Funny Children's Stories. Bilingual Edition

The Wardrobe

Last year we spent the summer in Ukraine. Initially, Mom and Dad wanted us to go to the seaside. But then they found out that everything would be very expensive there. Mom said that the biggest downside would be eating in the cafeterias. And the type of food served there would not be suitable for a child. And that in those cafeterias, even a healthy adult man could get a gastric ulcer.

Mom told Dad that it did not make any sense at all to go to the seaside. But Dad replied that she was saying that because she had never been to the seaside.

I had never seen the sea either, so I asked Dad what is so special about it and why the sea is better than just a river. And Dad said that he did not know how to explain that to me, but the sea is the sea. It cannot be compared to a river. And he would definitely, someday, send me and my mom to the seaside.

We went to Ukraine with Mom's friend Aunt[10] Tamara, who also decided to take her son there for the summer. Aunt Tamara told Mom that she spoke Ukrainian and promised to help us if we had any problems with the language.

When we came to Ukraine, a lot of funny things happened. It was funny when we were still sitting on the platform of the railroad station in Kharkov, where we were waiting to transfer to another train. Mom went to buy tickets and left me and Aunt Tamara to watch over our luggage. Then Mom came back and said that she was not sure whether we would be able to buy tickets before nighttime. And she said that she had had trouble finding the building where they sold tickets. And that the number of the building was fourteen.

Mom suggested that Aunt Tamara should write this number down so that it would be easier for her to find it on the way back. But Aunt Tamara said that she did not need to write anything down because it was an easy number to remember. She said that her son was thirteen years old. So all she needed to do was add one to come up with fourteen.

Later that night, Mom put me to sleep on the platform, right on top of our luggage. A man in a uniform walked past us and said, “Hey, why are you sleeping here?”

Aunt Tamara told us later that he was speaking Ukrainian. And that, from that point on, everyone would speak that way. Aunt Tamara translated what he said to us.

But we understood what that man in uniform was saying even without Aunt Tamara’s help.

At that moment, Mom became very frightened that he might make us leave and started to explain to him that we were waiting to buy our tickets. But that man continued yelling at us, and then he suddenly walked away and never came back again.

After the man in uniform went away, Aunt Tamara said that we should have given him three rubles and he would have left us alone right away.

And Mom continued to worry that they could still make us leave the platform. But then she calmed down. And Mom and I even started to laugh. We started to laugh because we remembered what the man in uniform had said. Even though we understood him, everything he said sounded weird. All his words sounded strange, and he pronounced everything differently[11].

Later Mom told me that, actually, I should not laugh when I hear someone speak differently from the way I do. Because everyone speaks in their own way. “Look,” my mom said, “Ukrainians do not laugh at how we speak. Though it probably sounds funny to them too.”

After that, Mom told me that she was worried that Aunt Tamara would not remember the number of the building where the tickets were being sold because Aunt Tamara has a bad memory. And her memory is bad because a wardrobe once fell on her head. Since then, she has always a bad memory.

When we finally arrived at our final destination, Mom went somewhere to get our luggage, which we had shipped. But when Mom unpacked our luggage, she found that our tin laundry bucket was all bent. It looked so funny that even Mom began to laugh, though she was really worried about how she would wash everything. So she immediately began to write a letter to Dad. She wrote him about what had happened to our bucket. And she asked him what she should do and how she should do the washing.

And every day, Mom asked our landlord, from whom we rented our room, whether he had received a letter from Dad for us. And when the landlord saw our bucket, he asked Mom what had happened. Mom told him how our bucket was ruined. The landlord said that he could quickly fix it. And he did fix our bucket very quickly.

But Mom still worried about why Dad was not writing back to us. She also worried that Dad would worry about our bucket. Even though there was no need to worry about it anymore.

A letter from Dad came two weeks after we left home. And Mom was very happy that a letter finally came from Dad. She read it a few times to herself and to me.

