Nikolay Gogol. "Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls". Moscow, 1846 University typography

Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is introduced to the sons of the landowner Manilov:

“In the dining room there were already two boys, the sons of Manilov, who were in those years when they were already putting the children at the table, but still on high chairs. The teacher stood with them, bowing politely and with a smile. The hostess sat down at her soup cup; the guest was seated between the landlord and the hostess, the servant tied napkins around the children's necks.

- What lovely children, - said Chichikov, looking at them, - and which year?

“The eldest is the eighth, and the youngest was only six yesterday,” said Manilova.

- Themistoclus! - said Manilov, turning to the elder, who was trying to free his chin, tied in a napkin by a lackey.

Chichikov raised a few eyebrows when he heard such a somewhat Greek name, to which, for some unknown reason, Manilov ended in "yus", but tried to bring his face back to its usual position at the same time.

- Themistoclus, tell me what is the best city in France?

Here the teacher turned all his attention to Themistoclus and seemed to want to jump into his eyes, but at last he completely calmed down and nodded his head when Themistoclus said: "Paris."

- What is the best city we have? Manilov asked again.

The teacher adjusted his attention again.

- Petersburg, - answered Themistoclus.

- And what else?

- Moscow, - answered Themistoclus.

- Clever, darling! Chichikov said to this. “Tell me, however ...” he continued, addressing the Manilovs with a certain look of amazement, “in such years and already such information! I must tell you that this child will have great abilities.

- Oh, you don't know him yet! - answered Manilov, - he has a lot of wit. Here is the little one, Alcides, he is not so fast, and this one now, if he meets anything, a bug, a booger, so suddenly his eyes are running around; will run after her and immediately pay attention. I am reading him on the diplomatic side. Themistoclus, - he continued, turning to him again, - do you want to be a messenger?

- I want, - answered Themistoclus, chewing bread and dangling his head to the right and to the left.

At this time, the footman standing behind wiped the messenger's nose, and did very well, otherwise a decent foreign drop would have sunk into the soup. "

2 Fyodor Dostoevsky. "Demons"

Fedor Dostoevsky. "Demons". St. Petersburg, 1873 K. Zamyslovsky's printing house

The chronicler retells the content of a philosophical poem, which in his youth was written by the now aged liberal Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky:

“The stage opens with a chorus of women, then a chorus of men, then some forces, and at the end of everything a chorus of souls who have not yet lived, but who would very much like to live. All these choirs sing about something very uncertain for the most part about someone's curse, but with a touch of supreme humor. But the scene suddenly changes, and some kind of "Festival of Life" begins, at which even insects sing, a turtle appears with some Latin sacramental words, and even, if I recall, one mineral sang about something - that is, the object is already completely inanimate. In general, everyone sings incessantly, and if they talk, they scold somehow vaguely, but again with a tinge of higher significance. Finally the scene changes again, and a wild place appears, and a civilized young man wanders between the cliffs, picking and sucking some herbs, and to the fairy's question: why does he suck these herbs? responds that he, feeling the excess of life in himself, seeks oblivion and finds it in the juice of these herbs; but that his main desire is to lose his mind as soon as possible (a desire, perhaps, is superfluous). Then suddenly a young man of indescribable beauty rides in on a black horse, followed by an awful multitude of all nations. The young man portrays death, and all the nations yearn for it. And finally, already in the very last scene, suddenly appears Tower of babel, and some athletes finally finish building it with a song new hope, and when they are already building up to the very top, then the owner, let us say at least Olympus, escapes in a comic form, and the guessed humanity, having seized its place, immediately begins a new life with a new penetration of things. "

3 Anton Chekhov. "Drama"

Anton Chekhov. Collection "Colorful stories". St. Petersburg, 1897 Edition by A.S.Suvorin

The kind-hearted writer Pavel Vasilyevich is forced to listen to the longest dramatic essay, which the graphomaniac writer Murashkina read aloud to him:

“- Don't you find that this monologue is somewhat lengthy? - Murashkina asked suddenly, raising her eyes.

Pavel Vasilyevich did not hear the monologue. He was embarrassed and said in such a guilty tone, as if not a lady, but he himself had written this monologue:

- No, no, not at all ... Very nice ...

Murashkina beamed with happiness and continued to read:

— „Anna... Analysis stuck to you. You stopped living with your heart too early and trusted your mind. - Valentine... What is a heart? This concept is anatomical. As a conventional term for what is called feelings, I do not recognize it. - Anna(embarrassed). And love? Is it really the product of the association of ideas? Tell me frankly: have you ever loved? - Valentine(bitterly). Let's not touch the old, not yet healed wounds (pause). What are you thinking about? - Anna... It seems to me that you are unhappy. "

During the 16th apparition, Pavel Vasilyevich yawned and inadvertently made a sound with his teeth like dogs make when they catch flies. He was frightened by this indecent sound and, in order to disguise it, gave his face an expression of touching attention.

“The XVII apparition ... When is the end? He thought. - Oh my goodness! If this torment continues for another ten minutes, then I will shout the guard ... Unbearable! "

Pavel Vasilyevich sighed lightly and was about to get up, but at once Murashkina turned the page and continued to read:

- „Second action. The scene represents a rural street. School to the right, hospital to the left. Villagers and villagers sit on the steps of the latter. "

- I'm sorry ... - interrupted Pavel Vasilyevich. - How many actions are there?

“Five,” replied Murashkina and immediately, as if afraid that the listener would leave, she quickly continued: “Valentin is looking out of the school window. At the back of the stage, the villagers can be seen carrying their belongings to the tavern.

4 Mikhail Zoshchenko. "In the days of Pushkin"

Mikhail Zoshchenko. Favorites. Petrozavodsk, 1988 Publishing house "Karelia"

At a literary evening timed to coincide with the centenary of the poet's death, the Soviet manager delivers a solemn speech about Pushkin:

“Of course, dear comrades, I am not a literary historian. I will allow myself to approach the great date simply, as they say, humanly.

Such a frank approach, I believe, will bring us even closer to the image of the great poet.

So, a hundred years separate us from him! Time really flies by unheard of!

The German war, as you know, began twenty-three years ago. That is, when it began, it was not a hundred years before Pushkin, but only seventy-seven.

And I was born, imagine, in 1879. Therefore, he was even closer to the great poet. Not that I could see him, but as they say, we were only about forty years apart.

My grandmother, even cleaner, was born in 1836. That is, Pushkin could see her and even take her in his arms. He could nurse her, and she could, what good, cry in her arms, not knowing who took her on the arms.

Of course, it is unlikely that Pushkin could nurse her, especially since she lived in Kaluga, and Pushkin, it seems, has never been there, but nevertheless this exciting opportunity can be admitted, especially since he could, it seems, come to Kaluga to see his acquaintances.

My father, again, was born in 1850. But then, unfortunately, Pushkin was not there, otherwise he, perhaps, could even nurse my father.

But he probably could already take my great-grandmother on the pens. Imagine she was born in 1763, so great poet could easily come to her parents and demand that they let him hold her and nurse her ... Although, however, in 1837, she was perhaps sixty years old, so, frankly, I don't even know how they had it there and how they got along with it ... Maybe she even nursed him ... But what is shrouded in the darkness of obscurity for us was probably not difficult for them, and they knew perfectly well who to babysit and who to download whom. And if the old woman was really about six or ten years old by that time, then, of course, it’s ridiculous even to think that someone would nurse her there. So she was the one who nursed someone herself.

And, perhaps, shaking and singing lyric songs to him, she, without knowing it, awakened poetic feelings in him and, perhaps, together with his notorious nanny Arina Rodionovna, inspired him to compose some individual poems. "

5 Daniil Kharms. "What are they selling in stores now?"

Daniil Kharms... Collection of short stories "The Old Woman". Moscow, 1991 Yunona Publishing House

“Koratygin came to Tikakeev and did not find him at home.

And Tikakeev at that time was in the store and bought sugar, meat and cucumbers there. Koratygin hesitated at Tikakeev's door and was about to write a note, suddenly looks, Tikakeev himself is walking and carrying an oilcloth purse in his hands. Koratygin saw Tikakeev and shouted to him:

- And I've been waiting for you for an hour!

“It’s not true,” says Tikakeev, “I’m just twenty-five minutes from home.

“Well, I don’t know that,” said Koratygin, “but I've been here for an hour.

- Do not lie! - said Tikakeev. - It's a shame to lie.

- Most gracious sir! - said Koratygin. - Take the trouble to choose expressions.

- I think ... - Tikakeev began, but Koratygin interrupted him:

- If you think ... - he said, but then Tikakeev interrupted Koratygin and said:

- You yourself are good!

These words infuriated Koratygin so much that he pinched one nostril with his finger, and blew his nose into Tikakeev with the other. Then Tikakeev grabbed the largest cucumber from his wallet and hit Koratygin on the head with it. Koratygin grabbed his head with his hands, fell and died.

These are the big cucumbers on sale now in stores! "

6 Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. "Knowing of limits"

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. "Knowing of limits". Moscow, 1935 Ogonyok Publishing House

A set of hypothetical rules for stupid Soviet bureaucrats (one of them, a certain Basov, is the anti-hero of the feuilleton):

“It’s impossible to accompany all orders, orders and instructions with a thousand reservations so that the Basovs do not do something stupid. Then a modest resolution, say, prohibiting the transport of live pigs in tram cars should look like this:

However, when imposing a fine, piglet holders should not:

a) push in the chest;
b) call them scoundrels;
c) push at full speed from the tram platform under the wheels of an oncoming truck;
d) they cannot be equated with malicious hooligans, bandits and embezzlers;
e) in no case can this rule be applied to citizens who bring with them not piglets, but small children under the age of three;
f) it cannot be extended to citizens who do not have piglets at all;
g) as well as schoolchildren singing revolutionary songs in the streets "".

7 Mikhail Bulgakov. "Theatrical novel"

Michael Bulgakov. " Theatrical novel". Moscow, 1999 Publishing house "Voice"

Playwright Sergei Leontievich Maksudov reads to the great director Ivan Vasilyevich, who hates when people shoot on stage his play "Black Snow". The prototype of Ivan Vasilyevich was Konstantin Stanislavsky, Maksudova - Bulgakov himself:

“Along with the approaching twilight, a catastrophe also came. I read:

- “Bakhtin (Petrov). Well, goodbye! Very soon you will come for me ...

PETROV. What are you doing?!

Bakhtin (shoots himself in the temple, falls, an accordion was heard in the distance ...) ".

- This is in vain! - Ivan Vasilievich exclaimed. - Why is that? This must be crossed out, not hesitating for a second. Have mercy! Why shoot?

“But he must commit suicide,” I replied with a cough.

- And very good! Let him finish and let him stab with a dagger!

- But, you see, it takes place in the civil war ... Daggers were no longer used ...

- No, they were used, - Ivan Vasilyevich objected, - this one told me ... how he ... forgot ... that they were used ... You delete this shot! ..

I remained silent, making a sad mistake, and read on:

- "(... Monica and individual shots. A man appeared on the bridge with a rifle in his hand. Luna ...)"

- My God! - Ivan Vasilievich exclaimed. - Shots! More shots! What a disaster this is! You know what, Leo ... you know what, you delete this scene, it is superfluous.

“I thought,” I said, trying to speak as softly as possible, “this scene was the main one ... Here, you see ...

- Formal delusion! - snapped Ivan Vasilievich. - This scene is not only not the main one, but it is not necessary at all. Why is this? Your this, how is it? ..

- Bakhtin.

- Well, yes ... well, yes, here he stabbed there in the distance, - Ivan Vasilyevich waved his hand somewhere very far away, - and another comes home and says to his mother - Bekhteev stabbed himself!

“But the mother is gone…” I said, stunned looking at the glass with the lid.

- Necessarily! You write it. It is not hard. At first it seems that it is difficult - there was no mother, and suddenly she is - but this is a delusion, it is very easy. And now the old woman is crying at home, and who brought the news ... Call him Ivanov ...

- But ... after all, Bakhtin is a hero! He has monologues on the bridge ... I thought ...

- And Ivanov will say all his monologues! .. You have good monologues, they need to be preserved. Ivanov will say - here Petya stabbed himself and before his death said this, this and that ... There will be a very strong scene. "

8 Vladimir Voinovich. "Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin"

Vladimir Voinovich. "Life and Extraordinary Adventures of the Soldier Ivan Chonkin". Paris, 1975 YMCA-Press Publishing

Colonel Luzhin is trying to extract information from Nyura Belyashova about a mythical fascist resident named Kurt:

“- Well then. - Clasped his hands behind his back, he walked around the office. - You all the same. Frankly, you don’t want to be with me. Well. Mil by force. You will not. As they say. We will help you. And you don't want us. Yes. And by the way, you don't know Kurt by any chance, do you?

- Chicken? - Nyura was surprised.

- Yeah, Kurt.

- Who doesn't know chickens? - Nyura shrugged her shoulders. - But how is it possible in a village without chickens?

- It is forbidden? Luzhin asked quickly. - Yes. Of course. In a village without Kurt. No way. It is forbidden. Impossible. He pulled the desk calendar close to him and picked up a pen. - What is the last name?

“Belyashova,” Nyura said willingly.

- Belya ... no. Not this. I don't need your last name, but Kurt's. What? Luzhin frowned. “You don’t want to say that?”

Nyura looked at Luzhin, not understanding. Her lips trembled, tears appeared again in her eyes.

“I don’t understand,” she said slowly. - What surnames can chickens have?

- At the chickens? Luzhin asked again. - What? At the chickens? A? - He suddenly understood everything and, jumping to the floor, stamped his feet. - Get out! Go away".

9 Sergey Dovlatov. "Reserve"

Sergey Dovlatov. "Reserve". Ann Arbor, 1983 Hermitage Publishing House

The autobiographical hero works as a tour guide in Pushkinskie Gory:

“A man in a Tyrolean hat shyly approached me:

- Excuse me, may I ask a question?

- Listen to you.

- They gave it?

- That is?

- I ask, was it given? - The Tyrolean led me to the open window.

- In what sense?

- In direct. I would like to know if it was given or not? If not, say so.

- I do not understand.

The man blushed slightly and began to hastily explain:

- I had a postcard ... I am a philocartist ...

- Philokartist. Collecting postcards ... Philos - love, kartos ...

- I have a color postcard - "Pskov gave." And so I ended up here. I would like to ask - was it given?

- In general, they gave it, - I say.

- Typically Pskov?

- Not without it.

The man, beaming, walked away ... "

10 Yuri Koval. "The lightest boat in the world"

Yuri Koval. "The lightest boat in the world." Moscow, 1984 Publishing house "Young Guard"

A group of friends and acquaintances of the protagonist is considering sculptural composition artist Orlov "People in hats":

“People in hats,” said Clara to Courbet, smiling thoughtfully at Orlov. - What an interesting idea!

“Everyone is wearing hats,” said Orlov. - And everyone has their own inner world under the hat. See this big-nosed one? He is well-nosed, but under his hat he still has his own world. What do you think?

The girl Clara Courbet, and behind her and the others, looked closely at the nosy member of the sculptural group, wondering what his inner world was.

“It is clear that there is a struggle going on in this man,” said Clara, “but the struggle is not easy.

Everyone again stared at the nosy, wondering what kind of struggle such a struggle could take place in him.

“It seems to me that this is a struggle between heaven and earth,” Clara explained.

Everyone froze, and Orlov was taken aback, apparently not expecting such a strong gaze from the girl. The policeman, the artist, was clearly dumbfounded. It probably never occurred to him that heaven and earth could fight. Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at the floor, and then at the ceiling.

“All this is correct,” said Orlov, stammering a little. - Exactly noticed. Precisely - the struggle ...

“And under that crooked hat,” Clara continued, “under that hat is a struggle between fire and water.

The policeman with the gramophone staggered completely. By the power of her views, the girl Clara Courbet decided to outshine not only the gramophone, but also the sculptural group. The militiaman-artist was worried. Choosing one of the simpler hats, he pointed a finger at it and said:

- And under this there is a struggle between good and evil.

“Heh heh,” Clara Courbet replied. - Nothing like this.

The policeman shivered and, closing his mouth, looked at Klara.

Orlov nudged Petyushka with his elbow, who was crunching with something in his pocket.

Peering into the sculptural group, Clara was silent.

“There’s something different going on under this hat,” she began slowly. "It's ... fight fight fight!"

Scenario of a traditional prose competition

"Live classics"

Purpose: To show readers' interest in the works of various authors

Development of interest in literature as a studied subject;

Development of the creative potential of students, identification of gifted children;

Development and development of skills between students of different ages.

In the literature study, sitting at a desk, two boys argue loudly, proving to each other which work is more interesting. The situation is heating up. At this time, a literature teacher enters the classroom.

Teacher:- Good afternoon, boys, I accidentally overheard your conversation, can I help you with something?

Boys: - Of course, Tatyana Nikolaevna, judge us, do foreign writers or Russians write more interesting?

Teacher: - Well, well, I'll try to help you. Every person must have favorite piece and not one. Today I will introduce you to the guys who already have favorite books, they are participating in the competition for young prose readers "Living Classics". Let's hear with you how the guys read excerpts from their favorite books. Maybe your opinion will change.

(Address to the public and the jury)

Teacher: - Good afternoon, dear children and dear teachers. We are delighted to welcome you to our literary living room. So we begin our speech, during which you and I will have to resolve the dispute between my students.

Veda: Today 5 young readers from the 6th grade of the Cheryomushkin school will compete. The winner of the competition is the one who shows his skills, knowledge of the text, and feels the hero of the work.

Teacher: Our participants will be evaluated by a respected jury, consisting of:

1. Marina Aleksandrovna Malikova, teacher of Russian language and literature - chairman of the jury.

Jury members:

2. Elena Yuganovna Kivistik, teacher of history and social studies.

3. Daria Chernova, student of grade 10

Veda: Performances are scored according to the following parameters:

Selection of the text of the work;
grammatically correct speech, knowledge of the text;
artistry of performance;

Teacher: Our competition program opens with the work of the great Russian writer Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov "The Foal" - this is a story about a beautiful, defenseless animal that is trying to survive in a difficult wartime.

Veda.: Mikhail Sholokhov "Foal" reads Kuliev Danil , 6th grade student. Mikhail Sholokhov "Foal"

The foal was neighing less and less, the short cutting cry was more muffled. AND

This cry was like the cry of a child to cold horror. Unscrupulously, abandoning the mare, I swam easily to the left bank. Trembling, Trofim grabbed the rifle, fired, aiming below the head, sucked in by the swirl, tore off his boots and with a dull hum, stretching out his arms, flopped into the water.

On the right bank, an officer in a canvas shirt barked:

Stop shooting! ..

Five minutes later, Trofim was near the foal, with his left hand grabbed it under the chilly stomach, choking, hiccuping convulsively, moved to the left bank ... Not a single shot fired from the right bank.

The sky, the forest, the sand - everything is bright green, ghostly ... The last monstrous

effort - and Trofim's feet scrape the ground. With a drag, he pulled the mucky body of a foal onto the sand, sobbing, vomiting with green water, fumbling through the sand with his hands ...

In the forest, the voices of the sailing squadrons were buzzing; somewhere behind the scythe, gunfire rattled. The ginger mare stood near Trofim, dusting herself off and licking the foal. A rainbow trickle fell from her sagging tail, sticking into the sand ...

Swaying, Trofim got to his feet, walked two steps on the sand and, jumping up,

fell on its side. Like a hot prick pierced the chest; falling, heard a shot.

A lone shot in the spip - from the right bank. On the right bank, an officer in

He indifferently slid the bolt of his carbine into his torn canvas shirt, throwing out the smoking casing, and on the sand, two steps from the foal, Trofim writhed, and his hard blue lips, which had not kissed children for five years, were smiling and foaming with blood.

Teacher: Hans Christian Andersen was born in Denmark, the son of a poor shoemaker. From early childhood, we are fascinated by his lovely fairy tales.

Veda.: Hans Christian Andersen "Granny", reads Ira Medvedeva , a 6th grade student.

Grandma is so old, her face is all wrinkled, her hair is white-white, but the eyes that your stars are so bright, beautiful and affectionate! And what wonderful stories she does not know! And the dress on her made of thick silk fabric in large flowers - and rustles! Grandma knows a lot, a lot of things; She lives in the world a long time ago, much longer than dad and mom - really! My grandmother has a psalter, a thick book bound with silver clasps, and she reads it often. A flattened dried rose lies between the pages of the book. She is not at all as beautiful as those roses that stand in a glass of water with her grandmother, but grandmother still smiles most affectionately at this particular rose and looks at her with tears in her eyes. Why is grandmother looking at a dried rose like that? You know?

