The Professor did not say anything  in reply. Muttering something under
his breath  he quickly set out  in the direction  of  the  cave.  Valya  ran
skipping along behind him.
     "Now, Professor dear, do tell me  what are these horses? Where will you
get them from?"
     "I will not tell you!"
     "Tell me!" insisted Valya.
     "Don't be curious! You'll see for yourself to-morrow."
     "Oh, Professor," whimpered Valya again, and suddenly became silent.
     In front of them a light twinkled. Valya seized the old man by the hand
and stopped.
     "It's on fire! Look! There is a fire in our cave!"
     The light was coming between the rocks  which  blocked  the entrance to
the cave.
     "A fire! A fire in our cave!"  Valya screamed in fright. "Hurry - Karik
is burning!"
     "It is nothing! Nothing terrible! Your brother is not burning."
     But Valya,  not listening to the Professor, had already dashed headlong
to the cave.
     "Karik!"  she shouted, as she ran.  "Are you burning? Are  you burning,
Karik?"
     "No, it is not I," Valya heard Karik's calm voice.
     She quickly  pulled the rocks aside. Jumping into the  cave she stopped
as if she was rooted to the spot.
     "Whatever is it?"
     The  corner  where the mound of little eggs had been laid on their tray
was glowing  with a dazzling  blue light just as the lamps  on a  New Year's
tree, only brighter. One could have read a book by the light.
     "Well, how do you like it?" Valya heard the old man's voice behind her.
     "Isn't it lovely !" said Valya, in ecstasy.
     "It's those . . . those eggs are glowing."
     "Yes," smiled the Professor, "the eggs of a glow-worm."
     "Ah, I know!" Valya  nodded  her  head. "It's that worm. The glow-worm!
The 'St. John's day' worm, as the peasants call it!"
     "Yes,  that's what it is called, although it actually is not a worm but
a beetle. That you can easily understand when you consider what it eats. The
ordinary worm lives underground and eats earth but  the beetle lives in damp
grass and feeds on snails."
     "Yes, yes! I remember. These beetles shine in the grass."
     "Perfectly correct. They glow  themselves,  their larvae glow and their
eggs glow. . . . Pretty, isn't it?"
     "Very pretty,"  said Karik from his corner. "How lucky  it was that you
found them."
     "Well, now how do you  feel. Better or worse?" The old man went over to
the patient. "Would you like something to eat?"
     "Had it !" said Karik. "I have already had it! When you were away I had
a look all round, found the honey and had a jolly good feed."
     "You shouldn't have got up." frowned the Professor. "It is too soon for
you to  get  up ! Too soon,  my dear!  If  you don't  look out  you'll  make
yourself worse !"
     "Do you know what?" said Karik. "When I woke up and looked around - the
table, then the  chairs, and the light burning. Why, I thought I was at home
again, it was morning, and I must get up."
     "But do you like our new flat?" asked Valya.
     "Very much!"  replied Karik. "Particularly the little glow-worm  lamps.
Haven't they got a strong light?"
     "You  could  have  more  than that,"  said the  Professor.  "Now if you
brought a couple of Pyropheri in here . . . there you would see some light!"
     "And what are these things . . . py . . . your pyrough."
     "They are beetles,  too! They  live  in Guiana, Brazil  and Mexico. And
then if  some Brazilian or Mexican wants to go out in the forest at night he
catches one of these beetles and fastens it to his hat. The  light given off
by  these  beetle-lanterns  is so strong  that you  can  go through the very
darkest  of  tropical  undergrowth and not lose  your way - some people call
them 'Ford bugs' because  they are  like  motor-car headlamps. Mexican women
adorn themselves with these  Pyropheri They hide  them in their hair, beside
diamonds or make themselves jewels of fire or fasten them round their waists
to  make a girdle  of fire. After a ball the  local  belles bathe the  tired
insects in a bath and put them in a glass vase and there the Pyropheri light
the  bedrooms  of  these  Mexican women all night  with a  gentle,  pleasant
light."
     "But is the glow-worm the only one we have which glows?"
     "It's  not the only thing," replied the Professor. "I could arrange the
same sort  of lighting using  glowing bacteria. . . . When I was a student I
once  made a real lamp out  of such  bacteria. By the light of this  lamp  I
could read and write."
     "Bacteria? These are so  small that  you cannot see them with the naked
eye. How can they light up anything? You couldn't see them."
     "When you  have  lots of them," replied the old man, "then you can  see
the light,  although  the individual bacteria,  naturally,  cannot be  seen.
Often in  the  forest you can see Rotton stumps glowing with a blue or green
light. It looks as if the stump  itself was glowing,  but  it  is really the
light of the bacteria. In the same way Rotton  fish thrown away on the shore
glow. Often you can see the same light in the carcases of animals."
     Here the Professor hesitated, ran over to a barrel and throwing the lid
off it noisily shouted cheerfully:
     "Supper, supper, my dears! Supper and then bed!"
     In  the  morning the  Professor  set out on a scouting  expedition.  He
returned only at nightfall and brought a coil of spider's  web cord. He then
sat at the entrance of the cave late into the night twisting thick ropes out
of the spider's cord. When they were all about to go to  sleep he announced,
turning to Valya:
     "To-morrow you  and I  will go to  our ship! It's time to launch her in
the water. . .  . Karik is getting better and we should very soon be able to
continue our journey."
     Next day the old man woke Valya before dawn. They breakfasted on honey.
     Then  he slung  the  rope over his shoulder  and set out  with Valya to
start work.
     The oak leaf lay in the old place.
     The Professor threw the rope down near the leaf.
     "But now," said he, "let's go to the stable for our cart horse."
     Then he led along the  bank, bending down to the ground,  looking under
the rocks.
     Beside a big  grey  rock he went  down on  all fours, looked for a long
time into a dark hole under it and then sat back and threw a handful of sand
into the hole.
     Something stirred beneath the rock.
     "A famous  steed!" announced  the Professor, getting up.  "If  only  he
doesn't kick we'll soon launch our ship."
     "What is there? Is it under the rock?" asked Valya, in a whisper.
     "A wild horse!" joked the Professor. "A  horse  with six legs. Now come
on, little Valya, you must help me!"
     He dragged the spider's web rope  to the stalk of  the leaf,  wound  it
around the stalk and  with an effort dragging the rope  over his shoulder he
pulled the knot tight.
     "Excellent!" he muttered.
     Dragging  the other end of the  rope over the ground  he walked with it
away from the leaf. When the rope was stretched full length  he tied another
loop in the other  end  of it. Then he dragged four short logs  of  wood and
stood them on end like ninepins stand when you are playing skittles.
     Lightly hammering the logs with a stone the old man drove them a little
way into the earth. He knocked one of them with his foot.
     The log fell down.
     "Fine!" announced the Professor.
     He picked up the fallen log and stuck it in its former position.
     Valya was watching  him with curiosity but could not make head or tails
of what he was doing.
     "Can I help you?" she asked at length.
     "Not at all, not at all! I can manage!"
     He lifted the loop of the rope,  dragged it to  the logs  and carefully
laid it on top of them.
     The loop  now  hung above the ground resting on the  carefully balanced
logs.
     "Well, there's the horse's  collar ready," said the old man. "Now let's
go and find the horse! Have you ever harnessed horses?" he asked, jokingly.
     "No," Valya acknowledged frankly. "I have never harnessed a horse!"
     "Marvellous! Nor have I. However, that's no great misfortune."
     The Professor picked up a long stick from the ground and held it out to
Valya.
     "Come! Take hold of this!"
     Then he found an even longer  stick for himself and putting it over his
shoulder, commanded:
     "Follow me !"
     With long strides he led Valya to the big grey rock.
     Near to  the  rock he stopped,  drove the  end  of  his  stick into the
ground, and putting one foot forward, said:
     "Now listen attentively. Just here under the rock there is the Carrabus
larva  hiding itself from the light of day.  Now  the  Carrabus is a vicious
beetle  which lives  on insects. This larva, like its parents, also lives on
insects. By day it sits quietly  under a rock, but at night time it goes  on
the hunt. It is extraordinarily strong! A regular tigress - nothing less!"
     "I  am frightened," whispered Valya, looking at the Professor with eyes
wide with fear.
     "Quite unnecessary!"  replied the old man.  "Just listen. Now then,  we
must  drive the  Carrabus larva from under  the rock  and  chase it into our
horse collar. Once it is there it will pull our ship to the lake. I think we
can manage the insect quite easily, only we must not be frightened."
     "But will it suddenly bite?"
     "Of course it will bite, if we get careless!"
     "Then how are we going to drive it?"
     "Just this  way: to begin with we'll chase  it out from under the  rock
and  then you  will stay  on that  side of  it and  I on this. As soon as it
starts  to  come  out  you  prevent it  from  crawling to the right whilst I
prevent it crawling to the left. We can drive it straight into the loop. Now
are you ready? Get a bit further away."
     Valya ran a little way  away. The Professor  shoved his stick under the
rock and started to twist it about like a poker in the fire.
     "Aha! it's coming! it's coming!"
     A huge monster with  a  long body  started to crawl out  from under the
stone  straight towards Valya. She hit it  with her stick  on its back.  The
Carrabus quivered and turned towards the Professor. He tapped it on the head
with his stick.
     Then the monster, moving on all six legs,  crawled straight towards the
oak leaf but on the way there suddenly stopped.
     The old man  ran up to the insect and gave it such a whack on its  back
that it shuddered and started to turn around where it was.
     "Valya, drive it, drive it!"
     Valya struck the Carrabus a stroke on its side.
     "Now, now! Get on! Get on!"
     Thus, step by step, they moved towards the oak leaf, driving the  larva
ahead of them.
     At last the  monster's head was level with the  loop. The Professor hit
the logs with his  stick.  The loop fell over the head  of the Carrabus. The
old man threw his stick down, seized the rope with his hands and pulled with
all his strength. The loop tightened. Then  he picked his stick up again and
ran up to the head of the insect.
     "We're off!" the old man shouted.
     The leaf  tumbled. Raising a cloud of dust it then slowly moved towards
the bank.
     The Carrabus turned from side to side, but each time bumped  up against
a sharp stick. The travellers would not allow it to turn  away either to the
right or to the left.
     At last it became more peaceful and dragged the heavy leaf to the lake.
     It crawled along, glancing  at the Professor  and Valya with  huge eyes
quite  unable  to follow what these  terrible  two-legged insects armed with
long sticks wanted.
     "The chestnut grey horse! A champion," shouted Valya, with delight.
     "Not  a  chestnut  grey  horse  but  a  Carrabus Cancellatus," said the
Professor, sternly. "Carrabus is  a genus of beetle of the  family Carabide;
Cancellatus is its name!"
     The Carrabus larva dragged the oak leaf to  the  water's edge, but here
it became  quite  crazy.  It made  a  dash  suddenly  along the edge in  one
direction and then abruptly turned around and dashed off towards the bank.
     The Professor  and Valya ran, shouting, after  it and hit it with their
sticks on the head, sides and back.
     How long this  struggle  would  have continued it is  difficult to say.
However,  it  finished quite unexpectedly: running  past  a huge  cliff, the
Carrabus stopped and then disappeared under the cliff.
     "Phew!" puffed the old man. "Well, that's  the Carrabus! 1 am afraid it
didn't like us."
     "But how are we to unharness the Carrabus?"
     "Very simple!"  replied the  Professor, untying the rope from the stalk
of the  leaf. "Although it's a pity to throw away such a fine rope, there is
nothing else to do! Come on. We have done enough to-day, don't you think? We
must go and have a bit of a rest."
     Leaving  the  leaf  on  the shore, the travellers returned home.  After
dinner Valya recounted to Karik how skilfully  they had dragged the oak leaf
to the shore with the help of the Carrabus larva. Karik listened to her with
envy,
     "Eh! What a pity I wasn't there," he sighed. "I would have got it to go
straight into the water. You should have tugged at the loop."
     "It  is easy  to advise,"  said the old  man, "but you should have been
working on the job as Valya and I were."
     He put his hand to his  whiskers, wiped the honey off his beard and got
up.
     "To-morrow we  must set out quickly on the expedition. But to-day until
evening  comes we  must  drag  the barrels of  honey on  to the  shore, find
clothes for ourselves, get  the mast, sails and ropes ready. In other words,
there's plenty to do."
     He took an armful of silkworm hair from the ground.
     "Come on, little Valya!" he said, turning to the mouth of the cave.
     All day long the Professor and Valya worked  on  the shore of the lake.
Valya platted cords out of the hair, and the old man wandered about  looking
for a mast.
     At last he returned. On his shoulders there lay a long, dry grass mast.
     That evening the leaf was launched in the water.
     The  Professor hammered a hole  in the  centre of the leaf with a sharp
stone, drove the mast into the hole and afterwards smeared a thick  layer of
clay on the floor around the mast and announced:
     "To-morrow the sun will dry  up the clay  and our mast will be fixed to
the ship as firm as you like."
     The  Professor gazed  at the ship,  thought for a bit  then took a long
cord from Valya's hands and went up to the end of the  leaf. Here he threw a
loop over the stalk and pulled it with all his strength.
     The leaf  quivered, its end  lashed  in  the water  and  then lifted  a
little.
     Then the oak leaf became quite like a ship.
     It rocked with its nose high above the water.
     "It's like a goose sticking its neck up."
     Valya started laughing. "Now if only there was a sail to put up!"
     "There will  be a sail too," retorted the Professor. "We'll make it out
of some sort of petal! Only it is surely not  worth  putting it up now! It's
already too late in the day. And what's more it would dry out in the sun and
become like leather."
     The old man drove a  sharp  stake into the ground and fastened the hair
rope to it.
     "There we are, everything is fine!"
     Valya went along  the rope  to the bow of the ship and with a piece  of
shell started to draw something on it.
     "What are you up to?" demanded the Professor.
     "I want to give our ship a name!" said Valya.
     "What have you decided to call it?"
     "Take a look at it!"
     Valya jumped down. The Professor went up closer and wrinkling his  eyes
made out in big letters on the bow: CARRABUS.
     "Not bad!" he said, approvingly.

