elers and crawled away, twisting like a worm.
     The rough walls of the narrow tunnel scraped his  sides, shoulders  and
elbows.
     The tunnel had now become so tight that it was with great difficulty he
managed to move forward at all.
     What with the mouldiness and dampness it was suffocating.
     The Professor was bathed in  perspiration. His heart  thumped. His arms
and legs shook.
     The further he went the more difficult was it to make any headway along
this  tightening underground  pipe.  However, the Professor now noticed that
the mole-cricket was dropping behind and thus allowed him a ray of hope that
he might be safe.
     More and more  remote  became the sound of  the chase. The mole-cricket
stopped somewhere far back.
     "Saved! It has gone away!" the Professor breathed thickly.
     Pressing himself forward on his elbows and knees he slid along exerting
every effort and suddenly his head ran into the earth.
     Further than this it was  impossible to  go. The  tunnel had ended in a
blind-alley !
     The Professor started to shake bodily.
     "A certain death? But who will then save Karik and Valya?"
     With sweat dripping he felt here and there in  the dark, but everywhere
his hands met a solid earth wall.
     What could he do? He was sitting in the hole just as  if  he  was in  a
trap. Behind him the mole-cricket  was coming up, and in front of  him was a
blank wall.
     What could he do in such a hopeless situation?
     The Professor felt  as if ants were running over his body. His arms and
legs grew cold. His mouth became dry.
     "No! No!" he said, with decision, "we shall yet see who is who. You are
a  great strong  animal but I am a man.  I will  fight you and I will be the
conqueror."
     An hour ago he could have crushed the mole-cricket with a  finger,  but
now he would  have to gather all his strength for the  fray and he could not
say with any certainty how this battle would end.
     He  turned back and  pressing his back  against the earth  wall  of the
blind-alley held the spear in front of himself.
     "I'll  hit it right  on  the  nerve point under  the  eyes,"  said  the
Professor to himself loudly.
     At that moment a  thought  flashed into his head which made  his  flesh
creep.
     "How shall I get  out if I kill the cricket? It  will just cork  up the
hole with its great carcass. How could I move such a monster?"
     There was no time to think this out.
     Louder and louder grew the underground noise. The cricket was now quite
close.
     A minute passed and then another.
     "Get back! get back!" roared the Professor, waving the spear.
     The earth broke away with a rumble. Along the walls of the tunnel there
came scraping  noises.  The sinuous  feelers of the cricket were seeking for
him. In the darkness they felt  his head and shoulders. Twisting his body he
threw  these live, knotted cords off and started to rain blow after  blow on
the head of the monster with his spear.
     "There! Take that! and that, and that!", he shouted hoarsely.
     The cricket did not expect such an attack. Backing, it slid away.
     "Aha! Aha!" yelled the Professor, courageously throwing himself on  his
enemy.
     The cricket put out its feelers. The Professor  struck at them with his
naked fist, and scolding loudly hunted the creature back along the tunnel.
     He did not cease to hit the cricket on the head with  the spear, trying
to  stab  the nerve centre  with its sharp point. But suddenly the  creature
pulled  its head back under its shield  and the spear made no impression  on
this horny covering.
     The monster  stopped.  Obviously the  spear no  longer worried  it. The
Professor knew then - the battle was lost.
     Moving with  its  broad feet  the cricket now advanced  to  attack. The
Professor had to retreat.
     Waving  the spear he slowly backed to the end of  the tunnel  until  he
felt the solid wall behind him.
     "Now we're done!" he thought.
     He shut his eyes tiredly and ducking his head  dropped in a heap on the
floor.
     Suddenly he  heard  a noise above  his head.  The  ceiling  of the hole
cracked  as  if someone  was drilling through from above. Earth fell on  his
head.
     The ceiling fell down. A blinding light flashed for an instant into the
hole and the Professor saw far  away  a fragment of blue  sky, but almost at
once something like  a  huge pod  came  down  into  the  tunnel  from above,
shutting up the opening.
     "What is this?" shouted the Professor, and seized the pod in his hands.
     The pod trembled and commenced to go up again quickly.
     The Professor realised just one thing :
     This pod was going  out  - back up to where it  was all sunny - and  he
must get out of the earth back to the sun with it.
     He held tightly on to  the pod with his arms and legs and suddenly like
a cork he flew out of the earth.
     The sun blinded him. He screwed up his eyes.
     "Saved ! Saved !" He was now laughing hysterically.
     But he had not succeeded in  letting go with his arms when some strange
force flung him upwards and then dropped him down again, then upwards again,
and once again down.
     The Professor bounced up like a ball and fell again.
