Текст книги "Short stories for English stories. Something about Martha"

Cats on the tree

This morning something goes wrong. Someone is making a loud noise in the backyard. Martha looks out of the window and sees her cats hurrying to the highest tree in the garden. Unknown animals, a big dog and a white shaggy cat, are chasing them.

The cats take turns to climb up the tree, and in the twinkling of an eye they are in safety there.

«That just can’t be true. Some weird animals are chasing our cats in their own backyard! Where have they come from? I’ve never seen them before,» shouts Martha angrily. The noise has woken up Martha’s grandmother. She also comes up to the window, looks out and says:

«These are our neighbor’s pets. He brought them yesterday here.»

«How could they get into the yard?» wonders Martha.

«Last night we didn’t close our garden gate. So the animals sneaked into the yard,» comments her grandmother.

«Shall we stay at home all day long, Grandma?»

«Not at all. These animals are just having a walk. After that they’ll run home to have their breakfast.»

«Do you know what kind of dog is that?»

«It’s a shepherd dog, Martha, a very intelligent animal. It won’t bark stupidly under the tree. Just wait a bit.»

After a while the owner of the brash duo calls his pets back. The dog turns its head round and runs home promptly. The shaggy cat rolls out of the garden following it like a snowball.

Well, now Martha and her grandmother are free. But what about their cats? The cats are still up the tree and won’t come down. Martha’s grandmother can’t climb trees, neither can Martha.

They are waiting for their brave grandfather. At last grand-father comes back and takes the hungry pets down.

«We must always close the garden gate in the evening», reminds Martha’s grandmother to everybody. «Otherwise we can get guests, who will chase us up the tree too.»

«No way! Where will I live then?»

That’s something to think about.

Fear

There is a large forest just at the Martha’s house. One evening Martha and her grandmother decide to take a walk in the woods. They cross the street and discover a forest path. The sun is shining brightly in the street. But there in the forest it has already got dark. The trees are high and quiet.

Grandmother stops in the middle of the path and points Martha at some tall pine trees that are so big that they can touch the sky.

Martha looks at the tops of the trees. They are swaying and creaking in the wind. Martha is charmed. She is listening to the trees and doesn’t care about what is going on around her.

Suddenly Martha jumps in fear. A ginormous bird flies up from under her feet. It’s black, has wide wings and long claws. The bird isn’t afraid of Martha or her grandmother. On the contrary, it isn’t flying away but flies in slow circles above them.

Martha hears terrible screams.

«The bird is screaming because it’s angry at us. Maybe it had been sleeping, and we woke it up.»

Martha looks puzzled.

«Now the bird wants to chase us away. Or even worse… It will take us to bloodthirsty beasts into the wilderness. This bird is strong and can do that easily. It’s very dangerous!»

Martha is frightened and starts panicking. All that she wants to do is run out of the forest as quickly as she can.

The girl turns around and runs as fast as her legs can carry her. She doesn’t even look back. Soon Martha finds herself in the street again.

She is out of breath. But where is her grandmother? Martha has left her old granny alone in a hurry. Maybe the angry bird has taken her into the wild.

Fortunately, Martha’s grandmother is also alive and well and is now coming out of the forest.

Martha is embarrassed: «Grandma, you are such a coward, aren’t you?

«Why do you think so?» grandmother wonders.

«If you’re not one, why didn’t you just run away with me? … Oh, Granny, you were so scared that you were not able to run at all,» Martha is teasing her grandmother.

But the old grandmother is smiling: «Perhaps it’s just the opposite, Martha. Isn’t it?»

A midday nap

Martha doesn’t like sleeping in the daytime. She always regrets about the wasted time she spent in her bed. Martha knows that the summer is going to be over very soon, and then she’ll have to spend most of her time indoors.

It’s only the cats who can stay outside all day long. In the afternoon they crawl deep into their favourite hiding place under the flowers and sleep there untroubled until the evening.

Martha likes their shelter too. It’s not so hot there. And the flowers smell very pleasant.

Martha wants to have a nap here together with the pets. But her grandmother doesn’t understand that and would love to take her granddaughter for a nap in the house.

«Grandma, that’s not fair. The cats may stay outdoors the whole day, and I may not. I’ll sleep in the yard too,» protests Martha.

Grandmother doesn’t argue with Martha. She has a great idea. She hangs a hammock in the garden and makes a bed for Martha there.

Martha lies down and swings. The cats run over there to her and fall asleep in the tree shade.

«Sleep well, Martha. You’ve good bodyguards,» Martha’s grandmother says kindly.

«That’s right, I can trust my cats. I can always rely on them,» agrees Martha.

A tummy ache

In summer Martha eats lots of fruits and berries, so that she doesn’t get ill in winter. Every morning Martha and her grand-mother take a walk around the garden. They look which fruits and berries they can pick today.

Most of all Martha likes strawberries. The strawberries attract the girl from afar. They are bright red. And this is Martha’s favourite colour.

Grandmother lets Martha pick off any berries the little girl likes. And Martha always chooses the biggest, ripest, sweetest and tastiest berries.

Grandmother has a large plastic bowl with her. First Martha has to wash the berries and then she can eat them all up. Washing berries outside is a wonderful thing. Martha loves dabbling her hands in the water. It’s so much fun washing the berries and hands at the same time.

