Книжка AN EX-GHOST теперь доступна всем!

Дорогие друзья!
Хочется сделать историю     AN  EX-GHOST    (БЫВШЕЕ ПРИВИДЕНИЕ)

доступной для всех желающих прочитать еще одну книжку алгоритмов. В настоящее время тираж распродан, поэтому публикуем версию без иллюстраций.

В английском варианте она, пожалуй, будет более полезна взрослым, изучающим язык. Однако, если ваш ребенок любит чтение, можно посоветовать самостоятельно или за компанию с кем-то из родителей прочитать ее. Школьникам от 9-10 лет и старше легко понимать текст., тем более там всего 250 слов, наиболее часто употребляемые в жизни и частота их повтора высока. К тому же, все предложения(кроме 2-х) в одном времени(Present S.)

Естественно, не следует ожидать от этой летней повести искрометного сюжета, как в сказочной повести для детей от 6 до 12 лет РОЖДЕСТВЕНСКАЯ ИСТОРИЯ или САМЫЙ МИСТИЧЕСКИЙ ПРАЗДНИК(простите за нескромность, но её сами ангелы несколько лет назад в праздничные дни "нашептали", так что аплодисменты им).

https://ridero.ru/books/rozhdestvenskaya_istoriya_ili_samyi_misticheskii_prazdnik/

Сюжет - прост. И ценность здесь не в нем, а в отношении маленьких героев к бездомным животным, к их действиям, совершаемым в тайне от бабушки с дедушкой. 

А ВОТ И САМА ИСТОРИЯ:

CHAPTER 1  

ABOUT OUR FAMILY

   Hi!

   My name is Lucy. I am a schoolgirl. I am ten years old.

   I have a brother. His name is Sebastian. He is six years old.

   My brother is very kind. And he is also very clever. He has a lot of friends. And I have a lot of friends too. But my best friend is my brother. We always play together. It’s funny to play with him. He knows a lot of games.

   We live in Moscow with our parents. But in summer we always go to our grandparents. They live in a small town near the sea. Our grandparents are always busy. They work in an office. My grandfather is a manager. He likes to work with people. And my grandmother is an interpreter. She likes to speak different languages. And she also likes to clean our house when she is at home. But when she is not at home I clean the house together with my brother.

   To tell you the truth, my brother doesn’t like to clean a house.  He likes to jump on beds and to run with our cat in the attic.

 CHAPTER 2

 OUR CAT

   We have a nice red cat. Her name is Sonya. She is small but fat. She lives in the attic.

   She can’t live in the house. Our grandparents don’t like cats. They don’t want to have a cat at home. We think they don’t want to have a cat in the attic either. So we don’t tell them about Sonya. And they don’t know we have a cat.  They don’t guess about it. Sonya is our secret.

   We found her the first day we came to our grandparents this summer. We found her in the tree near their house.

   We come to the attic when our grandparents go to work. We can stay with our cat only when our grandparents are not at home. 

    Every morning we bring our breakfast to the attic. It’s nice to have breakfast in the attic.

   We give Sonya food and mineral water. We give her juice and coffee. Sonya likes coffee. She always drinks it. She drinks it every day. Granny says that cats don’t drink coffee. May be some cats don’t drink coffee but Sonya does. She drinks coffee. She drinks it in the attic. She drinks it with me and my brother.

   After breakfast we play with our cat. Then we go down, clean the house and cook dinner. And when dinner is ready we take it to the attic and eat it there together with our cat.

CHAPTER 3

BEST FRIENDS MUST HELP EACH OTHER

   We usually wash hands before we start to eat. But Sonya doesn’t. She doesn’t wash her hands, we mean her paws.

   She doesn’t wash them before she starts to eat.  She washes them only after eating. But she never washes her paws before.

   And she doesn’t use forks and spoons when she eats. My brother tries to teach her to use a fork and a spoon. He puts a fork in front of Sonya and tells her how to use it. She listens to him. She always listens to him. But she doesn’t understand what he says. She doesn’t understand Russian. And she doesn’t understand other languages. Sometimes Sebastian teaches her in English and in French. But she doesn’t understand his words.

    Granny says animals don’t understand languages. I agree with her. But my brother doesn’t.  So he always speaks with our cat. 

    I believe our granny. But nevertheless I help Sebastian to teach Sonya. I always help him  because he is smaller than me. And because he is my brother. And because he is my best friend. And because I am his best friend. And best friends must help each other.

   So I help my brother to teach our cat to use forks and spoons. And I help my brother to teach the cat to wash her paws.

   And my brother helps me to clean the house.  He helps me every day. Best friends must help each other.

CHAPTER 4 

 MORNING EXERCISES

   Our grandmother always gets up at seven o’clock. And our grandfather gets up at seven o’ clock too. They prepare breakfast in the kitchen. We hear how they speak. But we don’t get up. We stay in beds. Our grandparents put our breakfast on the table and go to their work. We hear how they close the door. We hear their car in the street. And when we know they are not at home we get up.

   We get up but we don’t go to the kitchen. We stay in the bedroom. We stay there because we usually jump on beds in the morning, when grandparents are not at home. We can’t jump on beds when they are at home. So we don’t jump on beds on Sundays.

   On Sundays our grandparents don’t go to work. They stay at home with us. So we can’t jump on beds on Sundays. And we can’t have breakfast in the attic. And we can’t teach our cat languages. So Sunday isn’t a funny day.

   But when it isn’t Sunday it’s always a funny day because we can eat in the attic with our cat and jump on beds in the morning.

   My brother likes to jump on beds more than I do. He says it’s our morning exercises.  So I jump with my brother. 

    Our grandparents say that we must do morning exercises every day. We tell them we do. And we really do. We do the best morning exercises.  

   I think we can do other morning exercises too. But my brother wants only to jump on beds. And he does.  And I do.  I jump on beds too.  I jump with my brother. It’s nice to jump together. It’s so funny. But our grandparents think it is boring and stupid. So we never jump on beds when they are at home.

                                    

CHAPTER 5  

COMFORTABLE PLACES

   Sonya can’t do morning exercises with us. She can’t come into the house. She must always stay in the attic. She must stay there in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening and even at night. So she doesn’t jump with us. She jumps only in the attic on her carpet.

   But we don’t jump on carpets. It is not comfortable to jump on them.   And it’s not comfortable to jump on the floor and on the tables. So we don’t jump on them. 

   We like soft furniture like sofas and armchairs. They are comfortable. So sometimes we jump on them too. 

    But there are no armchairs and sofas in our bedroom. So we don’t jump on them when we get up.  We jump on them later when we go down to pack the breakfast. But in the morning when we get up we jump only on beds because there are only beds in our bedroom.

