Текст книги "Рыжик-мореплаватель / Ginger, the sailor"

16. In Different Languages

The sailors came up to a high fence, handed some papers over to a dark-skinned man in white clothes and got inside. Ginger was the only one who didn’t need an entrance ticket. Sitting on the fence he asked anxiously.

"What’s there?"

"You’ll see!" Serga gave a wink. "Keep your eyes open or you’ll get in somebody’s jaws!"

"Do you speak the Sparrow language?" grinned one of the sailors.

"Not yet, but I understand it a bit," Serga was quite serious answering the question. Our family used to have a large farm. There were some pigs, ducks and a cow. I used to talk to them when I was a child. A world of honour! The cow would moo and I knew it wanted to drink. I ran to the cowshed ahead of Mother and tried to calm our Milka down: "Mother will come soon and you’ll have something to drink." And what do you think the cow was doing? It was listening, staring at me as if it understood everything."

"May be it did. Animals can also be clever."

"That’s exactly what I think. Sometimes all you have to do is to put yourself into somebody’s shoes and imagine what they are thinking about at the moment."

"And what is Ginger thinking about at the moment?"

The senior sailor looked closely at the sparrow that was sitting on a barberry branch twirling his head in all directions.

"It is trying to understand what’s going on and what will come of it."

"Why have we come here? Why?" twittered the sparrow once again and the sailors burst out laughing.

"Well done, Serga! You’ve put yourself into the sparrow’s shoes!"

17. The Sparrow Makes Buffaloes Furious

They approached the place where there were lots of shaggy trees and bright flowers, as well as an iron fence surrounding the area where strange small horses were quietly nibbling grass. Some of them were stripy like a barrier and called zebras. Others had large horns. Some horns were long and straight like swords. Others were spiral and bent. These animals were called antilopes.

Later Ginger saw some awful creatures that scared him to death.

The first was as high as a telegraph pole. His spotted neck was enormously long. Ginger had never seen anything like that before.

"A giraffe," said Serga respectfully. "He is the tallest of animals. Almost six metres of pure beauty."

The giraffe was picking acacia leaves and chewing them lazily.

"Life is fine with you!" Ginger gave a loud chirp, flew up to the top of the acacia tree. "Hey, telegraph pole! You would leave naked all the trees in our town!"

The giraffe flapped his ears, blinked kindly, and didn’t say a word. He was busy chewing.

"You fright!" feeling hurt he followed the sailors.

They stopped at the next open-air cage.

"That’s him! There he is!" said the sailors pointing to the centre of the cage.

Ginger didn’t have to pull his neck to have a look inside the cage. He flew over the fence and saw a huge buffalo with heavy horns. The bull was breathing heavily and noisily digging the ground with his hooves. Not far from the buffalo some black cows were grazing, their calves looking very much like the bull with heavy horns.

"Hi, blacky," chirped Ginger lively, fluttering in front of the buffalo’s face. "What are you doing here in the bushes when my friends want to see you? Let out of here and let them have a look at you!"

Ginger didn’t know that all the bulls of the world can’t stand the red colour and that his feathering seemed bright red in the rays of the Sun. The bull had been angry before but seeing the red-coloured sparrow in front of him he got even angrier. Setting up a dismal howl, he attacked Ginger who decided to follow his friends and the sailors were lucky to watch an unforgettable scene – the attack of an angry buffalo.

"I happened to see a corrida in Spain." said Serga later. "Those bulls were all right, but they couldn’t be compared with this one. Only his horns could weigh about half a ton."

"But for the water ditch it would have knocked down the fence," remarked one of the sailors.

That day I was awarded one more title – African Buffalos furious.

18. The Dinner with the Elephant

But even the enormous horns of the buffalo didn’t seem so terrific when Ginger saw the Rhino. It was he who had the most terrific of the horns! It protruded from the head of the monster like the sharp reef out of the sea deep and it would be a tragedy if somebody hit this huge monster. It was an enormous fat Rhino covered with wrinkles and mails. There was happening something strange on his back! It seemed to Ginger that some brisk birds were scarring back and forward fearlessly on the monster’s back and even pecking him. When looking more attentively he saw the birds packing parasites on the animal’s body and he understood why this animal put up with these birds.

"Life is nice with them!" Ginger seemed to envy them. "They are full and protected! Oh! If only I had such a Rhino!"

And at this moment Ginger remembered Changa saving and protecting him from Istanbul sparrows.

Then he looked an unfavorable eye at the faithful Changa.