     He simply must  get free of  this jumping  pod.  The Professor  let go.
Twisting in the  air he  dropped to the  ground  and rolled  head over heels
amongst the stones.
     The shock was so great that he lost consciousness for an instant.
     When he came to the first thing he saw was a great green animal. It was
standing not far from  him with long legs studded with sharp points - spurs.
On the ground lay a thick pod-like tail  considerably longer than the  green
animal itself.
     "Aha!" The Professor raised himself  on his elbows. "I see. It was that
tail I was holding on to. A most kindly tail! A magnificent tail."
     Hearing the voice of the Professor the creature turned a flattened head
with a huge mouth towards him and moved feelers of immeasurable length.
     "What family do you belong to, my saviour?" he now enquired politely.
     The  green  animal, covered  as  it were with shining enamel, moved its
feet.
     "Of course it's you  !" shouted  the Professor. "You heard me with your
feet? There you are! It's  quite clear. You  are a green  grasshopper. Well,
anyway, thank you my friend! Thanks for pulling me out of an awkward jam,  a
very awkward jam."
     The  grasshopper once again moved  its feet. The narrow listening slits
on  its front  legs  turned  towards  the Professor.  The  grasshopper could
clearly hear him.
     Then  the  meaning  of  his recent  experiences  became  clear  to  the
Professor.
     At this time of year the female grasshopper bores holes  in  the ground
in order  to  hide  its  eggs. In  spring the grubs of the  grasshopper  are
hatched out of these  eggs.  They make their way up on to the surface of the
earth and begin to feed on caterpillars, butterflies and flies.
     It was the good fortune of  the Professor that  a female grass-' hopper
had bored into the earth just above the very place to which the mole-cricket
had driven him.
     But  the grasshopper had not succeeded in laying eggs.  Having  touched
the egg-laying tail  of  the  insect the  Professor naturally gave the  poor
creature a great fright, and for that reason she had quickly pulled her tail
out of the ground.
     "Forgive me, please," he burbled cheerfully. "I am  sorry I interrupted
you."
     The  grasshopper jumped up, and spreading wings which glittered  in the
sun it vanished in the greenery of the grass forest.
     "Goodbye! Safe journey!" the Professor  shouted after it and  waved his
hand.
     He was now alone. He  stood there looking around and stroking  his grey
beard.
     "But where have you got me to, my  green steed?" he muttered. "Where is
the pond now? How do I get to it? Should I go left or right?"
     Around  him rustled  the forest. It  was only  now, however,  that  the
Professor noticed that this was not like the grass jungle.
     Here  the trees were not bamboo-like  but their  long  slightly-curving
stems stretched upwards like gigantic candles.
     The Professor  looked  up at  their  tops  and  blinked  his eyes  with
amazement.  There  at  a  dizzy-making  height enormous  white  hats  rocked
quietly.  Each tree stood like a long flagstaff on  the top of which a white
hat had been stuck.
     "What are these?" he wrinkled up his eyes.  He went closer to the stems
and  then stopped suddenly as if rooted to the spot. Before his very eyes  a
white feathery cloud had been ripped off the top of one of the trees and had
suddenly disappeared, It seemed to melt into the air.
     The Professor shrugged his shoulders. He could not understand it.
     The wind came up in a gust from  behind him and  immediately some  more
white tops became separated  from their stems and slowly floated away in the
air.
     From somewhere above  him  there  fell suddenly  at  his  feet a  heavy
elongated kernel.
     He bent over to look at it.
     From one end of the kernel  there projected a long thin whipcord at the
end of which a feathery parachute was quivering.
     "Ah that's what  it is !" the Professor exploded. "But, of  course,  it
is! . . . Why didn't I guess it at once?"
     He nimbly  ran  to the  very highest stem and  throwing  his head  back
examined it from top to roots.
     "There you are! Excellent! You are just what I want to-day."
     He  then tightened  his spider's web  costume, scraped his feet  on the
ground and jumping upwards clasped the stem of the tree.
     The stem was thick. He could only just get his arms and legs around it.
Immediately  he had done  this he felt the palms of his hands and  his knees
sticking to the stem.
     "Never mind. Never mind,"  he muttered. "Once I get half-way up  things
will be easier."
     Moving his arms and legs in turn with difficulty, breathing heavily and
bathed  in perspiration, the Professor climbed the stem like a fly on sticky
paper.
     To begin with,  the ascent was very difficult but  the higher up he got
the thinner became the stem and the easier it was to make progress. The wind
swayed the tree and with  the  tree the Professor also swayed, not daring to
look down at the ground.
     But here at last was the top of the tree - the white feathery crown.
