How Doono made a balloon

By Nikolai Nosov

Doono, who was a great reader, had read a lot of travel books. Often of an evening he would tell his friends about what he had read. The Mites loved to listen to his stories. They liked to hear about countries they had never seen, but they liked even better to hear stories about famous travellers, for the most extraordinary things always happen to travellers. After listening to a number of such stories, the Mites decided to go on a long journey themselves. Some of them suggested taking the trip on foot, others suggested setting off down the river in boats.  

 

But Doono said:   "Let's make a balloon and sail up in the air."   They were all delighted with this suggestion. None of them had ever been up in the air, and they were sure it must be delightful. Of course, they had no idea how to make a balloon, but Doono said he would think it all out and tell them what they must do.   And so he began to think. He thought for three days and three nights, and in the end decided to make the balloon out of rubber. The Mites had rubber.

 

There were many plants that resembled rubber plants growing in their town. They made little slits in the stems and gathered the sap that flowed out. Gradually the sap thickened and turned into rubber, out of which they made rubber balls and galoshes.   As soon as Doono decided to make the balloon out of rubber, he sent the Mites to gather sap and pour it into a big barrel he had got ready for the purpose.

 

On the way to the rubber-trees Dunno met his friend Gunky skipping with two little girl-Mites.  

 

"If you only knew what we were going to do, Gunky," said Dunno, "you'd die of envy!"

"I would not!" retorted Gunky.

"I have no intention of dying."  

"You would, you would!" sang Dunno.

"If you only knew!"   "Well, what is it?" asked Gunky.  

"We're going to make a balloon and sail up in the air!"  

 

 Gunky went green with envy. He wanted to boast of something himself, and so he said:  

 

"Phooh, a balloon! What do I want with a balloon when I've got two girl-Mites to play with."  

"Who are they?" asked Dunno.  

"These," said Gunky pointing to bis playmates.

"That one is called Pee-Wee and the other Tinkle."  

Pee-Wee and Tinkle darted suspicious glances at Dunno.   Dunno glared at them.

 

 

"So that's how it is!" he said to Gunky. "I thought you were my friend."   "I am," said Gunky. "And theirs, too. Can't I be friends with all of you?"  

"No, you can't," said Dunno.

"If you're a friend of girl-Mites, you're a girl-Mite yourself. Stop playing with them this very minute."  

"Why should I?"   "Stop playing with them, I say, or you'll never play with me again."   "As if I cared!" said Gunky.  

"And I'll give it to your Pee-Wee and Tinkle!"

 

                     

 

   Dunno clenched his fists and made for the girl-Mites. Gunky leaped in front of him and struck him in the jaw. They began to fight, and Pee-Wee and Tinkle were so frightened they ran away.  

 

"So you gave me a sock in the jaw just on account of those girls?" said Dunno, aiming a blow at Gunky's nose.  

 

 

"Why did you have to say such nasty things about them?" said Gunky, swinging his fists.  

 

"Aren't you a hero!" said Dunno, and he struck. his friend on the back of the head with such force that Gunky was almost knocked down. As soon as he recovered he took to his heels. 

 

 

"It's all off between you and me! I won't play with you any more!" Dunno cried after him.   "Don't!" called back Gunky.

 

"You'll be the first to come and make it up."  

"No, I won't. We're going to sail away in a balloon!"  

"Sail from the roof to the ground!"  

"It's you who'll sail from the roof to the ground!" shouted Dunno, and he went off to gather sap.

   When the barrel was filled to the top, Doono stirred it well and told Twistum to bring the pump he used for pumping air into motor tyres. Doono fastened a long rubber hose to the pump, smeared rubber sap on the open end of the hose and told Twistum to begin pumping slowly. As Twistum pumped, the sap blew up like a soap bubble. Doono kept smearing this bubble with

 rubber sap on all sides and Twistum kept working the pump and little by little the bubble turned into a balloon.

 

It got so big that Doono was unable to smear it on all sides, and so he told the other Mites to take brushes and help him. They all got busy. Everybody but Dunno found work to do. He just walked round and round the balloon at a safe distance, whistling a tune and muttering to himself from time to time: 

 

"It'll burst for sure ... any minute now it'll go bang."  