"Save the mark that Rhino would be! There is no better friend than the dog!"

"Why have you stopped", twittered Ginger. "Come on!"

Everything that happened later didn’t seem to be so funny.

Ginger couldn’t even imagine that there were such great animals in the world like living mountains with hoses instead of the noses.

"What is this? What is this?" Ginger felt frightened.

"He is a perfect horror!"

"The African elephant" explained Serga. "It’s the most gigantic animal in the world living on the land. But there are some greater ones in the sea. They are called whales."

The elephant was standing near the feeding-rack and putting out his trunk and plucking large bundles of grass and stuffing them into his own mouth.

Having recovered the omnipresent Ginger took wing and noticed some corns on the bottom of the feeding-rack.

"Oh! My eye! That’s what elephants are fed with" twittered Ginger. This feeding-rack was as huge as its master.

Ginger took a seat on the opposite edge of the feeding-rack and started watching for the master.

"O, Best Beloved, what appetite it has!" Ginger was surprised. "Could you leave me a crumb, Elephant?"

Having chosen a moment when the elephant put the next grass wisp into the mouth Ginger jumped into the feeding-rack and pecked five corns very fast.

"Well, it’s just impossible to die of hunger here" twittered Ginger flying away.

"Look! Look!" said the sailors laughing. "Our Ginger has had dinner with the elephant".

"We’ll see what monkeys will leave for him".

But Ginger didn’t want to dine with monkeys; he was at a loss because of the noise in the cage.

The monkeys jumped up and down from one branch of the tree to another, cried and stroke each other.

"What a shell", twittered Ginger keeping close to Changa.

"One can become deaf".

"Isn’t it too noisy, my friend" smiled Serga looking an unfavorable eye at Ginger. "When you, sparrows, start twittering one should close his ears, I dare say".

19. Large-Toothed «Log»

Monkeys were left behind and our friendly team reached the seaside where there were a lot of unshaped knobby logs, with growths on their backs swimming.

"Water, water!" cried Ginger happily and joyfully. "We’ll have a drink! Here is a pretty Kettle of fish."

Up jumped Ginger off the log and rushed to the river.

"Aha! Where are you heading?" cried Serga but Ginger didn’t care a rap. He was going to sit on one of the logs – my gracious! – But some birds were running and hopping on it. Less the meter was left to the log when, oh, bother, "the growths" on the log began to move and narrow yellow eyes opened and winked like this O, Best Beloved! So Ginger fluttered.

"Help me! The log with eyes! The log with eyes! Things grew so exciting." cried the sparrow.

As it seemed to him at first to be «growths» there were protruding eyes of the unknown monster. Before Ginger could say Jack Robinson and if the sparrow flew a bit nearer everything would happen to be over another way, because at first sight, O Bananas! "the motionless green log" appeared to be an African beast. It was the Nile crocodile!

In order to be out of harm’s way Ginger sat on the branch of the tree under the shadow of which the sailors made themselves comfortable. Ginger complained them:

"A strange country! A strange one! Alive «posts» chew leaves and lively «logs» swim in the river! They are in for it!"

"Frightened, Ginger," winked Serga. "It’s Africa! You should be on your guard!"

It was time to feed crocodiles and a lot of people were gathering on the bank.

Looking forward to beast the logs themselves started moving and swimming to the tiny bridge across the river. They were swimming so slowly that they seemed to being brought by the stream.

"They are drifting" said the sailors laughing.

"Wait, O, Best Beloved! What a thing will happen then!" said Serga. Workers with carts on the wheels appeared and rolled them on the bridge.

The crocodiles under the bridge crowed and opened their musky, husky mouths with sharp teeth like knives and grinded them terribly.

Accompanied by loud shouts of crowded people the workers began to throw chicken pieces into the river. Things grew so exciting! Hardly had the chicken reached the water when two or three crocodiles with opened and musky husky mouths tried to catch it. I dare to do it! Only one was lucky and could catch it. The lucky one clicked his mouth and disappeared under the water but his neighbors clicked their teeth in vain and hurried on chase. Humph! Paddy-paws, stomachs, tails were moving and the water was moving and boiling as if it was in the kettle. The next chicken was thrown and so on and so forth and so following. Everything happened again and again. "They are in for it," Ginger chirped excitedly and jumped from one branch to another.

"What? I dare you to do it! You’ve failed to hit, the Marsh Beast! Most shocking! You’ve deserved it! Don’t look aside at Poor Creature!"

