"Children's Books - Dopey Dennis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

DOPEY DENNIS

Once upon a time, there was a little boy called Dennis. Everyone called him
Dopey because . . . well, read on and you will see why. Dennis lived with his
mother in a nice house with a courtyard, vegetable plot, cellar and a henrun.
One day his mother, since she had to go shopping, said to him,
"I'll be away for an hour or two, son. Now, the broody hen is sitting on
her eggs. Make sure nobody goes near her. Keep the house tidy and don't touch
the jar in the cupboard, it's full of poison."
"Don't worry, Mum," the little boy said, and when his mother had gone, he
went into the yard to keep guard over the broody hen. However, tired of
sitting, the hen got up to stretch her legs for a little before going back to
the eggs. Dennis picked up a stick and yelled:
"You nasty creature, get right back on those eggs!"
But the broody hen, annoyed, only said, "Cluck!", and so Dennis hit her
with his stick. He didn't really mean to do her any harm, but the blow fell on
the middle of her neck and the poor hen dropped dead.
"Oh!" gasped the lad. "Who's going to sit on the eggs now? Well, I had
better do something about that!" So he sat on the eggs . . . and broke the
lot! Getting up with the seat of his trousers sticky with egg yolk, Dennis
said to himself, "Mum will give me such a scolding. But to keep in her good
books, I'll give her a surprise, I'll make the lunch." He picked up the hen,
plucked its feathers and put it on the spit to roast.
"A roast calls for a good wine!" he said to himself. He took a jug and went
down to the cellar where he started to draw sparkling red wine from a barrel.
"Mum will be pleased with me," he told himself. At that moment, there was a
dreadful noise in the kitchen. Dennis said to himself, "Who can that be? I
must go and see." And he went . . . forgetting to turn off the tap on the
barrel.
Up he ran to the kitchen and saw the cat with the roast hen in its jaws and
the spit overturned. "Hey thief!" shouted the lad. "Put my hen down!" He
picked up a rolling pin and started to chase the cat which, terrified as it
was, firmly held on to the roast chicken as it dashed from room to room. The
pair of them knocked against the cupboards, overturned tables, sideboards and
stools, smashed vases, pots, plates and glasses. The devastation ended when
the cat dropped the hen, leapt out of a window and vanished from sight. Dennis
picked up his roast, laid it on the table and said:
"Now, I'll go and fetch the wine." He went back to the cellar . . . which
was flooded with the wine that had poured out of the barrel. "Good gracious!"
gasped Dennis. "What am I to do now?" He didn't dare go in, for before him
streched a lake of red wine.
"I'll have to mop it all up," muttered Dennis to himself, "but how? I could
go into the yard and get some sacks of sand, bring them into the cellar and
scatter the sand over the floor . . . But that's much too hard work. I'd
better think of something else, now then . . ." Seated on the bottom step, his
elbows on his knees, holding his head in his hands, the lad tried to think of
a good idea. It really was an alarming situation: there were nearly six inches
of wine all over the floor and in it floated corks, bottles and bits of
wood . . .
"I've got it!" Dennis suddenly exclaimed. He picked up one of the bags