"Valentin Katayev. A White Sail Gleams (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

As to the driver, he was no problem at all. He was so busy whipping on
the horses that he never even glanced back.
In a word, it was a most curious but unanimous conspiracy of silence.
The mounted detail rode up to the coach.
Soldiers' faces looked in at the window. But the sailor was already far
back under the seat. He was completely out of sight.
The soldiers obviously found nothing suspicious in that peaceful coach
with the children and the egg-plants. They rode on without stopping.
For not less than half an hour after that all were silent. The sailor
lay under the seat without stirring. Tranquillity reigned.
Finally a string of little houses amidst green acacia trees came into
view ahead. The outskirts of the town.
Father was the first to break the silence. "Well, well, we've almost
reached Akkerman," he remarked as if to himself, yet in a deliberately loud
voice, as he stood gazing nonchalantly out the window. "It's already in
sight. How frightfully hot it is! And not a soul in the road."
Petya saw through his father's manoeuvre at once. "We're almost there!"
he shouted. "We're almost there!"
He took Pavlik by the shoulders and pushed him to the window. "Look,
Pavlik," he cried with feigned excitement, "look at that beautiful bird in
the sky!"
"Where?" Pavlik asked with curiosity, sticking out his tongue.
"Goodness gracious, what a stupid thing you are! Why, there it is."
"I don't see it."
"You must be blind."
At that moment there was a rustle behind them, followed by the banging
of the door. Petya quickly turned round. But everything was the same as
before-only now there was no boot sticking out from under the seat.
Petya looked in alarm under the seat to see if his collections were
safe. They were. Everything was in order.
At the window, Pavlik was still moving his head this way and that,
looking for the bird,
"Where's the bird?" he asked querulously, twisting his little mouth.
"Show me the bird. Pe-e-et-ya, where's the bird?"
"Stop whining," Petya said in the tone of a grown-up. "The bird's gone.
It flew away. Don't bother me."
Pavlik gave a deep sigh: he saw that he had been tricked. He looked
under the seat, but to his amazement no one was there.
"Daddy," he said finally, in a shaking voice, "where's the man? Where's
he gone to?"
"Stop chattering," Father said sternly.
Pavlik fell into a sad silence, puzzling over the mysterious
disappearance of the bird and the no less mysterious disappearance of the
man.
The wheels began to clatter over cobblestones. The coach drove into a
shady street lined with acacias.
The grey wobbly trunks of telephone poles flashed by, and roofs of red
tile and blue-painted iron; for a minute the dull water of the estuary
appeared in the distance.
An ice-cream man in a raspberry-coloured shirt walked by in the shade,