Evgeny Schwartz

A Tale of Lost Time

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Petya Zubov. He studied in the third grade of the fourteenth school and was always behind, both in Russian writing, and in arithmetic, and even in singing.
- I’ll make it! – he said at the end of the first quarter. “I’ll catch up with you all in the second.”
And the second one came - he hoped for a third. So he was late and lagged, lagged and late and did not bother. “I’ll have time” and “I’ll have time.”
And then one day Petya Zubov came to school, late as always. He ran into the locker room. He slammed his briefcase on the fence and shouted:
- Aunt Natasha! Take my coat!
And Aunt Natasha asks from somewhere behind the hangers:
- Who is calling me?
- It's me. Petya Zubov,” the boy answers.
– Why is your voice so hoarse today? - asks Aunt Natasha.
“And I’m surprised myself,” Petya answers. “Suddenly I became hoarse for no reason at all.”
Aunt Natasha came out from behind the hangers, looked at Petya, and how she screamed:
- Oh!
Petya Zubov was also scared and asked:
- Aunt Natasha, what’s wrong with you?
- Like what? - Aunt Natasha answers. – You said that you were Petya Zubov, but in fact you must be his grandfather.
- What kind of grandfather am I? - asks the boy. – I’m Petya, a third grade student.
- Look in the mirror! - says Aunt Natasha.
The boy looked in the mirror and almost fell. Petya Zubov saw that he had turned into a tall, thin, pale old man. He grew a thick gray beard and mustache. Wrinkles covered the face like a net.
Petya looked at himself, looked, and his gray beard shook.
He shouted in a deep voice:
- Mother! – and ran out of the school.
He runs and thinks:
“Well, if my mother doesn’t recognize me, then everything is lost.”
Petya ran home and called three times.
Mom opened the door for him.
She looks at Petya and is silent. And Petya is silent too. He stands with his gray beard exposed and almost cries.
- Who do you want, grandfather? – Mom finally asked.
- You will not recognise me? - Petya whispered.
“Sorry, no,” my mother answered.
Poor Petya turned away and walked wherever he could.
He walks and thinks:
- What a lonely, unhappy old man I am. No mother, no children, no grandchildren, no friends... And most importantly, I didn’t have time to learn anything. Real old people are either doctors, or masters, or academics, or teachers. Who needs me when I'm just a third grade student? They won’t even give me a pension - after all, I’ve only worked for three years. And how he worked - with twos and threes. What will happen to me? Poor old me! Unhappy boy I am! How will all this end?
So Petya thought and walked, walked and thought, and he himself did not notice how he went out of the city and ended up in the forest. And he walked through the forest until it got dark.
“It would be nice to have a rest,” Petya thought and suddenly saw that some white house was visible to the side, behind the fir trees. Petya entered the house - there were no owners. There is a table in the middle of the room. A kerosene lamp hangs above it. There are four stools around the table. The walkers are ticking on the wall. And in the corner there is a pile of hay.
Petya lay down in the hay, buried himself deep in it, warmed up, cried quietly, wiped his tears with his beard and fell asleep.
Petya wakes up - the room is light, a kerosene lamp is burning under the glass. And there are guys sitting around the table - two boys and two girls. A large copper-clad abacus lies in front of them. The boys count and mutter.
- Two years, and another five, and another seven, and another three... This is for you, Sergei Vladimirovich, and these are yours, Olga Kapitonovna, and this is for you, Marfa Vasilievna, and these are yours, Panteley Zakharovich.
Who are these guys? Why are they so gloomy? Why do they groan, and groan, and sigh, like real old people? Why do they call each other by their first and patronymic names? Why did they gather here at night, in a lonely forest hut?
Petya Zubov froze, not breathing, hanging on every word. And he became scared from what he heard.
Not boys and girls, but evil wizards and evil witches were sitting at the table! This is how it turns out that the world works: a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the evil wizards found out about this and let's catch the guys wasting their time. And so the wizards caught Petya Zubov, and another boy, and two more girls and turned them into old men. The poor children grew old, and they themselves did not notice it - after all, a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the time lost by the boys was taken by the wizards for themselves. And the wizards became little children, and the boys became old men.
What should I do?
What to do?
Isn’t it really possible to restore the lost youth to the children?
The wizards calculated the time and wanted to hide the scores in the table, but Sergei Vladimirovich, the main one, did not allow it. He took the abacus and walked up to the walkers. I spun the hands, tugged the weights, listened to the pendulum tick, and clicked the abacus again. He counted, he counted, he whispered, he whispered, until the clock showed midnight. Then Sergei Vladimirovich mixed the dominoes and checked again how many he got.
Then he called the wizards to him and spoke quietly:
- Lord wizards! Know that the guys whom we have turned into old men today can still become younger.
“How?” exclaimed the wizards.
“I’ll tell you now,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich.
He tiptoed out of the house, walked around it, returned, bolted the door and stirred the hay with a stick.
Petya Zubov froze like a mouse.
But the kerosene lamp shone dimly, and the evil wizard did not see Petya. He called the other wizards closer to him and spoke quietly:
“Unfortunately, this is how the world works: a person can be saved from any misfortune.” If the guys whom we turned into old people find each other tomorrow, come here to us at exactly twelve o’clock at night and turn the arrow of the walkers back seventy-seven times, then the children will become children again, and we will die.
The wizards were silent. Then Olga Kapitonovna said:
- How do they know all this?
And Panteley Zakharovich grumbled:
“They won’t come here by twelve o’clock at night.” Even if it's a minute they'll be late.
And Marfa Vasilievna muttered:
- Where should they go? Where are they! These lazy people won’t even be able to count up to seventy-seven, they’ll immediately lose their minds.
“That’s how it is,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich. – Still, keep your eyes open for now. If the guys get to the clocks and touch the arrows, then we won’t budge. Well, for now there’s no time to waste, let’s go to work.
And the wizards, hiding the abacus in the table, ran like children, but at the same time they groaned, groaned and sighed like real old people.
Petya Zubov waited until the footsteps in the forest died down. Got out of the house. And, without wasting any time, hiding behind trees and bushes, he ran and rushed into the city to look for old schoolchildren.
The city has not yet woken up. It was dark in the windows, empty on the streets, only policemen stood at their posts. But then dawn broke. The first trams rang. And finally Petya Zubov saw an old woman walking slowly down the street with a large basket.
