Kitabı oku: «My Big Family. A Day of Tots», sayfa 2
Chapter Three
Great-Grandma's Deception
«You need to have twenty pairs of socks of the same colour! And ten pairs of pants of the same colour!»
«Well, socks – it's understandable. That's so they do not get mixed up in the wash. But why pants?»
Grandma pondered.
«I don't know why! But once you're advised, then there must be logic!»
Household Scene
The next morning was Saturday. Costa and Rita were sitting on Grandma Masha and swinging their legs. Kate stood at the sink and looked at the mountain of dishes from the evening.
«I have a proposal!» she said. «Papa's forty-one years old. He'll wash forty-one plates. Peter's sixteen. He'll wash sixteen plates. Vicky's fourteen. She'll wash fourteen. Alena's ten – well, you understand…»
«And you?» Mama shouted from the room, the sewing machine chirping.
She liked this plan. She had already figured out that, though they had a lot of dishes, it was clearly not more than forty-one. Hence, Papa would be washing all the dishes.
«And I'll carry out general coordination and check if there is grease on the plates!» Kate said and, waving her hands, brushed something standing on the edge of the sink. «Oh! Dang!»
«What was that sound?» Mama was startled.
«I smashed the blue plate,» Kate explained.
«My favourite?»
«Yes.»
There was a poignant pause in the room.
«But was it clean or dirty?»
«Dirty.»
«Well, that's alright then!» Mama said.
Distressed by the loss of the favourite plate, the girls huddled around the sink and washed all the dishes in ten minutes. In the meantime, Mama and Grandma Masha compiled a list of foods that Papa should buy at the market. This list was so long that its tail passed to the second side of the sheet. Papa was not too enthusiastic about this.
«Write me a 'lost list' as the last item. Then I'll start quickly from the end,» he said and set off to start the minivan. The minivan started pretty well, but the battery was poor. Therefore it was necessary that it must start on the first try.
While Papa was gone, Grandma Masha and Great-Grandma Zina conjured up breakfast. Grandma Masha complained that there was nothing to prepare, but all the same, the whole table was soon covered with plates. The children were running around impatiently, trying to steal something.
«Rita, did you wash your hands? Well, at least sometime in your life?» Grandma asked, looking closely at Rita's hand, blue from a marker, clutching a piece of halva. The kid's hands were quickly hidden behind her back. This did not go unnoticed. «With soap, sponge, and brush! March!»
Rita, whining plaintively, went to wash her hands, closed the bathroom door behind herself, and almost instantly everyone heard a racket and a splash.
Grandma was startled. «What was that?»
«Oh, nothing special! I think she climbed onto a chair to get the soap from the windowsill and flopped into the tub. Blankets are soaking there, right?» Kate guessed instantly, and a second later Rita appeared howling from the bathroom, water flowing like streams from her, and everyone was convinced that Kate, as always, was right.
«I will ne-e-e-ver wash a-a-g-gain!» Rita wailed while she was undressed and dried.
«And why is the soap on the windowsill?» Great-Grandma asked thoughtfully.
«Because Alex tried to set it on fire,» Kate explained.
«And it burns?»
«No! But it stinks!» Alex cheerfully explained. «Just need to set it on fire with a tennis ball! Let me show you!» Alex rushed to demonstrate, but he was forced into his seat and limited his research impulse with a piece of cheese.
Meanwhile, Rita was changed into dry clothes, her hair braided, and she became like the grandmas' idea of a decent person.
«Hot kasha! Anyone? And no more eating at the computer!» Grandma said, putting the pot on the table.
«Why is breakfast called breakfast? Because it's eaten the next day?»2 Alena asked, digging a pit in the kasha to drip butter into.
Papa, having already returned by that time, thought about it. «Good question! Well, maybe breakfast is what people leave for the next day? Let's assume, part of the food was stored in the evening?» he suggested.
«Never leave anything for the morning! Germs multiply in food! That's all! Period!» Grandma Masha cut him off.