Every time grandmother's tears fall on a flower, its colors revive again, it again becomes a lush rose, the whole room is filled with fragrance, the walls melt like fog, and grandmother is in a green, sunlit forest! The grandmother herself is no longer a decrepit old woman, but a young, charming girl with golden curls and pink round cheeks that will compete with the roses themselves. Her eyes ... Yes, you can recognize her by her sweet, meek eyes! A handsome, courageous young man sits next to her. He gives the girl a rose, and she smiles at him ... Well, grandma never smiles like that! Oh no, that's smiling! He left. Other memories flash, many images flash; young man no more, the rose lies in an old book, and the grandmother herself ... sits again in her armchair, the same old one, and looks at the dried rose.

Teacher: Yuri Koval is a Russian writer. Professional artist who published over 30 books during his lifetime. His works have been translated into European languages.

Vedas: An excerpt from the story "Potato Sense" reads Novoselov Igor.

Yes, whatever you say, father, I love potatoes. Because there is a lot of meaning in potatoes.

What's the special meaning? Potatoes and potatoes.
- Uh ... don't talk, father, don't talk. If you weld about half a bucket, life seems to become more fun. That's the point ... potato.
Uncle Zuy and I were sitting on the bank of the river by the fire and eating baked potatoes. We just went to the river to watch the fish melt, and they made a fire, dug up potatoes and baked them. And Uncle Zuy had the salt in his pocket.
- But what about without salt? Salt, father, I always carry with me. You come, for example, to visit, and the hostess has unsalted soup. It will be embarrassing to say: the soup, they say, is unsalted. And here I will slowly get the salt out of my pocket and ... salt it.
- And what else are you carrying in your pockets? And rightly so - they bulge out all the time.
- What else am I wearing? I wear everything that fits into my pockets. Look - makhorka ... salt in a knot ... a string, if you need to tie it up, a good string. Well, a knife, of course! Pocket flashlight! No wonder it is said - pocket. If you have a pocket flashlight, then put it in your pocket. And this is candy, if I meet any of the guys.
- And what's that? Bread, or what?
- Rusk, father. I have been wearing it for a long time, I want to give it to one of the horses, but I forget everything. We are now looking in another pocket. Come on now you show what's in your pockets? Interesting.
- Yes, I don't seem to have anything.
- How so? Nothing. A knife, a knife, I suppose?
- I forgot the knife, I left it at home.
- How so? You go to the river, and left the knife at home? ...
- So after all, I did not know that we were going to the river, but the salt was in my pocket. And without salt and potatoes, it loses its meaning. Although, perhaps, there is a lot of sense in potatoes without salt.
I scooped a new crooked potato out of the ash. Broke her black-baked sides. The charcoal-skinned potatoes turned out to be white and pink. And in the core it was not baked, it crunched when I took a bite. It was September, completely ripe potatoes. Not too big, but in a fist.
“Give me some salt,” I said to Uncle Zuy. - The meaning should be salted.
Uncle Zui stuck his fingers into a chintz bundle and sprinkled salt on the potato.
- Meaning, - he said, - you can add salt. And the salt is an addition to the meaning.
Far away, on the other side of the river, figurines were moving in the field - a village across the river was digging potatoes. Here and there, closer to the shore, potato smoke rose over the alder.
And from our shore voices were heard in the field, smoke rose. The whole world

dug potatoes that day.

Teacher : Lyubov Voronkov is her the books, which have become classics of children's literature, speak about the main thing: about love for the Motherland, respect for work, human kindness and responsiveness.

Vedas: An excerpt from her story "Girl from the City" reads Dolgosheeva Marina.

Valentine came up with: here on a round leaf of a water lily sits a tiny girl - Thumbelina. But this is not Thumbelina, it is Valentine herself sitting on a piece of paper and talking with fish ...
Or - here's a hut. Valentine goes to the door. Who lives in this hut. She opens a low door, enters ... and there a beautiful fairy sits and spins gold yarn. Fairy gets up to meet Valentine: “Hello, girl! And I've been waiting for you for a long time! "
But this game ended immediately as soon as one of the guys came home. Then she silently put away her pictures.
One evening before the evening Valentine could not stand it and went to the plates.
- Oh, it's up! - she exclaimed. - Ascended! Leaves! .. Romanok, look!
Romanok went to the plates:
- And the truth!
But it seemed to Valentine that Romanok was a little surprised and a little delighted. Where is Taiska? She's not there. One Pear is sitting in the upper room.
- Pear, come here, look!
But Pear was knitting a stocking and just at that time she was counting the loops. She brushed it off angrily.
- Just think, there is something to look at! What a curiosity!
Valentine was surprised: how is it that nobody is happy? I must tell my grandfather, because he sowed it!
And, forgetting her usual fear, she ran to her grandfather.
The grandfather in the yard cut a groove so that the spring water would not spill over the yard.
- Grandpa, let's go! Look what you have in your plates: both leaves and grass!
Grandfather raised his shaggy eyebrows, looked at her, and Valentine saw his eyes for the first time. They were light, blue and cheerful. And the grandfather turned out to be not at all angry, and not at all scary!
- What are you glad about? - he asked.
“I don’t know,” Valentine replied. - So simple, very interesting!
Grandfather put the crowbar aside:
- Well, let's go and see.
The grandfather counted the seedlings. The peas were good. Oats also sprouted together. And the wheat came out rare: seeds are not suitable, you need to get fresh ones.
And Valentine was given as a gift. And the grandfather was not scary. And on the windows it was getting greener and brighter every day.
How happy it is when it is still snowing outside, and it is sunny and green on the window! Like a piece of spring has bloomed here!

Teacher: Lyubov Voronkova was drawn to the pen in order to express her love for the land and people of labor in poetry and prose.
As an adult, she returned to Moscow and became a journalist. She traveled a lot around the country and wrote about life in the countryside: this topic was close to her.

Veda: "Girl from the City" will continue to read to us Vera Nepomniachtchi

Everything amazed Valentine, everything attracted her: the lemon butterfly that flew to the lungwort, and the red cones that slightly nailed at the ends of the spruce paws, and the forest stream in the ravine, and the birds flying from top to top ...

The grandfather chose a tree for the shafts and began to chop. Romanok and Taiska were ringing loudly, they were already walking back. Valentine remembered mushrooms. Well, she never finds one? Valentine wanted to run towards Taiska. Not far from the edge of the ravine, she saw something blue. She came closer. Among the light greenery, bright flowers bloomed profusely, blue as the spring sky, and as clear as it. They seemed to glow and shine in the darkness of the forest. The valentine stood over them, full of admiration.
- Snowdrops!
Real, alive! And they can be torn. After all, no one planted or sowed them. You can pick up as much as you want, even a whole armful, a whole sheaf, at least collect every one and take home!
But ... Valentine will cut off all the blue, and the clearing will become empty, crumpled and dark. No, let them bloom! They are much more beautiful here in the forest. Only a little, a small bouquet she will take from here. It will be completely invisible!
When they returned from the forest, mother was already at home. She had just washed, the towel still hanging from her arm.
- Mom! - Taiska shouted from afar. - Mummy, look what morels we have collected!
- Mom, let's have lunch! - echoed Romanok.
And Valentine came up and handed her a handful of fresh blue flowers still shiny, still smelling of the forest:
- I brought it to you ... Mom!

Teacher: So our competitive performance has come to an end. Well, how did you guys like it?

Boys: Of course, Tatiana Nikolaevna. We have now realized that it is not interesting to read books just like that. You need to broaden your horizons and read different authors.

Vedas: We want the high jury to appreciate our efforts and ask them to summarize.

Teacher: In the meantime, the jury sums up the results…. We invite you to play literary quiz.

Questions from the works:
1. The bird that Thumbelina saved? (Martin)
2. A little dancer from the fairy tale "Three Fat Men"? (Suok)
3. Who wrote the poem "Uncle Stepa"? (Mikhalkov)
4. On what street did the scattered person live? (Basseinaya)
5. Friend of crocodile Gena? (Cheburashka)
6. What did Munchausen fly to the moon? (On a cannonball)
7. Who speaks all languages? (Echo)
8. Who is the author of the fairy tale "Ryaba Chicken"? (People)
9. Which of the heroes of the children's fairy tale considered himself the best ghost specialist in the world? (Carlson)
10. Hero of Russian folk puppet shows? (Parsley)
11. Russian folk tale about the hostel? (Teremok)
12. Nickname of the calf from the cartoon "Holidays in Prostokvashino"? (Gavryusha)
13. What would you ask Buratino? (Golden Key)
14. Who is the author of the lines "A golden cloud spent the night on the chest of a giant cliff"? (M.Yu. Lermontov)

15. What was the name of the main character of the story "Scarlet Sails" (Assol)

16. How many feats did Hercules (12)

Veda: To sum up the results and present diplomas to the winners of the school competition for young prose readers "Living Classics", the floor is given to the chairman of the jury of the competition, Marina Aleksandrovna. (graduations)

Teacher: Our competition is over, but our favorite writers and their works will never end! We tell you: - Thank you, see you again and achievable victories!

Reading texts in reading contests prose works

Vasiliev B.L. And the dawns here are quiet. // Series “100 major books. Heirs, 2015

Swaying and stumbling, he walked across the Sinyukhin ridge towards the Germans. The revolver with the last cartridge was tightly clamped in his hand, and he only wanted now that the Germans would meet as soon as possible and that he had time to knock down another one. Because the strength was gone. There was no strength at all - only pain. All over the body ...

White twilight drifted quietly over the heated stones. The fog was already accumulating in the lowlands, the breeze was dropping, and the mosquitoes hung like a cloud over the foreman. And he fancied in this whitish haze his girls, all five, and all the time he whispered something and sadly shook his head.

But there were still no Germans. They did not come across to him, did not shoot, although he walked heavily and openly and was looking for this meeting. It was time to end this war, it was time to put a point, and this last point was stored in the blue channel of the barrel of his revolver.

He had no goal now, only a desire. He did not circle, he did not look for traces, but walked straight, as if he were on the run. But there were still no Germans and there weren't any ...

He had already passed the pine forest and was now walking through the forest, every minute approaching the skete of Legont, where in the morning he had so easily obtained a weapon for himself. He did not think why he was going there, but the unerring instinct of hunting led him this way, and he obeyed him. And, obeying him, suddenly slowed down his steps, listened and slipped into the bushes.

A hundred meters away, a clearing began with a rotten frame of a well and a warped hut that had driven into the ground. And this hundred meters Vaskov walked silently and weightlessly. He knew that there was an enemy, he knew exactly and inexplicably how the wolf knew where the hare would jump out of him.

In the bushes by the clearing, he froze and stood for a long time, without moving, his eyes ransacking the blockhouse, near which the German killed by him was no longer, a lopsided skete, dark bushes in the corners. There was nothing special, nothing was noticed, but the foreman continued to wait patiently. And when from the corner of the hut a dim spot drifted slightly, he was not surprised. He already knew that it was there that the sentry was standing.

He walked to him for a long, infinitely long time. Slowly, as in a dream, he raised his leg, lowered it weightlessly to the ground and did not step over - he poured the weight drop by drop so that not a single branch would crack. In this strange bird dance, he walked around the clearing and found himself behind the motionless sentry. And even more slowly, even more smoothly, he moved towards that broad, dark back. I didn't go - I swam.

And in a step he stopped. He held his breath for a long time and now waited for his heart to calm down. He had long ago thrust a revolver into his holster, held a knife in his right hand, and now, feeling the heavy smell of someone else's body, slowly, millimeter-by-a-millimeter, brought in the fin for a single, decisive blow.

And I was still saving up my strength. There were few of them. Very little, and the left hand could no longer help.

He put everything into this blow, everything, to the last drop. The German almost did not scream, only a strange, viscous sigh and dropped to his knees. The foreman tore open the slanting door, jumped into the hut.

- Hyundai hoh! ..

And they were asleep. We slept before the last throw to the piece of iron. Only one did not sleep: he darted to the corner, to the weapon, but Vaskov caught this gallop and almost point-blank stuck a bullet into the German. The crash hit the low ceiling, the Fritz was thrown into the wall, and the foreman suddenly forgot everything. German words and only shouted hoarsely:

- Lie! .. Lie! .. Lie! ..

And swore in black words. The blackest I knew.

No, it was not the scream that they were frightened of, not the grenade that the foreman waved. They could not just think, in their thoughts even imagine that he was alone, for many miles, alone. This concept did not fit into their fascist brains, and therefore they lay down on the floor: face down, as ordered. All four went to bed: the fifth, the quickest, was already listed in the next world.

And they tied each other with belts, tied them neatly, and Fedot Evgrafych personally tied the last one. And he began to cry. Tears streamed down his dirty, unshaven face, he was shaking in a chill, and laughed through these tears, and shouted:

- What, they took it? .. They took it, right? .. Five girls, five girls in total, only five! But you didn’t pass, you didn’t go anywhere, and you will die here, everyone will die! .. Personally, I will kill everyone, personally, even if the authorities have mercy! And then let them judge me! Let them judge! ..

And his hand ached, ached so much that everything in him burned and his thoughts were confused. And that is why he was especially afraid of losing consciousness and clung to it, from the last strength he clung to ...

... He could never remember that last path. German backs swayed in front, dangling from side to side, because Vaskov staggered, as if into a drunken board. And he saw nothing, except for these four backs, and only thought about one thing: to have time to press the trigger of the machine before he lost consciousness. And it hung on the last cobweb, and the pain burned so throughout his whole body that he growled from that pain. He growled and cried: he was exhausted, apparently completely ...

But only then did he allow his consciousness to break off when they called out to them and when he realized that his own people were coming towards them. Russians ...

V.P. Kataev. Son of the Regiment // School Library, Moscow, Children's Literature, 1977

The scouts moved slowly towards their position.

Suddenly the elder stopped and raised his hand. At the same moment, the others also stopped, not taking their eyes off their commander. The elder stood for a long time, throwing back the hood from his head and slightly turning his ear in the direction from which he fancied a suspicious rustle. The eldest was a young man of about twenty-two. Despite his youth, he was already considered a seasoned soldier on the battery. He was a sergeant. His comrades loved him and at the same time were afraid of him.

The sound that caught the attention of Sergeant Yegorov — that was the elder’s surname — seemed very strange. Despite all his experience, Yegorov could not understand his character and meaning in any way.

"What could it be?" - thought Yegorov, straining his ear and quickly going over in his mind all the suspicious sounds that he had ever heard in the night reconnaissance.

"Whisper! No. Careful rustle of a shovel? No. File whine? No".

A strange, quiet, intermittent sound was heard somewhere very close, to the right, behind a juniper bush. It looked like the sound was coming out of the ground somewhere.

After listening for another minute or two, Yegorov, without turning around, gave a sign, and both scouts slowly and silently, like shadows, approached him closely. He indicated with his hand the direction from which the sound came, and signaled to listen. The scouts began to listen.

- Hear? Egorov asked with his lips alone.

“Hear,” one of the soldiers replied just as soundlessly.

Egorov turned to his comrades a thin, dark face, sadly illuminated by the moon. He raised his boyish eyebrows high.

- Don't understand.

For some time the three of them stood and listened, putting their fingers on the triggers of the machine guns. The sounds continued and were just as incomprehensible. For an instant, they suddenly changed their character. It seemed to all three of them that they heard singing coming out of the earth. They looked at each other. But immediately the sounds became the same.

Then Egorov signaled to lie down and lay down on his stomach on the leaves, which had already turned gray from frost. He took a dagger in his mouth and crawled, silently pulling himself up on his elbows, on his bellies.

A minute later he disappeared behind a dark juniper bush, and after another minute, which seemed long, like an hour, the scouts heard a thin whistle. It meant that Egorov was calling them to him. They crawled and soon saw the sergeant, who was kneeling, peering into a small trench hidden among the junipers.

From the trench one could clearly hear muttering, sobbing, sleepy moans. Without words, understanding each other, the scouts surrounded the trench and stretched out the ends of their cloak-tents with their hands so that they formed something like a tent that did not let in the light. Egorov lowered his hand with an electric flashlight into the trench.

The picture they saw was simple and at the same time terrible.

A boy was sleeping in the trench.

Clasping his hands on his chest, tucking his bare feet, dark as potatoes, the boy lay in a green stinking puddle and raved heavily in his sleep. His bare head, overgrown with dirty hair that had not been cut for a long time, was thrown back awkwardly. The thin throat quivered. Husky sighs escaped from the collapsed mouth with fever swept, sore lips. There was muttering, snatches of unintelligible words, sobbing. The bulging eyelids of the closed eyes were of an unhealthy, anemic color. They seemed almost blue, like skim milk. Short but thick eyelashes are stuck together like arrows. The face was covered with scratches and bruises. On the bridge of his nose was a clot of caked blood.

The boy was asleep, and the reflections of the nightmares that haunted the boy in his sleep ran convulsively across his tortured face. Every minute his face changed expression. Then it froze in horror; that inhuman despair distorted him; then sharp, deep lines of hopeless grief cut through around his sunken mouth, eyebrows raised like a house and tears rolled from eyelashes; then suddenly the teeth began to creak violently, the face became angry, merciless, the fists clenched with such force that the nails dug into the palms, and dull, hoarse sounds flew out of the strained throat. And then suddenly the boy fell into unconsciousness, smiled a pitiful, completely childish and childishly helpless smile and began very weakly, barely audibly to sing some unintelligible song.

The boy's dream was so heavy, so deep, his soul, wandering through the torment of dreams, was so far from the body that for some time he felt nothing: neither the intent eyes of the scouts looking at him from above, nor the bright light of an electric flashlight that illuminated his face.

But suddenly the boy seemed to be hit from the inside, thrown up. He woke up, jumped up, sat down. His eyes flashed wildly. In an instant, he grabbed a large sharpened nail from somewhere. With a dexterous, precise movement, Yegorov managed to intercept the boy's hot hand and close his mouth with his palm.

- Quiet. Ours, - said Yegorov in a whisper.

Only now the boy noticed that the soldiers' helmets were Russian, the machine guns were Russian, the raincoat-tents were Russian, and the faces bent over to him were also Russian, relatives.

A joyous smile flashed pale on his emaciated face. He wanted to say something, but managed to utter only one word:

And he passed out.

M. Prishvin. Blue dragonfly. // Sat. Prishvin M.M. "Green noise", series: My notebooks. M., Pravda, 1983

During that first world war in 1914, I went to the front as a war correspondent in a medical orderly's suit and soon found myself in a battle in the west in the Augustow woods. I wrote down all my impressions in my own concise way, but, I confess, for a single minute did not leave me the feeling of personal uselessness and the impossibility of my word catching up with the terrible thing that was happening around me.

I walked along the road towards the war and played with death: now a shell fell, exploding a deep funnel, then a bullet buzzed like a bee, but I kept walking, curiously looking at flocks of partridges flying from battery to battery.

I looked and saw the head of Maksim Maksimych: his bronze face with a gray mustache was stern and almost solemn. At the same time, the old captain was able to express sympathy and protection to me. A minute later I was drinking cabbage soup in his dugout. Soon, when the case flared up, he shouted to me:

- But how can you, a writer, you are so loose, not ashamed to be engaged in your trifles at such moments?

- What should I do? I asked, very pleased with his decisive tone.

- Run immediately, lift those people over there, order benches from school to drag, pick up and lay the wounded.

I lifted people, dragged benches, laid the wounded, forgot the writer in myself, and suddenly I finally felt like a real person, and I was so happy that I was not only a writer here in the war.

At this time, one dying man whispered to me:

- That would be some water.

At the first word of the wounded, I ran to fetch water.

But he did not drink and kept repeating to me:

- Voditsa, voditsa, streams.

I looked at him in amazement, and suddenly I understood everything: he was almost a boy with shining eyes, with thin quivering lips that reflected the trembling of the soul.

The orderly and I took a stretcher and carried him to the bank of the stream. The orderly retired, and I was left alone with the dying boy on the bank of a forest stream.

In the slanting rays of the evening sun, the minarets of horsetails, leaves of telores, water lilies shone with a special green light, as if emanating from inside the plants, circled over the creek blue dragonfly... And very close to us, where the creek ended, the trickles of the stream, joining on the pebbles, sang their usual beautiful song. The wounded man listened with his eyes closed, his bloodless lips moving convulsively, expressing a violent struggle. And so the struggle ended with a sweet childish smile, and his eyes opened.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

Seeing a blue dragonfly flying by the backwater, he smiled again, said thanks again and closed his eyes again.

