Steklyashkin about whether there is life on the Moon or not.
During this dispute, the weightlessness device designed by Znayka (from a slide rule, a moonstone and a magnet) suddenly fails to work. Znayka becomes just a laughing stock in the presence of Steklyashkin and everyone else. In desperation, he was ready to abandon his idea, and generally quit doing science.
But on the evening of the same day, when the full moon came, Znayka realized that the moonstone only works during this period. Throwing away the weightlessness device, he again causes weightlessness and therefore decides to rush with his idea. Together with Vintik and Shpuntik, they are building a rocket.
At the same time Dunno, not knowing that the weightlessness device is working again, steals it to test it on fish. As a result, he almost drowns the device in the river. For this, Znayka removes him from flying to the moon, and then Dunno decides to hide in a rocket at night in order to fly secretly. Together with him, he takes Donut, who was not taken to the moon due to the fact that he is very heavy, and allegedly he will not be lifted by a rocket. In the rocket, they climb into bags of seeds (Dunno - into pumpkin, Donut - into watermelon) and plan to sleep until morning.
When Dunno falls asleep, Donut, having changed his mind about flying, tries to get out of the rocket, but before leaving, frightened by the toad overboard the rocket (she was also scared to such an extent that she fell down), from fear she falls into the rocket control cabin and accidentally launches it. As a result, he and Dunno fly to the moon, and none of the inhabitants of the Flower City notice this.
Waking up already in space, Dunno first discovers that there is no one in the rocket but them. Then he collides with the Znayka-1 on-board computer and argues with him who is in charge in the rocket. This leads to the fact that the computer ceases to control the flight, and the rocket that has already flown up to the moon begins to fall on it. In fact, nothing terrible would have happened, since the missile was controlled automatically.
After that, Donut admits to Dunno that he accidentally launched the rocket. At the last moment, Dunno manages to make peace with the computer, and the rocket lands on the moon. Dunno and Donut exit the rocket, and Dunno falls into the crater, which actually turns out to be a through passage through the Moon's outer surface to the inner core. It is inhabited by the same shorties as Dunno, there are monetary relations between them, and the plants correspond to the growth of the shorties themselves.
After dinner in a restaurant, the waiter asks Dunno to pay the bill. However, he reports that he does not know what money is, as a result of which he ends up in prison. There, he tells the inmates about giant earth plants and their seeds brought to the moon in a rocket. This story catches the attention of one of the prisoners, Migi. He gives Dunno a letter and asks, after his release, to hand it over to the arms dealer Julio, Migi's friend.
After leaving the prison, Dunno again meets with Asterisk. It turns out that she was fired for publishing an article that the chemical plants of the local oligarch Spruts pollute the air. Dunno and Star go to Julio, who takes Migu out of prison, having paid a bribe for him. They decide to create a Joint Stock Company of Giant Plants in order to obtain money through the sale of its shares to build an aircraft and take the seeds of giant plants from the surface of the Moon.
Then Miga and Julio arrange an advertising campaign for the society on television. This society is of interest to the lunar rich (especially Mr. Spruts), most of whom are engaged in the production of artificial food. They are afraid of competition from giant plants and are trying to prevent the delivery of seeds from the surface of the moon. Spruts' chief manager, Krabs, bribes Miga and Julio for half a million furthings to shut down the Giant Plant Society and disappear with the money.
Meanwhile, Donut leaves the rocket, where he had previously eaten all the food supplies, and also falls through inner core Moon. He learns that the locals do not eat table salt, and organizes a business for the extraction and sale of salt. As a result, Donut becomes a millionaire, and everyone calls him Mr. Ponch.
The discovery of a suit that belonged to Donut makes Spruts think about a massive alien invasion. To prevent this, Spruts and other rich people are collecting three billion furthings to destroy a rocket with seeds on the surface of the moon. At the same time, the owner of the tobacco factory, Skooperfield, refuses to participate in the fundraising, and Spruts instructs Krabs to deal with him.
At this time, Dunno and Zvezdochka are trying to find Migu and Julio, but they fail, and they are forced to spend the night on the street, under the bridge. Because of Dunno, who promised Kozlik to look after the fire (“Yes, I don’t sleep at all!”) And did not justify his trust, the fire went out, and Asterisk caught a cold. She is in mortal danger. To call a doctor for Star, Dunno tries to earn money, but he is driven from everywhere. Finally, having got a job as a nanny for Roald and Mimi - Mrs. Lamprey's crocodiles, he walks them in the park, and then performs on stage with the song "A grasshopper sat in the grass." For this, Dunno receives money from the audience and pays for the services of Dr. Syringe to treat Asterisk.
But immediately after that, due to the complaint of Lamprey (at the time of joining the job, she categorically forbade him to hobnob with the homeless), Dunno and Zvezdochka are caught by the police, led by Inspector Migle, and sent to Fools Island, where everyone has fun. There, Star learns from his former boss, editor Grizzly, also exiled to the island (he tried to catch Star, but was captured by the police on suspicion of trying to rob Klops) that under the sea there is special system(it is powered by rides), which absorbs the joy of all who live on this island. This joy serves as energy for the plants of the Spruts, and under the influence of air polluted by the plants, the little ones turn into sheep and rams.
At this time, on Earth, Steklyashkin, through a telescope, discovers the missing Znaika rocket on the Moon. Realizing that Dunno and Donut are in the same place, Znayka and other shorties from the Earth build a second rocket with more powerful engines (since they did not have a moonstone for making a spare weightlessness device) and go to the moon to save Dunno and Donut. After reaching its surface and moving into the compact first rocket, they go inside the moon, where, using a weightless device, they defeat the policemen sent to confront the predicted alien invasion.
Donut notices the rocket and comes to the astronauts himself. Together they fly out for Dunno and Zvezdochka to the Island of Fools, where Dunno has almost turned into a ram, and evacuate all its inhabitants from the island, teleporting all the attractions. As a result, this contributes to the cessation of energy generation for Spruts factories connected to the island in a single network. They stop and stop smoking, the power grid collapses, and Fools Island goes under water. Having learned about this from the news on TV, Spruts, in a rage, pogroms in his house.
Shorty earthlings distribute seeds of giant plants to the inhabitants of the Moon and return to Earth. Coming out of the rocket, Dunno rejoices at the sun he saw after a long time, after which he says that now they "can again go somewhere on a journey." Chamomile points Dunno to his windy incorrigibility, to which he, climbing a sunflower, replies that if he is corrected, then they will all just be bored with life.
Presentation version
There is a presentation version of the cartoon lasting one and a half hours, released on videocassettes in 1999, which uses fragments that were not included in the final version during editing. The action of this version takes place after the trip to the moon. Standing at the pulpit in the hall where the dispute between Znayka and Steklyashkin unfolded, Dunno retells to the viewer his version of the journey.
The plot of this version is very different from the main one, since, first of all, the creators tried to explain the unusual properties of the moonstone, which is actually a meteorite. Such stones were traditionally used by the lunar rich as a source of energy. One of these stones fell instead of the Moon to the Earth and was used to obtain artificial weightlessness. Due to the lack of stone, the Moon is threatened by an energy crisis.
Every day, Spruts monitors the stability of the power plant located under the island of Fools. It is in it that such stones are used. Spruts and Krabs are busy searching Dunno. Krabs, in a special suit made in the form of a Maybug and allowing him to fly and be in space, tracked down the protagonist - he even visited Earth and ran into Dunno just at the moment when the latter found the stone.
Throughout the story, the lunar rich are trying to take away a valuable mineral from Dunno, and send him to the island of Fools. The island does not have any of the rides that are in the original version of the film. There are many inconsistencies and plot failures in the presentation version. In the opening credits, the version itself is called a presentation, and in the closing credits - a film version: most likely, there was an attempt by FAF Entertainment to remount all 12 episodes into a full-length cartoon that could be released to the cinema.
Characters
Main characters
- Dunno - main character movie. Sneaked into the rocket at night to fly with the others to the moon. Favorite phrases: "I'm not responsible for myself!" and "I know you!".
- Znayka- a short scientist who discovered the moon rock, designed a weightlessness device and led the preparations for the lunar expedition. When Steklyashkin saw that the rocket was on the Moon and told the others about it, Znayka refused to participate, believing that Dunno and Donut were to blame. Later, he apologizes to everyone and, together with Steklyashkin, leads the construction of a new rocket. In the 11th episode, together with Vintik, Shpuntik, Dr. Pilyulkin and Donut, they went to the Island of Fools to save Dunno and Zvezdochka, and in the next episode they already found them. Favorite phrase: "So it is!".
- Star- a friend of Dunno and a former journalist for Lunar Newspaper. In episode 5, she wrote an article in the newspaper about Spruts' chemical plants causing damage, for which she was fired. Afterwards, Starlight protests and demands that the factories be closed. Performs the same role that a short man named Kozlik played in the book. In the 12th episode, it turned out that Asterisk fell in love with Dunno.
- Donut- Dunno's best friend, known for his irrepressible appetite, who ends up on the moon with Dunno. When they infiltrated the rocket in Episode 3, he changed his mind about flying and accidentally launched the rocket. After Dunno ended up in the Sublunar World, Donut returned to the rocket, where he ate a year's supply of food. In episode 8, it is revealed that it took him (i.e. Donut) 7 days, 11 hours, 38 minutes and 6 seconds. As a result, he exits the rocket and falls into the same crater as Dunno. In the Sublunar World, Donut organizes his business of mining and selling salt, but completely forgets about the search for Dunno, although he only says that he will look for him. When Znayka, Vintik, Shpuntik and Dr. Pilyulkin flew into the moon on a rocket in the 11th episode, Donut was reunited with them. They all went to the Island of Fools to save Dunno and Star, and in the 12th episode they already found them. Favorite phrase: "You can't break the diet!".
- Pilyulkin- Doctor of the Flower City. He constantly threatens to treat everyone with castor oil and put mustard plasters (this was not in the original book, because there his image became more positive, and in the first two books there was no mention of mustard plasters at all). Together with Znayka, Vintik and Shpuntik, on his own initiative, he went inside the moon. In the 11th episode, they all went to the Island of Fools to save Dunno and Zvezdochka, and in the next episode they already found them.
- cog And Shpuntik- the mechanics who built the rocket under the guidance of Znayka. In the 11th episode, they went with him and Dr. Pilyulkin into the interior of the moon. When Donut reunited with them, they went to the Island of Fools to save Dunno and Star, and in the 12th episode they already found them.
- Steklyashkin- astronomer and scientific opponent of Znayka (later his friend and colleague). Claims that there is no life on the moon. In the 10th episode, he saw a rocket on the Moon through a telescope, and in the next Znayka, before flying into the Moon, leaves him (that is, Steklyashkin) as a captain. Favorite phrase: "Yes, yes, and yes again!".
- Chamomile- baby from the Flower City. He treats Dunno well and believes that he is telling the truth. In love with him, just like Star.
- front sight- Chamomile's friend. He does not believe that Dunno really found a stone that broke off from the moon itself. I am sure that Dunno mixed up something or simply invented it.
- Spruts- the main antagonist of the film, the richest inhabitant of the moon, a billionaire and chairman of the Big Bradlam (that is, the main capitalist syndicate). The owner of factories for the production of synthetic food products, as well as Lunnaya Gazeta and the Lun-TV channel. Its factories pollute the air. He prevents the dissemination of information about it in every way. In addition, it is because of him that shorties are sent to Fun Island to keep his factories running. As a result, the island was submerged, the factories stopped, and this meant that it was ruined.
- Migle- Lunar police inspector and secondary antagonist. At the first appearance, it conducts registration of offenses and preliminary inquiry. In other series, he commands squads of police sent to raid and eliminate riots. Has flat humor. According to biometric data, he mistakenly identified the arrested Dunno as a dangerous criminal Amanita. In the 5th series, Migl figured out the Asterisk, but she hit him on the head with a plywood poster mounted on a stick, as a result of which he began to pursue her and Dunno everywhere. In episode 9, he caught them under a bridge and sent them to Stupid Island. When Znayka and the others arrived at Lunar City in Episode 11, Inspector Migl and other police officers attempted to fire on the rocket. But, being in a state of weightlessness, they flew away in an unknown direction.
- Miga- a petty swindler who met Dunno in jail. Slightly stutters. In the 5th series, before the release of Dunno, he gives him a letter for Julio.
- Julio- a small businessman, a friend of Migi and the owner of a store of various goods (that is, a weapons store). He likes to use nylon stockings to choke someone. He came up with the idea of creating a joint stock company of giant plants. As a result, together with Miga, he destroyed the Giant Plant Society and fled with the money.
- Krabs- General manager Spruts. He suffers from a runny nose and occasionally sneezes violently. Has connections in underworld and does not hesitate to use criminal methods. In episode 7, he bribed Miga and Julio for half a million furthings, and in episode 9, he hung Scooperfield from a tree. In the 11th episode, they, together with Amanita, robbed the Lunar Bank, where they brought 3 billion ferthings collected from members of the Big Bradlam to destroy the rocket.
- Grizzly- Editor-in-Chief of the Lunar Newspaper, the issue of which is financed by Spruts. On the orders of the latter, he fired Zvyozdochka from the editorial office (he did this out of fear of being fired for a mistake). He was later detained by the police on suspicion of trying to rob Klops. During the search, a ticket to Stupid Island was found on him, which he was going to give to Star. As a result, Grizzly was sent to the aforementioned island. There, he told (or rather sang to) Star what Wacky Island was, and then was evacuated along with everyone else and received the seeds of giant plants.
- scooperfield is a lunar oligarch and artificial tobacco factory owner, known for his pathological greed. He pretends to be deaf so that they do not pay attention to him, saying something important, and he was able to find out everything he needed. Since Scooperfield's factory produces tobacco products, in episode 11, Spruts takes out a cigar from a cigarette case, inside of which is a logo in the form of a profile of the factory owner, namely Scooperfield.
Minor characters
flower city
- Grumpy- grumbling shorty, always dissatisfied with everything. Silent's friend.
- silent- a short man who is always silent, and a constant companion of Grumpy.
- hasty- Resident of the Flower City. He is in a hurry all the time and does not sit still.
- confusion- Shorty, prone to losing everything.
- syrup- shorty who loves syrup and other delicious drinks.
- Tube- artist. He flew with Znaika to the moon.
- String bag And sky- twin brothers. They became famous for the fact that they liked to do everything at random (at random). Favorite words: for Avoska - “maybe”, and for Neboska, respectively, “probably”.
- flower- poet. He composes poetry when the heroes were looking for Dunno and Donut, and under the leadership of Steklyashkin they built a second rocket.
- Guslya- musician. Appears only at the very beginning of the 1st series.
- button
- flower radio- wired radio of the Flower City. Loudspeakers are hung on street poles.
- Govorilkin and Kolokolchik- presenters of the Flower Radio. The voices are the same as those of Znayka and the Znayka-1 computer.
Sublunar world
- Fix- Klops' gardener. Caught Dunno eating a pear. When in episode 7 Dunno, Star, Miga and Julio arrived at night to pick up Dunno's suit, the last two (i.e. Miga and Julio) were disguised as police officers to "arrest" Fix and get him out of the way, since he was guarding the entrance armed with a gun.
- Klops- the owner of the garden where Dunno ended up. Pride is a very large pear that Dunno ate right after landing on the moon in episode 4. In the same place, Klops poisoned Dunno with crocodiles. In the 7th series, Dunno, Star, Miga and Julio came to him for a spacesuit, but Klops fell into a trap, which the editor Grizzly had set up earlier to catch Star.
- The owner of a fun booth- dresses like a clown and entices passers-by to leave the balls as a volunteer. The entertainment consisted of hitting a volunteer in the face with a ball, standing behind a curtain with a hole in the face to prevent dodge. He pays 3 furthings to the one who stands after all the blows. Favorite phrase: " Simple/resolved issue: Drop it, don't get mad! Blow your nose - you'll get a prize! For the first time Dunno meets him in the 4th series after he escaped from the Klops garden. When in the 9th episode Dunno was looking for a job, he decided to become a volunteer. Angry that he was hit, he throws balls at the visitors of a cheerful booth and fights with the owner, breaking the building in the process.
- Waiter- served Dunno when he came to the restaurant. Since he didn't pay for dinner, this caused the waiter to call the police. In episode 8, he also serves Donut, and in the next episode Dunno tries to get a job in a restaurant, but breaks the dishes. Then the waiter kicks him out (probably reminded him of the previous violation). It is impossible to say for sure whether he is the owner of the restaurant, since no others have been seen, as well as the owner of the establishment. However, when Dunno came to hire a waiter, the latter filled out some forms, so he probably still plays a leadership role.
- fly agaric- the famous bandit and raider, with whom Inspector Migl confused Dunno. One-eyed, similar in appearance and hairstyle to Dunno. He hides under the mask of a beggar and feeds on alms. Armed with a machine gun and a blowpipe with nails. He robbed 33 banks, 147 stores and ate 321 dinners without paying a cent. In the 11th episode, together with Krabs, he robbed a bank in which there were 3 billion ferthings collected by the rich to destroy the rocket. During the chase, he shot back from the police with a machine gun and, having spent all the ammunition, set in motion a blowpipe with a nail, breaking through the left front wheel of a police car.
- Handsome- no less famous thief and swindler. Fly agaric's partner in his criminal cases. He identified Dunno at the trial, but did not recognize him as his boss. In the book, it was he who was the bandit for whom Migl took Dunno.
- Leading channel "Lun-TV"- Leads the news bulletin on the main channel.
- Wrigl- Judge in Lunar City. Wears a robe and cap. In the 5th series in the court, Migl has a conversation with him (that is, Wrigl).
- Organ grinder- advertises the island of Fools. Also, in Episode 9, he was eating a fish sandwich that was eaten by one of Lady Lamprey's crocodiles, namely Roald. After that, the organ grinder participated in a performance with Dunno when he had already found a job, but wanted to raise money for the treatment of Asterisk as quickly as possible. In the 12th episode, he received the seeds of giant plants and watched the launch of the rocket.
- The operator of the channel "Lun-TV"- uttered the phrase: “Let the astronaut speak!”.
- Doctor Syringe- unlike the book, he is thin and tall. He is sometimes advertised on TV, and also does not miss the opportunity for self-promotion when Know-Nothing was filmed for the news. In episode 9, he treated Star. When in the 12th episode, earthlings distribute seeds to lunatics, Pilyulkin communicates with him.
- haps- the owner of the hotel where Dunno was filmed in a spacesuit.
- Group The Moon Brothers(literally - "Moon brothers")- plays in the restaurant when he ate Donut there. After he told two patrons that he was sprinkling salt on the porridge, they asked the group The Moon Brothers what it is. One of its participants (double bass player) replies that this is a note.
- Donut Butler- in episode 8 he helps Donut get ready for bed, and in episode 11 he wakes him up.
