Бесплатный фрагмент - The adventures of Siskin Whistle and Drone Nick-Tesla. The trip one. France

The adventures of Siskin Whistle

and

Drone Nick-Tesla

The trip one. France

Tony Limousin

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Table of contents

— Fire in the forest 3

— First trip. Hello, France 11

— First day in Paris 17

— Second day in Paris 25

— Siskin’s most terrible night in Paris 32

— Rescue of the main character 37

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CHAPTER ONE

FIRE EN THE FOREST

In a large Hungarian forest lived a friendly family of siskins. Although their distant relatives sparrows have lived long near people (because in modern cities and villages there is neither hunger nor cold during the long winter), siskins still preferred to live in the forests of conifers, where there was not so much noise and bustle, but a lot of fresh air. The youngest of them was called Whistle, because above all he loved to sing and whistle loudly. It was a small bird, but it was very proud of its beautiful plumage: a chest, a back and the same yellow wings. This color goes very well with its emerald eyes. Like all children, he was very curious and happy. More than anything in the world he loved his family and faithful friends, with whom he played various children’s bird games during all the hot and long summer days, from morning to evening.

So, one fine summer morning, having eaten a hearty breakfast of pine nuts, he sat down on the tallest birch and began to examine the nearest surroundings. Where are his friends now? Who should he play with today? With tits or with an oriole? So, who is coming?

In the distance he saw three people walking along a forest path. Dad had told him more than once, that people aren’t always nice (especially be wary of armed men. He called them hunters), but these tourists only had backpacks slung over their shoulders. Whistle also saw that one of them had a pipe sticking out of his mouth. He became silent and suspicious. People passed by and soon their voices fell silent. And suddenly in the dry grass near the path he saw a bluish smoke rising from there. What is this? He came down from the tree and, as he got closer, he saw in the dried grass the remains of that smoking pipe that a passerby had thrown into the grass a few minutes before. Whistle watched in surprise as sparks fell onto the grass. Soon, a small red light began to play happily on it, hungrily devouring the dry grass around it, growing bigger and stronger. After a few minutes the fire began to destroy whole dry twigs. “Guard!” — Siskin shouted. He was small, but a courageous bird. He tried to put out the flame by flapping his wings, but only fanned the fire even more and burned his feathers. “Save whoever can! Fire!!!” — he screamed at the top of his lungs. Immediately other birds responded and screamed, and the bad news quickly spread throughout the forest. The fire grew more and more violent and merciless and began to burn the bushes and green trees in its path. Columns of choking black-gray smog began to rise high into the sky, obscuring the sun. There was great panic and confusion in the forest. The inhabitants of the forest: animals, birds, insects, large and small, all ran, galloped, flew and crawled, fleeing the fog of smoke and the merciless fire. Our hero Whistle was so frightened by the fire, that he flew out of fear in a direction unknown to him and got lost.

He spent the night in the reeds, near a river he did not yet know. It was only the next day, shivering from the cold and worried about his family, that he returned to where his home had recently been. Ah, horror! It was painful and frightening for him to look at what had only yesterday been his beautiful, joyful and bright forest. The earth and grass were scorched, the charcoal trunks of once-green trees protruded everywhere like black skeletons, and from some of them gray smoke still slowly rose into the sky. Siskin, noticing the only large half-burnt fir tree on the edge of the ancient forest, flew towards it and sat at the very top. The sad young bird looked around; the silence was deafening, only from a distance could he hear the cries of black crows, which he did not like, and, to be honest, he was afraid of their massive beaks.

“What should I do now? — he thought. — I remained completely alone in the whole world. Where is my family now? Where have they gone?” So he sat for a long time, grieving over his unfortunate fate, and wept inconsolably. Suddenly he heard a strange buzzing sound above him and looked up. In the sky, not so high above him, Siskin saw a flying bird that was unfamiliar to him, similar to those large birds that sometimes flew high, very high in the sky above his forest. Mom always said, those birds were made of metal and people called them airplanes. Curiosity got the better of his fear and, wiping his tears, he flew towards the flying miracle. Indeed, it looked a lot like a bird: head, body, tail and wings, but without feathers. The back was blue and the belly white. Blue lights shone in his eyes, and instead of a beak a strange glass tube was visible, flashing with a red spark (later he learned that people call it a video camera). Siskin was very surprised, but greeted politely with curiosity:

— Hello, the big bird!

— I’m not a bird! — he muttered in response.