One morning Martha notices that there are not so many berries as usual left in the garden. Martha picks berries one by one. She can find them fewer and fewer, and she can’t eat her fill.

Martha’s grandmother is surprised:

«Martha, you don’t want to leave any berries for your mother, do you?»

«No. My mother must not eat strawberries,» answers Martha.

«Why not? Your mother likes them a lot.»

«Well, she does like these berries. But she might get a tummy ache after eating them. Maybe we’ll take her to the doctor… No, I don’t want my mother to get ill.»

A misunderstanding with a bee

Grandmother serves Martha soup for lunch. The girl looks at the soup and pushes it away.

«Why do I’ve to eat soup if I want to have tea? With tea I can have a tasty cake, a piece of chocolate or even honey,» says the girl.

Grandmother gets angry:

«Martha, you never know what you want!»

But granny is wrong. Martha knows what she’d like to have for lunch. But how can she tell her grandmother about that? Martha waits for a while and then gives some hints to her grandmother:

«Grandma, can you give me a little bit of honey for lunch please? Only now, just once.»

«No, Martha. Honey isn’t food. It’s a delicacy,» replies grand-mother in a serious voice.

«But it’s so sweet and tasty. I can eat a glass of honey all in one go,» says Martha.

«You should not eat this much honey at a time,» grandmother lectures her child and adds:

«It’s so difficult for bees to collect honey. So, you can only have it as a snack and not eat it for lunch.»

Martha looks at her grandmother and cannot believe that:

«Bees are sitting on the flowers munching on honey. Is that this hard? That’s all nonsense. Grandma doesn’t want to give me honey… Bees are lucky. They can eat honey as much as they like. I’m going to collect honey too.»

Easier said than done. Martha goes to the garden. Bees are sitting on the flowers and look busy.

«What do the bees do on the flowers? They collect honey, of course. What else? But how do they collect it? I’ve never seen any honey there. Maybe I haven’t looked well…»

Martha looks under the blossoms, but she doesn’t find any trace of honey on them. She smells the flowers. They smell very nice. Maybe honey is hidden inside them.»

Martha picks a flower and tastes it. The flower is bitter.

«Where does the honey come from? The bees must know some honey flowers,» guesses the girl.

Meanwhile some bees are trying to attract her attention. Another bee has just joined them and started dancing.

«This bee is merry,» thinks Martha satisfied.

In a second all the bees start dancing.

«These bees are so cheerful. They won’t sting me. And why should they sting me? I’ve only come up to look at them,» says Martha hopefully, gets closer to the bees and bends down.

But one bee has just detected the girl and stopped dancing.

«This bee doesn’t want to show me how it collects honey,» calms Martha herself down.

The girl continues smelling flowers and watching the bees.

Suddenly the silent bee stings Martha on her cheek. The girl screams with pain and runs to her grandmother.

Grandmother gets a good look at the swollen cheek and concludes:

«A bee sting can be dangerous for children.»

She drives her granddaughter to the doctor. On the way Martha is whining about the bee:

«Grandma, this bee was so greedy. It thought I’d take its honey away. And I only wanted to learn how it collects it.»

«You’re wrong, Martha. The bee wasn’t greedy. It felt it was in danger. That’s why it stung you.»

«But I want to collect honey so much, Grandma!»

«It’s impossible, Martha. Bees don’t collect honey. They collect flower juice and make honey of it at home. That means that no one can learn that.»

A mysterious loss

Martha is looking for her grandfather. He has just been doing some garden work and then suddenly disappeared. Where has he gone? The garden is small, and Martha can’t find him anywhere. Martha is shouting:

«Grandpa, where are you?»

«I’m here, Martha!» responds her grandfather every time. Martha is looking very carefully over and over again but sees no one around. Grandfather has vanished without leaving a trace, as if the earth has swallowed him up.

But what if he’s really fallen down through the ground? And why ever not? There are a lot of big lumps of ground in the garden. Martha knows where they are from.

A mole lives there under the ground. It digs deep holes in the ground and throws little lumps out in the garden. That is how the mole builds its tunnel house. This house is deep and large and has several underground floors. It stretches in the ground like an entire Empire.

Martha’s grandfather has told her about that, and she believes him.

He often warns his beloved granddaughter:

«Be careful in the garden and always avoid the mole holes. Otherwise you can fall into one of them and hurt your leg.»

«Maybe Grandpa has forgotten about the holes and got trapped in a mole’s tunnel. He may have broken a leg and need help.»

Martha calls her grandmother. Grandmother comes and finds the missing grandpa at once. She points at a cherry tree and a garden ladder leaned on it nearby. She looks at the top of the tree. Martha looks up at it too and sees her grandfather sitting among the leaves.

«Aha, Grandpa has climbed the tree, made himself comfortable there and is eating our cherries alone! And I’m standing here, worrying about him and have no clue what to do. That’s unfair, Grandpa!» thinks the girl.

«Grandma, our Grandpa will eat all our cherries alone. I just must climb the tree to eat some cherries. I like berries too,» says Martha aloud.

«No, Martha! Grandpa is now climbing down. He has a basket on him, and there he has got cherries for all of us. I’ll bake a tasty cherry pie for you today.»

«Can I help you to bake the pie?» asks Martha.

«Of course, we will bake it together much faster.»