   But there are two big comfortable armchairs in the living room. And when we are not very hungry we stop in the living room and jump on these big armchairs. And then we go to the kitchen.

   We usually sit there on a big green comfortable sofa and put our breakfast into a bag. We usually don’t jump on it. We are too hungry after morning exercises.

   But sometimes when we are not very hungry we jump on this big green comfortable sofa too. And then we sit on it and put our breakfast into a bag.

   We don’t stay in the kitchen for a long time. When breakfast is in the bag we run to the attic to have our breakfast there.

CHAPTER 6 

A ROYAL CASTLE

   Attic is our secret place, a place where we stay half of the day. So we try to make it comfortable. We bring there different things.

   Our grandparents have a lot of things at home. There are many carpets and shelves and pictures and vases and candles in their house. But they don’t use all of these things. We think they don’t need all of these things in the house. So we take some pictures and shelves and other things to the attic.  There are many good things in the attic now. And there is one carpet where we sit.

   It’s comfortable to sit on the carpet. We sit there together with our cat. We look at the pictures. There are many modern pictures in the attic now.  And it looks like a royal castle.

   So we stay in our royal castle. And we feel that we are secret agents, secret agents in a royal castle.

CHAPTER 7

A SECRET MISSION

   All castles are special places. So we speak about our special secret mission in a special secret place.  We speak about our mission only there. We don’t want our grandparents to hear us. We don’t want our grandparents to know about our secret mission. So we speak about it only in special places. And attic is a very special place. 

    Our mission is to find people who want to take Sonya home. We know there are many people in the town.  And we know that some people want to take a cat home. But we don’t know these people. We know people who don’t want to take a cat home. But we don’t know people who want to take a cat home.

    So we must find them. And we must find them in summer.  We must find them this summer.

   We know some children in the street but their parents don’t like cats. And when their parents like cats their grandparents don’t. And when grandparents like cats they usually have a cat. And sometimes they have two cats.

    There are many houses in our street. And there are many streets in the town. But our grandparents ask us not to go far. They ask us to stay in our street when they are at work.

   So we can stay only in our street. We can’t go far. But we can’t find a home for our pet in our street. We know all people in our street. We meet them every day. Sometimes we meet them two times a day. And sometimes we meet them three or four times a day.

    They are nice people and very good neighbours. We know all about them and  their houses. We know all about their families and their animals.

    We know all about our neighbours because we watch them from our castle. We have four small windows there and two binoculars.  So we can watch all our neighbours. And we watch our neighbours every day. We watch them when they walk in the street. We watch them when they walk in their yards. We watch them when they work in their gardens. We watch them when they eat their dinners in their kitchens. We always watch them when we can.

    And we can watch them when we are free. So we watch them when we don’t jump on beds and don’t put breakfast into bags and don’t eat it in the attic and don’t clean the house and don’t sing our royal songs and don’t speak about our mission. When we don’t do all these things we watch our neighbours.

CHAPTER 8

 OUR PLAN

   We have a plan. We think it’s a good plan. Here it is. 

   Every person has a friend.  Some people have two friends. And there are some people who have three friends and more. Boys have friends. And girls have friends. Men have friends. And women have friends. All people have friends.

   So we must study friends. We must not study all friends. We must study only our neighbours’ friends.

   And we study them when they come to our neighbours. We believe some of them don’t have cats at home so they want to take a cat home: a small clever red cat. A cat, who has a nice name. A cat whose name is Sonya. We mean our cat. We mean they can take home our cat. That is, one of them can take home our cat this summer.

   And we must find this one person. We must guess who that person is. And we must meet that person and ask him or her to take our cat to his or her house. And then we must give Sonya to that lucky person. So we study friends.

CHAPTER 9 

 A LIST OF NEIGHBOURS

   We plan to write a list of neighbours. It must have their names, age and their dogs’ names. And there must be information about their houses: how many rooms and bathrooms they have. And we must also write how many people there are in the family and how many guests they have each week. And may be we must write a list of guests too. We mean a list of our neighbours’ guests.

   We want to write one. We want to start it today. We want to write in that list all information we have. So we can read it when we want to remember names or age or number of bathrooms. It’s difficult to remember all things when you don’t write them. And it’s easy to remember when you write. So we want to write.

   We must write everything because we are agents and agents always write.

We must keep the lists in the castle. It’s nice to have all information in the castle. Information helps in a mission. It helps to finish mission in time.  It can help us to finish our mission in summer. We mean this summer. So we write a short list of neighbours first. Here it is.

Number one is the Kozlovs’ family

Number two is the Baranovs’ family

Number three is the Ovechkins’ family

Number four is the Krolikovs’ family

Number five is the Zaitsevs’ family

Number six is the Koshkins’ family

Number seven is the Sobakins’ family

Number eight is the Kurochkins’ family

Number ten is the Petukhovs’ family

Number eleven is the Utkins’ family

Number twelve is the Gusevs’ family

   We don’t write in the list our own family. We know all about it. So we don’t study it together with other families. We write information only about our neighbours’ families and about their guests.

CHAPTER 10 

THE KOZLOVS

   There are three people in the family: Mr Kozlov and his parents. Mr Kozlov is fourty years old. He is a businessman.

   Every morning he drives to his office. And his parents stay at home. His parents don’t work. They rest at home and swim in their swimming pool. Sometimes they go to the sea. But usually they are at home. We think they like their swimming pool more than the sea. They swim there all their free time.

   Their swimming pool is very big. And their house is very big too. There are seven rooms in their house: a kitchen, three bedrooms, a living room and three bathrooms. We think they like this number because they also have three cars. And they have three dogs: a black big dog named Molly, a black small dog named Polly and a very small dog named Holly, which is also black.

   The Kozlovs don’t have many guests. We mean they have only three guests. These are: an old lady who is their aunt, their uncle Boris and a young gentleman who works in Mr Kozlov’s office. There is no other information about the guests. We don’t know about their wishes. Do they want to have a cat at home? Do they like cats?

   So we must find it out. We want them to have a cat at home. So we study these guests.

    But we don’t study the Kozlovs. We guess they don’t want to take a cat because they like dogs, dogs which run in their yard and come into their house. Oh, yes. Their dogs live in the house. All three dogs live in the house. So there is no place for a cat, one small clever cat.

   When Mr Kozlov’s mother comes to us she talks with our grandmother. And we sit on the sofa near them and listen. And we hear that dogs are the best pets for the Kozlovs.

   Mr Kozlov’s mother says they don’t want cats because they have dogs. She tells lots of things about their dogs and about their house. But she doesn’t speak about their friends. We mean their guests. So we don’t know much about them. We must study their guests ourselves.

