what should I have noticed?” – Sasha answered the question with a question.
“Shine on the ring!”
Sasha sent the flashlight to the wall. Misha approached and yanked at the round green skin bagel. Suddenly there was an unpleasant metallic screech. Part of the wall suddenly went to the side, exposing the dark entrance. Friends of the surprise froze, frozen in place. The first to come to life was Sasha.
“Why did not anyone notice this entry before us?” He asked in perplexity.
“I read somewhere in my childhood,” Misha authoritatively remarked, suddenly imagining himself, a ten-year-old boy, in an adult’s joke, “that there is nothing more reliable than a hiding place, as in the most prominent place.” So it turns out that the ring for the torch is the very place.
– Wow! Exclaimed Sasha admiringly. “It’s just an underground secret passage.” Let’s go, we’ll check it out. – And entered the opening. Misha, not wanting to be alone, followed another.
The dungeon gasped in the face with the musty air of an unventilated cellar.
“Like our grandmother’s cellar,” Misha said. Meanwhile, Sasha was using a flashlight, trying to see in his ray a dark dungeon. Misha was scared. Shadows from the light of a flashlight frightened him. It seemed to the boy that the invisible ghosts inhabiting the fairy-tale castles are hiding behind these shadows and are waiting for a convenient moment to tighten in their cold embrace. Steps of the course led friends into a dead end, ending with a massive wooden door with the same exact copper ring. Sasha pulled the ring. The door succumbed with difficulty, opening a room to them. Sasha was shining into the darkness of space. Gray dry walls and a mossy floor snatched the beam of a flashlight out of the darkness and suddenly stopped on the grin of a human skull. Wild Scream:
– A! A! A-ah! – Dungeons rang out in the darkness. It screamed frightened Misha, he squealed so piercingly, and so unexpectedly that he frightened Sasha with his screech and he dropped the flashlight,
Not thinking about anything, started in the pitch darkness of the dungeon to the supposed exit. But flew into the “embrace” of the skeleton and fell along with a pile of bones showered with heavy rain on the boy. At that moment, Sasha thought that the skeleton had grabbed him by the collar and pounded his knuckles on his back. The boy fell silent, frightened to death, remaining lying on the ground of the cellar without moving and waiting for its end. But contrary to expectations nothing happened, only heard a kind of not expressive sound resembling the sounds that dogs howling at night in the rush of immense longing for the moon. Sasha at first thought that this skeleton rushed to Misha, but then he realized that Misha was whining with fear in the hope of finding a flashlight. And what about himself and Sasha? It seems to be all right. Fear gradually passes and suddenly all, disappeared somewhere, and recent fears seemed like a ridiculous adventure. And for the good spirits of the spirit, Sasha began to mentally say to himself that a miracle does not happen, that skeletons live only in fairy tales, that in life this does not happen and can not be, as there are no witches, devils, or goblins. That’s how Sasha thought, having convinced himself completely and irrevocably in this, he got up and stood on his feet. Bones from the skeleton fell from his back to the floor, hitting each other. From this knock Misha suddenly shouted even louder, and already lighting the way with a flashlight, forgetting about a friend, he started down the steps from the dungeon from this terrible place. Sasha, stumbling in the darkness on the steps, ran after Misha. “He’s after me!” Thought the terrified Misha. – “This monstrous cast has dealt with Sasha and his skeleton is chasing me now!”
From this thought Misha rushed upward even faster. The bright sunlight struck the eyes, for a moment, blinded the boy, but he continued to run chased by animal fear, stumbling over the stones. Rushing through a pile of debris in the breach of the fortress wall, he found himself behind the castle. Ahead of the bridge, Misha stopped listening at the bridge. Sasha’s steps were given distinctly and loudly, and Misha started even faster along the bridge away from this terrible place. On the opposite side of the bridge, he suddenly caught on something and fell, stretched out to the full height, finding himself in the thickets of nettle. The footsteps slammed quite near, and already unable to rise, the boy froze with a soul that had gone to his heels. Squeezed with fear, fearing, stir in the burning embrace of the stems of the nettle.
“Hey, brave man!” – he heard the mocking breath of Sasha’s breathless voice – “You ran as if Death were chasing you!”
“Ah-ah, you, what’s alive?!” – Misha stuttered in a voice trembling with fear.
“As you can see, ha-ha-ha!”
– Ha-ha-ha! – friends laughed for a long time.
Misha’s fear went away, but when Sasha invited him to go once more to the dungeon and examine the room and the underground passage, Misha flatly refused. Since then, Misha has never been afraid of the dark, and the memory of the terrible moments he has experienced has remained with him for life.
Chapter – 2.
The boys appeared in Misha’s house at 7 o’clock in the morning. The apartment was quiet. They crept into Misha’s room and listened.
“Yes, they’re still asleep,” Sasha began in the first whisper. “I know my mother; she likes to wince until eleven.” And then he’ll sit down in the kitchen and not get out from there until about one in the afternoon. He cooks there, drinks coffee.
– And mine gets up early. – Misha agreed, – Only on weekends he likes to sleep.
“They are daughters, then!” – Sasha authoritatively stated.
The boys were silent. Misha offered to sleep. They undressed and lay down in their beds. Soon they fell asleep. Misha’s mother woke them up.
– Sonya, well, get up, and wash! – Mom ordered. The boys jumped from their beds and rushed to the bathroom in a race. Soon there was heard the splash of water and the loud laughter of the children. After breakfast Misha said:
“Mom and Sasha and I go into the yard.”
“Go, take a walk, but do not forget that two arrive for dinner!” My aunt Masha and I go to the store. – And I began to wash the dishes.
The boys ran out of the kitchen to dress for a walk, when Misha ran past the bedroom, from where Aunt Misha’s sleepy voice came: “Anya, where are you?” – What did Masha Misha say from the kitchen? – I’ve been waiting for you for an hour! Come and have breakfast!
Swaying on the swing, Sasha said in a businesslike manner:
– A treasure is there.
– How do you know that? Misha asked in surprise.
– I feel. – The boy answered absently and added: – We need to visit there.
“Are you a fool?!” Yes, I will not return to this underworld for anything. Misha categorically declared.
“You’re a fool, Mishka.” You’re scared of someone who has not been around. And remember that miracles do not happen in this world. – As an adult began to talk Sasha. “And there’s sure to be a treasure!”
“Listen, I’ll tell you Sasha.” It was still when I slept in the cradle, my mother told me. I came here from Moscow with professors and academicians with all kinds of equipment. And let’s explore the castle. Everyone said that this was the last refuge of some rich breeder Demidov.
– Yah?! Sasha’s eyes flashed with curiosity. “But rather tell me what they were looking for.
“So, my mother told me that the basement of the castle was enlightened by radar there.”
– So what?!
“You do not have to interrupt!” So, it turned out that underground