Petya Zubov ran up to her and asked:
– Please tell me, grandma, are you not a schoolgirl?
- I'm sorry, what? – the old woman asked sternly.
-Aren't you a third grader? – Petya whispered timidly.
And the old woman would knock on Petya with her feet and swing her basket at Petya. Petya barely carried his feet away. He caught his breath a little and moved on. And the city has already completely woken up. Trams are flying, people are rushing to work. Trucks are rumbling - quickly, quickly, we need to hand over the cargo to stores, factories, railway. Janitors clear the snow and sprinkle the panel with sand so that pedestrians do not slip, fall, or waste time. How many times did Petya Zubov see all this and only now did he understand why people are so afraid of not being on time, of being late, of falling behind.
Petya looks around, looking for old people, but doesn’t find a single one suitable. Old people are running through the streets, but you can immediately see that they are real people, not third graders.
Here is an old man with a briefcase. Probably a teacher. Here is an old man with a bucket and a brush - this is a painter. Here is a red fire truck rushing, and in the car there is an old man - the chief of the city fire department. This one, of course, never wasted any time in his life.
Petya walks, wanders, but the young old people, old children - no, no. Life is in full swing all around. He alone, Petya, fell behind, was late, did not have time, is good for nothing, is of no use to anyone.
Exactly at noon, Petya went into a small park and sat down on a bench to rest.
And suddenly he jumped up.
He saw an old woman sitting nearby on another bench and crying.
Petya wanted to run up to her, but didn’t dare.
- I'll wait! – he said to himself. “I’ll see what she will do next.”
And the old woman suddenly stopped crying, sat and dangled her legs. Then she took out a newspaper from one pocket, and from another a piece of sieve with raisins. The old lady unfolded the newspaper, and Petya gasped with joy: “Pioneer Truth”! - and the old woman began to read and eat. He picks out the raisins, but doesn’t touch the sieve ones.
The old woman finished reading, hid the newspaper and sieve, and suddenly she saw something in the snow. She bent down and grabbed the ball. Probably one of the children playing in the park lost this ball in the snow.
The old lady looked at the ball from all sides, carefully wiped it with a handkerchief, stood up, slowly walked up to the tree and let’s play three rubles.
Petya rushed to her through the snow, through the bushes. Runs and shouts:
- Grandmother! Honestly, you are a schoolgirl!
The old woman jumped for joy, grabbed Petya by the hands and answered:
- That's right, that's right! I am a third grade student Marusya Pospelova. Who are you?
Petya told Marusa who he was. They held hands and ran to look for the rest of their comrades. We searched for an hour, two, three. Finally we entered the second courtyard of a huge house. And they see an old woman jumping behind the woodshed. She drew classes on the asphalt with chalk and is jumping on one leg, chasing a pebble.
Petya and Marusya rushed to her.
- Grandmother! Are you a schoolgirl?
“A schoolgirl,” the old woman answers. – Third grade student, Nadenka Sokolova. Who are you?
Petya and Marusya told her who they were. All three held hands and ran to look for their last comrade.
But he seemed to have disappeared into the ground. Wherever the old people went - into courtyards, and into gardens, and into children's cinemas, and into the House of Entertaining Science - a boy disappeared, and that's all.
A time is running. It was already getting dark. Already in the lower floors of the houses the lights came on. The day is ending. What to do? Is everything really lost?
Suddenly Marusya shouted:
- Look! Look!
Petya and Nadenka looked and this is what they saw: a tram was flying, number nine. And there’s an old man hanging on the “sausage.” The hat is pulled jauntily down over one ear, the beard flutters in the wind. An old man rides and whistles. His comrades are looking for him, they are knocked off their feet, but he is rolling around all over the city and doesn’t give a damn!
The guys rushed after the tram. Luckily for them, a red light came on at the intersection and the tram stopped.
The guys grabbed the “sausage maker” by the floors and tore him away from the “sausage.”
-Are you a schoolboy? - they ask.
- What about it? - he answers. – Second grade student, Vasya Zaitsev. What do you want?
The guys told him who they were.
In order not to waste time, all four of them got on the tram and went out of town to the forest.
Some schoolchildren were traveling on the same tram. They stood up and gave way to our old men.
– Please sit down, grandfathers and grandmothers.
The old men were embarrassed, blushed and refused.
And the schoolchildren, as if on purpose, turned up polite, well-mannered, asking the old people, persuading them:
- Yes, sit down! You have worked hard over your long life and are tired. Sit now and rest.
Then, fortunately, a tram approached the forest, our old men jumped off and ran into the thicket.
But then a new misfortune awaited them. They got lost in the forest.
Night fell, dark, dark. Old people wander through the forest, fall, stumble, but cannot find their way.
- Ah, time, time! - says Petya. - It runs, it runs. Yesterday I didn’t notice the way back to the house - I was afraid to lose time. And now I see that sometimes it’s better to spend a little time in order to save it later.
The old men were completely exhausted. But, fortunately for them, the wind blew, the sky cleared of clouds and the full moon shone in the sky.
Petya Zubov climbed onto the birch tree and saw - there it was, a house, two steps away its walls were white, its windows were shining among the dense fir trees.
Petya went downstairs and whispered to his comrades:
- Quiet! Not a word! Behind me!
The guys crawled through the snow towards the house. We looked carefully out the window.
The clock shows five minutes to twelve. The wizards lie in the hay, saving their stolen time.
- They are sleeping! - said Marusya.
- Quiet! - Petya whispered.
Quietly the guys opened the door and crawled towards the walkers. At one minute to twelve they stood up at the clock. Exactly at midnight, Petya extended his hand to the arrows and - one, two, three - spun them back, from right to left.
The wizards jumped up screaming, but could not move. They stand and grow, grow. Now they have turned into adults, so White hair their temples shone, their cheeks became wrinkled.
“Lift me up,” Petya shouted. - I’m becoming small, I can’t reach the arrows! Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three!
Petya's comrades lifted him into their arms. At the fortieth turn of the arrow, the wizards became decrepit, hunched old men. They were bent closer and closer to the ground, they became lower and lower. And then, on the seventy-seventh and final turn of the arrow, the evil wizards screamed and disappeared, as if they had never existed.
The guys looked at each other and laughed with joy. They became children again. They took it in battle, and miraculously regained the time they had lost in vain.
They were saved, but remember: a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how old he is.