- Tups, Dubs, jading And Skryagins- other rich people who united in Bradlam.
- goat- like other homeless people, he lives under a bridge. He scolds Dunno when he did not follow the fire. Later, when Dunno and Star are captured by the police and taken to Fool's Island, Kozlik takes their suitcase. In episode 11, after the arrival of Znayka and the others, he gives them this suitcase (which actually belonged to Mige and Julio and which contained at least half a million ferthings). In the next series, I received the seeds of giant plants and watched the launch of the rocket.
- Lamprey- the owner of crocodiles (in the book, she, like Mr. Klops, is the owner of dogs). Unlike the book, she doesn't like being argued with, even when it isn't. Favorite phrase: "Don't argue with me!". In the 12th episode, she received the seeds of giant plants and watched the launch of the rocket.
- Roald(in the book - Roland) And Mimi- tame crocodiles of Mrs. Lamprey, whom Dunno looked after after the death of the Society of Giant Plants. They participated in a performance with Dunno (when he raised money for the treatment of Asterisk) and an organ grinder.
- Astronomer- at his conference, he tells the capitalists about the results of their graviton telescope. When, in the 12th episode, earthlings distribute seeds to lunatics, Znayka communicates with him.
- Special correspondent of the Lun-TV channel- is reporting from the bottom of the sea, watching how the power plant under the Fool's Island is being destroyed, after which he involuntarily gets acquainted with weightlessness, recognizing that it is a miracle, and interviews Znayka and Zvezdochka.
On-board computers
- "Znayka-1"- the main computer of general control in the rocket, on which Dunno and Donut flew to the moon. It was created by the mind and hands of Znayka. In the 3rd episode, he argued with Dunno who is in charge, and in the 8th episode he scolded Donut for eating too much.
- "Znayka-2"- the main computer of general control in the new rocket. He criticized Dr. Pilyulkin.
The image of both computers is a loudspeaker flying in a state of weightlessness and showing a semblance of facial expressions.
Creators
Roles voiced
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Venus Rakhimova | Dunno (all episodes except episode 10) |
| Kristina Orbakaite | Asterisk (4-9th and 11-12th series) |
| Svetlana Stepchenko | Donut (1-4, 8 and 11-12 episodes) Cog (1-2 and 10-12 series) |
| Clara Rumyanova | Chamomile (1-3 and 10-12 series) Lamprey (9th series) Chamomile (1-3rd and 10-12th series) |
| Alexander Lenkov | Steklyashkin (2nd and 10-12th series) Haps (7th episode) |
| Artyom Karapetyan | Spruts (5, 7-8 and 11-12 episodes) |
| Alexander Pozharov | Miga (4th-9th series) one of the members of the group "The Moon Brothers" (8th series) Miga (4-9th series) |
| Boris Shuvalov | Krabs (6-9th and 11th series) operator of the Lun-TV channel (7th episode) |
| Alexander Ryzhkov | Fix (4th and 7th series) 1st prisoner (4th series) |
| Alexey Borzunov | Znayka (1-3 and 10-12 series) "Znayka-1" (3-4, 8 and 11 series) |
| Irina Byakova | Front sight (1-2 and 10-11 series) |
| Mikhail Kononov | Grizzly (5-7th and 12th series) Grizzly (5-7th and 12th series) |
| Valery Barinov | Migl (4-5, 7, 9 and 11 episodes) |
| Rudolf Pankov | Julio (series 6-9) Julio (series 6-9) |
| Yuri Sarantsev | Klops (4th and 7th series) 2nd prisoner (4th series) |
| Yan Yanakiev | waiter (4th and 8-9th series) waiter (4th and 8-9th series) |
Uncredited
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Svetlana Kharlap | Hurry (2nd and 10th series) Shpuntik (1-2 and 10-12 series) |
| Lyudmila Shuvalova | episode episode |
| Ekaterina Korabelnik | episode episode |
| Tatyana Rodionova | episode episode |
| Yuri Yurash | episode episode |
| Irina Gubanova | host of the Lun-TV channel (5, 7 and 12 episodes) |
| Igor Klimovich | Handsome (Episode 5) Doobs (Episode 8) Pretty Boy (Episode 5) |
| Valery Tolkov | scientist-astronomer (episode 11) scientist-astronomer (episode 11) |
| Vyacheslav Baranov | Flower (episode 10) the owner of a cheerful booth (9th series) |
| Vladimir Mikhitarov | shorty looking like Donut (Episode 5) Dr. Syringe (Episode 7 & 9) Donut-like shorty (Episode 5) |
| Yuri Menshagin | 2nd restaurant visitor (episode 8) |
| Alexander Voevodin | Kozlik (9th and 11th series) Kozlik (9th and 11th series) |
List of episodes
- Moonstone Mystery
- The grandiose plan of Znayka
- Dunno and Donut fly to the moon
- First day on the moon
- Star
- "Dear friends
- Giant Plants Joint Stock Company
- Big Bredlam
- Stranger looking for a job
- Where did the rocket go?
- Znaika hurries to the rescue
- Way home
Production
When creating, the classic technology of full animation was used (“The Little Humpbacked Horse” and “The Tale of the Tsar Saltan”), which was not used for a long time in the 1990s due to the high cost. At the same time, the big two-year gap between parts 1 and 2 was due to the fact that the cartoon was created using a rather outdated technology, when the contours of the characters were manually transferred to sheets of celluloid, although in the animation of that time this was already done using automatic copying.
Venera Rakhimova voiced Dunno not only in this film, but also in Grigory Gladkov's radio show The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends (1995).
For the period of filming, the FAF Entertainment studio rented premises in the film studio named after M. Gorky and immediately after the animation process was completed, it moved to Tsentrnauchfilm, where the cartoon was edited. Since the rent at the Gorky film studio was very expensive, there was no money to transport the animation materials, which is why almost all the original celluloids were thrown away at that time.
Trial
Ultimately, Igor Nosov filed a lawsuit against Egmont Russia LTD (which produced all printed materials based on the cartoon) and Vremya AV (which produced children's sandbox molds called Dunno), but at the end of 2003, Per Gynt") - Mikhail Kononov
The opening sequence used in the VHS version before the last 6 episodes, as well as in the TV version of the film, features Johann Strauss' "Perpetuum mobile" melody.
Soundtrack
- Solveig song (remix)
- Flower City Theme
- Baby Moon
- Weightlessness
- wonderful island
- The triumph of Znayka
- Steklyashkin telescope
- Duet Dunno and Stars
- Mischief Dunno
- fish dance
- Donut Song
- Dream Dunno
- Dunno and Chamomile
- Song about a grasshopper
- moon city
- Cave of the Mountain King (remix)
- Stranger in prison
- Song of the brave rescuers
- Gun shop
- Series 5 finale
- Grizzly Song
- Series 7 potpourri
- Robbery
- Chamomile Song
- The collapse of Spruts
- Series 9 finale
- Dunno on the Moon
How did "Dunno on the Moon"
This TV documentary was filmed in 1999. It tells about how the animated series was filmed and how cartoons are made. There are two options: the first - made specifically for television, the second - published on DVD as an appendix to the film.
Two and a half years have passed since Dunno made a trip to the Sunny City. Although for you and me this is not so much, but for little shorties, two and a half years is a very long time. After listening to the stories of Dunno, Knopochka, and Patchkula Pyostrenky, many of the little ones also made a trip to the Sunny City, and when they returned, they decided to make some improvements in themselves. The flower city has changed since then so that now it is unrecognizable. Many new, large and very beautiful houses appeared in it. According to the project of the architect Vertibutylkin, even two revolving buildings were built on Kolokolchikov Street. One is a five-story, tower-type, with a spiral descent and a swimming pool around (going down the spiral descent, you could dive right into the water), the other six-story, with swinging balconies, a parachute tower and a ferris wheel on the roof. A lot of cars, spiral vehicles, tube-planes, air-powered motorcycles, caterpillar all-terrain vehicles and other different vehicles appeared on the streets.
And that's not all, of course. The inhabitants of the Sunny City found out that the short men from the Flower City were engaged in construction, and came to their aid: they helped them build several so-called industrial enterprises. According to the project of the engineer Klepka, a large clothing factory was built, which produced a wide variety of clothing, from rubber bras to winter coats made of synthetic fiber. Now no one had to pore over with a needle to sew the most ordinary trousers or a jacket. At the factory, everything was done for short cars. Finished products, as in the Sunny City, were taken to stores, and there everyone already took what they needed. All the concerns of the factory workers were reduced to inventing new styles of clothing and making sure that nothing was produced that the public did not like.
Everyone was very pleased. The only one who got hurt in this case was Donut. When Donut saw that now you can take in the store any thing that you might need, he began to wonder why he needed all that pile of costumes that he had accumulated at home. All these costumes were also out of fashion, and they still could not be worn. Having chosen a darker night, Donut tied his old suits in a huge bundle, secretly took them out of the house and drowned them in the Cucumber River, and instead of them he dragged himself new suits from the stores. It ended up that his room turned into some kind of warehouse for ready-made clothes. The suits lay in his closet, and on the closet, and on the table, and under the table, and on the bookshelves, hung on the walls, on the backs of chairs, and even under the ceiling, on strings.
From such an abundance of woolen products in the house, moths divorced, and so that she would not gnaw through the suits, Donut had to poison her daily with mothballs, from which there was such a strong smell in the room that the unaccustomed little man fell down. The donut itself smelled, through and through with this stupefying smell, but he got so used to it that he even stopped noticing it. For others, however, this smell was very noticeable. As soon as Donut came to visit someone, the hosts immediately began to feel dizzy from stupefaction. Donuts were immediately chased away and all windows and doors were quickly opened wide to ventilate the room, otherwise one could faint or go crazy. For the same reason, Donut did not even have the opportunity to play with the shorties in the yard. As soon as he went out into the yard, everyone around him began to spit and, holding their noses with their hands, rushed to run away from him in different directions without looking back. Nobody wanted to hang out with him. Needless to say, for Donut it was terribly insulting, and he had to take all the costumes he did not need to the attic.
However, that was not the point. The main thing was that Znayka also visited the Sunny City. There he met the little scientists Fuchsia and Herring, who at that time were preparing their second flight to the moon. Znayka also got involved in the construction of a space rocket and, when the rocket was ready, made an interplanetary journey with Fuchsia and Herring. Arriving on the Moon, our brave travelers examined one of the small lunar craters in the region of the lunar Sea of Clarity, visited the cave, which was located in the center of this crater, and made observations on the change in gravity. On the Moon, as is known, the force of gravity is much less than on the Earth, and therefore observations of the change in the force of gravity are of great importance. scientific significance. After being on the moon for about four hours. Znayka and his companions were forced to set off as soon as possible on the return journey, since their air supplies were running out. Everyone knows that there is no air on the Moon, and in order not to suffocate, you should always take a supply of air with you. In condensed form, of course.
Returning to the Flower City, Znayka talked a lot about his journey. Everyone was very interested in his stories, and especially the astronomer Steklyashkin, who more than once observed the Moon through a telescope. Through his telescope, Steklyashkin managed to discern that the surface of the Moon is not flat, but mountainous, and many mountains on the Moon are not like ours on Earth, but for some reason are round, or rather, ring-shaped. Scientists call these ring mountains lunar craters, or cirques. To understand what such a lunar circus, or crater, looks like, imagine a huge round field, twenty, thirty, fifty or even a hundred kilometers across, and imagine that this huge round field is surrounded by an earthen rampart or mountain only two or three kilometers high. , - so you get a lunar circus, or a crater. There are thousands of such craters on the Moon. There are small ones - about two kilometers, but there are also gigantic ones - up to one hundred and forty kilometers in diameter.
Many scientists are interested in the question of how lunar craters formed, from what they came from. In the Solar City, all the astronomers even quarreled among themselves, trying to resolve this complex issue, and were divided into two halves. One half claims that lunar craters originated from volcanoes, the other half says that lunar craters are traces of the fall of large meteorites. Therefore, the first half of astronomers are called followers of the volcanic theory or simply volcanists, and the second - followers of the meteorite theory or meteorites.
Znayka, however, did not agree with either the volcanic or meteorite theory. Even before traveling to the moon, he created his own theory of the origin of lunar craters. Once, together with Steklyashkin, he observed the Moon through a telescope, and it struck him that the lunar surface is very similar to the surface of a well-baked pancake with its spongy holes. After that, Znayka often went to the kitchen and watched pancakes being baked. He noticed that while the pancake is liquid, its surface is completely smooth, but as it is heated in a frying pan, bubbles of heated steam begin to appear on its surface. Having stepped on the surface of the pancake, the bubbles burst, as a result of which shallow holes form on the pancake, which remain when the dough is properly baked and loses viscosity.
Znayka even wrote a book in which he wrote that the surface of the moon was not always hard and cold, as it is now. Once upon a time, the Moon was a Fiery-liquid, that is, a ball heated to a molten state. Gradually, however, the surface of the moon cooled and became no longer liquid, but viscous, like dough. From the inside, it was still very hot, so hot gases escaped to the surface in the form of huge bubbles. Having come to the surface of the Moon, these bubbles, of course, burst. But while the surface of the Moon was still quite liquid, the traces of the bursting bubbles tightened and disappeared, leaving no trace, just as bubbles do not leave a trace on water during rain. But when the surface of the Moon cooled down to such an extent that it became thick like dough or like molten glass, the traces from the bursting bubbles no longer disappeared, but remained in the form of rings sticking out above the surface. Cooling more and more, these rings finally hardened. At first they were even, like frozen circles on the water, and then gradually collapsed and eventually became like those lunar ring mountains, or craters, that everyone can observe with a telescope.
In this article, we will look at summary book "Dunno on the Moon". This work is familiar to many of us since childhood - someone read it, someone watched a wonderful film adaptation. Today, stories about the adventures of Dunno are just as popular among the younger generation.
About the work
"Dunno on the Moon" (we will consider a summary below) is part of a series of books telling about the adventures of Dunno. The genre of the work is defined as a fairy tale novel. The book is the final part of the series, which includes "The Adventures of Dunno and His Friends" and "Dunno in the Sunny City".
Initially, the work was published in parts from 1964 to 1965 in the journal Family and School. The book was published separately in 1965.
Nosov, "Dunno on the Moon": a summary
The events of the book takes place two and a half years after the shorties visited the Sunny City.
Scientists Fuchsia and Herring from the Sun City, together with Znayka, visited the moon. After that, Znaika wanted to fly on her own. The idea aroused the interest of all residents and the astronomer Steklyashkin. Meanwhile, Znayka wrote a whole book in which he outlined his version of the origin of lunar craters. Among other things, the scientist argued that life is possible inside the moon. Everyone laughed at this statement of Znayka, and no one believed him.
From the moon, the scientist grabbed a small piece of local rock, which glowed at night. Somehow, Znayka accidentally put it together with magnetic iron ore, and then miracles began to happen in the house where he and several other short men lived, the fault of which was ... weightlessness. Cheerful residents tried to adapt to it, even cooked dinner.
After the cause of the incident was clarified, everyone again began to respect Znayka. Having opened the weightlessness device, the shorties began to build a spaceship to fly to the moon. As a gift to the lunar inhabitants, they loaded the seeds of giant plants into the rocket. It was decided not to take Donut and Dunno with them. Therefore, on the night before departure, they made their way into the rocket to hide there, but accidentally pressed the start button and flew away together.
Once on the moon, the shorties put on spacesuits and went to explore its surface. Dunno accidentally fell into a tunnel and ended up inside the moon.
Acquaintance with the moon people
It turns out that Znayka was right, and shorties really live under the surface of the moon, but they are very different from the inhabitants of the Flower City. The social structure of the Moon is very similar to our earthly one. Of course, the author touches upon social issues in the novel Dunno on the Moon. The summary immediately shows how very different these worlds are - the world of Dunno and the world of the inhabitants of the moon. In addition to purely external differences - small plants, smoking factories, skyscrapers and television - there are also significant internal ones.
So, being in a strange world, Dunno got hungry and decided to go to eat at the first cafe that came across. And when the little man ate, the waiter began to demand money from him, but Dunno had none, moreover, he did not even guess what it was. So our hero ended up in jail. It had its own sorting system for prisoners, for example, according to the size of the nose, head, height, etc. After all the measuring procedures, Dunno was mistaken for a wanted recidivist thief.
Here, in the jail, Dunno learns what money is, learns the basics of survival in capitalist society. The cellmate tells him about the island of Fools, where all lawbreakers are sent, and from where no one returns. Our hero, in turn, talks about his homeland and giant plants, but no one believes him.
Dunno immediately makes friends with Kozlik. Both are released. Before leaving, Mig, one of the prisoners, asks them to deliver a letter to someone outside. Kozlik and Dunno go to the owner of the shop, Julio, to whom the message is addressed. As a result, Mig, Julio, Kozlik and Dunno conceive a joint-stock company of giant plants. They are going to sell shares in order to build a rocket with the proceeds and take seeds from the lunar surface. At least that's what Dunno thinks.
Bankruptcy of the Company
We continue to retell the summary of Nosov ("Dunno on the Moon"). Dunno is shown on television and presented as an astronaut, of course, everything is done in order to sell shares. Only the poor buy them, spending their last savings. The industrial tycoon Spruts begins to take an interest in society; it is not profitable for him that the poor get the seeds of giant plants. It could bankrupt him. Then Spruts decides to offer the founders a bribe. At the same time, he gives away not his own money, but those that the rich of the Moon have collected. Julio and Mig immediately agree, but do not tell Dunno and Kozlik anything. Soon the public will learn about the escape of the two founders and the bankruptcy of the Society. Because of this, Dunno and Kozlik have to flee to another city.
wacky island
Dunno on the Moon faces many new troubles. The summary tells about the wanderings of the hero and Kozlik - they have to spend the night in cheap hotels, more like prisons (with fleas, cockroaches and bedbugs). There is little money, and they take on any job. The goat starts to get sick. Dunno has to work and take care of a friend. The hero walks dogs, but loses his job when the owner of the pets finds out that he took them to a terrible hotel, where Dunno and Kozlik lived. As a result, friends find themselves under the bridge, as there is no money left for the hotel. They are arrested and sent to Stupid Island.
At first, the friends thought they were fine. But later Dunno noticed that the Goat was gradually turning into a sheep.
Donut Adventure
Quite interesting and dissimilar characters were created by N. Nosov ("Dunno on the Moon"). The summary now takes us back to the beginning of the work, but this time we will learn about the adventures of Donut. After Dunno disappeared, Donut stayed on the rocket until the food ran out, and then went in search of a friend.