     * * * * * *


     Next  day the  travellers  sewed clothes  from petals, and then in  the
evening Valya and the Professor rolled the barrels of honey on to the ship.
     Karik was  already up.  He walked about holding  on to  the side of the
cave with his hands and  wanted  all the time to  try and help the Professor
and Valya, but the old man stopped him.
     "Lie  down, take it easy,"  the Professor grunted at  him.  "You should
rest for another two or three days. We can manage without you."
     This annoyed  Karik greatly, but he didn't start to dispute  it. He lay
down on his bed, turned his face to the wall and made it appear  that he was
asleep, although he himself was stealthily watching the other two.
     "All right," he thought. "You'll go off and I'll do  half the work here
without you. Afterwards you'll jolly well have to thank me."
     As soon  as ever the Professor and Valya had gone out  of the cave  lie
jumped  up, seized  one  of  the barrels and started  to push it towards the
mouth.
     He  had already rolled it out of the cave when an accident  happened. A
round stone turned over under his foot.  Karik  flung up  his  arms and fell
forward with his  body on the barrel. The barrel  tilted over as a result of
this violent impact. He quickly clutched the edge of  the barrel, but losing
his balance fell to the ground.
     The barrel  rumbled  down  beside  him. The lid  flew  off'. The  thick
gruel-like honey spread out over the ground.
     Karik got up. Shaking the dust off himself he gazed  perplexedly at the
overthrown barrel.
     "That's a fine way to help!"
     The honey puddle crept in all directions like liquid dough. Karik moved
out of  the  way, looked  around  and, finally waving his  hands hopelessly,
hopped back on one leg into the cave.

     * * * * * *


     It was already dark by the time the Professor and Valya returned. Karik
heard their voices in the distance.  He quickly buried his  head in the hair
pillow and pretended to be asleep.
     "Oy, whatever is this?" shouted  Valya, stopping at the entrance to the
cave.
     Karik stuck his fingers in his ears and screwed his eyes tight shut.
     "Oh, I can't move!" shouted Valya. "My feet are stuck in the ground."
     The old  man dashed  to her  aid, but he had no sooner reached her than
his own feet got stuck in the sticky honey.
     "What can it be?" he wondered.
     Sinking  in  up to the ankles he managed to reach Valya with difficulty
and stretched out his hand to her.
     "Give me your hand!"
     Valya  gave a hand. He  stepped  back  and pulled her  towards himself.
Valya swayed and almost fell: her feet were fast stuck in the thick honey.
     "Stop," she yelled, "I am quite stuck! Like a fly in the jam."
     "Don't worry, don't worry," muttered the Professor, and took a breath.
     He dragged Valya out of  the honey with a great effort, took her in his
arms and  moving  his  feet with  difficulty started to  stagger towards the
cave.
     Under his feet the honey sucked, champed and sighed as if it was alive.
The mess clung to the feet like very heavy sticky clay.
     At last the old man got clear of the puddle. Setting  Valya down on the
ground in front of the  entrance to the  cave, he started to take the  honey
off his feet with a thick stick and then he helped Valya to clear herself.
     "Eh,  Karik!"  shouted  the  Professor, looking  into  the  cave. "What
happened here?"
     Karik buried himself still deeper in his mattress.
     The old man and Valya looked at each other silently.
     "Well, it's clear," said the Professor, going into the cave, "that this
is certainly  something that  Karik contrived! And what's  more  he  is  not
asleep! He is listening  to everything! But he is ashamed to look us in  the
face. Eh, Karik!"
     Karik cautiously turned his head and opened one eye. Then he saw, right
by his  side, Valya was looking  at him. He hastily screwed up  his  eye and
snored very loudly.
     "He's asleep!" Valya started to laugh.
     The Professor put his head from side to side but said nothing.
     The travellers went to bed.
     A  little while after dawn Karik heard, through his sleep, some sort of
noise. He  got  up  from  his  crumpled mattress and  went  to the entrance.
Through the chinks between the rocks he saw the terrace in front of the cave
in the pale light of the morning.
     On this terrace huge winged monsters were  crawling about just in front
of the cave.
     Karik  recognised them. They were flies. Bustling around the puddle  of
honey  they  jostled  each other, flew upwards with  buzzing noises and then
swooped down  to  the honey once  more.  Every  minute  more  and more flies
arrived.
     The  loud noise awakened  the  Professor and  Valya. The old  man  said
something,  but  the children  could not hear  a single word. The flies were
buzzing so loudly that their ears rang just as if powerful aeroplane engines
were running right beside them.
     It was quite impossible to drag the remaining barrels  of honey over to
the ship. The flies might knock the  travellers off their legs and even kill
them. They were crowding at the entrance, had started to peer  into the cave
and were thrusting their long snouts through  the chinks between the  rocks.
They  crawled over the rocks which were blocking the entrance  and under the
weight of the flies the rocks started to shake.
     The  travellers gazed  in fear at their barricade. It had only  to fall
down  and the hordes of flies would burst in - then they would  be - goners.
However, towards evening the flies crawled away to their night quarters.
     "They've  gone away  !" Valya  announced joyfully.  "They  haven't gone
away," said  Karik,  listlessly. "To-morrow  they'll be back  and  once more
they'll try  and get into the cave. I  know them! They can scent the barrels
of honey!"
     "Let's block up the entrance better!" proposed Valya.
     "Nonsense!"  said the Professor. "Sit another  whole  day trembling - I
should thank you!"
     "But what can we do?"
     "Attack!" announced the old man, "attack and not defend."
     He seized one of the diatom baskets, took a firefly  egg  from the tray
and holding it high above his head as a torch, ran out of the cave.
     "Where are you off to, Professor?" the children shouted.
     "I'll  be  back  directly.  In  a minute I'll give  them a  treat,  the
blackguards!"
     The blue light twinkled in the darkness and disappeared.
     "Where is he off to?"
     "I don't know! He must have thought up something."
     Late that night  the Professor  returned to the cave very contented and
cheerful.  He put the basket down  on the floor and, panting a little still,
said:  "There!  I've brought  the mines! To-morrow  the flies  will  find  a
minefield."
     The children rushed to the basket.
     "Mines?"
     "That's better!"
     Karik put his hand into the basket cautiously and drew out a grey lump.
     His face fell.
     "Some mines! Nothing but Rotton old clods. Simply dried  mud. These can
hardly be mines?"
     The Professor started to laugh.
     "You  don't  like  them?"  he  asked. "Don't worry!  You  just see what
they'll do to-morrow. A charge of gun cotton wouldn't do better."
     He  extracted the  lumps from the basket,  divided them into two heaps.
Having pushed the smaller lumps to Valya, he said:
     "Pick them up, Valya, and come with me!"
     Ladened with mines, the Professor and Valya went out of the cave.
     "Lay  your mines aft  around  the  entrance!" Karik heard the Professor
saying.


