Fairy tales for everyone. Alexander Kalinkin. A fairy tale for children

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by Alexander N. Kalinkin

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Fairy tale

THE TIGER LILY

A little girl had her birthday party. There were a lot of presents - two beautiful dolls, paints, books and even a splendid festive dress. And also she got a big bunch of tiger lilies. There very nice flowers were immediately put into a crystal vase sparkling with light. There were looking at the surrounding merriment with curiosity. And they themselves had a breath of something jolly and lively.

There were a lot of guests at the party and when all of them were sitting at the table one of the girlfriends said with an air of pompously: "Do you know that in some flowers live elfs?" "Do you think that in these lilies also live elfs?" - asked the girl. The girlfriend shrugged her shoulders and here the conversation about elfs came to end.

But on the tiger lilies really lived flower elfs and when it got dark they opened a little petals of sleeping flowers and looked around. Elfs are very jolly people and the tiger lilies were the ideal place for their life. In some minutes the elfs-violinists were already sitting on the highest bud and the lovers of dancing, in other words, all the others, were whispering below on the table.

Look! Out of petals of the most beautiful flowers went the king with the queen. The violins pealed out and... the elfs went round in pairs!

Everything was fine but... the little girl couldn't get to sleep that night - so much had happened that day. She was tossing and turning and at last she positively opened her eyes and... saw the little illuminated ground on her table and dancing tiny people.

"Oh, there are probably the elfs! - thought the girl and run towards the table. And then... The musicians almost fell from petals and quickly disappeared behind them, the pairs got mixed up and gathered near the vase. A little well-dressed man with a gleaming silvery crown on the his head stepped forward. "You shouldn't tell anybody about the things you've seen! We can give you everything you want!" "But... I don't know what to wish," - - answered girl. "Then we can present you the dream! Here you are" - with these words the king of elfs held out a little star gleaming with tenderly-golden light. The girl stretched out her palm for it and as the little star touched the palm she sinked into a deep, kind sleep.

The morning came. The rays of the sun were playing on the blinds as though they were trying to seep through into the fabric, and the world of sleeping rooms was still stretching itself slowly because it didn't want to get out of warm cosy sleep. The girl wasn't already sleeping but she was examining the tiger lilies with curiosity. Something in them was unusual but what exactly? She tried to remember but she didn't manage, only the feeling of strangeness quivered and turned into something bright and far, into something that she would later call "the dream".

06/01/1998