Some time passed in silence, when suddenly the lips moved again, a new struggle arose, and I heard:

- And what, she still flies?

The blue dragonfly was still spinning.

- It flies, - I answered, - and how!

He smiled again and fell into oblivion.

Meanwhile, little by little it got dark, and I, too, with my thoughts flew far away, and forgot myself. Suddenly I hear him ask:

- Still flying?

“It flies,” I said, without looking, without thinking.

- Why can't I see? He asked, opening his eyes with difficulty.

I was scared. It happened to me once to see a dying man who suddenly lost his sight before his death, but he still spoke to us quite reasonably. Is it not so here: his eyes died earlier. But I myself looked at the place where the dragonfly flew and saw nothing.

The patient realized that I had deceived him, was upset by my inattention and silently closed his eyes.

It hurt, and suddenly I saw the reflection of a flying dragonfly in the clear water. We could not notice it against the background of the darkening forest, but the water - these eyes of the earth remain light when it gets dark: these eyes seem to see in the darkness.

- Flies, flies! - I exclaimed so resolutely, so joyfully that the patient immediately opened his eyes.

And I showed him a reflection. And he smiled.

I will not describe how we saved this wounded man - apparently, doctors saved him. But I firmly believe: they, doctors, were helped by the song of the brook and my decisive and agitated words that the blue dragonfly flew over the creek in the dark.

A. Platonov. Unknown flower.

And one day one seed fell out of the wind, and it nestled in a hole between the stone and the clay. This seed languished for a long time, and then it was saturated with dew, disintegrated, released the thin hairs of the root, stuck them into the stone and clay and began to grow. So that little flower began to live in the world. He had nothing to eat in stone and clay; drops of rain that fell from the sky descended along the top of the earth and did not penetrate to its root, but the flower kept living and living and growing little by little higher. He raised the leaves against the wind, and the wind died down near the flower; specks of dust fell from the wind onto the clay, which the wind brought from the black fat earth; and in those dust particles there was food for the flower, but the dust particles were dry. To moisten them, the flower guarded the dew all night and collected it drop by drop on its leaves. And when the leaves were heavy with dew, the flower lowered them, and the dew fell down; it moistened the black dust particles that the wind brought, and ate away the dead clay. During the day, the flower was guarded by the wind, and at night, the dew. He worked day and night to live and not die. He grew his leaves large so that they could stop the wind and collect dew. However, it was difficult for a flower to eat from some dust particles that fell out of the wind, and still collect dew for them. But he needed life and with patience overcame his pain from hunger and fatigue. Only once a day did the flower rejoice: when the first ray of the morning sun touched its weary leaves. If the wind did not come to the wasteland for a long time, then the little flower became bad, and it no longer had enough strength to live and grow. The flower, however, did not want to live sadly; therefore, when he was very sad, he dozed off. Yet he constantly tried to grow, even if bare stone and dry clay gnawed at his roots. At such a time, its leaves could not be saturated with full strength and turn green: one vein they had blue, the other red, the third blue or gold. This happened because the flower lacked food, and its torment was indicated in the leaves different colors... The flower itself, however, did not know this: after all, he was blind and did not see himself as he was. In the middle of summer, the flower spreads its corolla at the top. Before that, he looked like grass, and now he has become a real flower. His corolla was composed of petals of a simple light color, clear and strong, like a star. And, like a star, he shone with a living flickering fire, and he could be seen even in dark night... And when the wind came to the wasteland, it always touched the flower and carried its scent away with it. And then one morning the girl Dasha walked past that wasteland. She lived with her friends in a pioneer camp, and this morning she woke up and missed her mother. She wrote a letter to her mother and took the letter to the station so that it would arrive as soon as possible. On the way, Dasha kissed the envelope with the letter and envied him that he would see her mother sooner than she did. At the edge of the wasteland, Dasha felt a fragrance. She looked around. There were no flowers nearby, only small grass grew along the path, and the wasteland was completely bare; but the wind came from the wasteland and brought from there a quiet smell, like the calling voice of a little unknown life... Dasha remembered a fairy tale that her mother had told her for a long time. The mother spoke of the flower, which was still sad for its mother - the rose, but he could not cry, and only in the fragrance did his sadness pass. “Maybe this flower misses its mother there, as I do,” thought Dasha. She went to the wasteland and saw that little flower near the stone. Dasha has never seen such a flower - not in a field, not in a forest, not in a book in a picture, not in a botanical garden, anywhere. She sat down on the ground near the flower and asked him: - Why are you like this? “I don’t know,” the flower replied. - And why are you different from others? The flower again did not know what to say. But for the first time he heard the voice of a man so close, for the first time someone looked at him, and he did not want to offend Dasha with silence. “Because it’s difficult for me,” the flower replied. - What is your name? - Dasha asked. - Nobody calls me, - said the little flower, - I live alone. Dasha looked around in the wasteland. - Here is a stone, here is clay! - she said. - How do you live alone, how did you grow out of clay and did not die, little like that? “I don’t know,” the flower replied. Dasha bent down to him and kissed him on the luminous head. The next day, all the pioneers came to visit the little flower. Dasha brought them, but long before reaching the wasteland, she ordered everyone to breathe and said: - Hear how good it smells. This is how he breathes.

The pioneers stood around the little flower for a long time and admired it like a hero. Then they walked around the entire wasteland, measured it with their steps and counted how many wheelbarrows with manure and ash need to be brought to fertilize the dead clay. They wanted the land to become good in the wasteland. Then the small flower, unknown by name, will rest, and from its seeds beautiful children will grow and not die, the best flowers shining with light, which are nowhere to be found. The pioneers worked for four days, fertilizing the land in the wasteland. And after that they went to travel to other fields and forests and never came back to the wasteland. Only Dasha came once to say goodbye to a small flower. Summer was already over, the pioneers had to go home, and they left. And the next summer, Dasha again came to the same pioneer camp. Throughout the long winter she remembered a small flower, unknown by name. And she immediately went to the wasteland to visit him. Dasha saw that the wasteland was now different, it was now overgrown with herbs and flowers, and birds and butterflies were flying over it. The flowers gave off a fragrance, the same as from that little worker flower. However, the last year's flower that lived between the stone and the clay was gone. He must have died last fall. The new flowers were nice too; they were only slightly worse than that first flower. And Dasha felt sad that there was no previous flower. She walked back and suddenly stopped. Between two close stones a new flower grew - the same exactly as that old color, only a little better than it and even more beautiful. This flower grew from the middle of the embarrassed stones; he was alive and patient, like his father, and more stronger than father because he lived in stone. It seemed to Dasha that the flower was reaching out to her, that he was calling her to him in the silent voice of his fragrance.

G. Andersen. Nightingale.

And suddenly a wonderful singing was heard outside the window. It was a small living nightingale. He learned that the emperor was ill and flew in to comfort and encourage him. He sat on a branch and sang, and the terrible ghosts that surrounded the emperor all turned pale and pale, and the blood rushed faster and hotter to the heart of the emperor.

Death itself heard the nightingale and only quietly repeated:

Sing, nightingale! Sing some more!

Will you give me a precious saber for this? And the banner? And the crown? the nightingale asked.

Death nodded its head and gave one treasure after another, and the nightingale sang and sang. So he sang a song about a quiet cemetery, where the elderberry blossoms, white roses smell sweet and the tears of the living, mourning their loved ones, glisten in the fresh grass on the graves. Then Death wanted so much to return to his home, to the quiet cemetery, that she wrapped herself in a cold white fog and flew out the window.

Thank you, dear bird! - said the emperor. - How can I reward you?

You have already rewarded me, said the nightingale. - I saw tears in your eyes when I sang in front of you for the first time - I will never forget this. Sincere tears of delight are the most precious reward for a singer!

And he sang again, and the emperor fell asleep in a healthy, sound sleep.

And when he woke up, the sun was already shining brightly through the window. None of the courtiers and servants even looked at the emperor. Everyone thought he was dead. One nightingale did not leave the patient. He sat outside the window and sang even better than ever.

Stay with me! - asked the emperor. - You will sing only when you want to.

I cannot live in a palace. I will fly to you whenever I want, and I will sing about the happy and the unfortunate, about good and evil, about everything that is happening around you and what you do not know. Small songbird flies everywhere - flies both under the roof of a poor peasant hut and into a fishing house, which are so far from your palace. I will fly over and sing to you! But promise me ...

All you want! - exclaimed the emperor and got out of bed.

He had already managed to put on his imperial robe and clutched a heavy golden saber to his heart.

Promise me not to tell anyone that you have a little bird that tells you everything big world... It’s better that way.

And the nightingale flew away.

Then the courtiers entered, they gathered to look at the deceased emperor, and they froze on the threshold.

And the emperor said to them:

Hello! WITH Good morning!

A sunny day at the very beginning of summer. I wander not far from home, in a birch forest. Everything around seems to be swimming, splashing in golden waves of warmth and light. Birch branches are streaming above me. The leaves on them seem to be emerald green, then completely golden. And below, under the birches, light bluish shadows are running and streaming across the grass like waves. And bright bunnies, like reflections of the sun in the water, run one after another on the grass, along the path.

The sun is in the sky and on the ground ... And this makes it so good, so fun that you want to run away somewhere into the distance, to where the trunks of young birches sparkle with their dazzling whiteness.

And suddenly from this sunny distance I heard a familiar forest voice: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

Cuckoo! I’ve heard it many times before, but I’ve never seen it even in a picture. What is she like? For some reason, she seemed to me plump, big-headed, like an owl. But maybe she's not like that at all? I'll run - I'll have a look.

Alas, it turned out to be not at all easy. I - to her voice. And she will be silent, and then again: "Ku-ku, ku-ku", but in a completely different place.

How can you see her? I stopped thinking. Or maybe she's playing hide and seek with me? She is hiding, and I am looking. But let's play the other way around: now I'll hide, and you look.

I climbed into a hazel bush and also cuckoo once, twice. The cuckoo is silent, maybe it is looking for me? I sit in silence and I myself, even my heart is pounding with excitement. And suddenly, somewhere nearby: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

I am silent: look better, do not shout to the whole forest.

And she is already quite close: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

I look: a bird is flying through the clearing, its tail is long, it is gray itself, only the breast is in dark speckles. Probably a hawk. Such in our yard hunts for sparrows. He flew up to a nearby tree, sat down on a twig, bent down and shouted: "Ku-ku, ku-ku!"

Cuckoo! Just like that! It means that it is not like an owl, but like a hawk.

I’ll like to cuck her out of the bush in response! With fright, she almost fell off the tree, immediately darted down from the knot, darted somewhere into the forest thicket, only I saw her.

But I don't need to see her again. So I solved the forest riddle, and besides, I myself spoke to the bird for the first time in its native language.

So the ringing forest voice of the cuckoo revealed to me the first secret of the forest. And since then, for half a century now, I wander in winter and summer along the deaf, untrodden paths and discover more and more secrets. And there is no end to these winding paths, and there is no end to the secrets of native nature.

G. Skrebitsky. Four artists

Somehow four magicians-painters got together: Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn; agreed and argued: which of them draws better? They argued and argued and decided to choose the Red Sun as a judge: "It lives high in the sky, has seen many miraculous things in its life, let it judge us."

Sunny agreed to be the judge. The painters got down to business. The first to volunteer to paint a picture Zimushka-Winter.

"Only Sunny shouldn't be looking at my work," she decided. "She shouldn't see her until I'm finished."

Winter stretched gray clouds across the sky and well, let's cover the ground with fresh fluffy snow! One day I painted everything around.

The fields and hills have turned white. The river was covered with thin ice, became silent, fell asleep, as in a fairy tale.

Winter walks in the mountains, in the valleys, walks in large soft felt boots, steps quietly, inaudibly. And she looks around - here and there she will correct her magic picture.

Here is a hillock in the middle of a field, from which the prankster took the wind and blew off his white cap. You need to put it on again. And there is a gray hare sneaking among the bushes. It's bad for him, the gray one: on the white snow, a predatory animal or bird will immediately notice him, you can't hide from them anywhere.

"Dress yourself, scythe, in a white fur coat," Winter decided, "then you won't soon notice you in the snow."

And Lisa Patrikeevna has no need to dress in white. She lives in a deep hole, hiding underground from enemies. She only needs to be more beautiful and warmer.

Winter had in store for her a wonderful fur coat, just for a miracle: all bright red, like a fire burns! The fox will move its fluffy tail, as if it will scatter sparks over the snow.

Winter looked into the forest. “I’ll paint it so that the Sun will admire it!”

She dressed the pines and ate them in heavy snow coats; she pulled snow-white caps down to their eyebrows; I put down mittens on the branches. Forest heroes are standing next to each other, standing decorously, calmly.

And below, under them, various bushes and young trees took refuge. Winter also dressed them, like children, in white fur coats.

And on the mountain ash that grows at the very edge, she threw a white blanket. It turned out so well! At the ends of the branches near the mountain ash, clusters of berries hang, as if red earrings are visible from under a white blanket.

Under the trees, Winter painted all the snow with a pattern of various footprints and footprints. There is also a hare track: in front, two large paw prints are next to each other, and behind - one after the other - two small ones; and the fox - as if along a string: paw in paw, so it stretches in a chain; and the gray wolf ran through the forest, also left its prints. But the bear's footprint is nowhere to be seen, and it is not surprising: Zimushka-Zima arranged for Toptygina in a thicket of the forest a cozy den, she covered the bear with a thick snow blanket from above: sleep on your health! And he is glad to try - he does not get out of the den. Therefore, there is no bear footprint in the forest.

But not only traces of animals can be seen in the snow. In a forest clearing, where green bushes of lingonberries, blueberries stick out, snow, as if with crosses, is trampled by bird tracks. These are forest chickens - hazel grouse and black grouse - ran here in the clearing, pecking at the surviving berries.

Yes, here they are: black grouse, variegated hazel grouses and grouses. On the white snow, how beautiful they are!

The picture of a winter forest turned out to be good, not dead, but alive! Either a gray squirrel jumps from one knot to another, or a spotted woodpecker, sitting on the trunk of an old tree, will begin to knock out seeds from a pine cone. He will thrust it into the crevice and pound on it with his beak!

Lives winter forest... Snow-covered fields and valleys live. The whole picture of the gray-haired sorceress - Winter lives. You can show her and the Sun.

The sun parted the gray cloud. He looks at the winter forest, at the valleys ... And under his gentle gaze, everything around becomes even more beautiful.

Snow flashed, lit up. Blue, red, green lights lit up on the ground, on bushes, on trees. And a breeze blew, shook off the frost from the branches, and in the air, too, sparkled, danced colorful lights.

Wonderful picture turned out! Perhaps you can't draw better.

Reflection of the disappeared years

Ease of the worldly yoke,

Eternal truths unfading light -

The pledge of relentless seeking,

The joy of each new shift

An indication of the roads to come -

This is a book. Long live the book!

A bright source of pure joys,

Consolidation of a happy moment

Best friend if you're lonely -

This is a book. Long live the book!

Having emptied the pot, Vanya wiped it dry with a crust. With the same crust, he wiped off the spoon, ate the crust, got up, bowed sedately to the giants and said, dropping his eyelashes:

Thank you very much. Pleased with you.

Maybe you want more?

No, it's full.

Otherwise we can put you one more pot, ”said Gorbunov, winking not without boasting. - For us it does not amount to anything. Oh, shepherd boy?

It won't creep into me anymore, - Vanya said shyly, and his blue eyes suddenly threw a quick, mischievous look from under his eyelashes.

If you do not want - as you want. Your will. We have such a rule: we do not forcibly force anyone, ”said Bidenko, known for his justice.

But the vain Gorbunov, who liked all people to admire the life of the scouts, said:

Well, Vanya, how did our grub seem to you?

Good grub, - said the boy, putting a spoon in the pot with the handle down and collecting bread crumbs from the newspaper "Suvorov Onslaught", which was spread out instead of a tablecloth.

Right, good? Gorbunov perked up. - You, brother, you will not find such grub from anyone in the division. The famous grub. You, brother, the main thing, hold on to us, to the scouts. You will never be lost with us. Will you hold on to us?

I will, - said the boy cheerfully.

That's right, and you won't be lost. We will wash you in the bathhouse. We will cut the patla for you. We'll fix some uniforms so that you have the proper military appearance.

Will you take me for reconnaissance, uncle?

Eve we will take you reconnaissance. Let's make a famous scout out of you.

I, uncle, little. I will crawl everywhere, - Vanya said with joyful readiness. - I know every bush around here.

It is also expensive.

Will you teach me how to shoot from a machine gun?

From what. The time will come - we will teach.

I would only have to shoot once, uncle, ”Vanya said, glancing greedily at the submachine guns swaying in their belts from the incessant cannon fire.

You shoot. Do not be afraid. Behind this will not. We will teach you all military science. The first duty, of course, is to credit you for all types of allowances.

How is it, uncle?

This, brother, is very simple. Sergeant Yegorov will report to the lieutenant about you

Sedykh. Lieutenant Sedykh will report to the battery commander, Captain Yenakiev, Captain Yenakiev orders to give in the order for your enrollment. From that, it means that all types of allowance will go to you: clothing, welding, money. Do you understand?

I see, uncle.

This is how it is done by us, the scouts ... Wait! Where are you going?

Wash the dishes, uncle. Our mother always ordered us to wash the dishes after herself, and then put them in the closet.

I ordered it correctly, ”Gorbunov said sternly. - It's the same in military service.

There are no doormen in the military service, ”the fair Bidenko remarked edifyingly.

However, wait a minute to wash the dishes, we’ll drink tea now, ”Gorbunov said smugly. - Do you respect drinking tea?

I respect, - said Vanya.

Well, you're doing the right thing. We, the scouts, are supposed to: as we eat, so now drink tea. It is forbidden! - said Bidenko. “We drink, of course, on the sidelines,” he added indifferently. - We do not reckon with this.

Soon a large copper teapot appeared in the tent - a subject of special pride for the scouts, it is also the source of the eternal envy of the rest of the batteries.

It turned out that the scouts really did not reckon with sugar. Silent Bidenko untied his duffel bag and put a huge handful of refined sugar on the "Suvorov Onslaught". Before Vanya had time to blink an eye, Gorbunov poured two large breasts of sugar into his mug, however, noticing an expression of delight on the boy's face, he poured out a third breast. Know, they say, us scouts!

Vanya grabbed a tin mug with both hands. He even closed his eyes with delight. He felt as if in an extraordinary, fairy-tale world. Everything around was fabulous. And this tent, as if illuminated by the sun in the middle of a cloudy day, and the roar of a close battle, and kind giants throwing handfuls of refined sugar, and the mysterious "all kinds of allowances" promised to him - clothing, welding, cash, - and even the words "pork stew", printed on the mug in big black letters.

Like? - asked Gorbunov, proudly admiring the pleasure with which the boy pulled the tea gently outstretched lips.

Vanya could not even answer this question sensibly. His lips were busy fighting the tea, hot as fire. His heart was full of stormy joy that he would stay with the scouts, these wonderful people who promise to cut him, equip him, teach him how to shoot from a machine gun.

All the words were mixed in his head. He only nodded his head gratefully, raised his eyebrows high in a house and rolled his eyes, expressing this the highest degree pleasure and gratitude.

(In Kataev "Son of the Regiment")

If you think that I am a good student, you are wrong. I do not study well. For some reason, everyone thinks that I am capable, but lazy. I don’t know if I’m capable or not. But only I know for sure that I am not lazy. I sit for three hours on tasks.

For example, now I am sitting and I want to solve the problem with all my might. And she does not dare. I tell my mom:

Mom, my problem is not working.

Don't be lazy, says mom. - Think carefully, and everything will work out. Just think carefully!

She leaves on business. And I take my head with both hands and say to her:

Think head. Think well ... "From point A to point B two pedestrians came out ..." Head, why don't you think? Well, head, well, think, please! Well what do you need!

A cloud is floating outside the window. It is light as fluff. Here it stopped. No, it floats on.

Head, what are you thinking ?! Aren `t you ashamed!!! "Two pedestrians left point A to point B ..." Lyuska, probably, also left. She is already walking. If she came to me first, I would, of course, forgive her. But does she fit, such a mischief ?!

"... From point A to point B ..." No, it will not work. On the contrary, when I go out into the yard, she will take Lena's arm and whisper to her. Then she will say: "Len, come to me, I have something." They will leave, and then sit on the windowsill and laugh and gnaw seeds.