        CHAPTER XVI

     The battle with the flies - Extraordinary sails - It sees with its feet
- A bug plays the fiddle - On board the bumble bee


        "CLOP! CLOP!"
     The  children jumped  out  of  their crumpled, scattered  beds. Rubbing
their eyes they looked around in alarm.
     "Karik, what was that?" .
     "I don't know."
     "May be someone in our minefield?"
     The usual blue  light  glimmered  in  the cave.  The dark roof hung low
above the head. In the corner along the  wall white stout  barrels  stood in
rows.
     "Clop! Clop! CLOP!" Explosions sounded beyond the wall.
     The Professor got up from his  hair mattress, yawned widely and rubbing
his sleepy eyes with his fists said:
     "Aha!.. . they are working. .. . My mines are working. . . ."
     The old man  with the  children  following him went up to the barricade
blocking the entrance to the cave.
     Through the chinks between  the rocks the morning light was peeping in.
The  yellow  sand of the  terrace  in  front of  the  cave was  ablaze  with
sunlight. The  puddles  of upset honey  shone like  liquid gold.  The  white
barrel still lay there on its side.
     The travellers had to screw up their eyes, the light was so intense.
     "It's going to be a wonderful day!" said the Professor, looking  at the
clear, almost polished blue of the sky.
     "But what a lot of  flies there will be!" sighed Valya. "Even more than
yesterday."
     "That's nothing  to worry about!" The Professor  calmed her and rubbing
his hands announced: "Very soon there will be fewer! Decidedly fewer!"
     "Why fewer?"
     "Well, didn't you hear my mines exploding?" asked  the old man, looking
surprised.
     "I heard them," said Valya, "but the flies apparently don't worry about
your mines at all. Over there the mines exploded right amongst the flies but
they had no effect."
     "Wait a little!" the Professor  calmly stroked  his beard. "There is no
hurry! The flies are not killed at once by my mines. After a piece has stuck
into the fly, it will crawl around for five or six  hours and then it begins
to die in a very interesting way. Oh, this is well worth seeing!"
     "And these flies are already wounded?"
     "Certainly!" replied the old  man confidently. "Because  the explosions
started, if I mistake not, at earliest dawn."
     Valya pulled a rock out of  the barricade and sticking herself into the
observation post so formed started to watch the terrace.
     Huge,  hairy flies wandered past  the rocks. They went up  to the honey
pool, thrust their snouts into the honey and jostled one another.
     One of them - large with white body - sat on the overturned barrel. The
barrel rocked. The fly  flew up alarmed and  circled  around, gazing  at the
barrel from above  with huge protruding eyes. Then it  cautiously  came down
and alighted beside the barrel.
     And then suddenly  it  reared up and staggered . as if drunk. Its  legs
bent under it. It fell to the ground, flopped its heavy head on the sand and
started to die. Only its wings spread widely out still quivered slightly.
     "That's number one!" shouted Valya.
     "And that's not  the whole business either!" said the Professor.  "Wait
and see what will still happen to it."
     After  a little  while the  Professor and  the children went up to  the
barricade again.
     On the terrace in front of the cave  several flies had now fallen. Some
of  them were still  alive  - they moved; others lay with their wings spread
out and their heads drooping to the ground. They were covered with something
white just like hoar-frost. But from the body of the fly lying by the barrel
there rose up a long, thin stem with a round little hat on the top of it.
     "What ever is that?" asked Valya. "It looks like a mushroom."
     "That's just what it is - the Empusa fungus."
     Suddenly the little hat of the fungus broke off and fell to the ground.
     "A new Empusa has ripened!" said the Professor.
     "What a comic word - Empusa!" snorted Valya.
     "Hardly comic, is  it? At any  rate, it has never seemed comic to me. I
have  kept the  company  of  the  Empusa for  a long time now. It's  an  old
acquaintance of mine. A parasitic fungus. . . . One of the most useful fungi
to mankind. . . . It kills flies.
     Now that new Empusa which has just fallen on the ground will explode as
soon  as  ever  a fly gets  near to  it and it will sprinkle  the  fly  with
splinter seeds; the seeds grow up, kill the fly and throw off new mine fungi
destined to destroy more flies."
     "But if the flies do not make an appearance?"
     "Then the Empusa will not explode !"
     "Well, suppose it is a  bee and not a fly which comes near it, will the
Empusa go off or not?"
     "It will not go off."
     "You mean the Empusa won't explode when a bee comes near?"
     "These  ones  won't. But  bees also have their own parasite-fungus.  It
gets into the hives  and ruins them. Now naturally such fungi are not useful
but actually extremely harmful."
     "Clop!" sounded again on the terrace.
     The Professor stuck his head out and said:
     "There are  another five flies ready !  They'll soon  stretch out their
legs."
     And in fact the whole terrace was soon strewn with flies' corpses.
     The pathway to the lake was free.

     * * * * * *

     After dinner the Professor decided to go off along the shore to see his
famous  Carrabus. Was  it  still there? Had the wind torn it  adrift? Had it
capsized?
     He collected a coil of spiders' cords, threw  it over his shoulder  and
sticking a sharp stone in his girdle went to the entrance.
     "Now Valya, come on! I hope you will help me?"
     "Certainly I'll help, if only. . . ."
     "If only what?"
     "If there are no more flies on the terrace."
     "There are none and there won't be any," answered the old man.
     "But new ones? Won't they fly up."
     "Very unlikely. Even  if they did fly  up they would be done for  right
away. You see our whole terrace is now mined with Empusae."
     Valya comforted, moved off to the entrance.
     "But what about me?" Karik leaped up from his bed.
     "Why shouldn't you lie there? Get yourself right! We can manage without
you to-day."
     "Without me!" Karik was offended. "Now,  do you even know  what  a main
sheet is? or what the mizzen is? or the jib? or a topgallant sail?"
     "Well, well," laughed the Professor. "We have got a sea dog here."
     "Neither  a dog nor a  sea dog but  I  do  understand  something  about
ships?" replied Karik, with pride. He had learnt these nautical terms from a
sailor friend of his.
     The old  man waved his hand.  "If it's like that, you had better  come.
You won't be able to do  anything.  Only be careful - don't  injure your bad
leg."
     The travellers went out of the cave.
     "A real massacre!" said the Professor, picking his way between the dead
flies.
     Valya carefully  made a  wide arc round the  flies, looking sideways at
the  corpses. Although the flies were dead, yet .  . . all  the same  it was
better to keep well away from them.
     "Stop!" shouted Karik suddenly.
     The Professor and Valya quickly looked towards him.
     Karik stood near a huge fly which lay with its wings spread wide apart.
     "What is it, Karik?"
     "Look," answered Karik, lifting a transparent wing of the fly with both
hands. "A sail! Do you see?"
     "I see! Of course, I see!" rejoiced the old man.
     He went over  to the fly  and  having moved  its taut,  stretched wing,
said:
     "It will make an excellent sail! We'll use it!"
     Taking the sharp stone  out of his girdle, the  Professor got up on the
fly and with a strong blow cut off the wing.
     The wing fell at Karik's feet.
     "One  is too small," said Karik, lifting up  the wing and examining it.
"This would only do for a jib. But we shall need a sail for the mainmast."
     "Why not for the mainmast too?" said the Professor.
     And  he  started deftly cutting  off wings  with  his sharp  stone  and
throwing them  down. The children  collected the  wings  in  a heap. At last
Karik said:
     "That should surely be enough!"
     They quickly made a stack of wings one on top of the other:
     the wings rumbling just like drums.
     The  Professor  attached his cord to the bottom wing  and threw it over
his shoulder and hauled the heavy load after him to the beach.
     "There, you see," said Karik, cheerfully, steadying the wings with  his
hands. "I, of course, knew beforehand  what  sails would be necessary. I had
only to look at these and I saw what could be done with them."
     "Good enough! Good enough!" laughed the Professor. "Pat yourself on the
back! But  you had  far better hold on  to those wings and see that we don't
lose half of them on the way."
     The travellers dragged the heavy load to the beach.
     In the quiet inlet the famous Carrabus was  lying at her moorings.  Her
curved bow was reflected in the  still, calm, blue water. Her sides at their
lowest point were practically level with the surface of the lake. Around the
tall mast stood the white barrels of honey.
     "A real ship," said Karik, "it only wants sails now."
     "And sails she will have very soon," responded the old man.
     Having pulled the flies' wings on board the ship the party proceeded to
rig her.
     Karik clambered up the mast.
     "Come on now! Give me one of the  wings and the  cord!" he shouted from
aloft.
     The work went ahead furiously.
     The Professor handed  up the wings. Karik lashed them  to the mast, one
above  the  other, and  soon the whole  mainmast was hung  with  transparent
sail-wings.
     The wind started to play on the wings.
     The sails of the Carrabus started to flap.
     Then suddenly the stake  to which the mooring rope was fastened started
to crack and broke off.
     "Oh, dear!" shouted Valya.
     The Professor without saying a word jumped into the water.
     "What's happened?" asked Karik, from aloft.
     No one answered him. Then  he, having stuck his head between two wings,
saw that the old man was standing up to his waist in water and purple in the
face with exertion was towing the ship towards the shore.
     "Did the rope come adrift?" he shouted down.
     "Yes and no ! A wasp bit through the stake!"
     "A wasp?" he asked. "Why is it such a fool as to eat a reed cane?"
     "It certainly is no fool," said the Professor, winding the mooring rope
round a thick  stump. "The wasp does  not eat reeds, it makes  paper out  of
them for the construction of its nest."
     Valya opened her eyes wide.
     "Wasps know how to make paper?"
     "Yes. They  and mankind  have both learnt how  to  make paper from wood
pulp,"  replied  the  Professor,  and gave the children a  whole  lecture on
wasps, wood pulp and on the ancient, long-forgotten discoveries.
     "There was a  time," he continued,  "when paper  was prepared only from
rags. The scientist, Jacob Christian Sheffer, who lived a hundred years ago,
when investigating the lives of insects learnt from them how to  make  paper
from wood  pulp. It was when  he was examining a wasp's nest on one occasion
that he noticed that it was made of a material which resembled cardboard. He
observed the work of the wasp. It was then that Christian Sheffer discovered
that  the wasps  chew pieces  of  wood  into pulp and from this pulp prepare
excellent paper.
     "But at the time of Shelter's discovery  no one  paid any  attention to
it.
     "Fifty years passed. Another scientist, Keller, reminded people of  the
discoveries  of Sheffer and  reminded them just at the right time. Paper was
in great demand and the supply of rags was insufficient. . . . So they tried
to make paper like the wasps  out of wood pulp. . . . To begin with, nothing
came of  it but afterwards the methods  were  improved and success followed.
Since that time the bulk of the paper we use is prepared from wood pulp.'
     "Oh,"  said  Valya, having  endured the lecture. "This means that there
must be wasps about. Let's be quick in going home."
     "It certainly is high time to go home," agreed the old man.
     The travellers returned to the cave.