«That's understandable,» Papa agreed. «But ancient people didn't know this. Then again, they had glaciers, and that's an excellent natural fridge.»
After breakfast Alex accidentally found an apricot stone under the bench, and he wanted to break it with a hammer and eat the kernel. In order that Grandma Masha would not stop him, he ran off with the stone and the hammer to the back room. He set the stone on firm ground, swung the hammer and… heard a voice, «One guy came from the army! He began to crack apricot stones and died. His bowel got clogged. That's all.»
Alex jerked up his head and saw Great-Grandma Zina, who lay down to rest, up on her elbows watching him from the sofa. Recapturing his right to clog his bowel, Alex ran to the kitchen and got there just at the moment of gathering. Grandma was dressing Rita and attentively watching Costa putting on his boots.
«Children go for a walk! They must have fresh air! Period!» Grandma said sternly.
«Children» were understood to be absolutely everyone, even Peter, who was already showing peach fuzz. The stubbly Peter and the other smooth-faced youngsters did not dare to protest and went for a walk. Only Papa and Mama escaped, remaining at home, but the others could not escape. It was a very proper walk under the leadership of the orderly Grandma. Everyone walked to the playground holding hands, frightened by any car appearing in the distance.
«Car!» Grandma Masha screamed in a voice that usually screams «Air raid!» and all the children rushed to the lawns, while Grandma and Great-Grandma covered them with their chests. The driver was also usually frightened, stopped, and a confusing situation emerged: Grandma suspected the driver would move right there and the driver waved his hands and pressed the horn, begging Grandma to cross the road anyway, because he could not stand around for half an hour!
The children only looked wistfully askance in the direction of the stores, not allowing themselves to whine «Buy-y-y-y!» which Rita and Costa usually started. No one whined today because they knew that Grandma would not buy anything on the street. They must eat at home. At the table. Hands washed. That is all. Period.
Great-Grandma Zina, whom Grandma also took with her to get some air, was very slow. She stopped after every few metres, leaning on a fence or a tree for support. «I'll only rest for a minute!» she said. «Earlier I was like running! Oh, I was!» And she smiled, as if she did not believe that she was telling the truth.
Finally, everyone reached the playground.
«We're building up a reserve of health!» Grandma gave the order and suddenly, remembering something, stared sternly at Great-Grandma: «Mama, did you take medicine this morning?»
«Yes!» Great-Grandma hastily said.
«Not true! Why was the sink pink? Did you throw the pill into it?»
Great-Grandma sighed. «It's so bitter! Can I at least take it with chocolate?»
«What chocolate! You can't have sugar! Only fat-free yogurt!» Grandma Masha answered curtly.
Kate and Vicky exchanged glances. They realized that Grandma and Great-Grandma had changed roles long ago. Grandma had become a mother to her own mama, and Great-Grandma her daughter.
«Let's breathe! Don't get distracted! Nothing for us to hear!» Grandma ordered.
And all the children began to walk and breathe. True, minus Peter, who took off somewhere on another path after all. Alex whined, not having the opportunity to climb or fall anywhere, but Costa and Rita walked with pleasure. Except that they regretted that while one was swinging on the swing, the other must stand ten steps from the swing, observing safety precautions.
A suitable example was even found for offenders. «One paratrooper returned from the army. He took something and went to the playground. A swing hit him on the back of his head and put him down on the spot!» Great-Grandma said, and all the children fearfully fell silent, imagining to themselves this poor paratrooper and wondering why he had stood under the swing.
Great-Grandma Zina was sitting on a painted tire sunk into the ground and was holding Rita in her lap. Rita was very fond of Great-Grandma. She had already said «I love you!» to her about ten times, but had yet to say it to Grandma, and Grandma was secretly jealous.
At noon, Grandma Masha's alarm went off. It beeped once, so very distinctly without violating established traditions. «Now lunch and admiral's hour!» Grandma said sternly and the children went home.
After lunch, Grandma doggedly packed all the children, except the three older ones, to bed.
