And then the moon came up. Bright, bright, lit up everything around: both the grass and the road. Suddenly we hear from the bush that by the road itself:

Fit-piryu! Fit-piryu!

She is! says Nikita.

And the quail is even louder:

Fit-piryu! Time to sleep!

We are in the bushes - and immediately caught our quail.

She was cold, wet with dew. We returned home with her, sealed the crack in the cage tightly and planted the quail back and forth. And Nikita went to bed.

About bunnies

Once at the dacha Nikita ran up to me and shouted:

Dad, give me the rabbits! Dad, give me the rabbits!

And I do not understand what kind of rabbits to give him. And I'm not going to give away anyone, and I don't have rabbits.

What are you, Nikitushka, - I say, - what is the matter with you?

And Nikita is crying directly: give him back and give him the rabbits.

Then my mother came and told me everything. It turns out that the village guys brought two rabbits from the meadows: they caught them in the hayfield. And Nikita got it all mixed up. It was necessary to say: “Take the rabbits,” and he says: “Give the rabbits back.”

We took the rabbits, they began to live with us.

Well, the bunnies were nice! Such fluffy balls! Ears apart, brown eyes, large. And the paws are soft, soft - like hares in felt boots walk.

We wanted to feed the rabbits. They gave them herbs - they do not eat. They poured milk into a saucer - and they don’t drink milk ... Are they full, or what?

And they lowered them to the floor - they don’t let anyone take a step. They jump straight to their feet. They poke their muzzles into boots and lick them ... They must be looking for a mother hare.

Apparently, they are hungry, but they do not know how to eat. More suckers.

Then Tomka, our dog, came into the room. I also wanted to see rabbits. They, poor things, jumped on Tomka, climbed on him ... Tomka growled, snapped and ran away.

How can we feed the rabbits? After all, they, poor things, will die of hunger.

We thought, thought, and finally came up with. We went to look for a cat nurse for them.

The cat was lying on a bench near the neighboring house, feeding her kittens. She is so colorful, painted, even her nose is multi-colored.

We dragged the cat to the hares, how she snorts at them, how she grumbles in a bass voice, almost howls. Yes, well, her!

We went to look for another nurse.

We see a cat lying on the mound, all black, with a white paw. The cat is purring, basking in the sun ... And when they took it and put a rabbit next to it, it immediately released all its claws and bristled. Also not suitable as a wet nurse! We took her back.

They began to look for a third cat.

Already at the very end of the village found. Looks so good, sweet. Only this affectionate little bit of our bunnies didn’t eat. As soon as she saw them, she escaped from her hands and how she rushed at the hares, like at mice.

We dragged her by force and threw her out the door.

Probably, our hares would have died of starvation if, fortunately for us, there had not been one more cat - the fourth. She herself came to us. She came because she was looking for kittens. Her kittens had died, and she went all over the village looking for them... Such a red-haired, thin one; we fed her, gave her a drink and laid her on the windowsill and brought the rabbits to her. First one hare, then another.

The hares leaned into her and immediately sucked, even smacked their lips - they found milk!

And the cat at first twitched, got worried, and then began to lick them - and even purred a song.

So it's all right.

For many days the cat fed the rabbits.

He lies with them on the windowsill, and the people stop at the window, look:

That's a miracle, a cat feeds hares!

Then the hares grew up, learned to eat grass themselves and ran into the forest. They are free to live there.

And the cat got herself real kittens.

Magpie

Whom the magpie sees - chirps.

What's bad lies - it's right there.

He will notice a bird's nest - he will peck eggs, he will eat non-flying chicks.

And the beast is not sweet from the magpie: it does not allow the magpie to hide from enemies. Tells everyone where someone is hiding. Shouts:

That's where he is!"

The beast hides from the magpie. And forty is not a step away from him. Where he is, there she is.

He is across the field - a magpie chirps above him:

"I see you!

I see you!

Don't run - I'll catch up

Don't eat, I'll take it!"

Here she is, forty!

A black grouse walks along the clearing, protecting the chickens.

And they are roaming, looking for food. They haven't learned to fly yet, they haven't grown up yet.

Whoever is bigger will hurt them.

I saw a magpie-thief prey. She lurks, jumps closer, closer.

Wants to have lunch.

Quoh! - shouted the aunt. -

The enemy is near!

Looks, looks forty - does not see a single chicken. There is no one!

Someone to grab!

Someone to swallow!

Angry:

“H-how is that!

How it is!"

Then a black grouse ran into her and drove away.

Driven away.

She returned, quacking:

There is no enemy close!

Everyone got out, some from where: some from under the bump, some from the knot, some from the hole, some from the tubercle. A whole company from under the hemp.

The magpie flew away from the grouse, cleaned itself up. And again he looks and listens. Is anyone coming? Is there food anywhere? Is it possible to take something away from someone?

The bear barks. Bears do not listen to her. They indulge. One beats in a puddle with his paws - sprays fly. Mishka loves it. The other climbed on the viburnum, swinging like on a swing.

Magpie is right there and shouting:

What are you doing?"

The bear immediately fell silent.

And the mice were scared. Stupid, but they understand: while the bear was growling, grumbling, there was no enemy. It was possible to indulge. And she fell silent - it means that you need to hide.

The bear - from the puddle, the bear - from the viburnum, and they galloped into the thicket, where it is thicker, until the magpie got rid of them.

The she-wolf brought food to the cubs.

Everyone took food.

They growl, they growl.

And the magpie from above will scream:

"I see everything!

Wolves scattered, who goes where.

And the she-wolf does not hide from the magpie. Magpie chirps above her; the magpie does not understand that the she-wolf does not hide on purpose. Takes her away from the cubs.

Meanwhile, the wolf cubs returned, ate the prey, left nothing for the magpie.

The lynx crawls towards the partridges. And they peck, feed, do not notice anything.

Forty flew to them. It is interesting to her that these chickens are pecking. Someone stirred in the bushes.

The magpie flew up to the Christmas tree and sees - the beast is sneaking up on the partridges.

I see you! That's where he is!"

The hens heard, they climbed onto the wing. The lynx jumped, but did not grab anyone. The dog smells the goat's footprint, wants to find and catch the goats. And the magpie is right there - chirping: “Here he is! Here he is!"

The wild goats heard the magpie - and go! The dog chased after them - did not catch up.

And the magpie listens again, looks out - is there food-prey somewhere?

Nikita Evgenievich Charushin, like his father, famous writer and graphic artist Evgeny Ivanovich Charushin, almost completely devoted his work to the animalistic children's book. Born and raised in Leningrad, graduated from the painting faculty of the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I.E. Repin. Designed more than 90 publications, including children's books by V. Bianchi, R. Kipling, S. Mikhalkov, S. Marshak, I. Sokolov-Mikitov, B. Zhitkov, I. Sladkov, E. Charushin, F. Mouet, F. Salten , S. Voronina. Laureate of All-Russian, All-Union, international competitions children's book. The works of N.E. Charushin are represented in the collections of the Tretyakov Gallery, the Russian Museum, museums in Japan, Germany and other countries.

The artist in the eighth generation, Nikita Charushin, made his first drawing at the age of three years and nine months. It was the "Tiger", which immediately hit the children's art exhibition. From his father - a brilliant artist Evgeny Charushin, a hunter and connoisseur of nature - the son inherited respect for the forest, attentiveness to every animal and bird. It was his father who instilled in Nikita the culture of hunting, during which you need to look more than shoot. Many years later, Nikita Charushin wrote: “Thanks to hunting, when in difficult conditions you see an animal, or a bird, or how a branch sways from a bird that has taken off, you perceive everything more sharply, and these impressions still fill me.”

The formation of the young artist was strongly influenced by the environment in which he grew up: the environment of family friends, artists who adhere to the traditions of the Leningrad school - V.M. Konashevich, V.I. Kurdov, V.M. Vasnetsov and others. Very much, according to Nikita Evgenievich himself, in the understanding of art gave him two years of communication with V.V. Lebedev. Under his leadership, the young Charushin was even lucky enough to have time to make several book works.

Nikita Evgenievich first turned to book graphics in 1959. Since that time, he began to collaborate with the magazines Murzilka, Funny Pictures, Neva.

In his early works, the artistic style of Nikita Charushin is similar to that of his father: the same focus on a specific animal or bird, the same minimalism, the same technique for depicting fur and plumage. The reason is not only in unconscious imitation, but also in the fact that after the death of Yevgeny Ivanovich, the son had to complete a series of drawings he had begun for books that were already in the portfolios of publishing houses: this tied Nikita Charushin to his father's manner. At the same time, the young artist was in constant search of his own path.

Nikita Charushin tried to convey, when depicting an animal and a bird, those features by which it would be easy for a child to recognize them, therefore, his main task was not to accurately depict, but to create images of animals, a reflection of their style and character.

Evgeny and Nikita Charushin. Friends. Moscow: Malysh, 1991

The achievement of this goal was helped by the image of the environment from which the artist never pulled out his characters: in his illustrations, animals and birds continue to live in nature according to their own laws. For Charushin, the idea of ​​the inseparability of any creature with the environment is very important, he strives to convey this idea to the reader.

Some convention of the image, together with the ease of transferring the image, make Nikita Charushin's drawings look like Chinese painting and the painting of the Impressionists. Charushin himself wrote that he was "extraordinarily emotionally impressed ... by the Paleolithic, then by archaic China ... Assyria - scenes of hunting lions, Mexican animal art." But the main creative impulse for him was nature, daily, albeit small, discoveries that Nikita Evgenievich made while studying it.

Evgeny and Nikita Charushin. Friends. Moscow: Malysh, 1991

It's hard being the son of a genius. It is immeasurably harder to go the same way, to continue his work, because on the part of critics the comparison will always be inevitable and not always flattering.

The works of Nikita Charushin are similar to the works of his father - both in terms of plot and figurative similarity, and in terms of the drawing technique itself. But after all, the father's talent was so great, the technique is so new and unique for Russian art, that students, successors simply had no right not to appear!

Nikita continued the animalistic traditions laid down by his father. This required more than just spiritual continuity. Of course, talent was required.

Despite the similarity of techniques, Charushina's father and son are still different artists. Their difference is primarily in relation to what they see in the very view of the world. If Yevgeny Ivanovich is rather a portrait painter - in his works there is a great emotional concentration on one creature, then for a mature Nikita an animal or a bird is part of the whole, of nature.

N. Charushin, E. Charushin. Bear fisherman. M.: Malysh, 1981.

Animal drawing for a children's book is not like that. simple task as it seems: it is not enough to draw animals well here. In this case, art dictates an unshakable law: reliability is not in the similarity of the image on paper to its living prototype, but in the ability to convey a sense of life.

The abundance of details can obscure the image of an animal or a bird. This is exactly what many artists who draw for an animalistic book sin with: their books lose their artistic beginning and become like reference books.

About Nikita Charushin and his father they said: "naturalists", "artists-naturalists". These are those who do not “just copy everything from nature”, but perceive their mediation between art and nature as a high moral mission. They understood that the purpose of such a drawing was to arouse in the child “surprise by the beauty of the animal” and from that moment to capture its image as something necessary in life.

There have always been few animalists in children's books. Even more talented. But if such a master already grows up, he becomes something like a magician and wizard, because he shows us what we “see, but don’t see” - nature that an ordinary city dweller, even if he notices, does not know how or does not want feel. But this blindness threatens us with a catastrophe - life in a concrete-plastic world! Vigilance, unfortunately, rarely manifests itself in children by itself: to develop it, you need to make significant efforts. This is where an animalistic children's book can help.

“The value of an artist-naturalist ... is in a high moral mission - introducing into creativity an ethical attitude of man to nature. A branch or a tussock with cranberries I once saw is still dear to me ... I don’t understand those who have a consumerist attitude towards nature, ”wrote Nikita Evgenievich Charushin. – She amazes me and always surprises me, and this surprise helps me to live in art. I will consider that my life has not been lived in vain if my art indirectly preserves nature, protects it from destruction.

Anna Shteiman. Surprise with beauty // Treasure Island. - No. 11. - 2009.
Illustration scans: fairyroom.ru

N. Sladkov. From North to South. M.: Malysh, 1987.

Evgeny Charushin

Nikita and his friends

The book "Nikita and his friends" is written about the boy Nikita and his daily life. It is interesting that the book was reprinted many times, and at the same time had different names: "Nikita and his friends", "Nikita and his friends", "Friends", while the set of stories in the book was different. But in any edition main character books - the son of Evgeny Ivanovich Charushin Nikita. The story is told on behalf of this boy's dad, in the stories Nikitka refers to him like this - dad. And here is what dad said about his little son and his friends.

Evgeny Charushin

Nikita and his friends

How Nikita helped me

I sit at my desk and think.

Suddenly Nikita comes up to me on a bicycle. He drove up, looked at me and asked:

Do you think dad? Yes? What are you thinking about? Perhaps something interesting?

Interesting stuff, I say. - I want to write a book about you and me - for the guys. About how we live and get on, how our cat fed the rabbits, how Tomka learned to swim. I’ll write, and then I’ll draw everyone: you, Nikita, and Tomka, and the rabbits - everyone, everyone. Just don't bother me - I'll start writing now.

But Nikita was delighted and shouted:

I want to write too! I will help you!

Yes, you are still small, - I say, - you do not know how!

I know how, - he says, - give me paper.

Here Nikita climbed onto a chair, took a pen, took paper and began to write with a pen on paper.

Okay, I say. - First write down the title of our first story. Write like this: "How Nikita taught a sparrow to fly."

Nikita stuck out his tongue and scratched his pen.

Well, who else to write about? - asks.

Write this: “Like a horse rolled animals.”

He wrote that too.

And now write: "How Nikitka bit Tomka."

Well, I don’t want to write about this, - says Nikita, - I accidentally bit him - I just wanted to show him how lions bite. You don't have to write about it!

Okay, don't - don't, write something else.

Nikita wrote, wrote, creaked with a pen, creaked - he wrote everything. Get off your chair and say:

Here I helped you. On paper - read!

He got on his bike and left to help his mother - she sewed a button to his pants.

Well, read it yourself - maybe you'll understand?

Quail

We had a quail in a cage. Such a small wild hen. All brown, with light stripes. And she's got a feathered bib around her throat, like a baby bib.

The quail walks around the cage and whistles softly - like this:

Turr-turr! turr-turr!

And then he lies on the barrel and bathes in the sand, like a real chicken, cleans his feathers, flaps his wings. We will show her a worm, she will come up and peck from her hands.

We even took her in our arms as a toy.

She sits on the palm and does not fly away. Completely manual.

But the most amazing thing is this. As soon as we turn on the electricity in the evening, the quail immediately starts whistling - screaming:

Fit-piryu! Fit-piryu!

What is she saying? - asks Nikita.

She puts you to sleep. Hear, shouting: "It's time to sleep! Time to sleep!"

Nikita listened - it really looks like:

Fit-piryu! Time to sleep! Fit-piryu! Time to sleep!

And it really is time for Nikita to sleep. But it's hard to put him down.

It's too early! says Nikita.

Quail again:

Time to sleep!

I don't want to!

Time to sleep!

Well, I'll play a little more!

Here, as the quail screams, that it can no longer be tolerated:

Time to sleep! Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

Yes, I'm washing!

Time to sleep!

Yes, I'm taking off my pants!

Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

Why are you crying, stupid? Because I'm already in bed.

They put out the light in the house - then the quail will fall silent, and Nikita will fall asleep.

That's how we got on.

The quail began to put Nikita to bed.

As soon as she whistles her "fit-piru", Nikita begins to yawn. He yawns, yawns, and then he washes, undresses and goes to bed.

True, the quail, not only in the evenings, but also at other times, shouted “fit-piru”, but I immediately throw some towel or scarf over the cage, and she will be silent.

In the dark, quails do not like to scream.

In the summer we moved to live in the country.

In the garden, a large cage-fence was arranged for the quail. They planted a quail there and went into the field to pick flowers for a housewarming party. And there was a hole in the cage, and the quail ran away. We came back and she was gone.