The crowd was crying and whistling and cameras’ patches of light were flashing out; the feeding of crocodiles was the favourite sight for tourists and local people. Sometimes monsters happened to strike their tails on the water too hard that water splashes reached the lookers but nobody paid attention to it for otherwise.

"Humph! Robust fellow! Don’t chat of your teeth otherwise you should overlook it!" cried the sailors.

"I wouldn’t like to be among them at this moment!"

"Oh, my eye!"

"And Ginger! Ginger! Look! How high he is jumping!"

"He is glad that he wasn’t eaten that’s why he is skipping now!"

Things grew so exciting and our «Hero» noticed one of the birds which had placed on the Crocodiles back before and assumed a dignified air.

"The wonderful sight!" chirped he. "We are friends, me and Elephant. We have dinner together but Crocodiles are not bad too. Which of them do you like best?"

"Any of them," answered a stranger.

All the birds in the world understand each other, that’s why the Black Sea sparrow and the bird with a long beak chatted quite merrily.

"But she is nice," thought Ginger. "Little but brave. She isn’t afraid even of the crocodiles." To his great surprise when the crocodiles crawled out ashore after the robust dinner and opened wide their awesome jaws, his companion and dozens of other birds of her stock flew onto the crocodiles’ teeth and began walking on them very courageously and pecking out the leftovers between them. "Oh, she is a tamer!" understood Ginger. "She can tame me as well. No dice!" And he followed the sailors who were walking along the yellow river.

20. Lotus – Fanciers

They saw a wide pool thickly overgrown with the white lotus of Egypt. Its wide leaves made up an enormous green carpet on the water surface and only in the centre of the pool one could see some clear water and a tiny island of grayish brown smooth stones. That was Ginger’s first impression. But bearing the «logs» in mind the old stager felt there might be some catch in it. And he was absolutely right! It was river horses hiding from the day’s heat in the water. Their huge bulks were completely underwater while only their smooth foreheads with tiny ears and wide noses with big round nostrils were outside. The river horses breathed through them. But with it they were so motionless that from a distance they seemed to be wet river boulders.

"Again trickery! Again!" twittered Ginger, flitting about above the ‘animate stones’. "But you can’t fool me, you can’t!"

One of the river horses half-opened his eyes sleepily, looked at the rust-coloured bird with an indifferent eye and yawned. Ginger rushed away in a flat spin. He has never seen such a mouth. Being nearly square, with huge yellow teeth the river horse’s mouth looked like a giant suitcase.

"Oho!" said the sailors ashore. "There’s the jaws! A whole pig it draws."

"It won’t eat a pig, but it’ll gorge a sack of carrots at one go before you know where you are."

"It prefers lotuses," said Serga. "Their roots are said to be very sweet. It gobbles up leaves as well."

"How much grub do they need, these bulks?"

"Don’t you worry about them, old chap. If there is water in the tropical countries everything grows by leaps and bounds. If you pick this lotus today, tomorrow there’ll be three new ones instead of it."

"And if there is no water…"

"It’s a bad job! Have you ever heard about the Sahara? It’s the biggest desert in the world and it is situated here, in Africa.

21. Angry Tsar

Going along the park paths and chit-chatting, the sailors came to the open-air cages where there were the main beasts of prey from Dark Continent. One could find here a baleful hyena and a noble swift-pawed cheetah, a spotty leopard and a black panther, but nowhere there was such a crowd of people as at the spacious lion cage.

"The king of beasts!" said Serga respectfully. "It can tumble a buffalo! But his everyday food is mainly the antelope".

"So, he prefers beef, right?"

"It depends. If a wart hog – an African piglet – comes to paw, it’ll be only glad to do it."

At first poor Ginger felt uneasy in the presence of so many unknown terrible beasts. Sometimes he would fly up to the tops of the trees, sometimes he would flatten himself against the ground, and once he sat on the staunch Changa’s back, but even being there he didn’t feel completely out of danger. He sensed his courageous Changa quavering with shiver. You bet! In comparison with the lion she looked a Maltese dog.

But by and by Ginger regained his natural vivacity. He understood that all these monsters are separated from the public by deep trenches, high walls, strong gratings, and was at ease again.

"Hey, ragged cat," chirped he to the hyena. "Catch me if you can. You can’t? Then you’d better sit and not curr".

He mocked at the cheetah’s resemblance to both the cat and the dog, at the panther’s colour…

"You’d better keep watch over coal," he told her in his sparrow language. "Go and wash your muzzle, scarecrow!"