CHAPTER 11  

THE BARANOVS

   There are five people in the family: Mr Baranov, Mrs Baranova and their three children. The oldest boy’s name is Joseph. And his two small twin brothers are John and Jim.

    Joseph is ten years old. But he is always busy. He plays with his small brothers in the yard and he doesn’t go out to the street. His brothers are very small and they need his help. So he stays in the yard and helps them.

   And when they sleep in the afternoon he helps his mum in the garden. His mum works there all day. So they don’t buy vegetables in the shop. They grow them in their garden. And they don’t buy fruit either. There are a lot of fruit trees in their garden. And there are a lot of fruits in the fruit trees. So sometimes, Joseph brings us some fruit from their garden. Of course we have fruit-trees too but not so many as they have.  So we always take fruit and thank Joseph. We like him and we want to play with him. But he can’t stay and play with us because he must play with his brothers.

   Joseph is very kind.  He likes children and he also likes animals.  His father likes animals too. But his mother doesn’t like animals.  She thinks animals always bite. She thinks animals like to bite. She thinks animals like to bite small children.    Mr Baranov doesn’t think so. He thinks animals are very nice. But his wife doesn’t believe him. So Mr Baranov can’t bring animals home.

     There are no pets in their family. But there are many guests. Guests come to them every evening. So Joseph can’t go out in the evening either. He must stay at home and help his parents with the twins. And he must bring fruit and vegetables from the garden.  Their guests like to eat fruit and vegetables. But do they like cats? We don’t know that. We don’t know their names and hobbies. We only know their number: seven big boys and seven small boys and ten men and three women and two small girls and four grandmothers and four grandfathers.

CHAPTER 12   

 THE OVECHKINS

    There are four people in the family: Mr Ovechkin, Mrs Ovechkina and their two children: a boy and a girl. The boy’s name is Bob. He is fifteen years old. And the girl’s name is Bonny. She is ten years old. 

   They like sport. Every morning they run to the sea together. And every morning when they run to the sea they sing songs. They go back home in the afternoon and they sing again. They know many good songs. And they also know some languages.They like to travel and so they study all these languages.

   They travel every summer. But this summer they stay at home and get ready for September. In September they plan to go to Scotland to visit their uncle. So they study the language of Scotland this summer.

   And they don’t have much time to go out or play with children in the street. They have no free time. In the morning they run to the sea. In the afternoon they study languages. And in the evening they go to the sea again. They go there with their mum and dad. We mean they ride there.

   Their father Mr Ovechkin has a nice car. But he doesn’t drive this car in the evening. He drives it only in the morning and in the afternoon. In the evening the Ovechkins use their bicycles to go to the sea.

   There are four bicycles in the family. Bob and Bonny don’t use them when their parents work.  They use the bicycles only when they are together with their parents. So they use them only in the evening, because in the day time their parents are not at home. Their father is a driver and their mother is a singer. We don’t know where she works but we know she is a singer. All people in the street say it. They say it when they speak about the Ovechkins. We don’t know their mum’s name so we also say the singer when we speak about her.

CHAPTER 13  

THE OVECHKINS’ SONGS

   Bob and Bonny learn their funny songs from their mum. When she rides her bicycle in the evening she always sings these songs.

   Her songs are about people and trees and berries, about gardens and bakers. We hear these songs every evening. Mrs Ovechkina often sings about seasons. But she never sings about cats or dogs.

   Sometimes she sings about sheep. But she never sings about other animals.  Her children sing about sheep too.  But they never mention other animals in their songs. So we think they don’t like songs about other animals.

   We think the Ovechkins’ don’t want to have pets at home. Perhaps they want to keep sheep. But sheep can not be pets. We don’t know people whose pets are sheep. We know people whose pets are other animals. Sometimes these people sing about their animals.

   And when people don’t sing about animals in their songs they usually don’t like animals. And when they like animals they usually have animals at home. But the Ovechkins don’t have animals at home. So we think they don’t like them.  We think they like only sheep because they sing about sheep.

    But they don’t have sheep at home.  We don’t know why they don’t have sheep at home. Perhaps they have their sheep at their uncle’s in Scotland. Our granny says there is a lot of sheep in Scotland.

   But are there many cats? Can their uncle take a cat to live in Scotland with him?

Or does he prefer to grow sheep? Does he want to come here at all?

 No information…

                                 

CHAPTER14    

THE KROLIKOVS

   There are seven people in the family: Mr Krolikov with his parents and Mrs Krolikova with her parents. These parents are grandparents of Mr Krolikov’s son Roberto. So Roberto Krolikov has two grandmothers and two grandfathers. They all live in one big house.

   Mrs Krolikova grows rabbits. This is her job. And Mr Krolikov’s job is to clean rabbits’ cages. So they always work together.

   Mr Krolikov and Mrs Krolikova like their job. They often say it. They also say that it’s the best job. So they want to teach Roberto to grow rabbits too. And they want to teach him to clean the cages.

   But Roberto doesn’t like to clean cages. He likes to play with rabbits and he likes to feed them with special rabbits’ food. But he doesn’t like to clean cages.

   We think Roberto doesn’t like to clean cages because he is a small boy. He is only six years old. He is my brother’s age. And my brother doesn’t like to clean things either. So we understand Roberto.

   We understand Roberto when he speaks about rabbits’ cages. And we understand him when he speaks about rabbits, because rabbits are like cats. They are very soft and nice. And they like to play.

   They always play when they don’t eat. And they don’t eat only when they have no food. And when they have no food Roberto and his father must bring it to them. So Roberto is often busy. And when he is not busy he comes to play with us in the attic. We mean in the castle. He likes to play with us and he likes to play with our cat.

   Roberto is a good friend. He doesn’t tell his parents and his grandparents about our cat and about our castle.

   So his parents and his grandparents don’t know about our cat and about our castle. They don’t know about other things either. They never go out to their neighbours. They like to sit at home and watch other people from their windows.

   The Krolikovs have the biggest windows in the street. So Roberto’s grandparents watch people from these big windows. They sit at the windows all their free time. And they have a lot of free time, because they don’t work and don’t feed rabbits. They don’t feed rabbits because it’s not their job.

   Their job is to cook breakfasts and dinners and suppers and to watch people in the street. And they like their job.

   They don’t watch people only at night when they can’t see people. There are no people in the street at night. All people sleep in beds. And the Krolikovs’ grandparents sleep too. People don’t cook breakfasts, dinners and suppers at night.  People don’t eat at night. So the Krolikovs’ grandparents have no job at night. And they can sleep. So they sleep.

