the lanes.
    My  family's  house  had  been  demolished  and a nine-storey building
erected in its place, but Auntie Valya's house was still standing and  she
herself was still living there, just as she had done all those years  ago.
She was  now completely  grey but  otherwise had  not changed  at all.  We
spent half  a day  chatting together  and reminiscing  over those  far-off
days when Vitalka and I lived in  her attic room. Several times I felt  an
urge to ask her where  the carpet was but did  not dare to because it  had
all begun to seem like a fairy-tale.
    Auntie  Valya  got  out  Vitalka's  childhood  drawings, our cardboard
soldiers and even  a cannon made  of cotton reels.  Even its elastic  band
was still in perfect  working order and the  cannon was ready to  be fired
at any moment.
    "What terrible battles  you used to  have!" she exclaimed.  "The whole
house used to shake. You certainly were awful scamps!"
    "We were impossible people," I said, laughing. "You ought to have  put
us out into  the yard and  not allowed us  back until we  learnt to behave
decently."
    "And the  things you  got up  to with  that gramophone!  You thought I
didn't know..."
    I sighed. The gramophone was still standing in the same place under  a
crocheted cover,  and so  was the  cuckoo clock.  The cuckoo  had lost its
voice but  still dutifully  flopped out  of its  window and  open its beak
every half-hour...
    Then I went for  a stroll in the  streets. A few houses  away I peeped
inside a large  yard and saw  some children playing  in the grass  by some
wooden outhouses. They  were staging circus  acts or wrestling  matches, I
could not quite tell which.
    Yes, they were in  fact more like a  contest of some kind.   They came
out in pairs into an empty space and wrestled. The wrestlers panted  hard,
fell, got up again, and threw each other, while the spectators sitting  on
the stacks of logs and in  the grass, clapped and whistled just  like fans
do the world  over. I went  up without being  noticed at first  but then a
boy with a  loud voice and  defiant-looking dark fringe  glanced round and
asked, "Who do you want?"
    Instead of making something  up, I said I  used to live near  hear and
was now walking about and recalling my childhood.
    "May I watch you playing?" I asked.
    The  boy  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  then said, "Well, why not! Go
ahead!"
    I stepped closer and  saw they were wrestling  on a carpet and  not on
the grass, and recognised it in a flash.
    No, I did not say anything to  start off with, I simply looked at  the
familiar patterns over which two  nine- or ten-year-olds were rolling  - a
round-headed, ginger-haired  boy with  twinkling eyes,  and a  puny little
fellow  with  huge  eyes  and  a  few  freckles  on  his  cheeks wearing a
sleeveless tee shirt.
    "I wonder if they know about  this carpet," I said to myself  and felt
slightly shivery with excitement.
    No, they  didn't. They  were rolling  about it  with their tanned arms
and legs intertwined,  thumping their feet  on it and  shoving their noses
into it without even guessing what a wonderful carpet they were on!
    And it was calmly lying there and waiting for someone to discover  its
secret. Or perhaps it had already given up hope?
    ... The ginger-haired boy  pinned his thin opponent's  shoulder-blades
against  the  carpet   and  jumped  up.    The  audience  clapped   rather
unenthusiastically, and a little girl  with a tousled plait said  angrily,
"But what did you expect! That wasn't a fair match!"
    "It's not my fault, is it?" said the ginger-haired boy, blinking.
    His opponent  silently stood  up and  walked away  and the girl stared
hard after him.
    "I say," I said. "... Where did you get this carpet?"
    The boy  with the  defiant-looking fringe  glanced suspiciously  at me
and asked, "Why?"
    "I'm just curious."
    "An  old  lady  gave  it  away,"  explained the ginger-haired boy. "To
him." He nodded towards the thin boy he had just beaten. "We used to  play
at circuses in his yard and she's  a neighbour of his and just gave  it to
him as  a present...  It's a  good carpet.  It looks  old but it's ever so
soft..."
    "I know," I said, realising I was taking a decisive step. "It used  to
belong to me and a friend of mine... It's a magic carpet."
