Lucien the hedgehog in the town of strange people
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"Almost died, almost died…"
"Please, forgive us, forgive us…" Dasha said, rocking the animal in her arms, like a baby. The hedgehog calmed down; it felt comfortable.
"And you both forgive me, please… My fault, I shouldn't have taken your fabrics… But when they fell on me, it was a short fright, I did not think to throw them off," the hedgehog answered quietly. "Put me to the ground."
Dasha put the animal down on the grass next to her.
The hedgehog lay on its back, clamping its eyes.
"How nice," it said.
"What is… your name?" said Artem sheepishly, sitting down.
The animal yawned sweetly.
"Lucien is my name. Yours?"
"I am Dasha. Nice to meet you."
"Ahh…" Artem muttered and extended his hand to the hedgehog to shake. But the boy noticed the reproach in his sister's gaze and realized that he had done something stupid and pulled his hand back. The hedgehog had paws, and small ones; he couldn’t shake his hand.
"No, no, don't take your hand away. I will gladly shake your hand," Lucien smiled and held out his upper paw to the boy. Artem, embarrassed, squeezed the paw with his hand.
"So… Who are you? Oh, I'm sorry, it's so embarrassing… I just haven't seen hedgehogs talk yet," Dasha said tentatively.
"Don't worry, sweet girl!" Lucien supported her. "I'm not from here, in truth."
"Well, we have already understood this," said Artem.
"Where are you from?" asked Dasha.
"I can tell you if you're interested," the animal smiled mysteriously.
"Of course, it's interesting!" Artem exclaimed and faced his sister's judgmental stare again.
"I want to tell, but I'm so tired and hungry right now," the animal said, and from his tummy there was a confirmatory rumbling. "It will not be easy to focus and not forget anything…"
"Let's go to our house!" Dasha offered. "We have a lot of food."
"Yes! Candy, marshmallows," Artem said.
"Apples, nuts," his sister continued.
"If so, I agree," said the hedgehog, yawning. "Take me there, please."
The children smiled brightly. Artem wanted to take Lucien, but his sister beat him to it. She wrapped the hedgehog in the nearly dried-up T-shirt and held him close to her.
"This is so that no one can see you," she told the animal.
"All right…" was heard from the T-shirt.
Artem, confused, began to look around the grass.
"Where are my socks?"
He found the cap, put it on his head, found one sock and pulled it over his foot. It remains to find the second sock, but it was nowhere to be seen. Artem checked each bush and blade of grass near the coast but never found it.
"Where's the sock gone? I can't go in one sock!" The boy was saddened and started looking again.
His sister was waiting for him with indignation on his face. The talking hedgehog wanted to visit us, and he decided to delay time! No one forced him to throw his things around; why should we wait?
Another couple of minutes of unsuccessful searching passed.
"How long do we have to wait?" Dasha with difficulty restrained irritation.
"Just a little…" Artem muttered, looking at the surrounding grass. The unfortunate sock as if it had become invisible. But it was his favorite pair of socks, with triceratops faces!
"When you're done, catch up with us!" Dasha said to her brother, turned around and went towards the city.
Artem took a quick look at his sister and then looked at his feet.
"I don't need one sock!" the boy exclaimed, tore the found sock off his foot, throwing it into the grass, and rushed behind Dasha.
Although Artem did not want to go along Humpback Street, he had no choice. The sister flatly refused to make her way through the thorn again. And she didn't dream of meeting the mad toad again, either. But the boy did not insist, because they were not going empty-handed. They had to carry the precious cargo faster and more carefully. And if Dmitry really comes across, Artem will pass by him and will not even look. Не will pretend not to know him. Maybe he will be lucky, and Dmitry will do the same. But if he doesn't get lucky? What a loser and coward he will then look like in the eyes of his sister and the unusual animal! And as soon as the children set foot on Humpback Street, which was riddled with potholes like after a meteor shower, Artem began to whisper to himself:
"I wish I hadn't met him; I wish I hadn't met him…"
Dasha grinned, looking at her brother. He was engrossed in whispering and didn't notice it.