But it did not burst, it just grew biggei every minute. Soon it was so big that the Mites had to climb a hazel bush that was growing in the yard to smear the top anc the sides.  

 

 They worked for two days, until the balloon was as big as a house.  Doono tied up the opening with a core to keep the air from leaking out, and said:   "We'll leave it here to dry while we do another job."   He tied the balloon to the bush so that the wind wouldn't carry it away, and then divided the Mites into two groups. He sent one of them to gather silkworm cocoons and make a big silk net, and he sent the other to make a big basket out of birch-bark.

   While Doono and his friends were busy at their tasks, the rest of the Mites in Flower Town came to look at the balloon tied to the bush. Each of them wanted to touch it, and some even tried to lift it up.  

 

"It's very light," they said.

"You can lift it with one hand."  

"Yes, it's light, but I'm afraid it'll never rise into the air," said a Mite named Sinker.  

"Why not?" asked the others.  

"If it was light enough it would rise now, and not lie here on the ground," said Sinker.

"It's too heavy to be light."   The Mites thought this over.  

"Hm, true enough," they said.

"It's too heavy to be light. It would sail away if it weren't."

They began to question Doono, but he just said:  

"Wait a while. Soon everything will be clear."

 

 

This made them doubt more than ever, and Sinker went about town spreading unpleasant rumours. 

"What could possibly make that balloon rise?" he said.

"Nothing could. Birds fly because they have wings, but nothing can make that balloon fly. It can only fall."  

 

In a very short time nobody had any faith in the balloon. They made fun of it. They would come to Doono's house and gaze over the fence and say:  

 

"Look, look? It's flying! Ha, ha, ha!"   But Doono paid no attention to their jeers. When the silk net was ready, he told them to throw it over the balloon.  

"Look!" cried the Mites standing at the fence.

"They've caught the balloon in a net! They're afraid it will fly away! Ha, ha, ha!"  

Doono told his helpers to tie one end of a rope to the opening of the balloon, so that they could pull it up off the ground. Swifty and Twis-tum did this, then climbed the hazel bush with the rope in their hands and began to pull. This made the onlookers laugh harder than ever.  

 

"Ha, ha, ha! A fine sort of balloon that has to be pulled up on a rope! How will it sail in the air if it has to be pulled up on a rope?"  

"Here's how!" said Sinker.

"They'll sit astride the balloon and pull on the rope to make it go up."

     When the balloon was lifted off the ground, the four comers of the net hung down, and Doono told his helpers to tie them to the birch-bark basket. The basket was square and had benches round all four sides. Each bench held four Mites.   When they had tied the net to the four corners of the basket Doono said the balloon was ready. Swifty supposed they could climb in and sail away, but Doono said they had to make each of the Mites a parachute first.

 "What for?" asked Dunno.
     "What if the balloon should burst? You'd have to jump with parachutes."  

 

The next day was spent in making parachutes. Doono told them how to make them out of dandelions, and each of the travellers made his own.

 

 

     The townsfolk saw the balloon dangling motionless from the hazel bush, and they said to one another:

 

"It will keep on hanging there until it bursts. Nobody will go anywhere in that balloon."  

"Why don't you set out?" they shouted over the fence.

"Hurry up, before it bursts!"  

 

"Don't worry," said Doono.

"We are setting out tomorrow, at eight o'clock in the morning."   Most of them laughed, but there were a few who thought the balloon might rise after all.  

"What if it reaJly should?" they said. "We must be sure to come here in the morning and see."

                               

 

                            To be Continued.

 

 

 

 

 

Preparation for the Ascent

By Nikolai Nosov

 

The next morning Doono woke his friends up earlier than usual. They got up and began dressing for the flight. Bendum and Twistum put on their leather jackets. Shot put on his favourite hip boots that buckled above the knee — very good boots for a long journey. Swifty put on his "lightning" suit, which deserves a word of explanation.   Since Swifty was always in a great hurry and could not bear to waste time, he designed a suit for himself without any buttons on it.