    They laughed  quietly because  they had  taken what  I had  said as an
adult's unsuccessful attempt to win popularity among children.
    "You  don't  believe  me,"  I  said,  realising I could prove nothing.
"Well, never mind... But we used to fly on it, you know."
    "Well,  why  not  have  a  go  now?"  said  the  boy  with  the fringe
mockingly.
    "Well, why  not!" I  thought, but  I knew  at once  that I would never
dare to. I imagined myself - a large adult in an ironed suit - sitting  in
the middle of the  yard on an old  carpet with little boys  shrieking with
laughter all around.
    Smiling awkwardly, I said, "It won't work. I'm too grown-up now."
    "But how do you  fly on it?" the  girl with the untidy  plait suddenly
asked.
    "It's very  simple. You  just have  to imagine  you're flying, and off
you go..."
    "Hurrah!  I've  imagined  it!"  the  boy  with  the fringe shouted out
mockingly and collapsed on the carpet.
    "Me, too! Hurrah!  Yes, I have,  too," shouted the  others piling onto
the carpet and even the little girl with the plait dived on top.
    Only the thin boy in the blue tee shirt remained sitting aloofly on  a
log with his chin  tucked in his knees.  We caught each other's  eye for a
moment, but he immediately looked away.
    "Oh, get off! You're crushing my neck! Let go of my leg!" voices  rang
out from the heap.
    Then someone  quick-witted called  out, "There'll  be cartoons  on the
box any moment now! At four-twenty!"
    The heap fell  apart and the  ex-wrestles and fans  raced off home  to
watch  TV  without  even  glancing  at  me.  Only  the  little girl called
good-bye as she ran past.
    I sadly watched them run off  and then turned to the carpet  again and
saw that I was not alone.
    The boy in the blue tee shirt  was standing by the carpet, looking  so
pale and thin that his freckles seemed like little dark seeds.
    "Please..."  he  began  in  a  rather  guilty  but  at  the  same time
demanding tone,  "Please tell  me... were  you joking!  You were,  weren't
you?"
    I gulped nervously and said quietly, "No, I wasn't."
    "But things like that just don't happen," he said in a low but  almost
angry tone, and his eyes grew dark.
    "Yes, they do," I said, continuing to stare at him.
    We were silent for a while. A strange silence hung over the yard.
    "They don't usually...  but they still  do, you mean?"  he asked in  a
whisper.
    "Yes," I said.
    "And you've...  just got  to imagine  you're flying?"  he asked  in an
almost inaudible whisper.
    It was very hushed  all around, and you  could only just hear  ringing
rising from the  grass. Or perhaps  it was the  sunbeams or summer  itself
tinkling.
    With his eyes glued  to me, the boy  slowly knelt down on  the carpet,
sat down, turned away  from me, and for  some reason or other  stroked the
carpet. Then he stretched out his palm over it.
    The carpet rose slightly, hovered for a moment about half a metre  off
the ground and then gently slid over the tops of the grass.
    The boy  uttered a  low cry,  rolled off  onto the  ground, jumped up,
dashed over to me, hugged me  tightly.  I felt his heart  fluttering under
his tee shirt  like a  ball which  had been  thrown into  a corner and was
bouncing to and fro between the walls. He gave me a desperate look, and  a
mixture of fear and delight radiated from deep inside his dark eyes.
    "Don't  be  scared,"  I  said.  "Believe  me,  there's  nothing  to be
frightened of."
    He smiled as if saying, "I understand, but I'm not used to it yet."
    "Look, it's waiting for you," I said.
    And, sure enough,  the carpet had  landed on the  grass again and  was
waiting there.
    The boy sighed and jerked away from me.
    "Go on, don't be scared."
    He  stood  still  for  a  while,  and  then  nodded,  tucked his loose
tee shirt  into  his  trousers,  and,  glancing  at  me, walked slowly but
surely towards the magic carpet.
    I watched him as he  went, feeling slightly envious because  all sorts
of wonderful adventures lay ahead of him. And I wished him luck!


                                 the end