“The Tale of Lost Time” is a work by Evgeniy Schwartz, which has been interesting to older children for many years. It shows the story of several careless students and students. They got into trouble because of their own laziness and empty activities. Will the guys be able to regain the wasted time, who will hinder them, will they have helpers? All the answers in the tale are about the importance of appreciating every moment, taking a responsible approach to your responsibilities and being a true friend.

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Petya Zubov. He studied in the third grade of the fourteenth school and was always behind, both in Russian writing, and in arithmetic, and even in singing.

- I’ll make it! - he said at the end of the first quarter. “I’ll catch up with you all in the second.”

And the second one came - he hoped for a third. So he was late and lagged, lagged and late and did not bother. “I’ll have time” and “I’ll have time.”

And then one day Petya Zubov came to school, late as always. He ran into the locker room. He slammed his briefcase on the fence and shouted:

- Aunt Natasha! Take my coat!

And Aunt Natasha asks from somewhere behind the hangers:

-Who is calling me?

- It's me. Petya Zubov,” the boy answers.

“I’m surprised myself,” Petya answers. “Suddenly I became hoarse for no reason at all.”

Aunt Natasha came out from behind the hangers, looked at Petya and screamed:

Petya Zubov was also scared and asked:

- Aunt Natasha, what’s wrong with you?

- Like what? - Aunt Natasha answers. “You said that you were Petya Zubov, but in fact you must be his grandfather.”

- What kind of grandfather am I? — the boy asks. “I’m Petya, a third-grade student.”

- Look in the mirror! - says Aunt Natasha.

The boy looked in the mirror and almost fell. Petya Zubov saw that he had turned into a tall, thin, pale old man. He grew a beard and mustache. Wrinkles covered the face like a net.

Petya looked at himself, looked, and his gray beard shook.

He shouted in a deep voice:

- Mother! - and ran out of the school.

He runs and thinks:

“Well, if my mother doesn’t recognize me, then everything is lost.”

Petya ran home and called three times.

Mom opened the door for him.

He looks at Petya and is silent. And Petya is silent too. He stands with his gray beard exposed and almost cries.

- Who do you want, grandfather? - Mom finally asked.

- You will not recognise me? - Petya whispered.

“Sorry, no,” my mother answered.

Poor Petya turned away and walked wherever he could.

He walks and thinks:

- What a lonely, unhappy old man I am. No mother, no children, no grandchildren, no friends... And most importantly, I didn’t have time to learn anything. Real old people are either doctors, or masters, or academics, or teachers. Who needs me when I'm just a third grade student? They won’t even give me a pension: after all, I only worked for three years. And how he worked - with twos and threes. What will happen to me? Poor old me! Am I an unhappy boy? How will all this end?

So Petya thought and walked, walked and thought, and he himself did not notice how he went out of the city and ended up in the forest. And he walked through the forest until it got dark.

“It would be nice to have a rest,” Petya thought and suddenly saw a white house off to the side, behind the fir trees.

Petya entered the house - there were no owners. There is a table in the middle of the room. A kerosene lamp hangs above it. There are four stools around the table. The walkers are ticking on the wall. And in the corner there is a pile of hay.

Petya lay down in the hay, buried himself deep in it, warmed up, cried quietly, wiped his tears with his beard and fell asleep.

Petya wakes up - the room is light, a kerosene lamp is burning under the glass. And there are guys sitting around the table - two boys and two girls. Large, copper-clad abacus lies in front of them. The guys count and mutter:

- Two years, and another five, and another seven, and another three... This is for you, Sergei Vladimirovich, and these are yours, Olga Kapitonovna, and this is for you, Marfa Vasilievna, and these are yours, Panteley Zakharovich.