He falls into the moon and ends up on the seashore, where there is a lot of salt, but the inhabitants do not use it. Donut starts his own business - starts selling salt, and quickly grows rich. But other rich people start lowering the price of salt, and Donut goes bankrupt. As a result, he is forced to do hard work - to twist
denouement
The book "Dunno on the Moon" is coming to an end, the summary of which we have almost discussed. Now the narrative is transferred to Earth. Finding that there is no rocket, Znayka builds another rocket, and the shorties go to the moon. The spacecraft enters the Earth's satellite. Here, the residents of the Flower City learn about the Society and distribute seeds for free, along the way trying to find Dunno with a Donut.
Shorties from Earth are handing out weightless devices to the poor as protection from the police. Workers' uprisings begin around. Donut, having heard about the astronauts, goes to them. After that, it is possible to save Dunno from the Fool's Island.
The Spruts and Julio blow up the earthlings' rocket, but the shorties make it to the surface of the moon, where the first rocket was, and fly home.
Thus ends the summary of the story "Dunno on the Moon."
Page 1 of 36
PART I
Chapter first. How Znayka defeated Professor Zvezdochkin
Two and a half years have passed since Dunno made a trip to the Sunny City. Although for you and me this is not so much, but for little shorties, two and a half years is a very long time. After listening to the stories of Dunno, Knopochka, and Patchkuli Pestrenky, many of the little ones also made a trip to the Sunny City, and when they returned, they decided to make some improvements in themselves. The flower city has changed since then so that now it is unrecognizable. Many new, large and very beautiful houses appeared in it. According to the project of the architect Vertibutylkin, even two revolving buildings were built on Kolokolchikov Street. One is a five-story, tower-type, with a spiral descent and a swimming pool around (going down the spiral descent, you could dive right into the water), the other six-story, with swinging balconies, a parachute tower and a ferris wheel on the roof. A lot of cars, spiral vehicles, tube-planes, air-powered motorcycles, caterpillar all-terrain vehicles and other different vehicles appeared on the streets. 
And that's not all, of course. The inhabitants of the Sun City found out that the short men from the Flower City were engaged in construction, and came to their aid: they helped them build several so-called industrial enterprises. According to the project of the engineer Klepka, a large clothing factory was built, which produced a wide variety of clothing, from rubber bras to winter coats made of synthetic fiber. Now no one had to pore over with a needle to sew the most ordinary trousers or a jacket. At the factory, everything was done for short cars. Finished products, as in the Sunny City, were taken to stores, and there everyone already took what they needed. All the concerns of the factory workers were reduced to inventing new styles of clothing and making sure that nothing was produced that the public did not like.
Everyone was very pleased. The only one who got hurt in this case was Donut. When Donut saw that now you can take in the store any thing that you might need, he began to wonder why he needed all that pile of costumes that he had accumulated at home. All these costumes were also out of fashion, and they still could not be worn. Having chosen a darker night, Donut tied his old suits in a huge bundle, secretly took them out of the house and drowned them in the Cucumber River, and instead of them he dragged himself new suits from the stores. It ended up that his room turned into some kind of warehouse for ready-made clothes. The suits lay in his closet, and on the closet, and on the table, and under the table, and on the bookshelves, hung on the walls, on the backs of chairs, and even under the ceiling, on strings.
From such an abundance of woolen products in the house, moths divorced, and so that she would not gnaw at the suits, Donut had to poison her daily with mothballs, from which there was such a strong smell in the room that the unaccustomed little man fell down. 
The donut itself smelled, through and through with this stupefying smell, but he got so used to it that he even stopped noticing it. For others, however, this smell was very noticeable. As soon as Donut came to visit someone, the hosts immediately began to feel dizzy from stupefaction. Donuts were immediately chased away and all windows and doors were quickly opened wide to ventilate the room, otherwise one could faint or go crazy. For the same reason, Donut did not even have the opportunity to play with the shorties in the yard. As soon as he went out into the yard, everyone around him began to spit and, holding their noses with their hands, rushed to run away from him in different directions without looking back. Nobody wanted to hang out with him. Needless to say, for Donut it was terribly insulting, and he had to take all the costumes he did not need to the attic.
However, that was not the point. The main thing was that Znayka also visited the Sunny City. There he met the little scientists Fuchsia and Herring, who at that time were preparing their second flight to the moon. Znayka also got involved in the construction of a space rocket and, when the rocket was ready, made an interplanetary journey with Fuchsia and Herring. Arriving on the Moon, our brave travelers examined one of the small lunar craters in the region of the lunar Sea of Clarity, visited the cave, which was located in the center of this crater, and made observations on the change in gravity. On the Moon, as is known, the force of gravity is much less than on the Earth, and therefore observations of the change in the force of gravity are of great scientific importance. After being on the moon for about four hours. Znayka and his companions were forced to set off as soon as possible on the return journey, since their air supplies were running out. Everyone knows that there is no air on the Moon, and in order not to suffocate, you should always take a supply of air with you. In condensed form, of course. 
Returning to the Flower City, Znayka talked a lot about his journey. Everyone was very interested in his stories, and especially the astronomer Steklyashkin, who more than once observed the Moon through a telescope. Through his telescope, Steklyashkin was able to discern that the surface of the Moon was not flat, but mountainous, and many of the mountains on the Moon were not the same as ours on Earth, but for some reason round, or rather, ring-shaped. Scientists call these ring mountains lunar craters, or cirques. To understand what such a lunar circus, or crater, looks like, imagine a huge round field, twenty, thirty, fifty or even a hundred kilometers across, and imagine that this huge round field is surrounded by an earthen rampart or mountain only two or three kilometers high. , - so you get a lunar circus, or a crater. There are thousands of such craters on the Moon. There are small ones - about two kilometers, but there are also gigantic ones - up to one hundred and forty kilometers in diameter.
Many scientists are interested in the question of how lunar craters were formed, what they came from. In the Solar City, all the astronomers even quarreled among themselves, trying to resolve this complex issue, and were divided into two halves. One half claims that lunar craters originated from volcanoes, the other half says that lunar craters are traces of the fall of large meteorites. Therefore, the first half of astronomers are called followers of the volcanic theory or simply volcanists, and the second - followers of the meteorite theory or meteorites. 
Znayka, however, did not agree with either the volcanic or meteorite theory. Even before traveling to the moon, he created his own theory of the origin of lunar craters. Once, together with Steklyashkin, he observed the moon through a telescope, and it struck him that the lunar surface was very similar to the surface of a well-baked pancake with its spongy holes. After that, Znayka often went to the kitchen and watched pancakes being baked. He noticed that while the pancake is liquid, its surface is completely smooth, but as it is heated in a frying pan, bubbles of heated steam begin to appear on its surface. Having stepped on the surface of the pancake, the bubbles burst, as a result of which shallow holes form on the pancake, which remain when the dough is properly baked and loses viscosity.
Znayka even wrote a book in which he wrote that the surface of the Moon was not always hard and cold, as it is now. Once upon a time, the Moon was a Fiery-liquid, that is, a ball heated to a molten state. Gradually, however, the surface of the moon cooled and became no longer liquid, but viscous, like dough. From the inside, it was still very hot, so hot gases escaped to the surface in the form of huge bubbles. Having come to the surface of the Moon, these bubbles, of course, burst. But while the surface of the moon was still quite liquid, the marks from the bursting bubbles were tightened and disappeared, leaving no trace, just as bubbles do not leave a trace on water during rain. But when the surface of the Moon cooled down to such an extent that it became thick like dough or like molten glass, the traces from the bursting bubbles no longer disappeared, but remained in the form of rings sticking out above the surface. Cooling more and more, these rings finally hardened. At first they were even, like frozen circles on the water, and then gradually collapsed and eventually became like those lunar ring mountains, or craters, that everyone can observe with a telescope.
All astronomers - both volcanists and meteorites - laughed at this Znaykin theory.
Vulcanists said:
- Why else was this pancake theory needed, if it is already clear that lunar craters are just volcanoes?
Znayka answered that a volcano is a very large mountain, on the top of which there is a relatively small crater, that is, a hole. If at least one lunar crater were a volcano crater, then the volcano itself would be almost the size of the entire moon, and this is not observed at all.
Meteorites said:
- Of course, lunar craters are not volcanoes, but they are also not pancakes. Everyone knows that these are traces of meteorite impacts.
To this, Znayka replied that meteorites could fall on the Moon not only vertically, but also at an angle, and in this case they would leave traces not round, but elongated, oblong or oval. Meanwhile, on the Moon, all craters are mostly round, not oval.
However, both volcanists and meteorites were so accustomed to their favorite theories that they did not even want to listen to Znaika and contemptuously called him a pancake. They said that in general it is ridiculous even to compare the Moon, which is a large cosmic body, with some unfortunate pancake from sour dough.
However, Znayka himself abandoned his pancake theory after he personally visited the moon and saw one of the lunar craters close up. He managed to see that the ring mountain was not a mountain at all, but the remains of a giant brick wall that had collapsed from time to time. Although the bricks in this wall were weathered and lost their original square shape, it was still possible to understand that these were bricks, and not just pieces of ordinary rock. This was especially well seen in those places where the wall had collapsed relatively recently and individual bricks had not yet had time to crumble into dust.
On reflection, Znayka realized that these walls could only be made by some kind of intelligent beings, and when he returned from his trip, he published a book in which he wrote that once upon a time they lived on the moon sentient beings, the so-called lunar shorties, or lunatics. In those days, there was air on the Moon, as there is now on Earth. Therefore, sleepwalkers lived on the surface of the moon, just like we all live on the surface of our planet Earth. However, over time, there was less and less air on the Moon, which gradually flew away into the surrounding world space. In order not to die without air, lunatics surrounded their cities with thick brick walls, over which they erected huge glass domes. From under these domes, the air could no longer escape, so it was possible to breathe and not be afraid of anything.
But the lunatics knew that this could not go on forever, that over time the air around the Moon would completely dissipate, which would cause the surface of the Moon, not protected by a significant layer of air, to be strongly warmed by the sun's rays and it would be impossible to exist on the Moon even under a glass cap. That is why lunatics began to move inside the Moon and now live not on the outside, but on its inner side, since in fact the Moon is empty inside, like a rubber ball, and you can live just as well on its inner surface as on the outer one. .
This Znaykina book made a lot of noise. All the shorties read it with enthusiasm. Many scientists praised this book for being interestingly written, but still expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that it was not scientifically substantiated. And a full member of the Academy of Astronomical Sciences, Professor Zvezdochkin, who also happened to read Znaykin's book, simply seethed with indignation and said that this book was not a book at all, but some kind of damn nonsense, as he put it. This Professor Zvezdochkin was not exactly some very angry individual. No, he was a rather kind little man, but very, how should I put it, demanding, uncompromising. In any business, he valued accuracy and order most of all, and could not stand any fantasies, that is, inventions.
Professor Zvezdochkin proposed to the Academy of Astronomical Sciences that they arrange a discussion of Znayka's book and take it apart, as he put it, piece by piece, so that no one else should write such books. The Academy agreed and sent an invitation to Znaika. Znayka arrived, and the discussion took place. It began, as is customary in such cases, with a report that Professor Zvezdochkin himself volunteered to make. 
When all the short men invited to the discussion gathered in the spacious hall and sat down on chairs, Professor Zvezdochkin ascended the podium, and the first thing they heard from him were the words:
- Dear friends, allow the meeting devoted to the discussion of Znayka's book to be considered open.
After that, Professor Zvezdochkin cleared his throat loudly, slowly wiped his nose with a handkerchief, and began to make a report. Briefly outlining the content of Znayka's book and praising it for its lively, vivid presentation, the professor said that, in his opinion, Znayka made a mistake and mistook for bricks what in reality were not bricks, but some kind of layered rock. Well, since there really were no bricks, the professor said, then there were, consequently, no short sleepwalkers. They could not exist, because if they were, they could not live on the inner surface of the Moon, since it has long been well known to everyone that all objects on the Moon, just like ours on Earth, are attracted to the center of the planet, and if the moon were really empty inside, no one would still be able to stay on its inner surface: he would immediately be attracted to the center of the moon, and he would dangle helplessly there in the void until he died of hunger.
After listening to all this, Znaika got up from his seat and said mockingly:
"You talk as if you've ever had to hang out in the center of the moon!"
- And you seemed to chat? snapped the professor.
“I didn’t hang out,” Znayka objected, “but I flew in a rocket and watched objects in a state of weightlessness.
- Why is there still a state of weightlessness? the professor growled.
- And here's the thing, - said Znayka. - Let it be known that during the flight in the rocket I had a bottle of water. When the state of weightlessness set in, the bottle floated freely in space, as did every object that was not attached to the walls of the cabin. Everything was fine until the water completely filled the bottle. But when I drank half of the water, oddities began: the remaining water did not stay at the bottom of the bottle and did not collect in the center, but spread evenly along the walls, so that an air bubble formed inside the bottle. This means that the water was attracted not to the center of the bottle, but to its walls. This is understandable, since only masses of matter can attract each other, and emptiness cannot attract anything to itself.
- Hit the sky! Zvezdochkin grumbled angrily. - Compared the bottle with the planet! Do you think it's scientific?
Why isn't it scientific? Znayka answered authoritatively. - When the bottle moves freely in interplanetary space, it is in a state of weightlessness and is likened to a planet in everything. Inside it, everything will happen in the same way as inside the planet, that is, inside the Moon, in the event that, of course, the Moon is empty from the inside.
- Exactly! - picked up Zvezdochkin. - Just explain, please, to us, why did you get it into your head that the Moon is empty inside?
The listeners who came to listen to the report laughed, but Znayka was not embarrassed by this and said:
“You yourself would easily get it into your head if you thought a little. After all, if the Moon was initially fiery-liquid, then it began to cool not from the inside, but from the surface, since it is the surface of the Moon that comes into contact with the cold world space. Thus, the surface of the Moon first of all cooled and hardened, as a result of which the Moon began to look like a huge spherical vessel, inside of which it continued to be - what? ..
- Not yet cooled molten substance! shouted one of the listeners.
- Right! - Znayka picked up. - A molten substance that has not yet cooled down, that is, simply speaking, a liquid.
- You see, you yourself say - liquid, - Zvezdochkin grinned. Where did the emptiness come from in the Moon, if there was liquid there, you garden head?
“Well, it’s not difficult to guess at all,” Znayka calmly replied. - After all, the hot liquid, surrounded by the solid shell of the moon, continued to cool, and cooling down, it decreased in volume. You, presumably, know that each substance, cooling, decreases in volume?
"I suppose I know," the professor muttered angrily.
“Then everything should be clear to you,” Znayka said delightedly. If the liquid matter was reduced in volume, then the inside of the Moon should naturally have an empty space in the manner of an air bubble in a bottle. This empty space became larger and larger, located in the central part of the Moon, as the remaining liquid mass was attracted to the solid shell of the Moon, just as the remaining water was attracted to the walls of a bottle when it was in a state of weightlessness. Over time, the liquid inside the Moon completely cooled down and solidified, as if sticking to the solid walls of the planet, due to which an internal cavity was formed in the Moon, which could gradually be filled with air or some other gas. 
- Right! someone shouted.
And now there were shouts from all sides:
- Right! Right! Well done, Znaika! Hooray!
Everyone clapped their hands. Someone shouted:
- Down with Zvezdochkin!
Immediately, two short men grabbed Zvezdochkin - one by the scruff of the neck, the other by the legs - and dragged him from the podium. Several short men picked up Znayka in their arms and dragged her to the podium.
- Let Znayka make a report! shouted around. - Down with Zvezdochkin!
- Dear friends! - said Znayka, finding himself on the podium. - I can't report. I didn't prepare.
- Tell us about the flight to the moon! shouted the little ones.
- About the state of weightlessness! someone shouted.
- About the Moon?.. About the state of weightlessness? - Znayka repeated in confusion. - Well, let it be about the state of weightlessness. You probably know that a space rocket, in order to overcome the gravity of the Earth, must acquire a very high speed - eleven kilometers per second. While the rocket is gaining this speed, your body is experiencing large g-forces. The weight of your body, as it were, increases several times, and you are pressed against the cabin floor with force. You can't lift your arm, you can't lift your leg, it seems to you that your whole body is filled with lead. It seems to you that some terrible weight has fallen on your chest and does not allow you to breathe. But as soon as acceleration spaceship stops and it begins its free flight in interplanetary space, the overloads end, and you stop experiencing gravity, that is, to put it simply, you lose weight.
- Tell us how you felt? What did you experience? someone shouted.
- My first feeling when losing weight was that the seat was quietly removed from under me and I had nothing to sit on. It felt like I was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what. I felt a slight dizziness, it began to seem to me as if someone had purposely turned me upside down. At the same time, I felt that everything inside me froze, turned cold, as if frightened, although there was no fright itself. After waiting a little and making sure that nothing bad had happened to me, that I was breathing as usual, and seeing everything around, and thinking normally, I stopped paying attention to the fading in the chest and in the abdomen, and this unpleasant sensation passed by itself. When I looked around and saw that all the objects in the cabin were in place, that the seat, as before, was under me, it no longer seemed to me that I was turned upside down, and the dizziness also disappeared ...
- Tell me! Tell more! - the short men yelled in unison, seeing that Znayka had stopped.
Some of them even tapped their feet on the floor with impatience.
- Well, so, - continued Znayka. - Making sure that everything is in order, I wanted to lean on the floor with my feet, but I did it so abruptly that I jumped up and hit my head on the cabin ceiling. I did not take into account, you understand, that my body had lost weight and that now it was enough just a little effort to jump to a terrible height. Since my body weighed nothing at all, I could hang freely in the middle of the cabin in any position, without going down and up, but for this I had to be careful and not make sudden movements. Objects that we had not secured before leaving for the flight also floated freely around me. The water from the bottle did not spill out even if the bottle was turned upside down, but if it was possible to shake the water out of the bottle, then it collected into balls, which also floated freely in space until they were attracted to the walls of the cabin.
“Tell me, please,” one short man asked, “did you have water in the bottle, or maybe some other drink?”
“There was plain water in the bottle,” Znayka answered curtly. - What could be another drink?
“Well, I don’t know,” the little man spread his hands. - I thought soda or maybe kerosene.
Everyone laughed. And another shorty asked:
- Have you brought anything back from the moon?
- I brought a piece of the moon itself.
Znayka took out a small bluish-gray stone from his pocket and said:
- There are many different stones lying on the surface of the Moon, and, moreover, very beautiful ones, but I did not want to take them, since they could be meteorites accidentally brought to the Moon from world space. And I beat off this stone with a hammer from the rock when we descended into the lunar cave. Therefore, you can be quite sure that this stone is a piece of the real Moon itself.
A piece of the moon went from hand to hand. Everyone wanted to take a closer look at him. While the shorties looked at the stone, passing it from hand to hand. Znayka told how he and Fuchsia and Herring traveled on the Moon and what they saw there. Everyone really liked Znaikin's story. Everyone was very pleased. Only Professor Zvezdochkin was not very pleased. As soon as Znayka finished his story and left the podium, Professor Zvezdochkin jumped onto the podium and said:
- Dear friends, it was very interesting for all of us to hear about the Moon and everything else, and on behalf of all those present, I express my heartfelt gratitude to the famous Znayka for his interesting and informative speech. However ... - said Zvezdochkin and with a stern look raised his index finger.
