Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

“It was very interesting there.” She said. “Pop! And I was in another room. There was a man sitting at a desk. He was writing something. He asked me: ‘Little girl, are you from the twenty-first century?’ I said of course I was, only I didn’t know the number of the century because I can’t count too well, I go to kindergarten in the middle group. The man said he was very pleased to meet me and that I had to go right back.

“‘Do you want to look at Moscow the way it was before your grandfather was born?’ I said I wanted to, and he showed it to me. It was very strange. All the buildings were small. Then I asked what he was called, and he said he was Arkady. He was a writer and wrote science fiction books about the future. Only it turns out that he doesn’t think everything up by himself because sometimes people from our time come to him and they tell him everything. Only he can’t tell anyone of this because it’s a strict secret. He gave me his new book… And then I came back.”

The hall greeted Alice’s story with wild applause.

Then a venerable scholar rose from his seat and said:

“Young lady, in you’re hand you are holding a unique book a first edition of the SF novel “The Holes On Mars.” Would you give this book to me? There’s no way you’ll be able to read it.”

“No,” Alice said. “I’m going to learn how to read myself real soon.”

End

I had promised Alice: “When you get a pass out of second grade I’ll take you along on the Summer expedition. We’ll be flying on the Pegasus to collect exotic and rare animals for the Zoo.”

I had said that back in winter, right after New Year, but right at the same time I posted certain conditions: she had to study hard, do not do anything really stupid, and under no circumstances was she to have any ‘adventures.’

Alice worked hard at carrying out her terms of the bargain, and it looked like there would ne nothing to threaten our plans. But in May, just about a month before our departure date, certain events transpired which almost wrecked everything.

On that day I was working at home, writing an article for Cosmozoology Courier. Through my study’s open door I saw my daughter enter the house on her return from school, downcast and gloomy, throw the bag with her bookreader down with a crash on the table, refuse her dinner and pick up not the book that had been her constant companion for the last three months Animals of Distant Planets but instead grab for The Three Musketeers.

“Are you having difficulties?” I asked.

“Nothing in particular.” Alice answered. “How’d you guess?”

“It showed.”

Alice thought a while, put the book back down and asked:

“Dad, do you have any gold nuggets hanging around?”

“Just how much gold do you need?”

“About a kilogram and a half.”

“Nope.”

“Do you have less than that?”

“Do be honest, I don’t have any less than that at all. None whatsoever. What’s it good for?”

“I don’t know.” Alice said. “I just need it.”

I came out of my study, sat down on the divan beside Alice, and said:

“I think you’d better tell me just what it is you’ve gotten into.”

“Nothing special. I just need the gold.”

“And if you were to be totally honest with me….”

Alice took a long and painful sigh, looked out the window, and finally came clean:

“Dad, I’m a criminal.”

“A criminal?”

“I committed a robbery, and now they are going to kick me out of school for sure.”

“Too bad.” I said. “But continue. It might be that everything isn’t quite so terrible as it was when you looked at the problem first glance.”

“Okay. Well, in general, Alesha Naumov and I decided to catch the giant pike. It lives in the Ikshinsky reservoir and devours the fry. One of the fishermen there told us about it. You don’t know him.”

“And for this you need gold ore?”

“For a fish lure.

“My whole class talked it all over and decided we would need a lure to catch the pike. Ordinary pike you catch with simple lure, but a giant pike would need as really special lure to catch it. And we have a big piece of gold in the school museum. Or we had. It weighed a kilogram and a half. One of our graduates gave it to the school; he found it in the asteroid belt.”

“And you stole gold ore weighing a kilogram and a half?”

“It really wasn’t like that, Dad. We were just taking in on loan. Leva Zvansky said that his father was a geologist and could get us a new one. And so we decided to make lures out of gold. The giant pike wold be sure to fall for a lure like that.”

“Is that all?”

“Nothing much else happened, Dad. The other kids were afraid to open the display case so we drew straws and I wouldn’t have ever taken it if I hadn’t drawed the shortest straw.”

“Drawn.”

“What?”

“To draw straws. Past participle ‘drawn.’ I draw, I drew, I have drawn, I had drawn.”

“Oh, yeah. So I drew the shortest straw and there was now way I could go back on my word to the other kids. All the more so since no one was going to miss that piece it just sat and sat in the museum…”

“And then?”

“And then we took it to Alesha Naumov, who got a laser and cut the darned gold nugget into lots of small pieces. And then we went to the Ikshinsky reservoir and the pike took our bait.”

Alice thought it over a moment, and she added:

“Or maybe it wasn’t the giant pike. Maybe it was a snag on a dead tree. The lure we made was very heavy. We searched for it and we never found it. We all took turns diving for it.”

“And your crime was discovered?

“Yes, because Zvansky was a liar. He brought a handful of diamonds from home and said there wasn’t a bit of gold to be had. We sent him back home with his diamonds. As if we needed diamonds! And when Elena Alexandrovna came by and said: ‘Kids, open up the museum; I’ll be taking the first graders on their tour. Talk about bad timing! So everything was discovered. And she went running to the headmistress: “Danger,” she says (we were listening under the door) “The past has come alive in someone’s blood!” Alesha Naumov did promise to take all the blame on himself, but I didn’t let him. I drew the straw, so they hang me. And that’s everything.”

“And that’s all?” I was amazed. “And you’ve `fessed up to it?”

“I haven’t had a chance yet.” Alice said. “They gave us all until tomorrow. Elena said that either the gold nugget is in place or we will be having a ‘serious conversation.’ That means that tomorrow they’re going to take us out of the races and maybe even expel me from school when I do ‘fess up.”

“What races?”

“Tomorrow is the big air bladder races. For the school championships. My class’s team is Alesha, me, and Egorov. And there’s no way they’ll let Egorov fly alone.”

“And haven’t you forgotten one further complication?” I said.

“What complication.” Alice asked with a tone in her voice that told me she knew perfectly well which one.

“You have failed to live up to our agreement.”

“Yes I did.” Alice agreed. “But it was done in a good cause.”

“It was? You stole a gold nugget in the weight of a kilogram and a half, cut it into fish lures, lost it in the Ikshinsky Water Reservoir and you don’t even recognize what you did! A good cause indeed! I fear the Pegasus will have to leave you behind.”

“Oh, Daddy! Alice whispered. “What do I do now?”

“Think.” I said, and went back into my office to finish the paper. But writing proved difficult. Such a silly misadventure! How like small children to cut a museum exhibit to pieces with a laser!