Who are these guys? Why are they so gloomy? Why do they groan, and groan, and sigh, like real old people? Why do they call each other by their first and patronymic names? Why did they gather here at night, in a lonely forest hut?

Petya Zubov froze, not breathing, hanging on every word. And he became scared from what he heard.

Not boys and girls, but evil wizards and evil witches were sitting at the table! This is how it turns out that the world works: a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the evil wizards found out about this and let's catch the guys wasting their time. And so the wizards caught Petya Zubov, and another boy, and two more girls and turned them into old men. The poor children grew old, and they themselves did not notice it: after all, a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the time lost by the boys was taken by the wizards for themselves. And the wizards became little children, and the boys became old men.

What should I do?

What to do?

Isn’t it really possible to restore the lost youth to the children?

The wizards calculated the time and wanted to hide the scores in the table, but Sergei Vladimirovich - the main one - did not allow it. He took the abacus and walked up to the walkers. He turned the hands, tugged the weights, listened to the pendulum tick, and clicked the abacus again.

He counted, he counted, he whispered, he whispered, until the clock showed midnight. Then Sergei Vladimirovich mixed the dominoes and checked again how many he got.

Then he called the wizards to him and spoke quietly:

- Lord wizards! Know that the guys whom we have turned into old men today can still become younger.

- How? - the wizards screamed.

“I’ll tell you now,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich.

He tiptoed out of the house, walked around it, returned, bolted the door and stirred the hay with a stick.

Petya Zubov froze like a mouse.

But the kerosene lamp shone dimly, and the evil wizard did not see Petya. He called the other wizards closer to him and spoke quietly:

“Unfortunately, this is how the world works: a person can be saved from any misfortune.” If the guys whom we turned into old people find each other tomorrow, come here to us at exactly twelve o’clock at night and turn the arrow of the walkers back seventy-seven times, then the children will become children again, and we will die.

The wizards were silent.

Then Olga Kapitonovna said:

- How do they know all this?

And Panteley Zakharovich grumbled:

“They won’t come here by twelve o’clock at night.” Even if it's a minute they'll be late.

And Marfa Vasilievna muttered:

- Where should they go? Where are they! These lazy people won’t even be able to count up to seventy-seven, they’ll immediately lose their minds!

“That’s how it is,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich. “Still, keep your ears open for now.” If the guys get to the clocks and touch the arrows, then we won’t budge. Well, for now there’s no time to waste - let’s go to work.

And the wizards, hiding the abacus in the table, ran like children, but at the same time they groaned, groaned and sighed like real old people.

Petya Zubov waited until the footsteps in the forest died down. Got out of the house. And, without wasting any time, hiding behind trees and bushes, he ran and rushed into the city to look for old schoolchildren.

The city has not yet woken up. It was dark in the windows, empty on the streets, only policemen stood at their posts. But then dawn broke. The first trams rang. And finally Petya Zubov saw an old woman walking slowly down the street with a large basket.

Petya Zubov ran up to her and asked:

- Please tell me, grandma, are you not a schoolgirl?

And the old lady would knock her feet and swing her basket at Petya. Petya barely carried his feet away. He caught his breath a little and moved on. And the city has already completely woken up. Trams are flying, people are rushing to work. Trucks are rumbling - quickly, quickly, we need to hand over the goods to stores, factories, and railways. Janitors clear the snow and sprinkle the panel with sand so that pedestrians do not slip, fall, or waste time. How many times did Petya Zubov see all this and only now did he understand why people are so afraid of not being on time, of being late, of falling behind.

Petya looks around, looking for old people, but doesn’t find a single one suitable. Old people are running through the streets, but you can immediately see that they are real people, not third graders.

Here is an old man with a briefcase. Probably a teacher. Here is an old man with a bucket and a brush - this is a painter. Here is a red fire truck rushing, and in the car there is an old man - the chief of the city fire department. This one, of course, never wasted any time in his life.

Petya walks and wanders, but the young old people, the old children, are nowhere to be found. Life is in full swing all around. He alone, Petya, fell behind, was late, did not have time, is good for nothing, is of no use to anyone.

Exactly at noon, Petya went into a small park and sat down on a bench to rest.

And suddenly he jumped up.

He saw an old woman sitting nearby on another bench and crying.

Petya wanted to run up to her, but didn’t dare.

- I'll wait! - he said to himself. “I’ll see what she will do next.”

And the old woman stopped crying, she sits and dangles her legs. Then she took out a newspaper from the pocket of one, and from the other a piece of sieve with raisins. The old lady unfolded the newspaper - Petya gasped with joy: “Pioneer Truth”! - and the old woman began to read and eat. He picks out the raisins, but doesn’t touch the sieve ones.

The old lady looked at the ball from all sides, carefully wiped it with a handkerchief, stood up, slowly walked up to the tree and let’s play three rubles.

Petya rushed to her through the snow, through the bushes. Runs and shouts:

- Grandmother! Honestly, you are a schoolgirl!

The old woman jumped for joy, grabbed Petya by the hands and answered:

- That's right, that's right! I am a third grade student Marusya Pospelova. Who are you?

Petya told Marusa who he was. They held hands and ran to look for the rest of their comrades. We searched for an hour, two, three. Finally we entered the second courtyard of a huge house. And they see an old woman jumping behind the woodshed. She drew classes on the asphalt with chalk and is jumping on one leg, chasing a pebble.