- Down with! shouted one of the short men.
“However…” Professor Zvezdochkin repeated, raising his voice. - However, we have gathered here not at all in order to hear about the Moon, but in order to discuss Znaykin's book, and since we did not discuss the book, it means that we did not fulfill what was planned, and since we did not fulfill what was planned, then it will still have to be done, and since it will still have to be done, then it will still have to be done and subjected to consideration ...
No one ever found out what Zvezdochkin wanted to examine.
The noise rose so that it was impossible to understand anything. Only one word was heard from everywhere:
- Down with! Two short men again rushed to the podium, one grabbed Zvezdochkin by the scruff of the neck, the other by the legs, and dragged him straight out into the street. There they put him in a park on the grass and said:
- That's when you fly to the moon, you will speak on the podium, but for now, sit here on the grass. From such an unceremonious treatment, Zvezdochkin was so stunned that he could not utter a word. Then he gradually came to his senses and shouted:
- This mess! I will complain! I'll write to the paper! You will still recognize Professor Zvezdochkin! He shouted like that for a long time, waving his fists, but when he saw that all the short men had gone home, he said:
- At this meeting I declare closed. Then he got up and went home.
Chapter first
How Znayka defeated Professor Zvezdochkin
Two and a half years have passed since Dunno made a trip to the Sunny City. Although for you and me this is not so much, but for little shorties, two and a half years is a very long time. After listening to the stories of Dunno, Knopochka, and Patchkula Pyostrenky, many of the little ones also made a trip to the Sunny City, and when they returned, they decided to make some improvements in themselves. The flower city has changed since then so that now it is unrecognizable. Many new, large and very beautiful houses appeared in it. According to the project of the architect Vertibutylkin, even two revolving buildings were built on Kolokolchikov Street. One is a five-story, tower-type, with a spiral descent and a swimming pool around (going down the spiral descent, you could dive right into the water), the other six-story, with swinging balconies, a parachute tower and a ferris wheel on the roof. A lot of cars, spiral vehicles, tube-planes, air-powered motorcycles, caterpillar all-terrain vehicles and other different vehicles appeared on the streets.And that's not all, of course. The inhabitants of the Sun City found out that the short men from the Flower City were engaged in construction, and came to their aid: they helped them build several so-called industrial enterprises. According to the project of the engineer Klepka, a large clothing factory was built, which produced a wide variety of clothing, from rubber bras to winter coats made of synthetic fiber. Now no one had to pore over with a needle to sew the most ordinary trousers or a jacket. At the factory, everything was done for short cars. Finished products, as in the Sunny City, were taken to stores, and there everyone already took what they needed. All the concerns of the factory workers were reduced to inventing new styles of clothing and making sure that nothing was produced that the public did not like.
Everyone was very pleased. The only one who got hurt in this case was Donut. When Donut saw that now you can take in the store any thing that you might need, he began to wonder why he needed all that pile of costumes that he had accumulated at home. All these costumes were also out of fashion, and they still could not be worn. Having chosen a darker night, Donut tied his old suits in a huge bundle, secretly took them out of the house and drowned them in the Cucumber River, and instead of them he dragged himself new suits from the stores. It ended up that his room turned into some kind of warehouse for ready-made clothes. The suits lay in his closet, and on the closet, and on the table, and under the table, and on the bookshelves, hung on the walls, on the backs of chairs, and even under the ceiling, on strings.
From such an abundance of woolen products in the house, moths divorced, and so that she would not gnaw through the suits, Donut had to poison her daily with mothballs, from which there was such a strong smell in the room that the unaccustomed little man fell down. The donut itself smelled, through and through with this stupefying smell, but he got so used to it that he even stopped noticing it. For others, however, this smell was very noticeable. As soon as Donut came to visit someone, the hosts immediately began to feel dizzy from stupefaction. Donuts were immediately chased away and all windows and doors were quickly opened wide to ventilate the room, otherwise one could faint or go crazy. For the same reason, Donut did not even have the opportunity to play with the shorties in the yard. As soon as he went out into the yard, everyone around him began to spit and, holding their noses with their hands, rushed to run away from him in different directions without looking back. Nobody wanted to hang out with him. Needless to say, for Donut it was terribly insulting, and he had to take all the costumes he did not need to the attic.
However, that was not the point. The main thing was that Znayka also visited the Sunny City. There he met the little scientists Fuchsia and Herring, who at that time were preparing their second flight to the moon. Znayka also got involved in the construction of a space rocket and, when the rocket was ready, made an interplanetary journey with Fuchsia and Herring. Arriving on the Moon, our brave travelers examined one of the small lunar craters in the region of the lunar Sea of Clarity, visited the cave, which was located in the center of this crater, and made observations on the change in gravity. On the Moon, as is known, the force of gravity is much less than on the Earth, and therefore observations of the change in the force of gravity are of great scientific importance. After being on the moon for about four hours. Znayka and his companions were forced to set off as soon as possible on the return journey, since their air supplies were running out. Everyone knows that there is no air on the Moon, and in order not to suffocate, you should always take a supply of air with you. In condensed form, of course.
Returning to the Flower City, Znayka talked a lot about his journey. Everyone was very interested in his stories, and especially the astronomer Steklyashkin, who more than once observed the Moon through a telescope. Through his telescope, Steklyashkin managed to discern that the surface of the Moon is not flat, but mountainous, and many mountains on the Moon are not like ours on Earth, but for some reason are round, or rather, ring-shaped. Scientists call these ring mountains lunar craters, or cirques. To understand what such a lunar circus, or crater, looks like, imagine a huge round field, twenty, thirty, fifty or even a hundred kilometers across, and imagine that this huge round field is surrounded by an earthen rampart or mountain only two or three kilometers high. , - so you get a lunar circus, or a crater. There are thousands of such craters on the Moon. There are small ones - about two kilometers, but there are also gigantic ones - up to one hundred and forty kilometers in diameter.
Many scientists are interested in the question of how lunar craters formed, from what they came from. In the Solar City, all the astronomers even quarreled among themselves, trying to resolve this complex issue, and were divided into two halves. One half claims that lunar craters originated from volcanoes, the other half says that lunar craters are traces of the fall of large meteorites. Therefore, the first half of astronomers are called followers of the volcanic theory or simply volcanists, and the second - followers of the meteorite theory or meteorites.
Znayka, however, did not agree with either the volcanic or meteorite theory. Even before traveling to the moon, he created his own theory of the origin of lunar craters. Once, together with Steklyashkin, he observed the Moon through a telescope, and it struck him that the lunar surface is very similar to the surface of a well-baked pancake with its spongy holes. After that, Znayka often went to the kitchen and watched pancakes being baked. He noticed that while the pancake is liquid, its surface is completely smooth, but as it is heated in a frying pan, bubbles of heated steam begin to appear on its surface. Having stepped on the surface of the pancake, the bubbles burst, as a result of which shallow holes form on the pancake, which remain when the dough is properly baked and loses viscosity.
Znayka even wrote a book in which he wrote that the surface of the moon was not always hard and cold, as it is now. Once upon a time, the Moon was a Fiery-liquid, that is, a ball heated to a molten state. Gradually, however, the surface of the moon cooled and became no longer liquid, but viscous, like dough. From the inside, it was still very hot, so hot gases escaped to the surface in the form of huge bubbles. Having come to the surface of the Moon, these bubbles, of course, burst. But while the surface of the Moon was still quite liquid, the traces of the bursting bubbles tightened and disappeared, leaving no trace, just as bubbles do not leave a trace on water during rain. But when the surface of the Moon cooled down to such an extent that it became thick like dough or like molten glass, the traces from the bursting bubbles no longer disappeared, but remained in the form of rings sticking out above the surface. Cooling more and more, these rings finally hardened. At first they were even, like frozen circles on the water, and then gradually collapsed and eventually became like those lunar ring mountains, or craters, that everyone can observe with a telescope.
All astronomers - both volcanists and meteorites - laughed at this Znaykin theory.
Vulcanists said:
- Why else was this pancake theory needed, if it is already clear that lunar craters are just volcanoes?
Znayka answered that a volcano is a very large mountain, on the top of which there is a relatively small crater, that is, a hole. If at least one lunar crater were a volcano crater, then the volcano itself would be almost the size of the entire moon, and this is not observed at all.
Meteorites said:
- Of course, lunar craters are not volcanoes, but they are also not pancakes. Everyone knows that these are traces of meteorite impacts.
To this, Znayka replied that meteorites could fall on the Moon not only vertically, but also at an angle, and in this case they would leave traces not round, but elongated, oblong or oval. Meanwhile, on the Moon, all craters are mostly round, not oval.
However, both volcanists and meteorites were so accustomed to their favorite theories that they did not even want to listen to Znaika and contemptuously called him a pancake. They said that in general it is ridiculous even to compare the Moon, which is a large cosmic body, with some unfortunate pancake from sour dough.
However, Znayka himself abandoned his pancake theory after he personally visited the moon and saw one of the lunar craters close up. He managed to see that the ring mountain was not a mountain at all, but the remains of a giant brick wall that had collapsed from time to time. Although the bricks in this wall were weathered and lost their original rectangular shape, it was still possible to understand that these were bricks, and not just pieces of ordinary rock. This was especially well seen in those places where the wall had collapsed relatively recently and individual bricks had not yet had time to crumble into dust.
On reflection, Znayka realized that these walls could only be made by some kind of intelligent beings, and when he returned from his trip, he published a book in which he wrote that once upon a time intelligent beings lived on the moon, the so-called lunar shorties, or sleepwalkers. In those days, there was air on the Moon, as there is now on Earth. Therefore, lunatics lived on the surface of the moon, just like we all live on the surface of our planet Earth. However, over time, there was less and less air on the Moon, which gradually flew away into the surrounding world space. In order not to die without air, lunatics surrounded their cities with thick brick walls, over which they erected huge glass domes. From under these domes, the air could no longer escape, so it was possible to breathe and not be afraid of anything.
But the lunatics knew that this could not go on forever, that over time the air around the Moon would completely dissipate, which would cause the surface of the Moon, not protected by a significant layer of air, to be strongly warmed up by the sun's rays and it would be impossible to exist on the Moon even under a glass cap. That is why lunatics began to move inside the Moon and now live not from the outside, but from its inner side, since in fact the Moon is empty inside, like a rubber ball, and you can live just as well on its inner surface as on the outer one. .
This Znaykina book made a lot of noise. All the shorties read it with enthusiasm. Many scientists praised this book for being interestingly written, but still expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that it was not scientifically substantiated. And a full member of the Academy of Astronomical Sciences, Professor Zvezdochkin, who also happened to read Znaykin's book, simply seethed with indignation and said that this book was not a book at all, but some kind of damn nonsense, as he put it. This Professor Zvezdochkin was not exactly some very angry individual. No, he was a rather kind little man, but very, how should I put it, demanding, uncompromising. In any business, he valued accuracy and order most of all, and could not stand any fantasies, that is, inventions.
Professor Zvezdochkin suggested that the Academy of Astronomical Sciences arrange a discussion of Znayka's book and take it apart, as he put it, piece by piece, so that no one else would be reluctant to write such books. The Academy agreed and sent an invitation to Znaika. Znayka arrived, and the discussion took place. It began, as is customary in such cases, with a report that Professor Zvezdochkin himself volunteered to make.
When all the short men invited to the discussion gathered in the spacious hall and sat down on chairs, Professor Zvezdochkin ascended the podium, and the first thing they heard from him were the words:
- Dear friends, allow the meeting dedicated to the discussion of Znayka's book to be considered open.
After that, Professor Zvezdochkin cleared his throat loudly, slowly wiped his nose with a handkerchief, and began to make a report. Briefly outlining the contents of Znayka's book and praising it for its lively, vivid presentation, the professor said that, in his opinion, Znayka made a mistake and mistook for bricks what in reality were not bricks, but some kind of layered rock. Well, since there really were no bricks, the professor said, then there were, consequently, no short sleepwalkers. They could not exist, because if they were, they could not live on the inner surface of the Moon, since it has long been well known to everyone that all objects on the Moon, just like ours on Earth, are attracted to the center of the planet, and if the moon were really empty inside, no one would still be able to stay on its inner surface: he would immediately be attracted to the center of the moon, and he would dangle helplessly there in the void until he died of hunger.
After listening to all this, Znaika got up from his seat and said mockingly:
“You talk as if you've ever had to hang out in the center of the moon before!”
- And you seemed to chat? snapped the professor.
“I didn’t hang out,” Znayka objected, “but I flew in a rocket and watched objects in a state of weightlessness.
– What is the state of weightlessness? the professor growled.
“And here’s the thing,” Znaika said. “Let it be known that during the flight in the rocket I had a bottle of water. When the state of weightlessness set in, the bottle floated freely in space, as did every object that was not attached to the walls of the cabin. Everything was fine until the water completely filled the bottle. But when I drank half of the water, oddities began: the remaining water did not stay at the bottom of the bottle and did not collect in the center, but spread evenly along the walls, so that an air bubble formed inside the bottle. This means that the water was attracted not to the center of the bottle, but to its walls. This is understandable, since only masses of matter can attract each other, and emptiness cannot attract anything to itself.
- Hit the sky! Zvezdochkin grumbled angrily. - Compared the bottle with the planet! Do you think it's scientific?
Why isn't it scientific? Znayka answered authoritatively. - When the bottle moves freely in interplanetary space, it is in a state of weightlessness and is likened to a planet in everything. Inside it, everything will happen in the same way as inside the planet, that is, inside the Moon, in the event that, of course, the Moon is empty from the inside.
- Exactly! - picked up Zvezdochkin. “Just explain to us, please, why you got it into your head that the Moon is empty inside?”
The listeners who came to listen to the report laughed, but Znayka was not embarrassed by this and said:
“You could easily get it into your head if you thought a little. After all, if the Moon was initially fiery-liquid, then it began to cool not from the inside, but from the surface, since it is the surface of the Moon that comes into contact with the cold world space. Thus, the surface of the Moon first of all cooled and hardened, as a result of which the Moon began to look like a huge spherical vessel, inside of which it continued to be - what? ..
- Not yet cooled molten substance! shouted one of the listeners.
- Right! Znaika picked up. - A molten substance that has not yet cooled down, that is, simply speaking, a liquid.
“You see, you yourself say it’s liquid,” Zvezdochkin chuckled. Where did the emptiness come from in the Moon, if there was liquid there, you garden head?
“Well, this is not at all difficult to guess,” Znayka calmly replied. “After all, the hot liquid, surrounded by the solid shell of the Moon, continued to cool, and as it cooled, it decreased in volume. You probably know that every substance, cooling down, decreases in volume?
“I suppose I know,” the professor muttered angrily.
“Then everything should be clear to you,” Znayka said delightedly. If the liquid matter was reduced in volume, then inside the Moon, an empty space should have been obtained by itself in the manner of an air bubble in a bottle. This empty space became larger and larger, located in the central part of the Moon, as the remaining liquid mass was attracted to the solid shell of the Moon, just as the remaining water was attracted to the walls of a bottle when it was in a state of weightlessness. Over time, the liquid inside the Moon completely cooled down and solidified, as if sticking to the solid walls of the planet, due to which an internal cavity was formed in the Moon, which could gradually be filled with air or some other gas.
- Right! someone shouted.
And now there were shouts from all sides:
- Right! Right! Well done, Znaika! Hooray!
Everyone clapped their hands. Someone shouted:
- Down with Zvezdochkin! 
Immediately, two short men grabbed Zvezdochkin - one by the scruff of the neck, the other by the legs - and pulled him off the podium. Several short men picked up Znayka in their arms and dragged her to the podium.
- Let Znayka make a report! shouted around. - Down with Zvezdochkin!
- Dear friends! - said Znayka, finding himself on the podium. - I can't report. I didn't prepare.
- Tell us about the flight to the moon! shouted the little ones.
- About the state of weightlessness! someone shouted.
– About the Moon?.. About the state of weightlessness? Znayka repeated in confusion. - Well, let it be about the state of weightlessness. You probably know that a space rocket, in order to overcome the gravity of the Earth, must acquire a very high speed - eleven kilometers per second. While the rocket is gaining this speed, your body is experiencing large g-forces. The weight of your body, as it were, increases several times, and you are pressed against the cabin floor with force. You can't lift your arm, you can't lift your leg, it seems to you that your whole body is filled with lead. It seems to you that some terrible weight has fallen on your chest and does not allow you to breathe. But as soon as the acceleration of the spacecraft stops and it begins its free flight in interplanetary space, the overloads end, and you stop experiencing gravity, that is, to put it simply, you lose weight.
- Tell me how you felt? What did you experience? someone shouted.
- My first feeling when losing weight was as if the seat was quietly removed from under me and I had nothing to sit on. It felt like I was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what. I felt a slight dizziness, it began to seem to me as if someone had purposely turned me upside down. At the same time, I felt that everything inside me froze, turned cold, as if frightened, although there was no fright itself. After waiting a little and making sure that nothing bad had happened to me, that I was breathing as usual, and seeing everything around, and thinking normally, I stopped paying attention to the fading in the chest and in the abdomen, and this unpleasant sensation passed by itself. When I looked around and saw that all the items in the cabin were in place, that the seat, as before, was under me, it no longer seemed to me that I was turned upside down, and the dizziness also disappeared ...
- Tell me! Tell more! - the short men yelled in unison, seeing that Znayka had stopped.
Some of them even tapped their feet on the floor with impatience.
“Well, then,” Znayka continued. - After making sure that everything was in order, I wanted to lean on the floor with my feet, but I did it so abruptly that I jumped up and hit my head on the cabin ceiling. I did not take into account, you understand, that my body had lost weight and that now it was enough just a little effort to jump to a terrible height. Since my body weighed nothing at all, I could hang freely in the middle of the cabin in any position, without going down and up, but for this I had to be careful and not make sudden movements. Objects that we had not secured before flying were also floating freely around me. The water from the bottle did not pour out even if the bottle was turned upside down, but if it was possible to shake the water out of the bottle, then it collected into balls, which also floated freely in space until they were attracted to the walls of the cabin.
“Tell me, please,” one short man asked, “did you have water in the bottle, or maybe some other drink?”
“There was plain water in the bottle,” Znayka answered curtly. What could be another drink?
“Well, I don’t know,” the little man spread his hands. “I thought soda or maybe kerosene.
Everyone laughed. And another shorty asked:
“Did you bring anything back from the moon?”
“I brought back a piece of the moon itself.