What a pity we were!

We started looking for her. We've been searching all day, all evening. We dig in the grass, push the bushes apart. No and no our quail.

We are tired, exhausted. It's time for Nikita to sleep.

How will I sleep? he cries. - Nobody puts me down.

And then the moon came up. Bright, bright, lit up everything around: the grass, the road, and the bushes. And suddenly we hear - at the smallest bush:

Fit-piryu! Fit-piryu!

She is! says Nikita.

And the quail is even louder:

Fit-piryu! - Time to sleep!

We are in the bushes - and immediately caught our quail.

She was cold, wet with dew. We returned home with her, sealed the hole in the cage tightly and planted the quail back and forth. And Nikita went to bed.

Nikita the hunter

Nikita has a wooden tiger, a wooden horse, a rubber crocodile and an elephant. The elephant is sewn from rags, and inside it has cotton wool.

And Nikita also has a rope.

Here Nikita hid his tiger under the bed, the crocodile behind the chest of drawers, the elephant under the table.

Sit there, he says. - Now I'm going to hunt you!

Then Nikita took the horse, drilled a hole in its head with a nail, and put the nail in there. It turned out to be a real rhinoceros. The rhinoceros began to live under a chair.

And the rope became a snake. He also lives under a chair, wriggling there.

The hunt begins! Nikita screams.

He loaded his gun, threw over his shoulder the net with which they go to the market, and crawled. Crawled, crawled and crawled on a tiger. And the tiger roars in a terrible voice:

"Rrr-rr-ry!"

And then he meowed like a cat:

"Meow meow!"

This, of course, was not the tiger growling and meowing, but Nikita himself.

And then he raised his gun, took aim:

Wow! Bang bang! Wow! Bang bang!

It's like his gun went off. The hunter killed the tiger, put it into the net and crawled on. Crawled, crawled and crawled on a wild elephant. An elephant is standing, his fangs are forward and he is blowing his trunk like a trumpet:

“True! Trrrr-rrr-ruuuu!"

It was, of course, Nikita who trumpeted for him.

"Bug, bang!"

Nikita killed the elephant, stuffed it into the net and crawled further. Crawled, crawled and crawled to the crocodile. The crocodile clangs and bellows like a bull.

It was Nikita who learned from his father that crocodiles moo like a cow.

"Bug, bang!" - killed a crocodile.

"Bug, bang!" - and the rhinoceros is killed.

"Bug, bang!" - and the snake is ready.

He shot everyone, put them all in a bag - the bag became heavy. Nikita drags her along the floor and shouts throughout the room:

Here I am a hunter! I'm not afraid of anyone! I'll shoot everyone!

In the summer we arrived at the dacha and went for a walk.

Why don't you take a gun with you, Nikitushka? - I ask. - After all, you're a hunter.

Oh right, I forgot! says Nikita.

He ran home, found his gun under the bed, put it over his shoulder and walked beside me.

We are walking in a meadow in the middle of a white chamomile with yellow buttons in the middle.

Multi-colored butterflies fly from the flowers. Grasshoppers are jumping away from us.

And suddenly we see a shirt. It is exactly the same as the big magpie - black and white, only the tail is shorter and smaller.

A shirt jumps from us on the grass, flaps its wings, but still does not know how to fly.

He jumped to the rowan bush and hid in it.

I look, Nikita the hunter has become on all fours - he also hid. He asks me in a whisper:

Dad! Dad! Can I shoot him?

Shoot, shoot, I say. - Since you're a hunter, so be it.

And so Nikita crawled across the grass to his shirt.

For a long time he crawled with a gun in his hand. Got pretty close.

Here he took aim. And suddenly, as he screams at the top of his lungs:

Wow! Bang bang!

And the magpie jumped out of the bush and how it screamed to the whole forest:

“Kreee! Creeeee! Creee!"

Nikita immediately threw the gun to the ground - and to me. Runs, stumbles, falls.

I look: and the shirt is also running away - only in the other direction.

So they run away from each other: magpie - into the forest, and Nikita - to me.

What are you, a hunter? What were you afraid of?

Yes, how! says Nikita. - Why is she, stupid, screaming herself!

Silly boy

I wrote a story and read it to Nikita. And here's the story:

Once upon a time there was Nikita - a very stupid boy. He licked everything. He eats a second meal at dinner - the knife will lick. After all, you can cut. He will begin to paint pictures with paints - he will put a brush in his mouth. After all, you can get poisoned: paints are poisonous. He eats sweets and slowly licks the whole plate with his tongue - well, just like a dog!

He licked and sucked everything on the street.

He sees an icicle - and grab it in his mouth. And when it was snowing, Nikita walked with his tongue hanging out down the street. He walks and waits for a snowflake to fall on his tongue.

Absolutely stupid this Nikita!

One day it was very cold. Everything was frosty outside. Trees and bushes and fences and houses.

Everything around is white.

Nikita went for a walk. Here he walked. Here he went back.

He climbed onto the porch and sees: the copper doorknob by the door is also frosted over - it has become white-white, like sugar.

Nikita stuck out his tongue and licked that pen. And his tongue stuck.

Nikita wants to tear him off - it hurts his tongue. Wants to roar, but will you roar with your tongue hanging out?

Nikitka is standing bent over by the door, his nose against the door and humming.

The guys came running. Nikita's friends. Ask:

What are you doing, Nikita? What are you standing for? What are you mumbling?

And stupid Nikita cannot even answer - he stands and mumbles, mumbles. The guys got scared, ran to the janitor Yegor Ivanovich, shouted to him:

Yegor Ivanovich! Yegor Ivanovich! Nikita tongue stuck!

Egor Ivanovich immediately guessed, grabbed a kettle of warm water and ran to Nikita. And he began to pour water on the copper handle. Lil, lil, poured all the water out of the kettle...

The handle got warm and the tongue fell off.

Since then, Nikita hasn't licked anything else.

This is not a good story at all, - said Nikita - I don't like it at all, at all. Please don't read it to anyone. You better lose him. After all, daddy, I didn’t stick my tongue to the pen, but to the carnation. I picked it up and licked it. He stuck.

Cat

A strange cat began to frighten our birds - siskins, goldfinches, canaries, bullfinches. We have had many of them. They sing well, and Nikita and I always kept them. The cat will make its way along the balcony to our window, jump onto the ledge and look through the glass at the birds. And the birds are worried, rushing to the cage.

Here Nikita says to Tomka:

Let's go scare someone else's cat with you.

WOF WOF! - So, he understands what a "cat" is!

They went together to the window and stood side by side.

And a strange cat sits outside the window, does not take its eyes off the birds. Nikita waved his hands, shouting:

Went away!

And Tomka whined, barked, scratched the glass with his paws. The cat doesn't want to leave. She furrowed her forehead, pressed her ears, spread her mustache. She became furious, deceiving - she became more terrible than a tiger.

Nikita got a little scared, he calls me:

Dad, dad, what is it! We scream, scream, and she looks at us and is not afraid.

That’s why he’s not afraid that you can’t be heard through the glass, ”I say to Nikita. “You don’t scream at her, but scare her in some other way.

Okay, says Nikita.

They again approached Tomka to the window. Nikita spread his fingers, wrinkled his eyebrows, made a terrible, terrible face. Tomka also bared his teeth. Here the cat arched its back, fluffed out its tail like a brush, and wrinkled so much that its eyes became slits. You can’t hear, but you can see that she hisses terribly at Nikita and Tomka.

So all three look at each other.

That's how they scare each other.

She scares them.

They scare her.

Suddenly the cat somehow cringed, backed away, and somersault! From the cornice to the balcony.

They still scared the cat.

Sparrow

Nikita went for a walk with dad. They are walking along the path and suddenly they hear someone chirping:

Chilik-chilik! Chilik-chilik! Chilik-chilik!

And they see that this little sparrow is jumping along the road. Fluffy, just like a ball is rolling. His tail is short, his beak is yellow, and he does not fly anywhere. He must not be able to.

Look, dad, - Nikita shouted, - the sparrow is not real!

And dad says:

No, this is a real sparrow, but only a small one, it is a chick. He must have fallen out of his nest.

Then Nikita ran to catch a sparrow and caught it.

And this sparrow began to live in their house in a cage, and Nikita fed him flies, worms and a bun with milk.

Here lives a sparrow with Nikita. And day, and another, and time screams - it asks for food. Well, what a glutton! A little in the morning the sun will appear - he will chirp, wake everyone up.

Then Nikita said:

I will teach him to fly and release him.

He took the sparrow out of the cage, put it on the floor and began to teach. He squatted in front of the sparrow, waved both hands often, often.

You wave your wings like this, he says.

And the sparrow galloped under the chest of drawers.

We fed the sparrow for another day. Again Nikita put him on the floor - he began the lesson.

Waving, waving his arms... And suddenly the sparrow also flapped its wings and flew away.

Here he flew over the pencil. The pencil was lying on the floor.

I flew over a red fire truck. And as he began to fly over an inanimate toy cat, he stumbled upon it and fell.

You still fly badly, Nikita told him. - Let me feed you for another day.

He fed, fed, and the next day the sparrows flew over Nikitin's bench.

Flew over a chair.

He flew over the table with the jug.

That's just through the chest of drawers could not fly - and fell down.

It looks like you need to feed him some more.

The next day Nikita took the sparrow with him into the garden and planted it in the grass.

The sparrow flew over the brick.

It flew over the stump.

And he began to fly over the fence, but he bumped into it and fell down again.

And the next day he flew over the fence.

And flew over the tree.

And flew through the house.

And completely flew away from Nikita.

That's how great Nikita taught him to fly!

About bunnies

Once at the dacha Nikita ran up to me and shouted:

Dad, sell the rabbits! Dad, sell the rabbits!

And I don’t understand what rabbits to sell him. And I'm not going to sell anyone, and I don't have rabbits.

What are you, Nikitushka, - I say, - what is the matter with you?

And Nikita is crying directly: sell yes sell him rabbits.

Then my mother came and told me everything. It turns out that the village guys brought two rabbits from the meadows: they caught them in the hayfield. And Nikita got it all mixed up. It was necessary to say: "Buy bunnies," and he says: "Sell the rabbits."

Well, we bought nice bunnies! Such fluffy balls! Ears apart, brown eyes, large. And the paws are soft, soft - like hares in felt boots walk.

We wanted to feed the rabbits. They gave them herbs - they do not eat. They poured milk into a saucer - and they don’t drink milk ... Are they full, or what?

And they lowered them to the floor - they don’t let anyone take a step. They jump straight to their feet. They poke their muzzles into boots and lick them ... They must be looking for a mother hare.

Apparently, they are hungry, but they do not know how to eat. More suckers.

Then Tomka, our dog, came into the room. I also wanted to see rabbits. They, poor things, jumped on Tomka, climbed on him ... Tomka growled, snapped and ran away.

How can we feed the rabbits? After all, they, poor things, will die of hunger. They need to find a feeder.

And then I remembered. Once, on a hunt, I saw a forester: a cat feeds a bunny. I remember that I was surprised for so long that the forester began to laugh at me.

Either, - he says, - it still happens. I myself saw in the zoo how a small, small dog was feeding a lion cub.

And we went to look for a nurse cat.

The cat was lying on a bench near the neighboring house and was feeding her kittens. So colorful, painted, even her nose is multi-colored.

We dragged the cat to the hares, how she snorts at them, how she grumbles in a bass voice, almost howls. Yes, well, her!

We went to look for another nurse.

We see a cat lying on the mound, all black, with a white paw. The cat is purring, basking in the sun ... And when they took it and put a rabbit next to it, it immediately released all its claws and bristled. Also not suitable as a wet nurse!

We took her back. They began to look for a third cat.

They walked for a long time. They found one at the very end of the village. Looks so good, sweet. Only this affectionate little bit of our bunnies didn’t eat. As soon as she saw them, she escaped from her hands - and straight at the hares, like at mice. We dragged her by force and threw her out the door.

Probably, our hares would have died of hunger if, fortunately for us, there had not been another cat, the fourth. She herself came to us. She came because she was looking for kittens. Her kittens died, and she went all over the village and looked for them ... Such a red-haired, thin; we fed her, gave her a drink and laid her on the windowsill and brought the rabbits to her. First one hare, then another.

The hares leaned into her and immediately sucked, even smacked their lips - they found milk!

And the cat at first twitched, got worried, and then we see - she began to lick them and even purred a song.

So it's all right!

For many days the cat fed the rabbits.

She used to lie on the windowsill, humming a song, her muzzle happy, squinting at the sun, and the hares at her side. Whoever walks by will stop, be surprised:

That's a miracle, a cat feeds hares!

And then the hares grew up, learned to eat grass themselves and ran into the forest.

And the cat got herself real kittens.

Ryabchonok

I noticed a clearing with mushrooms in the forest a long time ago. They are scattered in the grass like little yellow buttons. They are so small that they can fit through the neck of a bottle. They are very good to salt.

We took a basket each - I was a big one, and Nikita was a small one - and went to the forest.

And Tomka ran with us.

We hadn’t even reached the clearing with mushrooms, when Tomka spun, spun in one place near the Christmas tree, - he began to sniff. And suddenly, very close to us, someone loudly flapped their wings.

We looked behind the bush, and some amazing chicken walks there, walks and looks at us. Such a motley one, shaggy paws, and a black crest on her head - it will either rise like a cap, or lie down.

Who is this? - asks Nikita.

Hush, hush, - I tell him, - don't scare me, it's a hazel grouse.

Suddenly the chicken crawled along the ground like a mouse, then stood up in a column, stretched out its neck and flapped its wings even louder. She patted, patted, ruffled all over, as if she were sick, and galloped somewhere to the side.

That's the show! Why is she like this? - asks Nikita.

It is she who is cunning, - I say, - she takes our Tomka away from the chickens.

And as soon as Tomka saw the hazel grouse, he immediately rushed after her.

The hazel grouse limps, flies up, barely runs, as if she is completely sick. Pretending.

And Tomka is happy: he squeals, barks, is about to catch up with the hazel grouse, is about to grab her by the tail! Stupid Tom.

The hazel grouse took him far, far away and then, apparently, sat on a tree. We hear: Tomka barks in one place.

Here I say:

Come on, Nikitushka, let's look for chickens with you. The hazel grouse took Tomka away from here on purpose - it means that the hazel grouse hid somewhere here.

We lifted a rotten spruce branch from the ground, we see: some kind of toadstool sticks out on a thin stem. And under the toadstool the grouse sits. He hid and closed his eyes.

I grabbed it with my hand - and caught it. Ready! Gotcha, little one!

Ah, here he is! Just like a real chicken. Only smaller, but all striped and spotted. This is to make hiding easier.

It’s still downy, and there are feathers on the wings, which means it’s already flying.

I gave Nikita a little grouse to hold.

What are we going to do with it? - I ask. - Will we take it home or leave it to the grouse? Perhaps he will die at our house without a mother.

Let's give the grouse, - says Nikita.

So we did.

I opened my hand. And the little grouse sits in my palm and does not move, it is very afraid.

Then I gave him a little push, and he flew.

He flew five steps, sat down on the ground and disappeared from sight - either he stuck himself in a hole, or climbed under some leaf, or simply pressed himself to the ground.

Well, these grouse deftly hide!

Nikita and I picked up full baskets of mushrooms and came home.

And Tomka remained in the forest. The grouse deceived him, stupid, for a long, long time, led him from tree to tree.

Tomkin's dreams

When Tomka sleeps, he barks in his sleep, squeals, and sometimes even moves his paws, as if he is running somewhere.

Nikita asks me:

Why is Tomka barking? After all, he is sleeping!

He sees dreams, - I answer.

And what?

Yes, probably some of his own, dog dreams, hunting dreams - about different animals, about birds.

That's interesting! says Nikita.

He went up to Tomka, squatted down and looked. And Tomka slept, slept, and barked in a thin voice.

Oh dad, look, look! He saw a little bunny.

Why do you think it's a bunny?

And there he barks so thinly.

