Читать книгу Sapphire fairy. Prose in English - Natalia Patratskaya - Страница 5

Around the corner of the house stood an old old woman with a stick, holding in her hand gold fragments from the shell, in which stood a little yellowish chicken.

A boy rode nearby on a bicycle at high speed. He snatched the chicken out of the hands of the old woman and disappeared. A minute later the boy on a bicycle stopped at a hen house.

– Your chicken? Take it, – said the boy and threw a little chicken.

The chicken, while flying through the air, grew up in a big rooster and nearly bruised her neighbor Semenovna. The cyclist cheered:

– Great here with you, I’ll call the guys now.

Five minutes later, seven young cyclists stopped at a hen house. They immediately noticed the golden eggs in the basket at Aunt Dashi, who did not know what to do with them. Ecstatic shouts from a distance of the boys on bicycles.

Ivan Kuzmich came up and said that Tamara did not catch up, but an old woman with a crook dragged behind him.

On the porch a neighbor woke up Semenovna.

– Hello! Where are you going to be in our area? – She turned to the old woman with a stick.

– Grandma, I’m your neighbor, Tamara, I’m eight years old!

– I myself am old, but not so much that I do not know my neighbors older than myself.

And then the cock, which grew up in two seconds of flight, pecked the old woman’s stick. And the old woman in front of everyone turned into a girl Tamara. Then the rooster flew up to the basket and pecked all the eggs one by one, and chickens hatched from the eggs, which instantly turned into big chickens.

Cyclists happily laughed at such a spectacle.

At this time, a rooster and six chickens ran out of the coop; they saw a young rooster and five chickens. Two rooster started a fight. Cyclists hooted and cheered cocks-fighters. Suddenly, the bikes grew wings, and they flew away from the battlefield with angry cries.

The rooster won from the hen house, and immediately the sun came out, and sunny rain began.

Katerina softly sang her little song:

– Rain, rain and sunshine, it is not wet at all. He is like a grain, golden and kind.

The sun stretched its rays and said:

– Thank you, Katerina!

It was not hail that fell from heaven to earth, but golden grain. The grain fell into the ground, and soon a whole field of wheat grew. The cyclists returned from the sky and stared in surprise at the wheat field, which was not there. The hen house owners came to their senses. They slowly walked to their old wooden house. As soon as they entered the porch, in the blink of an eye, their house turned into a new house.

The sun waved at them and hid behind a cloud.

The cock after the victory decided that he now had eleven chickens, and was very happy. But five chickens, hatched from golden eggs, could not cross the threshold of the chicken coop and turned into a sculpture of five chickens. Next to them was the sculpture of the defeated cockerel of the golden egg.

The cockerel and pestles sat down on their perches and dozed off.

At this time, seven young cyclists roared and left the place of the former miracles, which became uninteresting. On perches in the golden henhouse, the hens started and dozed off. Gold shells remained to lie around the hen house. The crows flew in, began to peck at the golden shell, and turned into a crow sculpture of crows.

A field of wheat has been tipped with golden grain. Golden pies were baked from it and a rooster and hens were treated to them. Seeing that they were carrying cakes from the house on the tray, the cycling boys arrived and grabbed the cake, but they did not dare to eat the cakes. But, seeing that Tamara and Aunt Dasha eat pies, they also ate a couple of pies, and nothing happened to the cyclists.

The sun appeared and lit up two brand new bikes at the hen house. Katerina and Tamara rode bicycles and joined the rest of the cyclists, and they had long learned to ride. Dusty country roads are good for both chickens and cyclists, when it does not rain, even if it is golden.

Aunt Dasha and Ivan Kuzmich looked after the children and decided that they themselves would buy a motorcycle with a sidecar. A neighbor, Semenovna, will be put into the pram and will travel to the nearest villages without waiting for passing cars. Local they are all.

A rooster issued a victory cry. A rooster and hens came out of the coop – to walk, to look at people, to show themselves. The cock gained weight and became a solid rooster, and now he was rosy too lazy to take off. Pestlets flew up, and he lazily sat in a cozy low basket. Became a cockerel to remind the master cat.

The sun lit up, the rain came, and he looked, looked at the sun, but Katerina did not sing a little song. The sun was offended and said nothing. Among the new eggs, one egg was silver. A new cockerel hatched out of a silvery egg, it grew quickly and joyfully, and took off easily to roost.