 

Everyone knows that nothing takes so much time as buttoning and unbuttoning. Swifty's suit did not have a separate shirt and trousers, it was all in one, like overalls, and it fastened with a single snap on the top of his head. When he unsnapped it, the suit slipped off his shoulders and fell at his feet in the twinkling of an eye.

 

     Roly-Poly put on his best suit. The thing he loved above all else was pockets. The more pockets there were in a suit, the better he liked it. The jacket of his best suit had ten pockets in it: two breast pockets, two slit pockets (one on either side to keep his hands warm), two patch pockets, below these, three inside pockets, and a secret pocket in the back. His trousers had two pockets in front, two behind, one on each side, and one on his right knee. The only people who wear such seventeen-pocketed suits in ordinary life are cameramen.

        

   Treacly-Sweeter put on a checkered suit. He always wore checkered suits. His trousers were checkered, his jacket was checkered and his cap was checkered. Whenever the Mites spied him coming down the street they would shout: "Look! Here comes the chessboard!" P'raps put on a ski suit which he was sure would be comfortable for travelling. 

 

 Prob'ly put on a striped jersey and striped trousers, and tied a striped scarf round his neck. In a word, he was all stripes, and from a distance he looked more like a mattress than a Mite. They all dressed up in the best they had — all, that is, but Scatterbrain, who had the habit of throwing his things just anywhere and so could not find his jacket on this memorable morning. He couldn't find his cap either, but at the last moment he found his winter cap with ear-flaps on it under the bed.

   

Blobs, the artist, resolved to draw everything he saw during the flight. Long before it was time to set out he had put his paints and brushes in the basket of the balloon. Trills took his flute with him. Dr. Pillman put his medicine bag under one of the benches in the basket. That, of course, was a very sensible thing to do, for someone was sure to fall ill on such an unusual trip.   Before the clock had struck six, almost all the townsfolk had gathered round the house.

 

Many of them had climbed up on to the fence or the roofs of the houses.   Swifty, who was the first to get into the basket, chose the most comfortable seat for himself. Dunno got in next.  

 

"Look!" cried the onlookers, "they're taking their seats!"  

"What do you mean by this?" said Doono.

"It's much too soon! Get out!"

"Why?" said Dunno. "Why shouldn't we take off?" 

"Why!" scoffed Doono. "Because we have to fill the balloon with hot air first."  

"Why?" asked Swifty again.  

"Because hot air is lighter than cold, and so it rises. As soon as we fill the balloon with hot air it will rise and take the basket with it," explained Doono.  

"So we still have to.pump hot air into it!"

said Dunno in a disappointed voice as he and Swifty climbed out of the basket.

 

"Look!" cried someone from the roof of a neighbouring house. "They're getting out. They've decided not to go after all!" "Naturally," came a voice from another roof.

"As if anyone could sail up into the air in a balloon like that! They're just trying to fool us!" While this was going on, Doono told his friends to fill some sacks with sand and put them in the basket. Swifty, Mums, and P'raps did it.  

 

"What are they doing?"

 asked the perplexed onlookers.

"Why should they put sacks of sand into the basket?"  

"Hey, what do you need those sacks for?" called out Sinker, who was sitting astride the fence.  

"To throw down on your heads when we're up in the air!" called back Dunno.

 

     Dunno himself had no idea what the sacks were for. He just gave the first answer that came into his head.

 

 "You've got to get up there first!" retorted Sinker.

"They're scared, so they're putting in sacks of sand instead of getting in themselves,"

 

said a little Mite named Midge, who was on the fence next to Sinker. Everybody laughed. 

 "Of course they're scared. But there's nothing to be scared of. The balloon won't rise." 

 "What if it does?" said a little girl-Mite who was peeking through a chink in the fence. 

 

 While they were arguing as to whether the balloon would rise or not, Doono had his friends build a big bonfire in the middle of the yard, and the onlookers saw Bendum and Twistum carry a great copper boiler out of their shop and hang it over the fire.

