Yan Larri. The Extraordinary Adventures of Karik and Valya

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     Translated from the Russian by John P.Mandeville
     Russian original title: Необычайные приключения Карика и Вали
     Leningrad 1937
     OCR: Tuocs
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        CHAPTER I

     Granny is difficult - Mother is  worried - Jack gets on a hot scent - A
strange  discovery  is  made  in  the  Professor's  study  -  The  Professor
disappears


     MOTHER SPREAD A BIG WHITE CLOTH ON THE TABLE. GRANNY  went over towards
the  sideboard. In the dining-room knives and forks  jingled  cheerfully and
plates clattered.
     "Is it egg and onion pie?" asked Granny.
     "Yes.  The children have been begging  and  begging  me  for  it," said
Mother, as she put out the plates.
     "And is the sweet strawberries, and cream? "
     "No.  To-day  we are going to  have ice  cream pudding for a sweet! The
children do love it so."
     "All the  same," mumbled Granny, "in  the summer  it is better  for the
children to have berries and fruit. . . . When I was a little girl. . . ."
     But Mother,  apparently,  was quite  convinced Granny never  had been a
little girl.  Shrugging her  shoulders  she went  over to  the  window  and,
looking out into the courtyard, shouted loudly:
     "Ka-a-ari-ik! Va-alya-ya! Lu-unch!"
     "When I was a  little girl  . . . . "  continued Granny,  offended; but
Mother, not listening  to  her, leaned out on  the  window-sill and  shouted
still louder:
     "Karik! Valya! Where are you?"
     In the courtyard all was silent.
     "There you are," grumbled Granny. "I knew it would happen. . . ."
     "Karik! Valya!" Mother shouted again, and not waiting for an answer sat
down  on the window-sill and asked, "Didn't  they  tell you where they  were
going to go?"
     Granny bit her lip angrily. "When I was a little  girl," she announced,
"I always said where I was going, but nowadays . . . ." She straightened the
cloth on the table, frowning. "Nowadays they  just  do as they like . . . if
they take the fancy  they'll go off to the  North Pole; and  sometimes  even
worse. . . . Why, only yesterday they announced on the radio. . . ."
     "What did they announce?" asked  Mother,  hastily.  "Oh,  nothing! Just
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?"
     Mother  stared first at the  fat man,  then  at  the dog  and then said
rather crossly:
     "You have let that dog out again, Comrade Schmidt, without his  muzzle.
He behaves  just  like a  wolf. He  just looks around  to see at whom he can
snap. . . ."
     "What, Jack?"  said  the fat man, apparently most surprised.  "Why,  he
wouldn't harm a child! He is as peaceful as a dove. Would you like to stroke
him?"
     Mother waved him away with her hand.
     "You think I have nothing else to do but to stroke dogs! At home, lunch
is getting cold, none of  the housework is done and here  I am unable to get
hold of the children. Ka-a-ri-ik! Val-a-alya!" she shouted once more.
     "You just stroke Jack and ask him nicely. Say: 'Now then  Jack, go find
Karik and  Valya.' He'll find  them in a wink!" Schmidt bent down to his dog
and rubbed his neck affectionately. "You'll find them, won't you Jack?"
     Jack made a little whimpering noise and, quite  unexpectedly, jumped up
and licked the  full  lips of the photographer. The fat man  staggered back,
fussily spat out and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
     Mother laughed.
     "You  need  not  laugh,"  Schmidt  gravely  assured  her,  "this  is  a
sleuthhound. He follows the scent of a human being just like a train running
on rails. Would you like me to show you?"
     "I believe you!" said Mother.
     "No,  no!" the fat man  was  getting  agitated. "Allow me to assure you
that  if  I  say it is true,  it is  true! Now  then, just give me something
belonging to Karik or Valya - a toy - coat - beret. It does not matter what.
. . ."
     Mother shrugged her shoulders,  but  all  the  same  she  stooped down,
picked up the spade and beret and, smiling, handed them to Schmidt.
     "Splendid! Excellent!" said the fat man, and gave the  beret to the dog
to smell. "Now, Jack," he continued  loudly, "show them how  you do  it!  Go
find them, boy!"
     Jack whimpered,  put his nose to the  ground and, sticking up his tail,
started to run round the courtyard in large circles.
     The photographer cheerfully puffed along behind him.
     Having run up to the cat Anyuta, Jack stopped. The cat  jumped up, bent
herself into a  bow and flashing her green eyes  hissed  like a snake.  Jack
tried to grab her by the tail.
     The cat bristled up, gave Jack a  box on the ear; the poor dog squealed
with pain, but at once recovered himself and with  a loud bark flung himself
at  Anyuta.  The cat  again  hissed and  raised  one  paw as  if to  say:  "
Sh-sh-sh-shove off! I'll s-s-slap you s-s-such a one!"
     "Now, now, Jack," said the photographer, "you mustn't get put off!" and
he tugged so hard at the lead  that the dog sat  back on his hind legs. "Get
on, now! Go find them!" he ordered.
     With a  parting bark  at the  cat, Jack ran on ahead. He ran around the
whole  yard and  once more stopped by the gutter pipe and loudly sniffed the
air, looking at his master.
     "I understand, I understand!" said  the photographer, nodding his head.
"They sat  here,  of  course, playing with the  cat!  But where  did they go
afterwards? Now, go find them, go find them, Jack!"

     Jack  started wagging  his  tail,  twisted himself around  like a  top,
scraped with his paws at the sand under the pipe and then, with a loud bark,
dashed to the main entrance to the flats.
     "Ha-ha! he's  got on the scent!" shouted Schmidt, and with  his sandals
slithering he leaped after the dog.
     "If you do find the children, send them home!" Mother called after him,
and started walking back through the yard. "Of course they are in one of the
neighbouring courtyards," she thought to herself.
     Pulling hard on his lead, Jack hauled his master up a staircase.
     "Not so fast! Not so fast!" puffed the  fat man, barely able to keep up
with the dog.
     On the landing of the fifth floor, Jack  stopped for a second, gazed at
his master and with a  short  bark threw himself at a door which was covered
with oilcloth and felt.
     On the door there hung a white enamelled plate with the inscription:

        PROFESSOR
     IVAN HERMOGENEVITCH ENOTOFF

     Underneath was pinned a notice:

     Bell does not work. Please knock.

