Читать книгу Silly Stories! Fairy tales for children - Madelaine - Страница 8

In the glorious city of St. Petersburg, in a communal apartment, lived a doctor and teacher by vocation: Boryusik and Zinochka. They loved to walk along the embankments of the Neva, relax under the pavements, watching the circles from the tourists’ coins disperse on the water, and then (when they leave) – dive after them. In the middle of summer, they went to the beach on the Baltic Sea, took crayfish and beer with them – they had a cultural rest.

Then Zinochka was fired from her job as a teacher, but Boryusik still held on and treated people in the emergency room. There was not enough money in the family. Zinochka began to miss beautiful dresses. Boryusik began to drink out of grief right with the patients in the emergency room! Zinochka was very good in beautiful dresses – they could not refuse!

In the evenings, they still walked along the embankments, and for the summer they were preparing an air mattress. Until one day, during one of either a swim, or counting circles in the water from coins thrown by tourists, the head of a green snake appeared from the dark waters of the Fontanka. It was already late and there were no tourists or passers-by on the embankment covered with frost. Nobody except Boryusik and Zinochka. Boryusik did not expect anything like this, was taken aback and grabbed Zinochka by the hand. The impudent Green Snake began to beat the dark waters with its tail. «What is Leslie?» – Boryusik did not immediately realize what was happening. Yes, it was too late to think! The monster dived into the canal and only a slight ripple of the water on the surface indicated that somewhere there, under the dark water column, something was floating.

So Boryusik and Zinochka met the Green Snake from the St. Petersburg Canal. Oh, God forbid anyone to see this! And even hear! Especially often the Serpent appears in the snowy winter, then the water in the channel became all white. He is still there. It cannot swim to Moscow through the channels.