     * * * * * *

     In the morning whilst it was  yet  hardly light  they rolled  the  last
barrels  of honey on board, transferred  their mattresses  and brought their
firefly eggs with them.
     One egg Karik lashed to the top of the mast like a steaming light.
     He now hustled about more than the others.
     Running along the ship he shouted in a real sea captain's voice.
     "Heh. You on the poop! Haul in the sheets!"
     "But what is the poop?" asked Valya, timidly.
     "Why,  where you are standing -  that's the poop. It's the same as  the
stern. Heh! Haul in the sheets. Ship's boy!"
     "But what are the sheets?"
     "Sheets - those ropes."
     "And is there  any reason," asked the Professor, "why  the stern should
not be called the stern and the sheets should not be called - ropes?"
     Karik only laughed.
     "Well,  call  them  what you  like.  But  I shall in  future call ants'
cocoons ants' eggs."
     The Professor clenched his hand.
     "No,  no,  not  eggs,  cocoons!  I'll  somehow  master   your  nautical
gibberish, only please don't call cocoons eggs."
     Karik again started to throw his weight about.
     "Let  go the falls," he shouted in a thunderous voice. "Topmen to their
stations. Up ensign!"
     The Professor cast off  the  mooring  rope and coiled it neatly  in the
stern. Valya hauled in the sheets.
     The Carrabus was now ready for setting sail.
     "It would  be the proper thing," thought  Karik, "to fire a salute from
our guns before leaving harbour."
     Unfortunately there were no guns.
     Karik went from one end of the ship to the other, moved  the barrels to
correct the list of the ship, inspected his crew and spat overboard.
     It was a moment of triumph.
     Karik raised his hand. .
     "Attention !"
     The crew returned their captain's gaze.
     "Course south-west!  Full speed ahead. Shiver my timbers and splice the
mainbrace!"
     "Aye,  aye,  sir!"  barked  the Professor  at  the top  of  his  voice,
cheerfully winking at Valya.
     Valya slackened the sheets. The wind started to fill the sail.
     The Carrabus pitched slightly, rolled her mast from side  to side a few
times  as if considering whether  she would  set out or stay in harbour  and
then slowly started to move away from the shore.
     "Full speed ahead!" shouted the brave Captain.
     . . . The wind blew.
     White horses  now started to top the waves  with  foam. The ship rolled
and swept  along  on  the  waves.  Warm spray beat in the faces  of  the sea
voyagers. The fine ship heeled over and cut through the water.
     Around the Carrabus  strange  living things kept popping up everywhere.
They  overtook the ship, leaped  out of the water  and  frisked  about  like
dolphins.
     One  creature  resembled a  rabbit but with  stag's  antlers, and quite
transparent  swam  for  a  long time  beside  them and  would not  leave the
travellers' ship.
     It was possible  to  examine this devoted attendant  of the  good  ship
Carrabus  in some  detail as its  insides  could be clearly seen through the
transparent envelope of its body.
     "What is it?" asked Valya.
     "It is  a very ordinary Sida crystallina," answered the Professor, "one
of hundreds of water fleas."
     Valya hit the water flea on the head with a stick. It disappeared.
     Abeam crossing the track of  the ship something  very like  a submarine
was surging along. The  creature was swimming  under  water, but  its tracks
could be seen on  the surface. This creature  very nearly collided with  the
Carrabus, but at  the very  last  minute  turned  suddenly to starboard  and
quickly disappeared deep down in the water.
     "What was that?" whispered Valya, frightened.
     "That, now," replied the old man calmly,  "was a very common snail. The
pond snail!"
     "A water snail?"
     "Ay, ay!"
     "How does it get through the water?"
     "Well,  that  question,"  said  the Professor, smiling, "was one of the
most difficult to solve; however, it has been answered brilliantly. The pond
water snail travels, strange as it may seem, head downwards,  stretching out
its  solitary leg it exudes through it a mucous or slime on  the surface  of
the water. This  trail  attaches itself  to the  foam on  the  water and  is
carried along with it as if attached to a raft."
     "But in this case it can't see."
     "It sees splendidly. Because its eyes are in its foot!"
     "Pretty hot stuff that!" Karik was excited.
     "Mm -  yes!"  gruff-gruffed  the  old  man.  "Is there  anything to  be
surprised at?  We have already met  queer animals  which have no mouths  and
animals which hear  with their legs, but now you are surprised by a creature
which sees with its foot. But all these  are dull trifles compared with what
I could tell you about strange creatures.  These animals,  all of them, live
beside us. This is no  fairy story by Andersen or Grimm. These creatures are
found in the best, the  most  marvellous story of  all which is .  . . Life.
However, I am so often giving  you lectures  that I am afraid you will begin
to think  that I didn't come  to fetch you home but  to teach  you biology..
Let's sing something for a change, my dears !"
     Now this  proposal really  did  upset  the  children.  The  Professor's
stories, although at times somewhat boring, it was, quite possible to listen
to, but  the old  man's singing . . .  the only person who wouldn't  voice a
protest against  this  would be a  deaf mute.  Therefore, Karik  and  Valya,
frightened  that  he  might actually start  singing, started to question him
about  anything and everything  they could see. But the  Professor  kept  on
trying to break off and start singing.
     "Now, then," he said, coughing to clear his voice, "let's strike up. Ha
hur! Ha hur! Something like the Forward March. . . . Thus."
     "Oh, look, look !" shouted Valya,  hastily. "Whatever is that under the
water? So big, isn't it?"
     The Carrabus was  sailing over some sort of striped object which lay on
its side like a sunken ship.
     The Professor glanced over the side and said good humouredly:
     "Well, that,  my  dears, is the former food of mankind - Mussels. There
was a time a very great while ago when these mussels were  for mankind  what
bread is for us  to-day. But to-day we  look  upon  this  former  bread with
disdain."
     "I don't  think,"  replied  Karik, "that mussels  would  be nicer  than
bread."
     "You are  right  there," agreed the old man, "but all the same it is  a
great  pity that such  a huge source of food should be wasted. Why, it would
be possible to collect hundreds of thousands of tons of these mussels."
     "But whatever for if no one will eat them?"
     "In  Germany,  for  example,  they  collect  them,  boil them  in  huge
cauldrons and ..."
     "Do they really eat them?"
     "No. They feed  the  pigs on them. The pigs are said to get fat quickly
and their flesh becomes exceptionally tender and is of delicious flavour."
     For a  short time  the  conversation  then lapsed  but  as soon  as the
children heard the ominous  coughing - this meant the Professor  had decided
to start singing - they quickly started to ask him any sort of question.
     Several hours passed in this way.
     The Carrabus hurried  on under full sail.  But  as the  sun rose so the
wind dropped.
     The ship then moved lazily  through the oily swell, barely rolling. The
sails hung down. The Captain grew melancholy.
     The voyagers sat on the gunwale of the ship and dangled  their feet  in
the cool water.
     Water insects were cutting here and there across the waves.
     They wove their way in and out of the water weed forest which rose from
the dark bottom of the lake.
     Valya  stretched  herself on the  deck. With her head hanging  over the
side she gazed at the swirling foliage rising from the bottom.
     At  last the under water forest came to an end. The bottom was now grey
and hilly. On the slopes of  the underwater hills there  wriggled and  moved
about gigantic  red  snakes.  There were so many  of  them that  the  bottom
appeared red.
     "I say! What a lot of them! And what are they?" asked Valya.
     The Professor bent over.
     "Culicidae  Derguna . .  .  or  in  simple language the  larvae  of the
Derguna gnat. . . .  . Excellent food for fish. The favourite  food  of  all
small fry."
     "Why are they called Dergunas?"
     "Just because they are always pulling with their feet twisting about."
     "That  means that all gnats are Dergunas because they  all  pull things
about with their feet. I never knew this before."
     "No," said  the old man, "only  one sort of gnat is called Derguna. The
other gnats have different names."
     "What?"  Karik was surprised. "Surely  there  are  not a  whole  lot of
different gnats. I thought gnats were all one sort."
     "Oh,  no,  there  are hundreds of  different sorts!  Why,  just  in one
district  alone there are  gnats that pull themselves along, gnats that push
themselves   along,  bearded  gnats,  long-nosed  gnats,  malaria  gnats  or
mosquitoes, feather-whiskered gnats, amphibian gnats,  ordinary midges. Then
we also have snow midges."
     "White?"
     "No! They are called snow mosquitoes because they live on the snow."
     "Surely mosquitoes can't live in winter?"
     "Life  does not come to a halt either in summer or winter," replied the
Professor.  "In summer  one  lot of  insects crawl,  jump and fly, in winter
another lot. For example, just around here you come across snow  fleas, snow
worms, snow spiders,  ice flies, wingless gnats, and many, many other living
creatures."
     "Do all  the  gnats  bite?"  asked Valya, looking at the larvae  of the
Derguna in some apprehension.
     "The larvae do not bite.  Yes, and the full-grown Derguna does not bite
human  beings  or living creatures.  Anyway, what  do the bites of our gnats
actually amount to?"
     "Nothing! twiddle twaddle! A mere trifle!" he gruff-gruffed.
     Then he stroked his beard and said smiling:
     "Now  on the Island of Barbadoes  gnats do bite; that is  to say, I  am
telling you they really do bite!"
     "What happens? Does it hurt terribly?" whispered Valya.
     "It's painful all right. . . . For instance, this happened. In the town
of Vera Cruz a  young  woman became unconscious. It was thought that she was
dead.  Her  face was like wax  and she  herself was  as cold  as  ice. Well,
naturally, they  put her in a coffin, but they  stood the coffin out on  the
verandah."
     "Well, what happened then?"
     No  sooner  than  night  had fallen  gnats started  to  fly  about  the
verandah. They swarmed  thickly on the  corpse and proceeded to  bite her so
savagely that she awoke, pushed the lid of the  coffin off; yes! and ran out
into the street in her shroud with the coffin lid in her hands."
     "And she didn't die any more?" asked Karik.
     "No, she lived  right up to the very day other  death," replied the old
man with a grin.
     Suddenly Valya leaped up and shouted:
     "Oh, look,  there is something  from Barbadoes swimming along here. Oo,
ooee !"
     Beneath the water on one  side of the ship a long, grey-coloured animal
with a  huge head was jerking itself along. Having blown itself out until it
could contain no more the creature contracted itself and  shot out a  stream
of water behind it. As a  result of this stream it moved forward just like a
rocket.
     "The larva of a dragonfly!" said the Professor.
     "That's  what  we  should  use  instead  of  a   motor,"  said   Karik,
thoughtfully.
     The Professor started to smile.
     "The larva of  the dragonfly has been using it  long enough but we have
only just been able to make a jet-propelled aeroplane and the  jet-propelled
submarine  has yet to  prove itself practical. This dragonfly submarine is a
most  dangerous craft. It will  attack a small  fish and  devour it. And any
fish, however small, is by comparison with us a regular whale."
     "There is a  mother  dragonfly!" announced Valya. "Look! Where  is  she
crawling to?"
     With her wings pressed to her back the goggle-eyed dragonfly, clutching
the stem of  a  water weed, had  started to crawl  down under water with her
huge head pointed towards the bottom.
     "What  is  she up to?"  demanded Karik in amazement. "Does she want  to
drown herself?"
     Valya gazed after the dragonfly, thought a little and said undecidedly:
     "Evidently she wants to pay a visit to her larva. She is lonely, so she
goes to pay a visit. Very simple, actually !"
     The old man started to laugh.
     "But  there  is  an explanation  still  more  simple  and actually more
correct," he said. "The dragonfly is going beneath the water in order to lay
her eggs."
     "But what an awful creature she is!" said Valya.
     "What's  up with you? She is very  beautiful!" retorted the  Professor.
"It is not  without reason  that the Germans give her a poetic name - Wasser
Jungfer,  or  water  nymph;  whilst the  French  call her  Mademoiselle,  or
literally translated, my young Lady or Miss."
     Waves  now started to roll  across  the lake. The sails started to hum.
Astern the wake of the ship had started to gleam.
     "All hands to their stations!" bawled Karik.
     "Aye, aye, sir!" sang out the old man.
     Once again the ship was making way rapidly.
     Karik climbed up the mast.
     The Carrabus sailed along, tacking between flat  green islands which in
fact were the fleshy leaves of kingcups or water lilies.
     At last the Carrabus sailed out into open water.
     Karik shielded his eyes  with his hand. Far  away across  the blue lake
which was sparkling in the sun he could see  the misty outline of the shore.
The  shore  had almost  disappeared  below  the  horizon.  Clouds  lay  like
mountains of cotton wool above the blue flat stretched ahead.
     When Karik had looked for some time he spotted on the horizon a minute,
slender, pin-like excrescence. At the top of this something was  waving very
much like a red feather.
     "There it is! There's our  landmark! Alter  course  to starboard! Good,
good! Another point to starboard. Haul in your port sheets, you landlubbers!
And again! Helm amidships ! Steady on your course!"
     "Helm  amid-ships!  steady  on the course,"  bawled the  Professor,  in
reply.
     The Carrabus now surged on her straight course for the shore.
     Suddenly all around things started to sing, to sing, and sing.
     The water sang, the sky sang.
     Karik  looked around in consternation  and hastily clambered  down  the
mast on to the deck.
     The old man,  screwing up his eyes thoughtfully and cocking his head on
one side, listened to the amazing music.
     It sounded  as if thousands of violins and flutes were playing  one and
the same song, a simple melody but quite attractive.
     The Professor sighed.
     "That must  have  been how the  sirens sang  around  the ship! when the
Odyssey of legend was sailing the seas."
     "Are they sirens singing now?" demanded Karik.
     "No," said the old man, "sirens are the mermaids or the beautiful women
sailors have  seen in their fancy amongst  the foam  of  the  billows.  They
betray the voyager by their  songs or their charms. But the creatures  which
are now singing arc very real  indeed, they are called Corixae minutissimae.
It's very touching music, isn't it?"
     "Very!" replied Valya.
     "Yes,  indeed, they know how to sing,  do these savage ruffians!" mused
the Professor.
     "Ruffians?"
     "I  think it's a  fair name for these water bugs. Gluttons and brigands
they are, but as talented as the legendary sirens."
     "But how do they sing? A bug surely has no voice?"
     "They sing  with  their  feet," replied the old  man.  "At  least  they
produce  music. On  one  of the  front claws of  the  female bug  there  are
bristles like the teeth  in  a  musical box.  . . . The bug  uses its second
front leg like the bow of a fiddle and produces music from these bristles."
     Karik and Valya very much wanted to see the bug-violinists, but however
much they looked about they could not spot a single one of them.
     The bugs were sitting somewhere in the water weed forest.
     Meanwhile the Carrabus surged along under full sail  towards  the shore
which now could be seen coming nearer and nearer every minute.
     Already rocks stuck up out of the water, and every now  and then yellow
shoals appeared beneath them.
     The grass forest edging the shore was now becoming plainer and plainer.
     "Where shall we land?" asked Karik.
     "Anywhere  you  like," replied the Professor, gazing  at the shore.  "A
little  nearer or a little further is not very  important - we shall have to
do a good bit of foot-slogging in any case."
     Valya groaned.
     "Have we really got to go on foot? Oh, how tired I am!"
     "Don't  worry,  Valya, have  patience," comforted  the  old  man.  "Our
journey, I hope, will finish at any time now. I too wish to get home as soon
as  possible.  I  have  students  waiting  for  me  in  the  university. The
examinations will soon be on!"
     The Professor suddenly started laughing.
     "If only my  students could see me  in  this  ship  made of an oak leaf
sailing under sails made of flies' wings, whatever  would they say? When you
think of it - any of them could put me in a waistcoat pocket. Ha, ha, ha!"
     It was now midday.
     Grating her  bottom on the stones,  the Carrabus gently came up towards
the beach and stopped, rocking in the light swell.
     The voyagers got out on the beach.
     Beyond  the  near  line of  forest  there  was  sticking out  the  dark
mast-like landmark.
     It looked as if they were  standing right by it; as if they had just to
go through this one little wood and then it would be over.
     Karik  looked around and, having  gazed sadly  at the  famous Carrabus,
waved his hand in farewell.
     "Fare - ye - well, good ship Carrabus. Don't forget your Captain !"
     "But I thought we were going to sail right  up to the  very  landmark!"
said Valya.
     "You thought wrong!" the Professor shrugged his shoulders.
     "But why ever did we load the Carrabus with so much food?"
     "Why  ever?" Karik was offended. "If a  gale  had started  to  blow! or
suppose we had  been cast  away on some uninhabited water leaf island!  What
would have we had to eat then?"
     "True  enough,"  said  the Professor.  "One  must  be far-sighted  when
setting  out on a  voyage. It's  far better to throw away what one does  not
need than to die of hunger."