But it turned out that Dad wrote us this letter one day after we left. And as soon as we realized that, we understood that there would be nothing in this letter about our bucket.

Our neighbors, who rented a room in the same house, also received a letter. They brought it out into the backyard and read it to everyone. And everyone listened because there was a lot about the weather and what was being sold in the stores.

And the neighbors said that they were going to reply about everything that can be bought in the stores in Ukraine and how cheap everything was.

The next day, we received a telegram informing us about a long distance phone call. It was Dad, who placed an order for this call. And Mom said that it was very convenient to be able to send a telegram. Because a letter could have come after we had already left Ukraine. But a telegram came the next day.

And I already knew that mail delivery might take a long time.

Once I heard Mom’s brother and Dad complain to each other that it took too long to receive letters. And Mom’s brother said that people should not write letters that were interesting for everyone to read. And I asked who was reading these letters. And Mom’s brother replied that some day, he would tell me all about it. In a few years. After I grew up a little[12].

And so, on Saturday morning, Mom and I took a bus to the telephone station in the nearby town. We waited there until one o’clock to be connected with Dad.

As soon as we were connected, Mom began to speak with Dad. She was so happy to be speaking with Dad that she began to cry. And I was very surprised that she was crying. And after they talked for a bit, Mom passed me the phone.

I said “Dad?” into the receiver and heard Dad’s voice. And I also felt like crying. But I was afraid that Mom would notice, so I was only listening to what Dad was saying and did not reply. Or I just said shortly “yes” or “no.” And after a very short time, the telephone operator said that three minutes were up and we had to finish our conversation. I heard Dad asking the operator for two more minutes, and then he asked me to give the phone back to Mom.

When Mom finished talking to Dad, she asked me what Dad and I spoke about. But I did not remember what we talked about. I only remembered Dad asking me whether I could hear him okay. I could barely hear him, but I said, “Yes.”

And Dad asked me again whether I could hear him okay. I again said, “Yes.” After that, I did not hear anything until the telephone operator said that three minutes were up.

I also asked my mom what she spoke about with Dad. But Mom answered that she did not say what she wanted to say because the connection was bad. She could only remember Dad asking her about how we were living here and whether Mom could hear him okay or not.

Then I suggested that Mom order a long distance call with Dad. But Mom said that she would never do that.

“Because it’s too expensive?” I asked.

And then Mom said that not only because of that but because she did not want to scare Dad to death.

“Why should Dad be scared to death?” I asked.

And Mom explained that very often they delivered telegrams after midnight. “Wouldn’t you get scared if someone knocked on your door after midnight?” asked Mom[13].

And I replied that I would not get scared. But Mom said that I would not get scared because I was still too young.

By then, it was almost two o’clock. Mom went to find out when our bus would leave. When she came back, she said that it would leave at three-forty. She said it in Ukrainian, probably the same way it was said to her. It sounded very funny, but I understood her.

And Mom said that since we had to wait for nearly two hours, we might as well try and go to the restaurant that we saw earlier in the same building. “If, of course,” my mom added, “it’s not too expensive.”

A woman who spoke Russian met us at the restaurant’s entrance. She told Mom that nobody can take a child into the restaurant. And Mom asked, “Why can’t you take a child into the restaurant?” The woman replied, “Don’t you understand why? There are many drunks in the restaurant. They’re all cursing. Is it right for a child?” And so we left.

And Mom said that we would walk home then. Because walking home would take us no more than an hour and a half. Mom also said that it might easily be that a lot of people from the resort would be on the bus and there would be no place left for us to sit.

So we walked home. And the bus did not pass us. And Mom and I were very happy that the bus did not pass us.

As we were walking home, I asked Mom whether there were usually many drunks in Moscow restaurants. And Mom said that she had never in her life been in a restaurant, neither in Moscow nor in any other city. One time, she and my dad decided to go to a restaurant in Moscow, but the doorman did not even let them touch the door of the restaurant.