 

Bendum and Twistum had made this boiler to heat air in it. It had a lid with a hole in it that fastened down tightly, and it also had a hole in the side. A pipe was connected to this hole in the side, and at the other end of the pipe was a pump for pumping air into the boiler. When the air became hot it escaped through the hole in the lid.   None of the onlookers knew what the boiler was for but each had his own guess. 

 

 "They must be going to make porridge, so that they can have a good breakfast before setting out," said a girl-Mite named Daisy.   "I should think so!" said Midge.

"You'd want a good breakfast, too, if you were setting out on such a long journey!"

 

 "True, it may be their last-" sighed Daisy.  

"Last what?"   "Meal. They'll go up in the air, the balloon will burst, and that will be the end of them."

   

"Don't worry, it won't burst," said Sinker. "It'd have to rise first, but it's been lying here on the ground for over a week and nobody's gone up in it yet." 

 

 "But they're just about to," said Pee-Wee, who had come with Tinkle to see the ascent.   This started a heated argument. If one person said the balloon would rise, another said it wouldn't, and if one person said it wouldn't, another said it would. There was such a yelling and screeching that no other sound could be heard. On one of the roofs two little boy-Mites got so angry that they began to fight and had to be separated by throwing  cold water over them.  

 

By that time the air in the boiler was hot, and Doono said it was time to fill the balloon with it. But before the balloon could be filled with hot air, it had to be emptied of cold air. Doono untied the string and the cold air began to escape with a loud hiss. The onlookers had been too busy arguing to watch what was happening, but now they turned round and saw the balloon growing smaller and smaller.

 

It became as limp and puckered as a dried apple and settled on the bottom of the basket. In the place where there had just been a fine big balloon, there was now nothing but a birch-bark basket with a net over it.   As soon as the hissing stopped there was an outburst of laughter. Everybody laughed — those who had said the balloon would rise as well as those who had said it would not.

 

 Dunno's friend Gunky laughed so hard that he fell off the roof and bumped his head. Dr. Pillman had to run for his medicine bag and paint the bump with iodine.  

 "So that's how it goes up in the air!" the onlookers cried.

 "A fine balloon Doono thought of! Spent a whole week making it and it burst in a second!

What a joke! Oh dear! How very funny!" But Doono paid no attention to them.

  He ran a pipe from the boiler to the balloon and told his friends to start pumping. Fresh air was pumped into the boiler and hot air found its way into the balloon; the balloon began to swell and rise out of the basket. 

 

 "Look!" cried the onlookers. "It's swelling again! Are they crazy? Do they want it to burst a second time?"

 

     Nobody believed that the balloon would rise. But it kept getting bigger and bigger, until at last it lay on top of the basket like an enormous melon. Suddenly everybody saw it rise slowly and draw the net tight. The townsfolk gasped with surprise. They could see for themselves that this time nobody was pulling the balloon up with ropes. 

 "Hurrah!" cried Daisy, clapping her hands. 

 "Stop shouting!" growled Sinker.

"But look, it's rising!"  

"It hasn't risen yet. It's tied to the basket, and it'll never pull up the basket with all those Mites in it."

 

     But at that very moment Sinker saw the balloon lift the basket off the ground. He was so taken by surprise that he shouted at the top of his voice:   "Hold it! Hold it! It'll fló away! What are you thinking of!"   But the balloon did not fly away, because the basket was firmly secured to the hazel bush. It just lifted the basket ever so little off the ground.   "Hurrah!" came from every side.   "Hurrah! Hurrah for Doono! Hurrah for the balloon! What did he blow it up with? Steam?"  

 

Now none of them doubted that the balloon would rise.

 

                                                    To be Continued

 

 

  

The Short Story - Araby

- Araby- by James Joyce

 

North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached from its neighbours in a square ground. The other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces.

 The former tenant of our house, a priest, had died in the back drawing-room. Air, musty from having been long enclosed, hung in all the rooms, and the waste room behind the kitchen was littered with old useless papers. Among these I found a few paper-covered books, the pages of which were curled and damp: The Abbot, by Walter Scott, The Devout Communicant, and The Memoirs of Vidocq. I liked the last best because its leaves were yellow. The wild garden behind the house contained a central apple-tree and a few straggling bushes, under one of which I found the late tenant's rusty bicycle-pump. He had been a very charitable priest; in his will he had left all his money to institutions and the furniture of his house to his sister.