     * * * * * *

     For two to three hours the old man and  the children sat at the edge of
the forest, rested and partook of a heavy meal.
     The Professor got up and wiping his beard with a petal he ran as nimbly
as a small boy up the nearest hillock.
     "There  you are," he shouted,  looking upwards.  "Very good! Excellent!
Simply marvellous!"
     The children also looked up.
     Above the  forest some  sort of  heavy, hairy animals  were  flying  on
broad, seemingly-glass wings.
     Was the Professor looking at these?
     "Wasps!" yelled Karik.
     "Not wasps, bumble bees!" corrected the Professor.
     The dark  and  golden bumble bees circled over the thick foliage of the
grass forest, circled and alighted  on some sort  of strange tree which  had
huge  lilac-red hats  on  its  summit.  The  bumble  bees sat on these hats,
bustled into them and then soaring upwards flew off  in the direction of the
landmark and there disappeared - apparently alighting on the ground.
     The Professor came,  took the children by  the hand and, gazing at them
fixedly, said:
     "Now I'll tell you,  my  dears! A very daring plan  has flashed into my
mind. We can fly the rest of our journey on a bumble bee."
     The children started in alarm.
     "On a bumble bee?  . . . I . . . I don't want to go  on  a bumble bee,"
said Valya. "I am afraid of them."
     The Professor flung his arm around Valya's shoulder.
     "Don't be frightened, my darling! This is quite safe. The larvae of the
May  bug beetles  always  fly on honey bees,  and the honey bees don't touch
them."
     "But then it may be better to fly on a honey bee?" said -Karik.
     The Professor shook his head.
     "No, we  cannot do  it on honey  bees! These bees  would  carry us into
their hives and that would be the end of us.  But the bumble bees will carry
us straight to  the landmark.  They have evidently got a nest there. You see
the way they are all flying. These bumble  bees will be  much better for  us
than any honey bee."
     "No, all the same, I am frightened." Valya shook her head. "I..."
     "Now, you shut up!" the Professor scolded her. "I'll tell you in detail
how the larvae of the Blister beetles travel on bees, and I  hope that after
this you will stop being frightened."
     The old man sat down on the  hillock  and, seating the  children beside
him, began:
     "I do beg of you, my dears, not to  confuse the Blister beetle with the
May  bug, just because these beetles are called May beetles. They are by  no
means the same. This  Blister beetle is  an  amazing creature. Insects as  a
rule have three stages  of  life: the larva comes out of  the egg, becomes a
cocoon and finally from  the cocoon emerges the complete insect. Well,  now,
the Blister beetle  has four  transformations: the egg, the  Triungulina  or
six-legged larva,  the ordinary larva,  the cocoon and the grown-up  Blister
beetle. Remember Triungulina. Fabre calls this simply 'the louse.' Now these
lice  or Triungulinae feed on  bees' honey. .  . . But how does it  find the
combs? Who shows it the way to the bees? Who carries it into the hive?"
     "Its mother!" suggested Valya.
     "Well,  it  couldn't  possibly  depend  on  its  mother,"  laughed  the
Professor.  "By the  time the louse comes  out  of its egg its mother is  no
longer in the land of the living. In  order to  get into the bees'  nest the
Triungulina must get up into a flower and, hiding itself there, await a bee.
As soon  as ever a bee comes into the flower the louse seizes its hairy coat
with its claws arid sticks on until the bee has carried it back home. Do you
understand, Valya? And what do you think now: the stupid Triungulina  is not
frightened of making the trip, surely you wouldn't be frightened?"
     "It's because the Triungulina is so stupid!" sighed Valya.
     "Yes, you  must chuck being  such a coward, Valya," insisted Karik. "If
we don't fly on the  bumble bee we shall have to go on foot, and it may take
us  another three weeks  and maybe a month. Yes, and goodness knows what may
happen to us. We may meet a  thousand new dangers on that long journey. Some
beetle or other will  bury us, or a caterpillar will crush us or a butterfly
will whisk us over a precipice. Surely it's much better on a bumble bee! . .
. And . . . and in any case pioneers mustn't be cowards."
     "Well,  all  right, we'll  go  by bumble  bee!" said Valya, in  a shaky
voice. "What flower have we to climb up?"
     "There you are, this one! Up to the red  round ball which is 1 swinging
up there. It's red clover. The favourite flower of bumble bees."
     The Professor and the children  scrambled up  the  thick stem on to the
lilac-reddish hat of the clover and hid between its tube-like flowers, which
were hiding drops of clean, clear honey.
     "Will the bumble bee come soon?" asked Valya.
     "How am I to know?" answered Karik, in a whisper.
     "Be quiet!" hissed the Professor.
     They sat like that for more than an hour.
     At last  wings  droned above  their heads. A  broad shadow came between
them and the sky just as if a cloud had covered up the sun.
     Valya clung  to her brother. Her heart hammered, arms and  legs  shook.
She wanted to say something but her lips would not move.
     "Be ready!" said the Professor, in a scarcely audible voice.
     Valya secretly squeezed Karik's hand.
     The hum of the wings became louder and louder. A hairy bumble bee, with
its hair bristling  out, circling down landed on the flower. It  put out its
feet and at once started to eat.
     What  happened  then  neither  Valya nor Karik could follow.  The huge,
furry body came down around them like a heavy fur hat.
     The children heard the stifled voice of the Professor:
     "Hold on as tight as you can!"
     They buried their  hands in  the  fur and in another minute were flying
upwards in a whirlwind.