“… Two pedestrians left point A to point B…” And what will I do? .. And then I will call Kolya, Petka and Pavlik to play rounders. And what will she do? Yeah, she's putting on the Three Fat Men. Yes, so loud that Kolya, Petka and Pavlik will hear and run to ask her to let them listen. They listened a hundred times, everything is not enough for them! And then Lyuska will close the window, and they will all listen to the record there.

"... From point A to point ... to point ..." And then I will take it and fill it with something directly into her window. Glass - ding! - and scatter. Let him know.

So. I'm tired of thinking. Think not think - the task does not work. It's just awful what a difficult task! I’ll take a little walk and start thinking again.

I closed the book and looked out the window. Lyuska alone was walking in the yard. She jumped into the classics. I went out into the yard and sat on a bench. Lyuska didn't even look at me.

Earring! Vitka! - Lyuska shouted at once. - Let's go play rounders!

The Karmanov brothers looked out the window.

We have a throat, ”both brothers said hoarsely. “They won't let us in.

Lena! - Lyuska shouted. - Linen! Come out!

Instead of Lena, her grandmother looked out and shook her finger at Lyuska.

Pavlik! - Lyuska shouted.

No one appeared in the window.

Pe-et-ka-ah! - Luska sat down.

Girl, what are you yelling at ?! - someone's head stuck out of the window. - A sick person is not allowed to rest! There is no rest from you! - And the head stuck back into the window.

Lyuska furtively looked at me and blushed like a cancer. She tugged at her pigtail. Then she took off the thread from the sleeve. Then she looked at the tree and said:

Lucy, let's go to the classics.

Come on, I said.

We jumped into the classics, and I went home to solve my problem.

As soon as I sat down at the table, my mother came:

Well, how's the problem?

Does not work.

But you've been sitting over her for two hours already! It's just awful what it is! They ask the children some kind of puzzles! .. Come on, show your problem! Maybe I can do it? I still graduated from the institute. So. “Two pedestrians came out of point A to point B ...” Wait, wait, something is familiar to me! Listen, but you and dad decided it the last time! I remember perfectly!

How? - I was surprised. - Really? Oh, really, because this is the forty-fifth problem, and we were asked the forty-sixth.

Then my mother was terribly angry.

It's outrageous! - said my mother. - This is unheard of! This mess! Where is your head ?! What is she only thinking about ?!

(Irina Pivovarova "What my head thinks about")

Irina Pivovarova. Spring rain

I didn't want to learn my lessons yesterday. There was such a sun outside! Such a warm yellow sun! Such branches swayed outside the window! .. I wanted to reach out and touch each sticky green leaf. Oh, how your hands will smell! And the fingers stick together - you can't pull them apart ... No, I didn't want to learn my lessons.

I went outside. The sky above me was fast. Clouds were hurrying over it somewhere, and sparrows were chirping terribly loudly in the trees, and a big fluffy cat was basking on the bench, and it was so good that spring!

I walked in the yard until the evening, and in the evening mom and dad went to the theater, and I, without having done my homework, went to bed.

The morning was dark, so dark that I didn't want to get up at all. This is always the case. If it's sunny, I immediately jump up. I dress quickly, quickly. And coffee is delicious, and mom does not grumble, and dad jokes. And when the morning is like today, I barely dress, my mother urges me on and gets angry. And when I have breakfast, my dad makes comments to me that I am sitting crookedly at the table.

On the way to school, I remembered that I had not done a single lesson, and this made me even worse. Without looking at Lyuska, I sat down at my desk and took out my textbooks.

Vera Yevstigneevna came in. The lesson began. They will call me now.

Sinitsyna, to the blackboard!

I shuddered. Why should I go to the blackboard?

I haven't learned, ”I said.

Vera Evstigneevna was surprised and gave me a bad mark.

Why is my life so bad in the world ?! I'd rather take it and die. Then Vera Evstigneevna will regret giving me a bad mark. And mom and dad will cry and say to everyone:

"Oh, why did we go to the theater ourselves, but we left her all alone!"

Suddenly they pushed me in the back. I turned around. They put a note in my hands. I unrolled a long narrow paper ribbon and read:

“Lucy!

Do not despair !!!

Deuce is nothing !!!

You will fix the deuce!

I will help you! Let's be friends with you! Only this is a secret! Not a word to anyone !!!

Yalo-kvo-kyl ".

It was as if something warm was poured into me right away. I was so happy that I even laughed. Lyuska looked at me, then at the note and proudly turned away.

Did someone write this to me? Or maybe this note is not for me? Maybe she's Lyuska? But on the back there was: LYUSE SINITSYNOY.

What a wonderful note! I have never received such wonderful notes in my life! Of course, a deuce is nothing! What are you talking about?! I'll just fix it!

I read twenty times again:

"Let's be friends with you ..."

Well, of course! Of course, let's be friends! Let's be friends with you !! Please! Very happy! I love it terribly when they want to be friends with me! ..

But who writes this? Some kind of YALO-KVO-KYL. An incomprehensible word. I wonder what it means? And why does this YALO-KVO-KYL want to be friends with me? .. Maybe I'm still beautiful?

I looked at my desk. There was nothing beautiful.

He probably wanted to be friends with me, because I'm good. What, am I bad, or what? Of course it's good! After all, no one wants to be friends with a bad person!

To celebrate, I nudged Lyuska with my elbow.

Lucy, and one person wants to be friends with me!

Who? - immediately asked Lyuska.

I don’t know who. It is somehow incomprehensibly written here.

Show me, I'll sort it out.

Honestly, won't you tell anyone?

Honestly!

Lyuska read the note and curled her lips:

Some fool wrote! Couldn't tell my real name.

Or maybe he is shy?

I looked around the whole class. Who could have written the note? Well, who? .. It would be nice, Kolya Lykov! He's the smartest in our class. Everyone wants to be friends with him. But I have so many triplets! No, he is unlikely.

Or maybe it was Yurka Seliverstov who wrote it? .. No, we are already friends with him. He would have sent me a note for no reason!

At recess, I went out into the corridor. I stood at the window and waited. It would be good if this YALO-KVO-KYL made friends with me right now!

Pavlik Ivanov left the classroom and immediately went to me.

So Pavlik wrote this? Only this was not enough!

Pavlik ran up to me and said:

Sinitsyna, give me ten kopecks.

I gave him ten kopecks to get him off the hook as soon as possible. Pavlik immediately ran to the sideboard, and I remained at the window. But no one else came up.

Suddenly Burakov began to walk past me. It seemed to me that he was looking at me in a strange way. He stopped beside him and began to look out the window. So Burakov wrote the note ?! Then I'd better leave right away. I can't stand this Burakov!

The weather is awful, - said Burakov.

I did not have time to leave.

Yes, the weather is bad, ”I said.

The weather cannot be worse, ”said Burakov.

Terrible weather, ”I said.

Then Burakov took an apple out of his pocket and bit off half with a crunch.

Burakov, give me a bite, - I could not resist.

And it is bitter, - said Burakov and walked down the corridor.

No, he didn't write the note. And thank God! You will not find the second such greedy person in the whole world!

I looked after him contemptuously and went into class. I walked in and was stunned. On the blackboard was written in huge letters:

SECRET!!! YALO-KVO-KYL + SINITSYNA = LOVE !!! NOT A WORD TO ANYONE!

Lyuska was whispering with the girls in the corner. When I entered, they all stared at me and began to giggle.

I grabbed a rag and rushed to dry the board.

Then Pavlik Ivanov jumped up to me and whispered in my ear:

I wrote this note to you.

You're lying, not you!

Then Pavlik laughed like a fool and shouted to the whole class:

Oh, hilarious! Why be friends with you ?! All freckled like a cuttlefish! Stupid tit!

And then, before I had time to look around, Yurka Seliverstov jumped up to him and hit this blockhead with a wet rag right on the head. Pavlik howled:

Ah well! I'll tell everyone! I'll tell everyone, everyone, everyone about her, how she gets the notes! And I'll tell everyone about you! You sent her a note! - And he ran out of the class with a stupid cry: - Yalo-kvo-kyl! Yalo-kvokyl!

The lessons are over. Nobody came up to me. Everyone quickly collected their textbooks, and the class was empty. We were alone with Kolya Lykov. Kolya still could not tie the lace on his boot.

The door creaked. Yurka Seliverstov stuck his head into the classroom, looked at me, then at Kolya and, without saying anything, left.

But what if? What if Kolya wrote it all the same? Is it really Kolya ?! What happiness if Kolya! My throat immediately went dry.

Kohl, tell me, please, - I barely squeezed out of myself, - it's not you, by chance ...

I didn’t finish, because I suddenly saw Colina’s ears and neck become flushed.

Oh you! - said Kolya, not looking at me. - I thought you ... And you ...

Kolya! I shouted. - So I ...

You are a chatterbox, that's who, - said Kolya. - Your tongue is like a broom. And I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. What else was missing!

Kolya finally coped with the lace, got up and left the classroom. And I sat down in my place.

I'm not going anywhere. It's raining so badly outside the window. And my fate is so bad, so bad, that it could not be worse! So I will sit here until the night. And I will sit at night. One in a dark classroom, one in the whole dark school. Serves me right.

Aunt Nyura came in with a bucket.

Go home, dear, ”said Aunt Nyura. - At home, the mother was tired of waiting.

Nobody was waiting for me at home, Aunt Nyura, - I said and trudged out of the class.

Bad fate of mine! Lyuska is no longer my friend. Vera Evstigneevna gave me a bad mark. Kolya Lykov ... I didn't even want to remember Kolya Lykov.

I slowly put on my coat in the locker room and, barely dragging my feet, went out into the street ...

It was wonderful, the best spring rain in the world on the street !!!

Cheerful wet passers-by ran down the street with their collars up !!!

And on the porch, right in the rain, was Kolya Lykov.

Come on, ”he said.

And we went.

(Irina Pivovarova "Spring Rain")

The front was far from the village of Nechaev. The Nechaev collective farmers did not hear the roar of guns, did not see how the planes were beating in the sky and how the glow of fires blazed at night where the enemy was passing through Russian soil. But from where the front was, refugees came across Nechayevo. They dragged a sled with bundles, hunched over under the weight of bags and sacks. Clinging to the dress of their mothers, the children walked and got stuck in the snow. Homeless people stopped, basked in the huts and moved on.
Once at dusk, when the shadow of the old birch extended to the very granary, they knocked on the Shalikhin's hut.
The reddish agile girl Taiska rushed to the side window, buried her nose in the thawed patch, and both her pigtails cheerfully lifted up.
- Two aunties! She screamed. - One young, in a scarf! And the other one is quite old, with a stick! And yet ... look - a girl!
Pear, Taiskin's older sister, put down the stocking she was knitting and also went to the window.
- Really a girl. In a blue bonnet ...
“So go open it,” said the mother. - What are you waiting for?
Pear pushed Taiska:
- Go, what are you! Should all the elders?
Taiska ran to open the door. The people entered, and the hut smelled of snow and frost.
While the mother was talking with the women, while she asked where they were from, where they were going, and where the Germans were and where the front was, Grusha and Taiska looked at the girl.
- Look, in boots!
- And the stocking is torn!
- Look, how I grabbed my bag, does not even unclench her fingers. What does she have there?
- And you ask.
- And you yourself ask.
At this time came from the street Romanok. Frost kicked his cheeks. Red as a tomato, he stopped in front of the strange girl and goggled at her. I even forgot to sweep my legs.
And the girl in the blue bonnet sat motionless on the edge of the bench.
With her right hand, she clutched a yellow purse that hung over her shoulder to her chest. She silently looked somewhere at the wall and as if she saw nothing and did not hear anything.
Mother poured hot stew for the refugees and cut off a piece of bread.
- Oh, and the wretches too! She sighed. - And it is not easy ourselves, and the child toils ... Is this your daughter?
“No,” the woman replied, “a stranger.
“We lived on the same street,” the old woman added.
Mother was surprised:
- Stranger? And where are your relatives, girl?
The girl looked at her gloomily and said nothing.
“She has no one,” the woman whispered, “the whole family has died: her father is at the front, and her mother and brother are here.

Killed ...
The mother looked at the girl and could not come to her senses.
She looked at her light coat, which, probably, was blowing through the wind, at her torn stockings, at her thin neck, whitening plaintively from under the blue hood ...
Killed. All killed! And the girl is alive. And she is the only one in the whole world!
The mother approached the girl.
- What is your name, daughter? She asked affectionately.
- Valya, - the girl answered indifferently.
- Valya ... Valentina ... - Mother repeated thoughtfully. - Valentine ...
Seeing that the women were grabbing their knapsacks, she stopped them:
- Stay, you sleep tonight. It's already late in the yard, and the drizzle has started - look how it is sweeping! And go in the morning.
The women stayed. Mother made beds for tired people. She made a bed for the girl on a warm couch - let her warm herself well. The girl undressed, took off her blue hood, pushed into the pillow, and sleep immediately overpowered her. So, when grandfather came home in the evening, his usual place on the couch was taken, and that night he had to lie down on the chest.
After supper, everyone calmed down very soon. Only the mother was tossing and turning on her bed and could not sleep in any way.
At night, she got up, lit a small blue light, and quietly walked over to the couch. The faint light of the lamp illuminated the girl's delicate, slightly flared face, large fluffy eyelashes, dark brown hair that was scattered on a colorful pillow.
- You poor orphan! - sighed the mother. - I just opened my eyes to the light, and how much grief fell upon you! To such and such a small one! ..
For a long time the mother stood near the girl and kept thinking about something. She took her boots from the floor, looked - skinny, soaked. Tomorrow this little girl will put them on and again go somewhere ... But where?
Early, early, when a little dawned in the windows, my mother got up and lit the stove. Grandfather got up too: he did not like to lie for a long time. It was quiet in the hut, only sleepy breathing was heard and Romanok was snoring on the stove. In this silence, by the light of a small lamp, my mother spoke quietly to my grandfather.
“Let's get the girl, father,” she said. - I really feel sorry for her!
The grandfather put down his felt boot, which he was repairing, raised his head and looked thoughtfully at his mother.
- Take the girl? .. Will it be okay? He replied. - We are countrymen, and she is from the city.
- And what does it matter, father? There are people in the city and people in the countryside. After all, she is an orphan! Our Taiska will have a girlfriend. They will go to school together next winter ...
The grandfather came up and looked at the girl:
- Well ... Look. You know better. Let's take it at least. Just be careful not to cry with her later!
- Eh! .. Maybe I won't pay.
Soon the refugees got up and began to get ready for the journey. But when they wanted to wake the girl up, her mother stopped them:
- Wait, don't wake me up. Leave the Valentine with me! If any relatives are found, tell me: he lives in Nechaev, at Daria Shalikhina's. And I had three guys - well, there will be four. Perhaps we will live!
The women thanked the hostess and left. And the girl stayed.
- Here I have one more daughter, - said Daria Shalikhina thoughtfully, - daughter Valentinka ... Well, we will live.
So a new person appeared in the village of Nechaev.

(Lyubov Voronkova "Girl from the City")

Not remembering how she left home, Assol fled to the sea, caught up in an irresistible

blown by the event; at the first corner she stopped almost exhausted; her legs were giving way,

breath was lost and extinguished, consciousness was kept by a thread. Overwhelmed with fear of losing

will, she stamped her foot and recovered. At times the roof and the fence were hidden from her

Scarlet Sails; then, fearing if they had disappeared like a simple ghost, she hurried

pass the painful obstacle and, seeing the ship again, stopped with relief

take a breath.

Meanwhile, there was such confusion in Kaperna, such excitement, such

general unrest, which will not yield to the effect of the famous earthquakes. Never before

the large ship did not approach this shore; the ship had the same sails, name

which sounded like a mockery; they were now clearly and irrefutably glowing with

the innocence of a fact that refutes all the laws of being and common sense. Men,

women, children in a hurry rushed to the shore, who was in what; residents echoed

courtyard to courtyard, bouncing at each other, screaming and falling; soon the water formed

crowd, and Assol rushed into this crowd.

While she was gone, her name flew among people with nervous and sullen anxiety, with

spiteful fright. The men spoke more; strangled, serpentine hiss

the dumbfounded women sobbed, but if it was already starting to crack, poison

climbed into the head. As soon as Assol appeared, everyone was silent, everyone moved away from

her, and she was left alone in the emptiness of the sultry sand, confused, ashamed, happy, with a face no less scarlet than her miracle, helplessly stretching out her hands to the high

A boat full of tanned rowers separated from him; among them stood the one whom, like her

it seemed now, she knew, vaguely remembered from childhood. He looked at her with a smile,

which warmed and hurried. But thousands of the last ridiculous fears overcame Assol;

mortally afraid of everything - error, misunderstanding, mysterious and harmful interference, -

she ran up to her waist into the warm rippling waves, shouting: “I am here, I am here! It's me!"

Then Zimmer waved his bow - and the same melody burst through the nerves of the crowd, but on

this time in a full, triumphant chorus. From excitement, movement of clouds and waves, glitter

water and gave the girl almost could not already distinguish what was moving: she, the ship or

boat - everything moved, spun and fell.

But the oar splashed sharply near her; she raised her head. Gray bent down, her arms

grabbed his belt. Assol closed her eyes; then, quickly opening his eyes, boldly

smiled at his beaming face and, out of breath, said:

Absolutely like that.

And you too, my child! - taking out the wet jewel from the water, said Gray. -

Here I come. Did you recognize me?

She nodded, holding on to his belt, with a new soul and anxiously closed eyes.

Happiness sat in her like a fluffy kitten. When Assol decided to open her eyes,

the rocking of the boat, the glitter of the waves, approaching, powerfully tossing and turning, the side of the "Secret" -

everything was a dream, where light and water swayed, whirling like a game sun bunnies on

flowing rays of the wall. Not remembering how, she climbed the ladder to strong hands Gray.

The deck, covered and hung with carpets, in the crimson splashes of the sails, was like a heavenly garden.

And soon Assol saw that she was standing in the cabin - in a room that could no longer be better

Then from above, shaking and burying her heart in her triumphant cry, she again rushed

great music. Again Assol closed her eyes, fearing that all this would disappear if she

watch. Gray took her hands, and knowing now where it was safe to go, she hid

face wet with tears on the chest of a friend who came so magically. Gently, but with a laugh,

himself shocked and surprised that an inexpressible, inaccessible to anyone has come

precious minute, Gray lifted this long-long dreamed

the girl's face and eyes finally opened clearly. They had everything best man.

Will you take my Longren to us? - she said.

Yes. - And he kissed her so hard after his iron "yes" that she

laughed.

(A. Green. "Scarlet Sails")

By the end school year I asked my father to buy me a two-wheeled bicycle, a battery-powered submachine gun, a battery-powered airplane, a flying helicopter, and table hockey.

I so want to have these things! I said to my father. - They are constantly spinning in my head like a carousel, and this makes my head so dizzy that it is difficult to stay on my feet.

Hold on, - said the father, - don't fall and write all these things for me on a piece of paper so that I don't forget.

But why write, they already sit tightly in my head.

Write, - said the father, - it costs you nothing.

In general, it costs nothing, - I said, - just an extra hassle. - And I wrote in large letters on the whole sheet:

VILISAPET

PISTAL-PISTOL

SAMALET

VIRTALET

HAKEY

Then he thought about it and decided to write "ice cream", went to the window, looked at the sign opposite and added:

ICE CREAM

The father read it and says:

I'll buy you ice cream for now, and we'll wait for the rest.

I thought he had no time now, and I ask:

Until what time?

Until better times.

Until what?

Until the next end of the school year.

Why?

Yes, because the letters in your head spin like a carousel, it makes you dizzy, and the words are not on their feet.

As if words have legs!

And I've already bought ice cream a hundred times.

(Victor Galyavkin "Carousel in the head")

The Rose.

