Funny Children's Stories. Bilingual Edition

И мы с ним опять вспомнили про то, что рассказывал физик. И Глеб сказал, что это здорово, что русские учёные и изобретатели очень наблюдательны. Очень здорово, что братья Черепановы обратили внимание на кастрюлю, Попов смотрел на круги на воде, а Можайский наблюдал птиц.

И я сказал, что хорошо было бы спросить нашего физика, как изобрели электричество. Потому что я подозреваю, что того, кто изобрёл электричество, наверное, ударило молнией. И я только боялся, что Глеб может на меня обидеться за это.

Но Глеб не обиделся на меня, а засмеялся и сказал, что он тоже так думает. И добавил, что тот, кто изобрёл электричество, был очень наблюдателен. Потому что, если бы он не был наблюдателен, то он мог бы и не заметить, что его ударило молнией. И тогда он ни за что не изобрёл бы электричество.

My Friend Gleb Paramonov

My friend Gleb Paramonov does not do too well in school. But he does not do too badly either. Though I think he could have been one of the top students. But he does not find school interesting, and he often complains to me about it.

But today he suddenly admitted to me that he liked physics lessons. He said that he loved the stories our physics teacher told us about different inventions and discoveries. And that he really liked listening to our physics teacher explain how inventors came up with interesting ideas.

And we started to remember the time when our physics teacher told us about Russian scientists and inventors. He said that they were very observant. That was why Russians made all the most important discoveries and inventions.

Our physics teacher told us how, once, the Cherepanov brothers were sitting in the kitchen while something was cooking on the stove in a large saucepan under a heavy cover. And when everything in the saucepan was fully cooked, the cover was knocked off by vapor. And someone in the kitchen said, “Wow! That's some force!”

And the Cherepanov brothers thought that vapor really is a powerful force. And shortly thereafter they invented the steam locomotive.

Our physics teacher also told us about Popov who was once sitting on the bank of a river, throwing pebbles into the water. He was looking at how the circles were spreading out and figured that perhaps other types of waves might travel the same way too. Afterwards, he invented the radio. And later everyone began to call the invention by the name of its inventor — Popov’s radio.

The physics teacher also asked us whether we knew what else Russians had invented. And one boy raised his hand and said that Russians had invented everything. And the physics teacher praised him for his excellent answer but said that he had been hoping for some specific examples.

Then another boy raised his hand and said that Russians invented the horse. He said that later, everyone began to call the horse by the name of its inventor — Przhevalsky’s horse.

Then our teacher said that he had something different in mind. He was hoping that one of us would recall Mozhaisky. And he began to tell us how Mozhaisky had looked at flying birds. But he had not looked at those birds that were flapping their wings. He had looked at those that were just hovering in the air with their wings stretched out. And he soon invented the airplane.

Then I asked Gleb whether there was anything else he liked about school. And Gleb answered that there was nothing else he liked. But he especially hated geography lessons.

Well, it was not news since I and everyone else already knew that Gleb hates geography. It all began when Gleb got a completely undeserved two in geography. And today Gleb and I once again remembered all the details of that story.

We remembered everything from the start, from the moment when our geography teacher showed up in our classroom for the first time. She surprised us from the very beginning. She entered the classroom and, for some reason, did not say “Hello.” The first thing she said was that she hated when someone did anything on the sly. And then she spent the entire class telling us that she did not mind joking. But the joke had to be witty. Only then would it count as a good joke.

When the geography teacher came to our class for the second time, she again, did not say a word about geography. She just kept telling us about how she loved good jokes and hated when someone just sat very quietly at his desk and did things on the sly.

And I did not know how I should behave in her class. I was already blamed for most of the jokes played in school, and I did not want to start with my jokes right during the first geography lessons. But I was also afraid that if I just sat there, quietly, the geography teacher would think that I was doing something on the sly.

When the bell rang, the geography teacher remembered the subject of geography and told us what we should read in the textbook for the next lesson.