ed; 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.