Petya and Marusya rushed to her.

- Grandmother! Are you a schoolgirl?

- Schoolgirl! - the old woman answers. — Third grade student Nadenka Sokolova. Who are you?

Petya and Marusya told her who they were. All three held hands and ran to look for their last comrade.

But he seemed to have disappeared into the ground. Wherever the old people went - into courtyards, and into gardens, and into children's theaters, and into children's cinemas, and into the House of Entertaining Science - a boy disappeared, and that’s all.

And time goes by. It was already getting dark. Already in the lower floors of the houses the lights came on. The day is ending. What to do? Is everything really lost?

Suddenly Marusya shouted:

- Look! Look!

Petya and Nadenka looked and this is what they saw: a tram was flying, number nine. And there’s an old man hanging on the sausage. The hat is pulled jauntily down over one ear, the beard flutters in the wind. An old man rides and whistles. His comrades are looking for him, they are knocked off their feet, but he is rolling around all over the city and doesn’t give a damn!

The guys rushed after the tram. Luckily for them, a red light came on at the intersection and the tram stopped.

The guys grabbed the sausage maker by the flaps and tore him away from the sausage.

-Are you a schoolboy? - they ask.

- What about it? - he answers. - Second grade student Vasya Zaitsev. What do you want?

The guys told him who they were.

In order not to waste time, all four of them got on the tram and went out of town to the forest.

Some schoolchildren were traveling on the same tram. They stood up and gave way to our old men:

- Please sit down, grandfathers and grandmothers.

The old men were embarrassed, blushed and refused. And the schoolchildren, as if on purpose, turned up polite, well-mannered, asking the old people, persuading them:

- Yes, sit down! You have worked hard over your long life and are tired. Sit now and rest.

Then, fortunately, the tram approached the forest, our old men jumped off and ran into the thicket.

But then a new misfortune awaited them. They got lost in the forest.

Night fell, dark, dark. Old people wander through the forest, fall, stumble, but cannot find their way.

- Ah, time, time! - says Petya. - It runs, it runs. Yesterday I didn’t notice the way back to the house - I was afraid to lose time. And now I see that sometimes it’s better to spend a little time in order to save it later.

The old men were completely exhausted. But, fortunately for them, the wind blew, the sky cleared of clouds and the full moon shone in the sky.

Petya Zubov climbed onto the birch tree and saw - there it was, a house, two steps away its walls were white, the windows were shining among the dense fir trees.

Petya went downstairs and whispered to his comrades:

- Quiet! Not a word! Behind me!

The guys crawled through the snow to the house. We looked carefully out the window.

The clock shows five minutes to twelve. The wizards lie in the hay, saving their stolen time.

- They are sleeping! - said Marusya.

- Quiet! - Petya whispered.

Quietly the guys opened the door and crawled towards the walkers. At one minute to twelve they stood up at the clock. Exactly at midnight, Petya extended his hand to the arrows and - one, two, three - spun them back, from right to left.

The wizards jumped up screaming, but could not move. They stand and grow, grow. Now they have turned into adults, now gray hair is shining on their temples, their cheeks are covered with wrinkles.

- Pick me up! - Petya shouted. - I’m becoming small, I can’t reach the arrows! Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three!

Petya's comrades lifted him into their arms.

At the fortieth turn of the arrow, the wizards became decrepit, hunched old men. They were bent closer and closer to the ground, they became lower and lower.

And then, on the seventy-seventh and last turn of the arrow, the evil wizards screamed and disappeared, as if they had never existed.

The guys looked at each other and laughed with joy. They became children again. They took it in battle, and miraculously regained the time they had lost in vain.

They were saved, but remember: a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how old he is.

Evgeny Schwartz

A Tale of Lost Time

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Petya Zubov. He studied in the third grade of the fourteenth school and was always behind: in Russian written language, and in arithmetic, and even in singing.

I'll make it! - he said at the end of the first quarter. - I’ll catch up with you all in the second.

And the second one came - he hoped for a third. So he was late and lagged, lagged and late and did not bother. “I’ll have time” and “I’ll have time.”

And then one day Petya Zubov came to school, late as always. He ran into the locker room. He slammed his briefcase on the fence and shouted:

Aunt Natasha! Take my coat!

And Aunt Natasha asks from somewhere behind the hangers:

Who's calling me?

It’s me, Petya Zubov,” the boy answers.

“And I’m surprised myself,” Petya answers. - Suddenly I became hoarse for no reason at all.

Aunt Natasha came out from behind the hangers, looked at Petya, and how she screamed:

Petya Zubov was also scared and asked:

Aunt Natasha, what's wrong with you?

Like what? - Aunt Natasha answers. “You said that you were Petya Zubov, but in fact you must be his grandfather.”

What kind of grandfather am I? - asks the boy. “I’m Petya, a third-grade student.”

Look in the mirror! - says Aunt Natasha.

The boy looked in the mirror and almost fell. Petya Zubov saw that he had turned into a tall, thin, pale old man. He grew a thick gray beard and mustache. Wrinkles covered the face like a net.

Petya looked at himself, looked, and his gray beard shook.

He shouted in a deep voice:

Mother! - and ran out of the school.

He runs and thinks:

“Well, if my mother doesn’t recognize me, then everything is lost.”

Petya ran home and called three times.

Mom opened the door for him.

She looks at Petya and is silent. And Petya is silent too. He stands with his gray beard exposed and almost cries.

Who do you want, grandfather? - Mom finally asked.