Mom said that only foreigners were allowed into Moscow’s restaurants. And I, of course, asked Mom, why they only allowed foreigners into Moscow’s restaurants. To that Mom said that I should stop asking questions because for such questions, we would end up in prison.

And this is really very interesting. I noticed a long time ago that when I ask one question, Mom usually answers it and does not see anything wrong with it. However, if I ask a second question on the same topic, then it turns out to be the type of question for which we could be sent to prison.

That is why I never ask a second question in school. Well, I never ask the first question either. Because my parents strongly forbid me to ask any questions in school.

Many more interesting and funny things happened in Ukraine. But the most interesting thing happened at the market. At the market you were allowed to bargain.

For example, Mom asked some old woman, “How much are these potatoes?”

And the old woman replied that she was asking four rubles. Then Mom said that she would buy her potatoes for three rubles.

And the old woman said, “Let’s do it like this — not for you, not for me — three fifty.”

But the most surprising thing was the following. Mom approached an old woman who was selling cherries and asked her how much the bucket of cherries was. The old woman replied that she was asking twelve rubles for a bucket. And here Mom said that she could buy two buckets if the old woman sold each bucket for ten rubles.

At first, I thought that Mom was joking. I thought that Mom would have had to give the old woman three rubles just to be able to buy two buckets instead of one. But surprisingly, the old woman agreed to sell two buckets for twenty rubles.

Mom was very happy, and she told me she had planned in advance to share the cherries with Aunt Tamara. And we would be able to make enough cherry jam to last us the entire winter.

After we left the market, I asked Mom why the old woman agreed to sell two buckets for only twenty rubles instead of twenty-four.

“Don’t you understand such simple things?” my mom said. “The more the old woman sells, the more money she earns. Therefore, she wanted to sell as much as possible. She will sell at a lower price if you buy more.”

Then I asked why everything is the other way around in stores. In stores they will not sell cheaper if you want to buy more. In stores they will not sell you anything at all if you want to buy more. And of course, Mom was again frightened that we would be sent to prison, so she told me to stop asking questions.

I did not want to argue with Mom, so I stopped talking. But to make me feel better, Mom remembered how two old women had been arguing at the market. They kept yelling at each other something we could barely understand. But somehow it was very funny.

And so, like this, something funny happened every day. Even on the last day, when we were leaving and were already at the bus stop to go to the station, even then something funny happened.

Our landlord ran up to us and gave us a letter from Dad. Mom began to read it to me. Dad wrote that he had received the letter from Mom, in which she wrote about the bucket. And he was asking Mom whether it was possible to ask someone to fix it.

When Mom finished reading this letter to me, we started to laugh and could not stop. And we laughed until our bus came. But as soon as the bus came, we stopped laughing. We stopped laughing because it turned out that there were a lot of people from the resort on the bus and there was no more room left for Mom and me. We were lucky that our landlord had not left yet. He turned out to be a good friend of the bus driver. And then it just so happened that there were seats for us.

Later, when Mom and I were sitting on the bus, Mom told me, “It is a good thing that the landlord brought us Dad’s letter in time. Otherwise, we would not have known what to do with the bucket.” And again we started to laugh. And we laughed all the way to the station.

We only stopped laughing on the train because Mom started to worry that I had not gained much weight over the summer. And she decided that she would start to give me food with more calories.

On the train, Mom told me that before we left, she decided to check whether Aunt Tamara remembered the number of the building in Kharkov where the tickets were being sold. Mom thought that Aunt Tamara might have forgotten that she should add one to the age of her son to get the number.

When Mom asked Aunt Tamara about the number of the building, Aunt Tamara asked Mom what building number she was talking about. And Mom told her that she was talking about the building in Kharkov where they sold tickets. But Aunt Tamara then asked Mom, “What tickets?”

But Mom did not let me laugh at Aunt Tamara. Because you should not laugh at those whose head was hit by a wardrobe.