Znayka took out a small bluish-gray stone from his pocket and said:
- There are many different stones lying on the surface of the Moon, and, moreover, very beautiful ones, but I did not want to take them, since they could be meteorites accidentally brought to the Moon from world space. And I beat off this stone with a hammer from the rock when we descended into the lunar cave. Therefore, you can be quite sure that this stone is a piece of the real Moon itself.
A piece of the moon went from hand to hand. Everyone wanted to take a closer look at him. While the shorties looked at the stone, passing it from hand to hand. Znayka told how he and Fuchsia and Herring traveled on the Moon and what they saw there. Everyone really liked Znaikin's story. Everyone was very pleased. Only Professor Zvezdochkin was not very pleased. As soon as Znayka finished his story and left the podium, Professor Zvezdochkin jumped onto the podium and said:
- Dear friends, it was very interesting for all of us to hear about the Moon and everything else, and on behalf of all those present, I express my heartfelt gratitude to the famous Znayka for his interesting and informative speech. However ... - said Zvezdochkin and with a stern look raised his index finger.
- Down with! shouted one of the short men.
“However…” Professor Zvezdochkin repeated, raising his voice. - However, we have gathered here not at all in order to hear about the Moon, but in order to discuss Znaykin's book, and since we did not discuss the book, it means that we did not fulfill what was planned, and since we did not fulfill what was planned, then it will still have to be done, and since it will still have to be done, then it will still have to be done and subjected to consideration ...
No one ever found out what Zvezdochkin wanted to examine. The noise rose so that it was impossible to understand anything. Only one word was heard from everywhere:
- Down with! Two short men again rushed to the podium, one grabbed Zvezdochkin by the scruff of the neck, the other by the legs, and dragged him straight out into the street. There they put him in a park on the grass and said:
- That's when you fly to the moon, you will speak on the podium, but for now, sit here on the grass. From such an unceremonious treatment, Zvezdochkin was so stunned that he could not utter a word. Then he gradually came to his senses and shouted:
- This mess! I will complain! I'll write to the paper! You will also recognize Professor Zvezdochkin! He shouted like that for a long time, waving his fists, but when he saw that all the short men had gone home, he said:
- At this meeting, I declare closed. Then he got up and went home.
Chapter Two
Moonstone Mystery
The next day, a report appeared in the newspapers about the discussion of Znayka's book. All residents of the Sun City read this report. Everyone was interested to know whether the Moon is actually empty inside and whether it is true that short people live inside the Moon. The report detailed everything that was said during the discussion, and even what was not said at all. In addition to the report, the newspapers published many feuilletons, that is, playful articles that told about various funny adventures of the lunar shorties. All the pages of the newspapers were full of funny pictures. These pictures depicted the Moon, inside of which short men walked upside down and clung to various objects with their hands so as not to be attracted to the center of the planet. In one of the drawings, a short man was depicted, from whom the force of gravity pulled off his shoes and trousers, while the short man himself, left in one shirt and hat, firmly held onto a tree with his hands. Everyone's attention I was attracted by a caricature on which Znayka was drawn, dangling helplessly in the center of the moon. Znaika had such a bewildered expression on his face that no one could look at him without laughing.All this was published, of course, only for the amusement of the public, but in one of the newspapers a completely serious and scientifically substantiated article by Professor Zvezdochkin was published, who admitted that he was wrong in the dispute with Znaika, and apologized for his harsh expressions. In his article, Professor Zvezdochkin wrote that the presence of empty space inside the Moon does not contradict the laws of physics and may well take place, so Znayka is not as far from the truth as it might seem at first. At the same time, it is difficult to assume, the professor wrote, that this empty space is located in the center of the Moon, since the central part of the Moon is filled with solid matter, which was formed even before the lunar surface cooled and hardened, and therefore, before the beginning of create empty space. The fact is that both now and in ancient times, the inner layers of the Moon experienced tremendous pressure from the outer layers, which weigh many thousands and even millions of tons. As a result of such a monstrous pressure, the substance inside the Moon could not, according to the laws of physics, be in a liquid state, but was in a solid form. And this means that when the Moon was still fiery-liquid, there was already a solid central core inside it, and when the internal cavity of the Moon began to form, it began to form not in the center, but around this central solid core, more precisely, between this central the core and relatively recently solidified surface of the Moon. Thus. The moon is not a hollow ball, like a rubber ball, as Znayka suggested, but such a ball, inside of which there is another ball, surrounded by a layer of air or some other gas. As for the presence of shorties or some other living creatures on the Moon, this already belongs to the realm of pure fantasy, wrote Professor Zvezdochkin. There is no scientific evidence for the existence of shorties on the moon. If what Znayka discovered on the lunar surface was in fact a brick wall once made by intelligent beings, then there is no evidence that these intelligent beings have survived to the present and chose the inner cavity of the Moon as their residence. Science needs true facts, wrote Professor Zvezdochkin, and no idle fictions will replace them for us. As Znaika read Professor Zvezdochkin's article, he was seized by some kind of acute sense of shame, mixed with chagrin. What the professor wrote about the presence of a solid core inside the Moon was irrefutable. Everyone who is familiar with the basics of physics had to agree with this, and Znayka was perfectly familiar with the basics of physics.
How could I have missed such a simple thing? - Znayka was perplexed and was ready to tear his hair out of annoyance. - Well, of course, there was a solid core inside the Moon, which means that empty space could only form around this core, and not in the center. Oh, I'm an ass! Oh I'm a horse! Oh I'm an orangutan! You should have been so embarrassed! How could you not think of such nonsense! It's a shame! After reading the article to the end, Znayka began to walk from corner to corner around the room and shook his head every minute, as if he wanted to shake unpleasant thoughts out of her.
- "Idle fiction"! he muttered with annoyance, recalling Professor Zvezdochkin's article. - Try to prove now that there are no fictions here, if you didn’t even realize that there was a solid substance in the center of the Moon! .. Oh, shame! looked at one point, then jumped up, as if stung, and began to rush around the room again.
- No, I will prove that this is not idle fiction! he shouted. “There are shorties on the moon. It cannot be that they were not. Science is not just bare facts. Science is fiction... that is... pah! What am I saying?.. Science is not fantasy, but science cannot exist without fantasy. Fantasy helps us think. Bare facts alone mean nothing. All facts must be comprehended! Having said this, Znayka slammed his fist on the table with force. - I'll prove! he shouted. Then his eyes fell on a cartoon in the newspaper, where he was depicted in the center of the moon with such an idiotic expression on his face that it was impossible to look calmly.
- Here you go! he growled. - Try to prove it, when there is such a mug here!
On the same day, Znayka left the Sun City. All the way he kept repeating to himself:
I will never do science again. Even if they cut me to pieces. No no! And there is nothing to think!
But, returning to the Flower City, Znayka gradually calmed down and began to dream again about scientific activity and about new travels:
“It would be nice to build a large interplanetary ship, take a significant supply of food and air and arrange a long expedition to the moon. It must be assumed that in the outer shell of the Moon there are holes in the form of caves or craters of extinct volcanoes. Through these holes it will be possible to penetrate inside the Moon and see its central core. If this core exists, and it undoubtedly exists, then the lunar shorties live on its surface. Between the outer shell and the central core of the Moon, a sufficient amount of air must have been preserved, so living conditions on the surface of the core should be quite favorable for shorties.
So Znaika dreamed, and he already wanted to start preparing for a new trip to the moon, but suddenly he remembered everything that had happened, and said:
- No! Gotta be tough! Since I decided not to engage in science, it means that I must fulfill it. Let someone else fly to the moon, let someone else find shorties on the moon, and then everyone will say: “Znayka was right. He is a very smart shorty and foresaw things that no one else had foreseen before him. And we were wrong! We didn't believe him. We laughed at him. They wrote all sorts of mocking articles about him, drew cartoons. And then everyone will be ashamed. And Professor Zvezdochkin will be ashamed. And then everyone will come to me and say: “Forgive us, dear Znaechka! We were wrong." And I will say: “Nothing, brothers, I am not angry. I forgive you. Although I was very hurt when everyone laughed at me, but I'm not vindictive. I'm good! After all, what is most important for Znayka? For Znayka, the most important thing is the truth. And if the truth has triumphed, then everything, then, is in order, and no one should be angry with anyone.
So reasoned Znayka. After thinking it over carefully, he decided to forget about the moon and never think about her again. This decision turned out to be still not so easy for Znayka. The fact is that he still had a piece of the Moon, that is, that moonstone, which he beat off with a hammer from the rock when he descended with Fuchsia and Herring into the moon cave. This moonstone, or lunit, as Znaika called it, lay in his room on the windowsill and caught his eye every minute. Glancing at the lunit, Znaika immediately remembered the Moon and everything that had happened, and was upset again.
One day, waking up at night, Znayka looked at the lunit, and it seemed to him that the stone glowed in the dark with some kind of soft bluish light. Surprised by this unusual phenomenon, Znayka got out of bed and went to the window to examine the moonstone up close. Then he noticed that there was a full, bright moon in the sky. The rays from the moon fell directly through the window and illuminated the stone so that it seemed as if it glowed by itself. After admiring this beautiful sight, Znayka calmed down and went to bed.
Another time (this happened in the evening) Znayka sat for a long time reading a book, and when he finally decided to go to bed, it was already deep into the night. Having undressed and put out the electricity, Znayka climbed into bed. By chance his gaze fell on the lunit. And again it seemed to Znaika that the stone glowed by itself, and this time even somehow especially brightly. Knowing that all this was just the effect of moonlight, Znayka did not pay attention to the stone and was about to fall asleep, when he suddenly remembered that there was a new moon that night, that is, simply put, there could not be any moon in the sky. Getting out of bed and looking out the window, Znayka was convinced that the night was indeed dark, moonless. In a sky as black as coal, only the stars sparkled, but there was no moon. Despite this, the moonstone lying on the window sill glowed so that it was not only visible itself, but also illuminated part of the window sill around it.
Znayka took the lunit in his hand, and his hand lit up with a faint, flickering light, as if pouring from a stone. The more Znayka looked at the stone, the brighter, it seemed to him, he shone. And it already seemed to Znaika that the room was not as dark as it had been at first. And he could already make out in the darkness the table, and the chairs, and the bookshelf. Znayka took a book from the shelf, opened it and put a moonstone on it. The stone illuminated the page so that individual letters could be distinguished around and words could be read.
Znayka realized that the moonstone emitted some kind of radiant energy. He immediately wanted to run to tell the shorties about his discovery, but remembered that they had all been sleeping for a long time, and did not want to wake them up.
The next day, Znayka said to the shorties:
“Tonight, brothers, come to me. I'll show you a very interesting thing.
- What kind of thing? – everyone was interested.
- Come here, you'll see.
Everyone, of course, was very interested to know what kind of thing Znayka would show. Hurry was so excited with impatience that he could not even eat anything at dinner. Finally, he could not stand it, went to Znayka and stuck to him with such force that Znayka was forced to reveal his secret. Thus, the shorties knew everything in advance, but this only increased their curiosity. Everyone wanted to see with their own eyes how the stone glows in the dark.
As soon as the sun disappeared over the horizon, everyone was already in Znaika's room.
“You came early,” Znayka said to the shorties. – The stone cannot glow now, as it is still too light. It will glow when it's completely dark.
“It’s okay, we’ll wait,” Syropchik replied. We're in no hurry.
“Well, wait,” Znayka agreed. - In the meantime, so that you are not bored, I will tell you about this interesting phenomenon. 
He put a moonstone on the table in front of the short men who sat around him and began to talk about the fact that there are substances in nature that acquire the ability to glow in the dark after being exposed to rays of light. This glow is called luminescence. Some substances acquire the ability to emit visible rays of light even under the influence of invisible ultraviolet, infrared or cosmic rays.
“It can be assumed that the moonstone is just such a substance,” said Znayka.
To keep the little ones busy with something else. Znayka outlined to them his theory that the Moon is such a big ball, inside of which there is another ball, and on this inner ball live lunar shorties, or lunatics.
While Znayka communicated all this useful information to his friends, darkness gradually thickened in the room. The shorties stared with all their might at the moonstone that lay in front of them, but did not notice any glow. Hasty, who was the most disorganized, twitched all the time with impatience and could not sit still.
Why doesn't it glow? So when will it shine? – he kept repeating.
- Wait a bit. It’s still very light, Znayka reassured him.
Finally, darkness fell so that neither the stone nor even the table on which he lay could be seen. And Znaika kept repeating:
“Wait a little, it’s still very light.
- Indeed, brothers, it is so bright that at least write pictures! - Supported Znayka Tube.
Someone quietly laughed. In the darkness it was impossible to make out who.
- All this is some kind of nonsense! - said Toropyzhka. “I don't think the stone will glow.
“And why should he glow, if it’s already light,” said Vintik.
Someone laughed again. Louder this time. Looks like it was a Dunno. He was the funniest.
- You, Hurry, are in a hurry somewhere. You want everything as soon as possible, said Syrupchik.
- Don't you want to? Toropyzhka grumbled angrily.
- Where should I hurry? Siropchik replied. – Is it bad here? Warm, light, and flies don't bite.
At this point, all the shorties could not stand it and laughed out loud. Everyone liked Syrupchik's saying about flies so much that they began to repeat it in different ways.
Finally Guslya said:
- What flies are there! All flies sleep for a long time!
- Right! Dr. Pilyulkin picked up. - The flies are sleeping, and it's time for us to sleep! The show is over!
“Don’t be angry, brothers, there’s just some kind of mistake,” Znayka justified himself. - Yesterday the stone glowed, so I give you my word of honor!
- Well, do not worry, what is there! Tomorrow we will come again,” Shpuntik said.
“Of course, we’ll come: it’s light and warm here, and flies don’t bite,” someone picked up.
Everyone, laughing, and pushing, and stepping on each other's heels in the darkness, began to get out of the room. Znayka deliberately did not turn on the electricity, as he was ashamed to look shorties in the eyes. As soon as everyone had dispersed, he threw himself on the bed with a flourish, buried his face in the pillow and put his head in his hands.
– So me, fool, and need to! he muttered in despair. “Couldn’t keep your mouth shut—now pay the price!” Not only did he disgrace himself in the Sunny City, now everyone will laugh here too! ..
Znayka was ready to beat himself out of annoyance, but, realizing that the time was already late, he decided not to violate the daily routine and, having undressed, went to bed. During the night, however, he woke up and, casually looking at the table, found that the stone was glowing. Wrapped up in a blanket and thrusting his feet into slippers, Znayka went up to the table and, taking the stone in his hands, began to examine it. The stone glowed with a pure blue light. It all seemed to consist of a thousand flashing, flickering dots. Gradually, his glow became brighter. It was no longer blue, as at first, but of some incomprehensible color: either pink or green. Having reached its maximum brightness, the glow gradually faded away, and the stone ceased to glow.
Without saying a word, Znayka put a stone on the windowsill and, in deep thought, lay down on the bed.
Since then, he has often observed the glow of the moonstone. Sometimes it came later, sometimes earlier. Sometimes the stone glowed for a long time, all night, sometimes it did not glow at all. No matter how hard Znayka tried, he could not catch any regularity in the glow of the stone. It was never possible to say in advance whether a stone would glow at night or not. Therefore, Znayka decided to keep quiet and say nothing to anyone yet.
In order to better study the properties of the moonstone, Znayka decided to subject it to chemical analysis. However, even here there were insurmountable difficulties. The moonstone did not want to combine with any other chemical substance: it did not want to dissolve either in water, or in alcohol, or in sulfuric or nitric acid. Even a mixture of strong nitrogen and hydrochloric acid, in which even gold dissolves, had no effect on the moonstone. What could a chemist say about a substance that does not combine with any other substance? Is it only that this substance is some noble metal like gold or platinum. However, the moonstone was not a metal, therefore, it could not be either gold or platinum. 
Having lost hope of dissolving the moonstone, Znayka tried to decompose it into its constituent parts by heating in a crucible, but the moonstone did not decompose from heating. Znayka tried to burn it in a flame, but also to no avail. The moonstone, as they say, did not burn in fire and did not sink in water ... However, it is not true ... The moonstone sank in water, only the trouble was that it did not always do this. In some cases, the moonstone sank, as a piece of sugar or salt usually sinks in water, while in other cases it floated on the surface of the water, like a cork or a dry tree. This meant that the weight of the moonstone, due to some incomprehensible reasons, changed, and from a substance that was heavier than water, it turned into a substance lighter than water. It was some completely new, still unknown property. solid matter. Not a single mineral on earth possessed such amazing properties.
Making your observations. Znayka noticed that usually the temperature of the moonstone was two to three degrees higher than the temperature of the surrounding objects. This meant that along with radiant energy, the moonstone also emitted thermal energy. However, such an increase in temperature was again not always observed. This meant that the release of thermal energy did not occur constantly, but with some interruptions. Sometimes the temperature of the moonstone turned out to be several degrees below ambient. What that meant was simply impossible to understand.
All these strange things puzzled Znayka and eventually bored him. Unable to explain all these oddities, Znayka stopped studying the properties of the stone and, as they say, waved his hand at him. The moonstone lay in his room on the windowsill, like some useless thing, and slowly covered with dust.
Chapter Three
Bottom up
In the future, events occurred that made Znayka completely forget about the moonstone for some time. What happened was so amazing and extraordinary that it is difficult to describe. Znaika, to put it simply, had no time to think about some kind of stone, in which, moreover, he did not see any use.The day on which all this happened began as usual, except that Znayka, waking up, did not get up immediately, but, contrary to his rules, allowed himself to lie a little in bed. At first, he was simply too lazy to get up, and then it began to seem as if he was either in pain or dizzy. For a while he didn't know if his head hurt because he was in bed, or if he was in bed because his head hurt. Znayka, however, had her own way of dealing with a headache, namely, not paying any attention to anything else and doing everything as if there was no pain. Deciding to resort to this method, Znayka cheerfully jumped out of bed and began to do morning exercises. After doing a series of gymnastic exercises and washing himself with cold water, Znayka felt that he no longer had pain or dizziness.
Znaika’s mood improved, and since there was time before breakfast, he decided to clean the room: he swept the floor in the room, wiped the wall cabinets with a damp cloth, in which he kept various chemicals in jars and a collection of insects, and most importantly, put them on the shelves books that have accumulated on his desk, on the bedside table near the bed and even on the windowsill. This should have been done a long time ago, but Znayka somehow didn’t have enough time.
Removing books from the windowsill, Znayka decided at the same time to remove the moonstone lying there. Opening the cupboard in which he kept a collection of minerals, Znayka put the moonstone on the bottom shelf, since not a single free place was found on the upper shelves. To do this, Znaika had to bend down, and bending down, he again felt a slight dizziness.
- Here you go! Znayka said to himself. - My head is spinning again! Maybe I'm really sick? I'll have to tell Pilyulkin to give him some powders.