Ginger left alone only the huge long-maned lion. The lion was angry with something, he was lashing its tail on each its sunken side and was growling so loudly that one wouldn’t be able to hear the sparrow’s chirping.

"The angry tsar!" Serga would say to the sailors respectfully. "It feels as if it is in the wild. For the lion it’s we who are behind the bars and it is showing its temper… That’s the reason why I like to watch animals in their native land. I prefer to watch the snow leopard in Asia, the jaguar in Brazil and the lion in Africa, of course… Look, just look at its being ferocious! That’s because of the proximity of its home savanna, the lion is breathing its air!"

22. Evening Bathing

Full of impressions and worn out by the heat, our travelers reached the dry cargo ship only in the evening. Ginger rushed to his bowl straight away, at first he drank his fill and then he got into it from top to toe and began bathing so that there were splashes all over the stern.

"Look at his excitement!" laughed the sailors.

"There are no crocodiles in his bowl."

"The lad has heated up."

"To say nothing of us."

"Guys, we’d better have a swill, too…"

No sooner said than done. The sailors brought a hose, undressed and here, on deck began pouring warm outside water on each other. Changa was circling between the people, shoving under the spurt and barking with pleasure. Her warm black fur was especially hot for her today.

"There’s Ginger! Attaboy! He’s given us a lead how to wash off our tiredness."

"Provided us with entertainment!"

…At this time in Ginger’s home town a cold autumn wind was blowing yellow foliage from the trees, it was drizzling through sunshine and a family of grey sparrows were gloomily listening to the rustle of the rain in the loft of the house in Primorsky boulevard.

"I wonder where’s our Ginger," sighed the mother-sparrow. "And if he’s alive."

"Alive! Alive!" chirped the father-sparrow. "You know how brave he is!"

But he also was down in the dumps.

23. Storm

Meanwhile the dry cargo ship which the courageous Ginger sailed passed the famous Suez Canal that separates Africa from Asia, got by the dark blue Red Sea, a strait, a bay and entered the Indian Ocean.

It seemed to the little sparrow that hot summer came back though at this moment in his home town it was already snowing for the first time.

"What a scorching heat," complained the young sailors. "There’s winter!"

"There’s never been winter in these latitudes as long as the mankind lives," said Serga. "There’s only raining season. But what concerns storms here…wow!"

As if he evoked evil by prophesying it. Out of the blue the sky was clouded and turned grey, a strong wind blew and leaden-coloured waves started hitting the ship.

The sailors were running on deck hither and thither, drawing thick ropes, fastening something, hurrying, and Ginger could hardly recognize his amiable friends among these gloomy preoccupied people. Even Changa, who loved to spin around the sailors, shrank into her corner not to get under their feet.

Every minute gusts became stronger and stronger, waves higher and higher, roar of the ocean louder and louder. Moreover, out of the black clouds fiery arrows flew followed by deafening thunder, and a strong torrential tropical downpour fell upon the dry cargo ship. The wind would seize the rain spurts and toss them at the ship.

Poor Ginger hid under the shed in time but the wet gusts still reached him.

"What’s going on! What’s going on!" the feathery traveler muttered because it was useless to chirp aloud: in the hell around there was nobody to hear him. "Poor Ginger! Poor Ginger! Why have you got mixed up with this wild sea gang? You could sit at home now, in the warm and dry attic". Here our hero remembered his mother’s stories about severe winter and corrected himself: "At least our house never swings from right to left like this drunken old tub."

And the dry cargo ship was down by the head innumerable times and it seemed never to come to the surface again, but it would and then a meter deep water mass, roaring and foaming like a pack of wild dogs, would rush along the ship fore and aft. Woe is anybody being on deck at that moment. But the sailors, having done their duties and put themselves in the hands of God and the captain, were in their cabins, the staunch Changa was at Serga’s feet, only the small ginger sparrow was face to face with the storm. The poor thing got drenched to the skin, he choked up with wet air, his strength failed him.

When the bird is sitting, its legs latch a tree twig or a string like Ginger’s, but if the living bundle of feathers is raised or overturned by the wind and its grasp loosens, the bird will be torn off from its perch like a yellow autumn leaf.

Ginger clung fast to his foothold but by and by he was losing strength, he was leaning forward and understood that it was the end of the line. Now he would topple down, his legs would let go and the next wave would carry him into the roaring ocean… It would really happen so but at the last moment somebody’s warm hands picked up the sparrow – and Ginger dropped into sleep.