Daddy gets annoyed if I interrupt him when he's reading the paper, but I keep forgetting, because I want to talk to him. After all, he's the only Daddy I have, and that's why I always want to talk to him.

Once, when he was reading the paper and Mommy was mending my jacket, I said,

"D'you know how many times the Sea of Azov can fit into Lake Baikal, Daddy?"

"Don't bother me."

"Ninety-two times! How's that?"

"Fine. Now be quiet." And he went on reading.

"Did you ever hear of an artist named El Greco?"

He nodded.

"His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos. He was from the Island of Crete. And Crete once belonged to the Greeks. So that's why the Spaniards called him El Greco. That's really something. And you know, a whale's range of hearing is five kilometers!"

"Just be still for a few minutes. Just for five minutes."

But I was bursting from all the new information I had. I couldn't possibly keep still. Maybe if there hadn't been so much of it I might have, but there was and I couldn't.

"Listen to this, Daddy! There are tiny buffaloes in the Sunda Islands. They're like midgets. You can even bring one home in a suitcase!"

"You don't say? Indeed. Now will you please let me read in peace?"

"Go right ahead. You know, Daddy, we could keep a whole herd of those buffaloes in the hall. And you know, Yuri Gagarin was given the key to Cairo! How's that?"

"Wonderful. Now will you be still?"

"And the sun's not in the middle of the sky, but off to a side."

"You don't say?"

"'Pon my word. It really is. Stuck into the sky and off to a side."

Daddy looked at me. His eyes were glazed. Then they got into focus again and he said to Mommy, "Where'd he get all this? And when'd he manage to?"

Mommy smiled. "He's a modern child. He reads, listens to the radio and watches TV. What did you expect?"

"Amazing. At his age." At which he disappeared behind his paper again.

"What's that you're reading that's so interesting?" Mommy asked.

"It's about Africa. It's in state of turmoil. This is the end of colonialism."

"No, it isn't," I said.

"What?"

I crawled under the paper and stood up between him and it. "There are still a lot of dependent countries. An awful lot."

"You're no child. You're a great professor. Professor Full-of-Beans," Daddy said and smiled at me.

Mommy laughed. Then she said, "All right, Dennis, that's enough. Go outside and play." She handed me my jacket and gave me a little shove. "Go on."

As we went out into the hall I said. "What's professor-full-of-beans, Mommy? I never heard anyone say that before. Was Daddy making fun of me? Was he?"

"Not at all. Daddy'd never make fun of you. On the contrary, he was praising you."

I felt much better and went out to play, but on the way downstairs I remembered I'd wanted to visit Lena, because everyone said she was sick and had stopped eating. So I went to see her. There was a stranger there. He had on a dark suit and his hands were very white. He and Lena's mother were sitting at the table, talking. Lena was lying in bed, glueing on a toy horse's leg. She shouted when she saw me. "Dennis is here! Hooray!"

"Hello," I said politely. "Don't shout like a ninny!" I sat down at the foot of her bed.

The strange man stood up and said, "I hope everything's clear. She needs plenty of fresh air. She's not a sick girl at all. There's nothing to worry about."

That meant he was a doctor.

"Thank you, Professor. Thank you so much," her mother said and shook his hand. He must have been a very good doctor and must have known a lot. That's why she called him "professor".

He went over to Lena and said, "Goodbye, Lena. I want to see you up and about."

She got all flustered, stuck her tongue out at me, turned away to the wall and whispered, "Goodbye."

The doctor patted her head and then said to me, "And what is your name, young man?"

Wasn't that nice? He'd called me a young man. I stood right up and said, "Dennis Korablyov. And what's yours?"

He took my hand in his large, soft, white hand. I was surprised it was so soft. It felt so smooth. And he smelled so good and clean. He shook my hand and said,

"I'm Professor Sergeyev."

"You mean you're full of beans? Professor-full-of-beans?"

Lena's mother clutched her head. The professor blinked and cleared his throat. They both left the room.

I had a feeling there was something funny about the way they'd both gone out of the room. It was as if they'd run out. I also had a feeling I'd said something wrong.

Maybe "professor-full-of-beans" isn't a nice thing to say to a person after all.