I was friends in childhood with the girl Yanka. We lived in the same yard, and our mothers often intertwined tongues, walking with strollers. Then they threw us to each other if there were any problems. And even once Yankina's mother took me on vacation at sea to make her daughter more cheerful. Well, we considered each other almost brother and sister.
Yanka was an extraordinary person. And by the way, a tomboy! Most of the pranks that we started as children were invented by a friend. She was brave, funny, knew how to stand up for herself, make a slingshot or a bow, and knew by the names and surnames of all the players of the local football team - both the main squad, and even the double. She also believed in ghosts and brownies.
I remember once a couple of times she told how she saw a brownie at home. It was a little shaggy grandfather, sitting on the closet.
- Can you imagine, - Janka was choking with impressions. - I look at my shelf with linen, and suddenly a little grandpa crawls out of there, looks at me and grins … All overgrown, like a monkey, in striped pants and bast shoes! I told him: you, they say, who? And he winked at me and disappeared.
“Stop lying,” I snapped, laughing out loud. - It doesn't look like you, weaving such nonsense!
- But I'm not lying! Here is to fail me in this place right now! Do you think I'll fail? And I won't fail!
She didn't fail. I called her a fool. Yanka then pouted at me. True, we made it up pretty quickly.
And the second time she told me about the meeting with the brownie a couple of years later. Well, we were already big - about 15 years old. Yanka again saw this bearded grandfather. He walked (as she said, sneaked!) Past her room towards the kitchen, and when she noticed him and called out, he darted into a dark corner and disappeared. Yanka, of course, searched, but never found his lair. She put it this way: there must be his den somewhere in the apartment.
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“I read that they are generally very unsociable,” she told me, frowning touchingly, noticing my incredulous face. - But sometimes they still show themselves to people. If they don't like you, they can play a trick.
- Well, did your grandfather do anything to you?
- No, but I appeased him. Even then, remember, when I first noticed him in the closet. Well, when you didn't believe me.
- I don’t believe it now! - my cheeks were shaking from suppressed laughter. - And what do they coax these old people with?
- Well, milk there, sweets. Sometimes I cook rice porridge in milk for him. Sweetheart. He loves her very much. Perhaps even more candy and gingerbread.
- Yes? So what? Does he eat your offerings straight? - I didn't believe it.
- I tell you, he eats it on both cheeks.
- Have you seen with your own eyes that it is he who eats everything?
“I haven't seen it with my own eyes,” Yanka snorted. - But the saucer is empty in the morning. And we don't have cats, as you know.
- Maybe you think to the psychiatrist: they say, I have hallucinations …
- A couple of times, however, my milk remained in the saucer and sour there after two days, - Yanka pretended not to notice my rudeness.
- What? Has your uncle declared a hunger strike?
“I don’t know… But in those days something was wrong in the house… Some kind of quarrel happened between me and my parents.
As time passed, Yanka and I entered different institutes. She left for Volgograd. I married a classmate. The usual family business went.
One day I arrived home late in the evening, where a hot dinner was already waiting for me. My wife anxiously asked how I felt, otherwise, they say, I didn't look very good. And my head really was splitting, feeling sick, and I almost fell, tripping over our cat.
Well, do not complain to the peasant about such trifles! “Probably caught a virus at work,” I decided. Having hurriedly tossed my supper in myself, I went to bed with the intention of sleeping until lunch tomorrow. Fortunately, it was Friday, so there was no need to go up on the alarm clock.
I remember that at night I periodically woke up and wrapped myself in a blanket, which meant that I had a chill. I felt better only when our cat Mark came and lay down on his chest. He always slept, spread over me, but usually I drove him away after a while, and then I was even glad.
His warmth was poured over the body in a blessed healing stream. I stroked it without opening my eyes and was surprised that the wool was hard to the touch - like tow, like insulation. In general, Mark has a very soft skin - just silk! We have it very well-groomed. And we wash him every week, and he himself brings beauty for hours. Dude, in a word.
And what did he get into if the pile became like a wire ?! I thought about this, practically without waking up. Delirious, but I distinctly remember that I thought: “Wow! Again he guessed somewhere, the linen will get dirty. Irka, my wife, will yell …”I thought about all these topics, and I sleep on.
Getting up in the morning, I felt like a completely different person. No viruses, no headaches. The disease vanished as if by hand. My wife was still asleep, I made coffee and went to the loggia to smoke. And what do you think! There I found Mark, accidentally locked in the evening. He no longer even scratched the door and yelled - doomed and proudly sat in an armchair and glared at me angrily. Double-glazed windows are a great invention. Here shout, don't shout. They forgot you on the loggia, and no one will hear until morning.
A couple of times Mark has already got into this kind of trouble. I was offended, I must say, scary. The master's oversight was regarded as a malicious mockery and sulked for a couple of days, or even longer.
I rushed to the cat with gentle apologies, and I myself thought: “Wow! And who was lying on me at night ?! And who cured me from the beginning of the ailment ?!”.
I don't know why, but I immediately remembered Yanka with her brownie in striped trousers and overgrown like a monkey, according to her. Maybe I have a tenant in my house without registration? In any case (I confess to you, although I risk causing laughter), from that day on, I leave a cookie or candy in a secret place every evening.
And you know, they disappear regularly. Someone takes them away or eats them. I checked. The cookies and sweets disappear. Not every time, of course, but they disappear. You can conduct a similar experiment in your home - see what the result will be.
Oleg P., Moscow region