Once he decided to replace the old and lazy cock. Two rooster staged a cockfight. Watch the battle of two roosters came all the cyclists. The guys were rooting for the new silver cock. The fight was good. One rooster, overfed and sluggish, took with its mass, the second, thin and smart, won with speed. Cyclists watched cockfighting. Chickens clucked and did not know for whom to root. After the battle, they demolished eggs, and chickens hatched from them.

The old chickens were silenced. Aunt Dasha went into the chicken coop and said that the new change of hens is growing up. The whole village came to the second rooster fight. Bicycles stood by. The winner became the best rooster of the village. Won the young silver cock. The old hens refused to serve him, they remained with the old rooster. The coop was divided into two parts: for young and old. The sun because of the clouds was not shown.

Katerina once again sang a little song:

– Rain, rain and sunshine, it is not wet at all. He is like a grain, golden and kind.

Katerina looked at her watch and hurried to the mansion. The girl walked and saw her dream: the copper roof gleams in the sun. The house shines, decorated with vertical copper stripes. The first floor of the perimeter is lined with greenish marble, located between the sheets of copper. All the tracks on the site are lined with greenish ceramics. She painfully wanted to return to the mansion of Prince Athanasius Afanasyevich.

Afanasy Afanasyevich didn’t lead by ear in honor of the return of Catherine. She was even offended by his blatant indifference.

He asked:

– Katerina, did you bring stories from the village?

– I myself took part in all the stories.

– That is what she herself is! But you could not get a story if they happened to you, “Afanasy Afanasyevich was indignant.

– We got more like that! Especially cocks and hens.

– Well! Now you will get the company of a copper bench.

– I will live the life of those who sit on a copper bench?! – outraged Katerina.

– And where do you go? You skipped part time.

– And you will not punish me for my absence?

– I will surely punish you. I will punish you, Katerina. You have not been five o’clock. Five days you spend in the dungeon. You probably noticed that only grass grows on my plot?

“I did,” Katerina replied sullenly, wondering what the five days of the dungeon was.

Afanasy Afanasyevich, without getting up from his chair, pressed the marble inkwell on the table. The floor under Katerina moved in one direction, and she sank into the dungeon in front of a tin soldier. Paul became her roof and took the same position.

Katerina did not have time to be frightened when she fell into the dungeon and now looked around not so much with fear, but with surprise. She was in a room with copper walls, with an insulated ceiling. She left the room, which fell at the will of the owner, and began to bypass the entire dungeon. She did not feel anxious feelings from the industrial order.

There was a feeling that the time in the dungeon is somewhat different. She was interested in the kitchen, yet she had to live here for five days! She saw the sink, faucet. Opened the faucet, from it went cold water bubbles. Next on the table was an electric tile with a spiral incandescent. In the table in the three-liter jars were cereals. Katerina found salt, but there was no sugar. Found a jar of tea. Noticed the pot, kettle. Five days it was possible to live. She showed no signs of a refrigerator.

TV, the receiver she did not notice.

Katerina counted five strange rooms and a kitchen. The light was the same everywhere – matte. There were no switches anywhere. That’s all at first glance. She looked around for a stool or chair. They were not there. She walked around the room, but did not find a single rookery. She decided to lean on the copper wall, but she was warm. Katerina increasingly wanted to sit down or lie down.

Glance fell to the floor. Paul turned out to be a complete mystery, but did not want to solve it. Katerina sank to the floor, he was covered in signs. She noticed a protrusion on the floor and hit him with a heel. The projection shifted with part of the floor. The staircase led down somewhere. Without thinking, she began to descend into the present dungeon.

A small room in the rock had a way out! Katerina bent and went toward the light: twenty meters – and she is free! That’s imprisonment! She looked around: there was a forest around. It was getting dark. Forest rustles instilled fear in the soul. She was taken by the shoulders! Katerina shuddered with her whole body and involuntarily looked around. She was in the hands of a certain Theophanes, a native of the village Copper dipper! “Where is he from here?” A thought flashed through Catherine’s head. “He’s not at all.”

– Katerina, glad to meet you! Said Theophanes.

– Who are you?

– Sama said who I am.

– Wait. I read in the newspaper that you were flying on an airplane, the pilot was still alive, and you were gone!

– Funny girl! So I found. Look at me – it’s me, Feofan, son of Afanasy Afanasyevich.

– But this can not be! I even invented a fairy tale, as if you turned into a bat! – outraged Katerina.

“Have you been under a house in a copper basement?”

– It was.

– So exactly at this place our plane behaved strangely. This is not a copper room, it is a generator of anomalous phenomena. Good thing you got out of it.

– I have a punishment: to sit in the generator for five days.