They passed by the building under construction from broken brick. On the side of the street in front of it, leaning on a bicycle, stood one teenager with shoulder-length hair, drinking green tea from a bottle. Some dirty man paused near him and began to mutter to him:
"Shaggy, why don't you cut your hair? You drink slop. Dressed like a girl, your clothes are not from our market…"
After that, the children passed the building of an abandoned hostel, on the facade of which there was another bulletin board. It was plastered with photos of the missing people, like the board on ANCIENT GREEK SALAD. Dasha saw several familiar faces there: the man who traded seedlings on the market and three girls who were city champions in throwing teddy bears. They recently disappeared from a hospital, where they ended up after an unsuccessful night attempt to steal a city bus. Their loss was discovered by a nurse. In the morning, she went to their hospital ward and saw that a window's open, and they were gone.
Artem stopped whispering only when they came out with Humpback Street. They did not meet Dmitry. His house seemed so lonely, as if no one lived there.
At the turn of the street, the brother and sister walked past two women who were thick like barrels. The one who was younger, complained squeakily to the eldest:
"Yesterday, my blood sugar jumped; I felt so bad, even though I only ate one chocolate bar."
The second answered her with an important voice, as if she were waved away:
"It's not scary at all; you are fine! Do this: take three peas, three only, no more. Grind and mix with a glass of honey. And eat a tablespoon before eating…"
Brother and sister walked through the "property" of Everything is Mine. The old woman never appeared in her "post".
Lucien's voice was heard only a couple of times all the way and only asked, "When will we come?"
As soon as they reached the house, they saw the neighbor across the street, Natalya Fedorovna, wearing a dress that tightly hugged her plump body and was three sizes too small. She jumped out to meet, as if only waiting for them (for sure she was):
"Stop!"
The children were taken aback: this nasty woman kept many people from living peacefully with her strange, made-up claims. And they got the worst of it as the closest neighbors.
"He did it, I know!"
"Who?" Dasha asked in confusion.
"Your father! He climbed onto my roof at night! Your father swine, perpetrator!"
Proving anything to her was useless. Artem and Dasha retreated almost on a run.
Chapter 3. The North Pole and predators
As soon as the front door of the house closed and Artem locked it, Lucien stuck his nose out of the bundle and asked:
"Did we arrive?"
The kids took their shoes off and went into the kitchen.
"Yes," Dasha replied to the animal, placing the bundle on the table and unfurling the T-shirt.
The hedgehog stood on his hind paws, lifted his front paws up, and stretched. He looked cheerful and full of strength.
"Well, now it's time to eat. What an unusual smell you have here," he said, sniffing.
"Yeah, probably from that bowl smells," Artem pointed to Matvey's half-empty bowl and took the apples out of the refrigerator.
Dasha took from the cupboard the plate of candies and marshmallows and put it in front of the guest; then began to put nuts and dried fruits from the package onto that plate. Suddenly her phone squeaked. The girl pulled it out. Seeing another drop call from Nastya, she put her phone in her pocket with a dissatisfied face.
But when all the promised sweets appeared before the little animal, it turned out that Lucien was no longer interested in them.
"Why didn't you say you had the North Pole mini version?" He asked the children.
"What? What are you talking about?" Asked Artem.
"We have no poles, especially the north one…" Dasha said.
"What is it, then?" Lucien rose, pointing his paw at the refrigerator. "You got the apples out of it!" He turned to Artem.
A surprised smile appeared on the girl's lips. Artem broke into a smile and opened the refrigerator door.
"Oh, it's just f-ri-d-ge! It cools the food! And here," Artem opened the bottom door of the refrigerator, "the freezer, it freezes our food! And it works on electricity… Almost all our devices from it work: the TVs, the vacuum cleaner…" He liked to explain.
But the hedgehog did not listen, immersed in his own thoughts.
"Put me there!" Suddenly, he exclaimed excitedly. Jumped off the table and started jumping vigorously around Artem. "I want to go there! There! Northern! Pole! I want!"
Looking at Lucien, Dasha took out the plastic bag of colorful marmalade from the kitchen cabinet and poured it into the plate of sweets.
"But you can freeze!" said Artem to Lucien in confusion.
"Nope, I lived at the North Pole!"
"At the North Pole? Tell us, it's so interesting!" asked Dasha.
"Now! I want to! Put me there!" The hedgehog did not stop; he clearly had no time for stories.
"Well, if so…" Artem lifted Lucien and brought him to the middle shelf of the refrigerator. "Well, look, there is the light bulb…" Artem didn't have time to finish because the animal deftly pushed away from his palms and jumped on the shelf.