     Jack with a squeal jumped up,  scratching at the oilcloth  covering the
door.
     "Down, Jack!" shouted the fat man. "It says knock, and not squeal."
     The photographer Schmidt smoothed his hair with  the palm of his  hand,
carefully  wiped the  perspiration off his face with a handkerchief and then
knocked cautiously at the door with his knuckles.
     Behind the door shuffling steps were heard.
     The lock clicked.
     The door  opened. A  face  with shaggy eyebrows  and  a yellowish white
beard appeared in the widening gap.
     "Do you want me?"
     "Excuse me,  Professor," said  the  photographer in some  confusion, "I
only wanted to ask you - "
     The stout man had  not  succeeded in finishing his sentence before Jack
tore  the lead out of his  hand and, almost knocking  the Professor off  his
feet, dashed into the flat.
     "Come back! Jack! To heel!" shouted Schmidt.
     But Jack  was  already  rattling his chain somewhere  at the end of the
corridor.
     "I am so sorry, Professor, Jack is only young. . . . If you will let me
come in, I'll soon get hold of him."
     "Yes,  yes  . . .  of course,"  replied the Professor, absent-mindedly,
letting Schmidt into  the flat.  "Come in, please. I hope your dog  does not
bite!"
     "Hardly ever," Schmidt assured the Professor.
     The photographer  crossed  the threshold  and  having  closed the  door
behind him, said quietly: "A  thousand apologies! I won't be a minute. . . .
The children  must be with you - Karik and Valya, from the second floor. . .
."
     "Allow me, allow me! Karik and Valya? Yes, of course, I know them well.
Very fine children. Polite and eager to learn.. . "
     "Are they here?"
     "No, they haven't been here to-day; in fact I am waiting for them!"
     "Very odd !" muttered the stout  man.  "Jack has  so certainly followed
their trail. . . . ."
     "But may be it is yesterday's trail?" politely suggested the Professor.
     But Schmidt did not succeed in replying. In the further  room, Jack was
barking resoundingly, then something  rattled,  crashed and jingled as  if a
cupboard or table had fallen with crockery on it.
     The Professor started.
     "He may break up everything!" he shouted as if he was going to cry, and
seizing  Schmidt by the sleeve  pulled him along the  dark corridor.  "Here!
through here!" he barked, pushing open a door.
     No sooner had the Professor and the photographer crossed  the threshold
of the room than Jack threw himself at his master's chest with a whimper and
then at once dashed back with a bark. All around the room he darted with his
lead behind him,  smelling the bookshelves, jumping on the leather armchair,
twisting himself under the table, all the time throwing himself from side to
side.
     On the table, tubes  and retorts jingled  as they bounced up  and down,
tall glass vessels swayed  and  fine glass  tubes shivered. From one violent
jolt the microscope, with its brass sparkling  in the sun,  started to rock.
The  Professor only  just  succeeded  in  catching  it. But  in  saving  the
microscope,  he caught  with his sleeve a gleaming nickel  container full of
some sort of complicated weights.  The container fell and the weights jumped
out and scattered with a jingle over the yellow parquet floor.
     "What are you up  to, Jack?" gruffly  jerked out the photographer. "You
are making an ass of  yourself. You're  barking, but what is  the use? Where
are the children?"
     Jack put his head on  one side. He pricked up his ears  and looked most
attentively at his  master, trying to understand what it was  that they were
scolding him about.
     The photographer shook his head disapprovingly.
     "You  should  be  ashamed of  yourself,  Jack!  They  said  you  were a
sleuthhound! With a diploma! And  all you can do is to chase cats instead of
following a trail. Now, come home! Be generous enough to forgive us. Comrade
Professor, for this disturbance!"
     The photographer bowed awkwardly and made  towards the  door.  But here
Jack  became possessed as  of a devil.  He seized his master by the breeches
with  his teeth, and planting his feet on the slippery parquet floor, tugged
towards the table.
     "What on earth is up with you?" complained the fat man in amazement.
     Squealing, Jack once more darted around the table, but  then leaped  on
the small divan which stood in front of the open window and putting his paws
on the window-sill, barked with short, jerky barks.
     Schmidt got angry.
     "Come to  heel!" he  shouted,  seizing the dog by the collar; but  Jack
stubbornly shook his head and again darted to the divan. "I can't understand
it!" The photographer threw up his hands.
     "Probably there  is a mouse behind the divan!"  the Professor  guessed.
"Or maybe a crust of bread or a bone. I often have my dinner there."
     He went up to the divan  and pulled it towards him. At the back  of the
divan, something rustled and softly padded to the ground.
     "A crust!" said the Professor.
     Jack at that moment tore  himself forward and  squeezed, with his  tail
sticking up,  between  the wall,  and  just managed to  shift the  divan. He
seized something in his teeth.
     "Come on, show us what it is!" shouted the photographer.
     Jack backed out, shook his head, turned abruptly  to  his  master,  and
laid at his feet a child's down-at-heel sandal. The photographer perplexedly
turned the find over in his hand.
     "Apparently some sort of a child's shoe. . . ."
     "H'm . .  . strange!" said  the  Professor, examining the sandal. "Very
strange!"
     Whilst  they were turning the find over in their hands. Jack pulled out
from  behind the divan  a further three sandals,  one  the same size and two
smaller ones.
     Unable to follow what had  happened, the  Professor  and  the stout man
looked first at each other and then at the sandals. Schmidt knocked the hard
sole of one sandal with his knuckle, and for no apparent reason said:
     "Strong enough! They're good sandals!"
     But  Jack meanwhile had  pulled out from under the divan a pair of blue
shorts and, pressing them with his paws to the floor, barked softly.
     "Something more?" said the Professor, quite perplexed.
     He bent over, and would have stretched out his hand for the shorts, but
Jack  bared his teeth and growled so  threateningly that  the Professor very
quickly withdrew his hand.
     "What  a very unfriendly nature he has, to be sure!" said the Professor
in some confusion.
     "Yes, he is not over-polite to me!" agreed the photographer.
     He took  the shorts,  shook them, and, folding  them neatly, laid  them
before the Professor.
     "Please take them."
     The Professor looked sideways at Jack.
     "No, no, it is quite unnecessary," said  he. "I can see everything. . .
. Well, now . .  . well, now . . . there are the markings V and K. Valya and
Karik!" And he touched with his fingers big white  letters sewn in the belts
of the shorts.
     The stout man wiped his face with the palm of his hand.
     "Is there a bathroom in the flat?" he asked in a businesslike way.
     "No," replied the Professor, "there is no bathroom. But if you  want to
wash your hands, there's. . . ."
     "Oh, no," panted the stout man, "I can wash at home. But I thought they
might have undressed and were bathing themselves. Do you see what I mean?"
     "Certainly." The Professor nodded his head.
     "But  where have they hidden themselves?  Naked  . . . without  shorts,
without sandals?  I don't understand  it at  all!" Schmidt made a gesture of
hopelessness.
     Then he put his hands behind his back, spread out his feet, lowered his
head  and  gazed solidly at the yellow rectangles  of the parquet;  then  he
suddenly straightened himself up and said confidently:
     "Don't worry! We'll find them any minute now. They are here, Professor.
They  are simply  hiding! You can  be sure  of that! My Jack has  never been
mistaken yet."
     The Professor  and the  photographer proceeded on a tour round  all the
rooms; they examined the kitchen and even looked into the dark larder.
     Jack listlessly tailed along behind them.
     In the  dining-room,  the stout man opened the doors  of the sideboard,
poked  his head under the  table, and in the bedroom searched with his hands
underneath the bed. But there was no trace of the children in the flat.
     "Wherever can they have hidden themselves?" muttered the photographer.
     "In my opinion," said the Professor, "they have not been here to-day."
     "That's what  you think?"  questioned Schmidt  thoughtfully. "You think
they  have not been  here?  But  what  do  you think, Jack? Are they here or
aren't they?"
     Jack barked.
     "Here?"
     Jack barked again.
     "Well, go find them! Go find them, you dog!"
     Jack at once cheered up. He threw himself  round and  once more led the
Professor  and  Schmidt  into  the  study.  Here he again jumped  on to  the
window-sill and started to bark loudly, and then to whimper as if he  wanted
to assure his master that the children had left the room through the window.
     Schmidt got angry.
     "You're  nothing but a dunce !  Just  a puppy ! You actually think that
the children jumped  out into the yard through a window on the fifth  floor?
Or perhaps you think they flew out of the window like flies or dragonflies?"
     "What !" The Professor started. "They flew? What dragonfly?"
     The photographer smiled.
     "Well, that is what Jack thinks!"
     The Professor seized his head in his hands.
     "What an awful thing!" His voice was hoarse.
     The photographer gazed at him in amazement and asked:
     "What is the matter with you? Here, have a  drink of water! You are not
well."
     He stepped towards the  table on which stood a glass jug full of water;
but here  the Professor positively screamed as if he had  trodden on red-hot
iron with bare feet.
     "Stop! stop! stop!" he yelled.
     The photographer, now frightened, froze in his tracks.
     The Professor  shot out his hand  and grabbed a  glass  containing what
appeared to be water, hastily raised it to the  level of his eyes and looked
through it  towards the light. Then he  hastily produced a  huge  magnifying
glass with a horn handle from his pocket and shouted to Schmidt:
     "Don't move!  For goodness'  sake, don't move! And hold the dog tight !
Better take him in your arms. I beg you!"
     The fat man, thoroughly frightened, was completely  bewildered. Without
further ado, he picked up the dog in his arms and pressed him tightly to his
chest. "The old man has gone off his head!" he thought.
     "Now, stay like that!" shouted the Professor.
     Holding the magnifying glass  in front of his eyes, crouching  down, he
started to  examine  the rectangles of the  floor  carefully one  after  the
other.
     "Shall I  have to  stand long  like this, Professor?" timidly asked the
photographer  as  he  followed  with  alarm  the  strange movements  of  the
Professor.
     "Put  one  foot here!" the  Professor yelled  at him, pointing with his
finger at the nearest rectangles of the parquet.
     Schmidt awkwardly moved his  foot  and pressed Jack  so tightly that he
wriggled in his arms and started to whimper.
     "Shut  up!" whispered  Schmidt,  watching  the Professor  with  growing
fright.
     "Now - the other foot! Put it here!"
     The fat man followed without protest.
     Thus, step by  step, the Professor conducted the photographer,  who was
quite dumb with astonishment, to the doorway.
     "And now," gruff-gruffed1 the Professor, throwing the  door  wide open,
"please go away!"
     Schmidt had hardly got  outside before the door banged in  his face. He
could hear the lock being turned.
     The fat  man dropped  Jack,  spluttered with fright and dashed down the
stairway, losing his sandals, out of breath, looking over his shoulder every
minute.
     Jack, with a great bark, plunged after him.
     And they  did not stop running until they  reached the  nearest militia
post.2

     * * * * *

     A motor-car with blue stripes on its sides drove at high speed into the
courtyard.  Several militiamen sprang  out,  called out  the  caretaker  and
hastened to the fifth floor home of Professor Enotoff.

     1 Russians make use  of words which show what they mean by their sound.
"Gruff-gruff" has been made up  and is  used in various places to illustrate
this. - Translator.
     2 In  the  Soviet Union "policemen" no longer exist; in their place are
"Militiamen" who occupy "Militia posts," not "police stations."

     But the Professor did not appear to be at home. On the door of his flat
there hung a note, pinned up with new drawing pins:

     Don't look for me. It will be quite useless.
     Professor J. H. Enotoff.




        CHAPTER II

     The wonder-working  liquid -  The bewildering  behaviour of shorts  and
sandals - A very ordinary room is  transformed in a very extraordinary way -
Adventures  on  the  window-sill - Karik and Valya  set  off on  an  amazing
journey


     WHAT HAD  HAPPENED WAS JUST THIS. On the evening of the day previous to
that on which the children had vanished, Karik was sitting  in the  study of
Professor Enotoff. The evening was a  good time to have a chat with the  old
man.
     The study was  in semi-darkness  and long  dark  shadows appeared to be
climbing to the ceiling from the  black corners of the room: it seemed as if
someone  was  hiding up there and  was gazing down at the circle of light on
the big  table. Blue flames of a spirit lamp leaped up, flickered and swayed
underneath  the  curved  bottom of a glass retort.  In  the retort something
gurgled and  bubbled. Transparent  drops were falling slowly  and  musically
from a filter into a bottle.
     Karik climbed up on to the biggest leather armchair.
     Pressing his chin on the edge of the table, he gazed attentively at the
skilful hands of the Professor, trying hard not to breathe, and not to move.
     The Professor worked away, whistling, or telling  Karik amusing stories
of his childhood,  but more often talking about what he  had seen in Africa,
America or Australia - it was all very interesting, whatever he said.
     Then, rolling up the white sleeves  of his  overall,  he bent  over the
table and slowly, drop  by  drop, he poured out a  thicky oily  liquid  into
narrow little glasses. From  time to time he  threw into  these glasses some
sparkling  crystals, and  then  little clouds  would appear in  the  liquid,
slowly circle  round and drop to the bottom. After  this, the old man poured
something blue out of a measure and the liquid became, for some reason, rose
coloured.
     All this, naturally, was most interesting, and Karik  was ready to stay
there all night.
     But suddenly, the Professor hastily dried his hands on a towel, grasped
the large retort by the neck and rapidly covered it up with blue paper.
     "Well, that's that!"  he said. "At last I can congratulate myself on  a
success."
     "It's ready?" asked Karik, cheerfully.
     "Yes. All that remains now is to take the colour out of  it, and . . ."
The Professor snapped his fingers, and in a weird voice sang:

     0 beauteous, miraculous fluid!
     They'll all ask: How did you do it?