Along with dizziness, Znayka had some strange feeling of hanging upside down, that is, for a moment it seemed to him that he was turned upside down. Looking around and making sure that he was not upside down at all, Znayka closed the closet door and was about to straighten up, but just at that time something seemed to push him from below and threw him up to the ceiling. Hitting his head on the ceiling, Znayka fell to the floor and, feeling that he was picked up by the wind and carried somewhere, grabbed a chair with his hand. This, however, did not help him stay in place. The next moment he was already in the air again, and, moreover, with a chair in his hands. Flying off into the corner of the room, Znayka hit his back against the wall, bounced off it like a ball, and flew to the opposite wall. Hooking a chair on the chandelier along the way and breaking the lamp. Znayka crashed his head into a bookshelf, which caused the books to scatter in different directions. Seeing that the chair was of no use, Znayka threw it away from him. As a result, the chair flew down and, hitting the floor, jumped up like rubber, while Znayka himself flew off to the ceiling and, bouncing off it, flew down. On the way, he collided with a chair flying towards him and was hit with the back of the chair right on the bridge of the nose. The blow was so strong that Znayka went mad with pain and stopped fluttering in the air for a while.
Gradually coming to his senses, Znayka became convinced that he was hanging in some kind of ridiculous position in the middle of the room, between the floor and the ceiling. Not far from him, a chair hung upside down, the chandelier hung in some unnatural state: not vertically, as it always happens, but obliquely, as if some unknown force was drawing it to the wall; books floated all over the room. It seemed strange to Znaika that both the chair and the books did not fall to the floor, but seemed to be suspended in the air. All this was similar to the state of weightlessness, which Znayka observed in the cockpit of a spacecraft during a trip to the moon.
- Strange! muttered Znaika. - Very strange!
Trying not to make sudden movements, he tried to raise his hand. He was surprised that it did not take him any effort. The hand went up as if by itself. She was light as a feather. Znayka raised his other hand. And this hand seemed to weigh nothing. It even seemed to be pushed by something from below. Now that his excitement had subsided somewhat, Znayka felt some unusual lightness throughout his body. It seemed to him that he had only to wave his hands, and he would begin to flutter around the room, like a moth or some other winged insect.
“What happened to me? Znayka thought in dismay. “One of two things: either I am in a state of weightlessness, or I am asleep and I dream all this in a dream.”
He began to goggle his eyes with all his might, trying to wake up, but, making sure that he was not sleeping anyway, he finally became despondent and cried out in a plaintive voice:
Brothers, save!
Because no one came to help. Znayka decided to quickly get out of the room and see what the rest of the shorty's friends were doing.
Starting to carefully make swimming movements with his hands and feet, Znayka began to slowly move through the air and gradually swam to the door. There he grabbed the lintel with his hands and began pushing the door with all his might with his feet. It would seem that opening the door is a simple matter, but in a state of weightlessness it is not as easy as it seems. Znaika had to spend a lot of effort before the door was open.
Finally getting out of the room and finding himself on the stairs (or rather, above the stairs), Znayka began to think about how he could go down. Everyone can easily guess what to go down in the usual way, that is, going down the stairs. Now Znayka could not, because gravity no longer pulled him down, and no matter how much he moved his legs, it would not lead to anything.
In the end, Znayka still came up with good way. Reaching for the railing, he began to descend, clinging to the railing with his hands. It probably looked very funny from the outside, because Znayka's legs dangled in the air, like a mosquito, and as he sank lower and lower, his legs lifted higher and he turned more and more upside down.
Having descended in such an original way from the stairs, Znayka found himself in the corridor in front of the door to the dining room. Muffled screams came from behind the door. Znayka listened and realized that the short men who were in the dining room were alarmed by something. After several unsuccessful attempts, Znayka opened the door and found himself in the dining room. What he saw left him astonished. The short men who had gathered in the dining room did not sit at the table, as always, but floated in various poses through the air. Around them floated chairs, benches, bowls, plates, spoons. A large aluminum pan filled with semolina floated right there.
Seeing Znaika, the shorties made an incredible noise.
- Znaechka, dear, help! yelled Rasteryka. “I don’t understand what is happening to me!”
- Listen, Znayka, for some reason we all fly! Dr. Pilyulkin shouted.
- And my legs were taken away! I can't walk! screeched Syrup.
- And my legs were taken away! Everyone lost their legs! And the walls are shaking! shouted Grump.
- Hush, brothers! Znayka shouted in response. “I can't understand anything myself. I think we are in a state of weightlessness. We have lost weight. I experienced the same state when I flew to the moon in a rocket.
“But we're not flying anywhere,” said Tube.
- It must have been someone who came up with such pampering on purpose! shouted Toropyzhka.
“Someone played a trick on us!” - picked up Rasteryayka.
- Well, what a joke! Donut screamed. - Stop it now! I'm dizzy! Why are the walls shaking? Why is everything turned upside down?
“Everything is in place,” Znayka answered Donut. - You yourself turned upside down, from this it seems to you that everything around is upside down.
- Well, let them turn me back right away, otherwise I won’t answer for myself! Donut continued to scream.
– Calm! Znaika said. “First we need to find out why we lost weight.
And the stranger said:
- If we have lost weight, then we need to find it, and that's it. What else is there to find out?
- And you, fool, be silent, if you can’t offer anything sensible, Shpuntik said with irritation.
- And you don’t call me a fool, otherwise I’ll give you a fist!
With these words Dunno waved his fist and gave Shpuntik such a strong slap on the back of the head that Shpuntik spun like a top and flew across the room.
Dunno also could not stay in place and, flying to opposite side, bumped his head on a pot of porridge. From the push, liquid semolina splashed right into the face of Donut, who was nearby.
- Brothers, what is this? .. For what? .. This is a disgrace! Donut shouted, smearing semolina on his face and spitting in all directions.
Trying to avoid collision with the spitting Donut and clods of semolina floating through the air, the shorties began to make sharp movements with their arms and legs, as a result of which they began to fly around the room in all directions, colliding with each other and causing various damage to each other.
- Hush, brothers! Calm! - Znayka was torn, who was pushed from all sides. - Try not to move, brothers, otherwise I don’t know what will happen! In a state of weightlessness, you can not make too sudden movements. Do you hear what I'm telling you? Calm down!!!
Angry, Znayka slammed his fist on the table near which he was at that moment. From such a sharp movement, Znayka himself turned over in the air and was rather badly hurt by the back of his head on the corner of the table.
- Well, I told you! he shouted, scratching the bruised spot with his hand.
The little ones finally understood what was required of them, and, having ceased to make aimless movements, they froze in the air: some up, under the ceiling, some down, not far from the floor, some upside down, some upside down, some in a horizontal, some in an inclined , that is, oblique, position.
Seeing that everyone had finally calmed down, Znayka said:
- Listen to me carefully. Now I will give you a lecture on weightlessness ... You all know that every object is attracted to the earth, and we feel this attraction as gravity, or as weight. Thanks to the force of gravity, or weight, we can move freely on the ground, as our legs, under the weight of our body, are pressed against the ground and acquire traction with it. If the weight disappears, like now, then there will be no grip and we will not be able to move in the usual way, that is, we will not be able to walk on the ground or on the floor. What to do in this case?
- Yes, yes, what to do? - Shorties responded from all sides.
“We must adapt to the new conditions that have been created,” Znayka replied. - And for this, all of you need to learn the third law of mechanics, which is especially clearly manifested in conditions of weightlessness. What does this law say? This law says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example: if I, being in a state of weightlessness, raise my hands up, then my whole body will immediately fall down. Look here...
Znayka resolutely raised both hands up, and his whole body began to smoothly fall down.
“If I put my hands down,” he said, “then my whole body will begin to rise up.
Before reaching the floor, Znayka quickly lowered his hands down, as a result of which he smoothly flew up.
– Now look! Znayka shouted, stopping under the ceiling. If I move my hand to the side - for example, to the right - then my whole body will begin to rotate in the opposite direction, that is, to the left.
Vigorously throwing his right hand to the side, Znayka came into rotary motion and turned upside down.
– See? he shouted. - Now I'm upside down, and the whole room appears to me upside down. What do I need to do to roll back? To do this, just wave your hand to the side.
Znayka waved his left hand to the side and, again coming into a rotational movement, turned back upside down.
- You see that by performing simple movements with your hands, you can give your body any position in space. Now listen to what is required of us in the first place. First of all, those of you who are upside down need to turn upside down.
- And those who are upside down, need to turn upside down? – asked Dunno.
“But this is just not necessary,” Znayka answered. - Everyone should be upside down, because this position is familiar to every normal shorty. Secondly, everyone needs to get down and try to stay close to the floor, since it is natural for every normal shorty to be on the floor, and not looming under the ceiling. I hope this is understandable.
Everyone began to make smooth movements with their hands, trying to take a vertical position and go down. This was not immediately possible for everyone, because, having taken a vertical position and lowered down, the short man pushed off the floor with his feet and soared back up to the ceiling.
“Keep close to the walls, brothers,” Znayka advised the little ones, “and when you go down, grab onto something immovable with your hands: the window sill, the doorknob, the steam heating pipe.
This tip has been very helpful. It wasn't long before all the shorties were at the bottom, except for Donut, who continued to tumble awkwardly through the air. Everyone vied with each other to give him advice on how to go down, but this did not bring any benefit.
“Well, nothing,” said Znaika. Let him practice. In time, he will do well. And you and I will rest a little and try to get used to the state of weightlessness.
- How! Get used to it! - Frowning, grumbled Grumpy.
“You can get used to everything,” Znayka answered calmly. - The main thing is not to pay attention to weightlessness. If it seems to someone that he is falling down or turning upside down, and such sensations are in a state of weightlessness, then you need to quickly look around. You will see that you are in a room and you are not falling anywhere, and you will stop worrying. Who has questions?
“One question worries me very much,” Dunno said. - Are we going to have breakfast today, or are all breakfasts and lunches completely canceled due to weightlessness?
“Breakfasts and lunches are not canceled at all,” Znayka replied. - Now the kitchen attendants will prepare breakfast, and in the meantime we will get down to work. First of all, it is necessary to secure all moving objects so that they do not fly through the air. Tables, chairs, cabinets and other furniture must be nailed to the floor; ropes should be stretched through all rooms and corridors, as for drying clothes. We will hold on to the ropes with our hands, and it will be easier for us to move. Everyone, except Donut, immediately set to work: some stretched ropes through the rooms, some nailed furniture to the floor. It wasn't easy. Try to hammer a nail into the wall, when with each blow with a hammer, the reaction force throws you in the opposite direction and you fly without seeing the light and not knowing what you will hit your head on. Now everything had to be done in a new way. In order to hammer in one nail, it took at least three short men. One was holding the nail, the other was hitting the nail with a hammer, and the third was holding the one who was hitting the nail so that the counter force would not throw him back. It was especially difficult for the kitchen attendants. It's good that Vintik and Shpuntik were on duty that day. They were two very inventive minds. Once in the kitchen, they immediately began to turn, as they say, brains and come up with various improvements.
- In order to work normally, you need to stand firmly on your feet, - said Vintik. – Try, for example, kneading dough, chopping cabbage, cutting bread or turning a meat grinder when your body is hanging in the air without any support.
“We cannot stand firmly because our feet have no grip on the floor,” said Shpuntik.
“Since there is no clutch, we must make sure that there is one,” Vintik replied. If we nail our shoes to the floor, then the grip will be quite sufficient.
- A very clever idea! Shpuntik approved. The friends immediately took off their shoes and nailed them to the floor.
“You see,” Vintik said, putting his feet into his boots, “now we are firmly on our feet, and our body does not fly anywhere at the slightest push. Our hands are free and we can do whatever we want.
“It would be nice to nail chairs next to the boots so that you can work while sitting,” suggested Shpuntik.
- Brilliant idea! Wink rejoiced. The friends quickly nailed two chairs to the floor. Now that their feet had traction on the floor, hammering nails was easy.
“Look how wonderful it turned out,” said Shpuntik, sitting down on a chair. “Would I be able to sit on a chair if my shoes weren’t nailed on?” I could only sit if I held the chair with my hands, but then I would not be able to do anything. Now my hands are free and I can do whatever I want. I can write and read while sitting at the table, and if I get tired of sitting, I can get up and work standing up. Saying this, Shpuntik sat down on a chair and got up from it, demonstrating all the conveniences of the new method.
Cog pulled one foot out of the boot and said:
– One foot is enough for reliable grip on the floor. With the other foot out of the boot, I can take a step forward, a step back, or a step to the side. Taking a step to the side, I can freely reach the stove; taking a step back, I can still work at the table. My maneuverability is thus increased.
- Amazing idea! Shpuntik exclaimed, jumping up from his chair. Look: if I take a step to the right, I can reach the closet with my hand, and if I take a step to the left, I can reach the faucet. Thus, without losing stability, you and I can move almost throughout the kitchen. That's what technical savvy means!
At this time, Znayka looked into the kitchen.
“Well, how are you doing here, will breakfast be ready soon?”
“Breakfast isn’t ready yet, but a stunning invention is ready.
Vintik and Shpuntik began vying to tell Znaika about their improvements.
“Good,” said Znaika. - We use your invention, but breakfast still needs to be cooked. Everyone wants to eat.
“Now everything will be ready,” said Vintik and Shpuntik.
Znayka left, or rather, sailed away from the kitchen, and Vintik and Shpuntik set about preparing breakfast. It turned out not to be as easy as they initially thought. Firstly, neither cereals, nor flour, nor sugar, nor vermicelli wanted to get enough sleep from the packages; if they did get enough sleep, they did not get where they needed to, but scattered in the air and floated around, stuffing themselves into the mouth, nose, and eyes, which caused Vintik and Shpuntik a lot of trouble. Secondly, the water from the plumbing did not want to be drawn into the pan. Flowing out under pressure from the tap, it hit the bottom of the pan and splashed out. Here it gathered into large and small balls that floated in the air and also climbed into Vintik's and Shpuntik's mouths, and into the nose, and into the eyes, and even by the collar, which was also not so pleasant. On top of all the troubles, the fire in the furnace did not want to burn. After all, in order for the flame to burn, a continuous supply of fresh oxygen is necessary. When a flame burns, it heats up the air around it. Heated air is lighter than cold air and therefore rises, and in its place fresh air rich in oxygen flows to the flame from different directions. But in conditions of weightlessness, both cold and heated air weigh nothing at all. Therefore, heated air does not become lighter than cold air and does not rise. As soon as all the oxygen around the flame is used up for combustion, the flame will go out, and there's nothing to be done about it! Realizing what the snag is, our friends decided to cook breakfast on an electric stove.
“And it will be even better if we don’t boil anything, but just boil tea,” suggested Shpuntik. - It's easier to fill the kettle with water.
- Brilliant idea! Wink approved. Acting as carefully as possible, the friends filled the kettle with water, put it on an electric stove and tied it tightly with a rope to the table so that it would not float away. At first, everything went well, but after a few minutes, Vintik and Shpuntik saw how water began to bubble out of the spout of the kettle, as if someone was pushing it out from the inside. Shpuntik hastily plugged the spout of the teapot with his finger, but the water immediately began to bubble out from under the lid. This bubble got bigger, finally broke away from the lid and, shaking as if it was made of liquid jelly, floated through the air. The screw quickly opened the lid and looked into the teapot. The teapot was empty.
- That's the story! Shpuntik muttered. The friends refilled the kettle and put it on the hot stove. A minute later, water began to pour out of the kettle again. Here Znaika appeared again:
- Are you there soon? Shorties are hungry!
We have a miracle here! Shpuntik said in confusion. - The bubble is coming out of the teapot.
- The bubble climbs - this is not a miracle, - Znayka answered. He approached the teapot and looked sternly at the bubble that was blowing out of the spout of the teapot. Then he said "um" and tried to plug his nose with his finger. Seeing that the bubble began to crawl out from under the lid, Znayka said “hm” again and tried to press the lid more tightly against the teapot. Convinced that this did not lead to anything, Znayka said “um” for the third time and thought for a moment, after which he said:
- There is no miracle here, but there is a completely explainable scientific phenomenon. You all know that water is heated by stirring. The lower layers of water in the kettle, heated on a fire or on an electric stove, become lighter and float up, and cold water from the upper layers descends in their place. In a teapot, it turns out, how to say it, the water cycle. But such a cycle occurs when water has weight. If there is no weight like it is now, then the lower layers of water, having warmed up, will not become lighter and will not rise up, but will remain below and will heat up until they turn into steam. This steam, expanding from heating, will begin to raise the energy above it. cold water, causing it to bubble out of the teapot. And what follows from this?
- Well, what follows? Shpuntik spread his hands. “It probably follows from this that the bubble will come off the teapot and float through the air until it smears on someone’s back.”
“It follows from this,” Znayka said sternly, “that it is necessary to boil water in zero gravity in a hermetic vessel, that is, in such a vessel, the lid of which closes tightly and does not let water or steam through.
– We have a cauldron with a hermetic lid in our workshop. I'll bring it now, - said Vintik.
- Come on, hurry up, please. You can’t break the diet, ”Znayka said, moving away.
Cog freed himself from his boots nailed to the floor, kicked off the table with his foot and flew out of the kitchen with the speed of a bumblebee. In order to get into the workshop, he had to go out into the yard. Flying out of the kitchen, he began to make his way down the corridor, pushing off with his hands and feet from the walls and from everything that might meet on the way. Finally, he reached the exit door and tried to open it. The door, however, was closed tightly, and Vintik's attempts did not lead to success for a long time: when Vintik pushed the door forward, the jet force imperceptibly threw him back, and he had to expend a lot of effort to get to the door again.
Convinced that in this way he would not achieve anything, Vintik decided to resort to another method. Bending over in three deaths, he rested his hands on the doorknob, and his feet rested on the floor at some distance from the door. Feeling that his feet have acquired sufficient grip on the floor. Cog tried to straighten up like a spring and leaned against the door with all his might. Suddenly the door swung open. The cog flew out of it like a torpedo fired from a torpedo tube and rushed through the air. Rising higher and higher, he flew over the gazebo, which stood at the end of the yard, and disappeared behind the fence.
Nobody saw it.
Chapter Four
unexpected discovery
Left alone in the kitchen, Shpuntik said to himself:- While Vintik is looking for a cauldron, I will have time to rest a little.
He sat comfortably in a chair, crossed his legs and began to rest. However, it was only said that way, because only Shpuntik's body rested, while his active mind did not stop working for a minute. Shpuntik's lively, nimble eyes kept turning in different directions all the time. Every object that came into Shpuntik's eyes inspired him with some witty thought. Glancing at Vintik's boots nailed to the floor, Shpuntik thought:
“It’s a pity that you have to leave the kitchen barefoot. Do not tear off the shoes every time from the floor. But if galoshes are nailed to the floor, then the boots can remain on their feet. He came to the kitchen, put his feet in galoshes and work, the clutch will be sufficient. Brilliant idea!