Lucien stood in the center of the shelf, lifted his face, which immediately became peaceful, stretched out his upper paws to the sides, and froze. He seemed about to reach enlightenment. After lowering the head after about half a minute, the hedgehog started walking in circles around the pot of porridge.
"Woo-woo! I've missed it so much! I've missed it so much!"
Artem was standing close to the fridge and did not take his eyes off the animal. He was ready to catch it if Lucien stumbled.
Dasha was tired of looking at her brother's back. It obscured all the interesting things.
"I want to see him too!" she said, stepping toward Artem.
"There is nothing interesting here…" He looked at her over his shoulder. Does she not see that he is standing for a reason? But he did move back a bit.
Both were now staring into the refrigerator without taking their eyes off, while at the same time talking to someone who was there.
"Why are you so surprised by the cold?" Dasha asked Lucien. "Winter happens every year."
"Winter? What winter? I haven't seen winter in a long time." He replied, continuing to walk.
"You've probably just flown…" Artem began and faltered, thinking that he'd said something stupid again. It was true. The hedgehog flew. As if he arrived by plane! "Ahh… I guess you just arrived?"
The little animal with needles stopped.
"Put me there," he asked Artem to put him on the table, suddenly becoming sad.
Artem fulfilled the request. Lucien started eating the sweets. Most of all, he liked sweets filled with milk fudge. The children sat silently on the chairs, not taking their eyes off the guest.
"So, you just arrived?" Artem asked curiously.
"Here, in this city, yes. But I have been living on Earth for a long time," the hedgehog answered with cookies in his mouth.
"And before you came here, where did you live?" asked Dasha.
"I don't remember the name of that town, but it's not so far from here."
"I guess winter happens there," Dasha said with a thoughtful face.
"But I didn't see this… And I don't understand why…" said the hedgehog, chewing another candy, and suddenly his face became pleasantly surprised: "What a tasty thing! No worse than in Grifost!"
"Well, after summer, autumn goes, right?" Dasha asserted rather than asking the animal.
"Yes, I remember autumn…,” said the hedgehog.
"And after that comes winter! Snow falls and then comes a new year!" Dasha completed her logic chain.
"How? Why, why don't I remember it?" Lucien was saddened.
Silence hung in the air. Children wracked their brains, trying to figure out this difficult task. Suddenly it hit Artem. He knocked his palms on the table, rejoicing at the answer he had found.
"I realized why you don't remember!"
Dasha cast a skeptical eye on her brother and crumpled a piece of paper from a candy. Lucien swallowed a piece of marshmallow and stopped the questioning gaze on Artem.
"Hedgehogs hibernate in winter!" the boy exclaimed.
The sister immediately agreed with him:
"Exactly!"
"Ah, ah, ah! You're a very wise boy! I remember how cold it was, how it rained, the falling leaves… And on this everything breaks off, then new leaves start to grow on the trees, the sun shines, very bright… I was asleep! I slept through everything…" The hedgehog almost cried. "In the North, I didn't sleep much because it's constantly cold; I can't be asleep all the time."
Artem looked sympathetically at Lucien but felt great at heart because he rarely gets praise. Also, the sister looked at him so enviously… She doesn't have to consider herself the smartest all the time. Now it's my turn, the boy thought and showed Dasha his tongue. She made a face in response.
"Once I was a strong wizard, I could not sleep at all… And now I'm not like that anymore…" the hedgehog lamented.
"Are you a wizard?" Artem was surprised.
"A wizard?" Dasha's eyebrows raised.
"Yes, I am a wizard," the hedgehog confirmed.
"So, you can conjure…" Artem said. "Could you conjure something for us?"
"What?"
"Well, for example, I need a computer…"
Dasha shot her brother with an unkind look.
"I don't know what it is. I need to visualize what I'm conjuring," Lucien told the boy in response.
"Well, it's such a thing… This gives us access to the Internet. It consists of a monitor that looks like this," Artem pointed to the wall-mounted TV. "And another box, in which all sorts of chips, wires, a motherboard."
"A complicated invention of people?" Lucien asked.
"Yeah… and also a computer mouse, a keyboard…"
"I can't conjure such a thing," said the hedgehog and added, noticing the sadness that appeared on Artem's face: "I'm sorry."
"How long have you been here?" asked Dasha.