     Karik  could  not  help frowning: the Professor  sang  so  loudly,  but
unfortunately  he had no ear for music and sang a melody which resembled the
wailing of the wind in a chimney pipe. "Suppose  the rabbit won't drink it?"
questioned  Karik.  "Won't  drink  it!"  The  Professor  just  shrugged  his
shoulders. "We'll make it drink . .  . but that  must wait for to-morrow . .
.but now.  .  . ."  The  old man looked  at the  clock and  started to fuss:
"Oh-oh-oh, Karik! We've  stayed up far  too late. Eleven o'clock.  Yes. It's
two minutes past eleven!"
     Karik  realised that it  was  time to  go home. With a sigh, he climbed
down reluctantly from the armchair and demanded:
     "You won't begin without me to-morrow?"
     "Not under any circumstances," assured the Professor, shaking his head.
"That I promise you."
     "And can Valya come?"
     "Valya?" The Professor thought  over this. "Well, why not  .  . . bring
Valya. . . ."
     "Nothing will happen very suddenly?"
     "Everything  will happen," said the Professor  confidently, as he  blew
out the spirit lamp.
     "And will the rabbit turn into a flea?"
     "Oh, no," laughed the Professor. "The rabbit will remain a rabbit."
     "But tell me, Professor. . . ."
     "No, no, I will not  tell you anything more. Quite enough. We can leave
our conversation  until to-morrow. Go home, my young friend. I am tired, and
it is high time you were in bed."
     All night long, Karik tossed from side to side. He dreamt he saw a pink
elephant, so  tiny that you could put  him in  a  thimble. The  elephant was
eating  jam, then  ran along the table, round  a saucer, playing such pranks
that he upset the salt and  nearly got drowned in the mustard. Karik rescued
him from  the  mustard pot and started to clean him up,  standing  him in  a
little dish, but the elephant wrenched himself away and gave Karik a blow on
the shoulder with  his trunk. Then he suddenly jumped  up on to Karik's head
and said  in a  queer girlish voice,  vaguely familiar: "What is the matter,
Karik? Why are you shouting?"
     Karik opened his eyes. Beside his bed, in a dressing-gown, stood Valya.
     "Aha!  you  -  awake  already?"  said  Karik.  "Grand!  Dress  yourself
quickly."
     "What for?"
     "We  must start. Going  to  the  Professor's.  Oo-oo, what  will happen
to-day . . .? Such wonders! . . . miracles!"
     "But what?"
     "Dress yourself quickly."
     "I'll put on shorts and sandals," said Valya.
     "And I'll do the same."
     Looking under the bed for his sandals, Karik told her in a whisper:
     "Understand: Professor John has invented a pink liquid."
     "Does it taste nice?" asked Valya, buckling the strap of her sandals.
     "I don't know . .  . it's for rabbits . .  . he is going  to give it to
them to-day . . . make them drink it, and then. . . . Oo-oo, my word!"
     Valya's eyes opened widely.
     "And what will happen to them?" she asked in a whisper.
     "He doesn't know yet. This is just an experiment. Come on quickly!"
     The  children  quietly  tiptoed  through  their mother's  room.  Mother
shouted something  after them, but Karik grabbed Valya by the hand and raced
off with her.
     "Keep quiet,"  he whispered, "or she'll make us clean  our teeth, wash,
and wait for breakfast. Then we shall most certainly be late."
     Having dashed across  the courtyard, they darted into the main entrance
of the flats, up on  to the fifth floor,  stopping  at last  in front of the
door, where the bell did not work and callers were instructed to knock.
     Karik knocked - no one answered. He pushed the door - it opened.
     The children went into the semi-darkness of a hall. On the wall a large
mirror glittered. Immediately opposite the children, a bronze idol gazed out
of a glass case. The  Professor had brought it from China, where some of the
Chinamen  actually  pray  to  these  hideous  dummies.  In  the  Professor's
household it served as a doorkeeper. And  a most excellent doorkeeper it was
and never grumbled "shut the door after you."
     In all other respects, it was very like one  of the living doorkeepers,
and like them could watch the door silently all day.
     On the hall-stand there hung the Professor's heavy winter fur coat, his
overcoat and some sort of a raincoat with big checks like a chess board.
     All  was  silent in the flat;  except that  the  tick-tock  of  a clock
sounded a measured  beat in the dining room, and in  the kitchen, water  was
dripping musically from the tap.
     "We'll  go  in,"  said  Karik. "The Professor is  certain to  be in his
study."
     But in the study there was no Professor. The children decided to wait.
     The  windows of the study  were  wide  open. The sun  lit up  the white
table,  covered  with curving jars, vessels and retorts.  Fine  glass tubing
stood up like flowers in the glass vessels. Nickel-plated cups gave blinding
reflections of the sun. The brass of the microscope sparkled cheerfully, and
on the ceiling the sunbeams frolicked.
     Along  the wall, there was  fixed a  glass case full of  books -  thick
books and thin books. The titles were hard to understand:
     The  Ecology of  Animals,  Hydrobiology,  Chironomidae, Ascaridae. They
were the sort of books children do not touch.
     The  children wandered  round the  study, twisted  the  screws  of  the
microscope, sat  in the leather  armchair, on which, with its empty  sleeves
flung  apart, lay the white overall of the Professor;  and then they started
to look at the jars.
     Between two retorts, Valya noticed a tall, narrow glass. It was full to
the  brim with a silvery clear liquid. Little bubbles, which glittered, rose
from the bottom and burst on the surface. It was very like soda water.
     Valya carefully took the tall glass in her hand. It was as cold as ice.
She raised it to her face and smelt it. The  liquid had a scent like peaches
and something else she could not recognise. It was very appetising.
     "Oh, how good it smells!" cried out Valya.
     "Put  it  back  in its place," said Karik, crossly. "You  mustn't touch
anything. That may be a poison. Come away from the table. Do you hear?"
     Valya put the glass back in its place, but she did not leave the table;
the liquid smelt so delicious that she wanted to sniff it again.
     "Valya,  come  away!"  said  Karik. "Or else I'll  tell Mother.  Honour
bright, I will!"
     Valya went round  the table, sat in  the armchair, but quickly returned
and found herself once more opposite the delicious liquid.
     "Do you  know,  Karik, it  is soda  water!" she  said, and she suddenly
wanted desperately to  drink it, just  as if  she  had  been  eating  salted
herrings all day long.
     "Don't touch it!" shouted Karik.
     "But if I want a drink?" asked Valya.
     "Go home and drink tea."
     Valya didn't answer a word. She went over to the window, looked out  of
it, down at the courtyard; but when Karik  turned away, she quickly  skipped
over to the table, seized the tumbler and took a sip.
     "I say, it's delicious!" she half-whispered.
     "Valya, you are mad!" snapped Karik.
     "Oh, Karik, it's so nice! Try it!" And she held  out the tumbler to her
brother.
     "Cold and so nice . . . never tasted anything like it."
     "And suppose it suddenly  poisons  you!" said Karik, looking doubtfully
at the silvery fluid.
     "Poison would be bitter," smiled Valya, "but this is so delicious."
     Karik shifted from foot to foot.
     "It is sure  to be some  sort  of rubbish!" he said, stretching out his
hand for the glass in an undecided way.
     "It  is certainly not rubbish. You try  it. It  smells like peaches but
the taste is like lemonade. Only much nicer."
     Karik looked round. If  the Professor were to come in at this minute, a
rather unpleasant conversation  would ensue. But as there  was nobody in the
study except Valya, Karik hastily took a few gulps and put the glass back in
its former place.
     "But it  certainly tastes  nice!" said he. "Only  we  mustn't drink any
more  or  the  Professor  will  notice it. Let's sit  in the window. He will
surely be back soon and we shall begin the experiments.
     "All right," sighed Valya, and looked sadly at the glass  and its tasty
contents.
     The  children  climbed  on to  the  divan  and  from  thence on to  the
window-sill. With  their heads  hanging out  they  lay, 'their feet dangling
behind them, and gazed down on the courtyard below.
     "Oo, what a height!"  said  Valya,  and actually spat so  as  to  watch
something fall. "Would you jump down?"
     "Jump?" answered Karik. "I would with a parachute."
     "But without a parachute?"
     "Without a parachute? No, without a parachute you cannot jump from such
heights."
     Suddenly, against the window pane there banged a blue  dragonfly  which
fell on to the window-sill.
     "A dragonfly!" shouted Valya. "Look, look!"
     "Mine!" shouted Karik.
     "No, mine!" screamed Valya. "I saw it first."
     The  dragonfly  lay  on  the   window-sill  between  Karik  and  Valya,
helplessly moving its tiny feet.
     Karik  stretched out  his hand towards  the dragonfly, and suddenly  he
felt  that his shorts were dropping off. He  stooped  quickly but  could not
catch them: the shorts slid off and after them fell his sandals.
     Karik then wanted to jump off the window-sill on to the  divan standing
by the window, but the divan suddenly started to drop away down, just like a
lift leaving the top floor. Unable to grasp what was happening, Karik looked
around in confusion, and then saw that the whole room was suddenly expanding
both upwards and downwards.
     "What's happened?" he screamed.
     Walls,  floor and ceiling  were  moving away from each  other like  the
bellows of a huge  concertina. The electric light was  hurrying away up with
the ceiling. The floor was falling precipitately down.
     Hardly  a  minute  had  passed,   but   the  room  was  already  almost
unrecognisable.
     High  above overhead, there swung a gigantic glass  balloon hung around
with huge transparent icicles which gleamed in the sunlight.
     This was the chandelier.
     Far  below,  there  stretched  a  boundless  yellow field  divided into
regular rectangles. On the  rectangles were piled  square wooden blocks with
burnt ends. By them lay a long white tube on which there was printed in huge
letters "Navy cut." One end  of this was burnt and covered by a great cap of
grey ash. Nearby, like immense leather mountains, stood the dark  armchairs,
on one of which lay the Professor's white overall looking like snow covering
the mountain.
     Where  lately had been  the  bookcase there now  stood a  skyscraper of
glass and  brown  beams.  Through the  glass  could be seen books as  big as
five-storied houses.
     "Karik,  what  is all this?"  Valya  asked  quite calmly,  looking with
curiosity at the amazing transformation of the room.
     It was only then that Karik noticed Valya. She  was standing beside him
without sandals and without shorts.
     "Look, Karik,  isn't it funny!" she giggled. "It must be the experiment
beginning. Ooh!"
     Before  Karik succeeded in  answering, something beside them started to
make a  noise and to thump. Thick  clouds of dust rose from the window-sill.
Valya clung on to Karik's shoulder. At that moment there was a puff of wind.
Dust flew up and slowly started to settle.
     "Ooh!" shouted Valya.
     In the spot  where just  a  moment  or two  ago  there  had lain a tiny
dragonfly, there now moved a thick, long, log-like, jointed body with a huge
hook at the end of it.
     The brown body,  covered with turquoise  blue splashes, was contracting
in  spasms. The  joints  moved, sometimes sliding over each other, sometimes
turning sideways. Four  huge transparent wings, covered with a dense  web of
glittering threads, trembled in the air. A monstrous head hammered  upon the
window-sill.
     "Kari-ik!" whispered Valya. "What is this?"
     "Sh-sh-sh!"
     Treading  carefully, Karik started to cross the window-sill  which  now
was  like a wooden motor road,  but,  having  taken  a few steps, he stopped
aghast.
     He  was standing  on the edge of a precipice. It seemed to him that  he
was looking down from the height of the St.  Isaac's Cathedral.  It was then
that Karik realised what had happened. He returned to Valya, took her by the
hand and, hiccupping with fright, said:
     "It... it must have been the water for the rabbits... do you understand
. . . the Professor's experiment has succeeded . . . only you and I have got
small and not the rabbits."
     Valya didn't understand anything.
     "But what is this?" she asked, pointing  at the monster  which was  now
lying motionless on the window-sill.
     "That? The dragonfly!
     "So enormous?"
     "Not  at all enormous," gloomily replied  Karik, "it  is the same as it
was. On the contrary it is we who have become tiny . . . like fleas. . . ."
     "Isn't that interesting?" said Valya cheerfully.
     "You  fool!"  Karik  was  really  angry.  "There  is  nothing   at  all
interesting about it. They'll put us in ajar and start looking at us under a
microscope."
     "In my opinion," said Valya confidently, "they will not  have a  chance
to look at us. The Professor will come and make us big again."
     "Oh, yes, big again! He won't even notice us!"
     "But we'll shout!"
     "He won't hear us!"
     "Won't hear us? Why? He is not deaf, is he?"
     "No,  he is not deaf, but  our  voices  are  just about as strong as  a
midge's voice."
     "Is that so?"  Valya  smiled unconvinced, and then shouted  at  the top
other voice: "Oho!  Here we are!" She looked at Karik and asked: "What about
it? Difficult to hear?"
     "All right for us, but no good for the Professor."
     "But what will happen to us?"
     "Nothing particular. They'll whisk us off the window-sill with a duster
and trample us underfoot, that's all. . . ."
     "Who will whisk us off?"
     "The Professor himself."
     "Whisk us off with a duster?"
     "Yes, certainly! He'll start to clear up  the dust  with his whisk! And
off we'll go with the dust!"
     "But we  . . . but . . . we - Listen, Karik,  I have already thought of
something .  . . . Do  you know  what  -  we can sit  on  the dragonfly. The
Professor  will notice  the dead dragonfly and most  certainly  will take it
over  to  his  table, and then we can get on to his microscope  and  he will
catch  sight of us - of course he will catch sight of us! And then  he  will
make us big again. Let's climb on to the dragonfly quickly."
     Valya clutched Kari& by the hand and they ran to the dragonfly.
     "Get up on to it!"
     Helping  one another,  the  children  nimbly clambered  up  on  to  the
dragonfly,  but they  had  only just sat down  when the dragonfly started to
quiver, to beat its lumbering wings, to turn heavily and pant and  puff like
some machine. The children could feel a strong muscular body bending beneath
them.
     "Oy, it's still alive. Jump down quickly!" screamed Valya.
     "Don't worry, don't worry. Hold on tighter."
     The children clung with hands and  legs to  the body of  the dragonfly,
but  it  wriggled  its  whole  body, endeavouring  to  free  itself from the
unpleasant burden. Karik and Valya rocked and  bounced  as if  they were  on
springs.
     "It will throw us off! Oh, it will throw us  off any minute!" whimpered
Valya.
     "Just wait!" shouted Karik. "I'll throw it off. . . . There, stop it!"
     He slid up to the head of the  dragonfly, bent over and hit it with all
his strength several times in its eye with his fist.
     The dragonfly shuddered, twisted itself and sank down.
     "It appears to be dead again," said Valya.
     "We shall see."
     Karik slid off the dragonfly, went  all around it and then  seized with
both  hands one of  the clear,  mice-like wings and tried  to raise  it. The
dragonfly didn't stir.
     "It's dead," said Karik, confidently clambering up on to the dragonfly.
     For some time  the children sat silently, looking every now and then at
the  door,  but they soon  became  bored and began to examine the dragonfly.
Karik perched himself on the wing and tried  to tear it  away from the body.
But the wing was too strong. Then he jumped on the head of the dragonfly and
knocked its eyes with his heels.
     "0-ooch, what huge eyes! Look, Val! Aha!"
     Valya  timidly stretched out her hand and touched an eye  which  was as
cold as if it had been moulded out of crystal glass.
     "Dreadful things!"
     The dragonfly certainly  had wonderful eyes - huge and  protruding like
glass lanterns. Covered with thousands of even facets, they seemed to be lit
with bluey-green light from within.
     These strange eyes looked at both Karik and Valya at  one and the  same
time, and  indeed  were looking also at the courtyard, at  the  sky,  at the
ceiling of the room and at the floor. It seemed that in each eye there shone
a thousand separate greenish  eyes,  all of  which were watching attentively
like a hawk. In front of those enormous  eyes, on the very edge of the head,
were  three more small brown eyes,  and these also attentively followed  the
children.
     "Do you know," said  Valya,  "it is alive in spite of everything.  It's
watching, Karik, don't you see?"
     "Well, what about it?"
     "You must  kill it  again. It  will suddenly come to life. Do  you know
what dragonflies feed on?"
     "On grass  or the sap  of flowers, I should think," said Karik,  rather
uncertainly. "I don't really remember. Why?"
     "I was afraid  that if it came to life it might eat us.  Who knows what
it really does eat. It would be better for us to kill it once again."
     Valya was getting down  in  order  to get away from the  dragonfly when
there appeared  to be the  noise of some explosion in the  room.  Then there
sounded regular heavy thuds.
     "What is that?" Valya stood stock-still.
     "That . . . hurrah! It's - the Professor. He is  coming!" shouted Karik
at the top of his voice.
     Valya hastened to occupy her former  place. The door banged. A wave  of
air from the window struck them. A man-mountain with a beard like a stack of
white flax came into the study.
     Then Karik and Valya screamed with all their strength.
     "Professor!"
     "Professor!"
     The man-mountain stopped. The palm of a hand the size  of a dining-room
table  shot upwards and stopped  at a twisted, shell-like ear  out  of which
there protruded tufts of grey hair  as big as drawing pencils. He looked all
around, listened carefully and shrugged his shoulders perplexedly.
     "Professor! Pro-fess-ess-or!" Karik and Valya shouted together.
     The man-mountain sighed noisily.  In the rooms  everything buzzed.  The
children  were  both very nearly thrown  off  the  dragonfly  into the stone
courtyard below.
     "He-ere we are! Over here!"
     The man-mountain stepped towards the window.
     "Hurrah!" shouted Karik. "He has heard us!"
     The man-mountain stopped.
     "Come here! Here we are! Here! We are here!" screamed the children.
     The man-mountain came over to the window.
     But suddenly  the  dragonfly started to move. It  started  beating  its
mica-like  wings, raised a cloud of dust on the window-sill  and then - with
Karik and Valya on its back - it swooped away down into the blue airy ocean.
     "Hold tight!" screamed Karik, clutching Valya by the neck.