Tomka slept a little more and twitched and twitched his paws.

Dad, - says Nikit, - look, Tomka is running in a dream.

Yes, for no one, but from a cow. He saw her in a dream, and she let's butt heads.

Get up, - shouts, - Wake up soon! What are you? After all, he
eat you now!

Who? - I ask.

Yes tiger! He saw a tiger and wanted to fight with him. And the tiger - after all, what a toothy he is. He will eat our Tomka!

Tomka and cow*

When Tomka was still a very small puppy, no bigger than a cat, I took him hunting with me. Let it get used to.

Here we go with him. Tomka chases butterflies, chases dragonflies. Catching grasshoppers. Barks at birds. Just can't catch anyone. Everyone is flying away. He ran and ran - he got so tired that he stuck his nose into a bump and fell asleep. Still small. And I feel sorry for waking him up. Half an hour passed. The bumblebee has arrived. Bunchit, flies over Tomkin's ear.

Tomka woke up. He turned around awake, looked: who is this disturbing sleep?

He did not notice the bumblebee, but he saw a cow and ran to her. And the cow was grazing far, far away and must have seemed to Tomka quite small, no bigger than a sparrow.

Tomka runs to bite the cow, his tail is up - he has never seen a cow before. He ran closer, but the cow is no longer the size of a sparrow - it seems to be as tall as a cat.

Then Tomka ran a little quieter, and the cow was no longer the size of a cat, but a goat.

Tom was scared. He did not come close and sniffs: what kind of animal is this? At this time, the cow moved - it must have been bitten by someone.

And Tomka ran away from her!

Since then, he has not come close to cows.

How Tomka learned to swim

We went for a walk and took Tomka with us.

They put him in a briefcase so that he wouldn't get tired.

They came to the lake, sat on the shore and began to throw pebbles into the water - whoever throws it further. And they put the briefcase with Tomka on the grass. So he got out of the briefcase, saw how a pebble fell into the water, and ran.

Tomka runs along the sand, clumsy, clumsy, his legs tangle in the sand. He reached the water, put his paws in the water and looks back at us.

Go, Tomka, go - don't be afraid, you won't drown!

Tomka climbed into the water. First, he went up to the tummy, then up to the neck, and then he plunged all over. Only the tail-stump sticks out. He fiddled, fiddled, and then suddenly popped out - and let's cough, sneeze, snort. It can be seen that he decided to breathe in the water - the water got into his nose and mouth. Didn't get the stone.

Then we took the ball and threw it into the lake.

Tomka liked to play with a ball - it was his favorite toy. The ball flopped into the water, twirled and stopped. Lies on the water, as on a smooth floor.

Tomka recognized his favorite toy and could not stand it - he ran into the water. Runs, screams.

But now it doesn't stick its nose into the water.

Walked, walked and swam. He swam to the ball, bit it in the teeth - and back to us. That's how I learned to swim.

That's the parrot bird!

I have a big cage. Many birds live in it: a lark, a nightingale, yellow canaries, green canaries, a small quail hen that cries in the evenings: "It's time to sleep, it's time to sleep," and an Egyptian dove that coos: "Gur-gurrru-u, gur- gurrru-u".

Previously, a teal duck also lived in this cage, but it splashed very much and loved to pull feathers from everyone’s tail. I had to let her go.

Nikita and I love to sit in front of the cage and watch how our birds bathe in water or sand, how they eat, how they fight. Tomka is also sitting with us. Only he gets tired of sitting in vain. He will curl up and fall asleep to the sound of birds singing.

So everything went on with us - well and calmly.

But once I bought a green Australian parrot. It's called "wavy parrot". Such a funny ass. Roundhead. Just like an old man with a beard, but as tall as a sparrow. I brought him home and let him in to our whole company. What was there! How frightened everyone was!

The quail is three times the size of its ass, and with a fright it flew up and bang its head against the ceiling of the cage. Canaries rush about, beat against the bars, only feathers fly from the cage, and the dove climbed into the corner and groans there, as if dying.

What are they all so afraid of? - asks Nikita. - After all, the ass does not touch them. It is small.

And I say to Nikita:

Yes, you see how he crawls along the branches. Nikita looked and laughed.

Just like a worm, the Australian parrot crawls. It will pull up to the branch and tighten up all over, pull up and tighten up. It will cling to a twig with its beak, and then intercept it with its paws.

Siskins and canaries look - what kind of bird? And he moves not in their own way, but in his own way, like a parrot, like an Australian, and somehow at the same time grunts, whistles, clicks. And the “frrr” makes noise with its wings - just like the propeller of an airplane.

The birds fought and fought in the cage, and Tomka seemed to have gone crazy. He climbs into the cage, squeals, scratches, does not take his eyes off the parrot.

What are you, - Nikitka shouts to him, - you can’t catch a parrot, it’s not a grouse for you!

And suddenly our parrot took off and flew out of the cage. Somehow crawled sideways through the bars. We so gasped. Be sure to eat it Tomka! A parrot is running around the room, spinning near the ceiling, and Tomka is also spinning on the floor.

The ass flew, flew, and then sat on an electric lamp and rested. And Tomka also sat on the bed, stuck out his tongue and looked at the parrot.

And suddenly the ass flew again. He flew and flew, did not know where to sit. And suddenly he sat down... He sat right on Tomka's head. Tomka froze, blinked his eyes, his mouth shut and ... yurk under the bed. Lies there and is silent.

That's how the Australian scared him.

Since then, Tomka does not even look at him, turns away.

How Nikita played doctor

Nikita began to play doctor.

He tells Tomka:

Well, Tomka, now I will treat you.

Nikita put on a dressing gown made of a sheet, put glasses on his nose and took a doctor's tube for listening - a toy pipe. Then he went out the door and knocked - it was the doctor who had come. Then he wiped himself with a towel - it was the doctor who washed his hands.

He bowed to the puppy Tomka and said:

Hello Young man! You are sick, I see. What hurts you?

But Tomka, of course, does not answer anything, only wags his tail - he cannot speak.

Lie down, young man, - says Dr. Nikita, - I will listen to you.

The doctor turned Tomka upside down, put a pipe to his stomach and listened. And Tomka grab him by the ear!

What are you biting! Nikita screamed. - After all, I'm a doctor!

The doctor got angry. He grabbed Tomka by the paw and put a pencil thermometer under his arm.

And Tomka doesn't want to take the temperature. floundering. Then the doctor says to the patient:

Now you open your mouth and say: aaaa. And stick out your tongue.

I wanted to see the language. And Tomka squeals and does not stick out his tongue.

I will prescribe medicine for you, - says Dr. Nikita, - and I will teach you how to brush your teeth. I see that you, young man, are a slob and don't like brushing your teeth.

Nikita took his toothbrush and began brushing Tomka's teeth.

And how Tomka will grab the brush with his teeth! He escaped from the doctor's hands, dragged the brush and gnawed it into small pieces.

You are stupid, Tomka! Nikita screams. - That's not how they play!

And Tomka, under the sofa, only with his tail-stump on the floor taps often, often and cracks his teeth - chews, gnaws at the brush.

It's true - he doesn't know how to play sick at all.

Worms

A titmouse lived in our cage.

And titmouse eat worms. So we bought flour worms for her at the pet store, which start up in rotten flour. They are so yellow with brown heads.

Dad, - Nikita says somehow, - make a house for the worms. There they will give birth to little, little worms. The worms will live in the house and look out the windows. That's interesting!

Well, I glued a paper house, very tiny, less than a matchbox. With windows, with doors, with a chimney on the roof. We made a pipe from a cigarette butt, and glued smoke from cotton wool to the pipe.

Got a good house.

We put it in a glass jar of jam and threw a couple of the fattest worms into the jar. They immediately crawled back to their house and began to live there. And Nikita fed them with flour.

One day passes, another passes. Nikita is waiting to see if the little worms will soon look out of the windows. And no one looks out. No worms.

Once Nikita came up to the bank to see what was being done there, and how he screamed:

Ouch! What is it! Worms became empty.

And yes, there are no worms. Only the yellowish skin is lying around in the jar, like two empty cases.

We lifted the house with Nikita and we see that at the bottom of the jar there are two things. Flat, wide, short.

That's so miracle-miracles! says Nikita. - What happened to the worms?

Yes, these are not worms, - I say, - but pupae.

pupae? And what are we going to feed them?

You don't need to feed them, I say. They don't even have a mouth.

And they won't die?

For many days the dolls lay in their paper house. They lie and do not move, do not eat anything.

Completely uninteresting. Nikita even stopped looking into the jar.

Only once did he want to play with the paper house. He took the house by the smoke from the cotton wool and dragged it up. And suddenly he sees: two black nimble beetles were running and running along the bottom of the can.

Again miracle miracles! Nikita screams. - Beetles turned out from pupae! Black!

These, I say, are flour bugs. They probably hatched from pupae.

Do they eat anything? - asks Nikita.

Eat, eat, I say.

That is good! Nikita rejoiced. So I will feed them.

Well feed.

And these beetles began to live in the house in a very interesting way. They climbed onto the roof like firefighters, looked out of the windows. They even climbed into the smoke! The smoke from cotton wool is durable.

Beetles lived, lived and suddenly disappeared. Both disappeared immediately.

The house stands as it stood, the smoke from the chimney comes out as it did before, but there are no tenants.

I think, - says Nikita, - they ate each other.

No, I say, they probably ran away.

And what do you think?

The tale that Nikita himself told

So I caught a frog, put it in a jar. I fed her, fed, fed ...

I fed worms, I fed a big, big one. And then he made her a house with a stove so that smoke would come out of the chimney.

Here I come in the morning to feed the frog, and the frog has turned into a fire truck. So I fed him, fed him ...

Kerosene. Cars drink kerosene. He fed, fed ... And the fire truck turned into a wild boar.

I fed him, fed him, fed him ...

Carrot. He turned into swan geese.

I fed them, fed them with seeds, they turned into a tiger.

And what did you feed him?

And he didn't feed him. I aimed at him with a cannon and how bang! .. And shot him.

That's all.

How a horse rolled animals

They gave Nikita a wooden horse. The horse is all white, in gray apples. Her eyes are glassy, ​​and her mane and tail are real horsehair.

They also gave Nikita a cart.

That's the cart!

The wheels are red, the shafts are gold, the seat is soft, on springs.

Nikita began to harness the horse.

He put it in shafts, tied an arc with bells and bells. And as soon as he harnessed it - how the horse stomps with its hooves, how it breaks out of Nikita's hands - and ran across the floor. She ran under the table, under the chair, under the sofa, and then jumped out from under the sofa - and march into the corridor! The whole dark corridor galloped and rushed down the stairs. He jumps from step to step, and the cart jumps behind him.

The horse ran out into the street, rang its bells. People are surprised, shouting:

Look! Look! The wooden horse is running, the wooden cart is being carried!

The dogs ran, barking. Sparrows shy away, cats climb the fence - they are afraid.

Here a horse ran through the whole city - to where the fields and vegetable gardens begin. The horse rushes through the fields, waving its tail. He sees: hares in the garden eat cabbage, move their long ears.

A horse came up to them and asked:

Do you want to ride, bunnies?

We want, we want! - say the hares.

Jump, jump in, cart - and sit down.

The horse waved its tail, shook its mane - and rushed along the path.

She ran and ran, and then she asks:

Well, bunnies, is it good for you to ride?

Nobody is answering.

The horse looked, but the cart was empty.

Where are the hares? Where have you gone?

And the hares are playing in the clearing, jumping over each other.

It's boring for us to sit in your cart! - shout the hares. - We have more fun jumping over stumps and bumps.

The horse is running along the path, again carrying an empty cart. Suddenly he hears - someone in the bushes sniffles and grunts.

Hey! Who is sleeping there? - asks the horse. - Get out! I will ride you!

Wait, I'll get out now, - someone answers her.

And now a hedgehog crawls out of the bushes - round, prickly, covered in needles.

He sniffed, grunted, and then climbed into the cart - and curled up into a ball.

Glad horse - there is someone to carry!

She runs and runs, then to the right, then to the left she turns, and in the cart the hedgehog rolls from corner to corner.

He rode and rode and rolled out of the cart onto the road.

The horse looked back - what is it?

Hedgehog lost.

The horse is again carrying an empty cart.

He sees: a bear by the road picks raspberries from the bushes.

Fat, fat bear.

Would you like to ride, Mikhailo Ivanovich? - asks the horse.

Okay, the bear replies. - Here is a raspberry bush and I'll go.

The bear smacked, sucked its paws and climbed into the cart - the cart crackled under it. The horse strained - it barely moved the cart from its place.

He tries his best, carries, puffs.

She dragged the bear up the hill, and already down the hill the cart itself rolled.

The wheels on the pebbles jump, the bear in the cart shakes, the bear in the cart barks.

And as it shook him harder, he fell out. Sitting on the road, rubbing his nose with his paws.

I won't ride anymore, - he roars. - I will walk on my four.

And he went into the forest.

The horse is bored: no one else wants to ride. She went home. He comes up to the house, and on the porch on the bottom step Nikita sits and ties a rope to a stick - he makes a whip.

Nikita saw a horse and shouted:

Where did you go from home? I want to ride!

The horse rejoiced.

Sit down, Nikita, sit down, - he says, - just don’t whip me hard with a whip.

Nikita got into the cart, pulled on the reins and shouted:

N-n-n-ooh! Go!

Wow, the horse is running!

Nikita pulls the right rein - she runs to the right, pulls the left - she turns left.

We drove past the gardens, scared the hares, rushed past the bushes, where the hedgehog is hiding, galloped through the forest, where the bear had gone.

We drove past the lake - there Nikita drank water.

We drove across the field - there Nikita caught a beetle.

We drove through the forest - there Nikita picked a strawberry.

We drove and drove and turned back home. They rolled up to the porch, stopped.

Trrrr-rrr-rr-ruuu! We've arrived!

Nikita put the horse back in the corner under the bed, where it used to stand, and cut paper hay for it.

Eat, - says, - a horse. You ran a lot today!

But in fact, the horse didn’t run anywhere - that’s how Nikitushka and I played.

Airplanes behind the roofs

Our room has three windows.

If you look at one, you will see the neighbor's balcony. Sparrows always flock there after dinner. Their neighbors put leftover food in a bowl every day.

If you look out the other window, you will see the street. Down the street, red trams run and ring, black cars dart, blue buses roll, and people walk along the sidewalks and across the street.

And the third window is the most interesting. There are roofs, roofs and pipes.

One big factory chimney with thick smoke, and there are airplanes right there.

Planes seem very small. They fly between the pipes: either they fall behind the roofs, or they rise high into the sky.

In bad weather, when the clouds are rushing low, the planes seem to be playing hide and seek.

They fly - fly, fly into the very cloud - and disappear from sight.

And then they pop up again, but already somewhere else.

And in good weather, planes do not just fly: they either tumble in the sky, then rise up like a propeller, then fall down.

Nikita says about them:

They live there behind a large pipe, and fly out into the sky to walk.

Nikita loves to look through this window very much. He will press his nose against the glass and stand for such a long, long time. He even has a white nose.

Hey, Nikita, don't crush the glass with your nose! Look, your nose will be a cake.

Nikita will move away from the glass, and then he will forget and again bury his nose in it.

And then May Day came.

Nikita and I opened all the windows in the room, dressed ourselves warmly and sat down by the window.

It was too early for us to go to the parade. We were supposed to leave later.

As soon as we sat down by the window, Nikita shouted:

Look look!

I looked and saw planes.

There were many, many. They gathered in a whole cloud behind the factory chimney. That's just like pushers - mosquitoes gather in summer evenings at some bush.

And suddenly all this mosquito heap flew right to us.

It flies closer and spreads wider and wider over the rooftops. Now you can hear her humming.

It buzzes well, like bumblebees.

Here the planes have grown even more, there are more swallows, and now they are not buzzing, but buzzing in bass.

From the very left edge of the sky to the very right, everything around was buzzing.

Now the planes have become like ducks.

It's like cranes...