The last days August ... Autumn was already approaching.
The sun was setting. A sudden gusty downpour, without thunder and without lightning, has just swept over our wide plain.
The garden in front of the house was burning and smoking, all filled with the fire of the dawn and the deluge of rain.
She sat at the table in the living room and gazed with persistent thoughtfulness into the garden through the half-open door.
I knew what was happening then in her soul; I knew that after a short, albeit painful, struggle, at that very moment she gave herself up to a feeling with which she could no longer cope.
Suddenly she got up, quickly went out into the garden and disappeared.
The hour has struck ... another has struck; she did not come back.
Then I got up and, leaving the house, went along the alley, along which - I had no doubt about it - she went too.
Everything went dark around; the night had already fallen. But on the damp sand of the path, brightly scarlet even through the spilled mist, a roundish object could be seen.
I bent down ... It was a young, slightly blossoming rose. Two hours ago I saw this very rose on her breast.
I carefully picked up a flower that had fallen into the mud and, returning to the living room, laid it on the table in front of her chair.
So she returned at last - and, easy steps going through the whole room, she sat down at the table.
Her face both turned pale and came to life; quickly, with cheerful embarrassment, lowered, like diminished eyes ran to the sides.
She saw the rose, grabbed it, looked at its crumpled, stained petals, looked at me - and her eyes, suddenly stopping, shone with tears.
- What are you crying about? I asked.
- Yes, that's about this rose. Look what happened to her.
Then I decided to show profound thought.
“Your tears will wash away this dirt,” I said with significant expression.
“Tears do not wash, tears burn,” she answered, and, turning to the fireplace, threw the flower into the dying flame.
“The fire will burn even better than tears,” she exclaimed, not without daring, “and the crossed eyes, still glistening with tears, laughed insolently and happily.
I realized that she was also burned. (I.S.Turgenev "ROSE")

I SEE YOU PEOPLE!

- Hello, Bezhana! Yes, it's me, Sosoya ... It's been a long time since I visited you, my Bezhana! Excuse me! .. Now I will put everything in order here: I will clear the grass, fix the cross, repaint the bench ... Look, the rose has already faded ... Yes, a lot of time has passed ... And how much news I have for you, Bezhana! I don’t know where to start! Wait a little, I'll pull out this weed and tell you everything in order ...

Well, my dear Bezhana: the war is over! Do not recognize our village now! The guys have returned from the front, Bezhana! The son of Gerasim returned, the son of Nina returned, Minin Yevgeny returned, and the father of Nodar the Tadpole returned, and the father of Otia. True, he is without one leg, but what does it matter? Just think, leg! .. But our Kukuri, Lukayin Kukuri, did not return. Mashiko's son Malkhaz also did not return ... Many did not return, Bezhana, and yet we have a holiday in the village! Salt, corn appeared ... After you ten weddings were played, and at each I was among the guests of honor and drank great! Do you remember Georgy Tsertsvadze? Yes, yes, father of eleven children! So, George also returned, and his wife Taliko gave birth to the twelfth boy, Shukriya. That was fun, Bezhana! Taliko was in a tree picking plums when she started giving birth! Do you hear, Bezhana? Almost resolved in the tree! Still managed to go down! The child was named Shukriya, but I call him Slivovich. Great, isn't it, Bezhana? Slivovich! Why is Georgievich worse? In total, after you thirteen children were born ... And one more piece of news, Bezhana, - I know it will make you happy. Father took Khatia to Batumi. She will have an operation and she will see! Later? Then ... You know, Bezhana, how much I love Khatia? So I'll marry her! Of course! Celebrate a wedding, a big wedding! And we will have children! .. What? What if she doesn't see the light? Yes, my aunt also asks me about this ... I will marry anyway, Bezhana! She cannot live without me ... And I cannot live without Khatia ... Did you love some Minadora? So I love my Khatia ... And my aunt loves ... him ... Of course she loves, otherwise she would not ask the postman every day if there is a letter for her ... She is waiting for him! You know who ... But you also know that he will not return to her ... And I am waiting for my Khatia. It makes no difference to me whether she comes back - sighted, blind. What if she doesn't like me? What do you think, Bezhana? True, my aunt says that I have matured, that I have grown prettier, that it is difficult even to recognize me, but ... what the devil is not joking! .. However, no, it cannot be that Khatia does not like me! She knows what I am like, she sees me, she herself spoke about it more than once ... I finished ten grades, Bezhana! I am thinking of going to college. I will become a doctor, and if Khatia is not helped now in Batumi, I will cure her myself. So, Bezhana?

- Our Sosoya has completely collapsed? Who are you chatting with?

- Ah, hello, Uncle Gerasim!

- Hello! What are you doing here?

- So, I came to look at the grave of Bezhana ...

- Go to the office ... Vissarion and Khatia returned ... - Gerasim lightly patted my cheek.

My breath caught.

- So how?!

- Run, run, son, meet ... - I didn’t let Gerasim finish, I jumped off the spot and rushed down the slope.

Faster, Sosoya, faster! .. So far, shorten the road along this girder! Jump! .. Hurry, Sosoya! .. I run as I have never run in my life! .. My ears are ringing, my heart is ready to jump out of my chest, my knees are giving way ... Do not try to stop, Sosoya! .. Run! If you jump over this ditch, it means that everything is in order with Khatia ... Jumped over! .. If you reach that tree without breathing, it means that everything is in order with Khatia ... fifty without catching his breath means that everything is all right with Khatia ... One, two, three ... ten, eleven, twelve ... Forty-five, forty-six ... Oh, how difficult it is ...

- Khatia-ah! ..

Gasping, I ran up to them and stopped. More I could not utter a word.

- Soso! - said Khatia quietly.

I looked at her. Khatia's face was white as chalk. She looked with her huge, beautiful eyes somewhere in the distance, past me and smiled.

- Uncle Vissarion!

Vissarion stood with his head bowed and was silent.

- Well, Uncle Vissarion? Vissarion did not answer.

- Khatia!

- The doctors said that it is not yet possible to perform the operation. They ordered me to come next spring ... - Khatia said calmly.

My God, why didn't I count to fifty ?! My throat tickled. I covered my face with my hands.

- How are you, Sosoya? Do you have some new?

I hugged Khatia and kissed her on the cheek. Uncle Vissarion took out a handkerchief, wiped his dry eyes, coughed and left.

- How are you, Sosoya? - repeated Khatia.

- Well ... Don't be afraid, Khatia ... They will have an operation in the spring, won't they? - I stroked Khatia's face.

She narrowed her eyes and became so beautiful, such that the Mother of God herself would have envied her ...

- In the spring, Sosoya ...

- Don't be afraid, Khatia!

- And I'm not afraid, Sosoya!

- And if they cannot help you, I will, Khatia, I swear to you!

- I know, Sosoya!

- Even if not ... So what? Can you see me?

- I see, Sosoya!

- What else do you want?

- Nothing more, Sosoya!

Where are you going, road, and where are you taking my village? Do you remember? One June day, you took away everything that was dear to me in the world. I asked you, dear, and you returned to me everything that you could return. I thank you, dear! Now our turn has come. You will take us, me and Khatia, and lead you to where your end should be. But we don't want you to have an end. Hand in hand we will walk with you to infinity. You will never again have to deliver news about us in triangular letters and envelopes with printed addresses to our village. We'll be back on our own, dear! We will face the east, see the golden sun rise, and then Khatia will say to the whole world:

- People, it's me, Khatia! I see you people!

(Nodar Dumbadze "I see you people! ..."

An old, sick man was walking along a wide carriageway near a big city.

He staggered as he walked; his emaciated legs, tangled, dragging and stumbling, walked heavily and weakly, as if

strangers; clothes hung on him in rags; his bare head fell on his chest ... He was exhausted.

He sat down on a roadside stone, leaned forward, leaned his elbows, covered his face with both hands - and through twisted fingers, tears dripped onto the dry, gray dust.

He recalled ...

He recalled how he was once healthy and rich - and how he spent his health, and distributed his wealth to others, friends and foes ... And now he does not have a piece of bread - and everyone left him, friends even before enemies ... Can he really humble himself to beg for alms? And he was bitter in his heart and ashamed.

And the tears kept dripping and dripping, dappling gray dust.

Suddenly he heard someone calling his name; he raised his tired head - and saw a stranger in front of him.

The face is calm and important, but not stern; the eyes are not radiant, but light; a piercing gaze, but not evil.

You gave away all your wealth, - an even voice was heard ... - But you do not regret that you did good?

I don’t regret, ”the old man replied with a sigh,“ only now I’m dying.

And there would be no beggars in the world who stretched out their hand to you, - the stranger continued, - there would be no one over for you to show your virtue, could you exercise in it?

The old man didn’t answer - and thought.

So now, do not be proud, poor man, - the stranger spoke again, - go, reach out, give other good people the opportunity to show in practice that they are kind.

The old man perked up, looked up ... but the stranger had already disappeared; and in the distance a passer-by appeared on the road.

The old man went up to him and held out his hand. This passer-by turned away with a stern look and did not give anything.

But another followed him - and he gave the old man a small charity.

And the old man bought himself for these pennies of bread - and the piece he had asked for seemed sweet to him - and there was no shame in his heart, but on the contrary: a quiet joy overshadowed him.

(I.S.Turgenev "Alms")

Happy

Yes, once I was happy.
I have long defined what happiness is, a very long time ago - at the age of six. And when it came to me, I did not immediately recognize it. But I remembered what it should be, and then I realized that I was happy.
* * *
I remember: I am six years old, my sister is four.
We ran for a long time after dinner along the long hall, caught up with each other, squealed and fell. Now we are tired and quiet.
We stand nearby, looking out the window at the dull spring twilight street.
Spring twilight is always anxious and always sad.
And we are silent. We listen to how the lenses of the candelabra tremble from the carts passing along the street.
If we were big, we would think about human malice, about offenses, about our love, which we have offended, and about the love that we have offended ourselves, and about happiness that does not exist.
But we are children and we don't know anything. We are only silent. We are terrified to turn around. It seems to us that the hall has already completely darkened and the whole large, echoing house in which we live has darkened. Why is he so quiet now? Maybe everyone left him and forgot us, little girls, huddled against the window in a dark huge room?
(* 61) Near my shoulder I see my sister's scared, round eye. She looks at me - should she cry or not?
And then I remember my daytime impression, so bright, so beautiful that I immediately forget both the dark house and the dull dreary street.
- Lena! - I say loudly and cheerfully. - Lena! I saw show jumping today!
I cannot tell her everything about the immensely joyful impression that the horse tram has made on me.
The horses were white and ran soon, soon; the carriage itself was red or yellow, beautiful, there were a lot of people in it, all strangers, so they could get to know each other and even play some quiet game. And on the back, on the step, stood the conductor, all in gold - or maybe not all, but only a little, with buttons - and blowing a golden trumpet:
- Rram-rra-ra!
The sun itself rang in this tube and flew out of it in golden-sounding spray.
How can you tell it all! One can only say:
- Lena! I saw show jumping!
And you don't need anything else. In my voice, in my face, she understood all the boundless beauty of this vision.
And can anyone really jump into this chariot of joy and rush to the ringing of the solar tube?
- Rram-rra-ra!
No, not everyone. Fraulein says you have to pay for it. That's why they don't take us there. We are locked in a boring, musty carriage with a rattling window, smelling of morocco and patchouli, and not even allowed to press our nose against the glass.
But when we are big and rich, we will only ride the horse-drawn carriage. We will be, we will be, we will be happy!

(Teffi. "Happy")

Petrushevskaya Lyudmila

Kitten of the lord god

And the boys, the guardian angel rejoiced, standing behind his right shoulder, because everyone knows that the kitten was equipped by the Lord himself, as he equips all of us, his children. And if the white light accepts another creature sent by God, then this white light continues to live.

So, the boy grabbed the kitten in his arms and began to stroke him and gently hug him. And behind his left elbow stood a demon, who was also very interested in the kitten and the mass of possibilities associated with this particular kitten.

The guardian angel got worried and began to paint magic pictures: here the cat is sleeping on the boy's pillow, here is playing with a piece of paper, here is going for a walk like a dog, at the foot ... And the devil pushed the boy under his left elbow and suggested: it would be nice to tie a tin can on the kitten's tail! It would be nice to throw him into the pond and watch, dying with laughter, how he will try to swim out! Those bulging eyes! And many other different proposals were introduced by the demon into the hot head of the expelled boy while he was walking home with the kitten in his arms.

The guardian angel wept that theft would not lead to good, that thieves all over the earth are despised and put in cages like pigs and that a person is ashamed to take someone else's - but it was all in vain!

But the devil was already opening the garden gate with the words "he will see but not come out" and laughed at the angel.

And the grandmother, lying in bed, suddenly noticed the kitten, which climbed into the window to her, jumped onto the bed and turned on his motor, rubbing himself in the grandmother's frozen legs.

The grandmother was glad to him, her own cat was poisoned, apparently, by rat poison from the neighbors in the garbage.

The kitten purred, rubbed its head on grandmother's legs, received a piece of black bread from her, ate it and immediately fell asleep.

And we have already said that the kitten was not simple, but he was a kitten of the Lord God, and the magic happened at the same moment, they immediately knocked on the window, and the old woman's son with his wife and child, hung with backpacks and bags, entered the hut: having received a maternal letter, which came with a great delay, he did not begin to answer, no longer hoping for the post office, but demanded a vacation, took his family and set off on a journey along the route bus - station - train - bus - bus - an hour walk across two rivers, in the forest yes by the field, and finally arrived.

His wife, rolling up her sleeves, began to sort out the bags with supplies, cook dinner, he himself, taking a hammer, went to repair the gate, their son kissed his grandmother on the nose, picked up the kitten and went into the garden through raspberries, where he met with a stranger boy, and here the guardian angel of the thief grabbed his head, and the demon retreated, chatting his tongue and impudently smiling, the unfortunate thief behaved in the same way.

The boy-owner carefully put the kitten on an overturned bucket, and he gave the kidnapper on the neck, and he rushed faster than the wind to the gate, which the grandma's son had just begun to repair, covering the entire space with his back.

The demon fled through the fence, the angel covered himself with his sleeve and began to cry, but the kitten ardently stood up for the child, and the angel helped to compose that the boy did not climb into the raspberries, but after his kitten, who had run away. Or it was the devil who composed it, standing behind the fence and talking his tongue, the boy did not understand.

In short, the boy was released, but the adult did not give him the kitten, ordered him to come with his parents.

As for the grandmother, fate left her to live: in the evening she got up to meet the cattle, and the next morning she made jam, worried that they would eat everything and there would be nothing to give her son to the city, and at noon she sheared a sheep and a ram in order to have time to tie mittens to the whole family and socks.

Here our life is needed - here we live.

And the boy, left without a kitten and without raspberries, walked gloomy, but that evening he received from his grandmother a bowl of strawberries and milk for some unknown reason, and his mother read him a fairy tale for the night, and the guardian angel was immensely happy and settled down in the head of the sleeping man like all six year olds.

Kitten of the lord god

One grandmother in the village fell ill, got bored and gathered for the next world.

Her son still did not come, did not answer the letter, so grandmother prepared to die, let the cattle go to the herd, put the can pure water by the bed, put a piece of bread under the pillow, put the filthy bucket closer and lay down to read prayers, and the guardian angel stood in her head.

And a boy with his mother came to this village.

They were doing well, their own grandmother functioned, kept a garden-garden, goats and chickens, but this grandmother did not particularly welcome when her grandson tore berries and cucumbers in the garden: all this was ripe and ripened for supplies for the winter, for jam and pickles for the same grandson, and if necessary, grandmother will give it herself.

This expelled grandson was walking around the village and noticed a kitten, small, big-headed and pot-bellied, gray and fluffy.

The kitten strayed to the child, began to rub against his sandals, casting sweet dreams on the boy: how it will be possible to feed the kitten, sleep with him, play.

And the boys, the guardian angel rejoiced, standing behind his right shoulder, because everyone knows that the kitten was equipped by the Lord himself, as he equips all of us, his children.

And if the white light accepts another creature sent by God, then this white light continues to live.

And every living creation is a test for those who have already settled: will they accept a new one or not.

So, the boy grabbed the kitten in his arms and began to stroke him and gently hug him.

And behind his left elbow stood a demon, who was also very interested in the kitten and the mass of possibilities associated with this particular kitten.

The guardian angel became worried and began to draw magical pictures: here the cat sleeps on the boy's pillow, here it plays with a piece of paper, here it goes for a walk like a dog at the foot ...

And the demon pushed the boy under the left elbow and suggested: it would be nice to tie a tin can to the kitten's tail! It would be nice to throw him into the pond and watch, dying with laughter, how he will try to swim out! Those bulging eyes!

And many other different proposals were brought by the devil into the hot head of the expelled boy, while he was walking home with the kitten in his arms.

And at home, the grandmother immediately scolded him, why does he carry the flea into the kitchen, here is his cat sitting in the hut, and the boy objected that he would take him with him to the city, but then the mother entered into a conversation, and it was all over, the kitten was ordered take away from where he got it and throw it over the fence.

The boy walked with the kitten and threw it behind all the fences, and the kitten jumped merrily towards him after a few steps and again jumped and played with him.

So the boy reached the fence of that grandmother, who was going to die with a supply of water, and again the kitten was abandoned, but then he immediately disappeared.

And again the devil pushed the boy by the elbow and pointed to a nice strange garden, where ripe raspberries and black currants hung, where gooseberries were gilded.

The demon reminded the boy that the local grandmother was sick, the whole village knew about it, the grandmother was already bad, and the demon told the boy that no one would stop him from eating raspberries and cucumbers.

The guardian angel began to persuade the boy not to do this, but the raspberries were so red in the rays of the setting sun!

The guardian angel wept that theft would not lead to good, that thieves all over the earth are despised and put in cages like pigs, and that a person is ashamed to take someone else's - but it was all in vain!

Then the guardian angel finally began to make the boy fear that the grandmother would see from the window.

But the devil was already opening the garden gate with the words "he will see but not come out" and laughed at the angel.

The grandmother was fat, wide, with a soft, melodious voice. "She filled the whole apartment with herself! .." - Borkin's father grumbled. And his mother timidly objected to him: "Old man ... Where can she go?" "I got caught up in the world ..." sighed my father. “She has a place in the invalid home - that's where!”

Everyone in the house, not excluding Borka, looked at the grandmother as a completely superfluous person.

Grandma slept on the trunk. All night she tossed heavily from side to side, and in the morning she got up before everyone else and rattled dishes in the kitchen. Then she woke up her son-in-law and daughter: “The samovar is ripe. Get up! Drink something hot on the track ... "

She approached Borka: "Get up, my dear, it's time to go to school!" "Why?" - Borka asked in a sleepy voice. “Why go to school? The dark man is deaf and dumb - that's why! "

Borka hid his head under the blanket: "You go, grandma ..."

In the entryway, my father shuffled with a broom. “Where did you, mother, put your galoshes? Every time you poke at all corners because of them! "

Grandma was in a hurry to help him. “Yes, here they are, Petrusha, in plain sight. Yesterday they were very dirty, I washed them and put them on. "

Borka came from school, threw a coat and a hat on his grandmother's hands, threw a bag with books on the table and shouted: "Grandma, eat!"

The grandmother hid her knitting, hastily set the table and, crossing her arms on her stomach, watched Borka eat. During these hours, somehow unwittingly, Borka felt his grandmother as his close friend. He willingly told her about his lessons, comrades. Grandma listened to him lovingly, with great attention, saying: “Everything is good, Boryushka: both good and bad are good. From bad man it becomes stronger, from good shower it blooms ”.

After eating, Borka pushed the plate away from him: “Delicious jelly today! Did you eat, grandma? " “I ate, ate,” the grandmother nodded. “Don't worry about me, Boryushka, thank you, I'm well fed and healthy.”

A comrade came to Borka. The comrade said: "Hello, grandmother!" Borka cheerfully nudged him with his elbow: “Come on, let's go! You don't have to say hello to her. She is an old woman with us. " The grandmother tugged at her jacket, straightened her handkerchief and quietly moved her lips: "To offend - what to hit, to caress - you need to look for words."

And in the next room, a comrade said to Borka: “And they always greet our grandmother. Both ours and others. She is our main one. " "How is it - the main one?" - Borka got interested. “Well, the old one ... raised everyone. She must not be offended. And what are you with yours? Look, father will be warmed up for this. " “It won't get warm! - Borka frowned. "He himself does not greet her ..."