«We close our eyes! One hour of nap during the day is five hours of sleep at night!» she said.
«So we don't have to sleep at night?» Alena asked, suffering because she, a ten-year-old, was ranked among the little ones and trapped in bed.
«Need to sleep at night, too! That's all! We rest!» Grandma said and went to put Rita down in the small room.
Rita was heard throwing a tantrum, jumping on the bed, and repeating that she would not sleep. Then everything suddenly quieted down. Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. There was not a single sound from the room. Surprised that Grandma did not come out, Alena sneaked up to the door and opened it slightly, leaving a crack. When she returned, her eyes were round.
«She's sleeping!» she whispered.
«Who? Rita?»
«Grandma! She announced the admiral's hour and fell asleep herself! Ha-ha-ha!»
«And Rita?»
«And Rita's also sleeping! Let's go!»
Alex and Costa also leaped out of bed, and all the children rushed downstairs. Downstairs, they saw Great-Grandma Zina, who was reading an old magazine through a magnifier, at times starting to doze off. Great-Grandma read a lot, and indiscriminately, everything that fell into her hands. She could attentively read the flyers used to wrap purchases from the market, five minutes later it was Preparation of History for EGE,3 forgotten by Peter on the bench, and then suddenly Remarque4 or Chekhov5 appeared in her hands. Soon enough they also disappeared somewhere, but a newspaper was discovered, and Great-Grandma was again reading it.
When the children appeared downstairs, Great-Grandma raised her head and looked at them with alarm. For the first second she thought that perhaps it was Grandma Masha. Realizing that this was not Grandma, Great-Grandma smiled with relief and stopped hiding the fruit pastille, which she, breaking into pieces, was stuffing in her mouth.
Alena, Alex, and Costa surrounded Great-Grandma and began to talk with her. Very soon Peter, Vicky, and Kate joined them.
«Great-Grandma, Great-Grandma! Let's buy ice cream while Grandma is sleeping!» suggested Alena.
«Is she really sleeping?» Great-Grandma did not believe her.
«You bet! We saw it ourselves!»
Great-Grandma Zina pondered. She loved ice cream. But still she was in doubt. «One guy came from the army, ate a lot of ice cream…» she began in a squeaky voice.
«…he came down with acute tonsillitis and died?» Peter guessed.
«How do you know? I already told you that?» Great-grandma was surprised.
«No,» said Peter. «It happened in our school. It's a well-known case in science.»
Kate kicked Peter. «Stop! So, are we going for ice cream? Huh, Gram?»
Great-Grandma put aside the magnifier and leaned her hands on the table. «Let's!» she said, chewing her lips. «Give me my cane and my purse!»
Great-Grandma Zina's handbag was old, of imitation leather, with a thick plastic handle and a metal clasp that snapped like a pistol with pistons.
«Maybe you can give us money and we'll run and get it?» Peter suggested, afraid that while they walked, Grandma Masha would have time to wake up.
«Certainly not! I want it myself! I'll even look at many things. What kind of store is there? A candy store?»
Great-Grandma got dressed pretty quickly. All the children also got dressed quickly, because they understood that the matter was secret and important. Then they all went out onto the street and, grasping Great-Grandma's elbows, began to drag her to the candy store.
«Oh, not so fast! Oh, not so fast! Let me stand for a minute!» Great-Grandma wailed.
The older children stood patiently, letting her rest, but the younger ones could not stand and were bouncing around.
«Do you have money? You didn't forget?» Costa suddenly asked with concern.
Great-Grandma looked anxiously into her purse. «A bit,» she said. «Oh, how nice that you took me! I haven't been in a store for some five years!»
«Doesn't Grandma buy you sweets?»
«Rarely. The neighbours bring a little. But she says I'm not allowed, I have blood sugar.»
«So you're not allowed someone else's sugar, because you have your own? What luck!» Alex exclaimed.
«I can have everything,» Great-Grandma objected philosophically, pursing her lips. «Though, maybe, also not. But a little, I probably can.»
