– Better luck next time – he good-natured told.
– Judging by your cones and scratches, it is not the first pancake – I noticed.
– On these springs – the first. Latest model. Help me to rise, please, and again to climb up a fence.
It became tiresome.
– So, we begin.
– We continue – I corrected.
– All question in successfully to jump on all fours. It is easier for flea to jump, she has six legs – Wagner told. – And well, hop!
Already how it fell – the head down, I guessed that the jump will be unsuccessful again. And it is valid, the first blow – all weight of a body – fell on hands. Threw Wagner up and back. Having described an arch, he disappeared behind a fence.
I found the unlucky inventor on a heap of horse manure. Wagner lay on a back and pottered about as a bug who vainly tried to turn over on legs. To my astonishment, Wagner’s face brightened with pleasure.
– Springs, springs what, and? As threw! This time there will be a sense.
And, when Wagner jumped for the third time, there was a sense. Even, perhaps, bigger, than the inventor expected. «Flea» managed to fall by all four legs and to make a jump. Wagner, apparently, used muscles of legs as the second jump was higher and farther. The third, fourth is even better. And suddenly I heard uneasy shout:
– Hold me! I cannot stop!
Unfortunate! He also did not think of it. I rushed behind it, but where there! Wagner as a huge flea, huge jumps quickly moved away from me. The high earth shaft blocked it a way. The jumper could not turn aside. Some more jumps – and Wagner hit the head against an earth shaft, turned over head over heels and fell.
– I did not punch a hole in earth to a shaft? – slowly, hardly moving language, Wagner when recovered asked me. He still could joke.
* * *
I did not see Wagner several years. Unexpectedly he reminded of himself, having called by phone. He invited me to himself to the dacha so simply as if we left it only yesterday.
«There are news. If you allow, I will come for you on the car».
Did not pass also hour as I already went with Wagner by his car on the magnificent highway Moscow – Minsk. Externally Wagner changed a little, only his beard became as though is longer and more dense. He drove the covered car of the extended, well streamline shape. The car flew with such speed that I could hardly distinguish counter bridges, beautiful hotels standing at the road in picturesque corners – on woody hills or on the river bank. After an hour of such mad driving Wagner reduced speed, turned from the highway to the good highway, about half an hour flew with a speed of fifty kilometers per hour and, at last, stopped near a lonely cottage.
– Here we and houses.
We have hastily breakfast in the cozy dining room with a wide Venetian window. Wagner unexpectedly took out from where from under a table the massive glass and stretched to me:
– Hold!
I accepted a glass and was very surprised, without having felt its weight. Put on a table, but did not manage to unclench fingers as a glass flew up to a ceiling and there remained. Has to be, I had a comic because Wagner burst out laughing look and told:
– Well and a look at you! Though on the screen. However from what you will drink apple cider? Are guilty. I have no other glasses.
– You, maybe, after all explain to me, professor, this focus? – I asked.
– I am not a conjurer and not the wizard – he as though having a little taken offense answered.
– The glass was, apparently, metal. In a ceiling there was probably a hidden magnet. I guessed or not?
– Everything will speak in due time. Weather is excellent, to an idemta to breathe clean air. But before I want to weigh you on scales. – He weighed me, for some reason suggested to put 800 grams in a pocket of the weight weighing 1 kilogram and told: Punktum.
We left the house and went to a big field which was seen behind a birchwood. It seemed to me that among the field there is a lake: between white trunks of birches I saw a brilliant surface, and, having only approached closer, I was convinced of the mistake: the most part of the field was covered as if with brilliant felt, equal and smooth. Published this «carpet» with opaque gloss of light gray color it was similar to a water surface.
Wagner safely walked on «lake», I is absolutely timid – behind it. In the middle of «carpet» the area several honeycombs of square meters I saw a small cross as it seemed to me. When we approached it closer, it turned out that one «crosspiece» represented a crack in a carpet, and another – the bolt turned across a crack sitting on a core. From this central cross the brackets resembling door handles dispersed extensively.
Wagner turned a bolt so that it became against an opening. At the same moment I felt that we rise, as on the flying carpet.
– Hold brackets! – Wagner shouted to me. I grasped the handle, and in time as strongly rocked our «plane». Fortunately, wind gusts did not repeat any more, and we so smoothly rose that I could not get off impression as if not we go up, and the earth, the field, a birchwood, Wagner’s dacha slowly fall.
– Our flying carpet would rise quicker if not the resistance of air – Wagner told. He sat against me, holding the bracket similar to the door handle. We were divided by a crack through which when the flying carpet was on the earth, the bolt holding the plane from rise as an anchor was passed.
– Yes, our aircraft of not too streamline shape; at least, when flying down – I responded, hardly forcing itself to speak: to such an extent this extraordinary adventure stunned me.
– Now you will not tell that over us a magnet which attracts us? – Wagner asked, having cunning blinked blue eyes.
– Alas, it is higher than my understanding – I answered. Wagner loudly laughed loudly.
– A difficult task – at last he told. – You can imagine that I invented some kevorit-screen protecting bodies from terrestrial inclination. But kevorit – the most blank and impracticable imagination. You could imagine that I loaded our flying carpet with electricity, of the same name with a terrestrial charge, and the flying carpet jumped aside from the earth as a buzinny ball…
– I imagine nothing – I objected. – Now interests me as highly we will rise. We are dressed as in summer, and we have no oxygen devices.
– You can be absolutely quiet – Wagner answered. – Carrying power of our flying carpet is very small. Its ceiling has only two-three hundred meters. You see, our rise is already slowed down. And when there will come evening, temperature will go down, humidity of air will increase, and our flying carpet will begin to descend. My calculation is absolutely exact. Punktum. Not without reason I verified your weight. There now. For now… we have a lot more time, and I can explain you a secret of our flying carpet… You watch how many boys ran together to look at us. And from where only they undertake?. Shout, wave caps…
Slowly carried us for a grove. The river and crowd of children passed out of sight ashore soon.
– And so – Wagner continued – all these miracles were born from scientific works on physics of thin films, little-known to general public. I advise you to get acquainted with this subject. In sum, our flying carpet is made of a so-called firm chain. This body consisting of a set of cells bubbles. Alloy of magnesium and beryllium.