Читать книгу The vanished village - Markus Seidel - Страница 8

"Ta-da, and here I am!" - A dwarf with a green hat suddenly stood beside us. He was quite small, about half the size of us, and he was actually wearing a green hat. Blue, the dwarf, had a friendly face, we weren't afraid of him, even though we were of course a bit frightened when he suddenly appeared. So we had been right. Thank God, the solution was right. That was the main thing.

Blue looked at us laughing and made a little bow. The dog that had been barking until just now had disappeared, you could not hear or see him anymore; from one second to the next he was gone. Blue, the dwarf, had saved us. You could also say: we had saved ourselves. We had found the right solution.

"Well, you two," said Blau, "whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

"I'm Max," I said.

"And you?" asked Blau and turned to Tom, who was a little shy about telling his name.

"So, Max and Tom it is. You're lucky again, I'd say that dog didn't look very friendly, did he?"

"No, not at all," Tom said. "But where did you come from all of a sudden?"

"Weren't you just talking about me? "Whenever you talk about me, I visit, it's as simple as that." He laughed. Tom and I looked at each other a little surprised.

"And where are you from?" the dwarf wanted to know. Tom and I told him how we had come to this house.

"These are beautiful stories!" cried Blue, astonished. "Have you ever heard anything like it?!" He shook his head in disbelief, but somehow I had the impression that he was leading us around by the nose and that he knew exactly how Tom and I had got here.

"What's all this about the lost village?" I asked him. "Frau SCHIMPERGLANZ told us about it. She said we are here because we are to prevent this house from disappearing here too, the last one in the village. She said that if this house is gone too, all is lost."

"When she's right, she's right," Blau said mysteriously and grinned.

"But what can we do? I mean, what can we do?" I shouted. Maybe Blau had an answer to that.

"And where have all the other houses gone? And why are they gone?!", Tom asked.

"Take it easy," said the dwarf. "You two will find out soon enough. For now, I'm here to help you."

"What do you want to help us with?" I asked him.

"Come on, we have no time to lose," said Blau and went to the attic door. I followed him. Tom stopped: "I'm not going an inch further," he said determinedly, "I'm staying here. The whole thing honestly seems strange to me. Besides, it seems far too dangerous."

"Oops!" cried Blau, when he had opened the door, "the stairs are gone. It was there a moment ago. You can see how fast it goes."

Blau was right, the stairs had disappeared, you could see down to the lower floor, but it was too low to jump down from the attic.

"But where did it go, the stairs?" Tom wanted to know.

"Gone," said the dwarf. "Just like the houses in this village. You know how things disappear here, that's why you're here. Tell me, have you ever been in a balloon before?" He grinned and made a mysterious face.

Tom and I shook our heads.

"That's a good thing," said the dwarf. "Because the first time is always the best. Come on! Or do you want to get to know the dog better? To be honest, it's too dangerous for me, and I'll be glad to get out of here.

He turned around and walked quickly through the attic, past the small skylight, to a tiny door that we must have overlooked. Or hadn't it been there before?

"Are you ready?" he asked. But before I could ask "Ready for what?" he had already opened the door.

"Come!" cried Blue, "Get out." Fortunately, Tom was now also ready to come along. I think he had realised that it was not entirely safe to be left behind alone.

I had expected to stand in another room, or on a staircase leading somewhere. Instead, I was on a balcony with a hot air balloon floating in front of it. What was that supposed to mean? That we should get in that balloon?

"Jump into the basket," Blue asked me, and I did obediently what he said; I climbed up the balustrade of the balcony and jumped into the basket. From here I could see the shed in the garden, the shed in which I had hidden and which suddenly was no longer in our garden but here, at Frau SCHIMPERGLANZ's.

Tom was now also in the balloon; Blue, the dwarf, joined us, and off we went, because at that moment, the balloon lifted gently into the air as if on command.