     The Professor  put out his hand preparing to make his way from the stem
on to the crown of the tree, but suddenly something soft slid along his arm.
     He pressed himself to the stem. Around  him unexpectedly wings  started
to beat and the air hummed. Dancing winged creatures were moving just before
the Professor's eyes.
     He ducked his head with fright.
     "They  will eat  me!  I am sure they  will eat  me,  the ruffians!"  he
thought mournfully,  and then  taking another quick look at the creatures he
became calm at once.
     "Oo, what a coward I am !" he sighed with relief.
     Stretching their long thin legs in the air the creatures went round the
tree.  Their  transparent wings  ornamented  with  fine  tracery were all  a
quiver.
     Their long tails brushed against the Professor's face and slid over his
body.
     "Mayflies!" he grinned. "Nothing more  than Mayflies!" and seizing  the
sappy leaves of the crown with his hands he calmly drew himself up on to the
head of the amazing tree. The Mayflies only at first glance appeared giants.
In actual  fact  they  were but  little bigger than the Professor. What made
them  appear  giant  size  was  that  behind   them  there  fluttered  long,
thread-like tails. On some of them these resembled a fork and  on others the
two legs of  a pair  of compasses.  These tails were  about twice as long as
their bodies.
     "See how they  dance!" observed the  Professor. "Does  it mean that  it
soon will be getting dark?"
     And paying no further attention to the winged dancers  he clambered  up
on to the very crown of the tree.
     There  was no  reason to fear the Mayflies. These insects have not even
got  a  mouth. Their life is so short  that they don't  have to worry  about
food. They come into  the light in  order to dance  the  one dance of  their
life-time.
     In a happy dancing ring  they.  circle tirelessly, waving their  little
wings and then when the summer dusk  commences they fly down to the  surface
of the water, lay their eggs  and never themselves do  they rise again  from
the water. At this time of year the bodies of Mayflies cover the  surface of
rivers with a reddish carpet.
     The  current carries away millions of  these  harmless beings, whirling
them along between steep or sloping banks. But  not a  single Mayfly reaches
the mouth of the river. They are all eaten on the way by fish or birds.
     Who could envy a Mayfly? After two years' growth,  it emerges and flies
around dancing for one single day,  and is then  eaten up! Fancy coming into
our world just for that!
     Surrounded by  a ring  of Mayflies the Professor stood on the  crown of
the tree which was like a dome. The whole of its swaying surface was covered
without  exception with  dark  glistening  kernels,  a pliant  stalk  with a
parachute at its tip rose upwards from each kernel. These rustled  above his
head like an orchard in spring.
     From time to  time one or  another of the kernels trembling and swaying
would break away  from the dome and hang for a minute above the tree. A gust
of wind would fill the parachute and the  kernel would float away in the air
following its feathery parachute and its stalk.
     The Professor  felt  the stalks  with  his  hands and set to  work.  He
selected ten or so of the biggest  parachutes and tore them off the kernels.
His  hands were  then filled with clusters of umbrellas with feathery clouds
at their  tips.  The parachutes were  straining upwards lifting him off  the
crown of the tree, and he had to exert every effort to keep his position.
     Then he quickly tore off another pair of parachutes and in high spirits
he jumped up and hung suspended  in the air. For  some time he hung with his
feet dangling, but as soon  as the  wind blew the parachutes rustled happily
above  his head.  A current of air  took hold of the Professor and bore  him
away over the forest.
     "Magnificent! Simply magnificent!" He  laughed as he swayed  in the air
like  a  pendulum. "I  certainly never expected to fly  on  the  down  of  a
dandelion."
     The strange trees with white hats now appeared  from the immense height
as ordinary dandelions. The forest seemed now like ordinary meadow grass.
     The Professor looked around himself in all directions. Everywhere there
stretched grass jungle or sandy wilderness.
     Far  away on a high mountain he suddenly spotted a  very tall column at
the top of which waved a huge red flag.
     "Aha! my landmark!" the Professor smiled contentedly. Even further away
and more to the right there stretched a wide blue expanse of water.
     "And there is the pond! Excellent! Now I know the direction."
     The wind shook the feathery  parachutes. Plunging  through the air  the
Professor flew over forests and fields watching keenly beneath him.
     Then  a gust of  wind  seized him and carried him  straight towards the
pond.
     "Ee! I'll be drowned if I am not careful," he frowned. "I must get down
before I am carried into the open sea."
     At that moment the Professor  was being carried over a sunny meadow. It
looked a good place in which to alight. He decided to land.