“Good punishment, but it’s even better that you run away from him.” The pilot managed to land the plane on the field, but he could not take off and came up with the idea that there was no aircraft. And he himself, in his plan, catapulted, and I, in his invention, disappeared. Here he again went away from these places. And now I will save you on the plane. I can fly a plane and have cleared the landing area. And I lived in the barn with a certain Aunt Dasha. She bakes such pancakes – you will begin to rock!

“I know their smells.”

And at that moment the boron rustled, I heard the barking of dogs.

A shot sounded in the air. Hunters with dogs jumped out into the clearing. The dogs rushed together to Theophanes and Katerina. The hunters stopped them with command voices. Theophan on the sly disappeared. Katerina was left alone, she even had a thought – was there Theophanes here?

The hunters led the girl to the manor. They bowed to Afanasy Afanasyevich. The owner stood by the window and looked at Katerina with a piercing gaze. She shuddered at the thought that punishment was inevitable, and she did not want to go into the generator of anomalous phenomena. Katerina stood between the gate and the house and did not know what to do. She hesitantly went to the owner.

– Feofan seen? – asked Prince Athanasius Afanasyevich. “Good, you’ll never see again.” Do not be afraid, you will no longer go into the underground, you got out of it – and well done, consider that five days have passed.

– Afanasy Afanasyevich, and suddenly you are ill, because you live on the generator of anomalous phenomena?

– Yes, I therefore live, that I live on this generator. It was built for me. And you, look, for you worry, it is valuable. Tomorrow you will begin to walk for a walk to the copper bench. I have not canceled your task.

– Again, listen to the nonsense of the inhabitants of the house of Aunt Dasha?

The rebellious Katerina reached the copper bench the next day, but got into a passing car and drove into the city.

Vacations quickly passed.

Once upon a time, Katerina’s own father, worse than bitter radish, was tired of heating the stove in an apartment located on the second floor of a wooden house. He went to the Steppe city. Before that, the family lived in a large industrial city, and next to their furnace houses, the first housing estate had already grown, with houses that had all the amenities, and among these houses was a new school. Katerina liked everything here, but there was a secret dream – a new house with all the amenities.

But in life it happens that the dream is twisted in the opposite direction. Katerina and her family continued to receive cereals and white bread on the list. Mom did not find a place for herself without a father, so she handed out some things, and put the rest into a container. And Katerina went with her mother and brother to the city where her father lived.

The girl had a long beautiful braid of blond hair, with which she left her city forever. Father rented two rooms in a small wooden house on the last street from the boundless steppe. The wind, the sun and the absence of rain sharply distinguished the steppe climate from the mountain climate. Katerina grew up a little more and looked like an adult girl.

In small shops one could freely buy white bread, jam and cheese, that is, everything that was not sold where Katerina conquered the catwalk of beauty. Now she understands that everything was correct and the bread for the figure is harmful, but mothers and grandmothers who passed through military hunger did not understand this. They wanted white bread and chops.

The whole family was waiting for a container with their belongings. It was the seventh of November. A festive parade of workers passed through the center of the city. From the procession through the city and began the acquaintance of the girl with a new habitat. In the arrived container was a broken mirror and things.

A broken pierum against the background of ficus has long been the main decoration of a large room. In a small room, bed mattresses – this was the bed.

Her new school consisted of three cardboard barracks. At the site at one of the three barracks flooded rink. Katerina skated on a knife with a stick in her hands, rolling on the ice and trying to throw the puck into the goal. Three guys classmates played up to her, they were happy to play with a new girl.

She appeared in a new school in the seventh grade in the second quarter. The class included a tall, slim girl in a brown uniform and a black apron with a white stand-up collar. The long braid quietly hesitated along the back. The guys carefully examined her from head to toe. The teacher introduced a new one:

– Katerina.

It turns out, in addition to growth, for mutual hobbies, the same level of knowledge is necessary. Classmates soon realized that the new girl was not only beautiful, but also an able student. Only one girl from the class exceeded her sometimes in assessments, and then in one subject. Among the boys stood out with his mind a full, handsome guy with good-looking blond hair. It was a blond-haired guy by nature.

Unintentionally, but always and everywhere the boy was next to a new girl with a bright braid on the back. And now he was spinning on skates next to her. The full and warm palm of the gray-eyed youth tried to touch the palm of the girl at any opportunity. The first tender love took possession of him, but natural tact and mind did not make him annoying. The boy changed his route to school or waited for Katerina on the way home, and if he managed to go next to her and talk, he was happy and calm.

At work, Katerina’s father was given housing in a cardboard hut next to the school.