And then they rumbled across the sky, roaring like lions in a zoo.

As they flew in, it became dark from them on the street. They fly low - just above the house, the glass rattles all over our house.

Nikita snuggled up to me, covered himself with the hem of my jacket, and he himself was looking out the window with one eye.

Then, when all the planes flew over us and stopped honking, Nikita looked out and said:

Oh dad! How scary. After all, I thought they were small, but what they are! And how they thunder!

It's very good that it's scary, - I say, - let all the enemies be afraid of our planes. And you, Nikitushka, don't be afraid of them. After all, planes fly for this, so that all little boys and little girls live peacefully and happily in our country.

Heron

When you draw animals in the zoo, then you see much more.

This is probably because the animals stop noticing a motionless person and go about their business. My son Nikita and I went to the zoo to draw animals. First we went to the swans. The largest of them fell asleep, standing on one leg - you can’t immediately make out where his head is, where his tail is, as if it were not a bird, but a huge white sack on a black stick. Nikita drew it:

Do you see how he laid his long neck on his side and on his back, and put his head behind the wing?

Then we saw a swan on the water. He swam in a strange way - twisting his leg. We decided: sick, then. But it turns out that he is not sick at all: he is so basking.

Lies in the water. Raises one leg and rows the other. Then he rolls over to the other side, sticks out his other leg and exposes it to the sun and the breeze.

Next to the lake, where swans and ducks swam, in a huge cage - black grouse, capercaillie, pheasant and partridges: our northern and southern ones are mountainous, called kekliks. Such round wild chickens with a bright red beak. Their beak glows red, as if the bird is holding a mountain ash all the time and cannot swallow it.

And the pheasant is lint. Feathers change. It can be seen that at this time the bird is having a hard time.

She doesn't feel well. The pheasant rested his head in the corner and stands. However, it is convenient to draw it: it does not move at all.

Nikita made as many as five sketches from him. And then he broke off a long twig from a poplar tree that grew nearby, put it through a metal mesh and picked up a few painted pheasant feathers. He grabbed it with two sticks and pulled it out. That's right - very beautiful feathers. And one of the tail is long, long and all in transverse stripes.

We stood and admired ... One partridge began to swim. She lay down on her side and flounders and trembles in the sand - just like a domestic chicken. Nikita drew her, - here she is.

At the end we came to the heron. She is in the same cage with the cranes.

Cranes walk all the time; they have lush, sort of curly, black tails of soft long feathers.

The back of the head is crimson, they themselves are gray. Very nice birds, so solid, big, beautiful. Even their gait is important.

And the heron stands like an idol. Some kind of hunchbacked, ruffled. She folded her long neck like a folding arshin, pulled her head between her shoulders - only a long beak sticks out like a pike. And the heron's eye is not even a bird's eye, but a fish's: without expression, motionless and as if even flat. And this scarecrow stands on one leg, does not move.

Here Nikita draws, and I light up. And ... then everything somehow happened at once. A sparrow crawled through the mesh ceiling and descends to the feeder. And just about the heron flies. And as if a white snake flashed in the air. It was the heron's longest neck that straightened out, and the sparrow screamed terribly, desperately: the heron grabbed it in flight with its beak, like tongs.

I rushed to the cage, Nikita too. Both began to scream.

All the birds in the aviary rushed about ... The heron shied away and released the sparrow, and he, the fool, jumped on the ground like a mouse. Quickly, quickly galloped into dark side, into the corner - and yurk into the rat hole. But the hole turned out to be through - only through a thick board. He flew out of the cage.

Now I know, - says Nikita, - what it is - a heron! This is a predator, and even what! This is how I imagine myself. There is such a bird in the reeds, like a stuffed animal. He does not move, he moves his frog eye. The moorhen oatmeal has arrived. She sat down on a reed nearby - time! - and got caught in her beak. A flock of perches swam closer. Once! - and no perch!

Well, a bird! No wonder she looks kind of ugly.

Draw, - I say, - Nikita, how she catches a sparrow, it's interesting!

No way, - he says, - I won’t, I don’t even want to remember.

Current page: 1 (total book has 3 pages)

Charushin Evgeny Ivanovich

Stories about animals

Charushin E. I. Stories about animals.

What kind of animal?

The first snow fell. And everything turned white. The trees are white, the earth is white, and the roofs, and the porch, and the steps on the porch - everything is covered with snow. The girl Katya wanted to walk in the snow. So she went out onto the porch, wants to go down the steps into the garden and suddenly sees: on the porch, in the snow, some holes. Some animal walked in the snow. There are footprints on the steps, and footprints on the porch, and footprints in the garden.

"That's interesting," thought the girl Katya. Katya took a cutlet, put it on the porch and ran away. The day has passed, the night has passed. Morning has come. Katya woke up - and rather on the porch: to see if the animal had eaten her cutlet. Looks - the cutlet is whole! Where you put it, here it lies. And there were even more traces. So, the animal came again. Then Katya removed the cutlet and put a bone in its place. Soup. In the morning Katya runs to the porch again. Looks - the animal did not touch the bone either. So what kind of animal is this? And he doesn't eat bones. Then Katya put a red carrot instead of a bone. In the morning he looks - there are no carrots! The animal came and ate all the carrots! Then Katya's dad made a trap. He overturned the box on the porch upside down, propped it up with a splinter, and tied carrots to the splinter with twine. If you pull the carrot, the splinter will bounce, the box will fall and cover the animal. The next day, dad went, and mom, and even grandmother - everyone went to see if the beast had fallen into a trap. And Katya is ahead of everyone. There is a beast in the trap! Slammed someone's box, fell off the stand! Katya looked into the crack, she sees - the beast is sitting there. White-white, fluffy-fluffy, pink eyes, long ears, nestled in a corner, chewing carrots. It's a rabbit! They took him home to the kitchen. And then they made a big cage. And he began to live in it. And Katya fed him carrots, hay, oats and breadcrumbs.

bear cub

Hunters killed three she-bears and sold three cubs to the zoo.

In the zoo they were all put in one cage - brown, red, blackish, unequal in color and height - some bigger, some smaller.

The smallest is the most gloomy. He sits in the corner, scratches his tummy, sucks his paw and grumbles all the time.

And others are funny: they fight, climb around the cage, flounder, scream, puff - shaggy, pot-bellied, big-headed, clumsy bear cubs.

One of them has outgrown all of them, but he doesn't really know how to eat.

His attendant feeds him with a pacifier. He will pour milk into a bottle, put a rag in the neck and give it to him. He grabs the bottle and sucks. He doesn't let anyone near him, he grumbles. It's so scary!

Another, blackish, with a white spot-bib, all climbs, climbs. He climbed up the iron bars of the cage to the ceiling. The rods are slippery - they will crawl through two inches, and slide back an inch. Climbed, climbed, got halfway, and then - nothing. Tired. He works with might and main with his paws, squeals with anger, he wants to hit the ceiling, but nothing comes out - he slides down.

Invented. He grabbed his teeth into an iron rod and hangs - his paws are resting.

He hung, rested and immediately reached the ceiling. Then he climbed up the ceiling, but fell off, fell and yelled in a desperate voice.

A servant came running, took him in her arms, rocking him, stroking him.

The little bear calmed down, smelled a candy in his pocket, took it out and, together with a piece of paper, let's suck it, smack it.

They brought milk porridge to the cubs. Everyone piled on the trough, pushing, climbing right into the porridge, snapping, champing, smacking, sniffing.

Suddenly, someone screamed again.

Screaming at the top of his lungs, tearing himself up.

And this is the same sucker who really does not know how to eat. He got out of the cage when the porridge was being given, and climbed up the broom - there was a broom by the cage.

The bear climbed up the broomstick and fell down with it. He hurt himself on the floor, and even a stick from a broom hit him on the head.

Lies, closed his eyes and yells. And the broom does not let go of the paws.

They gave him a pacifier again.

The cubs ate the porridge. They were exported so that you don’t recognize any suit - everything is in porridge. Became striped, spotted. Eat and play again.

I wanted to buy a bear cub, but I can’t: they don’t sell cubs in the zoo.

bear fisherman

Last year I spent the whole winter in Kamchatka. But this is the very edge of our Motherland. There I met spring. The Kamchatka spring begins interestingly, not in our opinion.

As the streams run, as the Kamchatka rivers open up, a red lentil sparrow arrives from India and everywhere sings its song with a clear, flute whistle:

Have you seen the chinook?

Have you seen the chinook?

Have you seen the chinook?

Chinook salmon is a type of salmon fish. And then the most interesting thing in the Kamchatka spring begins.

At this very time, all the fish from the ocean enters the rivers, streams, so that at the very source, in the flowing fresh water spawn.

There is fish in herds, shoals, flocks; the fish are climbing, rushing, pushing, - apparently, it’s hard for them: their bellies are swollen, full of caviar or milk. Sometimes they swim so thickly that the lower ones crawl along the bottom, and the upper ones stick out of the water.

Oh, how many fish are coming!

And they say that in the old days, when there were very few people in Kamchatka, the fish were even thicker. In ancient records, it is said that the oar stood in the rivers and went against the current with a “priest”.

Everyone rejoices, nods. And they also ask each other:

- Did you see the chinook?

- Did you see the chinook?

- Did you see the chinook?

And she occasionally swims - this chinook is a huge, precious salmon.

She swims along the bottom among small fish - pink salmon. As if a pig with piglets passes through the yard.

And after a few days, all this fish falls back into salt water. Only it does not swim in shoals, not in herds, but randomly, each in its own way. Who - tail first, and who rolls along the bottom and rolls ashore, like a rotten field. All the fish are barely alive, sick, "lost". She spawned and became exhausted.

And now other fishermen are operating all over Kamchatka. Who croaks, who quacks, who growls, who meows.

Wild fishermen are fishing.

I’ll go, I think, to the forest, rest, and look at the forest fishermen. Somehow they get the job done. And he went far, far away from the village.

Good spring in the forest! The birches spread their sticky leaves, they stand transparent, as if not trees, but green smoke. Among them, dense spruce and tall juniper darken.

The air is clean, light, it smells of spruce resin, a young leaf, rotten earth.

And the bird's choir... And the flute sings, and the trill crumbles, and chasing, and whistles.

The sun bakes with might and main. And the shadow is still cold.

I went to the bank of the river, hid and immediately saw a fisherman.

Oh yes, the heroic man! As tall as a sparrow. Its fish is thirty times larger.

This is a bare-footed kulichishka fishing. Around the fish runs, fusses, fusses, pecks. And the fish was thrown out of the water onto the shore - dead.

The sandpiper squeaks, minces with its feet.

Then came two crows. They scared off the sandpiper, but they themselves do not touch the fish.

Looks like they've already eaten enough. As they sat on the shallows, they fell asleep. They sit, nosy, eyes closed. Seagulls flew in with a cry, with a din. They began to gut this fish. One head remains.

What a lucky place I chose!

Here the river has a steep bend, and everything that floats on top, the water throws ashore.

While I was here, three fish were washed ashore by the current.

I look - a fox descends from the other bank over the stones. Such a lousy one. The wool hangs in tufts on the sides - Lisa Patrikeevna throws off her winter coat.

She went down to the water, furtively grabbed the nearest fish and hid with her behind a stone.

Then she appeared again, licking her lips. And the second fish was dragged away.

Suddenly, barking, howling, screeching rose: the village dogs came running and how they rush from the cliff to the water, to the fox. Apparently, they smelled it from above. Fox on the shore, on the shore up - and into the forest. The dogs are after her.

Well, I left. Who am I to wait here?

Not a single animal will come here now: it will be afraid of dog tracks.

Again I went along the streams and along the rivers.

I saw how another fox ate fish - savored it. I only ate the backs.

I also saw a big merganser - from a goose. He slept among the scraps. To satiety swallowed fish.

And then I lay down and fell asleep imperceptibly. Frustrated me. How long I slept, I don't know. I only see a dream: as if I am doing some wonderful thing, either an airplane, or a threshing machine, or maybe some kind of tower. In order, a dream is seen: at first I worked, then I got tired and also went to bed. He lay down and snored loudly.

And then in a dream I think:

“Yes, how is it? Because I never snore. I do not know how".

And that's where I got all mixed up. I'm already half awake, but I keep dreaming that I'm lying down and snoring.

I know it's not true. I'm even angry.

He got angry, woke up, opened his eyes. What a miracle I snore. I even got scared. How so? What?

Then I woke up... No, it's not me who snore... And it doesn't look like snoring at all.

It's someone growling nearby, snorting, splashing.

I raised my head. I look - a bear is sitting in the river. A hefty bear is an old Kamchadal man. Here you have a dream with snoring!

And I don't have a gun. What to do? You need to get out good.

I began to carefully, carefully crawl away from the river ... And suddenly I touched a stone. This stone rolled into the water - plop! That's how I froze. I lie down and close my eyes. Now the bear will pick me up. Here he will get out on the shore, he will see - and the end.

I lay there for a long time, I was afraid to move. Then I hear: everything is fine. The bear barks in the old place, grumbles. Didn't he hear the stone plop into the water?

He is deaf, isn't he?

I grew bolder and looked out from behind the bushes. And then I took a closer look and completely forgot my fear. This bear also caught fish. And how wonderful!

Mikhailo Ivanovich is sitting up to his neck in water, only his dry head sticks out of the water like a stump. His head is huge, shaggy, with a wet beard. He will tilt it on one side, then on the other: he looks out for fish.

And the water is completely transparent, I can only see the bear, how he is wielding his paws there, and I see the body of a bear.

The fur stuck to the body, and the body of the bear seems to be not on the head. He's got such a head. Small and heady.

This bear is sitting. And suddenly something paws began to miss in the water.

I see - it takes out pink salmon. He bit the pink salmon and ... sat on it.

Why did he, I think, sit on a fish?

He sat down and sits in the water on the fish. Moreover, he checks with his paws: is it here, under him?

Here the second fish swims by, and the bear caught it. He bit and also sits on it. And when he sat down, he, of course, got up. And the first fish was dragged away from under it. I can see everything from above, how this pink salmon rolled along the bottom. And how the bear barks! Lost fish. Oh you! It is not clear to him, poor fellow, what is being done with his stock, where he is going. He will sit, sit, and feel with his paw under him: is there a fish here, has it run away? And as soon as he grabs a new one, again I see: the old one has rolled out from under him and look for fistulas!

After all, in fact, what an insult: the fish is lost, and that's it!

For a long, long time he sat on the fish, grumbling, even missed two fish, did not dare to catch; I saw them go by. Then again - p-time! He grabbed a pink salmon with his paw. And again everything is the same as before: there is no former fish.

I'm lying on the shore, I want to laugh, but I can't laugh. Try to laugh! Here the bear will eat you out of anger along with the buttons.

A huge sleepy chinook salmon was dragged onto a bear. He scooped it up, puts it under him ...

Well, of course, it's empty underneath.

Here the bear was so offended that he forgot the chinook, and roared at the top of his lungs, just like a locomotive. He reared up, paws the water with his paws, knocks the water into foam. Roaring, choking.

Well, I couldn't bear it either. How I will jump! How I want! The bear heard me, saw me. It stands in the water, like a man, on two legs, and looks at me.

And it’s so funny to me that I’m not afraid of anything - I laugh, I burst out laughing, I wave my hands: go away, they say, you fool, there’s no more urine! Leave!

And luckily for me, it did.

The bear barked, got out of the water, shook himself off and went into the forest.

And the chinook was again dragged by the current.

Punka and birds

Cats are hunters. They love to catch a birdie.

Our Punya is also not averse to hunting, but not at home. At home, he does not touch anyone.

Somehow they brought me several songbirds in a small cage. Goldfinches, canaries.

“Where, - I think, - should I put them, what should I do with them?”

To release into the wild - it is blizzard-frosty in the yard. In a cage - also not good.

I put a tree in the corner. He covered the furniture with pieces of paper so that they would not get dirty, and ... do what you want. Just don't stop me from working.

Goldfinches, canaries flew out of the cage - and to the Christmas tree.