     Having  let go  several  of the parachutes he moved in a wandering slow
flight  above  the  ground gently descending. The grass was already  turning
back into  the  nightmare forest  and the narrow streamlet into a  broad and
noisy river.
     "Hop -  la!"  yelled the Professor, letting two more  parachutes  go at
once.
     He was  swinging in the air above  the  river looking downwards  for  a
suitable place to land when he suddenly saw Karik  and Valya floating in the
river.
     The waves  dashed them against a  rock and they spun around in the grip
of the current just like logs.
     "Hold on!"  yelled the Professor from above; letting the last parachute
go he plunged like a stone into the foaming water.


        CHAPTER VIII


     The  rescue - Some explanations  - Living windows  - The  herd of grass
cows - Sad recollections - An air tortoise attacks

     THE. STRONG CURRENT TOPPLED THE  PROFESSOR OFF HIS  FEET. He fell first
on one knee and  then on the other.  The water  beat him down and swept over
his head, but  he got up and venturing cautiously from rock  to rock managed
to make his way forward.
     Karik and Valya were lying just near him looking as if they  were dead.
Their eyes were closed, their arms dangled helplessly down  and  their  legs
trailed in the water.
     "Wait  a  minute!  Wait a  minute!"  muttered  the  Professor  heavily.
"Everything will be all right!" and he seized the children tightly.
     Here at  last was the bank. The  Professor  laid Karik and Valya on the
ground, squatted down and started to rub them with the palms of his hands.
     "Now then! Now then! What do we do next?" he muttered.
     He bent their arms and legs and raised them up and down. But all was in
vain. The children lay motionless with their eyes shut and  their white lips
clenched firmly.
     "What am I to do with you next?" he frowned.
     He wiped his forehead with his hand and suddenly his face lit up.
     The Professor had remembered an old long forgotten device for restoring
the  drowning. Quickly  jumping  up he seized Valya by  the legs, lifted her
upside down  and started to shake her violently. Water poured out of Valya's
mouth and nose. She groaned.
     "Groaning!" rejoiced the Professor. "Excellent! you will live."
     Laying the girl on the | ground, he set about Karik.
     "One, two!"
     A murky flood poured out of Karik's mouth.
     "And now you lie down too."
     Spitting and coughing the children opened their eyes.
     They looked around, not understanding a thing.  Immediately in front of
them stood the  Professor, the  Professor real  and alive. Huge and bearded,
just as they were accustomed to see him every day.
     They  were  so delighted that they  never  noticed  how  oddly  he  was
dressed. They just gazed at his face and saw his kindly smiling eyes and his
tousled grey beard.
     "The  Professor!"  exclaimed Valya.  She  flung  herself  towards  him,
sobbing with joy.
     "Now, now, now." coughed the Professor with embarrassment, stroking the
girl's head. "There is nothing to cry about now."
     Valya smeared  the tears  out of her eyes with her fists and started to
smile.
     "All that - all that water - came out of us. What a lot!"
     "Plenty  of  it,"  agreed  the  Professor.  "But  now,  my  dears,"  he
continued, "tell me who decided to make free with my study?"
     The children hung their heads.
     "Ah, you  are silent! You  have forgotten how to speak?"  The  children
sighed.
     Dripping wet  and  unhappy, they  stood in  front of the Professor  not
daring to  look up  at  him.  Karik lowered his head  so  much that his chin
rested on his chest which was covered with sticky mud, Valya turned away.
     "Well! Why are  you silent?" the Professor gruff-gruffed. Karik started
to  sniff  and  Valya  sighed  deeply.  The  Professor became sorry for  the
children.  He seized  them in his arms, squeezed them to himself and started
to laugh.
     "Ruffians! just  think  what  you have done. Ah,  what goats you are! I
nearly went out of my mind with you!"
     "We had  an  accident!" said Valya, twisting  her  damp  hair round her
fingers.
     Karik gazed at her in amazement. "What a liar I" he thought  but he did
not say anything.
     "Now, now.  Come on home, your mother will show you  what she thinks of
the accident and it won't be an accident if she whips you."
     "Mother never whips us!" said Karik, raising his head.
     The Professor pulled at his grey whiskers and said gloomily:
     "They beat me all right when I was small - with a strap or a cane: they
took the hide off me. Russia was a wild place then. Now everything is grand.
Come on to the mother who never beats you. Such  a mother must be seen to be
believed! Isn't that so?"
     "But where are we going?"
     "Where are we going? Why, home, of course!"
     "Home, Home!" Valya shouted cheerfully. Jumping up and down she clapped
her hands.
     "But  is it a long way  to our home, Professor?" asked Karik. "Shall we
get there in an hour?"
