Funny Children's Stories. Bilingual Edition

А моя мама знает, что Серёжина мама не разрешает Серёже во дворе гулять, но почему она его туда не пускает, моя мама не знает. А когда мой папа услышал от мамы о том, что Серёжу боятся выпускать во двор, он спросил: «А дома они не боятся сидеть?» Возможно, он имел в виду постукалочку. Хотя я в этом совсем не уверен, конечно.

The Trick

There is a tradition in our yard. It is called “fly away, my coin.” This tradition is pretty cruel. And I cannot tell my mom about it because if I told her, she would probably never let me go out to the yard.

Though, I have to say, worse things happen in our yard. Once, my skull was punctured by a rock. So I was bleeding. And I got stitches in a hospital. But afterwards my mom still let me go out to the yard.

I even told my mom about the knock-knocker. And the knock-knocker, if you think about it, is also pure hooliganism.

One of our boys makes his way up to the roof. There, he ties one end of a coarse thread to something. Then he attaches a small stick to the other end of the thread and ties a small pebble in the middle of the thread.

After that, he throws the stick down from the roof. And we pick this stick up. Then we sit down somewhere on the pavement. And no one can even imagine that there is a thread tied between us and the roof.

And so, we begin to pull and let go of the thread. And the pebble, which happens to be near some window, starts to knock at that window. And almost immediately someone looks out the window and tries to see who is knocking.

As soon as this person comes to the window, we pull on our thread. We pull on our thread so that this person sees nothing. And when he walks away from the window, we begin to knock on the window again. And of course, it always ends up being very funny.

Many other things happen in our yard. And I always tell my mom about them. But I have never told my mom about the coin, and I will never tell her about it.

The tradition with the coin consists of having everyone pee on the newcomer. And everyone pees not just a little bit but in full force. So that the newcomer ends up being completely soaked.

As soon as someone new comes to our yard for the first time, we ask him right away whether he wants to see an interesting trick. The newcomer, of course, wants to see it and only asks what this trick is about. And we answer that the trick is called “fly away, my coin.” And immediately someone takes a handkerchief out of a pocket and someone else brings a coin.

So, three boys and the newcomer stand in a circle, stretch out the handkerchief, with each holding a corner of the handkerchief by his teeth. The newcomer also has to hold his corner of the handkerchief by his teeth.

This way, the handkerchief is stretched out between them. They put the coin on the handkerchief and tell the newcomer to do only one thing: to constantly repeat “fly-away-my-coin, fly-away-my-coin.” And then, they say, the coin will fly away.

And all begin to chant “fly-away-my-coin, fly-away-my-coin.” Well, of course they cannot say “fly-away-my-coin” because they are holding the handkerchief with their teeth. So they are only able to say something like “ly-aney-na-noin, ly-aney-na-noin.”

What goes on beneath the handkerchief, the newcomer does not see. Because the handkerchief obscures the view. He is only too glad to howl together with the rest, “ly-aney-na-noin, ly-aney-na-noin.” And in a couple of minutes, everyone scatters and only then does the newcomer realize what happened.

Last year it happened again with a newcomer. His name was Serge. He and his mother moved to our building at the very end of August. And when we played this joke on him, he ran straight home and never came to the yard again.

In September, he did not go to school. Everyone was saying that Serge’s mom was afraid to let him leave the room. And people from our school came to talk to her. They talked about something for a long time. And after that, Serge went to school.

When Mom first told Dad about Serge and his mother, Dad asked which room they had moved to. And Mom said that they had moved to the room that had just been vacated. “Just vacated?” asked my dad[20].

Then Mom gave Dad THE look. That meant that Dad was not supposed to ask this type of question in front of me.

Dad did not say anything. He just closed his eyes and, after a second, opened them again. That meant that he did not completely agree with Mom.

Mom raised her eyebrows. And her eyes opened wide for a second. And I understood that to mean that Mom had agreed with Dad but with some reluctance. And she replied that she did not know what happened to the previous tenants.

Serge still does not come out to play. His mom does not let him. She is still too scared.