Childhood friend - Dragunsky V.Yu.

Dragunsky's story about a boy and his favorite toy - a teddy bear. One day, six-year-old Deniska decides to be a boxer and asks his dad to buy him a punching bag. Dad with a laugh refuses the boy to buy. Then mom takes out an old toy from the closet - a bear, with which Deniska has not played for a long time. Mom suggests boxing a bear instead of a pear. The boy already wanted to start training, but he remembered how he loved the bear, how he fed him, how he slept with him ...

childhood friend read

When I was six or six and a half years old, I had absolutely no idea who I would eventually be in this world. I really liked all the people around and all the work too. I then had a terrible confusion in my head, I was kind of confused and could not really decide what I should do.

Either I wanted to be an astronomer, so as not to sleep at night and observe distant stars through a telescope, or I dreamed of becoming a sea captain in order to stand with my legs apart on the captain's bridge and visit distant Singapore and buy a funny monkey there.

Otherwise, I was dying to turn into a subway driver or station manager and walk around in a red cap and shout in a thick voice:

- Go-o-tov!

Or I had an appetite to learn to be the kind of artist who draws white stripes on the asphalt for speeding cars.

And then it seemed to me that it would be nice to become a brave traveler like Alain Bombard and cross all the oceans in a fragile shuttle, eating only raw fish. True, this Bombar lost twenty-five kilograms after his trip, and I only weighed twenty-six, so it turned out that if I also swam like him, then I would have absolutely nowhere to lose weight, I would weigh only one at the end of the trip. kilo. What if I don’t catch one or two fish somewhere and lose a little more weight? Then I'll probably just melt in the air like smoke, that's all.

When I calculated all this, I decided to abandon this idea, and the next day I was already impatient to become a boxer, because I saw the European boxing championship on TV. How they thrashed each other - just some kind of horror!

And then they showed their training, and here they were already beating a heavy leather "pear" - such an oblong heavy ball, you have to hit it with all your might, hit it with all your might in order to develop the force of impact in yourself. And I saw so much of it all that I also decided to become the strongest man in the yard in order to beat everyone, in which case.

I told dad

- Dad, buy me a pear!

- It's January, there are no pears. Eat some carrots.

I laughed.

- No, dad, not like that! Not an edible pear! You, please, buy me an ordinary leather punching bag!

- And why do you need it? Dad said.

“Practice,” I said. - Because I will be a boxer and I will beat everyone. Buy it, huh?

- How much is such a pear? Dad asked.

“Nothing,” I said. - One hundred or three hundred rubles.

"You're crazy, brother," said dad. - Get over somehow without a pear. Nothing will happen to you.

And he got dressed and went to work.

And I was offended at him for the fact that he refused me so with a laugh. And my mother immediately noticed that I was offended, and immediately said:

Wait, I think I've come up with something. Come on, come on, wait a minute.

And she bent down and pulled out a large wicker basket from under the sofa; it was stacked with old toys that I no longer played with. Because I had already grown up and in the fall I had to buy a school uniform and a cap with a shiny visor.

Mom began to dig into this basket, and while she was digging, I saw my old tram without wheels and on a string, a plastic pipe, a dented top, one arrow with a rubber blotch, a piece of a sail from a boat, and several rattles, and a lot of other toys. junk. And suddenly mom took out a healthy teddy bear from the bottom of the basket.

She threw it on my sofa and said:

- Here. This is the one that Aunt Mila gave you. You were then two years old. Good Mishka, excellent. Look how tight! What a fat belly! Look how it rolled out! Why not a pear? Better! And you don't have to buy! Let's train as much as you like! Get started!

And then she was called to the phone, and she went out into the corridor.

And I was very happy that my mother came up with such a great idea. And I made Mishka more comfortable on the couch, so that it would be more convenient for me to train on him and develop the power of impact.

He sat in front of me so chocolate, but very mangy, and he had different eyes: one of his own - yellow glass, and the other big white - from a button from a pillowcase; I didn't even remember when he showed up. But it didn’t matter, because Mishka looked at me rather cheerfully with his different eyes, and he spread his legs and stuck out his stomach towards me and raised both hands up, as if joking that he was already giving up in advance ...

And I looked at him like that and suddenly remembered how a long time ago I never parted with this Mishka for a minute, dragged him around with me, and nursed him, and sat him at the table next to me to dine, and fed him from a spoon semolina, and he had such a funny muzzle when I smeared him with something, even with the same porridge or jam, such a funny sweet muzzle became with him then, just like a living one, and I put him to bed with me, and rocked him , like a little brother, and whispered various tales to him right into his velvet, hard ears, and I loved him then, loved him with all my heart, then I would give my life for him. And now he is sitting on the couch, my former best friend, a real childhood friend. Here he is sitting, laughing with different eyes, and I want to train the force of impact about him ...

- What are you, - said my mother, she had already returned from the corridor. - What's the matter?

But I didn’t know what was happening to me, I was silent for a long time and turned away from my mother so that she wouldn’t guess by her voice or lips what was happening to me, and I lifted my head to the ceiling so that the tears rolled back, and then, when I held myself together a little , I said:

- What are you talking about, mom? With me nothing ... I just changed my mind. It's just that I'll never be a boxer.

(Ill. N. Noskovich, ed. Children's literature, 1968)

Published: Mishkoy 03.02.2018 16:54 08.12.2018