     "An hour? Dear, no!"
     The Professor shook his head.
     "We cannot  get home  even in ten hours.  We are practically six  miles
from home."
     "Oh,  that's fine!"  Valya  was jumping up and down.  "We can run  that
distance. We'll do it in an hour."
     "How?" coughed the Professor in confusion. "Once - that is  to say this
morning  - we, I  think, might have covered six  miles  in two hours. That's
true. But now it will take us several months."
     "How's that?" marvelled Karik.
     "Why?" Valya opened her eyes wide.
     "Just because we cannot now do more than a yard or one and a half yards
in  the  hour. You  forget that formerly each of our steps  was about half a
yard and now it is a very small part of a centimetre."
     "What? We are not as small as that?"
     Karik glanced hastily around.

     Strange trees  with green angular  trunks stood beside them.  Along the
bank of the river there was wandering some sort of winged being smaller than
a calf but bigger than a sheep. Through the air, as if on purpose to impress
them, an enormous  monster came hurtling above their heads. It was about the
size of a motor-bus with black wool on it.
     The children gazed  about  in  amazement. - What did  it all mean?  The
Professor was real  but  all around, as  before,  were  extraordinary unreal
things.
     "And  what has  happened?" Karik blinked his eyelids in confusion. "You
seem to be real, big. What are you, real or unreal?"
     The Professor smiled.
     "Both real and  unreal," he said. "But you  think it out  for yourself.
Surely I was bigger  than you formerly. I therefore have the right to remain
the same in the small world. Understand?"
     "I understand," replied Karik, undecidedly.
     But  the Professor  realised  from  Karik's  eyes  that  he  understood
precious little.
     "Imagine,"  he continued, "that the liquid I invented had been drunk by
you, I, an elephant, a horse, a mouse, and a  dog. All the whole  lot  of us
would be reduced  in size  to about one-thousandth part of what  we formerly
were, but to us human beings  the  elephant would  still appear as big as we
are accustomed to see  him in the zoological gardens, and  the mouse - well,
naturally, the mouse  will remain tiny, but it will be only a thousandth  of
the size of  an  ordinary  mouse.  But all of us  humans,  together with the
elephant, horse, dog and mouse,  could quite easily be put in the palm of an
ordinary man's hand."
     "I understand," Karik nodded his head.
     "But I don't understand," said Valya.
     "What don't you understand?"
     "I don't understand how you knew where we had got to.''
     "I'll  explain even that to  you  but  not now,"  said  the  Professor,
slapping Valya on the back. "We have a long way to go and we shall be a long
time going there. We shall be able  to talk about  everything on the journey
home. You will tell me  what you saw and what you understood and I will tell
you how I found you.  Now, first of all, my  dears,  on the way we may  lose
each other, and therefore each one of us must know how to find the way home.
Come  with me,  I  have  something to explain  to  you before  we start  our
journey."
     "But we don't  want to lose each other!" said Valya, holding on  to the
Professor's hand.
     "Very good. But all the same.  . . . In any case . . . because anything
might happen."
     The Professor held both the children by the hand  and with  rapid steps
climbed up a hillock.
     The children scurried along  beside the grand old man. "Do you see?" he
suddenly asked, stretching  out his hand. Far away over the thick  growth of
the  grass  jungle raising itself up  in the sky like a huge chimney was  an
enormous post. At the top of it waving in the blue sky there hung an immense
stretch of red cloth.
     The post stood  in the  midst  of the forest, but one  could see  it as
clearly as a solitary pine tree on the steppe.
     "There  is  my  flagstaff!" said the Professor.  "I stuck  it  up as  a
landmark."
     "What for?"
     "Now listen. . . . Wherever we may get to  we can always take a look at
our landmark. All we have to do is to climb up to the top of the grass and .
. . .
     "Of course, naturally," shouted the children.
     "Well, the  rest is quite  simple. Below, just  near the mast, I left a
small plywood box. It is completely wrapped  up in order  to protect it from
the rain and sun. But so that we could get into it I cut a small hole in one
of its sides."
     "Why should we want to get into it?"
     "When we reach the box we shall climb into it and there we shall find a
little  case with white powder. That, my dears, is the  enlarging powder. It
would be sufficient  for each of  us to swallow a handful of this powder  to
turn us once again into big ordinary people, now do you understand?"
     "Oo!" Valya suddenly  interrupted, "but suppose someone  takes  the box
away?"
     The  Professor was confused.  He himself  had  not  thought  of such  a
possibility. But it was important not to let the children think this.