        CHAPTER XVII

     Queer soil - The Professor 'collects'  a moth -  Karik and Valya in the
plywood box - An expensive Oecophora -  The Professor is packed up - Back to
the old world


     THE  WIND  QUITE  TOOK THE TRAVELLERS' BREATH AWAY.  THE  ground swayed
beneath them and fell away.
     "Hold tighter!" yelled the Professor.
     The children could hardly hear his voice.  The even, heavy  drumming of
the  bumble bee's  wings and  the  piercing  whistle  of  the  wind  drowned
everything.
     To begin with, the bumble bee flew  high above  the ground. But then it
seemed as if it was finding itself too heavy and was not happy. Small wonder
-  three pairs of hands were  gripping its hairy  coat,  three pairs of legs
were striking it in the body every time it made a sharp turn.
     The bumble bee started to fling itself from side to side - evidently in
order to try and dislodge its uninvited passengers.
     It  flew on all the time  getting  lower and lower,  every now and then
shaking itself; but it could not get rid of the heavy load.
     Valya's head was swimming and her heart seemed gripped in iron bands.
     The Professor took an anxious  look at her.  "If only the poor girl can
manage to hold on! If only her hands don't slip!"
     Then suddenly the bumble bee beat its wings more furiously.
     The wind whistled in the ears of the travellers.
     It was plunging like an arrow towards the ground.
     "Ah,  what a  pity  if it  lands before time,"  flashed through Karik's
brain. "We can only have got halfway there by now."

     The earth came nearer every second. The old man and the children curled
up their  legs tightly in order not to hit anything  hard when they  landed.
The tops of the grassy jungle came closer and closer.
     And then - violent jolts - one, two, three. . . .
     One more jolt and the travellers were thrown out of their fur cabin and
hurled along the ground.
     Turning head over heels  the children and the Professor rolled over and
over on some queer soil. It was blue in colour and very soft and spungy.
     At  last having rolled over for the last time the Professor caught hold
of the  edge  of  a  large smooth rock  and managed  to  get on to his feet.
Holding on to the edge of the rock he moved around it, limping slightly.
     "Odd," the old  man muttered, feeling the flat smooth rock which seemed
as  round as a millstone.  "Whatever  is this?  And there's another  similar
round rock . . . there's a third and yet a fourth. . . ."
     The Professor managed with difficulty to clamber on to one of the rocks
and here  gazed  around himself.  In front of  him was a  wide plain of  the
strangest soil.  It looked like a chess board. Even  blue-coloured roads ran
across it  from  edge  to  edge.  He  leant over the  edge of  the  rock and
carefully scrutinised its smooth, black,  shining surface.  Then  suddenly a
wild guess flashed into his head.
     "A  button!" he clapped his hand to his forehead. "I  am standing on  a
button! Then the chess board soil and blue roads are . . . the very  thing .
.  . . Children!" he shouted to Karik and Valya, who were sitting on a slope
rubbing their bruised sides and  knees. "Children, what do  you think, we're
nearly home. This is my waistcoat!"
     The children leaped up overjoyed.
     "But the box?  Where is  the box  with  the enlarging powder?" demanded
Valya, impatiently.
     The Professor, standing on  the  button, was  attentively surveying the
neighbourhood surrounding the  waistcoat.  "Odd!  Very odd," he shrugged his
shoulders.  He looked around once  again. Then he  suddenly  saw  a gigantic
column lying on the ground. The further end of this lay far away towards the
west. The forest jungle was parted and a straight  vista stretched along the
column to disappear in the blue distance as it joined the horizon.
     "It's  fallen  down! fallen down,  the rascal!  and  not more than  ten
minutes ago."
     "What has fallen?"
     "Our landmark. However, this is  no misfortune. We  are already  there.
The box must be just  here . . .  on the same side as the landmark is lying.
Follow me, my dears!"
     Then the Professor boldly  dashed along  the  edging of the  waistcoat,
jumping over buttonholes and stumbling  over threads. Following him hastened
Karik and Valya, jumping and skipping.
     At  the  edge of the waistcoat  they all  stopped. In front of them the
grassy jungle was rustling.
     "There it is!" yelled the Professor, stretching out  his hand towards a
thick clump.
     Through gaps in the jungle they could see a tall yellow building.
     "Hurrah!" shouted  the children cheerfully.  Then  holding  hands  they
dashed towards the box.
     Panting and puffing, the Professor also ran up to the box.
     "Well, there we are! There we are!" the Professor rubbed his hands with
excitement. "Our trials  are  over. And wasn't it  a  good thing  we weren't
frightened of the  bumble  bee.  This  is simply incredible! We should never
have found the  box on foot. Our landmark fell down a few minutes before our
arrival. Yes, indeed! To be fearless is the same as to be lucky!"
     The Professor passed his hand  over his bald head and  continued, quite
moved by the events:
     "So,  my dears,  in a  few minutes we  shall  once  again  become  big,
ordinary  people.  Here  at  the wall of  this box ends  our  difficult  and
dangerous journey. We  are  standing  on the threshold of the big world. But
before  we throw  off this little world I would like to  say a  few words to
you. You have seen a lot in the past days but to tell you the truth you have
only started to look into one of the tiny corners  of the little  world. You
have just read a few pages out of the thick  book entitled Nature. And these
pages, I  might say,  are by no  means the most interesting. In  the book of
nature there  are  other pages from which it  is almost impossible  to  tear
oneself away.
     "You have seen just a tiny part of  the world  we live in. It is small,
it is unnoticed, this part; we often pay it no attention at all. Yet it is a
very important part of the big world in which  you and I will soon be living
again.
     "Its life  is closely knit with our lives, much, much closer  than many
people are aware of.
     "In this  little world there are  our friends  and there  are also  our
enemies.
     "We need to know them both.
     "We must come back  again  here sometime. We must come back  with a big
expedition   equipped   from  head  to  foot,   and  we  must  conquer  this
too-little-known world.
     "For this expedition we shall not have recourse  to a lilliput  liquid.
We shall come with microscopes, with the great knowledge and  the experience
of numbers of scientists.
     "Our equipment will be patience.
     "But we  must talk  about this in detail at home when we have  got back
there.  But  now  let  us  proceed with  something  we must not  any  longer
postpone.
     "To make ourselves big again!"
     The Professor then stepped to  the wall  of  the  plywood  box. Looking
through the solitary window he announced cheerfully, rubbing his hands:
     "Everything is there. Climb in, my friends, one at a time. The box with
the enlarging powder is in the right-hand corner. Carry on!"
     Karik and Valya after him climbed through the little window.
     The Professor helped  them through and was just about to climb  through
himself when suddenly  a moth with shining wings  of a metallic hue alighted
on the wall of the box.
     It  was  a  very small  moth; in all only  a few times  the size of the
Professor.
     The old man took a look at it and froze in his tracks.
     "An  Olive  Oecophora,"  he  whispered,   taking  a  deep  breath  with
excitement.
     He pressed close to the plywood wall and was all on tenterhooks, like a
hunter who has spotted nearby some rare wild beast.
     The  Oecophora, paying no attention to  the Professor, crawled past him
along the wall.
     The old man's heart beat and hammered. "Stop!" he cried, and jumping up
high he seized the Oecophora by the wing.
     The moth tried to escape and they fell heavily together to the ground.
     The moth  started hitting out, waved its  free wing up  and  down,  and
pressed the Professor's chest  with its feet; but the  old man would not let
go.
     Lying on the ground under the butterfly he made every effort to hold on
to his valuable prey.
     He forgot about everything else in the world.
     Yes, and it was not to be wondered at.
     In his  hands there  was struggling an Olive Oecophora - a moth rare in
our climate, the very smallest specimen of the Lepidopterae, or scale-winged
insects.
     How it came to appear by the side of the plywood box - a moth native of
warm climates, the Professor never  at this moment questioned. He remembered
only  one thing: in his ample collection  in  the  moth cabinets where under
glass sitting  on  pins with their wings spread out were  carpet  moths, fur
moths,  hair, grain,  cherry,  hawthorn,  burdock  and field moths, in  this
collection there had never been an Olive Oecophora.
     And now there would be one.
     "Yes, you  just wait.  Ah, what  a beauty !"  the  old  man scolded the
stubborn moth which dragged him along the ground, trying in every way to get
free.
     "Yes, now then  .  . .  now  then .  .  . that's enough . . . Now then,
stop!"