After this conversation, Borka often asked the grandmother for no reason: "Are we offending you?" And he said to his parents: "Our grandmother is the best, but lives the worst - no one cares about her." The mother was surprised, and the father was angry: “Who taught you to judge your parents? Look at me - it's still small! "

The grandmother, smiling softly, shook her head: “You fools, you should be happy. For you, the son is growing! I have outlived mine in the world, and your old age is ahead. What you kill, you will not return. "

* * *

Borka was generally interested in grandma's face... There were various wrinkles on this face: deep, fine, thin as threads, and wide, dug over the years. “Why are you so painted? Very old? " He asked. The grandmother thought about it. “By wrinkles, my dear, human life, like a book, can be read. Grief and need have signed here. She buried her children, cried - wrinkles lay on her face. I endured need, struggled - again wrinkles. My husband was killed in the war - there were many tears, many wrinkles remained. Big rain and that digs holes in the ground. "

Borka listened and looked with fear in the mirror: how little he roared in his life - could the whole face be tightened with such threads? “You go, grandma! He grumbled. - You always talk nonsense ... "

* * *

Recently, the grandmother suddenly hunched over, her back became round, she walked quieter and kept sitting down. “It grows into the ground,” the father joked. “Don't laugh at the old man,” the mother was offended. And she said to my grandmother in the kitchen: “What is it, you, mom, are you moving around the room like a turtle? You will send you for something and you will not wait back. "

My grandmother died before the May holiday. She died alone, sitting in a chair with knitting in her hands: an unfinished sock lay on her knees, a ball of thread on the floor. She was apparently waiting for Borka. There was a ready-made device on the table.

The next day, the grandmother was buried.

Returning from the yard, Borka found his mother sitting in front of an open chest. Junk was piled on the floor. It smelled of stale things. The mother took out the crumpled red shoe and gently smoothed it out with her fingers. “Mine is still,” she said, and bent low over the chest. - My..."

At the very bottom of the chest, a box rattled - the same treasured one, into which Borka always wanted to look. The box was opened. The father took out a tight package: it contained warm mittens for Borka, socks for his son-in-law and a sleeveless jacket for his daughter. They were followed by an embroidered shirt made of old faded silk - also for Borka. In the very corner lay a bag of candy, tied with a red ribbon. Something was written on the packet in large block letters. Father turned it over in his hands, screwed up his eyes and read out loud: "To my grandson Boryushka."

Borka suddenly turned pale, snatched the package from him and ran out into the street. There, sitting at the gates of others, he peered for a long time at the grandmother's scribbles: "To my grandson Boryushka." There were four sticks in the "w". "I have not learned!" - thought Borka. How many times did he explain to her that there are three sticks in the letter "w" ... And suddenly, as if alive, a grandmother stood in front of him - quiet, guilty, who had not learned her lesson. Borka looked around in confusion at his house and, holding a bag in his hand, wandered down the street along someone else's long fence ...

He came home late in the evening; his eyes were swollen with tears, fresh clay stuck to his knees. He put Babkin's bag under his pillow and, covering his head with a blanket, thought: "Grandma won't come in the morning!"

(V.Oseeva "Grandma")

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

Foolish Frenchman

The clown from the Ginz brothers' circus, Henry Purkua, went to the Testov tavern in Moscow for breakfast.

Give me a consommé! - he ordered the sex worker.

Would you like to order with poached or not poached?

No, it's too satisfying with poached ... Two or three croutons, perhaps, give it ...

While waiting for the consommé to be served, Purqua began to watch. The first thing that caught his eye was some plump, handsome gentleman who was sitting at the next table and getting ready to eat pancakes.

"How, however, a lot is served in Russian restaurants!" Thought the Frenchman, watching as his neighbor poured hot butter on his pancakes. "Five pancakes! How can one person eat so much dough?"

Meanwhile, the neighbor anointed the pancakes with caviar, cut them all into halves and swallowed them in less than five minutes ...

Chelaek! - he turned to the sex. - Serve another portion! What kind of portions do you have? Give me ten or fifteen at once! Give me a balyk ... salmon, or something!

"Strange ... - thought Purkua, examining his neighbor.

I ate five pieces of dough and asks for more! However, such phenomena are not uncommon ... I myself had an uncle François in Brittany, who ate two bowls of soup and five lamb cutlets for a bet ... They say that there are also diseases when they eat a lot ... "

The sex worker put a mountain of pancakes and two plates with balyk and salmon in front of the neighbor. The good-looking gentleman drank a glass of vodka, ate some salmon and set to work on pancakes. To Purqua's great surprise, he ate them in a hurry, barely chewing, like a hungry ...

"Obviously sick ..." thought the Frenchman. "And is he, an eccentric, imagining that he will eat this whole mountain? He will not eat even three pieces, his stomach will already be full, and he will have to pay for the whole mountain!"

Give me some more caviar! - shouted a neighbor, wiping his oily lips with a napkin. - Don't forget the green onions!

“But ... however, half of the mountain is gone!” The clown was horrified. , but he cannot stretch beyond the belly ... If we had this gentleman in France, he would have been shown for money ... God, there is no longer a mountain! "

Will you serve a bottle of Nui ... - said the neighbor, taking caviar and onions from the genital - Just warm it up first ... What else? Perhaps give me another portion of pancakes ... Hurry, just ...

Listen ... And after the pancakes, what do you want?

Something easier ... Order a portion of the village sturgeon in Russian and ... and ... I'll think, go!

“Maybe I’m dreaming?” The clown was amazed, leaning back in his chair. “This man wants to die. You cannot eat such a mass with impunity. seems suspicious that he eats so much?

Purkua called the man who served at the next table to him and asked in a whisper:

Listen, why are you giving him so much?

That is, uh ... uh ... they demand, sir! How not to serve it, sir? - the sexual one was surprised.

Strange, but in this way he can sit here until evening and demand! If you yourself do not have the courage to refuse him, then report to the maitre d ', invite the police!

The genital grinned, shrugged, and walked away.

"Savages!" The Frenchman was indignant to himself. "They are still glad that there is a madman at the table, a suicide who can eat for an extra ruble! Nothing that a man would die, there would only be a profit!"

Orders, nothing to say! - grumbled a neighbor, referring to the Frenchman.

I am terribly annoyed by these long intermissions! From portion to portion, if you please wait half an hour! That way, your appetite will go to hell and you will be late ... It's three o'clock, and by five I have to be at the anniversary dinner.

Pardon, monsieur, - Purkua turned pale, - you are already dining!

No-no ... What kind of lunch is this? It's breakfast ... pancakes ...

Then a villager was brought to a neighbor. He poured himself a plate full of cayenne pepper and began to sip ...

"Poor fellow ..." the French continued to be horrified. "Either he is sick and does not notice his dangerous state, or he does all this on purpose ... with the intent of suicide ... My God, I know that I will stumble upon such picture, I would never come here! My nerves can not stand such scenes! "

And the Frenchman regretfully began to examine the face of his neighbor, every minute expecting that he was about to start convulsions, which Uncle François always had after a dangerous bet ...

"Apparently, he is an intelligent, young man ... full of strength ..." he thought, looking at his neighbor. "Perhaps he benefits his fatherland ... and it is quite possible that he has a young wife, children ... Judging by his clothes, he must be rich, contented ... but what makes him decide to take such a step? .. And could he really not have chosen another way to die? The devil knows how cheap life is! I, sitting here and not going to help him! Perhaps he can still be saved! "

Purkua got up resolutely from the table and walked over to his neighbor.

Listen, monsieur, - he addressed him in a quiet, insinuating voice. - I have no honor to know you, but nevertheless, believe me, I am your friend ... Can I help you with something? Remember, you are still young ... you have a wife, children ...

I do not understand! - the neighbor shook his head, staring at the Frenchman.

Ah, why be secretive, monsieur? After all, I can see perfectly! You eat so much that ... it's hard not to suspect ...

I eat a lot?! - the neighbor was surprised. -- I AM?! Completeness ... How can I not eat if I haven't eaten anything since the morning?

But you eat an awful lot!

Why, it’s not for you to pay! What are you worried about? And I don't eat much at all! Look, I eat like everyone else!

Purkua looked around him and was horrified. The sexes, pushing and flying over each other, wore whole mountains of pancakes ... People sat at the tables and ate mountains of pancakes, salmon, caviar ... with the same appetite and fearlessness as the noble gentleman.

"Oh, wonderland! - thought Purqua, leaving the restaurant. - Not only the climate, but even their stomachs do wonders for them! Oh, country, wonderful country!"

Irina Pivovarova

Spring rain

I didn't want to learn my lessons yesterday. There was such a sun outside! Such a warm yellow sun! Such branches swayed outside the window! .. I wanted to reach out and touch each sticky green leaf. Oh, how your hands will smell! And the fingers stick together - you can't pull them apart ... No, I didn't want to learn my lessons.

I went outside. The sky above me was fast. Clouds were hurrying over it somewhere, and sparrows were chirping terribly loudly in the trees, and a big fluffy cat was basking on the bench, and it was so good that spring!

I walked in the yard until the evening, and in the evening mom and dad went to the theater, and I, without having done my homework, went to bed.

The morning was dark, so dark that I didn't want to get up at all. This is always the case. If it's sunny, I immediately jump up. I dress quickly, quickly. And coffee is delicious, and mom does not grumble, and dad jokes. And when the morning is like today, I barely dress, my mother urges me on and gets angry. And when I have breakfast, my dad makes comments to me that I am sitting crookedly at the table.

On the way to school, I remembered that I had not done a single lesson, and this made me even worse. Without looking at Lyuska, I sat down at my desk and took out my textbooks.

Vera Yevstigneevna came in. The lesson began. They will call me now.

- Sinitsyna, to the blackboard!

I shuddered. Why should I go to the blackboard?

- I haven't learned, ”I said.

Vera Evstigneevna was surprised and gave me a bad mark.

Why is my life so bad in the world ?! I'd rather take it and die. Then Vera Evstigneevna will regret giving me a bad mark. And mom and dad will cry and say to everyone:

"Oh, why did we go to the theater ourselves, but we left her all alone!"

Suddenly they pushed me in the back. I turned around. They put a note in my hands. I unrolled a long narrow paper ribbon and read:

“Lucy!

Do not despair !!!

Deuce is nothing !!!

You will fix the deuce!

I will help you! Let's be friends with you! Only this is a secret! Not a word to anyone !!!

Yalo-kvo-kyl ".

It was as if something warm was poured into me right away. I was so happy that I even laughed. Lyuska looked at me, then at the note and proudly turned away.

Did someone write this to me? Or maybe this note is not for me? Maybe she's Lyuska? But on the back there was: LYUSE SINITSYNOY.

What a wonderful note! I have never received such wonderful notes in my life! Of course, a deuce is nothing! What are you talking about?! I'll just fix it!

I read twenty times again:

"Let's be friends with you ..."

Well, of course! Of course, let's be friends! Let's be friends with you !! Please! Very happy! I love it terribly when they want to be friends with me! ..

But who writes this? Some kind of YALO-KVO-KYL. An incomprehensible word. I wonder what it means? And why does this YALO-KVO-KYL want to be friends with me? .. Maybe I'm still beautiful?

I looked at my desk. There was nothing beautiful.

He probably wanted to be friends with me, because I'm good. What, am I bad, or what? Of course it's good! After all, no one wants to be friends with a bad person!

To celebrate, I nudged Lyuska with my elbow.

- Lucy, and one person wants to be friends with me!

- Who? - immediately asked Lyuska.

- I don’t know who. It is somehow incomprehensibly written here.

- Show me, I'll sort it out.

- Honestly, won't you tell anyone?

- Honestly!

Lyuska read the note and curled her lips:

- Some fool wrote! Couldn't tell my real name.

- Or maybe he is shy?

I looked around the whole class. Who could have written the note? Well, who? .. It would be nice, Kolya Lykov! He's the smartest in our class. Everyone wants to be friends with him. But I have so many triplets! No, he is unlikely.

Or maybe it was Yurka Seliverstov who wrote it? .. No, we are already friends with him. He would have sent me a note for no reason!

At recess, I went out into the corridor. I stood at the window and waited. It would be good if this YALO-KVO-KYL made friends with me right now!

Pavlik Ivanov left the classroom and immediately went to me.

So Pavlik wrote this? Only this was not enough!

Pavlik ran up to me and said:

- Sinitsyna, give me ten kopecks.

I gave him ten kopecks to get him off the hook as soon as possible. Pavlik immediately ran to the sideboard, and I remained at the window. But no one else came up.

Suddenly Burakov began to walk past me. It seemed to me that he was looking at me in a strange way. He stopped beside him and began to look out the window. So Burakov wrote the note ?! Then I'd better leave right away. I can't stand this Burakov!

- The weather is awful, - said Burakov.

I did not have time to leave.

- Yes, the weather is bad, ”I said.

- The weather cannot be worse, ”said Burakov.

- Terrible weather, ”I said.

Then Burakov took an apple out of his pocket and bit off half with a crunch.

- Burakov, give me a bite, - I could not resist.

- And it is bitter, - said Burakov and walked down the corridor.

No, he didn't write the note. And thank God! You will not find the second such greedy person in the whole world!

I looked after him contemptuously and went into class. I walked in and was stunned. On the blackboard was written in huge letters:

SECRET!!! YALO-KVO-KYL + SINITSYNA = LOVE !!! NOT A WORD TO ANYONE!

Lyuska was whispering with the girls in the corner. When I entered, they all stared at me and began to giggle.

I grabbed a rag and rushed to dry the board.

Then Pavlik Ivanov jumped up to me and whispered in my ear:

- I wrote this note to you.

- You're lying, not you!

Then Pavlik laughed like a fool and shouted to the whole class:

- Oh, hilarious! Why be friends with you ?! All freckled like a cuttlefish! Stupid tit!

And then, before I had time to look around, Yurka Seliverstov jumped up to him and hit this blockhead with a wet rag right on the head. Pavlik howled:

- Ah well! I'll tell everyone! I'll tell everyone, everyone, everyone about her, how she gets the notes! And I'll tell everyone about you! You sent her a note! - And he ran out of the class with a stupid cry: - Yalo-kvo-kyl! Yalo-kvokyl!

The lessons are over. Nobody came up to me. Everyone quickly collected their textbooks, and the class was empty. We were alone with Kolya Lykov. Kolya still could not tie the lace on his boot.

The door creaked. Yurka Seliverstov stuck his head into the classroom, looked at me, then at Kolya and, without saying anything, left.

But what if? What if Kolya wrote it all the same? Is it really Kolya ?! What happiness if Kolya! My throat immediately went dry.

- Kohl, tell me, please, - I barely squeezed out of myself, - it's not you, by chance ...

I didn’t finish, because I suddenly saw Colina’s ears and neck become flushed.

- Oh you! - said Kolya, not looking at me. - I thought you ... And you ...

- Kolya! I shouted. - So I ...

- You are a chatterbox, that's who, - said Kolya. - Your tongue is like a broom. And I don’t want to be friends with you anymore. What else was missing!

Kolya finally coped with the lace, got up and left the classroom. And I sat down in my place.

I'm not going anywhere. It's raining so badly outside the window. And my fate is so bad, so bad, that it could not be worse! So I will sit here until the night. And I will sit at night. One in a dark classroom, one in the whole dark school. Serves me right.

Aunt Nyura came in with a bucket.

- Go home, dear, ”said Aunt Nyura. - At home, the mother was tired of waiting.

- Nobody was waiting for me at home, Aunt Nyura, - I said and trudged out of the class.

Bad fate of mine! Lyuska is no longer my friend. Vera Evstigneevna gave me a bad mark. Kolya Lykov ... I didn't even want to remember Kolya Lykov.

I slowly put on my coat in the locker room and, barely dragging my feet, went out into the street ...

It was wonderful, the best spring rain in the world on the street !!!

Cheerful wet passers-by ran down the street with their collars up !!!

And on the porch, right in the rain, was Kolya Lykov.

- Come on, ”he said.

And we went.

Evgeny Nosov

Living flame

Aunt Olya looked into my room, again found it behind papers and, raising her voice, said imperiously:

Will write something! Go get some air, help to cut the flower bed. Aunt Olya took out a birch bark box from the closet. While I was happily kneading my back, beating the damp earth with a rake, she sat down on the heap and arranged the bags of flower seeds into different varieties.

Olga Petrovna, what is it, - I notice, - you are not sowing poppies in the flower beds?

Well, what is the color of the poppies! - she answered with conviction. - It's a vegetable. It is sown in the beds along with onions and cucumbers.

What do you! I laughed. - Another old song is sung:

And her forehead, like marble, is white. And cheeks burn like poppies.

It only happens in color for two days, - Olga Petrovna persisted. - For a flower bed, this does not fit in any way, he puffed and immediately burned out. And then all summer this same beater sticks out and only spoils the view.

But I still secretly poured a pinch of poppy into the very middle of the flower bed. After a few days, she turned green.

Have you sowed the poppies? - Aunt Olya approached me. - Oh, you are such a mischievous person! So be it, I left the top three, I felt sorry for you. And the rest were weeded out.

Suddenly I left on business and did not return until two weeks later. After a hot, exhausting journey, it was pleasant to enter the quiet old house of Aunt Olya. The freshly washed floor felt cool. A jasmine bush growing under the window dropped a lace shadow on the writing table.

Pour kvass? she suggested, looking at me sympathetically, sweaty and tired. - Alyoshka was very fond of kvass. Sometimes he himself bottled and sealed

When I was renting this room, Olga Petrovna, looking up at the portrait of a young man in flight uniform that hangs above the desk, asked:

Not prevent?

What do you!

This is my son Alexey. And the room was his. Well, you settle down, live in good health.

Serving me a heavy copper mug with kvass, Aunt Olya said:

And your poppies have risen, they have already thrown away the buds. I went to look at the flowers. In the center of the flower bed, above all the floral diversity, my poppies rose, throwing out three tight, heavy buds towards the sun.

They blossomed the next day.

Aunt Olya went out to water the flower bed, but returned immediately, thundering with an empty watering can.

Well, go look, they bloomed.

From a distance, the poppies looked like lighted torches with tongues of flame living cheerfully blazing in the wind. A light wind slightly swayed them, the sun pierced the translucent scarlet petals with light, which caused the poppies to flare up with a vibrantly bright fire, then filled with a thick crimson. It seemed that one had only to touch - they would immediately scorch!

The poppies were on fire for two days. And at the end of the second day they suddenly crumbled and went out. And immediately the lush flowerbed became empty without them.

I picked up a petal from the ground, still quite fresh, in drops of dew, and spread it in the palm of my hand.

That's all, ”I said loudly, with a feeling of admiration that had not yet cooled down.

Yes, it burned out ... - Aunt Olya sighed, as if for a living creature. - And somehow I didn’t pay attention to this poppy before… His life is short. But without looking back, in full force lived. And it happens with people ...

I now live on the other side of the city and occasionally stop by to see Aunt Olya. I recently visited her again. We sat at a summer table, drank tea, shared news. A large carpet of poppies blazed on the flowerbed nearby. Some crumbled, dropping petals to the ground, like sparks, others only opened their fiery tongues. And from below, from the moist earth full of vitality, more and more tightly folded buds rose to prevent the living fire from extinguishing.

Ilya Turchin

Extreme case

And so Ivan reached Berlin, carrying freedom on his mighty shoulders. In his hands was an inseparable friend - an automatic machine. In the bosom - the edge of the mother's bread. So he saved the edge to Berlin.

On May 9, 1945, the defeated Nazi Germany surrendered. The guns fell silent. The tanks stopped. The air raid signals went off.

It became quiet on the ground.

And people heard the wind rustling, grass growing, birds singing.

At this hour, Ivan got to one of the Berlin squares, where a house set on fire by the Nazis was still burning down.

The square was empty.

And suddenly a little girl came out of the basement of the burning house. She had thin legs and a face darkened from grief and hunger. Stepping unsteadily on the sun-drenched asphalt, helplessly stretching out her hands as if she were blind, the girl went to meet Ivan. And so small and helpless she seemed to Ivan on the huge empty, as if extinct, square that he stopped, and his heart was gripped by pity.

Ivan took out a precious edge from his bosom, squatted down and handed the girl some bread. The edge has never been so warm. So fresh. I have never smelled so much of rye flour, fresh milk, kind mother's hands.

The girl smiled, and her slender fingers clutched at the hem.

Ivan carefully lifted the girl from the scorched earth.

And at that moment the terrible, overgrown Fritz - the Red Fox - looked out from around the corner. What was it to him that the war was over! Only one thought was spinning in his dim fascist head: "Find and kill Ivan!"

And here he is, Ivan, in the square, here is his broad back.

Fritz - The Red Fox pulled out a filthy pistol with a crooked muzzle from under his jacket and fired treacherously from around the corner.

The bullet hit Ivan in the heart.

Ivan shuddered. He staggered. But he did not fall - he was afraid to drop the girl. I just felt my legs pouring with heavy metal. Boots, cloak, face became bronze. Bronze - a girl in his arms. Bronze - a formidable machine gun behind mighty shoulders.