     Stroking his  beard  he said confidently, "Rubbish!  Who in  the  world
would  want  an  old plywood box. In any case very few  people  ever come to
these parts. And . . . and whilst  it is very pleasant chatting here we must
not  waste our breath. Let's start  our journey, my dears! Forward! Come on!
Heads up! Give me your hand, Karik! and yours, Valya."
     "Where are we going now?"
     "There!" the Professor waved his hand. "Set course to the plywood box!"
he ordered.
     Raising his  head high, he started  to  march  towards the forest.  The
children lagged behind him and started whispering excitedly about something.
     The Professor heard.
     "You tell!"
     "Why me? Tell him yourself."
     "What's all this?" he asked, stopping.
     "Well, how are we going to sleep  and what about dinner and breakfast?"
asked Valya.
     He shrugged his shoulders.
     "What  trifles! We shall sleep like our forebears slept  - in trees, in
huts, in  caves, and certainly  it will be much  better  than  sleeping in a
stuffy  room. You must think we  are going  camping. Haven't  you ever  done
that?'
     "But what are we going to eat?"
     "Well,  there is no end of food here. You  could have dinner, breakfast
and supper ten times a day if you wanted it."
     "But look what happened to us," said Valya. "We wanted to  eat a  berry
to-day and someone hit us and threw us into the river."
     "Hit you?" the Professor was astonished.
     "Well, yes."
     And Valya recounted  how they  had tried to get a berry off a tree  and
had not got it but had fallen off into the stormy river.
     "You ate these berries?" asked the Professor with alarm.
     "No! we didn't succeed!"
     He sighed with relief.
     "Just as well. Most  probably these were  the berries of  the poisonous
daphne or as most people call this plant, 'Wolf's Tongue.' "
     "But we did not eat it."
     "That does  not matter. You breathed in  the  poisonous  vapour of  the
daphne and for that reason lost consciousness."
     "Do  you  know, Professor,"  interrupted  Karik, "we are quite ready to
spend the night on a branch or anywhere else you like, but. . . ."
     "But what?"
     Karik swallowed the water which was forming in his mouth and said:
     "Well, we haven't had anything to eat  since yesterday and . . . and we
simply can't go on, we must. . . ."
     "Good gracious me," fussed  the Professor, "fancy  my  not thinking  of
that  at once. Certainly,  my  dears,  certainly!  Before we set off on  our
journey we'll all have a jolly good meal. What about some milk?"
     "Ordinary milk?"
     "M-m, it's certainly not quite ordinary, but it's milk."
     "Let's have it!" Karik stretched out his hand.
     "Only let's have lots," said Valya.
     "Quick march," ordered the Professor.
     Sticking his beard out he started off ahead, examining the grass trees,
looking for something. At last  he stopped  under the  shade of a grassy oak
tree which had  such immense leaves that on anyone of them there would  have
been  plenty  of room  for  a  football match.  Yes and  room  over  for the
spectators.
     "Here,"  the  Professor  pointed  upwards,  "here is  a  herd  of  cows
grazing."
     "Cows up a tree?"
     "M-yes . . . it's something like an alpine dairy farm. Now who is going
to be first up?"
     "Bu - but don't these cows bite?"
     "No, they don't  bite nor  do they butt. They have neither |  teeth nor
horns, my dears."
     Karik and Valya immediately flung themselves at the tree. The Professor
followed them.
     Clutching at the soft green branches they clambered up
     - helping each other and quickly reached the top of the mighty tree.
     In front  of  them shining in the sun were  broad glistening leaves  as
much like green meadows as anything else.
     The  travellers  clambered out  on to one of the leaves  and started to
walk about it, treading with their bare feet on the soft fleshy surface. But
after taking a few steps the children stopped hesitatingly.
     "What's up?" asked the Professor, and he also stopped.
     Valya stretched out a trembling finger. "What is  this?" she pointed to
the surface of the leaf.
     "Yes, whatever is it?" asked Karik, starting to retrace his steps.
     The leaf was to all appearances alive.
     Its glistening surface rustled, contracted and expanded. It was covered
with thousands of  mouths, and  these were either chewing something or  else
waiting to seize Karik and Valya by their bare feet.
     "Well! what's worrying you?" the Professor was surprised.
     "This  can't be a leaf?" said Valya. "Look what it's doing. It's trying
to bite my feet. I don't like such leaves."
     "What nonsense! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.  They are just the
very ordinary pores - the stomatac."
     "Pores?"
     "Of course! They are the windows of the leaf which ventilate the plant,
they are its lungs with which it breathes."
     "But can't they fasten on to our feet?"
     "Obviously  not.  Don't  worry! Just  follow  me!"  and  the  Professor
courageously started to walk over the leaf along the thick veins  which were
traversing the green meadow in all directions.