You will not recognise me? - Petya whispered.

Sorry, no,” my mother answered.

Poor Petya turned away and walked wherever he could.

He walks and thinks:

“What a lonely, unhappy old man I am!” No mother, no children, no grandchildren, no friends... And most importantly, I didn’t have time to learn anything. Real old people are either doctors, or masters, or academics, or teachers. Who needs me when I'm just a third grade student? They won’t even give me a pension: after all, I only worked for three years. And how did it work?

For twos and threes. What will happen to me? Poor old me! Unhappy boy I am! How will all this end?"

So Petya thought and walked, walked and thought, and he himself did not notice how he went out of the city and ended up in the forest.

And he walked through the forest until it got dark.

“It would be nice to have a rest,” Petya thought and suddenly saw that there was a house to the side, behind the fir trees. Petya entered the house, but there were no owners. There was a table in the middle of the room. A kerosene lamp hung above it. There were four stools around the table. The walkers are ticking on the wall, and in the corner there is a pile of hay.

Petya lay down in the hay, buried himself deep in it, warmed up, cried quietly, wiped his tears with his beard and fell asleep.

Petya wakes up - the room is light, the kerosene lamp is burning under

glass. And there are guys sitting around the table: two boys and two girls. Large copper-clad abacus lies in front of them. The guys count and mutter:

Two years, and another five, and another seven, and another three... This is for you, Sergei Vladimirovich, and this is yours, Olga Kapitonovna, and this is for you, Marfa Vasilievna, and these are yours, Pantelei Zakharovich.

“Who are these guys? Why are they so gloomy? Why do they groan and groan and sigh like real old people? Why do they call each other by their first and patronymic names? Why did they gather here at night, in a lonely forest hut?

Petya Zubov froze, not breathing, hanging on every word. And he became scared from what he heard.

Not boys and girls, but evil wizards and evil witches were sitting at the table! This is how it turns out that the world works: a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the evil wizards found out about this and let's catch the guys wasting their time. And so the wizards caught Petya Zubov and another boy, and two more girls and turned them into old men. The poor children grew old and did not notice it themselves: after all, a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the time lost by the boys was taken by the wizards. And the wizards became little children, and the boys became old men.

What should I do?

What to do?

Isn’t it really possible to restore the lost youth to the children?

The wizards calculated the time and wanted to hide the scores in the table, but Sergei Vladimirovich, the main one, did not allow it. He took the abacus and walked up to the walkers. He turned the hands, tugged the weights, listened to the pendulum tick, and clicked the abacus again. He counted and counted, whispered and whispered, until the clock showed midnight. Then Sergei Vladimirovich mixed the dominoes and checked again how many he got.

Then he called the wizards to him and spoke quietly:

Gentlemen wizards! Know: the guys whom we have turned into old men today can still become younger.

How? - the wizards screamed.

I’ll tell you now,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich.

He tiptoed out of the house, walked around it, returned, bolted the door and stirred the hay with a stick.

Petya Zubov froze like a mouse.

But the kerosene lamp shone dimly, and the evil wizard did not see Petya. He called the other wizards closer to him and spoke quietly:

Unfortunately, this is how the world works: a person can be saved from any misfortune. If the guys whom we turned into old people find each other tomorrow, come here to us at exactly twelve o’clock at night and turn the arrow of the walkers back seventy-seven times, then the children will become children again, and we will die.

The wizards were silent. Then Olga Kapitonovna said:

How do they know all this?

And Panteley Zakharovich grumbled:

They won't come here at twelve o'clock at night. Even if it's a minute they'll be late.

And Marfa Vasilievna muttered:

Where should they go? Where are they! These lazy people won’t even be able to count up to seventy-seven, they’ll immediately lose their minds!

That’s how it is,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich. - Still, for now, keep your eyes open. If the guys get to the clocks and touch the arrows, then we won’t budge. Well, for now there’s nothing to waste, let’s go to work.

Once upon a time there lived a scientist, a real good wizard, named Ivan Ivanovich Sidorov. And he was such an excellent engineer that he easily and quickly built machines, huge as palaces and small as watches. In between, jokingly, he built wonderful machines for his house, light as feathers. And these same machines swept the floor, and drove out flies, and wrote from dictation, and ground coffee, and played dominoes. And his favorite car was the size of a cat, it ran after its owner like a dog, and talked like a person. When Ivan Ivanovich leaves home, this machine answers phone calls, cooks dinner, and opens doors. She will let a good person into the house, talk to him and even sing him a song, like a real bird. And he will drive away the bad guy and even bark after him, like a real chained dog. At night the machine disassembled itself, and in the morning it assembled itself and shouted:

- Master, master! It's time to get up!

Ivan Ivanovich was good man, but very absent-minded. Either he will go out into the street wearing two hats at once, or he will forget that he has a meeting in the evening. And the machine helped him a lot: when necessary, it will remind him, when necessary, it will correct him.

One day Ivan Ivanovich went for a walk in the forest. The smart machine runs after him, ringing a bell like a bicycle. Having fun. And Ivan Ivanovich asks her:

– Hush, hush, don’t bother me with my thoughts.

And suddenly they heard: hooves knocking, wheels creaking.

And they saw: a boy was coming out to meet them, carrying grain to the mill. They said hello.

The boy stopped the cart and let’s ask Ivan Ivanovich what kind of machine it was and how it was made.

Ivan Ivanovich began to explain.