     * * * * *

     Whilst the Professor was wrestling with the Olive Oecophora,
     Karik and Valya had reached the  right-hand  corner of  the chest where
the little  box with the enlarging powder was standing. Gradually their eyes
became  used to the semi-darkness. They looked round the empty room with the
bare walls.  Through  the  round  little window there fell  on  the floor  a
narrow, slanting beam of sunlight. Golden dust swam in  the sunlight and the
beam appeared full of life.
     "It is jolly  here. Isn't it, Karik?" said Valya, looking around. Karik
not replying walked over to the corner in  which there was  standing  a huge
trunk-like white box covered with a thick sheet of parchment.
     "There it is!" said Karik.  He  clambered  up to  the  edge of the box,
drummed  with his bare  heels on  its sides and stretched out  his  hand  to
Valya.
     "Climb up here! Come on!"
     Valya scrambled up and sat beside Karik.
     Karik bent down and tore the parchment lid off the box.
     "Eat! And become big again!" he announced in a loud voice, bending over
the box.
     "Oughtn't we to wait for the Professor?" asked Valya.
     "No - and do  you know  what. Let's get big before the Professor. Think
how interesting  that will be. We shall already be  big  whilst he is  still
tiny."
     "All right ! I agree," said Valya, and quickly plunged her hand beneath
the parchment and fetched out a whole handful of glistening powder.
     She put her hand up to  her  mouth, opened  it and then suddenly taking
her hand away turned to Karik:
     "How much of it should one eat to get big again?"
     "Eat plenty of it."
     "But supposing we grow very big. . . . it would not be very pleasant to
be a girl of giant size."
     "Don't  worry, eat  it  up!" replied Karik calmly,  "if you do grow too
much  - you  can  drink  some reducing liquid  and get yourself right again.
That's all. Look how I am eating. Like this!"
     Then Karik poured a whole fistful of powder into his mouth.
     "Ready!"
     Valya swallowed the powder and said with a frown:
     "The reducing liquid was much nicer."
     "No, there is nothing wrong with the powder. It is a little acid."
     Karik jumped down to the floor and pulled Valya after him.
     "Now we must clear out of here quickly."
     "Why?"
     "Why, because it will soon become tight."
     "Why tight?"
     "Why,  why, why?" Karik got  angry.  "For the simple reason that we are
going to turn into  big people . . . you  see  . . . Ow!" he shouted, having
bitten his tongue. His head had hit the ceiling.
     With a loud crack the chest  split open. The  bright  daylight  blinded
Karik. He screwed his eyes up, rubbed them and once more opened them.
     Before him stood Valya. She had not changed in the  slightest. However,
everything  around had become  quite  different: the green jungle had turned
back into ordinary grass. On the grass lay a thick pole with a red rag faded
in the sun and the gnats had once again become gnats.
     "Isn't  it  grand!"  said Valya.  "Just  think, we  need  no longer  be
frightened of a gnat. Just one clap of the hand and it's a goner."
     "Wait!" Karik interrupted her in  a  worried voice.  "Where is the  box
with the powder?"
     They looked down at their feet.
     In the grass were the broken pieces of the chest. Amid these pieces lay
the  box turned  over and alongside it a tiny parchment sheet. The  wind was
blowing a white dust over the grass.
     "That's our  enlarging powder!" shouted Karik in alarm,  and  dashed to
catch the dust.
     But it was already too late.
     "Now what will happen?" asked Valya, anxiously.  "Does it mean that our
Professor  will have to stay small  for  ever? Good gracious,  maybe we have
squashed him already."
     "Don't you get fussed!" Karik yelled at her. "What's the  use of it and
you may in fact squash him."
     Valya froze  in  her place, but Karik squatting on his haunches started
to rake the cool grass with his fingers spaced out like the teeth of a comb.
     But it was all in vain.
     "Karik," said  Valya, "he must  be  here somewhere and he would  surely
hear us. Let him come out himself."
     "Yes, yes," agreed Karik.
     He found amongst the pieces  of the chest  a  small smooth board, wiped
the dust off it and laying it on a flat place said gently but plainly:
     "Professor.  Can you hear  us? Come out on to the board. On to  this" -
Karik knocked the board with his knuckle. "Don't be afraid. We won't move."
     Several minutes passed.
     The children sat perfectly  still  on their haunches and  bending their
heads watched the board.
     Then suddenly on the yellow surface a sort of midge appeared.
     "There he is!" panted Valya.
     "Wait  a minute!" whispered Karik. "Don't puff like a steam engine. You
will blow him off the board."
     Holding  his breath, Karik bent lower over  the board, screwing  up one
eye he started to  gaze fixedly at the tiny object  which  ran backwards and
forwards on the board.
     "It  is  our Professor!" said Karik,  holding his hand  in front of his
mouth.
     "Look, look," whispered Valya. "Can  you  see  his hands moving? What a
teeny person. Were we really like that?"
     "Even smaller," answered Karik. "Don't talk, sit and hold your tongue!"
     Valya even stopped breathing.
     Then suddenly in the complete silence  they caught the sound of a tiny,
tiny squeak - weaker than a mosquito.
     "He  is saying something!" whispered  Karik,  bending  his  car  to the
board.
     "What is he saying?"
     "I can't understand!"
     Meanwhile the Professor jumped off the board to the ground and vanished
in the grass.
     "He has gone away!"
     "Where to?"
     "We must just sit and wait."
     After several minutes the old man appeared  again. This time he was not
alone.
     "Look, look," said Valya. "Something is attacking him."
     The children bent over  the board, but  the longer they looked the less
they  could  understand:  whether  it  was the Professor  himself  that  was
dragging a  dark moth after him or whether  it  was the moth that  held  the
Professor and would not let him get up on to the board.
     The  moth  was  struggling,  napping  its  wings,  and  it  knocked the
Professor off his feet.
     "Let's help him,"  suggested  Valya, "or this Rotton thing will eat him
up."
     The Professor floundering on the edge of the board squeaked something.
     "Do you hear, Karik? He is shouting, 'Help, help'."
     Valya stretched out her hand to the moth.
     "Wait a bit!" Karik stopped his sister. "He is saying something else."
     But Valya  seized the moth and with a whisk threw it aside, then raised
the board with the old man on it to her very eyes.
     "He is evidently very upset about something!" announced Valya.
     "The butterfly evidently hurt him badly."
     The  Professor raised  his hands to the heavens and ran up and down the
board squeaking. He shook his fists and stamped his tiny feet.
     "Don't be frightened," comforted Valya, "it won't hurt you. I've killed
it."
     But this did not calm the old man. He waved his arms more furiously and
even  appeared to  spit several times.  By all appearance it was no trifling
matter he was raging over.
     "Well,  all right, all right," Valya  soothed him. "I'll find it  in  a
minute and squash it. I'll teach it not to hurt little things."
     The Professor no sooner had heard these words than he clasped his hands
behind his head, staggered about and then started to jump up  and  down,  so
impatiently squeaking all the  time  that Karik at once understood the great
man wished to say something very important.
     "I'll squash it in a minute," shouted Valya.
     "Now, don't go shouting," said Karik in a whisper.  "You'll deafen him.
After all, he is tiny. Give him to me now!"
     Karik carefully  shook the old man from the  board into the palm of his
hand and lifted him up to his ear.
     "Oecophora"  he  heard the weak voice  of  the  Professor. "A  solitary
Oecophora. Such a specimen! Such a specimen!"
     "He is saying something about Ecofor," whispered Karik.
     "I expect that's  what the powder is  called," replied  Valya  quietly,
"but there is no more powder."
     Karik looked at the palm of his hand and said slowly and clearly:
     "Professor,  what are we  to do? The wind has scattered all the powder.
It wasn't our fault."
     He again put his hand to his ear.
     "That doesn't matter," squeaked the scarcely audible voice. "I have got
another gramme of the powder in my laboratory. Carry me home. But first find
the Oecophora . . . it is here . .'. in the grass."
     "But what is this Oecophora?" asked Karik.
     "The Oecophora," squeaked the old man,  "is a moth.  They live  only in
the south. In our climate such moths are extremely rare - and Valya  took it
away from me. You must most certainly find it."
     "There you are,  Valya," said Karik. "Look for the  moth. You  threw it
away and it is very rare. You must find it again."
     Valya bent down,  searched in the grass and picked up  a tiny half-dead
moth by its wing.
     "Is this it?" asked  Karik,  showing the moth to the Professor. "That's
it!  that's  it!"  rejoiced the  old man. "Take it home, only please be more
careful. Don't crush the wing!"
     "But which direction should we take to go home?" asked Karik.
     "First of all  go straight to the  pond,  not turning  in any way,  and
beyond the pond you yourselves will see the road to the town."
     Karik plucked the broad leaf of  a plantain, deftly rolled up a twisted
funnel of  this leaf and carefully placed  in  the bottom of this funnel the
great scholar - Professor Ivan Hermogenovitch Enotoff.
     "And now let's run home," he said to Valya. "Only don't whatever you do
lose the valuable Oecophora moth."
     "Wait. We cannot go through the town naked!"
     "Good gracious!" shouted Karik in contempt.
     "No, no," said Valya. "I won't go. It would be unpleasant."
     "What do you mean unpleasant?" Karik was surprised.
     "Well, all  my  bones are sticking out.  Look how thin I  am. Everybody
would laugh at me."
     "That's nothing, we'll run there."
     "No, no," insisted Valya, shaking her head. "We must dress."
     Valya picked up the Professor's  crumpled shirt from the ground and put
it over her head. Looking at his sister, Karik started laughing.
     "What a scarecrow! Whatever do you think you look like?"
     The old  man's  shirt reached down  to Valya's  very heels. The sleeves
hung down to her knees. All the same it was some sort of dress.
     Valya  started to roll  up the  sleeves, and  she gathered up the shirt
tails like a train.
     "What about  you?" she demanded of  Karik, not paying any attention  to
his laughter. You put on something of the Professor's."
     Karik decided to get into the old man's trousers.
     He drew them on up to his very neck.
     "Very becoming!" Valya approved.
     Swamped  in the trousers,  Karik made several steps, stumbled and fell.
Fortunately he was able to hold up the hand in which the Professor was in or
else he would certainly have lost or squashed the poor chap.
     "Turn  up the legs!" advised  Valya,  helping her brother to get up and
wrestle with the trousers.
     Karik did this.
     At last the dressing was finished.
     Karik took his sister by the hand  and  they  both, as if in a concert,
sang cheerfully:

     FORWARD! The bugles blow
     From battle most glorious.
     Forward! and home will go,
     The children victorious."

     Beyond  the pond, like an arrow,  lay  an asphalt road.  It  led to the
town.


        CHAPTER XVIII

     An unexpected  attack - Biology has its  uses - Home again - Excitement
and pleasure - Elephants and fleas