   All the family sleeps at night. Only Roberto doesn’t. We mean Roberto usually sleeps at night too. But sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes he comes to us at night.  And then we go to his yard together.

   He shows us how rabbits play. Rabbits usually don’t sleep at night. They usually play at night.

   Roberto wants to take our cat. But he doesn’t want to clean plates and bowls after it. He asks his parents and grandparents if they want to clean cat’s plates and bowls. But they say that they don’t. So we guess his parents and grandparents don’t want Roberto to bring a cat home. They often say they have a lot of rabbits.  And it’s true.

   But if we don’t find a place for our cat, Roberto can take Sonya. He thinks she can live in a cage together with rabbits. And his parents can think it’s a rabbit.

CHAPTER 15  

THE ZAITSEVS

   There are ten people in the family: Mr Zaitsev, Mrs Zaitseva and their eight sons. The eldest son is eighteen and the smallest one is eleven.  His name is Rubic.  The other boys’ names also start from the letter R. But we can not remember them. They are very difficult and we don’t use them. We don’t play with these boys.  And they don’t play with us. We think they don’t play with other children either because they are always busy.

    Mr Zaitsev doesn’t go to work. He works at home with his sons. They have a family business. Mr Zaitsev grows rabbits and his children help him.

   It’s a surprise for us to know that rabbits’ business is so popular in this town. There are two families in one street who grow rabbits. We guess there are such families in other streets too. But we don’t go to other streets. So we don’t know it for sure.  We only think there are people in other streets who grow and sell rabbits. And we think there are no families here which grow and sell cats. This town is very different from Moscow. We know many people there who grow and sell cats. It’s a popular business in Moscow.  But we don’t know people who grow rabbits there. We think it’s better to grow cats at home. But our parents don’t think so. They don’t like cats. And they don’t want to have a cat at home.  So we have no cat there. We have it only here and only this summer.

                                               

CHAPTER 16  

BOOKS AND FRIENDS 

   We like all the Zaitsevs. They are very kind to their rabbits. They brush them with special brushes and never rest. We think they don’t like to rest. We think they like to work.

   When they don’t work they read books about rabbits. We know now there are many books about rabbits. We see a new book about rabbits every day. We see it when the brothers sit together in their yard and read it.

    It is interesting who writes all these books. Sometimes we think the Zaitsevs write them themselves. They grow rabbits and they know about rabbits and they write about their animals. And sometimes we think people from other streets write these books. We guess that only people who know about rabbits can write books about rabbits. So people from Moscow can not write these books. They can write books about cats.  But they can’t write books about rabbits. 

   Sometimes Sebastian says the Zaitsevs’ friends can write these books. We don’t know much about their friends. We only see them in the evening when all the boys finish their work and have supper in their big kitchen together with their friends.

   Mrs Zaitseva is a very kind woman because she cooks for all the family and the family’s guests every day. And it’s not easy to cook so much food. It is difficult to cook for such a big company. But she always cooks a lot. And she is never angry. She is always happy. We think she likes to cook. We don’t ask Mrs Zaitseva and her sons about cats. We don’t ask Mr Zaitsev about them either. The Zaitsevs have two cats at home. And they have three sheep-dogs. And Mrs Zaitseva cooks for all of them too. And she also cooks for sheep-dogs their guests bring with them.

   There are four boys who always come to them with sheep-dogs. It is interesting to see so many sheep-dogs together. They usually sit and listen to people. These dogs must be very clever. They don’t run in the yard. They walk near the boys. They play only when the boys tell them to play. They play with each other.

   But they never play with cats. The boys don’t tell them to.  So they don’t. But we think they can.

   Sometimes these sheep-dogs stay in the Zaitsevs’ yard at night. They guard rabbits together with the Zaitsevs’ sheep–dogs. We don’t understand why sheep-dogs guard rabbits. We think sheep-dogs must guard sheep. We think these sheep-dogs don’t understand those are not sheep. Those are rabbits.

    And sometimes we think there are special dogs to guard rabbits.  They are rabbit-dogs. But we never see them. We don’t know how they look.

CHAPTER 17    

THE KOSHKINS

    There are five people in the family: Mr Koshkin, Mrs Koshkina and their three children: one son and two daughters.

   The son’s name is George. And the girls’ names are Jan and Jin. George is twelve years old.  Jan is nine and Jin is seven. 

   Mr Koshkin is a dentist. His teeth are very white. Mrs Koshkina is a teacher. Her teeth are white too.

   Mrs Koshkina teaches Russian language at school. And she teaches Literature. She teaches it at school and she teaches it at home. She teaches it when children go to school. And she teaches when they don’t. In summer she teaches her own children.  Sometimes when we come to them she teaches us too. She reads us books and we sit and listen to her. I understand what she teaches. But my brother doesn’t.  So he says he doesn’t like Literature. And he asks me not to go to the Koshkins’ house, because when we come there we must study Literature together with three Koshkins’ children.

   All people in the Koshkins’ family have very white teeth. And all children like Literature. We think Mr Koshkin likes it too. We think Mrs Koshkina teaches him too. She can’t teach him together with her children, because Mr Koshkin works in the day time.  But he doesn’t work in the evening. So Mrs Koshkina can teach him in the evening. 

   There are four rooms in their house. And there are also four bathrooms. We think they need all these bathrooms to brush their white teeth. They know they must brush their teeth well. And they brush them well to make teeth very white.

   All the Koshkins’ children want to be dentists in future. They say it’s a good job. They say they can help people to have very white teeth.  They say some people don’t know how to brush teeth. They say they can teach people to do it.

    When they come to us they always teach us to brush our teeth. And they also teach us to brush Sonya’s teeth. We like to brush Sonya’s teeth. But Sonya doesn’t like when we brush her teeth. She doesn’t want to have very white teeth. She doesn’t say it to us. But we understand it because when we brush her teeth she always tries to run away.

   We take her in our hands and open her mouth and she begins to fight. Sometimes she tries to bite us. But usually she tries to bite the Koshkins’ children, the future dentists. So we don’t want to be dentists. We see how the cat bites dentists when they open her mouth.  And we think all people also can bite when a dentist opens their mouths. We think we can bite dentists too. But we don’t want other people to bite us. So we don’t want to be dentists.

   We think it’s better to be a teacher of Literature. Nobody bites teachers of Literature. At least we don’t.  We don’t bite teachers of Literature. And we don’t bite other teachers. And the teachers don’t bite us either. But they do bite dentists. We don’t mean all teachers. We mean some teachers. We mean some teachers bite some dentists.

