"Lazar Lagin. The Old Genie Hottabych (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

At 7:32 a.m. a merry sun-spot slipped through a hole in the curtain and
settled on the nose of Volka Kostylkov, a 6th-grade pupil. Volka sneezed and
woke up.
Just then, he heard his mother say in the next room:
"Don't rush, Alyosha. Let the child sleep a bit longer, he has an exam
today."
Volka winced. When, oh when, would his mother stop calling him a child?
"Nonsense!" he could hear his father answer. "The boy's nearly
thirteen. He might as well get up and help us pack. Before you know it, this
child of yours will be using a razor."
How could he have forgotten about the packing!
Volka threw off the blankets and dressed hurriedly. How could he ever
have forgotten such a day!
This was the day the Kostylkov family was moving to a different
apartment in a new six-storey house. Most of their belongings had been
packed the night before. Mother and Grandma had packed the dishes in a
little tin tub that once, very long ago, they had bathed Volka in. His
father had rolled up his sleeves and, with a mouthful of nails, just like a
shoemaker, had spent the evening hammering down the lids on crates of books.
Then they had all argued as to the best place to put the things so as
to have them handy when the truck arrived in the morning. Then they had
their tea on an uncovered table-as on a march. Then they decided their heads
would be clearer after a good night's sleep and they all went to bed.
In a word, there was just no explaining how he could have ever
forgotten that this was the morning they, were moving to a new apartment.
The movers barged in before breakfast was quite over. The first thing
they did was to open wide both halves of the door and ask in loud voices,
"Well, can we begin?"
"Yes, please do," both Mother and Grandma answered and began to bustle
about.
Volka marched downstairs, solemnly carrying the sofa pillows to the
waiting truck.
"Are you moving?" a boy from next door asked.
"Yes," Volka answered indifferently, as though he was used to moving
from one apartment to another every week and there was nothing very special
about it.
The janitor, Stepanych, walked over, slowly rolled a cigarette and
began an unhurried conversation as one grown-up talk to another. The boy
felt dizzy with pride and happiness. He gathered his courage and invited
Stepanych to visit them at their new home. The janitor said, "With
pleasure." A serious, important, man-to-man conversation was beginning, when
all at once Volka's mother's voice came through the open window:
"Volka! Volka! Where can that awful child be?" Volka raced up to the
strangely large and empty apartment in which shreds of old newspapers and
old medicine bottles were lying forlornly about the floor.
"At last!" his mother said. "Take your precious aquarium and get right
into the truck. I want you to sit on the sofa and hold the aquarium on your
lap. There's no other place for it. But be sure the water doesn't splash on
the sofa."
It's really strange, the way parents worry when they're moving to a new