Mutiny of the Little Sweeties
- Автор: Емец Дмитрий Александрович
- Серия: My Big Family #1
- Год: 2016
- Язык: английский
- Переводчик: Jane H. Buckingham
- Жанр: Детские и приключения
Электронная книга - «Mutiny of the Little Sweeties». Краткое содержание книги:
“Hello! Good evening!” Mama said carefully. She always answered the phone very affectionately, especially when the call was from an unknown number.
“When you answer like this, they’ll think that you’re very kind!” Peter said.
“What, and I’m not?”
“I’m not arguing! I said, they’ll think that you’re very kind!”
Today, however, Mama’s affectionate voice remained much longer than the first two phrases. It remained even when Mama’s face fell and her cheeks paled.
The children were bouncing beside her, trying to find out whom Mama could be talking to with such a face, but Mama, in order that they would not interfere, climbed up onto a chair. Then the children dragged other chairs over and climbed onto them in order to be taller, and again moved their ears to the phone.
“Who was it?” Peter asked when Mama finally hung up.
“Aunt Sveta bought a new SIM card!” Mama said, a guilty smile remaining on her face.
“Aunt Sveta? Where is she?” Papa tensed up.
“She said it’s cheaper to call with local SIM cards. But it’s true, it’s cheaper,” Mama continued, evading a direct answer.
“WHERE IS SHE????”
“Well… uh… Aunt Sveta flew in, then changed to the bus, and is now coming to us from the bus depot!”
“Meddling Aunt!” Papa and Peter exhaled at once.
“Who, who?” Alex asked.
“Have you forgotten? The same aunt who turns chocolate foil wrapper in as scrap metal, and tortures the nerves of those who don’t do so!” Peter reminded him, and Papa, making a sound, tugged at his sleeve.
Twenty minutes later, someone called on the intercom. The gates rattled. A small and delicate woman in a baseball cap turned backward appeared on the porch. In her hands was a transparent package with yellow tubes.
“Hello, kids! Hello, Annie! Hello, everyone! By the way, Nick, you owe me four hundred roubles, and better immediately, because later we’ll forget!” she said to Papa.
“For what?” Papa tensed up.
“I bought sunscreen for you on the way out!”
“At the end of September?”
“Yes! But I bought four for the price of two. There’s a sale! And the cream will be useful for next year!”
The little woman went into the kitchen and looked around in a business-like manner. “Not bad!” she approved. “Simple but spacious! It’s a background for action. What’s this you have?”
“The fridge!” Peter said.
“Good boy! You know everything!” Aunt Sveta praised. “But why is it here? The sun from the window hits it. The sun shouldn’t hit the fridge! We’ll move it from here right away!”
Aunt Sveta leaned a shoulder on the fridge and, straining, began to rock it. Papa and Mama exchanged glances. They had no intention of disturbing someone else’s fridge, having stood here clearly for a hundred years, but what can you do when before your very eyes a frail woman is just about to acquire a hernia and clearly with the best of intentions.
Papa and Peter leaned their weight together on the fridge and moved it about a metre to the side. At the same time, they accidentally forgot to unplug it and the cord flew from the wall. Besides, it turned out there were no tiles but simply the painted wall behind the fridge.
“This is minor! Tiles or no tiles! We’ll remodel everything here!” Aunt Sveta consoled Papa. “And for such a large family, this fridge is too small and too noisy altogether! Here’s what I propose… We’ll sell, discard, or put it in the basement! And I’ll give you my black one cheaply for a purely symbolic amount. I’ll send it from Moscow in a container.”
“In a dark-dark house was a dark-dark fridge…” Papa said quietly.
“You don’t understand! Mine is a high-end fridge!” Meddling Aunt was offended. “Not a fridge but a huge freezer! You can shove half a cow carcass in it! Don’t you agree?”
Papa carefully remarked that they do not buy cow carcasses.
“But that’s wrong! Carcasses are much cheaper, and you have a big family. Besides, you can freeze a lot of vegetables and fruits and eat them in the winter!” Aunt Sveta said.