There appeared purchased metal beds, a simple table and a wardrobe, which my father made. Although the barrack was made of cardboard, there were central heating batteries in it. Only in the kitchen was a stove-stove, which was heated with coal or wood to cook food.

The neighbor in the barrack was another blond. In addition to a classmate, a neighbor became a bright candidate for a part of her heart. Next to the outer door of Katerina’s apartment was a neighbor’s door. It was a slim guy a year older than her. They were brought together by conversations on a common porch of a one-story house, in which two apartments looked out onto one porch. In the winter, their meetings were often difficult to name, they came across on the porch, looked at each other and sometimes went together to school.

Summer has changed everything! In the summer there was more opportunity to be close to home. The windows of Katerina’s kitchen opened onto a plot of land belonging to her family. The plot of the family of the neighbor was fenced with a denser fence and was located across the path about four meters from the house.

A girl’s dress with a bright green strip on a white background constantly flashed before the eyes of a young man of a neighbor. And he, cutting the road, jumped over her fence and passed under all the windows.

But their hands never touched! Strange they had love: visual! They liked each other in appearance. Perhaps the neighbor felt that he was not a Catherine couple, and therefore took in a couple another girl from her class.

A blond classmate felt lightheaded when he saw Katerina’s neighbor with another girl, and decided to visit her at home under the pretext of studying. A hut-type house was made of material similar to cardboard sheets. During the development of virgin lands, it was easier to build. The amenities were in the courtyard, so at the entrance to the house the first thing that could be found was a basin standing on a stool, over which a washstand hung, acting when you pressed the pin on the bottom. The pin rose, and water flowed from the sink.

Next to the sink was a motorcycle neighbor. The walls, painted with gray paint, were far from the first freshness, and the presence of gasoline and a motorcycle did not make them better. If you turn left down the corridor after a motorcycle, you could get to the kitchen belonging to two families. The neighbors had three children, two of them were twins, who were less than a year old.

From civilization in this house was central heating, electricity and television. A classmate looked into the kitchen and walked into Katerina’s room, which had two beds, a desk, a wardrobe. This is where the newcomer lived! He took her picture. Katerina reached into her briefcase, her hair was slightly disheveled in a braid. She is in school uniform, three-quarter sleeves slightly bare arms.

Such a picture was the decoration of her photo collection.

Accidentally or not, Katerina appeared only once in the house where a classmate lived. Brick cottage, designed for two families, located on the land. Unbelievable cleanliness reigned in his apartment. The huge difference in living conditions somewhat dampened their ardor.

A classmate’s love for Katerina assumed an abstract character. They were still walking together in the steppe, they were still playing volleyball together, but it was already better if his friend and neighbor in the cottage were with him.

On the shore of a clear lake, located among low mountains, there was a camp for children and teenagers. Katerina sat on the sand with a volleyball under the bright sun, she was about thirteen. A slender and tall girl with a sumptuous light braid to the waist from the second squad attracted the gaze of one of the guys from the first squad.

Someone clever of the camp leaders made the first squad of some guys, and the second squad of girls, the younger squads were mixed. None of the girls wanted to play beach volleyball with Katerina, but she could not live without volleyball, she was getting bored. And she, bored without favorite movements, looked at the lazy waves of the clean lake.

A young man separated from the first detachment and approached Katerina:

– Let’s play together, – suggested the guy with almost white eyelashes and blond hair.

– Let’s play, – the girl was delighted and jumped to her feet. – Together, if given.

They stood against each other and began to throw each other a well-inflated ball with their fingertips. Sometimes they folded their hands with a boat to beat off the lower pitch, and occasionally, taking the lower balls, fell on the sand.

What kind of people!

As soon as the girls saw the blond guy on their territory, they immediately began to rise from the sand and stretch their hands to the ball. The guys, noticing the revival among the girls, slowly began to approach them. The circle of those who want to touch the flying ball turned out to be big.

When the circle became so big that none of the girls, except for Katerina, could throw the ball with the fingers to the player opposite, it diminished involuntarily. The girls came out of the circle, there were guys and Katerina. She was happy until the ball flew into the lake.

Katerina did not cry, but looked at the blond, and in an instant he was in the water. The girl sighed: the boy was all good, but she and her very eyebrow were bright. And with her in the class studied bright guys. Shadowed girlish dream: she wanted a guy who looked like a Mayan. What with the girls make movies and books about Indians! No one knows.

Blond safely took the ball and brought it to Catherine. She liked him at first sight, but at second sight she understood that she needed another guy, even if not now, someday later. No, she loved bright people, but she wanted her chosen one to have darker eyes and not blond hair. She never told anyone that, but dreaming is not bad. After all, she herself was blond.