   But we think Mrs Koshkina doesn’t bite Mr Koshkin because he doesn’t run away from her when he sees her. But Sonya runs away from all future dentists when she sees them in our attic. We mean in our castle. So we don’t ask the Koshkins’ children to take our Sonya. We think she can run away from them. We guess she doesn’t want to stay with dentists.  And so we don’t want to give her to future dentists. And we don’t want to give her to their guests.  There are many dentists among their guests. And those guests who are not dentists are future dentists.

CHAPTER 18   

THE SOBAKINS

   There are seven people in the Sobakins family: two grandfathers, a father, a mother and three children: two boys and a girl.  Jeff Sobakin is the oldest child. He is thirteen. His brother Paul is ten. And their sister Jale is only three years old.  So the boys always take her with them when they go out. She is small and small children must not stay at home without their elder brothers or elder sisters, parents or grandparents.

   Jale has no elder sisters. And her parents are not at home in the day time. They are managers. They go to work every morning and come back in the evening. And her grandfathers also work. They are farmers and they must work every day. They work even on Sundays.

   They have chickens, and ducks, and geese, and turkeys. All these chickens, and ducks, and geese, and turkeys live in their yard. This yard is very big: bigger than their house and bigger than their garden. There is a lot of place in their yard. So chickens, ducks, geese and turkey walk there all day. And the grandfathers feed them and bring them water. And after that they sit on the bench, drink their tea and speak about nice things.

   Sometimes they speak about the weather, about their neighbours and about modern cars. But usually they speak about their farm. They like their farm. And the Sobakins’ children like their grandfathers’ farm.  And we like their farm too. All people like their farm. But not all people like cats. And these farmers who are the Sobakins’ children’s grandfathers don’t like cats either. They think a cat can eat their chickens.

    But it is not true. Some cats can’t eat their chickens because they are smaller than these chickens. For example: our cat. Our cat is smaller than their chickens. So our cat can’t eat their chickens. Besides she doesn’t eat chicken. She never eats chicken. She doesn’t know what a chicken is. We don’t give her chicken. We never give her chicken. We give her coffee and milk and cheese and sausage and jam and potatoes and cakes and soup with meat.  And we also give her a lot of yummy salads. She eats all this food every day. But she never eats chicken. So how can she eat the Sobakins’ chickens if she doesn’t eat chickens at all? But the farmers think she can. We mean they think a cat can.  They don’t mean our cat. They don’t know about our cat.

   And the Sobakins’ children don’t know about our cat either. They don’t know about our castle. They don’t go there. They can’t go there because they always come together with their small sister. And small girls must not play in an attic. So she doesn’t. And the boys don’t play in the attic either.

   We play with them in our yard and in our garden. And we play in their yard. We mean their farm. And we play in their garden. But we can’t play in these places with our cat. So we don’t.

   And when their guests come to their yard we watch them. We watch them and they watch chickens. So we understand they like chickens. And when people like chickens, they usually don’t like cats. So we don’t speak about our cat with these guests. We believe there can be other guests in the Sobakins’ family. So we wait for those guests. We wait for the guests who don’t want to watch chickens.  We wait for the guests who don’t like chickens because people who don’t like chickens can like cats.

CHAPTER 19 

THE KUROCHKINS

   There are five people in the family: Mr Kurochkin, Mrs Kurochkina, a grandmother, a grandfather and a three year old boy. They call him Chicken.We understand it isn’t his real name. But we don’t hear other names when they talk with him. So we call him chicken too when we speak about him.

   We don’t plan to give our cat to that chicken boy family. We can’t give her to them, because chickens don’t feel comfortable with cats. And when they do their parents don’t.

    We think Chicken’s grandparents also don’t feel comfortable in a company of a cat. We understand Chicken is a chicken and a cat is a cat. So we can’t give her to them. But we can give her to their guests: two grandfathers and two grandmothers who come to them every afternoon. We can give our Sonya to them if their names are not Chickens. And we can ask them to take our cat home. We believe they can like cats. We believe they can take cats home. We guess they don’t have pets at home because they come to our neighbours every afternoon and go back home only at ten o’clock p.m. And all this time they play with the Chicken and talk with his grandparents.

   We know it because we hear them when they talk. They never close the windows. And in the evening when we sit in the living room with our grandparents and watch TV we can hear how they talk. We never close windows in summer time. We like fresh air. And the Kurochkins’ like fresh air too. So we hear them.  But they can’t hear us.  They can hear only our TV. They can think they hear us. But it isn’t us.  It’s our TV. We don’t speak when we watch TV.

   Of course, we don’t want to watch TV in the evening. We want to watch them. And we can watch them because their windows are not far from our windows. But our grandparents don’t like to watch our neighbours. Grandfather says we must not watch our neighbours in their living room from our living room.  So we don’t. But he doesn’t say we must not watch our neighbours from the attic. So we do.

Of course we don’t do it in the evening.

    In the evening we only listen to them. And our grandparents listen to the news on the TV. It’s nice they listen to the news. Because when they listen to the news they don’t hear our cat in the attic. And when they don’t listen to the TV news they can hear Sonya. She is very loud sometimes.  She often runs in the attic. And when she runs there we hear it in the house. But our grandparents don’t because they don’t guess there is a cat in the attic.

   When they come home after work we get into the car and go to the sea. Our grandfather drives his car and we sit and sing songs. And when we come back home it’s nine o’clock p.m. and it’s time to watch TV and sleep. So we know our grandparents can’t hear Sonya. They listen to the news and go to bed because they must get up at seven o’clock every morning.  We don’t speak about Sundays here.

   We speak here about the Kurochkins. We speak here about the guests who can take Sonya home.

CHAPTER  20 

THE PETUKHOVS

   

 There are seven people in the family: Mr Petukhov, Mrs Petukhova and their five children.  Mr Petukhov’s name is Peter and his wife’s name is Stephany. There are five children in the family. All of them are boys.

   These boys are usually not at home in summer. They go to the sport camps on vacations. They come home only for a week-end.

   When they come home their friends also come there. But usually Petukhovs’ children are not at home when we live here. So we don’t see them often. And we don’t see their friends very often either.

   The Petukhovs have a very big house: six bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen which is also very big and six bathrooms.

   Mr Petukhov is a driver. Mrs Petukhova is a driver too. They must be very good drivers. They drive vans. And we know it isn’t easy to drive a van. It is easy to drive cars.  But vans are bigger than cars. Only strong people can drive vans. We guess Mr Petukhov and Mrs Petukhova are the strongest people in our street. So they drive vans.  We guess their guests are also strong people. For strong people have strong friends. And weak people have weak friends.

   We don’t know much about the Petukhovs because Mr Petukhov and Mrs Petukhova often go to business trips. They drive vans to big cities. And we don’t meet them very often. So we don’t know why they work even in summer. And we don’t know why they don’t rest in other seasons either. And why they rest only on Christmas. And why they stay at home for two or three days sometimes.