A tear rolled from the girl's bronze cheek, hit the ground and turned into a glittering sword. The bronze Ivan took hold of his handle.

Shouted Fritz - Red Fox from horror and fear. The burnt wall trembled with a scream, collapsed and buried him underneath ...

And at the same moment the edge that remained with the mother also became bronze. The mother understood that she was in trouble with her son. She rushed into the street, ran where her heart led.

People ask her:

Where are you in a hurry?

To my son. My son is in trouble!

And they took her by car and by train, by steamer and by plane. Mother quickly got to Berlin. She went out to the square. I saw the bronze son - her legs gave way. Mother fell to her knees, and she froze in her eternal grief.

Bronze Ivan with a bronze girl in his arms still stands in the city of Berlin - is visible to the whole world. And if you look closely, you will notice a bronze edge of the mother's bread between the girl and Ivan's broad chest.

And if enemies attack our homeland, Ivan will come to life, carefully put the girl on the ground, raise his formidable machine gun and - woe to the enemies!

Valentina Oseeva

Grandma

The grandmother was fat, wide, with a soft, melodious voice. "She filled the whole apartment with herself! .." - Borkin's father grumbled. And his mother timidly objected to him: "Old man ... Where can she go?" "I got caught up in the world ..." sighed my father. “She has a place in the invalid home - that's where!”

Everyone in the house, not excluding Borka, looked at the grandmother as a completely superfluous person.

Grandma slept on the trunk. All night she tossed heavily from side to side, and in the morning she got up before everyone else and rattled dishes in the kitchen. Then she woke up her son-in-law and daughter: “The samovar is ripe. Get up! Drink something hot on the track ... "

She approached Borka: "Get up, my dear, it's time to go to school!" "Why?" - Borka asked in a sleepy voice. “Why go to school? The dark man is deaf and dumb - that's why! "

Borka hid his head under the blanket: "You go, grandma ..."

In the entryway, my father shuffled with a broom. “Where did you, mother, put your galoshes? Every time you poke at all corners because of them! "

Grandma was in a hurry to help him. “Yes, here they are, Petrusha, in plain sight. Yesterday they were very dirty, I washed them and put them on. "

Borka came from school, threw a coat and a hat on his grandmother's hands, threw a bag with books on the table and shouted: "Grandma, eat!"

The grandmother hid her knitting, hastily set the table and, crossing her arms on her stomach, watched Borka eat. During these hours, somehow unwittingly, Borka felt his grandmother as his close friend. He willingly told her about his lessons, comrades. Grandma listened to him lovingly, with great attention, saying: “Everything is good, Boryushka: both good and bad are good. A bad person makes him stronger, a good soul blooms in him. "

After eating, Borka pushed the plate away from him: “Delicious jelly today! Did you eat, grandma? " “I ate, ate,” the grandmother nodded. “Don't worry about me, Boryushka, thank you, I'm well fed and healthy.”

A comrade came to Borka. The comrade said: "Hello, grandmother!" Borka cheerfully nudged him with his elbow: “Come on, let's go! You don't have to say hello to her. She is an old woman with us. " The grandmother tugged at her jacket, straightened her handkerchief and quietly moved her lips: "To offend - what to hit, to caress - you need to look for words."

And in the next room, a comrade said to Borka: “And they always greet our grandmother. Both ours and others. She is our main one. " "How is it - the main one?" - Borka got interested. “Well, the old one ... raised everyone. She must not be offended. And what are you with yours? Look, father will be warmed up for this. " “It won't get warm! - Borka frowned. "He himself does not greet her ..."

After this conversation, Borka often asked the grandmother for no reason: "Are we offending you?" And he said to his parents: "Our grandmother is the best, but lives the worst - no one cares about her." The mother was surprised, and the father was angry: “Who taught you to judge your parents? Look at me - it's still small! "

The grandmother, smiling softly, shook her head: “You fools, you should be happy. For you, the son is growing! I have outlived mine in the world, and your old age is ahead. What you kill, you will not return. "

* * *

Borka was generally interested in grandma's face. There were various wrinkles on this face: deep, fine, thin as threads, and wide, dug over the years. “Why are you so painted? Very old? " He asked. The grandmother thought about it. “By wrinkles, my dear, human life, like a book, can be read. Grief and need have signed here. She buried her children, cried - wrinkles lay on her face. I endured need, struggled - again wrinkles. My husband was killed in the war - there were many tears, many wrinkles remained. Big rain and that digs holes in the ground. "

Borka listened and looked with fear in the mirror: how little he roared in his life - could the whole face be tightened with such threads? “You go, grandma! He grumbled. - You always talk nonsense ... "

* * *

Recently, the grandmother suddenly hunched over, her back became round, she walked quieter and kept sitting down. “It grows into the ground,” the father joked. “Don't laugh at the old man,” the mother was offended. And she said to my grandmother in the kitchen: “What is it, you, mom, are you moving around the room like a turtle? You will send you for something and you will not wait back. "

My grandmother died before the May holiday. She died alone, sitting in a chair with knitting in her hands: an unfinished sock lay on her knees, a ball of thread on the floor. She was apparently waiting for Borka. There was a ready-made device on the table.

The next day, the grandmother was buried.

Returning from the yard, Borka found his mother sitting in front of an open chest. Junk was piled on the floor. It smelled of stale things. The mother took out the crumpled red shoe and gently smoothed it out with her fingers. “Mine is still,” she said, and bent low over the chest. - My..."

At the very bottom of the chest, a box rattled - the same treasured one, into which Borka always wanted to look. The box was opened. The father took out a tight package: it contained warm mittens for Borka, socks for his son-in-law and a sleeveless jacket for his daughter. They were followed by an embroidered shirt made of old faded silk - also for Borka. In the very corner lay a bag of candy, tied with a red ribbon. Something was written on the packet in large block letters. Father turned it over in his hands, screwed up his eyes and read out loud: "To my grandson Boryushka."

Borka suddenly turned pale, snatched the package from him and ran out into the street. There, sitting at the gates of others, he peered for a long time at the grandmother's scribbles: "To my grandson Boryushka." There were four sticks in the "w". "I have not learned!" - thought Borka. How many times did he explain to her that there are three sticks in the letter "w" ... And suddenly, as if alive, a grandmother stood in front of him - quiet, guilty, who had not learned her lesson. Borka looked around in confusion at his house and, holding a bag in his hand, wandered down the street along someone else's long fence ...

He came home late in the evening; his eyes were swollen with tears, fresh clay stuck to his knees. He put Babkin's bag under his pillow and, covering his head with a blanket, thought: "Grandma won't come in the morning!"

Tatiana Petrosyan

A note

The note had the most harmless appearance.

In it, according to all gentlemanly laws, an ink face and a friendly explanation should have been found: "Sidorov is a goat."

So Sidorov, not suspecting that he was thin, instantly unfolded the message ... and was dumbfounded. Inside it was written in large, beautiful handwriting: "Sidorov, I love you!" In the roundness of his handwriting, Sidorov felt a mockery. Who wrote this to him? Squinting, he looked around the classroom. The author of the note was bound to reveal himself. But Sidorov's main enemies this time for some reason did not grin maliciously. (As they usually grinned. But this time - no.)

But Sidorov immediately noticed that Vorobyov was looking at him without blinking. It doesn't just look like that, but with meaning!

There was no doubt: she wrote the note. But then it turns out that Vorobyova loves him ?! And then Sidorov's thought came to a dead end and began to hammer helplessly, like a fly in a glass. WHAT DOES LOVE MEAN ??? What consequences will this entail and how can Sidorov be now? ..

"Let's reason logically," Sidorov reasoned logically. "For example, what do I love? Pears! I love - it means I always want to eat ..."

At this moment, Vorobyova turned back to him and licked her lips bloodthirsty. Sidorov froze. He was struck by her long not trimmed ... well, yes, real claws! For some reason, I remembered how in the buffet Vorobyova eagerly gnawed at a bony chicken leg ...

"We need to pull ourselves together," Sidorov pulled himself together. (Hands turned out to be dirty. But Sidorov ignored the little things.) "I love not only pears, but also my parents. However, there can be no question of eating them. Mom. bakes sweet pies. Dad often wears me around his neck. And I love them for that ... "

Then Vorobyova turned around again, and Sidorov thought with longing that now he would have to bake sweet pies for her day-and-day and wear it around his neck to school in order to justify such a sudden and insane love. He looked closely and found that Vorobyova was not thin and it would be difficult to wear her.

"All is not lost yet," Sidorov did not give up. "I also love our dog Bobik. Especially when I train him or take him out for a walk ..." and then he will take you out for a walk, holding tightly to the leash and not allowing you to deviate either to the right or to the left ...

"... I love the cat Murka, especially when you blow right into her ear ..." Sidorov thought in despair, "no, that's not that ... I like to catch flies and put them in a glass ... but that's too much ... I love toys that you can break and see what's inside ... "

The last thought made Sidorov feel bad. There was only one salvation. He hastily tore out a sheet of paper from his notebook, compressed his lips decisively and in a firm hand wrote out the menacing words: "Vorobyova, I love you too." Let her get scared.

Hans Christian Andersen

Match Girl

How cold it was that evening! It was snowing and dusk deepened. And the evening was the last of the year - New Year's Eve. In this cold and dark time, a little beggar girl wandered through the streets with bare head and barefoot. True, she came out of the house shod, but was there much use in huge old shoes?

These shoes were worn by her mother before - that was how big they were - and the girl lost them today when she ran across the road, frightened by two carriages, which were racing at full speed. She did not find one shoe, the other was dragged away by some boy, saying that it would make an excellent cradle for his future children.

The little girl was now walking barefoot, and her legs turned red and blue from the cold. There were several packs of sulfur matches in the pocket of her old apron, and she was holding one pack in her hand. She didn’t sell a single match that day, and she didn’t get a penny. She wandered hungry and chilled and was so exhausted, poor thing!

Snowflakes sat on her long blond curls, which were beautifully scattered over her shoulders, but she really did not even suspect that they were beautiful. Light was pouring from all the windows, and the street smelled deliciously of fried goose - after all, it was New Year's Eve. That's what she was thinking!

Finally, the girl found a corner behind the ledge of the house. Then she sat down and cowered, tucking her legs under her. But she felt even colder, and she did not dare to return home: after all, she had not managed to sell a single match, she had not gained a penny, and she knew that for this her father would beat her; besides, she thought, it's cold at home too; they live in the attic, where the wind blows, although the largest cracks in the walls are plugged with straw and rags. Her hands were completely numb. Oh, how the light of a small match would have warmed them! If only she dared to pull out a match, strike it against the wall and warm her fingers! The girl timidly pulled out one match and ... a teal! How the match flared, how brightly it lit up!

The girl covered it with her hand, and the match began to burn with an even light flame, like a tiny candle. Amazing candle! The girl thought she was sitting in front of a large iron stove with shiny copper balls and shutters. How gloriously the fire burns in her, how warm it blows from him! But what is it? The girl stretched her legs towards the fire to warm them - and suddenly ... the flame went out, the stove disappeared, and the girl had a burnt match in her hand.

She struck another match, the match lit up, lit up, and when its reflection fell on the wall, the wall became transparent, like muslin. The girl saw a room in front of her, and in it a table covered with a snow-white tablecloth and lined with expensive china; on the table, spreading a wonderful aroma, there was a dish with a fried goose stuffed with prunes and apples! And the most wonderful thing was that the goose suddenly jumped off the table and, as it was, with a fork and a knife in its back, waddled along the floor. He walked straight to the poor girl, but ... the match went out, and an impenetrable, cold, damp wall again stood in front of the poor girl.

The girl lit another match. Now she sat in front of a luxurious

Christmas tree. This tree was much taller and more elegant than the one that the girl saw on Christmas Eve, when she went up to the house of a wealthy merchant and looked through the window. Thousands of candles burned on her green branches, and the colorful pictures that adorn shop windows looked at the girl. The baby stretched out her hands to them, but ... the match went out. The lights began to go higher and higher and soon turned into clear stars. One of them rolled across the sky, leaving a long trail of fire behind it.

"Someone has died," thought the girl, because her recently deceased old grandmother, who alone in the whole world loved her, told her more than once: "When an asterisk falls, someone's soul flies to God."

The girl again struck a match against the wall and, when everything around was lit up, she saw in this radiance her old grandmother, so quiet and enlightened, so kind and affectionate.

Grandma, - exclaimed the girl, - take, take me to you! I know that you will leave when the match goes out, disappear like a warm stove, like a delicious roast goose and wonderful big tree!

And she hastily struck all the matches that remained in the pack — that's how she wanted to keep her grandmother! And the matches flashed so blindingly that it became brighter than day. During her lifetime, my grandmother was never so beautiful, so dignified. She took the girl in her arms, and, illuminated with light and joy, both of them ascended high, high - where there is no hunger, no cold, no fear - they ascended to God.

On a frosty morning, behind the ledge of the house, they found a girl: a blush played on her cheeks, a smile on her lips, but she was dead; she froze on the last evening of the old year. The New Year's sun lit up the dead body of a girl with matches; she burned almost a whole packet.

The girl wanted to warm up, people said. And no one knew what miracles she saw, among what beauty they, together with their grandmother, met New Year's Happiness.

Irina Pivovarova

What my head thinks about

If you think that I am a good student, you are wrong. I do not study well. For some reason, everyone thinks that I am capable, but lazy. I don’t know if I’m capable or not. But only I know for sure that I am not lazy. I sit for three hours on tasks.

For example, now I am sitting and I want to solve the problem with all my might. And she does not dare. I tell my mom:

- Mom, my problem is not working.

- Don't be lazy, says mom. - Think carefully, and everything will work out. Just think carefully!

She leaves on business. And I take my head with both hands and say to her:

- Think head. Think well ... "From point A to point B two pedestrians came out ..." Head, why don't you think? Well, head, well, think, please! Well what do you need!

A cloud is floating outside the window. It is light as fluff. Here it stopped. No, it floats on.

Head, what are you thinking ?! Aren `t you ashamed!!! "Two pedestrians left point A to point B ..." Lyuska, probably, also left. She is already walking. If she came to me first, I would, of course, forgive her. But does she fit, such a mischief ?!

"... From point A to point B ..." No, it will not work. On the contrary, when I go out into the yard, she will take Lena's arm and whisper to her. Then she will say: "Len, come to me, I have something." They will leave, and then sit on the windowsill and laugh and gnaw seeds.

“… Two pedestrians left point A to point B…” And what will I do? .. And then I will call Kolya, Petka and Pavlik to play rounders. And what will she do? Yeah, she's putting on the Three Fat Men. Yes, so loud that Kolya, Petka and Pavlik will hear and run to ask her to let them listen. They listened a hundred times, everything is not enough for them! And then Lyuska will close the window, and they will all listen to the record there.

"... From point A to point ... to point ..." And then I will take it and fill it with something directly into her window. Glass - ding! - and scatter. Let him know.

So. I'm tired of thinking. Think not think - the task does not work. It's just awful what a difficult task! I’ll take a little walk and start thinking again.

I closed the book and looked out the window. Lyuska alone was walking in the yard. She jumped into the classics. I went out into the yard and sat on a bench. Lyuska didn't even look at me.

- Earring! Vitka! - Lyuska shouted at once. - Let's go play rounders!

The Karmanov brothers looked out the window.

- We have a throat, ”both brothers said hoarsely. “They won't let us in.

- Lena! - Lyuska shouted. - Linen! Come out!

Instead of Lena, her grandmother looked out and shook her finger at Lyuska.

- Pavlik! - Lyuska shouted.

No one appeared in the window.

- Pe-et-ka-ah! - Luska sat down.

- Girl, what are you yelling at ?! - someone's head stuck out of the window. - A sick person is not allowed to rest! There is no rest from you! - And the head stuck back into the window.

Lyuska furtively looked at me and blushed like a cancer. She tugged at her pigtail. Then she took off the thread from the sleeve. Then she looked at the tree and said:

- Lucy, let's go to the classics.

- Come on, I said.

We jumped into the classics, and I went home to solve my problem.

As soon as I sat down at the table, my mother came:

- Well, how's the problem?

- Does not work.

- But you've been sitting over her for two hours already! It's just awful what it is! They ask the children some kind of puzzles! .. Come on, show your problem! Maybe I can do it? I still graduated from the institute. So. “Two pedestrians came out of point A to point B ...” Wait, wait, something is familiar to me! Listen, but you and dad decided it the last time! I remember perfectly!

- How? - I was surprised. - Really? Oh, really, because this is the forty-fifth problem, and we were asked the forty-sixth.

Then my mother was terribly angry.

- It's outrageous! - said my mother. - This is unheard of! This mess! Where is your head ?! What is she only thinking about ?!

Alexander Fadeev

Young Guard (Mother's Hands)

…Mother Mother! I remember your hands from the moment I began to recognize myself in the world. Over the summer they were always covered with a tan, it did not leave even in winter - it was so gentle, even, only slightly darker on the veins. And in the dark veins.

From the very moment when I became conscious of myself, and until the last minute, when you are exhausted, quietly, for the last time, put your head on my chest, escorting me into the difficult path of life, I always remember your hands in work. I remember how they scurried in soap suds washing my sheets, when these sheets were still so small that they did not look like diapers, and I remember how you in a sheepskin coat, in winter, carried buckets in a yoke, putting a small handle in a mitten on the front of the yoke, herself as small and fluffy as a mitten ... I see your fingers with slightly thickened joints on the primer, and I repeat after you: "Be-a-ba, ba-ba."

I remember how imperceptibly your hands could take a splinter out of your son's finger and how they instantly threaded a needle, when you sewed and sang - you sang only for yourself and for me. Because there is nothing in the world, no matter what your hands are able to do, what they cannot do, what they disdain.

But most of all, forever and ever, I remembered how tenderly they stroked your hands, a little rough and so warm and cool, how they stroked my hair, and neck, and chest, when I was half-conscious in bed. And whenever I opened my eyes, you were next to me, and the night light burned in the room, you looked at me with your sunken eyes, as if from darkness, all quiet, bright, as if in vestments. I kiss your pure, holy hands!

Look around you, young man, my friend, look around like me, and tell me who you hurt in life more than your mother - is it not from me, not from you, not from him, not from our failures, mistakes and not Do our mothers turn gray because of our grief? But the hour will come when all this will turn into a painful reproach to the heart at the mother's grave.

Mom, mom! .. Forgive me, because you are alone, only you in the world can forgive, put your hands on your head, as in childhood, and forgive ...

Victor Dragunsky

Deniskin's stories.

... would

Once I sat, sat and for no apparent reason suddenly thought of such a thing that I was even surprised myself. I figured out how nice it would be if everything around in the world were arranged the other way around. Well, for example, in order for children to be the main things in all matters, and adults would have to obey them in everything, in everything. In general, so that adults are like children, and children are like adults. That would be great, it would be very interesting.

Firstly, I imagine how my mother would “like” such a story, that I walk around and command it as I want, and dad would also “like it”, but there is nothing to say about my grandmother. Needless to say, I would have remembered everything to them! For example, my mother would sit at lunch, and I would tell her:

"Why did you start a fashion without bread to eat? Here's more news! Look at yourself in the mirror, who do you look like? Poured Koschey! Eat now, they tell you!" gave the command: "Faster! Do not hold your cheek! Are you thinking again? Do you solve world problems? Chew it properly! And do not swing in your chair!"

And then dad would come in after work, and he would not even have time to undress, and I would have shouted: "Aha, I have come! We must always wait for you! Wash your hands now! Properly, properly mine, there is nothing to smear the dirt. After you It's scary to look at the towel. With a brush three and do not regret washing. Come on, show your nails! This is horror, not nails. These are just claws! Where are the scissors? Do not twitch! I do not cut any meat, but I cut my hair very carefully. Do not squish your nose, you're not a girl ... That's it. Now sit down at the table. "

He would sit down and quietly say to his mother: "Well, how are you?" And she would also say quietly: "Nothing, thank you!" And I would immediately: "Conversations at the table! When I eat, I am deaf and dumb! Remember this for life. Golden rule! Dad! Put down the newspaper now, you are my punishment!"

And they would sit like silk with me, and when my grandmother came, I would squint my eyes, throw up my hands and shout: "Dad! Mom! Admire our granny! What a view! Chest is open, hat is on the back of the head! Cheeks are red, my whole neck is wet! Good, there's nothing to say. Admit it, I played hockey again! And what is that dirty stick? Why did you bring it into the house? What? This is a stick! Take it out of my eyes now - to the back door! "

Then I would walk around the room and say to all three of them: "After dinner, all sit down for lessons, and I'll go to the cinema!"