Finally, they reached the bakery, where there was a large candy department. Grandma went up the three steps and leaned against the wall. «Ugh! Exactly like being dragged to the tenth floor!» she complained and, after catching her breath, began to look with interest at the shelves. «Oh! How many new things have appeared! Now, five years ago I didn't see these round candies here with fruit jelly in the middle! And these very long new ones! There were lemon wedges! And drops! And these chocolates here were issued in wrappings!»
«Is your grandma from an uninhabited island?» the salesgirl asked Peter in a whisper.
«No, from Moscow,» said Alex.
«Ahh!» the salesgirl said slowly in amazement.
Great-Grandma was already standing at the shelves and gleefully going through bags of cookies and all sorts of sweets. «Do you have chocolate? With jam? And shortbread? But not very sweet?» she asked worriedly.
«No such thing,» said the salesgirl.
«Well, then give us three hundred grams in total! In fact, all that you have!» Great-Grandma said.
«And chocolate!» Peter whispered.
«And chocolate!» Great-Grandma repeated.
Costa asked again if she had enough money.
«There's enough,» Great-Grandma said bravely. «And if we're off by a lot, we'll set aside the extra. Get what you want!» Alena, Alex, and Costa were standing next to Great-Grandma and shouting, each pointing at his favourite. Everyone was pulling her by the hand in his direction.
Suddenly, a phone rang in Great-Grandma's bag. She found it and punched a big button blindly.
«Hello, Masha! Yes, the children are with me! What are we doing? Taking a walk! I'll call you back soon!» Great-Grandma said into the phone and, looking imploringly at her great-grandchildren, put the phone in her bag. «I didn't lie. Just kept quiet about something!» she said guiltily.
«Who was that?» Costa asked.
«Her daughter, our grandma!» Kate whispered.
They bought so much candy and ice-cream that they had two large packages. The children and Great-Grandma argued about where to hide everything so that they would not catch Grandma Masha's eye.
Soon they were already at home. While Vicky rang the bell, Peter hid behind a car with two bags in order to sneak in all the sweets unnoticed. The door opened and they went in. A towel was lying on the table. A huge apple pie was cooling on the towel.
Grandma Masha stood at the table and looked at them with a slight squint. «Returned, schemers? Oh, well! Sit down for tea!» she invited them.
Vicky looked at the steaming hot pie and felt uncomfortable. «Oh! And we discussed how to outwit you!» she said innocently.
Grandma Masha waved her hand. «All right! Everyone wash hands! Do you know how many germs are on a square centimetre of skin?» she said sternly, but everyone was already rushing to hug her because they suddenly felt that she was nice.
«Good when you have a grandma!» Vicky said at night, when the children were already in bed and Grandma had gone downstairs to take Great-Grandma Zina's blood pressure.
«Yeah, not bad. Only she does not last for long!» Peter said in a knowing voice. The wall in his room was thin, made of plasterboard, and one could easily talk right through it.
«Why?»
«Well, I already noticed this long ago. Grandma Masha's orderliness lasts for three weeks a year. Then she's exhausted and saves up energy the whole year for these three weeks. Well, like a race car. The more powerful the engine, the higher fuel consumption,» Peter explained.
Kate chuckled. «And our parents aren't orderly and that's precisely why they last the whole year?» She specified.
«Well, practically… Still, it's great to have an orderly grandma!»
Chapter Four
Five Kitties
The entire person to the last cell reveals himself in his reaction to the word «cannot.»
Mama
On Monday morning, the children were getting ready for school. Kate was already standing at the door with a backpack behind her shoulders and her arms crossed, waiting for her brothers and sisters. Costa and Rita, who, although not going to school yet, promptly roamed around, crowding together with everyone.
Costa looked with suspicion at the shorts that they were just about to put on him. Then he began to grimace slowly. Lately he had become very suspicious. «They're girls'! I won't wear them!» he whined.
«Easy, fighter! Not a girl in shorts! It's a disguised hero in shorts!» Kate said quickly.
