"Yan Larri. The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

that some boy was drowned - at least that was what they said."
Mother shuddered. "That's all nonsense," she said, sliding off the
window-sill. "Fiddlesticks! Rubbish! Karik and Valya would never go off and
bathe."
"I don't know, I don't know!" Granny shook her head. "Only they should
have been here ages ago and there is no sign of them. They ran off early and
haven't had anything to eat this morning."
Mother put her hand up to her face, and not saying anything more went
out of the dining-room quickly.
"When I was a little girl . . . ," sighed Granny.
But what Granny did when she was a little girl Mother just didn't hear,
she was already out in the courtyard and screwing up her eyes in the bright
sunlight was peering in all directions.
On a yellow mound of sand lay Valya's green spade with the bent handle,
and beside it was flung Karik's faded beret.
No sign of the children.
Under the rusty gutter pipe, warming herself in the sun, was the big
tortoise-shell cat - Anyuta. She lazily wrinkled her forehead and stretched
out her paws as if she wanted to give them to Mother.


"Karik! Valya!" shouted Mother, and actually stamped her foot.
Anyuta, the cat, opened her green eyes widely, stared at Mother, and
then, yawning luxuriously, turned over on the other side.

"What has become of them?" grumbled Mother.
She crossed the courtyard, glanced into the laundry room, peeped
through the dark windows of the cellar where the firewood was kept. No sign
of the children.
"Ka-ari-ik!" she shouted once again.
There was no reply. "Va-a-lya!" Mother cried out.
"Wough-ough, woof!" sounded quite close at hand. The door at a side
entrance slammed violently. A big sheep-dog with a sharp pointed nose leaped
out into the yard with his chain dragging behind him. With one rush he was
on the mound, rolling in the sand, raising a great cloud of dust; then up he
jumped, shook himself and with loud barking hurled himself at Mother.
Mother stepped back quickly.
"Back! No, you don't! Get away with you!" She shooed him off with her
hands.
"Down, Jack! To heel!" a loud voice resounded in the doorway.
A fat man wearing sandals on his bare feet and with a lighted cigarette
in his hand had come into the yard.
It was the tenant from the fourth floor, the photographer Schmidt.
"What are you up to, Jack, eh?" asked the fat man. Jack guiltily wagged
his tail.
"Such a fool you are!" grinned the photographer. Pretending to yawn,
Jack came up to his master, sat down and with a jingling chain set about
scratching his neck with his hind leg.
"Grand weather to-day!" smiled the fat man. "Aren't you going to your
country cottage?"