"I've been on Earth for a long time… One hundred years in human time."
"Are you a hundred years old?" Artem's eyes rounded.
"No, I got here a hundred years ago. I'm much older."
"How old are you then? Two hundred?" suggested Artem.
"Almost five hundred."
"Five hundred?" Dasha marveled.
"Are you five hundred years old?" Artem grabbed the first apple he came across and took a big bite out of it, not noticing that it was beginning to deteriorate.
"Soon I will turn four hundred and eighty-nine." The hedgehog put the bitten sour apple aside and looked closely at the food. He did not want to eat anything from what was left on the plate.
"Ah-ah," Dasha broke the silence, got up, set foot to the refrigerator, and looked into it. "Do you want to eat regular food, not sweets? We still have millet porridge. Or maybe you want some tea?"
"Millet porridge – my favorite! I'll have this with gusto!"
Dasha was glad to hear that. She took out the pan, put a couple of spoons of porridge on a plate. Warm it up in the microwave and put it in front of the hedgehog.
Lucien was touched by the amazing smell of the plate.
"Please give me a spoon." He asked Dasha.
"Oh! Yes, one second. I'm sorry, I forgot." Dasha put a spoon on his plate.
Lucien examined this steel thing intensely. It was too big for him, about like a shovel for an adult person. The hedgehog tried to use it, but it turns out he needed both paws to just take it.
"This is the smallest spoon in our house," Dasha muttered.
"I'm going to the barn to look for something suitable…" Artem scratched the top of his head and headed for the front door.
"Go, go, hurry up…" his sister urged him, as if she wanted to get him out as soon as possible.
The hedgehog thought for a moment, then called out to Artem:
"Wait! I remembered, I have a spoon!"
The boy returned to the kitchen.
The hedgehog got his paw behind his back, then pulled it out in front of him.
"Here it is!"
The children approached the table. A small object glistened in the paw of the hedgehog. It was copper, like a repeatedly reduced children's scoop of sand with a carved handle. The brother and sister began vying to ask the hedgehog to let them look at it.
"Sure, but can I eat before that?" Lucien said.
"Yes, yes!"
"We'll wait!"
Both moved closer to the animal and started watching him eat. Lucien was not embarrassed by this. He ate with great pleasure.
Imperceptibly for everyone, Fox entered the kitchen with a lazy gait. Matvey followed him. Of course, there was nothing inconspicuous about the two adult cats. They could not move silently. But the children were so fascinated by the hedgehog and his spoon and Lucien and his porridge that they did not pay attention to the pets.
Fox was taken aback that their younger owners didn't even turn to face them. This, he believed, could happen for two reasons: either he and his brother turned invisible, or died and became ghosts. Looking at Matvey in confusion, the gray cat realized that the first option was not suitable, because his tabby brother was not invisible. But die…
When? How? No, it can't be! Reasoned Fox, gripped by anxiety. In the wool-covered head came another reason, and it seemed worse than death: the owners no longer loved them. From now on, they do not need cats, and they will throw the brothers out into the street. Or they will stop feeding and will wait until they run away. Or until they starve to death if they stay.
The furry brothers sat down next to the sink. And then the gray cat noticed that besides them and the younger owners in the room, there was someone else. Small, with spines… This is a hedgehog! It was sitting right on the table. On the table they're not allowed to climb on! And this is even though they are the main guards of the house against mice, rats, cockroaches, spiders and flies! And this unexpected guest ate, moreover, from a human dish!
The cat drooped sadly because he thought that the third option was correct. He turned his face to Matvey, wanting to find out what he thinks about such an important matter. But his tabby brother had no idea of his mental anguish. Matvey just continuously considered the fly hanging on the ceiling. Looking at his pacified brother, Fox calmed down. He became indifferent to the appearance of the prickly guest in the house; it is only important that the owners do not kick them out and stop feeding them. He hoped that things wouldn't get any worse and stared at the fly, too.
Lucien was done with the porridge, and with a deadpan expression on his face, pulled out one needle from his left side and started picking at it in his mouth like a toothpick.
"I didn't think that the porridge was getting stuck in the teeth." Artem smiled and took a quick look at his sister because he thought that she would again reproach him with his eyes. However, she smiled sweetly.
"No, it's not porridge. A piece of apple," the hedgehog replied. He was full and looked pleased. But after a moment, a good mood came off his face. The serious-looking hedgehog sniffed.