     The children followed him.
     The first to see the cows was Valya.
     "Oh, look!" she shouted.  "Can these be the  cows? They are not at  all
like cows. They are so green."
     On the edge of the leaf-meadow green  animals were wandering like giant
pears  perched on delicate  long legs. Some of them  were  sitting down with
their  whiskers resting  on the fleshy  surface of the leaf and their snouts
deeply thrust into it.
     "Here we  are,"  said the Professor, "let me introduce the grass  cows.
Don't be upset because they do not look like cows.
     In spite of  it you'll find their milk excellent. In no way inferior to
real milk."
     "But what  are  they  called?" asked  Valya.  "Do  you mean to say  you
haven't guessed it?  Why they're  plant lice. Very familiar  insects. If you
have ever read about ants  you must know about the plant lice - aphides - or
green-fly as they are often called."
     "Aha, I remember," said Karik, "the ants breed them."
     "Yes, yes, quite right, Karik," answered the Professor. "The ants often
collect the plant lice, feed them and tend them."
     "Just like they do in the State dairy farms."
     "Yes. Pretty well. The ants are very fond of plant lice and  treat them
just like people treat cows. They milk them  and feed on this milk. . . . Be
careful, please, don't step into the milk."
     The Professor had stopped at the  edge of a pool of some  sort of thick
liquid.
     "I  don't think it is worth milking the green cows," he continued. "The
milk appears to be flowing in rivers here. Help yourselves, my friends."
     He  lay down on  his stomach, buried his lips  in  the pool of  | green
plant-lice-milk and with his beard splashing in it took several gulps.
     "It tastes all right! Help yourselves!"
     The children followed the Professor's example and quickly  buried their
mouths in the sweet thick milk.
     "What about it?" said the Professor. "Do you like it? Nice, isn't it?"
     "It's better  than real  milk,"  said Karik, wiping his mouth with  his
hand, obviously well satisfied.
     Valya was lapping  it down noisily  and didn't  raise her head but just
grunted something no one could follow.
     At last they were all of them fully satisfied.
     The children  rolled  themselves away from the milk pool  and stretched
themselves out on the leaf, just as if it had been the beach at the seaside.
     Valya lay  stroking her tummy. Karik  flung his legs  and  arms  widely
apart.
     "Good enough," he said.
     "If you are now no longer hungry we must get going!"
     "Oh, no!" hastily interjected  Valya, "we must rest a little  to  begin
with."
     "Just half an hour," Karik supported his sister.
     Their legs  were  so  tired that it  seemed as if they didn't belong to
their owners,  and their arms lay on  the  fleshy surface  of  the leaf like
lead. A great laziness had wrapped itself around them.
     "All right!" agreed the Professor. "Take a proper rest."
     He lay down beside the children.
     After all the events of the day he was not at all loath to lie and rest
himself for half an hour. Yawning  lusciously, he  put  his hands behind his
head, and his eyes which it was now difficult to keep open gently closed.
     For some time the travellers lay silent with their eyes closed to avoid
the glare of the sun, turning now on one side, now on the other.
     Over their heads the wind blew noisily. The leaf swayed like a hammock.
     "Isn't  this grand?"  mumbled  the  Professor.  He  started  to  mutter
something as his  head sank on to his chest. He began to snore gently  as if
he was whistling through his nose.
     "Fast asleep," said Valya.
     "Let him sleep. Then we can rest."
     Valya was silent for a little and then sighing.
     "Mother will be crying probably."
     "Certainly she'll cry."
     Valya sighed more deeply as if she herself were about to cry,
     but at  this moment  something  buzzed through the air and hit the leaf
with a thud.
     The leaf shook.
     "Whatever is that?" squeaked Valya.
     The Professor opened his sleepy eyes slightly.
     A huge tortoise nearly as big as a tank was moving across the leaf. The
back of the tortoise glistened like scarlet lacquer.
     Black patterns on this background made it seem like a Japanese plate.
     The Professor yawned, closed his eyes and started snoring.
     The  children gazed at the  red  monster  in alarm  as, quite unlike  a
tortoise, it started to run lightly towards them.
     They clung to each other.
     The red tortoise ran up to the children, gazed down at  them as if from
the roof of a barn and angrily rustled its whiskers.
     Karik  and Valya jumped up and with  a scream and  shout took  to their
heels.
     They  dashed past the green cows which were  peacefully  grazing on the
leaf meadow and ran up to the very edge of the leaf.
     There was no further escape possible.