     IT WAS ALREADY EVENING  BY THE TIME KARIK  AND  VALYA ENTERED the  dark
streets of the town.
     In the windows of the houses yellow lights were twinkling.
     The streets were empty.
     Somewhere far ahead children were shouting. They were evidently playing
at Cossacks and brigands.
     Over  the dark green public gardens called "The  second five-year plan"
there rose up like a sort of blue rainbow the reflection of electric lights.
Music was to  be heard  there,  swings  creaked; people in  the  garden were
making  noises and laughing: bells  were  ringing  cheerfully and a  trumpet
welcomed noisily.
     "Amusements in the gardens!" said Karik, listening. "That means it is a
holiday today."
     But when did we disappear?" asked Valya.
     "Ages ago."
     "A fortnight ago!" sighed Valya. "But somehow it seems years."
     The gardens were not far from home.
     "Let's run!" suggested Valya.
     "Right you are!"
     The children cheerfully dashed towards  their home. But they had hardly
run more than a few steps when out of the gate of a big  grey house jumped a
hairy, crooked-legged cur with a torn  ear. Panting  and barking,  he  threw
himself at Karik and Valya, trying to seize their legs.
     Karik threw a stone at it. The cur whimpered and with  its tail between
its legs vanished under the gate.
     "Heh!" shouted someone behind the gate. "Who's hurting our Tusick?"
     The gate creaked.
     A crowd of rough children ran out into the street.
     Karik and Valya stopped.
     Holding his slipping trousers  up with one hand and  raising high above
his head the other hand  in which was clutched the  plantain  leaf  with the
Professor, Karik said:
     "Your Tusick shouldn't attack people."
     The children came closer and packed tightly round Karik and Valya.  One
youngster in  a waistcoat stuck his hands  in  his  pockets up to  the  very
elbows, spat wickedly and looked them over from head to foot.
     "Who are these  people?" he demanded jeeringly. "What are they doing in
our street?"
     "We - we are travellers!" said Valya, timidly.
     The gang laughed.
     "She is travelling with mother to market!" shouted one.
     "What do you mean? This is the daughter of the actual seal which was on
Papanin's icefloe."
     "Nothing of the sort! She is travelling to a circus!"
     Karik frowned.
     "Now look here,"  he  said, putting one leg forward.  "You let us go or
else. . . ."
     "What'll happen?"
     "You'll see soon enough!"
     The urchins  started to pull Valya by her  long shirt, and Karik by the
Professor's wide trousers.
     "Stop, please!" whimpered Valya. "We must  get  home. We have been away
for a long time."
     "But where have you come from?"
     "What's that got to do with you?" said Karik.
     "Everything  to  do  with  us.  In  our  orchard  two  scarecrows  have
disappeared, one in a shirt and the other in trousers."
     The gang laughed.
     "Eh, chaps!" shouted one of them,  "drag  them into the orchard and let
them frighten the birds."
     "Now push off!" said Karik, bravely.
     He raised the hand with the Professor in it high above his head, rolled
his eyes and roared out in the queerest of voices:
     Microga-a-aster nemo-o-o ru-umi"
     The urchins looked at each other.
     "Triungu-uli-i-na," wailed Valya.
     "Car-r-rabus!" Karik ground his teeth.
     Valya raised  her arms  above her head  spreading  out  her fingers and
stamping her feet.
     "Cor-r-rixa! Bewa-a-are of Corr-r-rixa!"
     The urchins broke away suddenly.
     "Oy, they're lunatics!" shouted one of the children in alarm.
     In the darkness white patches of shirts flashed and right and left door
latches clicked.
     The street was suddenly deserted.
     "There you are," said Karik, breathing heavily, "biology has  its uses.
But now  let's  run as quickly as possible so as to meet  no more people. We
are evidently very like scarecrows."
     With the wind whistling in their ears, Karik and  Valya dashed along at
full  speed. Houses, side streets, streets, blocks, gardens - all flashed by
exactly as in a cinema.
     Here at last were the familiar green gates. The children flew into  the
courtyard.
     "You haven't lost the Professor?" demanded Valya, panting for breath.
     Karik carefully unwrapped a corner of the leaf.
     "He's there. He's sitting down."
     The courtyard was empty.
     The  children raised their heads. The windows on the second  floor were
alight. Through the curtains someone could be seen moving - granny or mother
- going from the table to the sideboard.
     "They are laying supper!" whispered Valya.
     "Oh! we mustn't be late for supper!" said Karik, "Come on !"
     "Oy, Karik, this is terrible! Mother is sure to scold us, isn't she?"
     "What next? Surely mother cannot be worse than a Pottery wasp?"
     The children dashed on: jostling each other and racing each other, they
ran up the staircase and stopped at Flat 39.
     Karik hastily pressed the white knob. Behind the door a bell rang.
     After half  a minute's  silence, which seemed  an age to  the children,
hasty  footsteps  were  heard. The door chain  rattled. The  door flung wide
open.
     On the threshold was mother.
     "You!" she  shouted, and  started  to cry. "My little  sparrows! Let me
kiss you!"
     She started to squeeze the children to herself.
     "Mother, stop! Wait!" shouted Valya, breaking away. "You will crush the
Professor."
     "Little  Valya,  whatever  is wrong  with  you?" lamented  mother,  and
started to cry even more.
     "Stop,  mother,  don't cry!"  said  Karik seriously. "Better  give us a
small, clean wine glass."
     "A wine glass?"
     "Well, yes!" Karik nodded his head. "We can put the Professor in a wine
glass, I am so afraid of losing him."
     Mother threw up her hands.
     "Both of them! Both mad! Whatever has happened?"
     Bumping  against  chairs and  knocking them  over, mother dashed to the
telephone, tore off the receiver and shouted with a tearful voice:
     "Ambulance!  Immediately!  Hurry  up!  What?  What  address?  Ach,  our
address?"
     "Do stop, mother," said Karik, taking the telephone receiver  away from
his  mother. "He only needs a wine glass, and you  are trying to get a whole
ambulance. He would get lost in the saloon of the  ambulance and will wander
around it for years. Much better give us the glass."
     Mother hesitated, frightened.  She remembered that it  is always better
to agree with lunatics than to argue  with them. For this reason, not saying
another word,  she got a clean wine  glass out of the  sideboard and  wiping
away her tears gave it to Karik.
     Holding her breath  she waited to see what Karik would do. He unwrapped
the bruised plantain leaf and laying the wine glass on its side, said:
     "Gross over into  your crystal palace, Professor." Then suddenly mother
saw a  tiny  insect move with very small step  along the green leaf and then
briskly  run  into the  wine  glass. Karik carefully  turned the  wine glass
upright and stood it on the table.
     "Are  you comfortable there?"  he asked, and bent his  ear to  the very
edge of the glass.
     In the glass something squeaked.
     "All  right,"  replied  Karik,  "I'll  cover the  palace  with a  clean
handkerchief and for a mattress I'll  throw you a piece of cotton wool. Have
a good rest meanwhile!"
     "Now I understand." Mother smiled  through her tears. "This is some new
game. But whatever is the beetle you put in the glass?"
     "Beetle?" Karik was most offended. "That's a nice business! . . . It is
very rude to call a Professor that."
     "I understand!" Mother started to smile. "You call it a scholar."
     "Not us, the whole world and not it but him."
     "Very well then, show me! Let me see what you have got there."
     Mother bent  over the wine  glass.  She expected  to see some  sort  of
trained insect.
     "A ma-a-an!" she suddenly screamed with all her force.
     "Well,  no, mother,  it isn't  just  a  man,"  said  Karik.  "It's  our
Professor Ivan Hermogenovitch. He invented a liquid which has made him tiny.
We were  also like that, even smaller. Then we ate some enlarging powder and
became big again.  There wasn't  sufficient powder for the Professor. But he
has some  more  in  his study.  We'll get some immediately and  make him big
again."
     Mother listened to  the children with amazement  and  at last  realised
that they were not mad.
     "But, children," she said, "the Professor's  flat has been sealed up by
the militia. We shall have to wait till morning. Tell the Professor this!"
     Karik distinctly and quietly repeated it all to the Professor.
     "It doesn't matter, Karik," squeaked the old man cheerfully. "I've made
myself very comfortable here . . . wait till morning!"
     Karik raised his head and said to mother, "Let's wait till morning."
     In the wine glass something was again squeaking.
     Karik listened and said:
     "Sit  down,  mother. Ivan  Hermogenovitch  would  like me  to  tell you
something."
     Mother sat listening.
     Karik  coughed  and  then  without hurrying started to  tell  about the
strange  adventures of the  three important  travellers,  on the  ground and
under  the  ground, on the water and under the water, between sky and earth,
in  the  air, in  the forests, on  the  mountains, in the  caves and  in the
crevices.  And once again all  three  lived through  their exploits  in this
story: they once  again battled bravely, floated in ships, flew through  the
air and fell down deep, dark holes.
     Listening   to  Karik,  mother  nodded  her  head,  sometimes  sobbing,
sometimes  laughing,  but most  often  listening with wide,  open-frightened
eyes, not daring to breathe or to stir.
     "My  poor darlings!" mother exclaimed,  wiping  the tears  away with  a
handkerchief. "What a lot  you have had to endure!  How granny  will take on
when she comes home and hears about your adventures."
     "Do you  know  what,  mother?" said  Karik.  "We  had better  not  tell
granny."
     Mother thought a little and smiled.
     "You  are  right,"  she said. "Granny is  delicate. It might  be  quite
harmful for her to listen  to such a story. I'll tell her you  were at  your
Uncle Peter's.  . . . But now, how can we entertain you? What would you like
to eat?"
     "Oh, Mother!" said Valya. "We shall cat everything you've got."
     Mother hustled around.  Dishes started to  clatter in  the dining-room.
The gas burners started to hiss in the kitchen.
     By the time the children had washed and dressed themselves,  mother had
laid the table and there had appeared hot from the frying-pan bacon and eggs
followed by cold  chicken, salad, cheese,  mountains of soft delicious rolls
and all sorts of sardiny things.
     Standing in  front of the sideboard, as if in thought, mother opened  a
glass door and took out a black bottle with a gold  title on a white label -
"Port wine."
     "It would be a good idea," said mother, "in such an event as this if we
drank a little wine with hot water."
     When it was all ready everybody sat down.
     "May  I  invite  you  to   our   table,  Professor?"  said  Karik,  and
triumphantly placed the wine glass between his plate and that of Valya.
     Karik threw a crumb of cheese into the glass.
     "Help yourself, Professor!" he said.
     There was a squeaking in the glass.
     "He wants some  bread,"  said Valya, and dropped a crumb, of bread into
the wine glass.
     "What about wine?" asked Mother. "How can we entertain the Professor to
wine?"
     "I know!" Karik jumped up out of his chair. "We'll pour a drop into the
shell of a sunflower seed."
     He ran out, got a sunflower seed and shelled it. Mother poured one drop
of port wine into  the shell, and Karik cautiously slipped it  down the side
of the tilted glass.
     Soon the party became very jolly.
     "Your health, Ivan Hermogenovitch!" shouted Karik, raising a tumbler of
hot water coloured with port wine.
     "To our travels!" shouted Valya.
     Everyone touched glasses, drank and ate.
     The Professor did not waste his  time either. He ate  bread  and cheese
and drank port wine.
     Karik bent over to see how he was getting on and exclaimed:
     "He's singing! What a good thing he is still small!"

     * * * * * *

     Soon the household was fast asleep.
     Karik and Valya were quietly and  evenly breathing in their clean beds,
whilst the  Professor snored, comfortably curled up  on his piece of  cotton
wool in the wine glass.
     For the first time for many  days their sleep was  calm and untroubled.
No dangers lurked around them any more.

     * * * * * *

     Next day the Professor  was  sitting in  his  study  as  if nothing had
happened to him.
     Ten  newspaper correspondents took his  photograph and wrote  about his
adventures in notebooks.
     Shortly after there appeared in one of the papers a marvellous  article
about everything,  with  a  big  portrait of  Professor Ivan  Hermogenovitch
Enotoff.
     Someone spread the rumour that Professor Enotoff  had discovered how to
change elephants  into fleas, and  then this was muddled up and it  was said
"He makes elephants out of fleas."
     Mind you, there may be a Professor who can make elephants out of fleas,
but I don't know him and I am not going to say anything about him, because I
never like to write about anything I have not seen with my own eyes.



        THE END

     _____________________________________


     About the author:

     The wonderful  children's writer Yan Leopoldovich  Larri (February  15,
1900 - March  18, 1977)- was born  according to some  encyclopedias in Riga,
but he  himself  mentions  the  Moscow region. He  started  his career as  a
children's author in 1926.
     After his book "  The Country of the Happy" was  published  in 1931 his
name became  blacklisted and later he was arrested. He spend 15 years in the
Gulag and was released only in 1956.