Costa pondered and allowed them to put the shorts on him, the disguised hero hiding under them.
First-grader Alex circled around the kitchen and, pestering everyone, asked them to find his notebooks.
«Notebooks for lazy Alex! Where are you? Hello!» Kate summoned, arms still crossed on her chest. Alex apprehensively looked sideways at her and fell silent.
Alena hopped along the hallway and, hastily tossing books into her backpack, moaned, «Oh! We have work today! Give me a hundred roubles for modeling clay!»
«Your were given some yesterday!» Kate said.
«Oh! I spent it! First, forty on a chocolate bar, and then there wasn't much left and I decided to spend…»
Peter's head popped out of the bathroom. It turned out he heard everything perfectly. «Give me one and a half million for modeling clay! And three more for an eraser! But then it's not enough for the new iPhone!» he said in a squeaky voice.
They threw a towel at Peter and his head hid. In the bathroom, something laughed terribly, a chair dropped, and the water was turned on. Peter usually went to school a minute before the bell and took with him a maximum of one notebook, which he tucked under his belt.
The morning was overcast. Costa, confusing words, called such a morning «overpass.» The sky was clearly preparing for something spectacular, but what exactly was still unclear. Clouds were moving like small flocks, gradually gathering into one very large cloud.
«I also want to annoy like everyone else!» Kate grumbled, waving the bag with her indoor shoes. «Give me a T-shirt! Not that one! Pour me some tea! Not that tea!»
«Then you can't grumble at all and be always right!» said Vicky.
Kate pondered. «In fact, yes!» she acknowledged. «Okay, then I agree to stay the way I am.»
Kate returned from school at about two, right after Alex and Alena. She stood by the window. Outside the window, snow was falling in large flakes and settled on an evergreen shrub and equally on the green grass. Stool, Lad, and Tot sat in front of the bushes and, with their heads up, looked with bewilderment at the snowflakes on their noses. Stool whined in fright. Tot growled. Lad demonstrated philosophical calm.
«What went on in school!» said Kate. «Everyone ran from class!»
«And the teachers?»
«The teachers also ran. Everyone stood in the schoolyard and threw snow! Quite wild, as if they had never seen snow! And behind the fence there, incidentally, were the power guys!»
«What, did they break the windows with snowballs?» Mama was surprised, cutting out three-dimensional snowflakes for home decorations. She had already cut out about twenty snowflakes and each had its own shape. For the time being, it was all cut like ordinary paper, but then poof! – a momentary movement of the fingers and a snowflake opened in the air, becoming three-dimensional.
«No,» Kate acknowledged reluctantly. «But these power guys also dropped their work and built a snowman with a light bulb instead of a nose… They found a large light bulb somewhere, massive like a soccer ball! But by evening, all the same, everything melts!»
After standing a little longer at the window, Kate made her way to the closet to put away clean laundry. Not so long ago she discovered that the children's clothes got mixed up in the laundry and nothing could be found when needed. Therefore, it was much simpler not to sort the things according to their owners but label the drawers with a marker, and each would easily find their own there. Now on the drawers were large labels PANTS, SOCKS, SHIRTS, TIGHTS, SKIRTS.
This principle of sorting revealed more and more advantages each day, but at first this idea had many opponents. Alex especially resented strongly. «What, I'll be wearing girl tights?»
«You do have eyes, where yours are and where the girls' are,» Kate retorted.
«What, I'm supposed to think?»
«Really! Think! Your head won't fall off! Come on, show me, what tights do you have on now?»
But Alex did not show any tights and hastily fled, because he had on Alena's tights for the reason that he was too lazy to look for his own in the pile of clothing. Kate hurriedly scattered the dried clothes according to pants, shirts, skirts and, waving away Costa, who was hindering her with a T-shirt, returned to Mama.
Suddenly, the intercom started to screech. Once, twice, then a third time.
«Who was so mad there?» Kate asked with displeasure.