Mama, of course, was immediately excited that the children would have vitamins, and began to tug at Papa’s arm, while he had already realized that he would not be able to deliver the manuscript, because he would have to pursue the aunt’s freezer across the country.
Aunt Sveta’s phone, which she was holding in her hand and not letting go of because messages, emails, and notifications from every possible social network were always arriving, started vibrating. Aunt Sveta looked sternly at Papa, imprinting in him the bright dream of a freezer, and brought the phone to her ear.
“Face me!” she said sternly. All the Gavrilovs faced Meddling Aunt fearfully, because it was unclear to whom she was talking: the phone or them.
“What do you mean ‘what for’?” Aunt Sveta continued, looking at everyone at once. “Where are you? Well done! Remember at all times, where you’re facing, you go in that direction! Frr! A minute! Which way are you facing? What trees? Promptly go in the other direction! Why was I wrong? On what street are you? Let’s take off from there!”
Aunt Sveta heard some answer. She rushed to the window. “That’s it! Stand still! I can see you! Wave at me! Yes, it’s exactly you! Stand still and don’t go away!” And Aunt Sveta rushed toward the exit.
“Who’s this?” Papa asked, helping her open the gates because the lock opened with some trick produced by its antiquity.
“The porter! Well, not quite an official porter, but still…” Aunt Sveta said.
“Where did you find him?”
“I didn’t find him anywhere! A young man at the bus station asked me for money for cigarettes, but I don’t encourage idlers just as I don’t encourage taxi drivers! I said he’d get a huge sum if he carries my luggage! I gave him your address and I myself came light!”
“What if he…”
“Out of the question! I took his passport! And no one has ever cheated me at all!” Aunt Sveta said this so threateningly that all the Gavrilovs felt that it would take a lot of courage to cheat her.
Along the figure-eight street, clinging to the bushes, a lanky young man was making his way in their direction. His arms were weighed down by the incredible quantity of luggage. Every three metres he stopped and squatted down. Aunt Sveta gave him money for cigarettes, returned his passport, and the porter left.
“Yes-yes-yes!” Aunt Sveta said. “I know what you want to ask! How did I carry all this? I have four pieces! Each 15 kg, and only 20 without additional payment on the plane! But I stuffed them in your old stroller, in a couple of packs, and in the notebook bag, and carried everything as carry-on!”
“Did you take any airplane food?” Alena eagerly asked.
“Of course!” Aunt said and, like a magician conjuring in the fifth dimension, took from a bag two whole containers of airplane food.
“This is mine and this is my neighbour’s! He refused to eat, because I forbad him from pulling out the little table!”
“Why did you forbid him?”
“Because my feet were on the baggage, and he hit me right on the knee with the little table!” Aunt snapped. “And the neighbour on the right, a very nice woman, by the way, refused the jam! And here are the spoons and napkins!”
“And what’s this?”
“Headphones!” Aunt Sveta said. “Gift from the airline! They were lying there in the pocket!”
“The headphones aren’t a gift! They’re for watching in-flight movies!” Peter said, admiring Meddling Aunt for pinching the airplane headphones.
“Really?” Aunt Sveta asked coldly. “Since they’re lying around and not attached, that means they are a gift! Well, I’ll find out on the Internet and if you’re right, I’ll return them on the way back!”
“And when’s the way back?” Papa wanted to hint, but Mama looked at him so severely that he kept quiet.
Aunt Sveta settled where Uncle Blahblah once lived, namely in Papa’s office. On Papa’s desk was her tablet, player, ebook reader, netbook, phone, and camera, while Papa’s laptop was ousted to another room. In passing, Aunt Sveta tried to demonstrate that Papa’s laptop was old and should be replaced promptly or at least some programs on it updated, because modern, truly talented, and original writers work “not with pitiful obsolete Word but…” Papa, however, not letting her finish, grabbed his laptop and was left alone.