For some time, Shpuntik enjoyed the brilliant idea that came into his head. Then he said:
– But galoshes can be used more rationally. We have sixteen short men in the house, each with a pair of galoshes; in total, that means thirty-two galoshes. If you nail all these galoshes along the rooms and corridors, each one at a distance of a step, then it will be possible to comfortably walk around the rooms: put your foot into one galosh - take a step, put your foot into another - another step ... An exceptionally brilliant idea!
Shpuntik wanted to run to tell about his new invention, but immediately forgot about it, as new thoughts were already entering his head.
“Now that the state of weightlessness has come, everything will not be the same as before,” he continued to reason. “Take, for example, the most ordinary chair. You can sit on such a chair only by nailing your shoes to the floor. It's not smart! In the future, there will be new chairs with stirrups. They will need to sit on top. I sat down on a chair, put my feet in the stirrups and work calmly - you won’t fly anywhere. A brutally brilliant idea! In addition, the chairs must be swivel...
Thoughts were boiling in Shpuntik's head. His eyes sparkled with excitement, a happy smile wandered across his face.
At this time, Znaika appeared in the kitchen again.
– What is this happening? he shouted in annoyance. – Where is breakfast?
– What kind of breakfast? Shpuntik asked, waking up from his dreams.
- Look at him! Znayka shouted indignantly. “I even forgot that I have to cook breakfast!” Where is Vintik?
“A cog?.. He went after this… hermetic cauldron.
- So it's been an hour since he went for the boiler! Is it really so difficult to bring a cauldron?
“Now I’ll go look for him,” Shpuntik said and began to make his way to the exit.
Znaika, however, seemed suspicious that Vintik was so slow. Seeing that Shpuntik had almost reached the exit door, he shouted in fright:
- Wait! Don't you dare go outside!
- Why? Shpuntik asked.
- Beware, they tell you! Znayka shouted angrily. “Now we have to proceed with all caution. After all, we are in a state of weightlessness. It is not known where you will be carried, as soon as you find yourself under the open sky. The slightest push and you will fly straight into the world space.
Znayka reached the door, clutched the doorknob with his hands and, leaning out into the yard, began to call:
- Screw! Screw!
The screw did not respond.
– Has Vintik been blown away into outer space? Shpuntik asked in fear.
Dunno, who at that time looked out into the corridor, heard the words of Shpuntik.
- Here are those! The cog was blown into the world space! Dunno muttered, and immediately began to shout at the top of his lungs:
- Brothers, trouble! The cog was blown into the world space!
Everyone got excited and rushed to the exit.
- Back! Znaika shouted. - Don't go to the door! Is it dangerous!
- Where is Wink? What about Vintik? – the short men asked excitedly.
“Nothing is known yet,” Znayka replied. - It is known that he went to the workshop and did not return from there.
“Somebody needs to go to the workshop, maybe he’s still there,” said Tube.
"Come here when you're in zero gravity," said Grumpy.
“Well, drag a longer rope here,” Znayka ordered.
The order was immediately executed. Znayka tied one end of the rope around his waist, and tied the other end to the doorknob and said sternly:
- See that no one dares to leave the house. It's enough for us that Vintik is gone!
Having given his body an inclined position, Znayka with force pushed off with his feet from the threshold and flew in the direction of the workshop, which was located not far from the house. He slightly miscalculated the push and rose higher than he should have. Flying over the workshop, he grabbed a weather vane with his hand, which showed the direction of the wind. This delayed the flight. Going down the drainpipe, Znayka opened the door and entered the workshop. The short men watched him with tension. A minute later, Znaika looked out of the workshop.
- He is not here! he shouted. - It looks like it didn't. Now I'll take a look in the gazebo.
With one jump, Znayka reached the gazebo and looked inside. The screw was not there.
“Perhaps the best thing to do is to climb up on the roof of the house and look around. From above it is always more visible. Come on, pull me on a rope to the house! Znaika shouted.
The shorties began to pull the rope and pulled Znayka back to the house. Znayka instantly climbed up the drainpipe to the roof and already wanted to look around, but an unexpected gust of wind blew him off the roof and carried him to the side. This did not frighten Znayka, since he knew that the short men could pull him back on a rope at any moment.
“That’s even better,” Znayka said to himself. “Flying above the ground like a helicopter, I’ll take a much closer look at everything around.
He, however, did not manage to see anything, because in the next moment something happened that no one expected. Before reaching the fence, Znayka suddenly began to fall rapidly, as if some kind of force suddenly pulled him down. Having flopped with a swing on the ground, he stretched himself to his full height and did not even have time to figure out what had happened. Feeling a terrible heaviness all over his body, he struggled to his feet and looked around.
It surprised him that he was back on his feet again.
- That's the thing! I think I've gained weight again! muttered Znaika.
He tried to raise his hand, then another, tried to take a step, then another ... His arms and legs obeyed with difficulty, as if they were poured with lead.
“Maybe the feeling of great heaviness is the result of a rapid transition from a state of weightlessness to weight?” Znaika thought.
Seeing that the short men were looking at him fearfully from the door of the house, he shouted:
Brothers, look! There is no state of weightlessness here!
– What is there? someone asked.
– There is a state of weightiness here. I'm still under the force of gravity. Look, I'm standing... I'm walking... I'm jumping!..
Znayka took a few steps and tried to jump up. True, the jump did not work out for him: Znayka could not tear his legs off the ground.
Just at that time, someone's plaintive groan was heard behind the fence. Znayka listened, and it seemed to him that someone was calling for help. Without thinking twice, Znayka ran up to the fence and wanted to climb it, but he did not succeed. The gravity still acted on him with terrible force. Hearing clearly that behind the fence someone is calling for help. Znayka broke a board in the fence and looked out into the gap that had formed. Not far from the fence, he saw Vintik lying on the ground. Cog saw him too.
- Znaechka, dear, help me, I think I broke my leg! Wink screamed.
- How did you get here? Znayka asked, running up to him.
- You know, I wanted to open the door, but the door opened, and I'll fly, you know ...
- Why didn't you respond? I'm calling you here, I'm calling!
- I didn't hear anything. Probably lost consciousness.
Znayka grabbed Vintik under the armpits, put him on his back and dragged him through the breach to the house. After taking a few steps, Znayka felt that the gravity seemed to have decreased, and after taking another step, he suddenly took off from the ground and soared into the air together with Screw.
“What a miracle! Did you fall into a state of weightlessness again? Znaika thought.
He was confused at first, but then he remembered that he was tied to a rope and shouted:
- Brothers, drag us to your place as soon as possible!
Seeing that Znayka and Cog were soaring higher and higher, the short men grabbed the end of the rope and dragged Znayka to the house. Znayka held Vintik tightly by the collar so that he would not slip out of his hands. In less than a minute, they were inside the room. Everyone wanted to take a quick look at Vintik, but Dr. Pilyulkin said:
- Well, disperse, that is, fly away from here all! And put the patient to bed right now, I need to examine him.
The shorties dragged Cog along the corridor.
- Oh, brothers, be quiet! Wink pleaded. - My legs hurt!
Finally he was dragged into a room, put to bed and tied to the bed with a rope. Pilyulkin began to examine him. For a long time he tapped with his fingers on the legs, on the arms, on the chest and even on the head of the patient, listening to the sound that was being made. Then he said:
- You will have to lie down, dear friend, uh ... mmm ... in bed ... But don't be scared, there's nothing to worry about. You just, in a way, kicked your legs.
- How is it, in some way, the legs were knocked off? Wink asked.
- Well, so, m-m-m ... I hit my feet hard, which means that’s why it happened ... m-m-m ... some stretching of my life and ... m-m-m ... some concussion in the joints ... M-m-yes-a ! After a while, the pain in your joints will subside, and you will be able to walk again, in some way ... if, of course, you need to.
Why, if need be? Vintik was frightened.
- Well, because if there is a state of weightlessness, then we will not need to walk at all. We will, in a way, fly.
“Well, okay,” Wink replied. “Couldn’t I have something, in some way, to eat?” I haven't eaten anything since morning.
- Hey, how's your breakfast? Pilyulkin inquired of Shpuntik.
“Due to the state of weightlessness, breakfast is not yet ready,” Shpuntik reported. - But, since Znayka found a place where there is no state of weightlessness, we will get there and quickly cook breakfast on the fire.
“You, my dear, that’s what,” said Dr. Pilyulkin. There is no need to cook breakfast, because now it is time for dinner. It’s better to cook dinner right away, and for the time being I’ll give the patient bread and jam.
Pilyulkin went for bread and jam, and Shpuntik, tying himself with a rope, made his way to the end of the yard. Feeling that he had gained weight again, he tied the end of the rope to the fence and shouted to the shorties:
- Come on, bring firewood here, and matches, and pots, and a kettle, and a frying pan, and drag food!
The short men, holding on to a rope stretched across the yard, began to drag Shpuntik with everything that might be needed to prepare dinner. Everyone worked very actively, as everyone really wanted to eat. Only the sick Screw and the Donut, which was still hanging from the ceiling in the dining room, were not working. Znayka said that Ponchik apparently lost his orientation in space and failed to adapt to the state of weightlessness. In fact, the Donut perfectly adapted to weightlessness, but since he was extremely cunning, he decided to hide it. While all the shorties were working, he flew slowly around the room and ate semolina, which fell out of the pan and floated around in clods. In a short period of time, he single-handedly ate a whole pot of porridge, so that there was no trace of it.
“Here I am, and I don’t need anything else!” Donut said with pleasure. Let the rest work if they like it.
While the shorties were cooking dinner for themselves, Znayka tied himself to a rope and made observations on gravity in the yard. It turned out that the state of weightlessness was observed around the house only at a distance of twenty-thirty steps. It was, as Znayka called it, a weightless zone. Behind it began, as Znayka called it, a zone of gravity, or a zone of weight. Having made his way through the zone of weightlessness with the help of a rope, it was possible to penetrate into the zone of gravity and, leaving the gate, without any fear to go in any direction along the street.
By installing these scientific facts. Znayka said to Pilyulkin:
“Now we need to find out if the state of weightlessness is observed only in our country or if it exists in other parts of the city as well. Make a detour around the city now and find out if any of the inhabitants felt signs of weightlessness, if anyone was dizzy, if anyone experienced the sensation of hanging upside down. All this information will help us to find out the reasons for this mysterious phenomenon. I don't think anyone should yet be told that we have weightlessness. As soon as the city becomes aware of this, everyone will rush to us, and then it's hard to say what might happen. It’s also good that everything went well with Vintik, in general, safely, and I, it must be said, only miraculously did not break my legs. We must be extremely careful with this still insufficiently studied phenomenon of nature.
While Pilyulkin was walking around the city, the short men prepared dinner and began to dine right there, in the open air. This was especially pleasant, as the appetite always improves in the air. Of course, first of all they fed the sick Vintik. This was not easy to do, as he had to be fed in a state of weightlessness. For the patient, Shpuntik came up with the idea of cooking a special hospital puree soup. But the most ingenious thing was that Shpuntik came up with the idea of pouring this soup into a teapot, which was usually used for brewing tea. The teapot was tightly closed on top with a lid, so the soup did not spill out of it when it entered a state of weightlessness. The patient could only put the spout of the teapot into his mouth and slowly suck on the soup. Food, thus, occurred quickly and, moreover, without loss.
Shpuntik came up with the idea to make porridge for Vintik not very liquid, but not very thick either. Such porridge adhered well to the plate, thanks to which it could be freely transferred from place to place, and also taken with a spoon, without fear that it would slip off the plate and begin to float in space. The third was cranberry jelly, which was also served to Vintik in a teapot.
Having fed Cog, the shorties fed Donut in exactly the same way, which, as already mentioned, lost not only weight, but with it the remnants of conscience, without losing, however, at the same time, his appetite.
Soon Pilyulkin returned from his detour and reported to Znaika that the state of weightlessness was not observed anywhere else in the city. The life of the shorties, he said, goes on as usual. no one mysterious phenomena did not observe and did not experience any painful sensations.
The facts reported by Pilyulkin made Znaika think. It seemed strange to him that the zero gravity zone was limited to their courtyard.
“There must be some reason behind it. But what is it in? - puzzled Znayka.
Ordering the shorties to be more careful, Znayka went to his room to rest after dinner and meditate in silence. Out of habit, he wanted to lie down on the couch, but remembered that in a state of weightlessness, this can be done only by tying himself to the couch with a rope, which is very troublesome and unnecessary. Stretching out at full length over the couch and giving his body a strictly horizontal position, so that the whole room seemed to him in its usual form and nothing distracted him from his thoughts, Znayka began to think.
“It is strange that the zero gravity zone is like a circle, in the center of which our house is located,” Znayka said to himself. “Thus, we are placed, as it were, in the center of weightlessness. Maybe just here, where I am now, or somewhere very close, is this center? Is the cause of weightlessness in the center?
For a moment it seemed to Znaika that he was close to solving the problem, but suddenly his thought made a leap to the side.
- How did the state of weightlessness come about? Where did it all start? Let's remember, - said Znayka, as if talking with invisible interlocutors. - It started in the morning. At first everything was as usual... I was cleaning the room, then I put a moonstone in the closet, then... then... What happened then? Then, after all, the state of weightlessness just came!
Thought Znayka feverishly earned.
“Maybe the secret of weightlessness is related to the moonstone?” - as if by itself the question flashed in his head.
“Well, such an assumption is quite acceptable,” Znayka answered mentally. - What is a moonstone? Nobody knows what he is. It is known that this is a substance with some strange properties... Maybe among its properties there is also the ability to destroy weight... But I have had a moonstone for a long time. Why has this property not manifested so far?.. Perhaps it has not manifested itself because the moonstone was not where it is now. Maybe the ability of a moonstone to destroy weight depends on its location?
Znayka's breath was slightly taken away. He felt that he had mastered a very important thought, and he strained all his mental faculties to keep this thought in his head.
“If so…” he said, trying to drive away all other thoughts that besieged him. – If weightlessness depends on the location of the stone, then it should disappear as soon as we remove the stone from the cabinet.
Feeling on the verge of a great discovery. Znayka even trembled with excitement.
"Well," he muttered, "let's do the experiment!"
Pushing off slightly from the wall and making swimming movements with his arms and legs, he began to make his way to the cabinet in which the collection of minerals was kept.
“Come on, let’s do an experiment, let’s do an experiment ...” he repeated, as if afraid to forget what exactly he was going to do.
From excitement, his movements were, however, not very accurately calculated, therefore, before getting where he needed to, he made a whole trip around the world around the room. When he finally reached the closet, he grabbed its door with his hands and hung in front of him in a horizontal position with his legs dangling in the air.
- Well, let's do the experiment! he said decisively.
And then another thought flashed through his mind:
“What if nothing comes of this experience? Suddenly weightlessness will not disappear?
This thought had an effect on Znaika in the manner of an icy shower. Some kind of chill ran down his back, his heart beat strongly in his chest, and, no longer understanding what he was doing, Znayka opened the closet and took a moonstone from the bottom shelf.
What happened next clearly showed that all of Znayka's scientific assumptions were correct. As soon as the moonstone was in his hands, Znayka felt, as it were, a strong push in the back. Falling to the floor, he painfully bruised his knees and stretched out on his stomach, as if pressed by something from above. At that very moment there was a roar. It was objects that had previously floated in a state of weightlessness rained down on the floor everywhere. The house shook like an earthquake. Znayka closed his eyes in fear. He felt like the ceiling was about to collapse on him. When he opened his eyes at last, he saw that the room looked ordinary, except for the books scattered about in disorder.
Rising to his feet and feeling that the usual feeling of heaviness returned to him, Znayka looked at the moonstone he held in his hands.
- So that's the reason! he exclaimed happily. – But why does weightlessness appear only when the moonstone is in the locker? Maybe the state of weightlessness is obtained because the energy released by the lunite interacts with some substance that is contained in the collection of minerals. But how do you know what kind of substance it is?
Znayka wrinkled his forehead and thought hard again. At first, some completely formless thoughts swirled in his head. Every thought is like a cloud or a big vague spot on the wall, looking at which you can’t make out what it looks like. And suddenly his mind was lit up with a perfectly clear, definite thought:
“It is necessary to get all the minerals stored there one by one from the locker. As soon as the substance with which the lunite interacts is removed, weightlessness will disappear, and we will find out what kind of substance it is.
Putting the moonstone in the locker and feeling that weightlessness had reappeared, Znayka began to take out the minerals lying in the locker and see if gravity appeared. First, he took out the minerals that lay on the bottom shelf. There were rock crystal, feldspar, mica, brown iron ore, copper pyrite, sulfur. Next came pyrite, chalcopyrite, zinc blende, lead luster, and others. Having taken out the stones from the lower compartment, Znayka set to work on those lying in the upper one. Finally, all the stones were removed, but the state of weightlessness did not disappear. Znayka was terribly disappointed and fell, as they say, in spirit. He already wanted to close the cabinet door, but at that time he saw on the bottom shelf, in the very corner, another pebble, which he had not noticed before. It was a piece of magnetic iron ore. Having already lost hope for the success of his experiment, Znayka reached out his hand and took out the magnetic iron ore from the cabinet. In that same moment, he felt gravity pull him down, and he sprawled on the floor again.
- So, weightlessness appears due to the interaction of magnetic energy and the energy of the moonstone, - said Znayka.
Rising from the floor, he took out a sliding ruler from the desk drawer. To one end of this ruler he attached a lunit, and to the other a magnetic iron ore, and began to carefully move both ends. When the moonstone approached the magnetic iron ore at the same distance at which it was in the locker, the state of weightlessness again appeared.
- As we see ... - said Znayka, as if he was giving a lecture to invisible listeners. - As you can see, the state of weightlessness appears when the moonstone and magnetic iron ore are at a certain distance. This distance can be called critical. As soon as the distance between the two minerals becomes more critical, weightlessness will disappear and gravity will again act on us.
As if to prove his words, Znayka pushed the ends of the ruler apart and at the same moment felt how gravity pulled him down. His knees gave way, and he sat down on the floor with a swing. Znayka, however, was not embarrassed by this. On the contrary, he smiled solemnly and said:
- Here it is, the weightlessness device! Now weightlessness is in our hands, and we will command it!
Chapter Five
The grandiose plan of Znayka
For some time, Znayka sat on the floor, immersed in reflections about how great the discovery of weightlessness would be for science. Thoughts swirled around in his head, pushing each other, so that it turned out to be some kind of chaos and it was impossible to make out anything plainly. Finally, Znayka was seized by a single thought that drove out all the others.“I should go tell the shorties about my new discovery and show them the weightlessness device,” he thought.