And the car ran off into the forest to chase squirrels, ringing like a bell. The boy listened to Ivan Ivanovich, laughed and said:

- No, you are a real wizard.

“Yes, something like that,” answers Ivan Ivanovich.

– You can probably do everything?

“Yes,” answers Ivan Ivanovich.

- Well, can you, for example, turn my horse into a cat?

- From what! - Ivan Ivanovich answers.

He took out a small device from his vest pocket.

“This,” he says, “is zoological magic glass.” One two Three! - And he pointed the diminutive magic glass at the horse.

And suddenly - these are miracles! - the arc became tiny, the shafts were thin, the harness was light, the reins hung like ribbons. And the boy saw: instead of a horse, a cat was harnessed to his cart. The cat stands as important as a horse, and digs the ground with its front paw, like a hoof. The boy touched it - the fur is soft. I stroked her and she purred. A real cat, only in harness.

They laughed.

Then a wonderful little car ran out of the forest. And suddenly she stopped dead in her tracks. And she began to give alarm bells, and red lights lit up on her back.

- What's happened? - Ivan Ivanovich was scared.

- Like what? - the machine screamed. – You absent-mindedly forgot that our magnifying zoological magic glass is being repaired at the glass factory! Now how do you turn the cat back into a horse?

What to do here?

The boy is crying, the cat is meowing, the machine is ringing, and Ivan Ivanovich asks:

“Please, I beg you, be quiet, don’t disturb me from thinking.”

He thought, thought and said:

“There’s nothing, friends, to cry, there’s nothing to meow, there’s nothing to call.” The horse, of course, turned into a cat, but the strength in it remained the same, that of a horse. Ride calmly, boy, on this one-horsepower cat. And in exactly a month, without leaving home, I will cast a magic spell on the cat. magnifying glass, and she will become a horse again.

The boy calmed down.

He gave his address to Ivan Ivanovich, pulled the reins, and said: “But!” And the cat drove the cart.

When they returned from the mill to the village of Murino, everyone, young and old, came running to marvel at the wonderful cat.

The boy unharnessed the cat.

The dogs rushed at her, and she hit them with her paw with all her horsepower. And then the dogs immediately realized that it was better not to mess with such a cat.

They brought the cat into the house. She began to live and live. A cat is like a cat. He catches mice, laps up milk, and dozes on the stove. And in the morning they will harness it to a cart, and the cat works like a horse.

Everyone loved her very much and even forgot that she was once a horse.

So twenty-five days passed.

At night the cat sleeps on the stove.

Suddenly - bang! boom! bang-bang-bang!

Everyone jumped up.

They turned on the light.

And they see: the stove has fallen apart brick by brick. And the horse lies on the bricks and looks, ears raised, unable to understand anything from sleep.

What happened, it turns out?

That very night, a magnifying zoological magic glass was brought to Ivan Ivanovich from repair. The machine was already taken apart for the night. And Ivan Ivanovich himself did not think of telling the village of Murino on the phone to take the cat out of the room into the yard, because he would now turn it into a horse. Without warning anyone, he sent the magic device to the indicated address: one, two, three - and instead of a cat, a whole horse ended up on the stove. Of course, the stove fell apart into small bricks under such weight.

But everything ended well.

The very next day Ivan Ivanovich built them a stove even better than the previous one.

But the horse remained a horse.

But it’s true, she developed cat-like habits.

She plows the ground, pulls the plow, tries - and suddenly she sees a field mouse. And now he forgets everything and rushes at his prey like an arrow.

And I forgot how to laugh.

Meowed in a deep voice.

And her disposition remained feline, freedom-loving. The stables were no longer locked at night. If you lock it, the horse shouts to the whole village:

- Meow! Meow!

At night she opened the stable gates with her hoof and silently went out into the yard. She watched for mice, she lay in wait for rats. Or, easily, like a cat, the horse would fly up onto the roof and wander there until dawn. The other cats loved her. We were friends with her. Were playing. They went to visit her in the stable, told her about all their cat affairs, and she told them about horse affairs.

And they understood each other like the best friends.

A Tale of Lost Time

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Petya Zubov. He studied in the third grade of the fourteenth school and was always behind, both in Russian writing, and in arithmetic, and even in singing.

- I’ll make it! – he said at the end of the first quarter. “I’ll catch up with you all in the second.”

And the second one came - he hoped for a third. So he was late and lagged, lagged and late and did not bother. “I’ll have time” and “I’ll have time.”

And then one day Petya Zubov came to school, late as always. He ran into the locker room. He slammed his briefcase on the fence and shouted:

- Aunt Natasha! Take my coat!

And Aunt Natasha asks from somewhere behind the hangers:

-Who is calling me?

- It's me. Petya Zubov,” the boy answers.

“And I’m surprised myself,” Petya answers. “Suddenly I became hoarse for no reason at all.”

Aunt Natasha came out from behind the hangers, looked at Petya and screamed:

Petya Zubov was also scared and asked:

- Aunt Natasha, what’s wrong with you?

- Like what? - Aunt Natasha answers. – You said that you were Petya Zubov, but in fact you must be his grandfather.

- What kind of grandfather am I? - asks the boy. – I’m Petya, a third grade student.

- Look in the mirror! - says Aunt Natasha.

The boy looked in the mirror and almost fell. Petya Zubov saw that he had turned into a tall, thin, pale old man. He grew a thick beard and mustache. Wrinkles covered the face like a net.

Petya looked at himself, looked, and his gray beard shook.