        CHAPTER IX


     A thirsty  journey - The cafe in the grass  jungle - The  assault on  a
forest  stronghold  -  The battle with the ants  - Under  the mushroom - The
flood

     KARIK AND VALYA STOOD ON THE VERY  EDGE OF THE LEAF. BELOW, under their
feet,  there swayed the tops  of  trees  and through the  chinks between the
leaves far below could be seen the ground.
     Jump down? They could hardly jump from such a height.
     Valya gripped Karik's hand firmly.
     The red tortoise had crawled quite close.  Another minute and it  would
hurl itself on the children, kill them, carry them off and eat them.
     "Don't be frightened! Don't be frightened!" the children suddenly heard
the  voice of the Professor,  "It  is a  lady-bird. It won't touch you. Come
over here."
     "It won't touch you!" whispered Valya, hiding behind Karik.
     Not for a moment taking his eyes off  the tortoise-monster, Karik moved
sideways past it.
     "Now, now! be brave!" encouraged the Professor.
     The children turned abruptly and dashed away at full speed to the green
cows.
     Hardly drawing breath they then darted towards the Professor, stumbling
now and then in their flight across the leaf. They finally  managed to  hide
behind his broad back.
     "It is quite harmless!" said the Professor. "No need to worry!"
     "May be  harmless but it's very alarming!" puffed Valya. "Oy! Look what
this  harmless creature is  up to!" The lady-bird had  reached the  herd  of
green  cows and stopping suddenly struck down one of the cows with  its paws
like a lion and trampling  on it, squeezing it with the weight  of its body,
proceeded  to  suck it. In a few seconds nothing of  the cow remained except
its skin.
     The lady-bird proceeded to knock down one after the other.
     It trampled on them, sucked them like grapes and threw away the skins.
     By the  time the children had recovered their senses  there was  not  a
single one of the plant lice left on the leaf.
     Having  devoured  the lice  the ladybird  wiped its  whiskers  with  an
enormous paw and kicking  the skins out of its way moved over to the edge of
the leaf.
     Here it raised its  armour and  pushed out from under  it a transparent
flinty-like tail and two heavy trough-shaped wings,  after  which the armour
fell back with a clacking noise. Then with a  creaking rustle two more wings
appeared this time, delicate and transparent. They started to beat violently
up  and down,  disappearing from view  with their speed,  like propellers. A
stream of air beat in  the  faces of the travellers. The  lady-bird was off,
away above the forest.
     "So  that's a  lady-bird!" said  Valya.  "Sucks them all  dry-in a most
lady-like manner and flies away!"
     "Yes,  most  excellent,"  said the  Professor.  "Just  what is  needed.
Couldn't be better."
     "Excellent?"
     "Of  course. It is  most important to  get rid  of these lice  in every
possible  way. But  probably  the best method  of  fighting  the lice is the
lady-bird beetle. In America they collect these lady-birds in baskets and in
spring-time release them wherever there are lice. The lady-bird hunters have
special  maps  provided for them  showing the places in which the  lady-bird
usually winters. They go to these places and collect them."
     "But  why is it  necessary to get rid of the lice?" asked Valya.  "They
have such nice milk."
     "The milk is all right," agreed the Professor, "but the lice themselves
are  very harmful creatures and what is more they  have so many children and
multiply so rapidly. But for the lady-birds the lice would be most difficult
to combat."
     "In what way are they harmful?"
     "They attack  the  leaves  of fruit  trees, flowers and  vegetables. In
fact, there is hardly a plant on which you might not find lice."
     "What do they actually do?"
     "The lice  suck the  sap out of the  plant,  but this is  only half the
evil. The green milk which you found so nice to taste, gums up the pores  of
the leaf so that it cannot breathe and grow. The leaf naturally dies. But if
the  leaves  perish it just  means  that  you can't  expect either fruit  or
vegetables. However, it is all very well to talk. We have had our rest, it's
high time to step out. Come on, my dears!"
     But before climbing  down  from the  tree  the  Professor  scanned  the
horizon for his beacon.
     Away in the west above the foliage of the grassy jungle there fluttered
in the wind an enormous red flag.
     "Aha," he muttered, turning to climb  down,  "we must go westward. Keep
going towards the sun."
     He jumped down on to the ground.
     "Forward!" he shouted, and stepping off through the glade began to sing
like the wind in a chimney.


     "Forward! the bugles blow,
     To battle most glorious.
     Forward! with eyes aglow,
     The children victorious."


     Valya frowned and stuck her fingers in  her ears. Karik waved his hand:
let the old  boy  sing, after  all  every  human being has some  sort  of  a
weakness.
     The Professor was only human.
     The travellers  were passing  thr