Dunno's Adventures

by Nikolai Nosov

Translated by Margaret Wettlin
freebooksforkids.net
Illustrated by Viktor & Kira Grigorievs

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Chapter Twenty-One
THE RETURN OF BENDUM AND TWISTUM

Blossom went downstairs clasping her portrait lovingly to her breast. The minute she appeared she was surrounded by her friends. They all said the portrait was much prettier than Snowdrop's and Cornflower's, though less of a
likeness.

"Sillies!" said Blossom. "It's more important that a portrait be pretty than that it be a likeness!"

"Of course it is," they all agreed.

Just then Birdie and Kitty came running into the room all out of breath.

"Oh dear!" they gasped. "Oh dear! We're going to faint!"

"Why, what's happened?" asked their frightened friends.

"Today we went to the hospital...." began Birdie.

"...to take home whoever was to be let out " went on Kitty.

"... and Honeysuckle said they had left already...." put in Birdie.

"... and we begged her to let out some others," said Kitty, speaking so fast that Birdie couldn't interrupt her, "and Honeysuckle let us have P'raps and Swifty and we led them down the street and they ran away from us and climbed a tree."

"They're afraid we're going to teach them how to behave." laughed Birdie.

"As if we had nothing better to to do!" said Kitty scornfully.

"Where are they now?"

"They're still up in the tree and they're sure to begin picking the apples."

"Let's go and see," suggested Snowdrop.

Sure enough, there were P'raps and Swifty perched on the limb of an apple-tree doing their best to pick one of the apples. They were pulling it and twisting it, trying to break it off the stem.

All of a sudden they caught sight of the girls who had stopped at a safe distance and were watching them. This made them redouble their efforts to pick the apple. P'raps even tried to bite through the stem with his teeth.

Dunno's Adventures

"They haven't been able to pick a single apple!" they heard somebody say.

P'raps and Swifty looked down to see Cornflower's blue eyes laughing up at them.

"Hold your tongue, blue eyes!" cried P'raps. "P'raps you think it's easy to pick apples?"

"P'raps you'd find it easier with a saw?"

"Wouldn't we just! Give us a saw and you'll see how many apples we'll pick!"

Cornflower ran off to the nearest house and came back with a saw that she gave to Swifty. In a trice the apple was sawed off and fell to the ground.

"Hurrah! We'll gather in our apple harvest!" said Cornflower to her friends. "The boys have come to help us!"

A few of her friends ran over and began rolling the apple into the courtyard of the nearest house.

Every house in Greenville had a cellar in which fruit and vegetables were stored away for the winter. The girls rolled their apple up a broad walk leading to a door which opened into the cellar. When they got to the door the apple rolled in of itself. As the girls ran back for more, they met other girls rolling up other apples.

Dunno's Adventures

The work hummed. Flitty came running up with another saw in her hand. She had pulled a pair of volley-ball knickers over her skirt, and she climbed nimbly up the tree to join the boy-Mites.

"Hey, you! Let's have that saw!" called out P'raps. "You don't know how to handle it!"

"I suppose you do!" she called back.

She straddled a limb and set about sawing off an apple while P'raps watched her enviously.

"Let's work together," he said a little later. "First you saw and I'll rest, then I'll saw and you rest."

"I don't mind," agreed Flitty.

Meanwhile some girl-Mites who lived near the garage rushed up to say that Bendum and Twistum had run away. Early in the morning the tinkers had gone to Kite Town and had not come back.

"What did I tell you!" said Birdie. "Soon all the boys will run away to Kite Town. They won't want to live here with us."

"Let them," said Cornflower. "We won't try to keep them."

All that day they talked of nothing but the disloyalty of Bendum and Twistum. Birdie and Kitty pretended to be glad they were gone and made all sorts of fun
of them.

When all hope of their coming back was lost, a car appeared at the end of the street, and tore by hissing and sputtering. The girls dropped their work and ran after it. Birdie and Kitty were the first to run.

"Bendum and Twistum have come back!" they cried. "Bendum and Twistum have come back!" Suddenly they stopped dead. "Don't let's run after them," they said. "It'll look as if we're glad they've come. "

When they reached the garage they saw that Pretzel had come, too.

"And who might that be?" asked Kitty indignantly. "Might it be that Pretzel who lives in Kite Town? Why has he come? We didn't invite him."

"Humph!" snorted Pretzel. "As if I had to wait to be invited!"

"Humph yourself," said Birdie.

"We don't go to see you, and don't you come to see us."

"Why shouldn't you come to see us? We wouldn't drive you away," said Pretzel.

"You did once. You invited us to your New Year's party and when we came you threw snowballs at us."

"What of it? We just wanted to play with you. You ought to have thrown
snowballs back at us."

"You ought to have known that girl-Mites don't like to touch snow with their hands."

"Well, we didn't," said Pretzel with a little shrug of his shoulders. "And we never thought you'd get mad and go round with a chip on your shoulder for the rest of your life."

"It's you who go round with a chip on your shoulder. Why did you have to send Nails to us? You must have known the trouble he'd made."

"We don't answer for Nails," said Pretzel. "He makes just as much trouble for us. We can't do anything with him. We didn't send him to you. He came here on his own business."

"Business?" gasped Kitty. "Do you call that business? Oh, no, we've had quite enough of you and your Nails. We won't have anything more to do with you. We don't need you any more, we have some boys of our own now."

"Very well, don't have anything to do with us! We don't give a hang. I just happened to drive Bendum and Twistum over in my car and now I'm going straight back."

Pretzel walked away in a huff. But he did not go straight back. He began to help Bendum and Twistum mend the other car. Most drivers are like that. When they see somebody mending a car, they just can't help joining in — tightening a bolt or a screw, or just offering advice.

Dunno's Adventures