        CHAPTER III

     Adventures in the airy ocean - The gluttonous aeroplane - The unwilling
parachutists - After the big splash - The submarine prison - In the clutches
of an eight-eyed monster

     THE DRAGONFLY FLEW ON,  ITS TRANSPARENT RIGID  WINGS BEATING as noisily
as if they had been made of sheet iron.
     The wind they met seemed like  elastic, it plucked  at  their hair  and
whistled  shrilly in their  ears. It  beat  in their faces and blinded their
eyes.
     It became difficult to breathe.
     Clinging desperately to the dragonfly, gripping it with their arms  and
legs, the children rode on in mortal fright.
     "Karik!"  shouted Valya amid the howling  of the wind. "How  can I hold
on, it's pulling me off - pulling me down - the wind!"
     "Shut  up!  We'll fall off!" screamed  Karik, and nearly choked in  the
wind.
     The  wind  was blowing so hard that it seemed that it would either tear
the  heads off the children or sweep them away. They bent down to  the  very
back of the dragonfly but that did not help.
     "Lie flat, Vally!" shouted Karik, stretching himself out full length.
     Valya followed his example.
     "How's that?" shouted Karik, "better now?"
     "A little!"
     And  certainly  the blast of the wind  seemed  to have lessened at that
moment. It was even possible to open their eyes and look around.
     Not raising her head, Valya shouted, "This if too awful'"
     Amid the noise of the wind, Karik could only hear one word, "awful." He
turned slightly  back and said  as loud  and calmly  as he  could:  "Its all
right, hold on tighter!"
     The dragonfly hurried  on,  smoothly  swooping  up the  sides of aerial
mountains and then rapidly plunging down again.
     "Oy, Karik," screamed Valya, "it's like an American switchback."
     But Karik didn't hear.
     He was watching attentively the way in which  the dragonfly's mica-like
wings worked.
     The two front wings stood out in  the air practically motionless. Their
movement could barely be seen. From time to time they curved, now up and now
down,  and  then the insect either flew  lower or  higher. By these wings it
directed its flight. At the same time they supported it in the air.
     The rear wings  on the other hand flashed like propellers.  They droned
and roared as they quickly cut through the air and, flinging it behind them,
drove the dragonfly ahead.
     Then the rear wings started to lift upwards until they stood vertically
on edge like a sail.
     The wind now blew evenly along its back. The dragonfly was  noiselessly
floating in the air like an aerial yacht.
     "Oh, how interesting!" whispered Valya, "they should build an aeroplane
like this."
     Karik looked sideways at his sister  and  sniffed with displeasure. Her
lightheartedness was making him angry.
     "Sit  tighter  and shut  up!" he commanded.  But  Valya could  not  sit
silently. How indeed could  she be silent. Past them  like  trains coming to
meet them huge winged  beasts  bore on their way  swirling the children with
gusts of air. They flew past so quickly that it was impossible to grasp what
they were. Birds? Bees? Dragonflies?
     Valya every now and then shouted.
     "What's that one? What is it? You saw it, Karik?"
     They  as  near  as  anything  collided with  something  as  big  as  an
aerial-tank -  a beetle. It was all adorned with  gold and purple  colouring
and shone so blindingly in the sun that it was impossible to look at it.
     The  beetle  flew  straight  at  the  dragonfly.  A  collision   seemed
inevitable. But suddenly the beetle without  even  turning around started to
whirl backwards at the same speed.
     "It  is  going  backwards!"  screamed   Valya.  "It  can  actually  fly
backwards. Do you see?"
     Suddenly  underneath  the  wings  something buzzed  and  sang.  I  From
somewhere below there came plunging a round striped animal.  With hairy feet
drawn up against itself it was  hurrying, droning in the opposite direction,
changing direction, now this way, now that. The greenish wings of the animal
shone in the sunlight, bursting into rich green and blue flames.

