The Magic Cheese - стр. 4

   Vovka had never seen such amazing paths before. It was very much alive and joyful. It seemed to Vovka that the path was playing with him, slightly pushing the boy ahead. But of course, that couldn’t be true, just because it couldn’t be true at all. Still Vovka thought that only such paths were able to ‘lead’ you. This one was really doing that! Vovka had no idea what kind of a place it was, but he enjoyed it. On both sides of the path there were trees. They grew thicker and thicker until they turned into a real forest, and into a rather strange forest, one should say. Tiny yellow, orange, pink, red, green and blue birds were sitting on the branches of the trees. There was even one purple bird. All of them were singing about something kind and good, and these songs filled Vovka with joy and strength. The warm wind caressed the boy’s face, and brought fruit and (for some reason) honey fragrances. In the thick grass bright flowers were blooming and butterflies of many colours were flying over them. Beautiful green trees grew in the forest and almost all of them were in full blossom. Those that were not had ripe juicy fruit on their branches – cherries, plums, apples, pears, oranges, apricots, figs and many others. Well, even a small child knows that all these fruit trees can’t grow at one place and bear fruit at the same time. This isn’t possible and such cases are unknown to science. But Vovka saw that with his own eyes and even could touch the trees. Every time he would exclaim, “That cannot be!”, wondering at this miracle, an orange or some other fruit dropped into Vovka’s palm. Yes, this forest was truly magic. Its trees seemed to understand human language and gladly treated the boy to their fruits. Vovka wasn’t hungry yet, and he also remembered well that in magic gardens not all the fruits were harmless. If you tried them, you could have donkey’s ears or deer’s antlers afterwards. Or, which was even worth, you could stop breathing. Vovka had no wish to try these fruit, but he also didn’t want to hurt the trees, refusing them. He thought a little and put the fruit into his pockets. The trees seemed to notice what Vovka was doing, and started to give him more. “This way I won’t have any room left in my pockets very soon,” worried the boy. But then quite suddenly the forest came to an end.

   It happened so abruptly that Vovka didn’t even have time to get surprised, when he saw a green meadow with bright flowers, a house made of yellow stones not far away, a wooden well and a mouse that was pulling the water out of it. It was the mouse from the cheese wrapper – the one that winked at Vovka. The boy saw the wells similar to this one in the country and even tried to take water out of them himself. At first you had to tie a bucket to a chain or a rope and then throw it down, turning the handle until the bucket came up. This work wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t too difficult either. With some training everyone could easily do it, but – a mouse?! A little grey mouse with a thin tail? Even if it were dressed up like that – in a fine scarlet pinafore embroidered in gold threads, still it wouldn’t be able to do it. Vovka decided that it was some kind of a trick. And then the mouse turned around and said not very politely, “There is no shame, you know, when one is bowing low. You can show respect by bending your back.”