CHAPTER 21  

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT STRONG PEOPLE

   We think it’s not easy to stay without parents for a long time. We mean it’s easy to stay without parents in summer. Summer is not so long.

   We always stay without parents in summer. And we like it. But we have our grandparents here. And the Petukhovs don’t have grandparents here.

   Their grandparents live in the Far East. We think that only strong people can live in the Far East because the Far East is very far. So the Petukhovs’ grandparents must be very strong people too. May be they are also van drivers and they are always busy and so they can’t come here. We don’t know it. We only know that the boys don’t go there. But their parents do.

   Their parents usually go there in autumn. We mean they drive there in autumn. But the boys don’t. In autumn the boys go to school.

   When the boys are not in the camps Charly the eldest brother cooks dinners and suppers. But he doesn’t cook breakfasts. In the morning he doesn’t cook at all.

    He does morning exercises together with his brothers. They run to the sea and do morning exercises there. And then they run back home and take their schoolbags and run to school. So they don’t have time to have breakfast at home. They have it at school.

   Our grandfather often speaks about these boys. So we know all these things. Our grandfather wants us to run to the sea in the morning too. He doesn’t understand why we don’t want to run to the sea and do morning exercises there. He says sea makes people strong. He says he doesn’t understand why we don’t want to be strong. He thinks we don’t want to be strong.

   But it isn’t true. We want to be strong. And we want to run to the sea in the morning like Mr Petukhov’s sons. But we can’t. We have a secret. And the Petukhovs have no secrets. And sometimes it’s difficult to have a secret.

   We don’t watch the Petukhovs every day. We watch them only when Mr Petukhov and Mrs Petukhova come back from their business trips. We know they can’t take our Sonya, because cats can’t go to business trips. And cats can’t stay at home when the family doesn’t stay at home. We think some Petukhovs’ guests are not drivers. We mean they are not van drivers. And those guests who are not van drivers can take a cat home if they don’t go to business trips.

   We believe some drivers don’t have cats at home. We think some drivers want to have a cat at home. We are sure all drivers are strong. And strong people can take home weak animals.

CHAPTER 22

THE UTKINS

   There are three people in the family: a man, a woman and their small daughter Alice. 

    They live in a small house. There are only four rooms and only one bathroom there. But they have the biggest garden in the street. The girl always plays there with her classmates. She is in the second form but her mother doesn’t let her play in the street. So we never meet. We only see her in the garden.

    The Utkins have no animals. Alice’s parents don’t want animals to run in their garden. But they want Alice’s classmates to run there. They like to see how children run. So they always invite children to be their guests. But they don’t invite us because we are not Alice’s classmates. We don’t go to their garden because we don’t know Alice. And we don’t know Alice because we don’t study at her school. 

   Mr Utkin is a baker. He works in a bakery.  He bakes bread and cakes. He likes to bake bread. He likes his job. And Mrs Utkina likes her job too. She works at a factory. She makes garlands and candles and other decorations.  She often brings these decorations home. She gives these decorations to Alice’s classmates on their birthdays and on other celebrations.

   The Utkins always decorate their house on Alice’s birthday. And it is so beautiful. We think it is even better than our attic. We mean our castle. When Mrs Utkina decorates her house with garlands it is the best house in the street.

CHAPTER 23  

A MAGIC CAKE

   Every year Mr Utkin bakes a cake on Alice’s birthday. We know that because her birthday is in summer. So we can see the magic cake which Mr Utkin bakes and the magic garlands which Mrs Utkina brings from her work.

   This cake is bigger than cakes in shops.  This cake is bigger than Alice. So we think it’s a magic cake. There are candles on the top of the cake.  Alice’s father lights the candles. And Alice stands on the chair and thinks about a wish. And then she blows the candles out.

   We see it from our attic window every summer.  But our grandparents don’t see it. They always work so they see only garlands. They don’t see the magic birthday cake. And they don’t see the birthday party which is also magic. 

   Children roller-skate round the cake. Every child has a spoon. And they eat the cake with these spoons and they roller-skate round it.  But they can’t eat it all.

    So every summer after the party Mr Utkin brings big pieces of the cake to all his neighbours. He brings a big piece of cake to us too. So we know how yummy it is.

   We eat it in the evening together with our grandparents. So our grandparents can guess how big the birthday cake is. But they really don’t believe us when we tell them that Alice’s birthday cake is bigger than her. 

   But it is true. And so we can’t eat the whole piece her father brings. It is very big.  And we eat it the next morning for breakfast. Our granny doesn’t cook soup for us that day because we have a piece of the magic cake which we must eat.

We put what we can’t eat into the fridge. 

   But a cake must not be in a fridge for a long time. So we eat it for lunch too. We are very glad there is no soup that day because cake is better than soup.

   We don’t know how we can ask Alice’s classmates about a cat. We don’t know them. We guess some classmates of Alice can help us. They can take our Sonya home. Only we don’t know who and when. So we must watch them more.

CHAPTER 24

THE GUSEVS

   There are nine people in the family: Mr Gusev, Mrs Guseva, two grandmothers, two grandfathers, two boys and two girls. And there are two people in the family whose name is Sonya: Mrs Guseva and her smallest daughter. So we think they like this name.

    We think they can like our Sonya too. But they can’t take one more Sonya. They have their own cat. And every year they have small kittens. So we think they don’t need our cat though they like Sonyas.

   Mr Gusev is an actor. He works at the theatre. We don’t see him very often in the morning. And we don’t see him in the evening. We see him only in the afternoon.  And we see him at the theatre when we go there with our grandparents. But we can’t talk with him at the theatre. We can only watch him.

    Sometimes it is difficult for us to guess that it is Mr Gusev because he is not in his costume. And his face is unusual. So we don’t understand it is him. But our grandparents always recognize him and tell us. Then we recognize our neighbour too. But other people at the theatre don’t understand it because he is not their neighbour. So they believe he is Buratino or a gnome. But we know he isn’t Buratino or a gnome. Because we know it is our neighbour Mr Gusev.

   But Mr Gusev doesn’t know there are his neighbours at the theatre so he tries to pretend Buratino or a gnome or a wet wasp.

   Mrs Guseva is a pianist.  She plays the piano very well.  But she never cleans the house. We think she doesn’t know how to do it. And she never washes plates. She always thinks about her fingers and hands. Pianists always do.  So other people in the pianists’ families must clean the house and wash the plates. And when they clean the house or wash the plates they can listen to the music the pianists play.