     "Whatever is that?" asked Valya.
     "A fly! Only very big! Like under a microscope !"
     The distance between the fly  and  the dragonfly became less and  less.
Now  even Valya  could recognize  the  fly. It was as big as  the fly on the
poster "Beware of flies - they spread infection."
     But Valya had  not succeeded in remembering what infection  it was that
flies carried when the fly swerved aside and plunged down somewhere.
     The  dragonfly turned its  great head  just  as if  it had  been  on  a
spindle. To the  right,  to the  left, upwards, downwards flashed its  huge,
bluey-green, glassy eyes and then it shot after the fly.
     "Oh!" screamed Valya, seizing Karik by his foot.
     "Hold on!" answered Karik.
     Then started a  series  of  steep  turns,  sudden  plunges  and  rises.
Following the fly, the dragonfly now fell like a stone, now described loops,
now slid sideways, and at last flew up  to the fly and  stretched towards it
huge pincer-like claws covered with spikes.
     The  fly  turned  over  and whirled  on to its  back,  feet upwards. It
stretched its legs threateningly trying to push off the dragonfly's pincers.
     However, this did not help the fly.
     The dragonfly caught up with it. The pincers closed.
     zz zz zz beat the wings of the fly. The pincers clicked like scissors.
     Clip!
     Clop!
     And  down  towards the ground slowly  spinning in the air there dropped
the wings and feet of the unfortunate fly.
     Again the  strong  hard  pincers  closed.  They crumpled,  crushed  and
flattened the fly into  a  sort of cake and then thrust it into a broad dark
mouth.
     Karik and Valya silently gazed at one another and gently sighed.
     So that was what dragonflies fed on. "You said, 'The sap of flowers'! "
croaked Valya.
     She was  terrified. For if the  dragonfly gorged on such big flies then
Karik and Valya would be just swallowed as a joke and not noticed.
     The children became very quiet.
     Far ahead  there appeared huge coloured wings. On the ends of the wings
there were dark, velvet-like splashes. On the edges there stretched  an even
stripe just like a hem. The wings danced a id jumped in the air supporting a
flexible cigar-shaped body, like a striped airship. Long whiskers with knobs
at the end trembled and reached now upwards and now downwards.
     On flying closer the children saw on the wings beautiful scales covered
with coloured powdery dust.
     The wings whirled aimlessly in the air and fluttered like a sail in the
breeze.
     But then the rainbow-like creature  saw the dragonfly. It began  to get
nervous, hesitated in the  beat of its wings, then, closing them, started to
drop headlong downwards.
     However, it did not succeed in evading the dragonfly.
     The latter darted after  it, hit it  in flight with its chest, flung it
On one side and, when  it  turned over in the air, the dragonfly seized  it,
turned  its  own  head  and, having torn  off  the  wings, devoured it in an
instant.
     And once again the dragonfly hurried on like an aeroplane: its powerful
wings hummed and overhead the wind sang incessantly.
     "What was that?" asked Valya.
     "A butterfly!" shouted Karik,  above the  noise  of the wind. "It  must
have been a butterfly!"
     The dragonfly was evidently very hungry that day.
     It quickly overtook and swallowed another  fly, yet another butterfly -
this  time  white and blue  splashes - and then  a  gnat. "What  a glutton,"
yelled Karik.
     Valya  only  shrank  into herself,  feeling chilly. Clouds were passing
across the sky.
     From time to time they shut out the sun and then the ground was covered
with cold blue shadows.
     The  children  noticed with  astonishment how  strangely  the dragonfly
behaved when clouds crossed the sun.
     No  sooner was the sun shut out than  the dragonfly became somehow limp
and slowly, like a glider, swooped downwards.
     But directly the  sun  peeped  from behind  the clouds,  {he  dragonfly
became lively. A  light beat of  the wings - and it soared upwards and  once
again started to hunt.
     "Karik," shouted Valya. "Do you see what is happening to it?"
     "Yes, yes!" Karik nodded his head. He also noticed something else.
     On coming into the stream of the sun's  rays the body of the  dragonfly
expanded and became  hard and  smooth.  But as  soon as there came the  cold
shade from the clouds it contracted and became wrinkled like a balloon which
has been punctured with a pin.
     What caused this effect the children did not know, and they  were quite
unable to understand the strange behaviour of the dragonfly.
     The hunt continued.
     The dragonfly devoured flies, butterflies  and gnats without tiring. If
the children had  decided to  give their living aeroplane any name, a better
name1 than "Death  to gnats and flies" would  ., certainly be hard to  think
of.
     In chasing after a  white butterfly  the dragonfly made a  steep  turn.
Valya slid from  the back of  the  winged glutton and would have undoubtedly
fallen to the ground had not Karik seized her foot.
     But Karik himself could barely hold on to the dragonfly.
     "Help!" shouted Valya.
     "I ca-can't," yelled Karik.
     Valya hung down  from him like a heavy  weight. It was vain for  him to
clutch the smooth, springy sides of the dragonfly. His hands grew stiff. His
fingers slipped. With the despair of one about to perish, he hooked his chin
under the wing  of the insect and put one arm around the springy body of the
glutton.
     But to pull back was quite beyond his strength.
     "No! I can't do any more," screamed Karik.
     He  hastily  peered downwards. Far below as if in  a  fathomless  abyss
there floated  underneath the  blue surface of an immense lake. Green rushes
stuck out  of the  water  crowding along the  shore. The white cups of water
lilies stood out as if  they had been glued on to the blue background of the
lake.
     The dragonfly made a sharp, rolling turn.
     A powerful  blast of air hit Karik in the chest, his  hands slipped for
the last time along the smooth sides of the dragonfly.
     He shut his eyes.  His heart throbbed  and then stood still. There  was
nothing under his legs! He was falling!
     With the wind whistling in their ears the children plunged downwards.
     "Ee-ee-ee," squealed Valya.
     "Ah-ah-ah," screamed Karik.
     As they fell they turned somersaults.
     Several times sky and earth changed places.
     Sky.
     Earth.
     Sky.
     Earth.
     Oo-ouch!
     With great  fountains of spray the children plunged into the water like
shells and sank like stones to the bottom.
     Having struck  the bottom  with  their  feet  they bobbed  back to  the
surface like corks. They  struck  out desperately with their hands and feet.
Stunned by the fall, having swallowed a lot of water, they circled around in
one place unable to imagine what had happened.
     Karik came to, first.
     "Must swim to the shore quickly.'" he shouted, spitting out water.
     "Where is the shore?" choked Valya.
     Karik turned his head to one side where, far away, could be seen a high
green wall of forest.
     "Do you think we can ever reach it?" asked Valya.
     "Of course we shall be able  to  swim there!" said  Karik, confidently,
"but we must not hurry. Now directly you feel tired - tell me! We'll rest on
our backs. Come on, swim after me!"
     Thus they swam towards the shore, splashing, spitting and blowing.
     Suddenly Valya yelled out:
     "Look! What is that? It is coming right after us."
     A strange sort of animal was sliding over the water on half-bent legs.
     "What is it?"
     "I  don't  know!"  whispered  Karik, with  his  head back  between  his
shoulders.
     "Will it bite?"
     "I don't know. "
     The animal slid along like a  skater on the ice getting  nearer  to the
children every minute.
     "But this  - isn't like the dragonfly, is it?" questioned  Valya, in  a
whisper.
     "I don't know -  but we must prepare for anything . . . if it  attacks,
dive as deep as you can."
     With its  long  legs  widely  separated, the  animal whisked along  the
mirror of water, cleverly manoeuvring in its course through the water weeds.
     The  skate-floats  of  its  feet left a wave  track  which  was  hardly
noticeable.
     "Yes, it is . . .  it's a water skater," shouted Karik. "That's what it
is! An ordinary water skater, only much bigger."
     The giant water skater was approaching with unbelievable swiftness. The
brown body, covered on  the underside with whitish hairs, rocked slightly as
it moved. Great globe-like eyes fixedly gazed at  the children. When turning
sharply,  the  water  skater  flung its  rear  legs backwards  and sideways,
dragging them behind, pulling them first to the right and then to the left.
     It was clearly using them as a rudder.
     The water skater now came rushing straight at them.
     "Ah ee!" screamed Valya.
     The water skater  bent its  head back raising a  long spear-like snout,
sharp as a needle. It  was  covered  with what appeared  to be rust but  was
brown, dried, blood. Its tip quivered, just as if it was on a steel spring.
     "That is what it kills with !" screamed Valya.
     The  water skater  jerked nearer and raising  its front  legs aimed its
spear straight at  Valya. At that moment Karik seized his sister by the hand
and dragged her under water.
     The children dived down. Where  a  moment ago Karik  and Valya had been
swimming there now remained a few ripples and small bubbles.
     The water skater perplexedly looked around with its globe-like eyes. It
couldn't understand what had happened.  One moment  its  prey was under  its
very nose and next. . . .
     What did it mean?
     The water  skater once  more looked around and then, pressing its snout
against its white waistcoat, hurried on sliding along the watery film.
     Blowing and spitting the children bobbed up to the surface again.
     "Where is it?" Valya was breathing heavily.
     "Oo-ouch! Don't  know!"  replied  Karik,  quietly, "apparently  it  has
skated away."
     "Where to?"
     "Come on to the shore now!" Karik grew angry. "Swim and don't talk!"
     For  some time the children swam silently looking  cautiously from side
to side.
     "Oh ! What is this?"
     Valya had got caught in  some tangled net under  the  water. She tugged
once, but it  held, she tugged harder but the net seemed to  put out feelers
and it wound them round  her left  leg up  to her knees. Valya tried to help
with  her right leg, but numbers of fine,  strong  threads wound  themselves
round this leg too.
     "Now what's up with you?" Karik turned towards his sister.
     "Nets!" yelled Valya. "Something  has  caught me! There  is a net under
the water! . . .
     Karik snorting, turned back and stretched his hand out to Valya. "Here!
Catch hold!"
     But  no sooner  than he had caught Valya by the hand than he  felt that
his legs were in fetters.
     The children were  soon thrashing  the water with every bit of strength
they could muster.
     The water bubbled round them like a boiling kettle.
     "Oh! Oh!" whimpered Valya, "I can't do anything. I can't."
     "Harder! harder! Don't give in!"
     But it  was all useless. The children could  not move  from  the  spot.
Strong clinging nets entangled now not only their legs but  their bodies and
were dragging them down . . . under the water.
     Next minute the water closed over their heads with a quiet splash.
     Choking and bubbling, the children were dragged deeper and deeper.
     Then suddenly from  somewhere strong  hands  slid  over their arms  and
legs,  tore them  out of  the nets and  squeezing them tightly  dragged them
down, down into the dark depths.
     The children were swallowing filthy, warmish water.
     Before  their eyes there  started to float yellow, spotted  circles. In
their ears a singing started.
     Gently, gently, a ringing commenced:
     "Te-ee-ee-ee-eet!"
     Another second  and they  would  have been suffocated but,  just  then,
something threw Karik  and Valya  violently upwards  and  their  lungs  were
suddenly filled with air.
     Having  breathed deeply  several times, Karik opened his eyes. He could
see the  wet  frightened face  of Valya. She had  her mouth  wide  open, was
struggling to say something, but nothing but water came out.
     The children were dangling in the air. A huge hairy paw  held them high
above the water.
     It was now possible  to breathe, but  above  their heads instead of the
friendly blue sky and jolly sun, there hung a dark vault covered with mould.
Black sinister walls rose from the water.
     Valya started to cry.
     "Now,  now!  What's the  use?" said Karik, mournfully. "Everyone has to
die some time. Don't cry, Valya."
     But he started to sob himself, and Valya cried all the louder.
     The dark water started to bubble. It appeared to be raising itself into
a lump. The lump split  open and  slowly  there  appeared  a  fat,  dripping
carcass. Streams of water  ran off  its huge rounded sides.  Then beside the
monster there appeared hairy legs and at last the children saw through their
tears - a giant spider !
     It was rocking in the water looking  at the children with cold,  wicked
eyes.
     Eight small, unwinking, snake-like eyes gazed at the children, noticing
their every movement.
     Karik and  Valya tried to tear themselves  away but the spider squeezed
them so rightly in its claw that they could not even cry out.
     The eight-eyed monster turned the children upside down and then quickly
turned them back again and started to whirl them about.
     Everything went dark about them, their ears sang.
     Karik and Valya lost consciousness.


        CHAPTER IV

     Professor  Enotoff  goes into another  world - The problem  of a simple
spider's web - The first hunt - The coat of armour and the  spear - The trap
- The Professor in danger


        PROFESSOR ENOTOFF STOOD AT THE TOP OF A GREEN HILLOCK.
     His white trousers were  smeared with  tar and clay. His tie stuck  out
sideways. A crumpled hat sat on the  back of his  head revealing a  red  and
perspiring forehead. Dry twigs were sticking out of his beard.
     In one hand he held  a  small plywood  box. In  the other,  a long thin
pole. At the end of this  pole a red handkerchief was tied,  which fluttered
in the breeze like a flag.
     "Oo-oof!" puffed the Professor, looking around. "This appears to be the
place."
     Below at the foot of the green hillock a quiet, sleepy pond was shining
in the sun. The water-lilies on the blue motionless surface hardly stirred.
     Beyond thick clumps of reeds fish were rising.
     The Professor  put the box on  the ground and stuck the pole in  beside
it.
     "Now  we must begin,"  he sighed, and having thrown his hat  on  to the
ground started to tear out grass with both hands.
     Having torn  out a  whole armful  he carefully covered the  plywood box
with  grass then went up to the pole and thrust it in deeper, then pulled it
from side to side.
     The pole stood up firmly.
     "Excellent," said the Professor to himself.
     Thrusting a  hand into his pocket, he pulled  out a small round bottle.
Silvery bubbles were rising from the bottom colliding and bursting.
     He then  undressed, throwing his clothes  carelessly on  the grass  and
opened the bottle with the silvery liquid.
     "I think this should be quite  sufficient,"  he said aloud, looking all
around. Then he sighed sadly and, throwing his head back, drank the contents
of the bottle in one gulp.
     "Well, that's that,"  he muttered, and, with a swing of  the arm, threw
the empty bottle into the pond.
     For a little while he stood  thoughtfully gazing  at  the broad circles
which were chasing each other on the surface of the water close by.  Then he
walked down towards the pond and . . . melted as it were into nothing.
     There, where quite a  large man had been standing a moment ago, was now
just a pole sticking up with a small red flag on it. Around the foot of this
pole  were  strewn  a  crumpled  coat, waistcoat, trousers, shirt, boots and
striped socks.

