A little sparrow - Воробушек

   There came a sudden gust of wind. The sky clouded over, and in the next instant a thunderstorm broke out. The kids who played in the meadow next to an abandoned manor house quickly climbed up the attic. Frightened by the thunder and blasting wind, the smudgy, wet, and shivering children cuddled up together, trying to keep warm. The roof of the house had long been run-down and leaked here and there, and the sound of doors squeaking in the wind sent chills down the kids’ spines. This abandoned manor saw no inhabitants for quite a while. High grass, mostly burdock and hemp, grew everywhere in large amounts. Only a well, which was almost untouched by time, and a wreck of a stove reminded the observer of how vibrant life used to be here.

   The hushed children, among whom stood out a tall boy named Asan, were trying to figure out how to get back to their village amidst the roar of thunder and flashing lightning. Sholpan, the only girl in the group, uttered “Mummy, mummy, help me” each time she heard the thunder. Kosym silenced Sholpan’s whimpers angrily: “If you go on like that, I’ll push you off the roof”. Another boy named Sasha stood up for Sholpan: “Do that, and you’ll follow her immediately”. Distracted by their own quarrel, the children did not notice the heavy rain subside, the wind slow down, and the sun appear from behind the leaden clouds. After a while, the rain ceased completely, and storm-clouds started slowly drifting towards the mountains, east bound. There the lightning was still shining, and the thunder continued to roar.

   Silence fell, and one could clearly hear the occasional sound of large crystal rain drops that slowly slid down the leaves and hit the ground. But suddenly the silence was disturbed by anxious chirping of a sparrow. One second the bird flew up a detached bush, the next it landed on the ground, and immediately flew up the tree once more. The sparrow was making distressed chirping noises and had its tail tucked. And the next moment the astonished children witnessed a truly terrible sight: a little sparrow fledgling, all damp and fuzzy, sat on the ground, completely disoriented and shivering with cold. Only about two meters away from it there stood a striped, gray cat. Gird for a jump, this little green-brown-eyed predator was staring at a tiny living creature of a bird. In another instant the fledgling could have been in the cat’s clutches. This is what made the sparrow chirp with alarm and anxiety, made it fly up and down again, mad with fear for its fluffy fledgling.

   And then a miracle happened: “Shoo! Shoo! Get away! Leave it! Go away!” the children shouted loudly, while the nimblest of the clique - the boy named Sasha - cast aside his fear, and, letting out a furious cry, quickly rushed down the attic and straight up to the little sparrow. The cat had not expected for Sasha to make such a prompt leap, and so the feline stepped back, but did not run away, keeping its eyes fixed on the tiny bird. Following Sasha, the other children climbed down the attic and ran towards the cat. Only then did the striped feline nimbly slip away into the bushes and disappear. Kasym picked up the chilled and fuzzy sparrow and offered to take it home, where they can feed it and keep it warm. “This bird won’t eat anything out of our hands”, - warned Sholpan. “But what are we to do?”, - Asan interjected. “First, let’s keep it warm”, - said Sasha, taking off his shirt and gently wrapping the fledgling with it.

   Meanwhile, the adult sparrow, having calmed down a bit at first, began its persistent chirping anew, flying from branch to branch. And when the sparrow once again flew up to the thick branches of an old elm tree, the children heard a squeak from about 3 or 4 meters above the ground. Lanky and seemingly clumsy Asan appeared to be a quick thinker: he rushed to the elm and started climbing it skillfully, soon reaching the tree fork. There, among the thick branches of the left stem, Asan saw a neat nest with another hungry, open-mouthed fledgling demanding food. There was no doubt that the sparrow the children picked up fell out of this very nest during the thunderstorm.


   The other kids, chilled and quite soaked, forgot about their own troubles, thinking of how to keep the little sparrow warm and to feed it. Just then they heard Asan’s voice. He shouted: “I found the nest, I found the nest, give the sparrow to me, give it to me quickly, in the nest it will warm up faster, and the mother of the fledglings will feed them”. That is how, thanks to the efforts of the children, the little sparrow was not only saved from the claws of a striped cat, but also returned to its nest. When Asan joined his friends, the mother sparrow, having calmed down, disappeared into the thick leaves of an old elm tree. There the tenderly and gently chirping bird spread her wings to warm her babies. Dragonflies and grasshoppers that the mother put into widely opened yellow mouths of her fledglings quickly disappeared, filling their tiny bellies.

   Filled with pride and a peculiar sense of joy, the children did not notice that it has been quite a while since the thunderstorm had stopped, and a gorgeous wide rainbow appeared in the east, stretching across the sky from one edge of the earth to another. The grubby and happy kids sighed in relief, and, forgetting the cold and soaked clothes, ran toward their village together.

Воробушек-перевод с русского ЕКАТЕРИНЫ КУРОВОЙ