Of course, they would immediately whine and whimper: "And we are with you! And we also want to go to the cinema!"

And I would say to them: "Nothing, nothing! Yesterday we went to your birthday, on Sunday I took you to the circus! Look! I liked having fun every day. Sit at home! Here's thirty kopecks for ice cream, that's all!"

Then the grandmother would have prayed: "Take at least me something! After all, every child can take one adult with him for free!"

But I would have evaded, I would have said: "And people after seventy years of age are not allowed to enter this picture. Stay at home, gulena!"

And I would have walked past them, deliberately tapping loudly with my heels, as if I did not notice that their eyes were all wet, and I would start getting dressed, and spin in front of the mirror for a long time, and hum, and this would make them even worse tormented, but I would open the door to the stairs and say ...

But I didn’t have time to think of what I would say, because at that time my mother came in, the most real, alive, and said:

You are still sitting. Eat now, see who you look like? Poured Koschey!

Lev Tolstoy

Little bird

Seryozha was a birthday boy, and they gave him many different gifts: tops, horses, and pictures. But Uncle Seryozha presented a net to catch birds more expensive than all the gifts.

The grid is made in such a way that a plate is attached to the frame, and the grid is folded back. Put the seed on a plank and put it out in the yard. A bird will fly in, sit on the board, the board will turn up, and the net will slam shut itself.

Seryozha was delighted and ran to his mother to show the net. Mother says:

– The toy is not good. What do you need birds for? Why are you going to torture them?

– I'll put them in cages. They will sing and I will feed them!

Seryozha took out a seed, poured it on a board and put the net in the garden. And he stood still, waiting for the birds to arrive. But the birds were afraid of him and did not fly to the net.

Seryozha went to dinner and left the net. I looked after dinner, the net was slammed shut, and a bird was beating under the net. Seryozha was delighted, caught the bird and carried it home.

– Mama! Look, I caught the bird, it’s right, a nightingale! And how his heart beats.

Mother said:

– This is a siskin. Look, don't torture him, but rather let him go.

– No, I will feed and water him. He put Seryozha a siskin in a cage, and for two days he poured seed on him, and put water, and cleaned the cage. On the third day, he forgot about the siskin and did not change his water. His mother says to him:

– You see, you forgot about your bird, you better let it go.

– No, I will not forget, I will now put on the water and clean the cage.

Seryozha thrust his hand into the cage, began to clean, and the siskin, frightened, beats against the cage. Seryozha cleaned out the cage and went to fetch water.

The mother saw that he had forgotten to close the cage, and shouted to him:

– Seryozha, close the cage, or your bird will fly out and die!

Before she had time to say, the siskin found the door, was delighted, dismissed its wings and flew through the upper room to the window, but did not see the glass, hit the glass and fell on the windowsill.

Seryozha came running, took the bird, carried it to the cage. Siskin was still alive, but he lay on his chest, spreading his wings, and breathing heavily. Seryozha looked, looked and began to cry:

– Mama! What should I do now?

– Now you can't do anything.

Seryozha did not leave the cage all day and kept looking at the siskin, but the siskin still lay on his chest and was breathing heavily and quickly. When Seryozha went to bed, the siskin was still alive. Seryozha could not sleep for a long time; every time he closed his eyes, he imagined a siskin, how it lies and breathes.

In the morning, when Seryozha approached the cage, he saw that the siskin was already lying on its back, clenched its legs and became numb.

Since then, Seryozha has never caught birds.

M. Zoshchenko

Find

Once Lelya and I took a box of chocolates and put a frog and a spider in it.

Then we wrapped this box in clean paper, tied it with a chic blue ribbon and put this bag on a panel opposite our garden. As if someone was walking and lost their purchase.

Putting this package near the curbstone, Lelya and I hid in the bushes of our garden and, choking with laughter, began to wait for what would happen.

And here comes a passer-by.

Seeing our package, he, of course, stops, rejoices, and even rubs his hands with pleasure. Still: he found a box of chocolates - this is not so often in this world.

With bated breath, Lelya and I are looking at what will happen next.

The passer-by bent down, took the package, quickly untied it and, seeing the beautiful box, was even more delighted.

And now the lid is open. And our frog, bored of sitting in the dark, jumps out of the box right onto the hand of a passer-by.

He gasps in surprise and tosses the box away from him.

Here Lelya and I began to laugh so hard that we fell on the grass.

And we laughed so loudly that the passerby turned in our direction and, seeing us behind the fence, immediately understood everything.

In an instant, he rushed to the fence, jumped over it in one fell swoop and rushed to us to teach us a lesson.

Lelya and I asked a snitch.

We screeched across the garden to the house.

But I stumbled over the garden bed and stretched out on the grass.

And then a passerby tore off my ear quite hard.

I screamed loudly. But the passer-by, giving me two more flip-flops, calmly left the garden.

Our parents came running to the scream and noise.

Holding my reddened ear and sobbing, I went up to my parents and complained to them about what had happened.

My mother wanted to call a janitor to catch up with a passerby and arrest him with the janitor.

And Lelya was already rushing after the janitor. But dad stopped her. And he said to her and my mother:

- Don't call the janitor. And there is no need to arrest a passer-by. Of course, it's not the case that he tore off Minka by the ears, but if I were a passer-by, I probably would have done the same.

Hearing these words, mom got angry with dad and said to him:

- You are a terrible selfish!

And Lelya and I were also angry with dad and did not say anything to him. I just rubbed my ear and cried. And Lelka whimpered too. And then my mom, taking me in her arms, said to dad:

- Instead of interceding for a passer-by and thus bringing the children to tears, you would better explain to them what is wrong with what they have done. Personally, I do not see this and I regard everything as an innocent child's play.

And dad couldn’t find an answer. He only said:

- Here children grow up big and someday they themselves will find out why it is bad.

Elena Ponomarenko

LENOCHKA

(Track "Search for the wounded" from the movie "Star")

Spring was filled with warmth and hubbub of rooks. It seemed that the war would end today. For four years now I have been at the front. Almost no one was left alive from the battalion's medical instructors.

My childhood somehow immediately passed into adulthood. In between battles, I often recalled school, waltz ... And the next morning, the war. The whole class decided to go to the front. But the girls were left at the hospital to take monthly courses of medical instructors.

When I arrived at the division, I had already seen the wounded. They said that these guys did not even have weapons: they were mined in battle. The first feeling of helplessness and fear I experienced in August 1941 ...

- Who are the guys alive? - making my way through the trenches, I asked, carefully peering into every meter of the ground. - Guys, who needs help? I turned over the dead bodies, they all looked at me, but no one asked for help, because they no longer heard. The artillery attack destroyed everyone ...

- Well, this cannot be, at least someone has to stay alive ?! Petya, Igor, Ivan, Alyoshka! - I crawled to the machine gun and saw Ivan.

- Vanechka! Ivan! - she screamed at the top of her lungs, but her body was already cold, only her blue eyes gazed motionlessly at the sky. Going down to the second trench, I heard a groan.

- Is there anyone alive? People, answer at least someone! I shouted again. The groan was repeated, indistinct, dull. She ran at a run past the dead bodies, looking for him, the survivor.

- Sweetheart! I'm here! I'm here!

And again she began to turn over everyone who got in the way.

– No! No! No! I will definitely find you! Just wait for me! Do not die! - and jumped into another trench.

Upward, a rocket took off, illuminating it. The groan was repeated somewhere very close.

- Then I will never forgive myself for not finding you, - I shouted and ordered myself: - Come on. Come on, listen! You will find it, you can! A little more - and the end of the trench. God, how scary! Faster Faster! "Lord, if you exist, help me find him!" - and I knelt down. I, a Komsomol member, asked the Lord for help ...

Was it a miracle, but the groan was repeated. Yes, he is at the very end of the trench!

- Hold on! - I shouted as best I could and literally burst into the dugout, covered with a raincoat-tent.

- Dear, alive! - hands worked quickly, realizing that he was no longer a tenant: a severe wound in the stomach. He held his insides with his hands.

- You have to deliver the package, ”he whispered softly, dying. I closed his eyes. Before me lay a very young lieutenant.

- But how is that ?! Which package? Where to? You didn't say where? You didn't say where! - Examining everything around, I suddenly saw a package sticking out in a boot. “Urgent,” said the inscription, underlined in red pencil. - Field mail of division headquarters.

Sitting with him, a young lieutenant, she said goodbye, and tears rolled down one after another. Taking his documents, I walked along the trench, staggering, I felt nauseous when I closed the eyes of the dead soldiers on the way.

I delivered the package to the headquarters. And the information there really turned out to be very important. Only now the medal that was presented to me, my first military award, I never wore, because it belonged to that lieutenant, Ostankov Ivan Ivanovich.

…After the end of the war, I handed this medal to the lieutenant's mother and told how he died.

In the meantime, there were battles ... The fourth year of the war. During this time, I completely turned gray: my red hair became completely white. Spring was approaching with warmth and rooks hubbub ...

Yuri Yakovlevich Yakovlev

GIRLS

FROM VASILIEVSKY ISLAND

I am Valya Zaitseva from Vasilievsky Island.

I have a hamster under my bed. He will fill his full cheeks, in reserve, sit on his hind legs and look with black buttons ... Yesterday I kicked one boy off. Weighed him a good bream. We, Vasileostrovsk girls, know how to stand up for ourselves when necessary ...

It's always windy here on Vasilievsky. The rain is falling. Pours wet snow. Floods happen. And our island floats like a ship: on the left is the Neva, on the right is the Nevka, in front is the open sea.

I have a girlfriend - Tanya Savicheva. We are neighbors with her. She is from the Second line, house 13. Four windows on the first floor. Nearby there is a bakery, in the basement there is a kerosene shop ... Now there is no shop, but in Tanino, when I was not yet in the world, the first floor always smelled of kerosene. They told me.

Tanya Savicheva was the same age as I am now. She could have grown up long ago, become a teacher, but she has remained a girl forever ... When my grandmother sent Tanya for kerosene, I was gone. And she went to Rumyantsevsky Garden with another friend. But I know all about her. They told me.

She was a songstress. She always sang. She wanted to recite poetry, but she stumbled on the words: she will stumble, and everyone thinks that she has forgotten the right word. My girlfriend sang because when you sing, you don't stutter. She could not stutter, she was going to become a teacher, like Linda Avgustovna.

She always played teacher. He puts a big grandmother's scarf on his shoulders, folds his hands in a lock and walks from corner to corner. "Children, today we will do the repetition with you ..." And then he stumbles over a word, blushes and turns to the wall, although there is no one in the room.

They say there are doctors who treat stuttering. I would find one. We, Vasileostrovsky girls, will find whoever you want! But now a doctor is no longer needed. She stayed there ... my friend Tanya Savicheva. She was taken from besieged Leningrad to the mainland, and the road, called the Road of Life, could not give Tanya life.

The girl died of hunger ... Does it really matter why she dies - from hunger or from a bullet. Maybe hunger hurts even more ...

I decided to find the Way of Life. I went to Rzhevka, where this road begins. She walked two and a half kilometers - there the guys were building a monument to the children who died in the blockade. I also wanted to build.

Some adults asked me:

- Who are you?

- I am Valya Zaitseva from Vasilievsky Island. I also want to build.

I was told:

- It is forbidden! Come with your neighborhood.

I didn't leave. I looked around and saw a baby, a tadpole. I grabbed onto it:

- He also came with his area?

- He came with his brother.

With my brother, you can. With the area you can. But what about being alone?

I told them:

- You see, I don't just want to build. I want to build for my friend ... Tanya Savicheva.

They rolled their eyes. They didn’t believe it. They asked again:

- Tanya Savicheva is your friend?

- And what is special here? We are of the same age. Both are from Vasilievsky Island.

- But she's not there ...

How stupid people, and even adults! What do you mean "no" if we are friends? I told them to understand:

- We have everything in common. Both the street and the school. We have a hamster. He will fill his cheeks ...

I noticed that they do not believe me. And so that they would believe, she blurted out:

- We even have the same handwriting!

-Handwriting?

- They were even more surprised.

- And what? Handwriting!

Suddenly they cheered up, from the handwriting:

- It is very good! This is a godsend. Come with us.

- I'm not going anywhere. I want to build ...

- You will build! You will write in Tanya's handwriting for the monument.

- I can, - I agreed.

“Only I don’t have a pencil. Will you give?

- You will write on concrete. They don't write on concrete with a pencil.

I never wrote on concrete. I wrote on the walls, on the asphalt, but they brought me to the concrete plant and gave Tanya a diary - a notebook with the alphabet: a, b, c ... I have the same book. For forty kopecks.

I picked up Tanya's diary and opened the page. It said:

"Zhenya died on December 28 at 12.30 am in the morning of 1941".

I felt cold. I wanted to give them the book and leave.

But I'm Vasileostrovskaya. And if a friend's older sister died, I should stay with her, not run away.

- Let's get your concrete. I will write.

The crane lowered a huge frame of thick gray dough at my feet. I took my wand, squatted down and began to write. The concrete smelled cold. It was difficult to write. And they told me:

- Do not rush.

I made mistakes, smoothed the concrete with my palm, and wrote again.

I was bad at it.

- Do not rush. Write calmly.

"Grandma died on January 25th, 1942."

While I was writing about Zhenya, my grandmother died.

If you just want to eat, this is not hunger - you eat an hour later.

I tried to starve from morning to evening. Endured. Hunger - when your head, hands, heart starve day after day - everything you have is starving. First he starves, then dies.

"Leka died on March 17 at 5 am 1942."

Leka had his own corner, fenced off by cupboards, he drew there.

He earned money by drawing and studied. He was quiet and short-sighted, wearing glasses, and all squeaked in his ruling pen. They told me.

Where did he die? Probably in the kitchen, where the "potbelly stove" smoked with a small weak engine, where they slept, they ate bread once a day. A small piece, like a cure for death. Leka did not have enough medicine ...

- Write, - they told me quietly.

In the new frame, the concrete was liquid, it crawled over the letters. And the word "died" disappeared. I didn't want to write it again. But I was told:

- Write, Valya Zaitseva, write.

And I wrote again - "died".

"Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 hours. Night of 1942."

"Uncle Lyosha on May 10 at 4 pm 1942".

I am very tired of writing the word "died". I knew that with each page of the diary, Tanya Savicheva was getting worse. She stopped singing long ago and did not notice that she was stuttering. She no longer played teacher. But she did not give up - she lived. They told me ... Spring has come. The trees turned green. We have a lot of trees on Vasilievsky. Tanya dried up, froze, became thin and light. Her hands were trembling and her eyes ached from the sun. The Nazis killed half of Tanya Savicheva, and maybe more than half. But her mother was with her, and Tanya held on.

- What are you not writing? - they told me quietly.

- Write, Valya Zaitseva, otherwise the concrete will harden.

For a long time I did not dare to open a page with the letter "M". On this page, Tanya's hand was written: "Mom on May 13 at 7.30 am in the morning of 1942". Tanya did not write the word "died". She didn't have the strength to write the word.

I gripped the wand tightly and touched the concrete. I did not look into the diary, but wrote by heart. It's good that our handwriting is the same.

I wrote with all my might. The concrete became thick, almost frozen. He no longer crawled over the letters.

- Can you write more?

- I will add, - I answered and turned away so as not to see my eyes. After all, Tanya Savicheva is my ... friend.

Tanya and I are the same age, we, Vasileostrovsk girls, know how to stand up for ourselves when necessary. If she had not been Vasileostrovskaya, Leningrad, she would not have lasted so long. But she lived - so she did not give up!

Opened page "C". There were two words: "The Savichevs are dead."

Opened the page "U" - "All died." The last page of Tanya Savicheva's diary was written with the letter "O" - "Tanya is the only one left."

And I imagined that it was me, Valya Zaitseva, who was left alone: ​​without a mother, without a father, without a sister, Lyulka. Hungry. Under fire.

In an empty apartment on the Second Line. I wanted to cross out this last page but the concrete hardened and the stick broke.

And suddenly, to myself, I asked Tanya Savicheva: “Why alone?

And I? You also have a friend - Valya Zaitseva, your neighbor from Vasilievsky Island. We will go with you to the Rumyantsevsky Garden, we will run, and when we get tired, I will bring my grandmother's handkerchief from the house, and we will play the teacher Linda Avgustovna. I have a hamster under my bed. I'll give it to you for your birthday. Do you hear, Tanya Savicheva? "

Someone put a hand on my shoulder and said:

- Come on, Valya Zaitseva. You've done everything that needs to be done. Thanks.

I did not understand why they were saying "thank you" to me. I said:

- I'll come tomorrow ... without my district. Can?

“Come without a district,” they told me.

- Come.

My girlfriend Tanya Savicheva did not shoot at the Nazis and was not a scout among the partisans. She just lived in hometown at the most difficult time. But, perhaps, the Nazis did not enter Leningrad because Tanya Savicheva lived in it and many other girls and boys lived there, who remained forever in their time. And today's guys are friends with them, as I am friends with Tanya.

And after all, they are friends only with the living.

I.A. Bunin

Cold autumn

In June of that year, he stayed with us on the estate - he was always considered our own man: his late father was a friend and neighbor of my father. But on July 19, Germany declared war on Russia. In September, he came to us for a day - to say goodbye before leaving for the front (everyone then thought that the war would end soon). And then came our farewell evening. After supper, as usual, a samovar was served, and, looking at the windows fogged up from its steam, the father said:

- Surprisingly early and cold autumn!

We sat quiet that evening, only occasionally exchanging insignificant words, exaggeratedly calm, hiding our secret thoughts and feelings. I went to the balcony door and wiped the glass with a handkerchief: in the garden, in the black sky, pure ice stars sparkled brightly and sharply. Father smoked, leaning back in an armchair, absentmindedly looking at a hot lamp hanging over the table, mother, in glasses, diligently sewed under her light a small silk bag - we knew which one - and it was both touching and eerie. The father asked:

- So you still want to go in the morning, and not after breakfast?

“Yes, if I may, in the morning,” he replied. - It’s very sad, but I haven’t completely ordered around the house.

The father sighed lightly:

- Well, as you wish, my soul. Only in this case it is time for my mother and me to sleep, we certainly want to see you off tomorrow ... Mom got up and baptized her future son, he bowed to her hand, then to his father's. Left alone, we spent a little more time in the dining room - I decided to play solitaire, he silently walked from corner to corner, then asked:

- Do you want to walk a little?

My heart was getting harder and harder, I responded indifferently:

- Good...

While dressing in the hallway, he continued to think something, with a sweet smile he recalled Fet's verses:

What a cold autumn!

Put on your shawl and hood ...

Look - among the blackening pines

As if a fire is rising ...

There is some kind of rustic autumn charm in these verses. "Put on your shawl and hood ..." The times of our grandfathers and grandmothers ... Oh, my God! Still sad. Sad and good. I very-very love you...

Having dressed, we went through the dining room to the balcony, went down into the garden. At first it was so dark that I held onto his sleeve. Then black branches began to appear in the brightening sky, showered with minerally shining stars. He paused and turned to the house:

- Look how the windows of the house shine in a very special way, in an autumn way. I will live, I will forever remember this evening ... I looked, and he hugged me in my Swiss cape. I took the downy shawl away from my face, tilted my head slightly so that he would kiss me. After kissing, he looked me in the face.

- If they kill me, you still won't forget me right away? I thought: "What if they really kill him? And will I really forget him in some time - after all, everything is forgotten in the end?" And hastily answered, frightened by her thought:

- Do not say that! I will not survive your death!

After a pause, he said slowly:

“Well, if they kill you, I'll wait for you there. You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me.

In the morning he left. Mom put that fatal sack around his neck that she sewed in the evening - it had a golden icon that her father and grandfather wore in the war - and we all baptized it with a kind of impetuous despair. Looking after him, they stood on the porch in that stupidity that happens when you see someone off for a long separation. After standing, they entered the empty house .... They killed him - what a strange word! - a month later. This is how I survived his death, once recklessly saying that I would not survive it. But, remembering all that I have experienced since then, I always ask myself: what was it all the same in my life? And I answer myself: only that cold autumn evening... Did he ever exist? It was all the same. And this is all that was in my life - the rest is an unnecessary dream. And I believe: somewhere out there he is waiting for me - with the same love and youth as that evening. "You live, rejoice in the world, then come to me ..."

I lived, I was glad, now I will come soon.