It turned out that it was Vicky, who came in breathless and red. «Kittens were dropped off there at the school! Five of them! In a box!» she informed them.
Papa Gavrilov tore himself away from the computer, where he was trying to unravel an entangled plot. «So, fine!» he showed appreciation. «A school is the most suitable place. Children finish classes, the grandmas come for them. If you try very hard, a grandma can be persuaded to take a kitten.»
Vicky was mysteriously silent, averting her eyes. Papa looked at her. «Just don't say that…» he began slowly.
Kate, rushing from the spot, ran to the gate in her slippers and returned with a box. «Here they are! All five are here!» she shouted.
«Take them back!» Papa demanded.
«No, no! They'll freeze!» Vicky and Kate shook their heads.
«They won't. They are nearly a month old!»
«If you were about a month old and they threw you into a box out in the snow?» Kate asked with such reproach that Papa Gavrilov understood: he was not getting away from the kittens.
«Fine!» he conceded. «Then feed them, and later go, walk along the street, and repeat pitifully, 'Please take a kitten!'»
«I'll make an online ad!» Kate proposed.
Papa shook his head. «No way! The kittens don't get adopted online. It's a lost cause. There they'll only repost, ooh and ah. But no one will take them.»
«How do they get adopted?» Kate asked.
«Kittens are adopted exclusively by way of a chance nudge!» Papa stated. «A person sees a kitten and he's caught before his logical thinking kicks in. That's all. There are no other ways.»
«I won't grovel!» Kate claimed.
«And I'm afraid of meeting any of my acquaintances!» Vicky added.
«Well then, you also have no love for the kittens. Also no desire to help them. Take them away in the box to the school and put them where you found them,» Papa shrugged.
«What if you take compassionate photos and put them on social media, huh?» Vicky asked hopelessly.
«Yeah! You hold a kitten by the scruff of the neck over a pot of boiling soup with the caption: You have twenty-four hours to save this wretch!» advised Peter, having come down the stairs from his room. Peter had The Brothers Karamazov 6 under his arm. He read a hundred pages of this book a day; in doing so, having read exactly a hundred pages, even if there were, say, ten lines to the end of the chapter, he would stop. Peter went to the fridge on his way. He looked into it and snorted loudly.
«Is the soul wandering about in pots?» Vicky asked.
«What's to wander here? No food! The grannies are strolling by the sea!» Peter said.
«There's plenty of food!» Kate contested. «There's simply no pleasing you!»
«Very funny!» Peter cut off a third of the loaf of bread on a slant, smeared it with ketchup, generously sprinkled chicken seasoning on top of the ketchup, looked at the composition of the seasoning, and licked his lips. «E260!7 E283!8 Natamycin!9 Diethyl bicarbonate!10 I love it! Does anyone else want bicarbonate? Well, I offered!» he said and bit off a huge chunk.
«How can you eat this trash? I'd be sick!» Vicky asked, rolling her eyes.
«Really? Bet you wouldn't?» Peter suggested and again buried himself in the seasoning composition. «Ah, how sad! No E240! Without it, food isn't food!»
«What's E240?» Vicky asked.
«Cuc-koo, dark! E240 is formaldehyde!»11 Peter explained, and chewing the sandwich, went to his room. Three latches were heard snapping in turn.
An iron sheet rumbled on the opposite side of the fence. Andrew and Seraphim climbed over. Seraphim was gnawing with effort on ice cream found in the freezer. The ice cream was so hard that it was possible to knock a stone with it and the stone would respond with a bang.
«Look at this one!» Andrew said with reproach. «He didn't go to school because his throat hurts!»
«But it really hurts! Ask Mama!» Seraphim said and both brothers glared at each other.
«Oh, adoptable kittens have arrived!» Papa Gavrilov said gladly, especially placing his hopes on Seraphim, who, in his fantastic poetic absentmindedness, would even be able to adopt ten pregnant cats smeared with green dye and plastered with modelling clay.
