Adult stories for children. Ольга Владимировна Манько

ine and started to fish. Birds were twittering in the sky, grasshoppers were stirring in the grass, clouds were reflecting in the river, here was the beauty! And because of that beauty I was in such a good mood, that I wanted to sing loudly. I started to sing (I like to sing aloud, so that everyone could hear).

      I was lying near the river. I sang songs, looked at the clouds, and squinted from the sun. Suddenly I heard: someone near me was a kind of purring, or I would say whining; from another side someone was squeaking, a bit farther someone was bubbling, roaring and even mooing. I looked around and was shocked: the animals from the forest gathered round me, and even the cow from the next meadow came to see me. It said, “Moo! Moo!” And everybody sang songs with me, admired the beauty and nobody bit each other. I looked at my fishing-rod and saw an interesting picture: fishes gathered round the rod, put their heads out of the water and opened their mouths-a real chorus, so to speak, gathered. And a little worm commanded that fish chorus. I don’t know, how it got down from the hook and climbed the rod, then turned round it, like a ring, and conducted the fishes with the help of its tail. I looked at them for some time and sang much louder. So we sang altogether to the sunset.

      When the sun set, I put together my fishing-rod, let the worm go and went home. On my way home I thought, «That’s what the beauty does with people: a hare sits next to a wolf, a bear sits next to a fox, and fishes are near the worm. They do not hurt each other, and that’s good for everybody.”

      Since that time I go to the river, if I have free time. There we get together and sing songs all day long. And the worm crawls out of the silt and sings with us, though I have never heard its voice, but it’s very interesting for me to know, how he communicates with fishes?

      A SWEET

      One day a friend of mine offered me a sweet. I went to work, carrying my bag in one hand and the sweet in another. I went and looked at the sweet with admiration. I thought, I would put my bag, sit at the desk and eat it. Suddenly I saw my boss, going towards me. He was pleased to see me, stretched his hand and said, ‘Good morning. How are you? I see you are in a good mood.’ He talked to me and looked at my sweet. I shook his hand and thought, ’If somebody offered you a sweet, Ivan Petrovich, you would be in a good mood, too.’ But I said aloud, ‘Morning. Excuse me, I’m in a hurry. I’m very busy.’ And I went to my office.

      I came in, put my bag, sat at the desk and as soon as I started to unwrap the sweet, my colleagues appeared at once, just one after another. They entered as if to solve business problems, but looked askance at my sweet. I took it and hid into the bag. I did it, because there were a lot of people in the office, but I had only one sweet, and I couldn’t treat all of them to it!

      My working day was over and I went home. There I had another bad luck, the guests; there were eight people on the whole. Naturally, I pretended to be glad to see them, but I didn’t let the bag with the sweet out of my hands and sat at the table with it. The guests laughed at me.

      ‘Why are you embracing your bag? What have you got in it? Any jewelry?’ they asked.

      I answered,

      ‘Look! You’ve come to me and besides, you are laughing at me! What I’ve got in my bag is my business. I’ve got only one sweet, but there are a lot of you here. I’m not going to treat you to the sweet.’

      You know, they turned out to be unreal friends. They got offended and left, they don’t visit me and talk to me anymore. And the sweet, what happened to the sweet? While I was carrying it in my bag, it melted and made my important business papers dirty. Now I feel very upset: I lost my sweet, I lost my friends… I have done something wrong, but I cannot understand what exactly.

      A SAUSAGE

      I have got a cat. Her name sounds beautiful and very tasty. You will never guess her name. Her name is Sausage. And there’s no need to laugh. She is called so, because she loves sausages very much and prefers them to any other food. In my cat there’s enough room for exactly three sausages from her nose to the tail end, but it would be silly to call the cat Three Sausages, you know. It is rather long, uncomfortable and besides, neighbors would laugh at me. Just imagine, I go out to the balcony and call the cat loudly, ‘Three Sausages! Three Sausages!’ Everybody has been used to the name Sausage very quickly and nobody laughs at it.