 

When the short days of winter came, dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses, where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street, light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner, we hid in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea, we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed, and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body, and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.

 

Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlour watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her. I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood.

 

Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa, or a ballad about the troubles in our native land. These noises converged in a single sensation of life for me: I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes. Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom. I thought little of the future. I did not know whether I would ever speak to her or not or, if I spoke to her, how I could tell her of my confused adoration. But my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.

 

One evening I went into the back drawing-room in which the priest had died. It was a dark rainy evening and there was no sound in the house. Through one of the broken panes I heard the rain impinge upon the earth, the fine incessant needles of water playing in the sodden beds. Some distant lamp or lighted window gleamed below me. I was thankful that I could see so little. All my senses seemed to desire to veil themselves and, feeling that I was about to slip from them, I pressed the palms of my hands together until they trembled, murmuring: `O love! O love!' many times.

At last she spoke to me. When she addressed the first words to me I was so confused that I did not know what to answer. She asked me was I going to Araby. I forgot whether I answered yes or no. It would be a splendid bazaar; she said she would love to go.

`And why can't you?' I asked.

While she spoke she turned a silver bracelet round and round her wrist. She could not go, she said, because there would be a retreat that week in her convent. Her brother and two other boys were fighting for their caps, and I was alone at the railings. She held one of the spikes, bowing her head towards me. The light from the lamp opposite our door caught the white curve of her neck, lit up her hair that rested there and, falling, lit up the hand upon the railing. It fell over one side of her dress and caught the white border of a petticoat, just visible as she stood at ease.

`It's well for you,' she said.

`If I go,' I said, `I will bring you something.'

 

What innumerable follies laid waste my waking and sleeping thoughts after that evening! I wished to annihilate the tedious intervening days. I chafed against the work of school. At night in my bedroom and by day in the classroom her image came between me and the page I strove to read. The syllables of the word Araby were called to me through the silence in which my soul luxuriated and cast an Eastern enchantment over me. I asked for leave to go to the bazaar on Saturday night. My aunt was surprised, and hoped it was not

 

some Freemason affair. I answered few questions in class. I watched my master's face pass from amiability to sternness; he hoped I was not beginning to idle. I could not call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.

On Saturday morning I reminded my uncle that I wished to go to the bazaar in the evening. He was fussing at the hallstand, looking for the hat-brush, and answered me curtly:

`Yes, boy, I know.'

As he was in the hall I could not go into the front parlour and lie at the window. I felt the house in bad humour and walked slowly towards the school. The air was pitilessly raw and already my heart misgave me.

 

When I came home to dinner my uncle had not yet been home. Still it was early. I sat staring at the clock for some time and, when its ticking began to irritate me, I left the room. I mounted the staircase and gained the upper part of the house. The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I went from room to room singing. From the front window I saw my companions playing below in the street. Their cries reached me weakened and indistinct and, leaning my forehead against the cool glass, I looked over at the dark house where she lived. I may have stood there for an hour, seeing nothing but the brown-clad figure cast by my imagination, touched discreetly by the lamplight at the curved neck, at the hand upon the railings and at the border below the dress.

 

When I came downstairs again I found Mrs Mercer sitting at the fire. She was an old, garrulous woman, a pawnbroker's widow, who collected used stamps for some pious purpose. I had to endure the gossip of the tea-table. The meal was prolonged beyond an hour and still my uncle did not come. Mrs Mercer stood up to go: she was sorry she couldn't wait any longer, but it was after eight o'clock and she did not like to be out late, as the night air was bad for her. When she had gone I began to walk up and down the room, clenching my fists. My aunt said:

`I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of Our Lord.'

At nine o'clock I heard my uncle's latchkey in the hall door. I heard him talking to himself and heard the hallstand rocking when it had received the weight of his overcoat. I could interpret these signs. When he was midway through his dinner I asked him to give me the money to go to the bazaar. He had forgotten.