Behind the fence of the camp began the mountains, on which a strange flat-shaped mountain onion grew. A song sounded deafening above the camp: “By the sea, by the blue sea…” But it was far from the sea. Katerina liked the coast of the lake and small hikes around it. She bathed too much in a rather warm lake and one day she felt her teeth get very sick. In addition, she lost her voice, began to speak in some falsetto.

Upon returning from the camp, two practically healthy molars were removed so that they would not get sick. Fantastic, when viewed from the top of modern dentistry, and stupidity without limits.

At school, Katerina was read to the entire class, so she remembered her well. In the description were the words: “We recommend to enter a technical institute.” My God! Who would have explained to her what an institute is! Her parents graduated from seven classes of schools and colleges in the field. They were ordinary workers.

The housemate was older than Katerina. He enrolled in a technical institute, but flunked a single subject, chemistry. She listened about his college experience, opening her eyes and ears. She unbearably wanted to enter a technical institute! Once the school said that it is recommended to the technical institute, then you must go to the technical institute! And she will not fill up with chemistry, she will simply go to another department. The city was still a pedagogical institute, but he did not care about her at all, she did not like to teach others and did not like when she was written off.

Gone are the last school holidays Katerina. She passed the school final examinations, came to the institute, and there turned out to be several buildings. She went around all the buildings, found where they take the documents. A girl in a protective-colored skirt at a huge table sat down and began to fill in papers. I read in the admissions committee that the institute has four faculties. Long struggled with the choice between the two faculties.

Then a voice like God’s voice rang out above her head:

– Girl, fill in the paper on the mechanical faculty!

The person who said this disappeared into space. And Katerina sat and thought: what is this faculty? She obediently filled out papers on the mechanical faculty. In the admissions office she was told what exams will have to pass. They advised two weeks to attend preparatory courses before passing the exams. Math, physics, native language were to be handed over.

Katerina’s horse is mathematics. She picked up a collection of math problems and went to the house where a table with benches stood under maples. At this table, she solved all the tasks in a row in mathematics. Then she solved problems in physics and taught formulas. Neighbor, as an experienced mentor, said that if she missed some task, she would end up on her exam. Solved everything. She solved physics with less pleasure, but did not perceive her native language properly.

She really liked the preparatory courses. She enjoyed listening to lectures on familiar and unfamiliar topics at the same time. Lectures were held in the old building, and exams were taken in a new, beautiful building. On top of it was written: “Faculty of Mechanics.”

Huge assembly hall. Day of admission to the students. For the first time, Catherine’s heart said where she is.

After some time, the newly minted students were taken by cars to the state farm. We drove long in the steppe, brought to the farm “Merry Grove”. In the steppe were the same houses of recent construction. Behind the outskirts there was a flock of birches.

Seven girls on the first night were placed in a residential building. Inside is clean. At the entrance to the floor was a kettle. In the center of the room lay a tabletop. In the second room was a canopy. Young people slept under the canopy. The girls laid on the felt board. They remember the night. All night they were bitten and bitten by someone. Young under the canopy moved and moved.

The next morning, the girls were asked to change their habitat. Scratching the back of his head, a certain man freed the state farm for them. Place zlachnoe. A small house in which a huge number of empty bottles was hidden behind the stove. They put the students seven beds. All amenities in the yard.

Katerina chose a tall blond woman, a boxer who could protect her, but he had another boxer who beat her off, older and stronger. What did the girl with the second boxer do? She broke records for walks in the steppe after working on current.

Yes! All students worked on current. Grain raked. Once Katerina was sent to work in the kitchen. The kitchen fed students and tractor drivers. In the dining room fed those who were next to her. Food for those who were in the field was placed in a metal container that looked like a can. The containers were put on the car and taken away to the tractor drivers.

She was lucky: she saw a total solar eclipse in the state farm. With a new girlfriend, she went to the near railway station for candy. I had to go far. The road is country. No cars. Returned before dark, but suddenly it became dark dark.

The girls came up to the state farm and saw that all the students with smoked glasses were looking at the sun. Lucky everyone. They saw the halo of the solar corona. Students worked at the farm, and went home. Katerina then went to watch the championship of the city in boxing. On this, her boxing passion ended.

Once the institute group gathered in a private house of a fellow student who had a graceful figure, a fluffy mane of hair and long painted nails. First grade. Still little familiar with each other. Dancing brought together the young. At the evening, Katerina met a young man who promised her a wedding ring.