They swarm in the Christmas tree, they sing! Like!

Punka came, looked - he was interested.

“Well,” I think, “now we need to catch Punka and throw him out of the room.”

The hunt is about to begin.

And Punka only liked the Christmas tree. He sniffed it, paid no attention to the birds.

Goldfinches, canaries are afraid. Do not jump close to Punka.

It doesn't matter if there are birds here or not. He lay down and sleeps near the Christmas tree.

But I still drove Punka away. Who knows. Although he does not look at the birds, he suddenly catches him by chance.

Time has passed. The birds began to build nests: they are looking for different fluffs, pulling threads from rags.

Punka goes to them. Sleeps with them. Goldfinches, canaries are not afraid of him: why be afraid of him if he does not catch them.

And the birdies were so brave that they began to pull at Punka's fur.

Punka is sleeping. And the birds pull the wool out of it.

scary story

The boys Shura and Petya were left alone. They lived in a dacha - near the forest, in a small house. That evening, dad and mom went to visit their neighbors. When it got dark, Shura and Petya washed themselves, undressed themselves and went to bed in their beds. They lie and are silent. There is no father or mother. It's dark in the room. And in the darkness, someone crawls along the wall - rustles; maybe it's a cockroach, or maybe someone else!... Shura says from his bed:

- I'm not scared at all.

“I’m not scared at all either,” Petya answers from the other bed.

“We are not afraid of thieves,” Shura says.

“We are not afraid of cannibals either,” Petya answers.

“And we are not afraid of tigers,” Shura says.

“They won’t come here,” Petya answers. And just as Shura wanted to say that he was not afraid of crocodiles, when suddenly they heard - outside the door, in the hallway, someone quietly stamped their feet on the floor: top .... top .... top .... slap. ... slap... top... top.... How Petya will rush to Shura on the bed! They covered their heads with a blanket, pressed against each other. They lie quietly so that no one can hear them.

“Don’t breathe,” Shura says to Petya.

- I'm not breathing.

Top ... top ... slap ... slap ... top ... top ... slap ... slap ... And through the blanket you can still hear someone walking outside the door and puffing in addition . But then Mom and Dad came. They opened the porch, entered the house, turned on the light. Petya and Shura told them everything. Then mom and dad lit another lamp and began to look around all the rooms, in all corners. There is no one. They came to the canopy. Suddenly, in the passage along the wall, someone ran into a corner ... He ran and curled up in a corner in a ball. Look - yes it's a hedgehog! He must have climbed into the house from the forest. They wanted to pick him up, but he twitches and pricks with thorns. Then they rolled him up in a hat and took him to the closet. They gave me milk in a saucer and a piece of meat. And then everyone fell asleep. This hedgehog lived with the guys in the country all summer. He then puffed and stamped his feet at night, but no one was afraid of him anymore.

The Amazing Postman

The boy Vasya and his dad went to the dacha. And Vasya's mother stayed in the city: she had to buy something else. Mom wanted to come shopping in the evening. Here comes the train. Vasya sits in the car on a bench next to his dad and looks out the window. And trees, and fences, and various houses are running through the window. Opposite Vasya, a boy is also sitting on a bench, with a watch on his left hand. He is carrying a basket. This boy is already big; he must be fifteen years old. As the train arrives at the station, the boy will look at his watch, write something with a pencil in notebook, bend over his basket, pull something out of it and run out of the car. And then he comes again and sits, looking out the window. Vasya sat and sat, looked and looked at the boy with the basket, and suddenly he burst into tears at the top of his voice! He remembered that he had left his bicycle at home.

How can I be without a bike? - crying. “All winter I thought about how I would ride it through the forests.

“Well, don’t cry,” his dad said. Mom will go and bring you a bike.

“No, he won’t bring it,” Vasya cries. She doesn't love him. He creaks...

“Well, you, boy, stop it, don’t cry,” the boy with a watch on his hand suddenly said. - I'll arrange this for you now. I myself love to ride a bike. Only he is real, two-wheeled. Do you have a telephone at home? he asks Vasya's father.

“Yes,” Dad replies. “Number five fifty-five zero six.”

“Well, that’s all right,” the boy says. We will immediately send a postman with a letter. He pulled out of his pocket a tiny paper ribbon made of thin tissue paper and wrote on it: “Call 5-55-06, tell: “Mom should take Vasya’s bike to the dacha.” Then he put this letter in some kind of shiny little tube, He opened his basket, and there, in the basket, sits a long-nosed, blue-gray dove.

The boy pulled out a dove and tied a tube with a letter to his leg.

“Here is my postman,” he says. - Ready to fly. Look.

And as soon as the train stopped at the station, the boy looked at his watch, noted the time in his notebook and let the dove out the window. The dove will fly straight up - only they saw it!

“Today I am teaching carrier pigeons,” the boy says. - At each station, I release one and write down the time. The dove will fly straight to the city, to its dovecote. And there they are waiting for him. And on this, the last one, they will see the tube, read the letter and call your apartment. If only the hawk hadn't caught him along the way. And it's true: Vasya came to the dacha, waiting, waiting for his mother - and in the evening his mother arrived with a bicycle. We received a letter. It means that the hawk did not catch the dove.

Cat Epifan

Good and free on the Volga River! Look how wide it is! The other side is barely visible! This living, flowing water glitters. And the whole sky looks into this water: and the clouds, and the blue azure, and the middle of nowhere, which, whistling, fly in a bunch from sand to sand, and flocks of geese and ducks, and an airplane on which a person flies somewhere on his business, and white ships with black smoke, and barges, and shores, and a rainbow in the sky. You look at this flowing sea, you look at the walking clouds, and it seems to you that the shores are also going somewhere - they also walk and move, like everyone around. There, on the Volga, in a dugout, on the very bank of the Volga - in a steep cliff, lives a buoy guard. If you look from the river, you will see only a window and a door. You look from the shore - one iron pipe sticks out of the grass. His whole house is in the ground, like an animal hole. Boats sail on the Volga day and night. Tugs puff, smoke, pull barges behind them on ropes, carry various cargoes or drag long rafts. They slowly rise against the current, slapping the water with their wheels. Here comes such a ship, carrying apples - and the whole Volga will smell like a sweet apple. Or it smells of fish, which means they are bringing roach from Astrakhan. Postal-passenger steamers, one-story and two-story, are running. These float on their own. But the fastest double-decker steamboats with a blue ribbon on the pipe go through the fastest. They stop only at large piers, and after them high waves diverge on the water, roll on the sand. An old buoy-keeper, near the shoals and rifts, places red and white buoys along the river. These are such floating wicker baskets with a lantern at the top. Buoys show the right path. At night, the old man rides a boat, lights lanterns on the buoys, and extinguishes it in the morning. And at other times the old buoy-keeper goes fishing. He is an avid fisherman. One day the old man was fishing all day. I caught fish in my ear: bream, yes scavengers, yes ruffs. And came back. He opened the door to the dugout and looked: that's the thing! It turns out that a guest has come to him! On the table next to a pot of potatoes sits a whole white-white fluffy cat. The guest saw the host, arched his back and began to rub his side against the pot. All his white side was stained with soot.

- Where did you come from, from what areas? And the cat purrs and squints its eyes and stains its side even more, rubs it with soot. And his eyes are different. One eye is completely blue and the other is completely yellow.

“Well, help yourself,” said the buoy-keeper, and gave the cat a ruff. The cat grabbed a fish in its claws, purred a little and ate it. He ate and licked his lips - apparently, he still wants to. And the cat ate four more fish. And then he jumped on the sennik to the old man and dozed off. It collapsed on the sennik, purring, then it would stretch out one paw, then the other, then it would release its claws on one paw, then on the other. And he apparently liked it so much that he stayed completely with the old man. And the old buoy-keeper is glad. Both are much more fun. And so they began to live. The buoy worker had no one to talk to before, but now he began to talk to the cat, calling him Epifan. There was no one to fish with before, and now the cat began to ride a boat with him. He sits in the boat at the stern and seems to rule. In the evening the old man says:

- Well, how, Epifanushka, isn't it time for us to light the buoys - after all, perhaps it will be dark soon? If we don't light the buoys, our ships will run aground. And the cat seems to know what it is to light buoys. Without saying a word, he goes to the river, climbs into the boat and waits for the old man when he comes with oars and kerosene for lanterns. They will go, light the lanterns on the buoys - and back. And they fish together. The old man is fishing, and Epifan is sitting next to him. Caught a small fish - her cat. I caught a big one - in the old man's ear. It just so happened. Serve together, fish together. Once a buoy-keeper was sitting with his cat Epifan on the shore and was fishing. And then some fish pecked hard. The old man pulled her out of the water, looks: yes, this greedy ruff swallowed a worm. As tall as a little finger, but tugging like a big pike. The old man took it off the hook and handed it to the cat.

“Here,” he says, “Epifasha, chew a little.” But Epiphashi is not. What is it, where did it go? Then the old man sees that his cat has gone far, far along the shore, turning white on the rafts. "Why did he go there," thought the old man, "and what is he doing there? I'll go take a look." He looks, and his cat Epifan catches fish himself. He lies flat on a log, put his paw into the water, does not move, does not even blink. And when the fish swam out from under the log, he - once! - and picked up one fish with his claws. The old buoy-keeper was very surprised.

“Here you are, what a dodger I have,” he says, “oh yes, Epifan, oh yes, a fisherman!” Well, catch me, - he says, - a sterlet in my ear, but fatter. The cat doesn't even look at him. I ate the fish, moved to another place, and again lay down from the log to fish. Since then, this is how they fish: apart - and each in his own way. A fisherman with tackle and a fishing rod with a hook, and the cat Epifan with a paw with claws. And the buoys are lit together.

Nikitka and his friends is a children's story book written by Evgeny Charushin. The book includes several stories, which can be read on our website.

Contents of the book "Nikita and his friends"

I sit at my desk and think.

Suddenly Nikita comes up to me on a bicycle. He drove up, looked at me and asked:

Do you think dad? Yes? What are you thinking about? Perhaps something interesting?

Interesting stuff, I say. - I want to write a book about you and me - for the guys. About how we live and get on, how our cat fed the rabbits, how Tomka learned to swim. I’ll write, and then I’ll draw everyone: you, Nikita, and Tomka, and the rabbits - everyone, everyone. Just don't bother me - I'll start writing now.

But Nikita was delighted and shouted:

I want to write too! I will help you!

Yes, you are still small, - I say, - you do not know how!

I know how, - he says, - give me paper.

Here Nikita climbed onto a chair, took a pen, took paper and began to write with a pen on paper.

Okay, I say. - First write down the title of our first story. Write like this: "How Nikita taught a sparrow to fly."

Nikita stuck out his tongue and scratched his pen.

Well, who else to write about? - asks.

Write this: “Like a horse rolled animals.”

He wrote that too.

And now write: "How Nikitka bit Tomka."

Well, I don’t want to write about this, - says Nikita, - I accidentally bit him - I just wanted to show him how lions bite. You don't have to write about it!

Okay, don't - don't, write something else.

Nikita wrote, wrote, creaked with a pen, creaked - he wrote everything. Get off your chair and say:

Here I helped you. On paper - read!

He got on his bike and left to help his mother - she sewed a button to his pants.

Well, read it yourself - maybe you'll understand?

Nikita the hunter

Nikita has a wooden tiger, a rubber crocodile and an elephant. The elephant is sewn from rags, and inside it has cotton wool.

And Nikita also has a rope.

Here Nikita hid his tiger under the bed, the crocodile behind the chest of drawers, the elephant under the table.

Sit there, he says. - Now I'm going to hunt you!

And the rope became a snake. He also lives under a chair, wriggling there.

The hunt begins! Nikita screams.

He loaded his gun and crawled. Crawled, crawled and crawled on a tiger. And the tiger roars in a terrible voice:

"Rrr-rr-ry!"

And then he meowed like a cat:

"Meow meow!"

This, of course, was not the tiger growling and meowing, but Nikita himself.

Wow! Bang bang! Nikita screamed.

It's like a gun went off. The hunter killed the tiger and crawled on. Crawled, crawled and crawled on a wild elephant. An elephant is standing, his fangs are forward and he is blowing his trunk like a trumpet:

“True! Trrrr-rrr-ruuuu!"

It was, of course, Nikita who trumpeted for him.

"Bug, bang!"

It was Nikita who learned from his father that crocodiles moo like a cow.

"Bug, bang!" - killed a crocodile.

"Bug, bang!" - and the snake is ready.

Nikita shot everyone and shouts:

Here I am a hunter! I'm not afraid of anyone!

In the summer we arrived at the dacha and went for a walk.

Why don't you take a gun with you, Nikitushka? - I ask. - After all, you're a hunter.

Oh right, I forgot! says Nikita.

He ran home, found his gun under the bed, put it over his shoulder and walked beside me.

We are walking in a meadow among white daisies with yellow buttons in the middle.

Multi-colored butterflies fly from the flowers. Grasshoppers are jumping away from us.

And suddenly we see a shirt. It is exactly the same as the big magpie - black and white, only the tail is shorter and smaller.

A shirt jumps from us on the grass, flaps its wings, but still does not know how to fly.

He jumped to the rowan bush and hid in it.

I look, Nikita the hunter has become on all fours - he also hid. He asks me in a whisper:

Dad! Dad! May I shoot?

Shoot, shoot, I say. - Since you're a hunter, so be it.

And so Nikita crawled along the grass to his shirt.

For a long time he crawled with a gun in his hand. Got pretty close.

Here he took aim. And suddenly, as he screams at the top of his lungs:

Wow! Bang bang!

And the chemise jumped out of the bush and screamed:

“Kreee! Creeeee! Creee!"

Nikita immediately threw the gun to the ground - and to me. Runs, stumbles, falls.

I look: and the shirt is also running away - only in the other direction.

So they run away from each other: the magpie - into the forest, and Nikita - from the magpie out of the forest.

What are you, a hunter? What were you afraid of?

Yes, how! says Nikita. - Why is she, stupid, screaming herself!

Sparrow

Nikita went for a walk with dad. He was walking, walking and suddenly he hears someone chirping:

- Chilik-chilik! Chilik-chilik! Chilik-chilik!

And Nikita sees that this little sparrow is jumping along the road. Fluffy, just like a ball is rolling. His tail is short, his beak is yellow, and he does not fly anywhere. Apparently, he still can't.

“Look, papa,” Nikita shouted, “the sparrow is not real!”

And dad says:

- No, this is a real sparrow, but only a small one. It must have been a chick that fell out of its nest.

Then Nikita ran to catch a sparrow and caught it.

And this sparrow began to live in our house in a cage, and Nikita fed him flies, worms and a bun with milk.

Here lives a sparrow with Nikita. He screams all the time - he asks for food. Well, what a glutton! A little in the morning the sun will appear - he will chirp and wake everyone up.

Then Nikita said:

"I'll teach him to fly and let him out."

He took the sparrow out of the cage, put it on the floor and began to teach.

“You flap your wings like that,” Nikita said and showed with his hands how to fly.

And the sparrow galloped under the chest of drawers.

We fed the sparrow for another day. Again Nikita put him on the floor to teach him how to fly.

Nikita waved his arms, and the sparrow waved its wings. The sparrow has flown!

Here he flew over the pencil.

I flew over a red fire truck. And as he began to fly over an inanimate toy cat, he stumbled upon it and fell.

“You still fly badly,” Nikita tells him. “Let me feed you for another day.”

He fed, fed, and the next day the sparrows flew over Nikitin's bench.

Flew over a chair.

He flew over the table with the jug.

But he couldn’t fly over the chest of drawers - he fell down.

It looks like you need to feed him.

The next day, Nikita took the sparrow with him into the garden, and there he let it out.

The sparrow flew over the brick.

It flew over the stump.

And he began to fly over the fence, but he bumped into it and fell down.

And the next day he flew over the fence.

And flew over the tree.

And flew through the house.

And completely flew away from Nikita.

What a great way to learn to fly!