   So the Gusevs’ boys and girls hear this music every day when they clean the house and wash the plates. And two grandmothers also hear that music though they don’t clean the house and they don’t wash the plates. They usually play with the cat and her kittens. Only two grandfathers don’t hear the piano. They are captains and they work at sea.  They come home only in the evening.  And in the evening Mrs Guseva doesn’t play the piano at home. In the evening Mrs Guseva plays the piano at the theatre.

    She goes there with Mr Gusev. And when Mr Gusev pretends Buratino or a gnome or a wet wasp Mrs Guseva plays the piano. But we never see her at the theatre. We only hear how she plays. So we don’t know what clothes she wears when she plays. And we don’t know if her face is funny, because we don’t see her face. We guess it isn’t, because it isn’t when she plays at home. But her fingers are very funny.

   We always look at her fingers when she walks near our house. She has the longest fingers in our street. Sometimes we think she has the longest fingers in Russia. And sometimes we think she has the longest fingers in the world. But we don’t know for sure. We can’t say it’s true. We only guess so.

    We don’t know who cooks breakfasts, dinners and suppers in this family. We can’t see the Gusevs’ kitchen from our windows. We can’t see their kitchen from our attic either.

   We can see other rooms. We can see a living room with the piano. We can see the boys’ room and the girls’ room. But we can’t see the kitchen. So we don’t see how and what they cook and so we don’t know how and what they eat. May be their guests can tell us about it, because the Gusevs’ children don’t. They are older than us and so we don’t play together. But we can play with their guests because we see two girls of my age.

   They have long fingers too. But their fingers are shorter than Mrs Guseva’s fingers. So we guess they are not pianists. And we also think that they are not pianists because sometimes they play with the kittens.  And pianists don’t play with kittens. We never see Mrs Guseva playing with her kitten or with her cat. So we think pianists don’t like cats. But may be their guests do.   

CHAPTER 25

SUNDAYS

   Sundays are special days for us. Sundays are special days for us this summer.

Our grandparents don’t go to their work on Sundays. They stay at home. They stay with us.

   So we can’t stay with our cat on Sundays. We must stay with our grandparents. And the cat must stay by herself.

   Sonya doesn’t like to stay by herself. When she stays by herself she begins to run and jump. And sometimes she tries to sing cats’ songs. She doesn’t understand she mustn’t sing on Sundays. She doesn’t understand why she mustn’t. She doesn’t guess our grandparents don’t want cats to sing songs in their house. She doesn’t understand some people don’t want her to live in their house. She doesn’t know our grandparents don’t want her to live in their house even in the attic. She doesn’t know it. But we do.

   So we don’t want our grandparents to discover our cat. And so, we always speak with them, when they are at home. We talk with them every minute when it is Sunday and they are in. We don’t want them to hear our cat. So we never stop. We talk and talk. They think we like to talk with them. But we talk only when we are inside. We don’t talk when we are outside. We can’t talk when we are not in the house because we talk too much when we are in the house. And we need to rest and not to talk. So we don’t.

   Our grandparents are glad to talk with us too. They try to talk with us when we are in the street or in the car. But we don’t answer them. We can’t answer them. We must rest. When they ask us why we don’t answer them we say we watch the street. It is a surprise for our grandparents why the street is so interesting to us.

                                         

CHAPTER 26

ONE LUCKY SUNDAY EVENING

   We usually go to the sea on Sundays. Actually we go to the sea every day. We mean every evening. But on Sundays we go there after breakfast. And we come back home only in the evening.

   And when we go to the sea and swim there we don’t talk either. We know we must talk at home. And we must rest from the talk in other places. So we don’t talk near the sea. We play with stones and stay in water for a long time and paint our faces.

   We don’t paint our faces in Moscow. There is no sea in Moscow and we can’t wash the paint. But there is a lot of sea here. We mean sea water. So we can paint our faces and wash them after. It’s very funny.

   We play we are actors at the theatre. We play we are our neighbour Mr Gusev. We mean Buratino.

    We like to be Buratinoes.  It’s nice to have a long nose. Now we understand Mr Gusev. We know why he likes to be Buratino.

   We try to stay at the sea for a long time. When our grandparents ask us to go home we ask them to stay at the sea a little longer. And they stay. They can’t go home without us. They like to be with us. And we like to be with them too. So we all stay.

   And in the evening when it’s dark we go back home. Our grandparents are very happy. They think Sunday is the best day of the week. But it isn’t true. It isn’t true this year. It isn’t true for our cat.

    Sonya doesn’t like Sundays. She doesn’t understand Sundays. She doesn’t guess why we don’t stay with her on Sundays.

   We try to explain her. But she doesn’t know languages, you remember. She doesn’t understand words. My brother tries to make Sonya get ready for Sunday. He wants to explain Sonya that she must not sing her cats’ songs on Sundays.  But she does like to sing on Sundays.

   When we are in the car we start to get ready for our return home. We know the cat can sing her songs again. And we can’t stop her. So we try to be the first to enter the house. And when we are inside we run to the TV. And the TV helps us. TV is our best friend on Sundays. We watch it together with our grandparents and they don’t hear Sonya’s songs. They can’t hear Sonya’s songs. They hear only TV songs. We are so happy we have a TV here. It’s one more lucky Sunday evening.

 CHAPTER   27   

A WINDY DAY

   It’s the end of July. It’s the last Sunday in July. And this year it’s our grandfather’s birthday. We mean his birthday is on Sunday this summer.

    We have guests today. We usually invite our guests to celebrate grandfather’s birthday near the sea. But it is windy today. Our grandparents don’t like to go to the sea when it’s windy. We don’t like to go there when it’s windy either.

   But we want to go there today. We don’t want to stay at home. We don’t want to talk all day. We can’t talk all day. It is not possible. But when our grandparents don’t watch TV at home we always talk. We have to talk. We must not stop. When we stop we hear Sonya’s songs.

   So we never stop when we are at home on Sundays and our grandparents don’t watch TV. We talk and talk and talk. And it isn’t easy to talk all day. It is difficult to talk all day. But we have to talk because we don’t want our grandparents to hear Sonya’s songs. And we don’t want our grandparents’ guests to hear her songs. So this Sunday we must talk.

   Every birthday granny bakes a cake in the kitchen. And we decorate it with candles.

   But our cake is very small. So we never bring pieces of it to our neighbours after the party.  We eat it together with our guests. So there is no cake after the party.  Because our cake is much smaller than Mr Utkin’s cake.

   It’s true our cake is smaller but there are more candles on it.

   We think it is difficult to blow them out. But our grandfather can blow out all of them. He does it every year. He blows well.  And when he blows nobody must talk. And we must not talk either.