"What's wrong?" Dasha asked with concern.
"This smell has become stronger," the animal said, without stopping to move its antennae.
"What smell?"
The hedgehog did not answer. He realized now that the smell comes from an animal. But he couldn't remember which animal exactly this smell came from, and he turned to the source of the odor. Lucien's eyes immediately got big; he jumped up. His carved spoon flew under the table, accidentally hitting and overturning the plate of nuts. It took the hedgehog only one second to end up in the refrigerator.
The children quickly got out of their chairs, not having time to understand anything. Dasha's chair even fell over.
"What are you doing?" said Artem.
"Take them away! They want to kill me!" Lucien's voice from the top kitchen lockers nervously demanded.
"Who, who wants to kill?" excitedly asked Dasha. After picking up her chair she began to put the dried fruits and nuts scattered on the table back onto the plate.
"These predators! Killers! They didn't just sneak in here! How they looked at me! If I hadn't noticed them… I'd be dead already! I would be, I tell you!" After shouting this, Lucien showed up. He stretched out his paw and pointed at the cats. "Here they are! Here are these tigers! Do you not see them?"
The brother and sister turned to the furry pets. Matvey yawned sweetly because he wanted to sleep from watching the immovable fly. Fox wearily considered his gray paws, bending his face.
"Yeah." That's all Dasha could say.
The hedgehog went back and forth through the kitchen cupboards. He did not calm down and actively gestured with his paws. You would think that his paws had stopped obeying him and moved as they wanted.
"Get them out of here! They came for me! Beasts!"
"These cats, I'm telling you… They are kind," Artem told him.
Lucien resentfully waved his paw at Artem and disappeared from sight. Pulling her chair closer, Dasha climbed up to the lower kitchen cabinets. Holding onto the top of the upper kitchen cabinet door, she stood on tiptoe. Artem climbed next.
The hedgehog sat and sniffed. He looked pitiful and scared.
"Lucien, Fox and Matvey will never offend anyone," Dasha assured Lucien. "You just look at them!"
He approached the edge of the cabinet and looked at the furry brothers. The cats looked at him too, but not as prey but as a troublemaker.
"Well, you see! Let me help you down!" Dasha stretched out her arms to him.
Artem wanted to tell his sister that if Lucien jumped onto the cabinets so quickly and deftly, he could go down without help, but the boy changed his mind in time, imagining what kind of face Dasha would have after these words. Moreover, the hedgehog did not jump into the fridge on his own; he asked to be put there. Apparently, he likes to be taken care of.
The animal recoiled from Dasha and asked her a question:
"Are you… are you sure they're good? Such… harmless?"
"Sure," Dasha affectionately confirmed. "They have been living with us for a long time. They are good, even very good. They even sleep at home at night while other cats hang around everywhere. Do you want me to hold you in my arms?"
"Uh… I think it's time for me. Take me outside… A lot of things await me."
"What do you mean? Where are you going to go?" Dasha inquired with anxiety in her voice.
"How, why?" Artem worried. "But you promised to talk about yourself! And let us see your spoon!"
"You are right… Forgive me."
"The cats are really harmless; you just need to make friends with them." Dasha made another attempt to convince the guest.
Lucien disagreed:
"I don't think it's possible. They are not from Grifost."
"What is it, Grifost?" Artem asked.
"That's the name of my world. All its inhabitants are very decent," explained the hedgehog and he cast an unkind look at the cats. "But there are a lot of predators here."
"They are good; they never hurt anyone," Dasha continued to persuade the hedgehog. "Even mice. And once there was such a funny story…"
"When a mouse ran into our house, right?" Artem interjected with a question quickly.
"Yeah. A little mouse popped into the kitchen. And you know what?"
"What?" Lucien looked interested.
"They were so scared! Both even jumped on this table!"
"Is that really how it happened?" smiled the hedgehog.
"Yes, yes!" the children assured him.
"You will get acquainted with them; now we will arrange everything." Artem confidently took the hedgehog who had become pliable, got off the kitchen cabinet, and put Lucien on the floor. "Just do not run away, okay?"
Lucien stood on his hind paws, gained a full chest of air, closed his eyes and raised his front paws up. Artem slightly pushed the almost sleeping cats towards the hedgehog. The brothers frowned at the younger owner and curled up with their backs to Lucien.