He shouted in a deep voice:

- Mother! – and ran out of the school.

He runs and thinks: “Well, if my mother doesn’t recognize me, then everything is lost.”

Once upon a time there lived a boy named Petya Zubov. He studied in the third grade of the fourteenth school and was always behind, both in Russian writing, and in arithmetic, and even in singing.

- I’ll make it! – he said at the end of the first quarter. “I’ll catch up with you all in the second.”

And the second one came - he hoped for a third. So he was late and lagged, lagged and late and did not bother. “I’ll have time” and “I’ll have time.”

And then one day Petya Zubov came to school, late as always. He ran into the locker room. He slammed his briefcase on the fence and shouted:

- Aunt Natasha! Take my coat!

And Aunt Natasha asks from somewhere behind the hangers:

- Who is calling me?

- It's me. Petya Zubov,” the boy answers.

“And I’m surprised myself,” Petya answers. “Suddenly I became hoarse for no reason at all.”

Aunt Natasha came out from behind the hangers, looked at Petya, and how she screamed:

Petya Zubov was also scared and asked:

- Aunt Natasha, what’s wrong with you?

- Like what? - Aunt Natasha answers. – You said that you were Petya Zubov, but in fact you must be his grandfather.

- What kind of grandfather am I? - asks the boy. – I’m Petya, a third grade student.

- Look in the mirror! - says Aunt Natasha.

The boy looked in the mirror and almost fell. Petya Zubov saw that he had turned into a tall, thin, pale old man. He grew a thick gray beard and mustache. Wrinkles covered the face like a net.

Petya looked at himself, looked, and his gray beard shook.

He shouted in a deep voice:

- Mother! – and ran out of the school.

He runs and thinks:

“Well, if my mother doesn’t recognize me, then everything is lost.”

Petya ran home and called three times.

Mom opened the door for him.

She looks at Petya and is silent. And Petya is silent too. He stands with his gray beard exposed and almost cries.

- Who do you want, grandfather? – Mom finally asked.

- You will not recognise me? - Petya whispered.

“Sorry, no,” my mother answered.

Poor Petya turned away and walked wherever he could.

He walks and thinks:

- What a lonely, unhappy old man I am. No mother, no children, no grandchildren, no friends... And most importantly, I didn’t have time to learn anything. Real old people are either doctors, or masters, or academics, or teachers. Who needs me when I'm just a third grade student? They won’t even give me a pension - after all, I’ve only worked for three years. And how he worked - with twos and threes. What will happen to me? Poor old me! Unhappy boy I am! How will all this end?

So Petya thought and walked, walked and thought, and he himself did not notice how he went out of the city and ended up in the forest. And he walked through the forest until it got dark.

“It would be nice to have a rest,” Petya thought and suddenly saw that some white house was visible to the side, behind the fir trees. Petya entered the house - there were no owners. There is a table in the middle of the room. A kerosene lamp hangs above it. There are four stools around the table. The walkers are ticking on the wall. And in the corner there is a pile of hay.

Petya lay down in the hay, buried himself deep in it, warmed up, cried quietly, wiped his tears with his beard and fell asleep.

Petya wakes up - the room is light, a kerosene lamp is burning under the glass. And there are guys sitting around the table - two boys and two girls. A large copper-clad abacus lies in front of them. The boys count and mutter.

- Two years, and another five, and another seven, and another three... This is for you, Sergei Vladimirovich, and these are yours, Olga Kapitonovna, and this is for you, Marfa Vasilievna, and these are yours, Panteley Zakharovich.

Who are these guys? Why are they so gloomy? Why do they groan, and groan, and sigh, like real old people? Why do they call each other by their first and patronymic names? Why did they gather here at night, in a lonely forest hut?

Petya Zubov froze, not breathing, hanging on every word. And he became scared from what he heard.

Not boys and girls, but evil wizards and evil witches were sitting at the table! This is how it turns out that the world works: a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the evil wizards found out about this and let's catch the guys wasting their time. And so the wizards caught Petya Zubov, and another boy, and two more girls and turned them into old men. The poor children grew old, and they themselves did not notice it - after all, a person who wastes time in vain does not notice how he is getting old. And the time lost by the boys was taken by the wizards for themselves. And the wizards became little children, and the boys became old men.

What should I do?

What to do?

Isn’t it really possible to restore the lost youth to the children?

The wizards calculated the time and wanted to hide the scores in the table, but Sergei Vladimirovich, the main one, did not allow it. He took the abacus and walked up to the walkers. I spun the hands, tugged the weights, listened to the pendulum tick, and clicked the abacus again. He counted, he counted, he whispered, he whispered, until the clock showed midnight. Then Sergei Vladimirovich mixed the dominoes and checked again how many he got.

Then he called the wizards to him and spoke quietly:

- Lord wizards! Know that the guys whom we have turned into old men today can still become younger.

“How?” exclaimed the wizards.

“I’ll tell you now,” answered Sergei Vladimirovich.

He tiptoed out of the house, walked around it, returned, bolted the door and stirred the hay with a stick.

Petya Zubov froze like a mouse.

But the kerosene lamp shone dimly, and the evil wizard did not see Petya. He called the other wizards closer to him and spoke quietly:

“Unfortunately, this is how the world works: a person can be saved from any misfortune.” If the guys whom we turned into old people find each other tomorrow, come here to us at exactly twelve o’clock at night and turn the arrow of the walkers back seventy-seven times, then the children will become children again, and we will die.