Quail

We had a quail in a cage. Such a small wild hen. All brown, with light stripes. And she's got a feathered bib around her throat, like a baby bib.

The quail walks around the cage and whistles softly - like this:

- Turr-turr! turr-turr!

And then he lies on the barrel and bathes in the sand, like a real chicken, cleans his feathers, flaps his wings. We will show her a worm, she will come up and peck from her hands.

We even took her in our arms as a toy.

She sits on the palm and does not fly away. Completely manual.

But the most amazing thing is this. As soon as we turn on the electricity in the evening, the quail immediately starts whistling - screaming:

- Fit-piryu! Fit-piryu!

— What is she saying? Nikita asks.

She puts you to sleep. Hear, shouting: "It's time to sleep! Time to sleep!"

Nikita listened - it really looks like:

- Fit-piryu! Time to sleep! Fit-piryu! Time to sleep!

And it really is time for Nikita to sleep. But it's hard to put him down.

- It's too early! says Nikita.

Quail again:

- Time to sleep!

- I don't want to!

- Time to sleep!

- Well, I'll play a little more!

Here, as the quail screams, that it can no longer be tolerated:

- Time to sleep! Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

- Yes, I'm washing!

- Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

- Yes, I'm taking off my pants!

- Time to sleep! Time to sleep!

“What are you crying about, stupid? Because I'm already in bed.

They put out the light in the house - then the quail will fall silent, and Nikita will fall asleep.

That's how we got on.

The quail began to put Nikita to bed.

As soon as she whistles her "fit-piru", Nikita begins to yawn. He yawns, yawns, and then he washes, undresses and goes to bed.

True, the quail, not only in the evenings, but also at other times, shouted “it’s time to sleep,” but I immediately throw some towel or scarf over the cage, and she will be silent.

In the dark, quails do not like to scream.

In the summer we moved to live in the country.

In the garden, a large cage-fence was arranged for the quail. They put her there and went to the field to pick flowers for a housewarming party. And there was a gap in the cage, and the quail ran away. We came back and she was gone.

What a pity we were!

We started looking for her. We've been searching all day, all evening. We dig in the grass, pushing the bushes. No and no our quail.

We are tired, exhausted. It's time for Nikita to sleep.

- How will I sleep? he cries. “No one is putting me down.

And then the moon came up. Bright, bright, lit up everything around: both the grass and the road. Suddenly we hear from the bush that by the road itself:

- Fit-piryu! Fit-piryu!

- She is! says Nikita.

And the quail is even louder:

- Fit-piryu! Time to sleep!

We went into the bushes and immediately caught our quail.

She was cold, wet with dew. We returned home with her, sealed the crack in the cage tightly and planted the quail back and forth. And Nikita went to bed.

Ryabchonok

I noticed a clearing with mushrooms in the forest a long time ago. They are scattered in the grass like little yellow buttons. They are so small that they can fit through the neck of a bottle. They are very good to salt.

We took a basket each - I was a big one, and Nikita was a small one - and went to the forest.

And Tomka ran with us.

We hadn’t even reached the clearing with mushrooms, when Tomka spun, spun in one place near the Christmas tree, - he began to sniff. And suddenly, very close to us, someone loudly flapped their wings.

We looked behind the bush, and some amazing chicken walks there, walks and looks at us. Such a motley one, shaggy paws, and a black crest on her head - it will either rise like a cap, or lie down.

Who is this? - asks Nikita.

Hush, hush, - I tell him, - don't scare me, it's a hazel grouse.

Suddenly the chicken crawled along the ground like a mouse, then stood up in a column, stretched out its neck and flapped its wings even louder. She patted, patted, ruffled all over, as if she were sick, and galloped somewhere to the side.

That's the show! Why is she like this? - asks Nikita.

It is she who is cunning, - I say, - she takes our Tomka away from the chickens.

And as soon as Tomka saw the hazel grouse, he immediately rushed after her.

The hazel grouse limps, flies up, barely runs, as if she is completely sick. Pretending.

And Tomka is happy: he squeals, barks, is about to catch up with the hazel grouse, is about to grab her by the tail! Stupid Tom.

The hazel grouse took him far, far away and then, apparently, sat on a tree. We hear: Tomka barks in one place.

Here I say:

Come on, Nikitushka, let's look for chickens with you. The hazel grouse took Tomka away from here on purpose - it means that the hazel grouse hid somewhere here.

We lifted a rotten spruce branch from the ground, we see: some kind of toadstool sticks out on a thin stem. And under the toadstool the grouse sits. He hid and closed his eyes.

I grabbed it with my hand - and caught it. Ready! Gotcha, little one!

Ah, here he is! Just like a real chicken. Only smaller, but all striped and spotted. This is to make hiding easier.

It’s still downy, and there are feathers on the wings, which means it’s already flying.

I gave Nikita a little grouse to hold.

What are we going to do with it? - I ask. - Will we take it home or leave it to the grouse? Perhaps he will die at our house without a mother.

Let's give the grouse, - says Nikita.

So we did.

I opened my hand. And the little grouse sits in my palm and does not move, it is very afraid.

Then I gave him a little push, and he flew.

He flew five steps, sat down on the ground and disappeared from sight - either he stuck himself in a hole, or climbed under some leaf, or simply pressed himself to the ground.

Well, these grouse deftly hide!

Nikita and I picked up full baskets of mushrooms and came home.

And Tomka remained in the forest. The grouse deceived him, stupid, for a long, long time, led him from tree to tree.

The tale that Nikita himself told

So I caught a frog, put it in a jar. I fed her, fed, fed ...

I fed worms, I fed a big, big one. And then he made her a house with a stove so that smoke would come out of the chimney.

Here I come in the morning to feed the frog, and the frog has turned into a fire truck. So I fed him, fed him ...

Kerosene. Cars drink kerosene. He fed, fed ... And the fire truck turned into a wild boar.

I fed him, fed him, fed him ...

Carrot. He turned into swan geese.

I fed them, fed them with seeds, they turned into a tiger.

And what did you feed him?

And he didn't feed him. I aimed at him with a cannon and how bang! .. And shot him.

That's all.

Nikita doctor

Nikita Tomka says:

Well, Tomka, now I will treat you.

Nikita put on a dressing gown made of a sheet, put glasses on his nose and took a doctor's tube for listening - a toy pipe. Then he went out the door and knocked - it was the doctor who had come. Then he wiped himself with a towel - it was the doctor who washed his hands.

He bowed to the puppy Tomka and said:

Hello Young man! You are sick, I see. What hurts you?

But Tomka, of course, does not answer anything, only wags his tail - he cannot speak.

Lie down, young man, - says Dr. Nikita, - I will listen to you.

The doctor turned Tomka upside down, put a pipe to his stomach and listened. And Tomka grab him by the ear!

What are you biting! Nikita screamed. - After all, I'm a doctor!

The doctor got angry. He grabbed Tomka by the paw and put a pencil thermometer under his arm.

And Tomka doesn't want to take the temperature. floundering. Then the doctor says to the patient:

Now you open your mouth and say: aaaa. And stick out your tongue.

I wanted to see the language. And Tomka squeals and does not stick out his tongue.

I will prescribe medicine for you, - says Dr. Nikita, - and I will teach you how to brush your teeth. I see that you, young man, are a slob and don't like brushing your teeth.

Nikita took his toothbrush and began brushing Tomka's teeth.

And how Tomka will grab the brush with his teeth! He escaped from the doctor's hands, dragged the brush and gnawed it into small pieces.

You are stupid, Tomka! Nikita screams. - That's not how they play!

Tomka never learned to play sick.

Cat

A strange cat began to frighten our birds - siskins, goldfinches, canaries, bullfinches. We have had many of them. They sing well, and Nikita and I always kept them. The cat will make its way along the balcony to our window, jump onto the ledge and look through the glass at the birds. And the birds are worried, rushing to the cage.

Here Nikita says to Tomka:

Let's go scare someone else's cat with you.

WOF WOF! - So, he understands what a "cat" is!

They went together to the window and stood side by side.

And a strange cat sits outside the window, does not take its eyes off the birds. Nikita waved his hands, shouting:

Went away!

And Tomka whined, barked, scratched the glass with his paws. The cat doesn't want to leave. She furrowed her forehead, pressed her ears, spread her mustache. She became furious, deceiving - she became more terrible than a tiger.

Nikita got a little scared, he calls me:

Dad, dad, what is it! We scream, scream, and she looks at us and is not afraid.

That’s why he’s not afraid that you can’t be heard through the glass, ”I say to Nikita. “You don’t scream at her, but scare her in some other way.

Okay, says Nikita.

They again approached Tomka to the window. Nikita spread his fingers, wrinkled his eyebrows, made a terrible, terrible face. Tomka also bared his teeth. Here the cat arched its back, fluffed out its tail like a brush, and wrinkled so much that its eyes became slits. You can’t hear, but you can see that she hisses terribly at Nikita and Tomka.

So all three look at each other.

That's how they scare each other.

She scares them.

They scare her.

Suddenly the cat somehow cringed, backed away, and somersault! From the cornice to the balcony.

They still scared the cat.

How a horse rolled animals

They gave Nikita a wooden horse. The horse is all white, in gray apples. Her eyes are glassy, ​​and her mane and tail are real horsehair.

They also gave Nikita a cart.

That's the cart!

The wheels are red, the shafts are gold, the seat is soft, on springs.

Nikita began to harness the horse.

He put it in shafts, tied an arc with bells and bells. And as soon as he harnessed it - how the horse stomps with its hooves, how it breaks out of Nikita's hands - and ran across the floor. She ran under the table, under the chair, under the sofa, and then jumped out from under the sofa - and march into the corridor! The whole dark corridor galloped and rushed down the stairs. He jumps from step to step, and the cart jumps behind him.

The horse ran out into the street, rang its bells. People are surprised, shouting:

Look! Look! The wooden horse is running, the wooden cart is being carried!

The dogs ran, barking. Sparrows shy away, cats climb the fence - they are afraid.

Here a horse ran through the whole city - to where the fields and vegetable gardens begin. The horse rushes through the fields, waving its tail. He sees: hares in the garden eat cabbage, move their long ears.

A horse came up to them and asked:

Do you want to ride, bunnies?

We want, we want! - say the hares.

Jump, jump in, cart - and sit down.

The horse waved its tail, shook its mane - and rushed along the path.

She ran and ran, and then she asks:

Well, bunnies, is it good for you to ride?

Nobody is answering.

The horse looked, but the cart was empty.

Where are the hares? Where have you gone?

And the hares are playing in the clearing, jumping over each other.

It's boring for us to sit in your cart! - shout the hares. - We have more fun jumping over stumps and bumps.

The horse is running along the path, again carrying an empty cart. Suddenly he hears - someone in the bushes sniffles and grunts.

Hey! Who is sleeping there? - asks the horse. - Get out! I will ride you!

Wait, I'll get out now, - someone answers her.

And now a hedgehog crawls out of the bushes - round, prickly, covered in needles.

He sniffed, grunted, and then climbed into the cart - and curled up into a ball.

Glad horse - there is someone to carry!

She runs and runs, then to the right, then to the left she turns, and in the cart the hedgehog rolls from corner to corner.

He rode and rode and rolled out of the cart onto the road.

The horse looked back - what is it?

Hedgehog lost.

The horse is again carrying an empty cart.

He sees: a bear by the road picks raspberries from the bushes.

Fat, fat bear.

Would you like to ride, Mikhailo Ivanovich? - asks the horse.

Okay, the bear replies. - Here is a raspberry bush and I'll go.

The bear smacked, sucked its paws and climbed into the cart - the cart crackled under it. The horse strained - it barely moved the cart from its place.

He tries his best, carries, puffs.

She dragged the bear up the hill, and already down the hill the cart itself rolled.

The wheels on the pebbles jump, the bear in the cart shakes, the bear in the cart barks.

And as it shook him harder, he fell out. Sitting on the road, rubbing his nose with his paws.

I won't ride anymore, - he roars. - I will walk on my four.

And he went into the forest.

The horse is bored: no one else wants to ride. She went home. He comes up to the house, and on the porch on the bottom step Nikita sits and ties a rope to a stick - he makes a whip.

Nikita saw a horse and shouted:

Where did you go from home? I want to ride!

The horse rejoiced.

Sit down, Nikita, sit down, - he says, - just don’t whip me hard with a whip.

Nikita got into the cart, pulled on the reins and shouted:

N-n-n-ooh! Go!

Wow, the horse is running!

Nikita pulls the right rein - she runs to the right, pulls the left - she turns left.

We drove past the gardens, scared the hares, rushed past the bushes, where the hedgehog is hiding, galloped through the forest, where the bear had gone.

We drove past the lake - there Nikita drank water.

We drove across the field - there Nikita caught a beetle.

We drove through the forest - there Nikita picked a strawberry.

We drove and drove and turned back home. They rolled up to the porch, stopped.

Trrrr-rrr-rr-ruuu! We've arrived!

Nikita put the horse back in the corner under the bed, where it used to stand, and cut paper hay for it.

Eat, - says, - a horse. You ran a lot today!

But in fact, the horse didn’t run anywhere - that’s how Nikitushka and I played.

About bunnies

Once at the dacha Nikita ran up to me and shouted:

Dad, give me the rabbits! Dad, give me the rabbits!

And I do not understand what kind of rabbits to give him. And I'm not going to give away anyone, and I don't have rabbits.

What are you, Nikitushka, - I say, - what is the matter with you?

And Nikita is crying directly: give him back and give him the rabbits.

Then my mother came and told me everything. It turns out that the village guys brought two rabbits from the meadows: they caught them in the hayfield. And Nikita got it all mixed up. It was necessary to say: “Take the rabbits,” and he says: “Give the rabbits back.”

We took the rabbits, they began to live with us.

Well, the bunnies were nice! Such fluffy balls! Ears apart, brown eyes, large. And the paws are soft, soft - like hares in felt boots walk.

We wanted to feed the rabbits. They gave them herbs - they do not eat. They poured milk into a saucer - and they don’t drink milk ... Are they full, or what?

And they lowered them to the floor - they don’t let anyone take a step. They jump straight to their feet. They poke their muzzles into boots and lick them ... They must be looking for a mother hare.

Apparently, they are hungry, but they do not know how to eat. More suckers.

Then Tomka, our dog, came into the room. I also wanted to see rabbits. They, poor things, jumped on Tomka, climbed on him ... Tomka growled, snapped and ran away.

How can we feed the rabbits? After all, they, poor things, will die of hunger.

We thought, thought, and finally came up with. We went to look for a cat nurse for them.

The cat was lying on a bench near the neighboring house, feeding her kittens. She is so colorful, painted, even her nose is multi-colored.

We dragged the cat to the hares, how she snorts at them, how she grumbles in a bass voice, almost howls. Yes, well, her!

We went to look for another nurse.

We see a cat lying on the mound, all black, with a white paw. The cat is purring, basking in the sun ... And when they took it and put a rabbit next to it, it immediately released all its claws and bristled. Also not suitable as a wet nurse! We took her back.

They began to look for a third cat.

Already at the very end of the village found. Looks so good, sweet. Only this affectionate little bit of our bunnies didn’t eat. As soon as she saw them, she escaped from her hands and how she rushed at the hares, like at mice.

We dragged her by force and threw her out the door.

Probably, our hares would have died of starvation if, fortunately for us, there had not been one more cat - the fourth. She herself came to us. She came because she was looking for kittens. Her kittens died, and she went all over the village and looked for them ... Red-haired, so thin; we fed her, gave her a drink and laid her on the windowsill and brought the rabbits to her. First one hare, then another.

The hares leaned into her and immediately sucked, even smacked their lips - they found milk!

And the cat at first twitched, got worried, and then began to lick them - and even purred a song.

So it's all right.

For many days the cat fed the rabbits.

He lies with them on the windowsill, and the people stop at the window, look:

That's a miracle, a cat feeds hares!

Then the hares grew up, learned to eat grass themselves and ran into the forest. They are free to live there.

And the cat got herself real kittens.

Airplanes behind the roofs

Our room has three windows.