    We know about this birthday tradition. But Sonya doesn’t. She has no birthday. We mean we don’t know when her birthday is. She doesn’t tell us. So we don’t celebrate it. We think she doesn’t know about birthday wishes and birthday candles. She doesn’t know she must not sing when somebody thinks about his wish.

   It’s a very special day today. We don’t know what to do.

                                         

CHAPTER 28

A SINGING GHOST

   It’s a very special moment. Our grandfather thinks about his birthday wish. All guests don’t talk. All guests look at him. All guests are happy to be on his birthday party. And our grandfather is happy when his friends come to his birthday and he blows out the candles. He likes to blow out the candles. He usually blows out the candles near the sea. But this summer he must blow them out at home. So it’s a very special day.

   The guests don’t talk. They wait. They wait and watch our grandfather. Nobody must talk. Nobody must sing songs. And the guests don’t. But somebody else does. Somebody sings a song. Somebody sings a song in a very strange language. All the guests hear that song. Our grandfather hears that song. Our grandmother hears this song. We hear this song too. And we understand who sings this song.

   We understand it. But our grandparents and their guests don’t.  They don’t understand who sings a song. They hear a strange song in the house.  It is scary to hear a strange song in the house when you don’t understand who sings it. Guests look at the grandfather with surprise. It’s a scary moment for them. Grandfather looks at the guests with surprise. It is very scary moment for him.

   He thinks he understands who can sing a song in the house. Our grandfather believes in ghosts. So he guesses there is a ghost in the house: a scary small ghost. Our grandfather doesn’t like ghosts. He believes in ghosts but he doesn’t like them. He doesn’t know what to do.

   He usually says that when a person sees or hears a ghost he must run away. But he can’t run away from his own house.  And he can’t run away from his own birthday party. And he can’t run away from his guests. And he doesn’t want his guests to run away from him and from his birthday party. He wants them to stay. So he must stay at home too.

                      

CHAPTER 29

HOW TO CATCH GHOSTS

    Our grandfather asks his guests to stay and help him to catch the ghost.  But the guests don’t want to catch the ghost. They don’t know how to catch ghosts. And they don’t like it. Our grandfather doesn’t like to catch ghosts either. One guest says the police can catch the ghost. He says policemen are very brave. He says they usually catch ghosts in the town.

   But there is no police near our house. The police station is very far. And policemen don’t live in our street. And they don’t work here either. They don’t know there is one scary small ghost in our house. So we must phone and tell policemen about the ghost. And we must wait for them. We must wait for them and listen to the scary song.

    Our guests don’t want to hear this scary song.  But they must, because there is no policeman to catch a ghost. But there is a ghost who sings his scary song.

Then grandmother begins to speak. She says she has a good idea. She says all birthday wishes come true. So grandfather must change his birthday wish.  She says he must wish to transform this ghost into some animal or a bird. One guest says he likes tigers very much.  And he wants our grandfather to make a tiger from the ghost. Another guest says crocodiles are better than tigers. It is easier to catch a crocodile in the house. But it isn’t easy to catch a tiger. It is difficult to catch a tiger in the house. Tigers like to run. But crocodiles don’t like to run. Crocodiles usually stay in one place and rest.

   But our grandfather doesn’t want to catch crocodiles or tigers in his house. He thinks they are not better than ghosts. He asks to think about other animal. And then my brother says that he knows one little animal which is not scary. He asks grandfather to make a cat from the ghost. Our grandfather doesn’t like cats. And our grandmother doesn’t like cats. But they think cats are better than ghosts.  And it’s better to have a cat at home than to have a tiger or a crocodile.  So he thanks my brother for the idea for a birthday wish. Then he thinks a little and blows out the candles.

CHAPTER 30

AN EX-GHOST

 

   Our grandfather is happy again. Our grandmother is happy too. All guests are also happy. But we are the happiest.

   Everybody wants to hear the ghost’s song now. It is not scary any more. Everybody wants to see this singing ghost. We mean this singing cat.  We mean a former ghost, an ex–ghost. Everybody wants to catch it. Everybody wants to touch it. Everybody starts to look for it in the house.

   The guests look for it under beds and sofas and armchairs. They look for it behind the books on the bookshelves. They look for it in the grandfather’s old boots and inside long vases which we have in all the rooms. They look for it under carpets and in the fridge.

   But they don’t find it. They don’t find it but they hear it. They hear it very well.  So they begin to look for it again. But there is no ghost in the house. We mean there is no cat in the house. Nobody sees it in the house. So the guests begin to listen. But this time they don’t hear a song. They hear strange noise in a strange place. And this strange place is our attic. So they all run to the attic. And when they come there they see an ex-ghost which is now a small nice cat.

    At first they look at the cat. But soon our grandparents and their guests notice strange things in the attic. They see a beautiful carpet, bookshelves, cups, vases and pictures. This place doesn’t look like an attic.  It looks like a castle: a ghost’s castle, an ex-ghost castle.

   Grandfather believes ghosts live in castles. He believes modern ghosts live in modern castles with a lot of modern things. He looks at this castle with surprise. He doesn’t believe there is a ghost’s castle in his own attic. He doesn’t know what to do with this castle. He doesn’t know what to do in the castle.

   And so we say we can tell him what to do in the castle. We can teach him how to live in castles. And all guests ask us to teach them to live in castles. So they all stay in the castle. And we bring there food for a birthday party. We eat food and sing songs. Only the ex-ghost doesn’t sing its songs. Everybody plays with it. Everybody touches it. Everybody gives it food to eat.

   Our grandfather and grandmother also touch the ex-ghost. They are not afraid of ex-ghosts. We mean they are not afraid of cats. And they think it’s better to touch a cat than a ghost. And then one of the guests says it’s the best party in his life. Because he sits on the carpet of the castle with other guests and watches how his friend plays with his birthday present: a cat that is an ex-ghost.  And that he also wants to get such fine presents: a singing ghost that is the cat and a ghost’s castle for his birthday.

    And our grandfather says these are the best birthday presents in his life. And he invites his guests to celebrate all his future birthday parties in this castle. And then he invites all his guests to have all birthday parties in the ex-ghost’s castle.  He understands that they don’t have castles in their houses and he has.

   And then he says that he wants to take this small ex-ghost, that is, this cat, home. He says it’s nice to have an ex-ghost in the house. And grandma says that ex-ghosts are not scary. She is so glad they are small and lovely. She says she can like ex-ghosts who are cats. And she can like a cat who is an ex-ghost. She says that grandfather’s present can live together with them.  Hura! Our cat Sonya, an ex-ghost has a house and a family now!

Все герои и место действия  этой книги – вымышлены. Любое сходство с существующими людьми – случайно.