`The people are in bed and after their first sleep now,' he said.

I did not smile. My aunt said to him energetically:

`Can't you give him the money and let him go? You've kept him late enough as it is.'

 

My uncle said he was very sorry he had forgotten. He said he believed in the old saying: `All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.' He asked me where I was going and, when I told him a second time, he asked me did I know The Arab's Farewell to his Steed. When I left the kitchen he was about to recite the opening lines of the piece to my aunt.

 

I held a florin tightly in my hand as I strode down Buckingham Street towards the station. The sight of the streets thronged with buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous houses and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside an improvised wooden platform. I passed out on to the road and saw by the lighted dial of a clock that it was ten minutes to ten. In front of me was a large building which displayed the magical name.

 

I could not find any sixpenny entrance and, fearing that the bazaar would be closed, I passed in quickly through a turnstile, handing a shilling to a weary-looking man. I found myself in a big hall girded at half its height by a gallery. Nearly all the stalls were closed and the greater part of the hall was in darkness. I recognized a silence like that which pervades a church after a service. I walked into the centre of the bazaar timidly. A few people were gathered about the stalls which were still open. Before a curtain, over which the words Café Chantant were written in coloured lamps, two men were counting money on a salver. I listened to the fall of the coins.

 

Remembering with difficulty why I had come, I went over to one of the stalls and examined porcelain vases and flowered tea-sets. At the door of the stall a young lady was talking and laughing with two young gentlemen. I remarked their English accents and listened vaguely to their conversation.

`O, I never said such a thing!'

`O, but you did!'

`O, but I didn't!'

`Didn't she say that?'

`Yes. I heard her.'

`O, there's a... fib!'

Observing me, the young lady came over and asked me did I wish to buy anything. The tone of her voice was not encouraging; she seemed to have spoken to me out of a sense of duty. I looked humbly at the great jars that stood like eastern guards at either side of the dark entrance to the stall and murmured:

 

`No, thank you.'

The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder.

I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

                                                                  END 

 

How Dunno Took a Ride ina Soda Water Car

By Nikolai Nosov

 

Bendum and his helper Twistum were very good tinkers. They looked exactly alike, except that Bendum was the least bit taller and Twistum was the least bit shorter. Both of them wore leather jackets, and in their pockets they always carried files, wrenches, screwdrivers, and other tools. If the pockets hadn't been made of leather they would have been torn off long ago. Their caps were also made of leather and they had goggles on them. Bendum and Twistum pulled down the goggles when they were working to keep the dust and dirt out of their eyes.

 

   All day long Bendum and Twistum sat in their shop repairing frying-pans, saucepans, tea-kettles, oil stoves, and mincing machines, and when they had nothing to repair they would make tricycles and push-cycles for the boy-Mites.   One day, without saying a word to anybody, Bendum and Twistum shut themselves up in their shop and began to make something. For a whole month they hammered and sawed and filed and soldered without showing anybody what they were working on, and when the month was up it turned out they had made a motor car.

 

   This motor car ran on a mixture of soda-water and syrup. In the middle of the car was a seat for the driver, and in front of this seat was the soda-water tank. The soda-water ran out of the tank into a pipe leading to a brass cylinder with a piston in it.   Under the pressure of the soda-water the piston went up and down, up and down, and made the wheels go round. Above the driver's seat was another tank with syrup in it that ran down through a pipe and greased the engine. Soda-water cars of this sort were very popular among the Mites.  

 

But the car that Bendum and Twistum made had one very important improvement: there was a little rubber tube hanging out of the soda-water tank so that the driver could take a sip whenever he wanted it without stopping the car.   Swifty learned to drive the car, and if anyone asked him for a ride, he never refused. Treacly-Sweeter asked more often than anyone else because he knew he could drink as much soda-water as he liked in the car. Dunno also enjoyed a ride. But Dunno wanted to learn to drive himself, and one day he said to Swifty: 

 

 "Let me steer."   "You don't know how," said Swifty. "This is a motor car and you've got to know how to handle it." 