Rising from the floor, he opened the door and at the same moment heard screams coming from below. Forgetting about his discovery, Znayka rushed down the stairs. The first thing he saw were the short men who surrounded Donut on all sides. Donut himself sat on an armchair and held his nose with his hands, and Dr. Pilyulkin approached him with bandages and a jar of iodine in his hands.
- Don't come! Donut squealed and tried to kick Pilyulkin with his feet. - Don't come! Here's the whole story for you!
“But I must bandage your nose,” answered Dr. Pilyulkin.
- What about him? – asked shorties Znayka.
“I stuck my nose to the table,” said Toropyzhka.
- How did it stick to the table with its nose?
- Well, you know, he was hanging in the air all the time, and when the weightlessness disappeared, he fell down and slammed his nose on the table. It's good that it's not about the floor, Toropyzhka explained.
- Maybe you influence him, Znayka? - said Dr. Pilyulkin. “I can’t deal with him for half an hour!”
Seeing that Donut continued to squeal and kick, Znayka said sternly:
- Well, calm down now!
Noticing that Znayka intervened in the matter, Donut instantly fell silent. Pilyulkin quickly stopped the bleeding and put a very neat ball-shaped bandage on Donut's nose and said:
“Look how well it turned out.
- Fine, fine! Donut grumbled angrily.
He got down from the chair and began to feel the bandage with his hands. Pilyulkin cracked him on the arms and said:
- You have been bandaged so that your nose retains its shape, and if you start grabbing the bandage with your hands, then instead of your nose you will not understand what!
“Well, I’ll just find out who set it all up for me!” Donut threatened. I'll show him!
Hearing these threats Znayka realized that before doing his experiment, he had to warn the little ones so that no injuries would happen. Feeling guilty before Donut, Znayka decided not to tell anyone about his discovery for the time being, but to tell later when this incident was gradually forgotten.
After making sure that weightlessness disappeared and no longer appears, Dunno went for a walk around the city and told everyone who met about what had happened to them. However, no one believed his stories, since everyone knew that Dunno was a master of inventing. Dunno was terribly angry, meeting such distrust on the part of the short men. Then he told about the state of weightlessness to his friend Gunka. And Gunka said:
- It was you, probably, the state of stupidity, and not the state of weightlessness.
For such words, Dunno gave Gunka a good cuff. And Gunka, so as not to remain in debt, answered Dunno in the same way. The result was another fight, from which Gunka emerged victorious.
“So tell the truth after that!” Dunno grumbled, returning home. - And why does it always happen like this: it is worth inventing some nonsense - and everyone will believe you, but try to tell at least the purest truth - they will put you in the neck, and that's it!
Dunno stories, however, gave rise to various disputes and rumors among the inhabitants of the Flower City. Some said that there could not be weightlessness, because there could not be something that had never been; others said that there could be weightlessness, because it always happens that at first something does not happen, and then it appears; still others said that weightlessness could exist, but it could not exist, but if it actually did not exist, then in fact there was something else, because it could not be so that there was nothing at all: after all It always happens that there is no smoke without fire.
Some of the most curious residents went to Znaika's house and, seeing Donut with a bandaged nose in the yard, asked:
- Listen, Donut, is it true that you had weightlessness?
- Here it is, your weightlessness, on my nose! Donut replied angrily.
The little guys laughed and went home. After such an answer, no one believed the talk about weightlessness anymore. In the evening, having gathered for tea, Znayka and his friends recalled what had happened during the day. Everyone talked about their feelings and what they thought when the state of weightlessness appeared. And here's what's curious: everyone was sorry that weightlessness ended so quickly. Still, it was a very interesting adventure. Znayka was tempted to tell that he had discovered the secret of weightlessness, but as soon as he looked at Donut's bandaged nose, the desire to tell him disappeared by itself.
That night, Znayka could not sleep for a long time: everyone thought about what benefits the state of weightlessness could bring.
“Weightlessness is a huge force if you know how to approach it,” he reflected. - With the help of weightlessness, you can lift and transfer huge weights. You can literally move mountains and turn them upside down. You can build a big rocket and fly it on a space trip. Indeed, now, in order to accelerate a rocket to the required speed, one has to take a huge supply of fuel; if the rocket does not weigh anything, then very little fuel will be needed, and instead of fuel supplies, you can take more passengers and more food for them. That's when it will be possible to make a long expedition to the moon, penetrate into its bowels and, perhaps, even get acquainted with the lunar shorties.
Dreaming, Znayka did not notice how he fell into a dream. And in a dream he dreamed of a space rocket, and the Moon, and lunar shorties, and many other interesting things.
And the next morning, Znaika disappeared. He didn’t show up for breakfast, and when the short men came to his room, they saw a note on the table that contained only three words: “To the Sunny City”, and the signature: “Znayka”. After reading the note, the shorties immediately realized that Znayka had left for the Sunny City.
Znayka, as everyone knew very well, was an unexpected short man. If a decision came to his mind, he never put it off indefinitely. So it is this time. Waking up at dawn, when everyone was still sleeping, and deciding to go to the Sunny City, he did not want to wake anyone, but wrote a note and slowly left the house. Another in his place would have left a more detailed note, well, he wrote at least: “I left for the Sunny City”, and not just “To the Sunny City”, but Znayka knew that than more words, the more confusion, and besides, he was sure that the words "To the Sunny City" could not mean anything other than that he had gone to the Sunny City.
Two months later, a telegram came from Znayka: "Vintik, Shpuntik Sunny City." Vintik and Shpuntik perfectly understood what was required of them, and, having immediately packed up, they also left.
For some time there was no news from them, so the inhabitants of the Flower City decided that they, together with Znayka, had completely moved to the Sunny City and would not return back.
Soon the shorties noticed that in the neighborhood of the Flower City, not far from Cucumber Hill, construction began. Trucks loaded with building blocks made of lightweight foam plastic drove up here every now and then. Several short men in blue overalls assembled small, cozy one-story houses from these blocks. 
Toropyzhka was the first to run to find out what kind of construction it was. Other residents followed him. To their surprise, they saw among the working shorties and Vintik with Shpuntik.
- Hey, what are you doing? What will be here? shouted Toropyzhka.
“Space town,” answered Vintik.
What is Space City for?
- When Znayka arrives, he will tell you everything plainly.
And Dunno said with resentment:
- Well, we ourselves could not make a Space City?
Dunno looked like he had been building space towns all his life.
“And don’t worry, there’s enough work for everyone,” Vintik told him. - Firstly, flowers should be planted around the houses so that it is beautiful; secondly, from the power plant to the Space City it is necessary to lay an electric line so that there is electricity; thirdly, it is necessary to make a road, pave the streets, install water supply, finish the premises ... But you never know what else! 
Residents of the Flower City immediately got involved in the work. Who worked on laying the road, who installed poles for the power line, who planted flowers. Many found work on the interior decoration of houses. The tube took over the leadership of all painting work: he composed paints, indicated what colors to paint the walls and roofs of houses.
Soon, a round concrete platform was made in the center of the Space City, on which they began to install a space rocket. Parts for this rocket were manufactured in the Sunny City and delivered to the Space City on special tracked cargo trucks, which were distinguished by a very smooth ride, due to which the rocket parts could not be damaged or deformed during transportation. A special walking tower crane was brought for assembly. With the help of this crane, parts of the rocket were removed from the trucks and put into place. The height of the rocket was, however, so great that its upper parts were no longer installed with the help of a tower crane, but with the help of a helicopter, which lifted the parts to the desired height. The assembly of the rocket was carried out under the supervision of Fuchsia and Herring, who specially for this purpose came to the Space City and settled in it. 
A few days later, the assembly of the rocket was completed. She stood in the middle of Space City, towering over the houses like a huge cigar or like an upright airship. To protect against the harmful effects of air, water vapor and other gases, the outer shell of the rocket was made of heavy-duty stainless steel. Under this steel shell was a second shell made of a special so-called cosmoplastmass, the purpose of which was to protect the interior of the ship from the harmful effects of cosmic rays and radioactive radiation. Finally, inside the ship there was a third, heat-insulating shell made of thermoplastic, which helped to maintain the required temperature inside the ship.
For the movement of the rocket and its control, there were three jet engines. The main, largest engine, which imparted forward motion to the rocket, was located in the tail section. The nozzle of this engine was directed vertically down. When the engine was running, heated gases escaped from the nozzle down, due to which the reaction force, or, as it is otherwise called, the reactive force, pushed the rocket up. 
At the top of the rocket, in a rotating head, a rotation engine was installed. The nozzle of this engine was mounted horizontally and could be rotated in any direction. If, for example, it was necessary to turn the rocket to the west, the engine nozzle turned to the east. The heated gases escaped in this case in an easterly direction, while the rocket itself deviated to the west.
In the same head part of the rocket, a third, so-called brake engine, was installed, the nozzle of which was directed vertically upwards. When the brake motor was turned on, hot gases were thrown forward from the nozzle, due to which the jet force could slow down the forward movement of the rocket and even completely stop it.
Inside, the rocket was divided into twelve cabins. Each cabin accommodated four travelers. Therefore, in total, forty-eight short men could go on a space voyage. In the central part of the rocket, a salon was arranged. In this cabin, space travelers could gather to rest, discuss some issues, and also eat.
The rest of the space inside the rocket was used for the construction of the so-called compartments. There was a food compartment designed to store food supplies. There was a chemical compartment in which equipment was placed for cleaning the air from accumulated carbon dioxide and enriching it with oxygen. There was a battery compartment in which batteries were installed that supplied electric power to electric motors, fans, refrigerators, as well as heating and lighting devices.
In the upper, most protected part of the rocket, there was a control cabin, in which the weightlessness device invented by Znaika and an electronic control machine were placed. This machine worked according to a predetermined program and independently directed the ship along a given route, changing its speed and direction as needed, and landing in a given area of the Moon.
Next to the control cabin was the so-called push-button cabin, on the door of which there was an inscription: "Entrance is prohibited." There was only one small table in this booth, with a single button in the middle of it. By pressing this button, the spacecraft commander turned on the electronic control machine, and then the machine itself turned on the weightlessness device and all other instruments and did everything necessary for the correct flight of the spacecraft.
In the upper part of the rocket there was also an astronomical cabin equipped with a telescope, radar and other instruments for determining the location of the spacecraft in interplanetary space, a photocabin equipped with photographic and filming devices for shooting the Moon, an analytical cabin in which it was possible to produce chemical analyzes minerals found on the moon. There was a large warehouse in the tail section of the rocket, which stored a significant supply of seeds of various useful plants: cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, cabbages, turnips, watermelons, melons, cherries, plums, strawberries, raspberries, wheat, rye, buckwheat, everything that was suitable for shorties for food. Znayka decided to give these seeds to sleepwalkers, in the event that, of course, sleepwalkers are found on the moon and if they themselves do not have such plants.
In addition to cabins, cabins, compartments, a warehouse, a salon, there were many other utility rooms in the rocket. The rocket was like a multi-story building, equipped with everything that could be needed for a normal life, and even an elevator that could take you to any floor.
When the rocket was fully assembled, everyone could get acquainted with its internal structure. As soon as forty-eight volunteers were recruited, they were allowed inside the ship. There they could sit in the cabin, lie down on the berths in the cabins, look into all corners. After the inspection, each visitor had to put on a space suit. Without this, he could not get out of the rocket. The exit from the rocket was equipped with a special photocell that did not allow the door to be opened if the little man was not wearing a spacesuit.
Fuchsia and Herring were constantly in the rocket. They introduced visitors to the internal structure of the rocket, answered all questions and observed the operation of devices that purify the air, ventilate the room, maintain the desired temperature, and so on. Dunno, who also managed to get into the rocket, asked Fuchsia and Herring about everything in great detail, and when he got out of the rocket, he waited for the next forty-eight people to enter and again went with them. During the day, he visited the rocket several times. Fuchsia and Herring already recognized him and greeted him with smiles. But they didn't chase him away. Herring said that there was no need to drive anyone away: if someone wants to properly study the structure of a rocket, then this can only be useful.
Soon, in the neighborhood of Space City, a large white building arose in the form of a huge round china bowl turned upside down. Above its entrance was written in large beautiful letters: Weightlessness Pavilion. Now everyone could be convinced from their own experience that talk about weightlessness is not idle fiction, but the real truth. Everyone who entered the pavilion instantly lost weight and began to wallow helplessly in the air.
In the center of the pavilion there was a small cabin made of transparent plastic. The weightlessness device was placed in this cabin. Znayka, who by this time had already returned to the Flower City, strictly forbade anyone to enter the cabin and touch the device. Now this device was not just a ruler, but was enclosed in a dark blue oblong case made of durable fireproof and waterproof plastic. The approach of the magnet and the moonstone was carried out automatically in the device, that is, by pressing a button. Every morning, Znayka personally appeared in the pavilion and turned on the device, and in the evening he came again, carefully checking whether anyone had remained in the pavilion, whether some short man was hanging from the ceiling in a state of weightlessness, and then turned off the device.
Some readers may not believe that the energy given off by a moon rock and a small magnet could be so great as to overcome the force of gravity. However, on reflection, these doubting readers will realize for themselves that there is nothing surprising here. After all, the energy reserves inside the substance are very large and downright inexhaustible. Now everyone familiar with physics knows that the energy stored in a piece of matter the size of a penny can replace the energy that is obtained from the burning of tens of thousands of tons of coal or some other combustible substance. This, too, no one would have believed in those days when intra-atomic energy had not yet been discovered, but in our time this no longer surprises anyone.
It must also be said that the energy of the moonstone did not destroy the weight in general, but only in a limited space, and it did not even destroy the weight, but only shifted the so-called gravitational field to the sides. If gravity was not felt at all in the zone of weightlessness, then a so-called belt of increased gravity was installed around this zone. It was felt by everyone who came close to the weightlessness pavilion. Thus, there was nothing surprising in Znaykin's discovery. Everything in it was scientifically substantiated, which, of course, did not detract from the significance of this discovery.
Needless to say, what a huge interest the pavilion of weightlessness aroused among the inhabitants of the Flower City. Several days passed, and in the whole city it was impossible to find a short man who had not visited the pavilion at least once. Many even managed to visit several times, and as for Dunno, he did not get out of the pavilion for whole days and felt like a fish in water in it.
One morning Dunno got up early and climbed into the pavilion so that no one could see. There he took the weightlessness device and went with it to the river. For some reason, he wanted to see what the fish would do in the river when they were in a state of weightlessness. It is not known why such a thought entered his mind. Perhaps he began to think about fish, because he, like a fish, swam around the pavilion all day in a state of weightlessness.
Finding himself on the river bank, Dunno turned on the weightlessness device and began to look into the water. At the first moment, he noticed that weightlessness had a very strange effect on the behavior of fish. Some of them hung down with their tails and twirled like ballerinas; others sank head down and twirled as well; still others swam belly up. However, after a while, many of them got used to the state of weightlessness and began, as usual, to frolic in the water. But then one of the fish, trying to catch a fly hovering over the water, jumped out of the river and tumbled helplessly in the air. Now the force of gravity did not pull it down, and the fish, with all their desire, could not return to the river. Following the first, a second fish splashed out of the water. In less than five minutes, fish, frogs, newts, swimming beetles and other aquatic animals danced over the surface of the river, gleaming in the sun.
While Dunno was conducting his "experiments" on the river, Znayka came to the pavilion to turn on the weightlessness device. Seeing that the device had disappeared from the cockpit, Znayka was terribly frightened.
- Where is the device? he shouted excitedly. Who took the device? Put it in place now! 
But none of the shorties could tell him where the device was. Only Vintik and Shpuntik, who worked nearby, said that they saw Dunno early in the morning, who entered the pavilion for some reason, and then left towards the river. Upon learning this, Znayka ran at full speed to the river. The rest of the shorties rushed after him. Running up the Cucumber Hill, Znayka saw Dunno below, who was hovering over the river in a state of weightlessness.
- Here he is, Dunno! Here he is! shouted the short men, who ran after Znaika.
The stranger heard the screams. Turning around, he saw an angry Znayka and the rest of the short men who ran straight towards him. Frightened, he wanted to run away from them, but only fluttered helplessly in the air. Realizing that it was impossible to run in a state of weightlessness, he quickly pressed the button on the device and turned off weightlessness. Having gained weight, he instantly flew down and plopped into the water with a swing. The water splashed in all directions.
- Save him! Save! He has a weightlessness device! Znayka screamed heart-rendingly and, running up to the river, threw himself into the water.
The little ones, without undressing, jumped into the water and swam to the middle of the river, where Dunno was helplessly floundering. He had already begun to blow bubbles when Znayka arrived in time for him. Grabbing Dunno by the collar, Znayka dragged him to the shore. Then other short men swam up and began to help Znaika. Dr. Pilyulkin was already running to the river with his first-aid kit. Seeing that the short men dragged Dunno ashore, he shouted:
- Take off his shirt! Now I'm going to give him artificial respiration!
Seeing Dr. Pilyulkin with his first-aid kit, Dunno jumped up and wanted to ask the scoundrel, but then Znayka grabbed his hair and shouted:
– Where is the weightlessness device? Where are you putting the device? You drowned the device, your donkey's head!
- Let go! Dunno squealed and began to kick with his feet.
- Oh, so you're still fighting! Znayka croaked. - Drowned the device and still fighting! Here I will show you how to heat appliances!
And he pulled Dunno by the hair with such force that tears appeared in his eyes. In response, Dunno punched Znayka in the chest with his fist. Znaika's breath was taken away, and he released Dunno's hair from his hands. Feeling free, Dunno flew at the offender like a rooster, and they began to fight. The shorties rushed to separate them. Some were holding Znayka by the hands, while others were holding Dunno. Znayka struggled out of his hands, trying to kick Dunno, and shouted:
- How can we fly to the moon without an instrument? Now everything is gone! Let me in, I'll show him how to heat appliances in the river! 
Dunno also escaped from his hands and shouted:
- Come on, let me go! I'll give him the device!
He finally managed to free himself from the shorties, but Toropyzhka managed to grab him by the scruff of the neck. Dunno rushed with such terrible force that he slipped out of his shirt, and then everyone saw how a weightlessness device fell to the ground, which had previously been in Dunno's bosom.
- Here it is, the weightlessness device! Dr. Pilyulkin shouted.
- Why didn't you say that you have the device? – asked Toropyzhka.
“How could I tell when you swooped down on me like a crow?” As soon as I saw that I was falling into the water, I immediately hid the device in my bosom, almost drowned because of it, and instead of saying thank you, they fight!
Znayka picked up the device from the ground and, angrily flashing his eyes at Dunno, said:
“You won’t go to the moon for that!”
“Well, fly yourself,” Dunno answered. - I really need your moon!
- To talk to you - only to lose your own dignity! - said Znayka and, without uttering another word, left.
- Think what a swell! Dunno shouted after him. - Well, kiss your Luna! I can live without the moon!
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This part of the work is posted for informational purposes.
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