If you look at one, you will see the neighbor's balcony. Sparrows always flock there after dinner. Their neighbors put leftover food in a bowl every day.

If you look out the other window, you will see the street. Down the street, red trams run and ring, black cars dart, blue buses roll, and people walk along the sidewalks and across the street.

And the third window is the most interesting. There are roofs, roofs and pipes.

One big factory chimney with thick smoke, and there are airplanes right there.

Planes seem very small. They fly between the pipes: either they fall behind the roofs, or they rise high into the sky.

In bad weather, when the clouds are rushing low, the planes seem to be playing hide and seek.

They fly - fly, fly into the very cloud - and disappear from sight.

And then they pop up again, but already somewhere else.

And in good weather, planes do not just fly: they either tumble in the sky, then rise up like a propeller, then fall down.

Nikita says about them:

- They live there behind a large pipe, and fly out into the sky to walk.

Nikita loves to look through this window very much. He will press his nose against the glass and stand for such a long, long time. He even has a white nose.

— Hey, Nikita, don't crush the glass with your nose! Look, your nose will be a cake.

Nikita will move away from the glass, and then he will forget and again bury his nose in it.

And then May Day came.

Nikita and I opened all the windows in the room, dressed ourselves warmly and sat down by the window.

It was too early for us to go to the parade. We were supposed to leave later.

As soon as we sat down by the window, Nikita shouted:

- Look look!

I looked and saw planes.

There were many, many. They gathered in a whole cloud behind the factory chimney. That's just like pushers - mosquitoes gather on summer evenings near some bush.

And suddenly all this mosquito heap flew right to us.

It flies closer and spreads wider and wider over the rooftops. Now you can hear her humming.

It buzzes well, like bumblebees.

Here the planes have grown even more, there are more swallows, and now they are not buzzing, but buzzing in bass.

From the very left edge of the sky to the very right, everything around was buzzing.

Now the planes have become like ducks.

It's like cranes...

And then they rumbled across the sky, roaring like lions in a zoo.

As they flew in, it became dark from them on the street. They fly low - just above the house, the glass rattles all over our house.

Nikita snuggled up to me, covered himself with the hem of my jacket, and he himself was looking out the window with one eye.

Then, when all the planes flew over us and stopped honking, Nikita looked out and said:

— Oh, dad! How scary. After all, I thought they were small, but what they are! And how they thunder!

- It's very good that it's scary, - I say, - let all the enemies be afraid of our planes. And you, Nikitushka, don't be afraid of them. After all, planes fly for this, so that all little boys and little girls live peacefully and happily in our country.

Heron

When you draw animals in the zoo, then you see much more.

This is probably because the animals stop noticing a motionless person and go about their business. My son Nikita and I went to the zoo to draw animals. First we went to the swans. The largest of them fell asleep, standing on one leg - you can’t immediately make out where his head is, where his tail is, as if it were not a bird, but a huge white sack on a black stick. Nikita drew it:

Do you see how he laid his long neck on his side and on his back, and put his head behind the wing?

Then we saw a swan on the water. He swam in a strange way - twisting his leg. We decided: sick, then. But it turns out that he is not sick at all: he is so basking.

Lies in the water. Raises one leg and rows the other. Then he rolls over to the other side, sticks out his other leg and exposes it to the sun and the breeze.

Next to the lake, where swans and ducks swam, in a huge cage - black grouse, capercaillie, pheasant and partridges: our northern and southern ones are mountainous, called kekliks. Such round wild chickens with a bright red beak. Their beak glows red, as if the bird is holding a mountain ash all the time and cannot swallow it.

And the pheasant is molting. Feathers change. It can be seen that at this time the bird is having a hard time.

She doesn't feel well. The pheasant rested his head in the corner and stands. However, it is convenient to draw it: it does not move at all.

Nikita made as many as five sketches from him. And then he broke off a long twig from a poplar tree that grew nearby, put it through a metal mesh and picked up a few painted pheasant feathers. He grabbed it with two sticks and pulled it out. That's right - very beautiful feathers. And one of the tail is long, long and all in transverse stripes.

We stood and admired ... One partridge began to swim. She lay down on her side and flounders and trembles in the sand - just like a domestic chicken. Nikita drew her, and here she is.

At the end we came to the heron. She is in the same cage with the cranes.

Cranes walk all the time; they have lush, sort of curly, black tails of soft long feathers.

The back of the head is crimson, they themselves are gray. Very nice birds, so solid, big, beautiful. Even their gait is important.

And the heron stands like an idol. Some kind of hunchbacked, ruffled. She folded her long neck like a folding arshin, sort of pulled her head between her shoulders - only a long beak sticks out like a pike. And the heron's eye is not even a bird's eye, but a fish's: without expression, motionless and as if even flat. And this scarecrow stands on one leg, does not move.

Here Nikita draws, and I light up. And ... then everything somehow happened at once. A sparrow crawled through the mesh ceiling and descends to the feeder. And just about the heron flies. And as if a white snake flashed in the air. It was the heron's longest neck that straightened out, and the sparrow screamed terribly, desperately: the heron grabbed it in flight with its beak, like tongs.

I rushed to the cage, Nikita too. Both began to scream.

All the birds in the aviary rushed about ... The heron shied away and released the sparrow, and he, the fool, jumped on the ground like a mouse. Quickly, quickly galloped off into the dark side, into the corner - and yurk into the rat hole. But the hole turned out to be through - only through a thick board. He flew out of the cage.

- Now I know, - says Nikita, - what it is - a heron! This is a predator, and even what! This is how I imagine myself. There is such a bird in the reeds, like a stuffed animal. He does not move, he moves his frog eye. The moorhen oatmeal has arrived. She sat down on a reed nearby - time! - and got caught in her beak. A flock of perches swam closer. Once! — and no perch!

Well, a bird! No wonder she looks kind of ugly.

- Draw, - I say, - Nikita, how she catches a sparrow, it's interesting!

“No way,” he says, “I won’t, I don’t even want to remember.

Evil Galya

The girl Galya Stolbova went to the zoo. In the zoo, in the aviary, the peacock showed his wonderful tail. Green, shiny, with blue spots. Unfolded it like a fan and shakes.

All people are surprised: “That's the tail! What a beauty!"

And Galya Stolbova picked up a handful of sawdust and how she threw it at the peacock! The peacock didn't show its tail anymore. He folded it up and flew up to the perch.

Outside, in a cage with thick iron bars, Fedka the bear was sitting. He hung his hind legs outward, and stretches out his front paws, asking for a sweet. That's all they throw bread, gingerbread, and crackers, and sweets to him - whoever has anything in his pocket.

And Galya Stolbova wrapped a stone in candy paper and threw it to the bear. Fedka grabbed some candy and nearly broke his tooth, got offended and went off to sleep in a corner.

And Galya Stolbova composed a song - she jumps and teases:

... Hey, Fedka-Fedul,

What did you pout your lips?

I asked for a candy

She threw snow at a zebra, stamped her feet on a crane. Then she went to the elephant house to the elephant.

And there at that time the elephant was buying carrots. Someone will give him money, the elephant will take it with his trunk and give it to his watchman. And the watchman will give you a carrot for money.

Galya Stolbova wanted to tease the elephant too. She thinks: “I will throw my mitten to him, but the watchman will not give the elephant a carrot for it. And then I’ll take the mitten back from the watchman.”

Galya Stolbova handed the elephant her knitted red mitten. The elephant pulled out its trunk, took it carefully and ... put it in its mouth. And ate.

So you need it, Galya Stolbova - do not tease the animals.

The Amazing Postman

The boy Vasya and his dad went to the dacha. And Vasya's mother stayed in the city: she had to buy something else. Mom wanted to come shopping in the evening.

Here comes the train. Vasya sits in the car on a bench next to his dad and looks out the window. And trees, and fences, and various houses are running through the window.

Opposite Vasya, a boy is also sitting on a bench, with a watch on his left hand. He is carrying a basket. This boy is already big; he must be fifteen years old. As the train approaches the station, the boy will look at his watch, write something in a notebook with a pencil, bend over his basket, pull something out of it and run out of the car. And then he comes again and sits, looking out the window.

Vasya sat and sat, looked and looked at the boy with the basket, and suddenly he burst into tears at the top of his voice! He remembered that he had left his bicycle at home.

How can I be without a bike? - cries. “All winter I thought about how I would ride it through the forests.

“Well, don’t cry,” his dad said. Mom will go and bring you a bike.

“No, he won’t bring it,” Vasya cries. She doesn't love him. He creaks...

“Well, you, boy, stop it, don’t cry,” the boy with a watch on his hand suddenly said. - I'll arrange this business for you now. I myself love to ride a bike. Only he is real, two-wheeled. Do you have a telephone at home? he asks Vasya's father.

“Yes,” Dad replies. “Number five fifty-five zero six.”

“Well, that’s all right,” the boy says. We will immediately send a postman with a letter.

He pulled out a tiny paper ribbon made of thin tissue paper from his pocket and wrote on it: “Call 5-55-06, tell them: “Mom should take Vasya’s bike to the dacha.” Then he put this letter into some shiny little tube and opened his basket.

And there, in a basket, sits a dove - long-nosed, gray.

The boy pulled out a dove and tied a tube with a letter to his leg.

“Here is my postman,” he says. — Ready to fly. Look.

And as soon as the train stopped at the station, the boy looked at his watch, noted the time in his notebook and let the dove out the window.

The dove will fly straight up - only they saw it!

“Today I am teaching carrier pigeons,” the boy says. - At each station, I release one and write down the time. The dove will fly straight to the city, to its dovecote. And there they are waiting for him. And on this, the last one, they will see the tube, read the letter and call your apartment. If only the hawk hadn't caught him along the way.

And it's true: Vasya came to the dacha, waiting, waiting for his mother - and in the evening his mother arrived with a bicycle. We received a letter. It means that the hawk did not catch the dove.

Zoo

AT kindergarten The guys had different animals. A turtle lived in a box of sand, her name was Manechka, lived in a wooden cage White Rabbit, he was not named in any way, and in a small iron cage - a white mouse, she was also not called in any way. These animals were not wild, but completely tame.

And the guys wanted wild animals. Really like!

One day, when the weather was very good, Aunt Manya told them:

How are you guys? Shall we go to catch wild animals today?

Let's go, let's go! the guys shouted. - Let's hunt for real.

Everyone was very happy. And Aunt Manya began to distribute various things in order to catch animals. Petya gave a watering can, Maya a green tin bucket, Olya a large mug, and Vasya a flower pot with a hole in the bottom, which must be plugged with a finger. And she also gave me different matchboxes and non-matchboxes. And two nets - red and green. And she took two glass jars. They are very brittle.

And so everyone went to the meadows, out of the city.

On the way Petya caught a big wild grasshopper. He pinches very painfully. They covered him with a jar, and then put him in a cigarette box - he didn’t fit into a matchbox, he has long legs.

Then Maya saw frogs in the groove, and a frog in the grass. They were all immediately caught with their hands and put in a jar.

And then they caught five more beetles. And one butterfly-urticaria.

And when we went out into the meadows, the most interesting hunting began. Maya saw some minks in the ground. There lived a wild field mouse. There were four holes in the ground, two were plugged with grass, and Aunt Manya said:

Run for water.

And everyone ran to the ditch for water. Petya brought water in a watering can, Maya in a green tin bucket, Olya in a mug, and Vasya in a flower pot with a hole in the bottom that you need to plug with your finger.

They brought water. Aunt Manya put a bag over the hole in the ground and said:

Well, guys, pour water into another hole. The mouse does not live in water - it will definitely jump out.

So Petya poured out, but no one jumped out. And Maya poured out. And Olya poured out. And when Vasya began to pour from a flower pot with a hole in the bottom, then everyone saw: something was running around in the bag. The bag is moving. So, a wild mouse jumped out of the mink.

They soon caught the mouse, put it in a box, and everyone went home to arrange a zoo.

The frog with frogs began to live in big jar, grasshoppers are also in a jar, in another, and the beetles were lost - they crawled out of the box along the way - not a single one. The guys themselves released the butterfly - let it fly, collect honey from flowers.

And the wild mouse began to live with a white mouse in an iron cage.

She soon became completely tame, and five mice were born to her.

Vanya is a hunter

Every evening, as it begins to get dark, a hare runs out of the forest onto a green winter field. And he runs out to the same place. By the road, near the willow bush.

Vanya, the collective farm shepherd, will drive the cows home, looking - the hare is already sitting on the winter, looking in all directions, moving his ears. And chews.

And Vanya was a hunter.

But he has never killed anyone before. Still, this is a difficult one.

Vanya decided to ambush the hare.

He took a gun, loaded it and climbed with it into a willow bush, to which a hare ran out to feed.

Climbed another day - early. Vanya sits in a bush and waits for a hare.

Here Vanya sits for an hour, does not move, and no one runs from the forest.

Another hour has passed - there is no hare.

Suddenly it began to rain, so heavy, large, and immediately rushed water everywhere.

There were puddles along the way.

All the grass has become damp. It drips from the bush from all the leaves, flows directly in streams.

Vanya is almost completely soaked to the skin, but he sits, does not move, only shivers from the cold.

“It doesn't matter,” he thinks, “I'll shoot this hare! I will definitely shoot! Until the very night I will sit, and I will wait for him. I won’t miss!”

Evening came.

Here comes the night.

It's getting dark. Vanya does not move, sits, waits. And suddenly he hears: slap - slap ... slap - slap ...

This is someone on the road slapping their feet through the puddles. The hare has arrived!

Here Vanya became even hot. His heart pounded in his chest, his hands trembled.

He looked out of the bush, from under the wet twig, but the hare was not visible.

You can't see anything because it's completely dark.

And the hare slaps closer and closer: slap-splash ... slap-splash ... slap-splash ...

Right here, right next to it.

Now you can get it with your hand - just stretch it out!

And suddenly! To Vanya on his knees - slap-splash! jumped a large, hefty frog.

It was she who splashed through the puddles instead of a hare.

But the hare never came.

I draw animals.

It's early... At seven or eight o'clock no one comes to the zoo. Draw comfortably. No one looks over his shoulder, no one asks. Good!

Only animals in cages and me. I draw a maral deer, Seryozhka.

He has new horns. Deer change their antlers every year. Old ones fall off and new ones grow; at first soft, warm, alive - not horns, but some kind of bloody jelly in a fluffy leather case.

Then the jelly hardens, becomes a real horn, and the skin falls off. Now Seryozha's skin hangs in shreds on the horns.

In the morning all the animals play. Jaguar rolls a wooden ball in a cage.

The Himalayan sloth bear stands on its head. During the day, in front of the people, he stands for candy, but now he is amusing himself.

The elephant pressed the watchman against the wall, took the broom and ate it. Wolves run around the cage, circle: in one direction - in the other, in one - in the other, at a trot, quickly.

In the common bird fence, belladonna cranes are dancing, jumping, spinning.

And our gray crane appeases them. Doesn't like pranks. A little bit of disorder somewhere - vanity or a fight, he, slowly, steps forward and poke someone with his beak. Bird boss! For this, he is often kept in charge in poultry yards.

The deer Seryozhka has itching in the horns. He scratches them. It bends all over in front of me: it will rush at me - it scares me, then it will stretch its neck, raise its nostrils, snort disgustingly. It also frightens - or maybe it calls for a fight.

He will hammer the ground with his front sharp hooves, start galloping along the fence like a calf and raise his tail. And he himself is almost the size of a horse.

I'm interested in drawing!

I draw - and I see nothing but a deer.

Something crunched from behind. I looked back. And I can't understand anything. Six wild boars are coming at me in single file, the front one is five steps away from me.

And where is the grate in front of them? And there is no grid! Break free!

Everything got out of my hands. And I climbed onto Seryozhkin's fence. Get in and sit.

Below me, on one side, Sergey is rowdy, walks on his hind legs, wants to knock me off the fence, trample me, gore me. Foam from the mouth stretches.

On the other hand, boars.