"What's there to know?" Dunno said. "I've seen what you do-just pull levers and turn the wheel. It's very simple."  

 

"It looks simple, but it's really very hard. You'll kill yourself and smash the car."  

"All right, Swifty," said Dunno sulkily, "the next time you ask me for something I won't give it to you either."  

 

One day when Swifty was out Dunno saw the car standing in the yard. He climbed into it and began pulling levers and pressing pedals. At first nothing happened, but all of a sudden the car gave a sputter and began to move. Some Mites who were looking out of the window saw this and ran out of the house.  

 

"What are you doing?" they cried. "You'll run into something!"

 

   "No, I won't." said Dunno, but at that very moment he ran into the dog-kennel and smashed it to bits. Fortunately Dot was not inside, or he would have I'een smashed too. 

 

"Just look what you've done!" cried Doono.

"Stop the car this.very minute!"  

Dunno was frightened. He wanted to stop the car, but he didn't know how. He pulled this lever and that, but instead of stopping, the car went faster than ever. There was a summer-house standing in the yard. Bang! Crash! The summer-house lay in ruins. Boards came falling about Dunno's ears. One of them struck him on the back, another on the head. He kept turning the steering-wheel back and forth.

   "Open the gates or I'll smash everything!"

 

he called out as the car raced round the yard. The Mites opened the gates and Dunno drove the car into the street. There was such a commotion that all the townsfolk came running out of their houses.  

"Out of the way!" shouted Dunno as the car tore along.

 

   Doono, Bendum, P'raps, Dr. Pillman, and some other Mites ran after it but they couldn't catch up. Dunno went tearing about the town, unable to stop the car. At last it headed for the river and tumbled headlong down the steep bank. Dunno fell out and lay unconscious on the river-bank. The car sank to the bottom of the river.   Doono, Bendum, P'raps, and Dr. Pillman carried Dunno home. They thought he was done for, but as soon as they laid him on the bed he opened his eyes.

  "Am I still alive?" he groaned as he looked about him. 

"You are," said Dr. Pillman, "but please lie still, I must look you over."  

 

He undressed Dunno and examined him.

 

"Strange as it may seem, not a bone is broken,"

he said when he had finished.

"But you have a few splinters in you." 

"A board caught me on the back," explained Dunno. 

"I'll have to take the splinters out," said Dr. Pillman, shaking his head.  

 

"Will it hurt?" asked the frightened Dunno. 

"Not at all. Here, I'll take the biggest one out first." 

"Ouch!" cried Dunno.

"Why, did it hurt?" asked Dr. Pillman in surprise.

"Of course it did!"  

"Well, you'll have to grin and bear it. It doesn't really hurt."   "It does so! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!"  

 

"Anyone would think I was cutting your throat, the way you shout! What are you shouting for?"  

 

"It hurts! You said it wouldn't, but it does!"  

"Don't make so much noise.

 

There's only one splinter left."  

"Leave it there. I don't mind having one splinter in me."  

"I can't. It'll fester." 

 "Ouch! Oooo!" 

"That's all. I'll just paint it with iodine and everything's over."   "Will the iodine hurt?"  

"Oh, no. Iodine doesn't hurt. Lie still."  

"0-o-u-u-ch!"

"Come, now! If you're so fond of riding in cars, you've got to take the consequences."  

"Oh, oh! It stings!"  

"It won't last long. Now I must take your temperature."

"Oh, don't! Please don't!"  

"Why not?"  

"It'll hurt."

"It doesn't hurt to have your temperature taken."  

"You always say it doesn't hurt, but it always does."   "Silly! Haven't I ever taken your temperature before?"  

"No, you haven't."  

"Well, now you'll see it really doesn't hurt," said the doctor, and he went to get the thermometer.

  

   As soon as he was gone Dunno jumped out of bed, leaped through the window, and ran off to Gunky's.

When Dr. Pillman came back with the thermometer, Dunno was gone.   "A fine patient!" muttered the doctor. "Here I am doing my best to make him well and instead of thanking me, he jumps out of the window and runs away!

He ought to be ashamed of himself!"

 

                                             END

 

 

  Nikolai Nosov