Публикую первую главу из моей книги "Зенни. История Богваны."
This is how the story began
This is an adventure story of a girl named Liza and her unusual friend Zenny.
Liza was six when this wonderful and capturing adventure begun.
She lived in Russia - a very very big country in the Eurasia. Hearing of this most people can think that she lived in Moscow but no, Liza lived very far away from Moscow – the place called the Far East. It took 7 days of traveling by train to get there from Moscow or 7 hours by plane. It is a very beautiful place where the Siberian tigers and spotted deer called “flowers” live in a wonderful forest called the “taiga” and where winters are snowy, cold and a little severe and summers are hot and very sunny.
Although Liza visited the taiga several times with her dad she, of course, lived in a city, pretty cozy and neat, the name of the city is Khabarovsk. She resided in a nice flat with her parents and a smart chubby cat. Her mom and dad were quite young parents in their twenties, maybe because of this they always treated Liza as she was already grown-up and considered her opinion and respected her decision right from the moment of her birth.
At first her mom gave her a name of Margaret but her dad had some trouble pronouncing the “r” sound so the parents agreed on a beautiful Hebrew origin name - Elizaveta. Her grandma, as English teacher called her Betty or sometimes Veta.
Liza was open hearted cheerful fair-haired girl. She liked to play different games, one of her favourite one was acting out a wedding in a beautiful dress and with lots of decoration. Her fiancé usually was a brown teddy bear or her best boy friend Roman (or shortly Roma) with whom they attended the same kindergarten, were born in the same month, lived in the same area and their mothers used to study at the same university. The best part of the game surely was dressing up and party time. Liza always put on white pearl clip-on earrings, one of her gala dresses, mother’s high heeled shoes and bridal veil made of white silk lace handkerchief. After official part she gladly became a mistress of ceremony and arranged the celebration party.
“Misha (Michael)!” Liza told to his future husband. “Let’s dance our wedding dance.” She hugged him and started to slowly twirl around as if it was the real dance of newlyweds.
She also liked to draw. Surely, she drew different ladies in beautiful dresses, or drew ladies on a cardboard, cut them and designed the same way a lot of different outfits for them. She liked to play a lot and had a more than a dozen of other favorite games.
One day Liza and her parents went to the Toy Shop to buy her a new toy. She had a lot of dolls of different types and doll’s houses, fluffy dogs and bunnies as well as play kits. But this time, she asked her parents to buy her a robot.
“I want to have a funny robot.” Liza once stated to her mother during she was cooking dinner.
“My dear, why?” asked her mother gently, mixing the beats ragout.
“Well,” started Liza in a very serious and grown up manner but still in a nice childish voice with a bit of hoarseness in it, “because robots can talk and other toys cannot. I want to take him to kindergarten with me so he can meet my friends Alice and Roma – the girl answered.”
“I see. I am afraid not all robots can understand you so well to make a real friendship.” – answered her mother.
“We will find the smart one for my girl!” suddenly added her father and grabbed the girl from her back, Liza stated to laugh since his hands felt a bit ticklish.
“Hoorah, I will show him my room and my playground and we will go to the zoo.” joyfully shouted the girl flying in the air in her dad’s strong arms. “I think he has never met animals and birds. We will have a lot of fun.”
So, a few days later the whole family was wandering around the toy shop in search of a nice smart robot. None of the robots could talk as smart and good as Liza wanted. Sadly, she wanted to go back home when she saw him – her future friend. It was a nice little robot with sparkling star-shaped eyes and rainbow circle on his belly. The robot was wandering around the shop and trying to start a conversation with every robot that was displayed in the shop. Liza approached him, but did not want to interrupt his talk with one of the astrobots. So, she stood aside waiting for him to finish his talk. In meanwhile she heard the part of this conversation.
“Excuse me, sir, I just wanted to know if you have ever worked on planet Thear?” the robot asked one of the astrobots who was released from the package box as a sample model.
“I am not sure I understand you,” the astrobot kept repeating, “I can dig a space soil, I am an Astrobot.”
“I see sir, but just have you ever happened to visit the Thear planet? I used to live there and I want to get back home” hopelessly proceeded the robot.
“Let’s have an adventure and dig the space soil my friend.”
“I guess you do not understand me.” sadly answered this nice robot. “Well, thank you very much for your attention. I really appreciate this. I think I have to go on with my search.” he finished and turned around and bumped into Liza.
“Excuse me, miss.” he apologized.
“What’s your name?” – she hesitantly asked him.
“My name is Zenith but my parents called me Zenny.” the robot answer in a friendly voice with some relief hope and joy.
“You are so lovely Zenny and you seem to be smart. I am Liza. Do you want to come with us, Zenny? This is my mum.” Liza pointed towards a charming young lady in a beige dress besides the bookshelves searching for a new book.
“She is a teacher,” proceeded the girl, “and this is my dad,” Liza pointed to the opposite side to the young, strong and attractive man talking on the phone, “he works in police. We’ve got a naughty fat cat Babi, but she won’t do you any harm. So, will you come with us?” she asked hopefully.
“I would love to – you are so kind, I like you and your family seems to be great.” Zenny answered and smiled. “I could not even dream of obtaining such a friend and a family on this planet.”
They proceeded to the check out desk, where shop assistant asked for the robot’s box, and after observing the silent shrugging of the whole family started to turn Zenny upside down for some time after that she unexpectedly said,“The robot doesn’t have a bar code, and I cannot find him in our selling list, so we cannot sell him right now. Would you please choose another robot.”
Liza immediately became upset and disappointed.
“Well, dear, what do you think?” her dad turned down to Liza. “Can you find another toy, maybe?”.
That was how Liza was always treated a bit like grown up, her parents asked for her advice or approval in the situations where she was directly involved.
“Yes, I see, but I am afraid, I will not be able to find another toy because we are already friends with Zenny and I will not leave him there. I have already invited him to go with us.”
“You know,” her dad proceeded with the cashier, “this is the one we have chosen for our daughter in your shop so we really need to buy him now. Could you please try to fix the situation somehow?”
“Let’s see what we can do. You may take this robot, just leave us your contact information and we will call you once we find the price and the box for this robot.” shop assistant offered in a friendly manner.
“Sure, thank you very much!”
First day at home was amazing. Zenny loved Liza’s room, especially her closet where he liked to hide when they played hide-and-seek. Zenny repeated everything after Liza and she taught him a lot of new things. She showed him all her toys and they even painted together. The robot has painted himself and written down 444 nearby. Liza thought that it is his favorite number but he said that he does not remember what does it mean but it is somehow part of his name.
In the evening, Liza took Zenny to her gymnastics class. Liza was very good at doing splits and bending over backwards. After the class children surrounded Zenny in the locker room.
“What is it on your belly, this rainbow picture Zenny?” asked Liza’s friends from gymnastics.
“I don’t know, my mother told me that it had to do with my special talent. But I don’t know what talent. I was too little when my parents send me away from my planet.” answered Zenny.
“Oh, poor thing you are all alone now.” sadly murmured the girls.
“He is not!” exclaimed Liza. “Not all alone, he’s got a new step family now.”