Seraphim and Andrew together with Alena and Kate repacked the kittens from the box to an old hat, went along the main street, and began to repeat plaintively, «Ple-e-ease take a kit-ten! Ple-e-ease take a kit-ten!»
The kittens got out of the hat, scrambled up their sleeves, and did not stop meowing. Each of the children had to take a kitten. Seraphim carried two simultaneously, and the kittens managed to cling to passers-by. Seraphim's whine «Ple-ease take a po-oor little kit-ten!» turned out to be the most pitiful. Therefore, people often approached him.
Alex followed Seraphim, but without a kitten, because he was constantly losing it and the rest got sick of that. The snow was beginning to melt. It seemed as though it would not stay till evening. Alex scooped the snow from the fence, shaped it into snowballs, and threw them high above his head to see what they would fall on. The third snowball plopped on a taxi. The driver pretended to chase after Alex, who hastily hid behind Andrew.
«You're acting erratically! You don't know what your hands will do in the next minute!» said Andrew.
«Not true! I know!»
«Yes? And what are they doing right now? Well, tell me! Don't look with your eyes!»
Not heeding, Alex stared incredulously at his hands and discovered in surprise that they had picked up a rusty bolt from the asphalt and were trying to twist the nut from it.
«Please take a kitten!» Alena shouted and burst out laughing, because snow had fallen from a tree into her mouth. Alex, noticing that snow was falling from the trees, began to run forward and hit the branches with a stick.
Despite all efforts, the adoption of kittens went poorly. Most passers-by were either not interested in the kittens at all or said something like, «Should offer in the summer!» All the same, every five minutes some compassionate auntie would pop out from somewhere, press a kitten to her chest, and start to aah, «Children! Ah! Kittens for adoption! How charming! This is a boy! If it were a girl, I would take it!»
«We have a girl!» Kate declared and beckoned Alena with the next kitten.
The compassionate auntie tensed up a little and took the kitten no longer with such enthusiasm, «Oh! If the girl was lighter, this one has a dark stripe!» she said hurriedly.
«We also have a lighter one! Seraphim, bring yours!» Andrew said in a dull voice, he liked to bring every situation to a logical conclusion.
The compassionate auntie felt cornered. «What if they're sick?» she said, hastily looking for an argument to refuse.
«Then you show the vet!» Andrew suggested.
«No, no! They're too young! They'll die! If they were older, then yes!» the auntie said and ran away cowardly.
The children wandered along the sea for about two hours and began to lose faith in their lucky star. But here they gradually began to get lucky. The first kitten was taken by an old lady selling seashells. Moreover, she took it as if instantly, when they had already walked past and did not even whine «please take a kitten!»
«Look at you! Yelling! A boy? Come here, boy!» she said and, after glancing under the kitten's tail, slipped it into a bag and gave Seraphim a covered seashell. «You'll make an ashtray!» she said.
Seraphim stood in confusion with the shell in his hand. «But I don't smoke…» he began.
«He does, he does!» Kate hastily said, dragging him by the sleeve. «You have to think! If you don't need the shell, give it to me!»
The second kitten was taken by a gloomy saleslady from a store. Kate thought for the first second that she was approaching to kick them out. The third kitten was taken by a police trainee to give to his girlfriend. The trainee said that it was all the same to him whether it was a boy or a girl, because he could not stand cats himself.
«So it's a sacrifice in the name of love? How nice!» Kate said.
The trainee looked at her rather sourly. «Just tie a bow on it for me!» he demanded.
«Where do I get ribbon? Ah, here!» Kate instantly pulled an elastic band with a butterfly off Alena, and the kitten was decorated with colourful wings. It was no worse than ribbon.
Children on the playground wanted to take the fourth and fifth kittens, but Kate did not let them until they called their parents. As a result, one was allowed, but the other was not. The one who was allowed already had two cats at home, but the other, not allowed, did not even have a cockroach in a jar. So the fifth kitten was given near the sea to three cheerful uncles returning from a cafe after a birthday. The uncles said that they were from Krasnodar and that there were «actually no» cats there.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