     * * * * *

     What had become of the Professor?
     Having swallowed  the liquid he had stood for a  while and then started
to move step by step in his bare feet.
     Soon  everything  around  him had  started to change  in  a  miraculous
fashion.
     The grass had shot up with amazing swiftness. Each blade had grown  up,
ballooned out, becoming all the time thicker and taller.
     Hardly had a  minute passed  before a thick forest  was rustling around
him. Shining green trunks surrounded him on all sides.
     Each tree was like a gigantic bamboo.
     High above the tops of the trees huge cups were swinging - red, yellow,
blue in colour,  scattering over the forest a golden powder from which there
came a spicy, intoxicating smell.
     "Well, well!" said the Professor, wiping his hands. "I knew it would be
like this. This grass forest, of course, puts one in mind of the tropics."
     In this extraordinary forest there was neither the shade nor quiet of a
pinewood, nor was there as in a birch wood the murmur and rustle of leaves.
     No, this was a peculiar forest.
     It  gleamed green and sunny.  Bare glistening trunks rose from hillocks
or disappeared into ravines.
     A blue lake was shining and streams could be heard quietly gurgling.
     The silence was now and then broken by strange rustles. It seemed as if
somewhere quite close beside some beast was stalking the Professor.
     The going  was  difficult. Sharp leaves  scratched his  body. Every few
minutes  he  fell  into  some hole. The sun was  baking and it seemed to the
Professor that he was taking a walk in an oven.  The surface of the earth in
the forest was like a battlefield torn up by artillery shells.
     In the thick undergrowth here and there hung sticky nets and he had  to
be very careful getting around these traps.
     "Spiders'  work,"  muttered the Professor, forcing  his  way through  a
thicket.
     Now  and again  he  stopped  and  stood  for  some  time  watching with
curiosity the skilful  work  of  this forest weaver. But  in  particular  he
examined attentively the countless blobs which were liberally  scattered all
over the web.  He  naturally was aware that it was not the net  which caught
the  insects but these tiny, sticky  blobs. The wings  and legs of an insect
stuck to them just as if the blobs had  been  carpenters' glue,  after which
the insect was an easy prey for the spider.
     The Professor knew all  this a  long time ago, but  it  is one thing to
know and another thing to see it all with ones' own eyes.
     Thus a whole hour passed, but he  had quite forgotten  where he was and
why he was there.
     It  seemed to him that he was back  in his study bent over a microscope
and in front of him his old acquaintances were passing, one after the other.
     But what  a  microscope !  You can  hardly see  a whole spider  at once
through the eye-piece of a microscope.
     Certainly not.
     A microscope just allows one to see  the eye of the spider, or a tip of
its legs, or its claw resembling a comb, or the blob in its web.
     But here in front of the Professor was sitting the whole spider, big as
an ox, and it was possible  to see  at one and the  same time  all its eight
eyes, two jaws,  eight legs with  comb-claws, as well as its soft  distended
belly.
     But  what pleased the  Professor most  of all was that  the  spider was
alive and was hunting.
     Under a microscope, even the most perfect microscope, it was impossible
to see how a spider hunted its prey, but now the Professor was able to watch
this from arm's-length.
     The spider was hunting.
     It hid itself, huge and  soft, near the spread-out web from which there
stretched directly to it a sentry thread. The spider sat like a fisherman on
the bank and waited.
     There, there! the thread  was  shaking and  the spider hurled itself on
its prey,  drove its poison-carrying beak into it, killed it, and sucked the
blood out of it.
     The Professor gazed at  the spreading net and forgot everything else in
the world.
     Suddenly in the air above his head something buzzed like a shell from a
gun and crashed into the net with a whine.
     The net shook and danced up and down.
     "Aha," snorted the Professor, "that's a fine one."
     In the net a huge-winged animal struggled, twisting and floundering.
     It  was  bigger  than the  spider, certainly longer; transparent  wings
covered with veins  bent into an arch trying  to tear  away from  the sticky
blobs of the web; but tearing away from such a net was not so simple.
     "A wasp! Ah, yes, the very  thing," announced  the Professor to a class
which was not there, and walked right up to the net.
     The spider resting  on its  comb-like feet quickly slid across the web,
combing  it with his feet as  one  does one's hair.  He ran  around the wasp
once, and then again, and then cautiously started to creep up behind it.
     The wasp lunged out with its sharp sting.
     The spider leaped back and began to run around the wasp. It had only to
start approaching the wasp  when  the  latter would twist  its striped  body
around and threateningly stab with its smooth sharp sting.
     The spider tried to  come  upon the  wasp from  the  back and  from the
sides, but each time the sharp sting flourishing like a spear met him.
     "Curious, very curious!" muttered  the Professor, watching the wasp and
spider fighting.
     At length after useless and fruitless endeavours the spider had to give
up the battle with its dangerous prey.
     Describing a wide  circle, it fussily ran around its web shaking it and
making the wasp jump about as if it were in a cradle.
     The wasp struggled more furiously.
     Running around the  wasp  the  spider then hastily  broke  thread after
thread. At length the wasp enveloped in web crashed down on to the ground on
the edge of a ravine.
     Helplessly floundering and becoming more  and more entangled  it rolled
down to the bottom  of the  steep slope, and after it  clattered  stones and
earth.
     "Ha,  ha! Now that is  excellent," rejoiced  the  Professor. "That just
suits me."
     He ran to the edge of the ravine and looked down.
     At the bottom  of the  ravine  the huge  wasp  struggled  and  twisted,
covered with web. It twisted  its striped  body rocking on the ground trying
to  get clear  of the web, but the web clung to its wings, feet and head all
the more closely.
     The Professor hurried along the edge of the ravine carefully looking at
his feet. He was after something.
     At last he  found a big rock with sharp corners. He could  not possibly
lift it. It was several times as big as himself. But as luck would have  it,
it  was hanging over the edge of the  ravine. It just  needed a good rocking
and a shove and it should fall down to the bottom of the ravine.
     The Professor got  a  good foothold  and started  to try and  shake the
rock. It  wasn't  at all  light  work. The rock stirred  and shifted like  a
Rotton tooth, but for all that it held firmly.
     The Professor puffed like a steam engine. "You're going. You're going,"
he muttered, shoving the rock with his shoulder. "You're  moving, that means
you will fall."
     Only  five minutes before he had expected to give this stone one  shove
and it would fall but now it appeared not so simple.
     "We  will rest a little,"  he  said, breathing  heavily and wiping  his
perspiring face with the back of his hand.
     He sat down on the stone.
     Almost immediately  above his head  the spider was  scurrying backwards
and forwards making a new web. On the underside of the  spider he could  see
four mounds distended like wine skins.
     "Spinnerets," the Professor remembered.
     Each of them was considerably larger than the Professor's head.
     He  could   see  without  any  microscope  hundreds  of  holes  in  the
spinnerets, out of which were oozing drops of thick liquid. These  stretched
out like  threads dragging  behind the  spider and came together  in a thick
rope with shining blobs on it.
     In a few minutes the spider had finished the repair of the torn net and
having immediately attached to it a sentry  thread  went off to the edge  of
the web in a comfortable corner.
     "And what am I up to?" the Professor angrily jumped to his feet.
     He summoned all his strength, pressed his  shoulder to the rock and his
feet to the ground.
     "Now we'll get you !"
     Push.
     "Hah, hah! We'll give it to you! Ho, ho! There!"
     The rock swayed, hung over the ravine as if thinking, and suddenly with
a rumble and roar crashed downwards raising a thick cloud of dust.
     When the dust settled, the Professor shouted loudly.
     "Hurrah!"
     The rock lay at the bottom of the ravine.
     Under it the crushed wasp waggled, convulsively straightening its legs.
     Its long striped body now compressed  itself and now expanded like  the
bellows of a concertina.
     "Good! very good!" said the Professor, wiping his hands.
     After a little thought he lowered  his feet over the edge of the ravine
and,  holding on with his  hands to roots and  protruding  stones,  he began
cautiously to climb down to the bottom.
     When he got  to  the  wasp  it no longer moved, the Professor kicked it
with his foot and touched it with his hands - the wasp did not stir.
     "There we  are  !" he said,  and  whistling  something  unrecognisable,
calmly set about his work.
     He had to  work a whole hour  before he succeeded  in pulling its  long
spear-like sting out of the wasp's body.
     "A capital weapon!" he said, wiping the sting-spear with his hands.
     With such  a spear it would not be so terrifying wandering in the grass
jungle looking for Karik and Valya. In case of an attack the Professor could
not only protect himself but actually set about anything that might think of
eating him.
     Now  it  became  necessary to think about  clothes. Whatever else might
happen the Professor was quite unprepared to journey through the wood naked.
     Skilfully wielding the sharp spear he cut the spider's web in which the
wasp was entangled, carefully  cleaned  it from sticky  blobs  and wound  it
around himself until its soft silky rope fitted tightly around his body.
     The suit was not very beautiful but it would be very hard-wearing.
     "Just as if I was in armour!" said the Professor, looking at himself in
his new apparel with great delight.
     Throwing the spear on his shoulder he jauntily set off on his journey.
     Tramping  across the  pitted  earthen floor of the forest  from time to
time  he stopped and as he was deciding on his path  he listened.  Sometimes
having  heard  a noise  he hid himself behind one of  the  huge green trunks
looking anxiously from side to side.
     Such precaution was not unnecessary.
     The grass jungle teemed with monster animals.
     Rattling  like  sheets  of  iron,  dragonflies  flew  over   more  like
aeroplanes than simple insects.
     Jumping over the tops  of the trees  green  grasshoppers zoomed past as
big as  motor  buses. Between  the  trunks  there slid  striped caterpillars
shaking the undergrowth with their bodies. They were  so big that  they gave
the  impression to  the  Professor of something  like a goods train  passing
through the forest.
     Now and then stamping their feet centipedes ran past. Any of them might
squash the Professor into the ground with one foot.
     He had neither the time nor the inclination to fight with these animals
of the grass jungle.
     He decided  to  go into battle only if one of  these  monsters attacked
him.
     He travelled on towards the lake which showed blue through  the gaps in
the trees.
     As  he  went from  tree to  tree  he  looked with  interest at the huge
flowers, trying to guess their names. But now he found he could not say with
any certainty  which of  the  flowers was  a daisy,  which  a  buttercup  or
marigold.
     All the flowers were  so immense that many of  them conveyed nothing at
all to the Professor, which amused him.
     "Now that, for example," he sighed, looking at a blue ball resembling a
stork's nest. "What is that called in our world?"
     But who was there now to answer the Professor's questions?
     Above the top  of the forest quietly  rocked pink jars, gigantic yellow
stars, red globes, blue baskets.
     Out  of the red globes  tubes  of  beetroot red were sticking, like the
prickles of a hedgehog.
     "What on earth is that?" the Professor  puzzled and,  suddenly  hitting
his forehead  with his hand, he shouted laughingly  -  "Clover! Ordinary red
clover!"
     Beside the clover flowers there swung in the wind, shaking and dancing,
lilac  bells.  They were lit up by the  sun, and  the ground under them also
seemed lilac.
     "Now  I do  know  you?"  said the Professor,  happily. "Some poetry has
actually been written about you." And he sang at the top of his voice:


     "My tender little Harebells,
     Who bathe the steppes in blue,
     Your gaze seems full of deep spells
     With its dark, mysterious hue."


