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RED BALLOON IN A BLUE SKY

The door opened, and there was Lena shouting from the hall, "There's a spring bazaar at the department store!" She was shouting very loudly, and her eyes were as big and round as buttons. "Come on, Dennis! Hurry! They're selling kvas from a barrel! There's a band and everything! Come on!"

You'd think the house was on fire. But I got all excited, too, and in no time we were out on the street. We took hands and ran towards the department store. There was a big crowd there. We saw two huge shiny figures of a man and a woman, in the middle of the crowd. They weren't live, but they blinked their eyes and moved their lips as if they were speaking. The man-figure boomed, "Spring bazaarrr! Spring bazaarrr!"

The woman-figure kept saying, "Welcome! Welcome!"

We stared at them for a long time.

"How can they talk like that if they're not real?" Lena said.

"I don't know."

"I do. It's not them at all. There are live actors inside of them, and they're shouting and pulling wires to make the dummies move their lips."

That made me laugh. "That goes to show you're still a baby. What actor would ever want to sit all scrunched up inside a big doll all day? Hm? All bent over double. And what about eating and drinking? You really are a baby. They have radios inside, that's what's doing the talking."

"Oh, you think you're so smart!"

We pushed through the crowd. A band was playing. Everyone looked happy. A man was selling lottery tickets. He had a clear plastic revolving box with the lottery tickets inside and he kept turning the box as he called on everyone to come right up and try their luck. We stood listening and watching him for a while. Then Lena said,

"When it's alive and shouts it's much more fun."

We were having a great time.

Then an officer came up and lifted Lena up and his friend pressed a button in the wall and some perfume sprayed out on her. When the man put her down again she smelled like candy and he said,

"What a darling little girl you are."

She ran off and I followed her. We finally found the kvas barrel. I had my lunch money so we each had a big mug of kvas. Lena's stomach looked like a balloon, and my nose felt all prickly inside. It was really terrific. Then, when we ran on, I could feel the kvas slopping around inside of me. After a while we decided to go home. It was just as nice outside, where a woman was selling balloons.

The minute Lena saw her she stopped and said, "Oh, I want a balloon."

"That'd be nice, except I have no money left."

"I have a coin."

"Show it to me."

She took it from her pocket.

"Oho! That's ten kopecks. She'd like a balloon, please," I said to the lady.

She smiled at us. "What color d'you want? Red, green or blue?"

Lena chose a red balloon. Then we started back home.

"You can fly it for a while if you want to," she said and handed me the string.

The minute the end of the string was in my hand I felt the balloon tugging at my fingers. It probably wanted to fly away. I let the string out a little and felt it pulling harder. It was begging me to let it fly away. I was so sorry for a balloon that could fly but was tied to me that I let it go. At first, it didn't move. You'd think it couldn't believe it was free. But then, when it did, it soared up higher than the lamp post.

"Look what you've done! Catch it!" Lena cried and began jumping up and down. When she saw she couldn't reach it she burst into tears. "Why'd you let it go?"

I didn't say anything. I was looking up at the balloon. It was floating higher and higher, as if it'd been dreaming of doing this all its life.

I stood there, looking up at the sky. Lena was looking up, too. Some grownups stopped to watch it floating higher and higher and getting smaller and smaller.

The balloon was flying past the top floor of a very tall apartment building. Someone leaned out of the window and waved to it, but it flew on, higher than the TV antennas, higher than a flock of pigeons, and became very small. It flew behind a little cloud that was as small and as fluffy as a rabbit. Then it floated out and finally disappeared. It had probably reached the stratosphere and was floating by the Moon now, but still, we kept looking up at the sky. After a while I began to see dots and circles. The balloon was gone. Lena sighed. The grownups walked on, wherever they were going.

We did, too. We didn't speak. I kept thinking about how beautiful springtime was, when everyone was dressed in nice bright clothes and looked so cheerful, when the militiamen had on white gloves and a red balloon was floating away into the blue sky. I was sorry I couldn't tell all this to Lena, but even if I could she wouldn't've understood, because she's still so little.

We didn't say a word till we reached our house. When we stopped to say goodbye Lena said,

"If I had some more money, I'd buy another balloon. So you could let it fly away."


 
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