I found this lovely old book on a dusty shelf in the school English office and was allowed to borrow it for a while. It's full of short stories and fables which are just special. They are very simple and that might be what makes them so lovely. The stories are in English but everything else is in Russian :D and in Cyrillic so I am not able to read it(although I attended a Russian club for a year when I was 9 haha). So as you go through the text, you find a few words with numbers that are explained in the bottom of the page with definitions in Russian. I think this fact makes the book even more valuable. I thought I would share one of the stories with you.
The policeman's horse
Once upon a time there was a very naughty police horse, whose name was Harry, and a rather naughty policeman, too, whose name was Arthur.
Arthur, dressed in his blue uniform with his truncheon by his side, used to ride through London mounted on Harry the horse. Harry liked following the buses that crawled slowly along in the traffic and breathing on the back window till it was all misty. Then Arthur leant forward in the sadle and, with his finger, he would draw faces on the misty window, which made Harry laugh.
But they were so busy, Harry following the buses and breathing on the window, and Arthur drawing faces, that they never had time to catch any burglars. So the Inspector at the police station, whose name was Reginald, said to the police sergant one morning :"Sergeant!" "Yes, sir!"said the sergeant, standing at attention and saluting. "Sergeant!" said Reginald, "why doesn't Arthur catch burglars?" "I dont know, sir," said the sergeant. "Well, find out Sergeant, there's a good chap," said Inspector Reginald. "Yes, sir!" said George (that was the sergeant's name), and saluted again. Then he went out and got on his horse, which was a very good horse and never breathed on the back of buses, and rode down the street to see if he could find Harry and Arthur and see what they were up to. Then he saw them. There was Harry breathing on the back window of a bus to make it misty and Arthur leaning forward and drawing a picture on it. "Oh, they are naughty!“"said Seargeant George. "Still, it would be rather fun, wouldn't it?" So he edged his horse up behind a bus so that it breathed on the back window. Then he leant forward and drew a picture of Inspector Reginald on the glass with his finger. And another policeman saw him and thought it would be fun too. After that, all the policemen's horses started to follow buses and breathe on the windows so that the policemen riding them could draw pictures.
And all burglars were very surprised because the policemen were so busy drawing that they never came to arrest them any more. „I wonder what has happened to the the policemen?“ they said, and they went and looked and saw that the policemen were drawing on the windows of the backs of the buses. "What fun!“"said the burglars, and they all went and stopped being burglars and bought horses instead so that they could breathe on the bus windows for them to draw pictures, too.
The head policeman of all London was very pleased about that, so he sent for Harry and Arthur. "You are both very clever!" he said, and made Arthur a sergeant.
After I had read this story, I went outside and as I was walking down the street I saw two policemen riding horses! That is a rare thing to see in the town where I'm from.
I had never been so happy to see policemen before.
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