     "You  can gaze at me as much as you like,"  grinned the Professor, "but
if one of your "dark, mysterious" flowers gets torn off and falls on me, I'm
a gonner."
     Thus did the Professor observe with great interest a new and unfamiliar
world as he picked his way through the grass jungle, stopping every so often
to rest.
     Soon there was  revealed before his eyes  the smooth surface of a  lake
stretching away without bounds.
     The water sparkled in the sun like a gigantic mirror.
     "This must be  it,"  said the  Professor,  thoughtfully and holding his
spear more firmly he quickened his steps.
     He came out of the grassy forest.
     Across  his path  there was running a long  narrow ditch filled to  the
edges with brown water.
     The  Professor took  a run,  jumped and cleared the ditch quite easily,
but as he landed he felt the  ground sliding away under his feet and opening
up.
     He gave a cry and with his legs waving in the air  vanished into a dark
hole.
     Having fallen to the bottom he quickly picked himself up and started to
walk around.
     Over his head far away was the  blue sky. A weak light lit up the walls
of the  hole which appeared thickly matted with roots. Immediately  in front
of him the Professor could see the mouth of a dark tunnel.
     He bent down,
     The tunnel breathed at him dark and cold.
     "That's that," said the Professor.
     He turned away from the tunnel and started to climb the hanging wall of
the hole, getting grips for his hands and feet in the roots.
     He had practically reached  the  top and  -it remained only  for him to
stretch out his arm and the sun would once again  have  been  shining on his
head,  but at the very moment when his head was appearing out of the hole he
spotted right  in front  of him the hideous snout of some  sort  of monster.
"Excuse me," hiccupped the startled Professor, and hastily  ducking his head
disappeared back into the hole.
     The monster, his great feet moving, approached the hole.
     The Professor's eyes met the eyes of the monster.
     "A beetle," he almost shouted, "a dung-beetle."  Beside  the beetle  he
saw an immense grey pear-shaped object. The beetle turned to the pear-shaped
object and set about shoving it towards the hole.
     The Professor had not succeeded  in remembering the Latin  name for the
beetle,  when the grey pear toppled  over the edge of the hole and  shut out
the sky.
     It was now pitch dark in the hole.
     The  Professor, frightened, quickly  clambered  up the side of the hole
and  tried to  push the pear away with his  shoulder  and head,  using every
ounce of his strength. He tried to work his  way out of the dungeon, but all
in vain.
     The pear would not budge.
     He shoved harder, but at that moment the beetle was pressing on the top
of the pear with such  violence  that the pear drove down into the hole like
the cork in a bottle.
     The shock flung the Professor downwards.
     Earth  came crumbling down  on his  head and  a  sharp  stem hit  him a
painful blow in the chest.
     "Ow!" he croaked and, rubbing his injured chest, he made to get up.
     Suddenly he realised he was not alone in the darkness of the hole.
     He hurriedly gazed around.
     Behind his back something rustled  as  if  it was slowly and cautiously
stealing up to him.
     He  felt around  with his  hands. His  fingers  touched  his spear.  He
grasped it tightly, and quickly jumping to his feet pressed his back  to the
wall.
     "Ts-z-a-a-k"  Something sounded right  beside him. The Professor  heard
breathing - hesitating breathing. He started  to wave his spear  in front of
himself and then hoarsely shouted. "Who is it? Who is there?"


        CHAPTER V

     In the Spider's  lair - The  battle in  the under-water prison -  Valya
finds it stuffy - A vagabond vegetable - Karik finds a way out

