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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 Thirty
HOME
For many days Doono and his friends made their way through fields and woods until they came to familiar country. One day they climbed to the top of a hill from which they got a view of Flower Town spreading below them in all its beauty.
It was late summer and flowers of all sorts were in bloom: white chrysanthemums, red dahlias, asters of many colours. Pansies, like bright moths, seemed to be flitting everywhere. Flame-coloured nasturtiums climbed over the fences, the walls, and even the roofs of the houses. The breeze was laden with the sweet scent of mignonette and daisies.
Doono and his friends threw their arms about each other in their joy.
Soon they were walking down the streets of their native town. Mites ran out of all the houses to get a look at the explorers.
Doono and his friends were so sunburnt that at first nobody recognized them.
Then somebody cried out:
"Why, it's Doono, fellows! See, he's marching at the head!"
This was followed by cries from all sides:
"And there's Dr. Pillman! And Shot, and Scatterbrain, and Roly-Poly!"
"Hurrah!" cried the Mites of Flower Town joyously.
But the greatest excitement came when Doono and his friends turned into Bluebell Street. Here everybody knew them, everybody was a friend or a neighbour. It was impossible to get through the street for the crowd. The boy-Mites hugged and kissed the valiant explorers; the girl-Mites strewed the road with the petals of flowers. Suddenly a little dog ran up. It barked and leaped about Shot and licked his hand.
"Dot!" cried the delighted hunter. "Look, fellows, it's my Dot!"
The neighbours said that Dot had come home a few days after the taking-off of the balloon. This had made them think that the explorers had all been killed, and they had given up hope of ever seeing them again.
Shot snatched Dot up in his arms and kissed him.
"You blessed pup!" he said. "So you're alive and kicking, are you? If you ever knew how I missed you!"
At the end of the street appeared another group of Mites with the poet Posey at their head.
"A poem!" cried everybody. "Now we'll hear a poem!"
The girl-Mites clapped their hands and the boy-Mites ran for an empty barrel, which they set up on end in the middle of the street.
"Climb up on the barrel, Posey and give us a poem!" somebody cried out.
Posey was seized under the arms and hoisted up on to the barrel.
For a moment he stood there deep in thought, then he cleared his throat, stretched out his arms to Doono and his friends, and in a voice full of emotion recited a poem he had made up that very minute:
|
Up they went in a balloon, |
"Hurrah!" cried everybody ecstatically.
Instantly Posey was snatched off the barrel. The boy-Mites carried him home on their shoulders while the girl-Mites ran behind, throwing flower petals at him.
Posey won as much fame for this poem as if he himself had been a member of the famous expedition.
Our valiant explorers opened the gate and went into their house, which had stood empty for so long a time. Dunno did not go with them. He remained standing in the street, gazing sadly after the disappearing crowd and looking about him as if in search of somebody. There was not a soul in sight. It was as if the wind had swept everybody away.
An expression of even greater sadness came into Dunno's eyes, but just then he caught sight of someone standing in the shadow of the fence, staring at him with parted lips and wide-open eyes.
"Gunky!" cried Dunno, holding out his arms.
Gunky gave a little squeal of joy and threw himself at Dunno, who ran to meet him. They almost banged foreheads. There was love and pride in Gunky's eyes as he gazed at his friend, now a famous explorer. Dunno gave a guilty little smile. For some time they stood there, too moved to say a word. Then they threw themselves into each other's arms again and wept with joy.
With that the remarkable adventures of Dunno and his friends came to an end and life in Flower Town went on in the same old way — yet not quite in the same old way.
From that time on the Mites of Flower Town talked of nothing but the balloon trip. Boy-Mites and girl-Mites alike came to Doono's house every evening to hear accounts of life in Greenville.
Roly-Poly told about the delicious pies and cakes the girls there had treated him to, and Treacly-Sweeter boasted of how much soda- water and syrup he had drunk. Doono described the fountains and the reed water-pipes, the bridge over the river and the enormous water-melons. When he got to the water-melons, Treacly-Swpeter took a seed out of his pocket and said:
"Who would ever think a seed this size could produce barrels of syrup?"
P'raps and Swifty were fond of telling about how they had helped gather in the apple harvest. Bendum and Twistum told about the mechanization of fruit-picking, and also about their friend Pretzel and the plumber-inventor Taps who had buttons for everything. Shot enjoyed telling about his stay in hospital and the excellent doctor Honeysuckle, who had so ably treated his sprained ankle that he could jump as well as walk on it now. As proof of this he would jump about on one leg — the leg he had injured.
Everyone told about how friendly they had been with the girl-Mites. Even Mums, who rarely opened his mouth, said:
"I never would have believed a fellow could have just as good a time with girls as with boys."
"You'd do better to hold your tongue," said Dunno. "I didn't notice that you made friends with anybody in particular."
"And did you?" he was asked.
"Yes, 1 did. I made friends with Cornflower."
"I don't believe you," said Pee-Wee. "You even quarrelled with Gunky, your best friend, for playing with girls."
"Nothing of the sort!" said Dunno. "Gunky and I have made it up and from now on we're going to play with girls all we like."
"Why didn't you play with them before?" asked Daisy.
"I was very foolish before. 1 was afraid of being laughed at."
"And you're still afraid," said Pee-Wee.
"I am not. If you don't believe it, I'll play with you. Want me to? And if anybody makes fun of us I'll bash his nose in."
"A fine thing!" said Pee-Wee. "As if I wanted anybody to fight on my account!"
"Very well, I won't. I just won't pay any attention to their teasing."
And from then on he was very friendly with Pee-Wee, and whenever he saw a boy teasing a girl he would go up to him and say:
"What are you teasing her for? See that I don't catch you at it again! Boys don't tease girls in our town!"
This made the girls respect him and say that he was a very nice little Mite. It made the other boys jealous to hear the girls praise him, and so they, too, began to stand up for girls. In this way the teasing of girls came to an end. It simply wasn't done in Flower Town. If, by chance, some boy would pull a girl's hair or say something nasty to her, everybody would make fun of him — call him a lump, and say he had no manners. The boys no longer chased away girls who wanted to play with them; on the contrary, they always invited them to take part in their games.
Doono decided to introduce reed-pipes in Flower Town and to build some fountains — at least one in every street to begin with. He also suggested putting up a bridge over Cucumber River so that the Mites could walk to the woods. All these tasks were undertaken by boy-Mites and girl-Mites alike. From morning till noon they were busy building the bridge, laying the water-pipes, and making the fountains. In the afternoon they played games: hide-and-seek, nine-pins, football, and volley-ball.
But Dunno rarely took part in these games.
"I have no time to play," he said. "I hardly know how to read, and I can only write printed letters. I've just got to learn to write a nice hand. There's a very important reason."
And so instead of playing nine-pins or football, he would sit down at the table and read. He only read one page a day, but even that was good practice. Sometimes he read two pages: one for today, the other for tomorrow.
When he had finished reading he took out his note-book and began to write. He stopped printing his letters and began joining them together in long-hand. He found it very hard at first, and covered the paper with the most awful jerks and scrawls. But soon he got the hang of it and made very neat letters, capitals as well as small ones. The thing that troubled him most was blots.
Dunno was always making blots in his note-book. Whenever he made one he would lick it with his tongue. This gave the blots long tails, and so he called them "comets". There was hardly a page of his note-book without a comet on it, but he did not lose heart. He knew that if he was patient and worked hard he could even get rid of comets.
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
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