Huge, with yellow fangs, in bristles, like in a brush. They crowd, they look at me, they don’t know how to raise their heads, look up. From above, they are narrow, like fish, - only the fangs stick out to the sides.

Farewell, my watercolor! Chewed together with a wooden box.

What if I or someone else gets chewed up like that?

Something must be done! Yes, what to do? Yell - someone will come running to scream, and they - to him. They'll catch up, they'll fall!

I'd better climb to the fence. To the fence - along the fence, behind the fence is the street. I’ll call the fire department by phone, I’ll tell the administration ...

I crawl, I move along the fence, as if along a skyscraper. If you fall down, then death will come to you: on the right, Sergey is sniffling, dancing, on the left, wild boars are chomping, walking in a crowd.

The top plank on the fence below me began to sway, completely old; I sweat with fear.

Suddenly - a cry:

Sasha, Masha, Yashka, Proshka, Shark!

I almost fell off! Barely survived. A little boy ran into the crowd of wild boars and whipped wild boars with a twig.

Back! - screams. - I'll!

The boars have returned. Like simple pigs, they ran to their barn - to their cage. And the boy drives them with a twig.

Boars grunt, run, twirl their tails. He put him in a cage and locked him up.

Here I quickly, quickly, from the lattice of tears, so that the boy does not notice, and I go out of the garden. It became embarrassing. The boars are tame!

There are two territories in the Moscow Zoo - old and new. The new one is across the street from the old one.

At first, I didn’t even understand what kind of “territories” such a zoo had.

Once I came to look at ducks, and they say to me:

Go to new territory! It's more interesting there. There she is. Cross the street.

I switched.

It turns out that the new territory is just a new place.

In the old place, the Moscow Zoo has become cramped. He jumped across the street. Took new positions. And the street is busy. Here the tram rings, and the car barks. Only not houses stretch on the sides, but a long fence, because of which nothing can be seen, and so - like a wooden lattice.

Behind the bars is a lake.

And on the lake and ducks, and geese, and cormorants, and dives, and every water bird.

Swimming, diving, dusting off, screaming. It’s good for them: there is a lot of water.

Here the geese are swimming. Slender, feather to feather. The neck is long, the head is small. They cackle, they dive, they just dive badly, they just dip. They have a lot of meat, feathers, fluff - water sticks out of them and sticks up.

But the cormorant dived - that's another matter. He sat for himself, sat on the nest, and his nest was just a pedestal sticking out of the water, and there was a bunch of brushwood on the pedestal. He sat on his nest - and bang into the water. Sailed like a steamship. The beak sticks up like a pipe, and waves on the water.

And then - times! And no cormorant.

I look, I look: it will emerge somewhere. And he waved across the lake. At the farthest end, a steamboat floats, a coot drives out of the way.

Coots - water chickens - row, run away. Their heads twitch, back and forth, back and forth, only bald spots flash - white spots on the head.

And suddenly the whole lake flew away. All the birds have left the water.

Goldeneyes, mallards, geese, dives began to roar. The spray rains down, the wings whistle.

He who is heavier cannot fly - he runs on foot along the lake, flapping his wings on the water.

And who dives behind everyone.

Birds flew around the lake and sat down. And two mallard ducks scattered so much that they took it and jumped over the fence.

Goodbye, then!

Through the fence, and then through all of Moscow into the forest and - right into the reed swamp.

I suppose they wouldn't fly away from some old zoological garden. All the birds there were crippled. Look, it happened - someone has a stump of a wing that crawls out of feathers, is flooded with iodine, someone whose wing is turned inside out - sticks out to the side. The life of the birds was quiet there, like in a hospital.

And here the birds are free, although this is not a forest, but a zoo.

Here we went to the bank, in the sun, wild ducks, brought their ducklings to warm up. Only three days for ducklings.

Downy and small-small. It seems that they can still be pushed back into the eggshell - they will go in without a trace. And what the mother does, so do they. And they lie on their side, like real ducks, and rule their feathers with their beaks (and they still don’t have feathers - only fluff), and they row the sand with their feet, and flap their wings, although they don’t have wings, but some kind of hooks in the fluff .

Suddenly, something splashed into the water.

The splashes flew.

The ducklings were blown away by the wind. One dived, the other sank into a hole.

And it was mallard ducks that landed on the water. The ones that flew over the fence.

Why are they back? I already thought that they had been in the swamp outside the city for a long time. An incomprehensible thing. You have to ask someone.

And then next to me some people - a man and a woman - were standing.

Looked out for someone on the lake. I immediately recognized the woman - recently I saw how she tamed jackals.

She held each cowardly pot-bellied jackal in turn in her arms.

Stroking, saying something, accustomed to the human voice.

So she's from here, she works at the zoo. I approached her.

Why, - I ask, - don't your ducks fly away from the zoo? I've seen - a couple flew over the fence, and then returned back.

It’s good for them here - they don’t fly away. And if they fly away, it's not far, across the street, to the old territory. There they steal food from foreign fences, together with sparrows, they carry steamed oats from a hippopotamus, they rummage through hay dust from an elephant. They will stay - and back home, to their ducklings.

Suddenly the woman screamed:

Here he is! Here he is!

I look, and on the water it’s like a small black ball is rolling in different directions. It will linger in one place - and again it will roll along the slope. From a goose to a duck, from a duck to a coot - it sticks to everyone.

Squeaks-whistles. Everyone is afraid of him for some reason.

It will roll up to the goose, the goose will stretch its neck - and sideways. He will drive up to the duck, the duck will almost dive from him with fear.

He can't swim in that direction! the woman says. - There is a cormorant in the nest - swallow it, fool. You should rather catch him.

A man and a woman rushed to the other side of the lake, where we, the visitors, cannot go.

They run, hurry, splash right through the puddles.

Then both crawled on all fours - as if cats were sneaking up on a mouse. The man crawls ahead. Suddenly he hid, froze - and once into the water. Caught!

Caught? - I ask.

Caught! - screams.

Who is this?

And this is a coot. Our first chick was bred by a coot. Here she is, black, bald, sitting on a pedestal, sitting out other eggs. And this homeless child is still hanging out.

Give, - I say, - please, let me draw it.

Draw quickly.

Ah, I say, I don’t have any paints with me.

Nothing, draw, - and then write in words where it has what color.

That's how I drew it. That's what he is, a coot.

Pig

Do you know how wooden spoons are made?

First, an aspen or a birch is sawn into short poles, then the poles are pricked into buckwheat, and then they are adze - they hammer a hole in a spoon. And then with a sharp knife they cut off the excess and level it.

Bark and shavings from this work are obtained directly from the mountains.

I have a familiar spoon-maker Yegorych.

Yegorych is a bean. He has no one in the world. He lives alone and every spring goes deep into the forest. He lives there in a hut by the lake and shaves his spoons. Yegorych will bring food to his hut even in the snow in winter, because in summer it is difficult to get through the swamps.

In the spring, the forest also has its own food - forest food. In the spring the tree blossoms. Red columns grow on spruce paws. They can be eaten.

There is a pine and spruce cucumber. Between the old, hard bark and wood is a layer of a young tree. This layer is peeled off in layers. Transparent and, right, crunches on the teeth, like a cucumber.

And horsetails grow near the swamps. This is a grass that looks like Christmas trees. In our area, horsetails are called pestles. Because horsetail looks like a pestle. It has not yet blossomed into a Christmas tree and sticks out of the ground with a column. These pestles must be collected, salted and fried in oil in a pan. It turns out very tasty. It looks like a cookie.

I hunted in these forests and turned to Yegorych to spend the night. He was delighted to see me, gave me a beautiful spoon, in which a pike fish was carved on the handle, and the spoon itself was painted with flowers. He treated me to tea and fried pestles and told me an interesting story.

“Here, listen,” Yegorych said to me, when we lit a shag after tea and lay down in the hut on the senniks. “This spring I had to make a lot of spoons. Chips and shavings of aspen, probably, I dumped a cart or two by the lake. What I'm saying is that if it weren't for these shavings, nothing would have happened.

I am sitting one evening in a hut and shaping spoons. I wanted to smoke, struck a match ... Suddenly, as the branches crackle in the forest. It looks like some animal has escaped.

And at night at dawn I hear: someone is walking. Cautiously walks by the hut. Now a branch will crackle, then a pebble will roll.

Well, I think, is it not an evil person who has come, a tramp, or maybe a bear?

I took the ax in my hands and left. There is not anyone.

The second night again someone walks.

Churbashki got wet in the trough. The logs, I hear, rattled and the water splashed, and then, on the shore of the lake, feet began to choke on the damp earth.

And all night there was someone walking around.

So I got up early in the morning and looked: there were footprints on the shore of the lake, well, just like a pig walked.

Although I am not a hunter, I see: there are two hooves on each leg. Well, if a pig, then a pig, let him walk. It's amazing, I think, how the pig got so far into the forest. After all, twelve kilometers from the village to me. This pig must be hungry. It is necessary, I think, to lock her in a barn at night. True, we do not have wolves, but the bear roams.

He built a fence and attached a trap: as a pig enters the barn, steps on the board with his foot, then the doors behind her will close.

I put two slices of bread in this barn and put down a trough with swill.

Well, I guess my pig is now!

That night, again, the pig wandered around the hut, again, for some reason, drinking bitter water from a trough where aspen logs got wet.

The pig went around and around, but did not look into the barn.

Then in the afternoon I sketched bread at the barn, piece by piece. I made a bread path from the trough to the barn. I counted, so it turned out thirty-four pieces of bread.

Well, I think that now a pig will certainly go into the barn. Will pick up piece by piece and get caught.

The next morning I look: there is no one in the barn, and there are fewer pieces - twenty-nine pieces.

At night I hear: a pig is crunching right at the window, chewing something.

I slowly looked out and saw: but it's not a pig! This is someone big-headed, on long legs, as tall as a foal.

I took a closer look and found out: this is a calf.

And the calf leaned over a block of bitter water and drinks, smacks his lips, then took a piece of bitter aspen bark in his lips and began to chew.

Oh, I wish I could catch him!

I looked out a little and began smacking my lips, calling him. Slowly, slowly, so as not to scare.

The elk's ears alerted here. He looked out the window at me and how he jumped into the fog. Mud splashed right into my face, branches cracked, and there was no one. Only a hole in the fog remained, swimming.

But I still caught this calf - not for bread, but for aspen bark, for a trough with aspen infusion.

This calf was very nice. Hook-nosed, long-legged, soft. Probably an orphan. Not otherwise - the bear ate his mother or some harmful hunter shot the uterus for meat.

The elk learned to eat bread, and ate porridge, and potatoes. And you salt it more salty - and the calf eats more greedily. Apparently, he really liked the salt.

This is how we lived. I cut spoons, the calf eats porridge with salt and sucks bitter shavings.

Once I looked into the stall somehow, and I have very little flour and cereals. I let the calf out of the stall.

And what would you think? A calf climbed into my hut by itself. That's what became manual and affectionate! He came to the hut and groans, mooing like a moose: oh! uh! uh! He asks for salt.

So we lived with the calf for a whole summer.

And by the autumn the elk left. It can be seen that he saw his own in the forest, stuck to them and left.

That's the parrot bird!

I have a big cage. Many birds live in it: a lark, a nightingale, yellow canaries, green canaries, a small quail hen that cries in the evenings: “It’s time to sleep, it’s time to sleep,” and an Egyptian dove that coos: “Gur-gurrru-u, gur- gurrru-u".

Previously, a teal duck also lived in this cage, but it splashed very much and loved to pull feathers from everyone’s tail. I had to let her go.

Nikita and I love to sit in front of the cage and watch how our birds bathe in water or sand, how they eat, how they fight. Tomka is also sitting with us. Only he gets tired of sitting in vain. He will curl up and fall asleep to the sound of birds singing.

So everything went on with us - well and calmly.

But once I bought a green Australian parrot. It's called "wavy parrot". Such a funny ass. Roundhead. Just like an old man with a beard, but as tall as a sparrow. I brought him home and let him in to our whole company. What was there! How frightened everyone was!

The quail is three times the size of its ass, and with a fright it flew up and bang its head against the ceiling of the cage. Canaries rush about, beat against the bars, only feathers fly from the cage, and the dove climbed into the corner and groans there, as if dying.

What are they all so afraid of? - asks Nikita. - After all, the ass does not touch them. It is small.

And I say to Nikita:

Yes, you see how he crawls along the branches. Nikita looked and laughed.

Just like a worm, the Australian parrot crawls. It will pull up to the branch and tighten up all over, pull up and tighten up. It will cling to a twig with its beak, and then intercept it with its paws.

Siskins and canaries are watching - what kind of bird? And he moves not in their own way, but in his own way, like a parrot, like an Australian, and somehow at the same time grunts, whistles, clicks. And the wings are noisy "frrr" - just like the propeller of an airplane.

The birds fought and fought in the cage, and Tomka seemed to have gone crazy. He climbs into the cage, squeals, scratches, does not take his eyes off the parrot.

What are you, - Nikitka shouts to him, - you can’t catch a parrot, it’s not a grouse for you!

And suddenly our parrot took off and flew out of the cage. Somehow crawled sideways through the bars. We so gasped. Be sure to eat it Tomka! A parrot is running around the room, spinning near the ceiling, and Tomka is also spinning on the floor.

The ass flew, flew, and then sat on an electric lamp and rested. And Tomka also sat on the bed, stuck out his tongue and looked at the parrot.

And suddenly the ass flew again. He flew and flew, did not know where to sit. And suddenly he sat down ... Tomka sat right on his head. Tomka froze, blinked his eyes, his mouth shut and ... yurk under the bed. Lies there and is silent.

That's how the Australian scared him.

Since then, Tomka does not even look at him, turns away.

Worms

A titmouse lived in our cage.

And titmouse eat worms. So we bought flour worms for her at the pet store, which start up in rotten flour. They are so yellow with brown heads.

Dad, - Nikita says somehow, - make a house for the worms. There they will give birth to little, little worms. The worms will live in the house and look out the windows. That's interesting!

Well, I glued a paper house, very tiny, less than a matchbox. With windows, with doors, with a chimney on the roof. We made a pipe from a cigarette butt, and glued smoke from cotton wool to the pipe.

Got a good house.

We put it in a glass jar of jam and threw a couple of the fattest worms into the jar. They immediately crawled back to their house and began to live there. And Nikita fed them with flour.

One day passes, another passes. Nikita is waiting to see if the little worms will soon look out of the windows. And no one looks out. No worms.

Once Nikita came up to the bank to see what was being done there, and how he screamed:

Ouch! What is it! Worms became empty.

And yes, there are no worms. Only the yellowish skin is lying around in the jar, like two empty cases.

We lifted the house with Nikita and we see that at the bottom of the jar there are two things. Flat, wide, short.

That's so miracle-miracles! says Nikita. - What happened to the worms?
- Yes, these are not worms, - I say, - but pupae.
- Dolls? And what are we going to feed them?
“You don’t need to feed them,” I say. They don't even have a mouth.
- Aren't they going to die?
- Not.

For many days the dolls lay in their paper house. They lie and do not move, do not eat anything.

Completely uninteresting. Nikita even stopped looking into the jar.

Only once did he want to play with the paper house. He took the house by the smoke from the cotton wool and dragged it up. And suddenly he sees: two black nimble beetles were running and running along the bottom of the can.

Again miracle miracles! Nikita screams. - Beetles turned out from pupae! Black!
- These are, - I say, - flour beetles. They probably hatched from pupae.
- Do they eat anything? - asks Nikita.
“Eat, eat,” I say.
- That is good! Nikita rejoiced. So I will feed them.
- Well, feed.

And these beetles began to live in the house in a very interesting way. They climbed onto the roof like firefighters, looked out of the windows. They even climbed into the smoke! The smoke from cotton wool is durable.

Beetles lived, lived and suddenly disappeared. Both disappeared immediately.

The house stands as it stood, the smoke from the chimney comes out as it did before, but there are no tenants.

I think, - says Nikita, - they ate each other.
- No, - I say, - they probably ran away.

And what do you think?