     KARIK  BECAME CONSCIOUS.  HE OPENED  HIS EYES AND THEN suddenly  it all
came back to him. He remembered how he had flown with Valya  on a dragonfly.
He  remembered the  ghastly  snout of the  water skater and then the  strong
hairy legs of the spider.
     All  around it  was dark and  there  was a rank smell. Some  way  below
beyond his  feet water  quietly lapped and just beside him  someone breathed
softly.
     Karik lay  stretched  out at full length, but what he was  lying  on he
could not make out. His head sang, his arms and legs were tingling with pins
and needles, his eyelids seemed too heavy to open.
     He  groaned  and then  immediately  recognised the frightened voice  of
Valya.
     "Quiet! He is here!"..
     Karik  quickly  turned his  head and  bumped  his  forehead on  Valya's
temple.
     Valya made a choked shout.
     Karik tried  to move away from her but  could not. Someone had  wound a
thick cord round them from their feet to their heads fastening them securely
together.
     Karik tried the harder to escape  and suddenly as a result of a furious
wriggle he  and Valya started to sway from side to side as if they were in a
swing.
     "Quieter!" whispered Valya, hurriedly.  "Please be quieter! It's - it's
just below us."
     "The spider?"
     "A - ay - It has just carried us here - I heard - "
     "Aren't you frightened?"
     "Not half! Aren't you?"
     "I am, but look here, don't cry. Let's try to escape first of all."
     Karik moved  apart  the loops  of  the cord with  his head  and  peered
around. Below there  lay  the  dark water out of which  rose up black smooth
walls and overhead was a sloping roof.
     The children were hanging in mid-air in the den.
     "What do you think!" whispered Karik. "It's hung us up - fastened us to
the roof."
     "M-m" nodded Valya, "it hung us up. I thought as much."
     "But what for?"
     "I've been trying to think. What for?"
     "Well, haven't you thought of anything?"
     "No."
     Karik succeeded in  pulling first one arm and then the other out of the
spider's binding cords.
     "What are you doing, Karik?"
     "Be quieter! Shut up!"
     Trying not to pant, Karik in the end freed his head and started to look
below.
     Just immediately below the children the spider  was scurrying about. It
ceaselessly moved about in the  water  along the walls  of the den  stopping
from time to rime as if listening for something.
     From  the roof above huge drops  of water formed and  broke off to fall
with a splash into the water throwing up showers of spray to the roof.
     Karik was able to distinguish a dull noise coming from somewhere.
     Somewhere  right  beside  them  -  just behind the  wall  it  seemed  -
something was not exactly knocking and not exactly scratching.
     It was as if someone outside was moving around feeling the wall looking
for a door.
     This noise definitely was disturbing the spider.  It would first of all
start climbing the wall  and then moving its long  legs would back away from
the wall.
     "Do you hear?" said Valya, quietly. "Something is moving the other side
of the wall."
     "Yes, yes,"  whispered Karik.  "I  hear  it."  The noise started to get
louder and louder. It seemed as if someone was beating on the wall with soft
but heavy fists.
     "Something is trying to get  in here!" breathed Valya.  At  that moment
the walls of the underwater house shook  so  vigorously that the children in
their spider's  cradle  were  shot upwards.  The  cradle struck the wall and
started  swinging  like a pendulum. "Look!  Look at  the  spider!" whispered
Valya. The  spider  had pushed itself into the centre of  the  water and was
ceaselessly moving its feet as if feeling something  and gazing with all its
eyes at the wall of its den.
     And  suddenly the wall split open,  there  was  a  shower of pieces  of
plaster-like earth into  the water. In the gaping wall  there  appeared huge
hairy feet.
     The  feet once  again tore at the wall. The under-water house shook and
rocked. The cradle with the children was flung from side to side.
     The wall crashed  down.  Amid the noise  and splatter another spider as
like the owner of the den as are two peas, burrowed its way into the den. It
gathered its striped legs underneath its body  as  if preparing for a spring
and slowly  started to advance. The owner of  the den waved its feelers. The
spiders looked at each  other for a  moment or so. Then the owner raised its
feelers and violently hurled itself at the uninvited guest.
     In the darkness  there commenced  a  bitter struggle. Feelers  whistled
through the air and smacked  the water. Spray flew  up  to the roof and soon
the walls were covered with shaking drops of water.
     The battle of the  spiders shook the underwater den. The walls quivered
and the roof rocked.
     The children were  flung up in  the air, hurled first to the  right and
then to the left.
     Before their eyes  were glimpses of wall, roof, spiders, water and then
again wall, roof, water.
     The spiders fought  silently.  They hugged  each  other with long  legs
swaying  like wrestlers from side  to side, then jumping backwards away from
each  other  would  once again dart  at one another. Then with a swish there
whirled  up to the roof  a torn-off  leg.  It  got  caught in  the  spider's
fastenings and hung swinging above the heads of the children.
     Karik  managed successfully  to dislodge it. Rocking  in the water  the
mutilated spiders  separated for  an instant and sat breathing heavily  near
the wall; but then once more they hurled themselves at each other.
     Once more  the water foamed noisily and the walls of  the  little house
shook from the blows as if there had been an earthquake.
     The children followed  the  battle  of the  spiders with  fear,  hardly
daring to breathe.
     The  spider  fastenings  became  slacker  as  a result  of the  violent
jerking. Now it became possible for Karik and Valya to wriggle out  of their
rope cradle. First Karik climbed out and  quickly grasped the rope which led
from the roof to the cradle.
     "Come on Valya," said Karik, "get out."
     Valya stretched herself upright to her full height and stood by Karik.
     "Do you know what," she said, "we must look for something."
     "What for?"
     "Some sort of stick to defend ourselves with."
     But  wherever the  children  looked they could  see nothing  in the den
except the bare walls.
     "What  about  the leg," said  Valya, "we might use  the leg over there,
there is the torn-off leg floating." She pointed her finger down to the dark
water on which mangled legs of the spiders floated.
     "Oh! Valya," Karik whispered cheerfully. "Look,  I  believe  they  have
killed each other!"
     The children stretched their heads down.
     On  the  dark  surface  of the water  there  floated,  moving  ever  so
slightly, the  mutilated  bodies of  the  spiders. Waves  were  pushing them
towards the hole in the wall and they rocked side  by side, no longer paying
each other any attention.  The spider-owner of the den made one more attempt
to move but its head dropped helplessly into the water - dead.
     It became quite quiet in the under-water house.
     "They're dead!" cheerfully shouted Karik.
     He  bent over, stretched  his head out and spat first  on to one spider
and then on to the other.
     Neither spider budged.
     The  children  looked at  each other:  were  they dead or were they not
dead?
     Karik shouted.
     "Ehey-hey-hey!"
     The spiders floated like leather cushions blown out with air.
     "They're dead!" said Karik, now quite certain  and having measured with
his eyes the distance to the water he let go the rope. Arms and legs gleamed
in the air, and Karik hit the water like a stone.
     "Karik!  Lunatic!"  screamed Valya,  gazing at  the  fountain  of spray
shooting up at her.
     Karik's head appeared  above the water: having emerged he looked around
and swam towards the spiders.
     "Karik," screamed Valya, "come back! They are still breathing!"
     But Karik, paying no  attention to the cries of his sister, swam up  to
one of the spiders and lifting his arm out of  the water struck it violently
in the tummy.
     The spider's  tummy  made a noise like a drum. Karik quickly  swam away
but, having looked at the spider, came back  again and hit its head with the
heel  of his foot.  The  spider  never budged. Then Karik climbed on  to the
carcass as if it was a raft. and stood upright.
     "Jump!"  he shouted, waving  his hand  at Valya. "No!" Valya shook  her
head, "it's too far!"
     "What are you going  to do? Sit up there for ever? Whatever happens you
will have to jump. Come on, jump!" Valya sighed deeply.
     "Jump quickly because  maybe new spiders will come and we shall be even
worse off."
     Valya closed her eyes, flung up her arms and plumped downwards, letting
out a sort of squeak.
     A shower of spray hit Karik  and waves rocked  the spiders. Blowing and
puffing,  Valya came up out of the  water. "Climb up here!"  shouted  Karik,
drumming  with his feet  on  the  distended tummy  of the spider.  "Don't be
afraid! Give me your hand!"
     Valya  swam over to the fearsome  carcass, touched the  spider's  huge,
hairy  body  with her  hand and immediately drew her hand back and  screamed
with fright.
     "It's mo-ov-ing!"
     "Don't tell lies! Nothing moved!" Karik grew angry. "Come on! quickly!"
     At last  after much persuasion, Valya  took  the  hand stretched out by
Karik and he pulled her up on to his floating island.
     The spider never budged. There was nothing to fear. Valya squatted down
and started to wring  out her wet hair, but Karik stood upright and began to
examine the gloomy lair of the spider attentively.
     "We must get out of this," sighed Valya. "We must find a door."
     "There's a door." Karik stretched out his arm towards the  dark hole in
the wall.
     Throwing  his arms  up above his  head  he  jumped into  the water  and
quickly swam towards the hole in the wall.
     Valya  watched Karik  with some agitation and when  he  vanished in the
darkness she yelled.
     "What's up? What's there?"
     Karik did not answer.
     Valya suddenly looked  at her feet and grew pale. It seemed to her that
the spider was beginning to move.
     "Ka-ari-k!" - She shouted.
     Her voice carried along the curve of the roof and died away.
     "Ka-a-ri-k!" shouted  Valya,  still louder. She  was just about to jump
into  the  water  and  swim  after  her  brother  but at  that moment  Karik
reappeared in the dark hole.
     "What are you shouting about?" he asked angrily.
     Seeing Karik alive and uninjured, Valya became calm. She gave her hands
to her brother and, helping him up on to the spider, asked:
     "Well, what did you find? Is there any sort of door?"
     "No. It is the same sort of den as ours," answered Karik, shrugging his
shoulders.
     "Is there anything living in it?"
     "Nothing."
     Karik sat down with his  knees up to his chin and clasped his legs with
his arms.
     "And there is no door?"
     "No!"
     "But suppose we dive under the wall, Karik?"
     "Under the wall?"
     Karik bent and, hanging his head, started to stare at the dark waters.
     In  the depths of the water  he could dimly see the slimy bottom of the
pond. Silvery  spider threads stretched from  the slime to the  edges of the
under-water den, making it impossible to dive out.
     "We must dive under the wall," repeated Valya. "But  do you  see that?"
And  Karik pointed  with his  hand  at  the net stretched under  the  water,
preventing either exit or entry to the prison. Certainly  not!  To dive into
that would be terrible.
     "There  must  be some  door!"  said  Karik.  "How  did  we get in  here
otherwise?"
     Valya now began a sort of panting noise.
     Karik peered at her and then quickly seized her hand.
     "Valya! what's up?"
     Valya sat there very pale with her mouth wide open, holding her  throat
with her hands.
     "I can't breathe," she croaked, "there - there's not enough air."
     "All  right, all right!" Karik  muttered  in confusion. But he  did not
know how to  help his sister, and in fact he himself  felt a dragging in his
chest which  tugged  at his  ribs  till they  hurt. "I can't  get enough air
either," panted  Karik. He  breathed  faster and faster, his  ears began  to
sing,  his  heart beat as violently as if he  was  running up  a steep  high
mountain. The  damp, heavy air filled his  lungs,  making breathing more and
more difficult. Something had to be done.
     "Don't be frightened!" he panted, touching Valya with his hand.
     "We'll get  out  somehow!"  And  once again for  the  hundredth time he
started to examine the under-water prison.
     Karik's head started to go round. He bent over, scooped up the stagnant
water, splashed it on his face. Suddenly his arm stopped in mid-air.
     He  had spotted  two enormous  green eggs  on the slimy bottom to which
they were attached at one end. One of these eggs started to move and  slowly
came  free  of  the  mud  and  floated  upwards  striking  the  edge of  the
under-water den  disappeared upwards  somewhere. In  the same way the second
egg floated up and disappeared.
     Karik stretched out a hand to Valya and said with a trembling voice.
     "Frogbit buds? Do you see?"
     He  had made no mistake,  they  were the  "winter buds" of  frogbit - a
water plant.
     Karik had seen  these many times when  he was in the  big world and now
recognised them without special difficulty.
     Frogbit - a creeping water  plant - travels  about  lakes and ponds all
the summer blown by the wind from bank to bank. Its roots like strawberries'
runners obtain nourishment  direct from the water. At the end of the  summer
young shoots appear with  runners. They rise out of the surface of the water
and break into leaves resembling a heart as one sees drawn in pictures.
     In winter the frogbit  plant is  frozen  in the  ice and perishes.  But
before this it succeeds in strewing the bottom with its amazing winter buds.
     All  the winter  the buds  -  looking  like green eggs  - remain on the
bottom. But as soon as there comes a day sufficiently warm they become blown
out with gas and one  after the other float up to  the surface of the water,
and once again become water creeping-plants.
     It was these seeds that Karik had spotted.
     Seizing Valya by the hand, he spluttered.
     "Listen! These things rise like corks. We  must dive and hold on to one
of them. They will then carry us up."
     "But the web? Look at all its ropes under water."
     "All the same we must try. Now dive. Quickly!"
     Just at this  moment a gigantic green egg  was stirring  on the bottom.
There was no  time  to think.  The  seed came  away from  the black mud  and
started to float up.
     "Dive!" shouted Karik.
     Valya summoned all her  strength.  Having taken  a deep breath she shot
off the  spider  and disappeared  beneath the water.  Karik watched her dive
under  the wall,  seize the huge frogbit bud with both  hands, and disappear
upwards with it.
     Karik dived  after  his sister. Opening  his eyes beneath the water, he
made for another green torpedo. It started to move. He put his arms and legs
round the  broad  slippery sides and  at  once began  to  spin  round. After
turning  round several  times the torpedo  started suddenly to  move upwards
through the mass of water above.
     To Karik holding his breath there seemed to follow  an age of  floating
upwards, boring  as it was through the water. Another moment  and his  heart
would  have burst from lack of  air,  but as luck would have  it  the  green
torpedo suddenly bobbed out of the surface of the water.
     Blinded by the clear light, with the hot rays of the sun beating on his
face, Karik floundered in the water and breathed - at last. At last he could
breathe easily. Great lungfuls.
     Beside him, Valya was floating gulping  in the clean fresh air with the
same greed.
     "Ah, Valya," Karik shouted again, "you're alive and breathing."
     "I am breathing!"
     "The main thing is, don't be  frightened of  anything," said  the happy
Karik. "Don't get depressed, don't whimper and, above all, don't cry. If you
and I can succeed in  getting away from  such  a terrible spider -  well, it
means we should succeed in finding our way home."
     The poor children had no suspicion of what they had still to survive in
this  unfamiliar  world  and what dangers they had still  to  face  on their
journey homewards.





        CHAPTER VI

     Daring navigators -  Strange  passengers  - Karik and Valya penetrate a
watery jungle - The search for food - The children find berries- - But then!



     RAISING THEIR HEADS ABOVE  WATER THE CHILDREN  LOOKED  ALL around them.
Everywhere as far as eye could see there seemed to stretch the blue sheen of
the water, and it was only in the west where now the sun was  setting  there
appeared the serried top of a dark bank of forest.
     Above the forest clouds were rolling.
     "We must get ashore somehow," said Karik, "and then make for home."
     "Can we ever  get to the shore, do you think?"  asked Valya, eyeing the
distant bank.
     "Certainly we can get to the shore," said Karik, perkily. "We must make
use of these things. Climb on to your bud!"
     The children clambered on to the green torpedoes.
     Karik shouted:
     "Row with your feet."
     The children started  to  paddle  with their  feet trying  to get  into
motion, but the buds just bobbed about and did not move.
     "Stop!" shouted Karik. "Come over to me. We'll row together."
     Valya swam to her brother. The frogbit bud was now loaded  so that more
than half of it was under water.
     "Row!" commanded Karik.
     The children keeping  time together pulled their arms through the water
like oars. The bud wobbled and then started to move slowly forward.
     "We are going ahead!" shouted Valya.
     "Full speed ahead!" ordered Karik.
     At first  the bud went from side to side, to the right and then to  the
left, but soon this matter was put right.
     Cutting the water with  its sharp nose, the  green torpedo sped towards
the  shore   like  an  ordinary  boat.  The   children   drove  it   forward
energetically, labouring with their arms.
     In the distance ahead something panted and struck the water not exactly
like a plank of wood nor like oars of a boat. The nearer the children got to
the  shore the  more distinctly  could these noises be heard and  then quite
beside them something roared.
     "Qua-a-a-ha-aha-ha,"  came the sound  across the water.  Valya trembled
and nearly fell off the bud.
     "Whatever is that," she whispered, stopping rowing.
     "A  frog!  It must be a frog. Just an ordinary frog.  But bigger than a
five storeyed house. Don't be frightened!"
     "Yes," said Valya thoughtfully.  "Just an ordinary one - but even a fly
could eat us, let alone a five-storeyed frog."
     "Don't fret," Karik comforted his sister. "A frog like that will  never
notice us."
     Valya became silent.
     The children were now rowing towards inlets which could be seen cutting
the line of the shore.
     Bright  green glistening islands  seemed  to rise up out  of the water.
They rocked slightly as if they were rafts moored at buoys. It was necessary
to keep a sharp look out to prevent running into one of them.
     "What  do  you  think  that is?"  asked  Valya,  pointing at one of the
islands.
     "I  don't know," answered  Karik, undecidedly, "must be  some  sort  of
leaves - surely water weeds."
     Now to the right and now to the left of them round animals with smooth,
polished  backs like motor-car bodies  rose suddenly out of the  water. They
were in fact as big as motor-cars.
     Stretching out their wings the creatures flew upwards and  then just as
suddenly plunged back into the water, raising a fountain of spray.
     On the surface of  a broad channel between two islands the children saw
a  brown striped monster with long,  bent  legs.  It  hurried backwards  and
forwards sliding over the water on its round, podgy body.
     On the back of this podgy-bodied brute there were sitting  five  little
reproductions of the beast only much smaller.
     The little ones sat there quite calmly.
     From time  to time  the striped brute fished something  up out  of  the
water. Then  the little ones in one wink slid off  into the  water, and in a
t