— But who are you? Are you a plane? And what are you doing here with us? — Siskin asked him, trying to shout louder than the noise of the engine.

— I am a flying machine! People created me and I work for them. They give me a task, and for them I take aerial photographs of the Earth from a bird’s eye view! — he responded proudly and waved his antenna meaningfully. Then he added in a threatening tone:

— Get out of here, yellow-winged! Don’t stop me from doing important work!

Siskin sighed, flew away and sat down again on the top of a fir tree. Remembering that now he was of no use to anyone, he wept bitterly and inconsolably. Looking at this sad spectacle, even the metal flying machine had tears in his eyes, and something slammed in his chest out of pity for this lonely but so cute bird. He came closer and shouted:

— Hey, buddy! Wipe your beak! Let’s get to know you! — and he smiled at Siskin.

— My name is Drone Nick-Tesla, what is your name?

— My parents called me Whistle, because I was once the best of all the whistlers in our forest, — sighed Siskin.

— So what happened here yesterday? — asked Drone.

And his new forest comrade hastily began to tell him the tragic story we know.

— People call this pipe, as you say, a cigarette and they smoke it, -Nick-Tesla interrupted his sad story and thought to himself:

“So that’s how it all happened! It was because of an unextinguished cigarette butt that such a great disaster occurred. The fire destroyed all living vegetation within a few hours and left all the inhabitants of this forest without shelter or food, and some inhabitants may even have died.”

— Now I don’t know where my family and my real friends are…

— he heard the melancholy voice of Siskin, who started crying again.

“Oh, these carefree people!” Drone buzzed even louder with anger: — Sometimes their negligence and irresponsibility leads to big problems. I often have to fly over forested areas, and of course I see a lot of posters that say: “Protect the forest from fire!”, or even “Citizens! It is forbidden to light a fire in the forest!” Well, it’s all in vain!” — Nick-Tesla sighed bitterly. Suddenly he smiled and suggested to Siskin:

— Do you want to become friends? We both have wings, we will fly and have fun together! Then he added in a serious tone:

— Of course, after I finish serving people.

Whistle opened his beak at the unexpected proposition. Then he flapped his wings happily and shouted:

— GOOD! Are we playing? Who will fly faster towards this blue river that sparkles on the horizon?

— One, two, three! — and they broke into a race, laughing and shouting something funny to each other. Later, tired of circling in the sky, they landed on a sandy beach. The Nick-Tesla flying machine began to tell him about his work, people and big cities.

— Why do you have such a strange name? — suddenly asked his new feathered friend.

— Oh, that! I was named in honor of Nikola Tesla, an American inventor of Serbian origin, who made numerous discoveries in the field of electrical engineering and radio. He was a scientific physicist engineer and simply a genius of the early 20th century, but this is still difficult for you to understand. Drone smiled.

In the evening they agreed that they would see each other the next day. So, the main character of our book met a new unusual, but so smart friend, and now many interesting meetings, discoveries, exciting and sometimes dangerous trips awaited them.

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CHAPTER TWO

FIRST TRIP. HELLO, FRANCE!

Two weeks have already passed since Siskin and Drone met and became friends. Already everywhere on the ashes grass began to sprout, various insects flew and buzzed in the warm summer air, and birds circled in the blue sky. Meanwhile, at the very top of the old fir tree Siskin managed independently to build the first cozy nest of his life. He was very proud of his new home. His new friend Nick-Tesla arrived every day and told him interesting stories about life on the six continents of planet Earth. Whistle didn’t understand much of what he was hearing, but didn’t want his omniscient friend to think that siskins had no brains at all, so he nodded and agreed.

One day, on a cloudy summer morning Drone flew to his nice forest friend and told him bad news for him:

— Alas, I have to leave today for a few days. To my great regret, you will be alone for a while. I must go to work in France.

— What is France? — wondered the curious bird.

— Oh, my little friend! France is a big and beautiful country, known for its rich history, culture, fashion and all kinds of treats. It is located in Western Europe. Once upon a time, a long time ago, there were real kings and queens, princes and princesses. Many knightly tournaments and balls were held throughout the country, and intrepid musketeers roamed the narrow stone streets, clanging their sharp swords loudly. In this country, many medieval castles, ancient fortresses and royal palaces have been preserved to this day.

— Oh, how lucky you are! I would really like to fly with you. It’s a pity that I am still a very young bird and cannot fly far from home, — Siskin said sadly.

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