Karlsson on the Roof
”
“Hmm!” said Karlsson. “My steam engines … they’ve all exploded. Something wrong with the safety valves, that’s all. But it’s a small matter and not worth grieving over.”
Eric looked around again.
“But your rooster pictures? … Have they exploded, too?” he asked with some sarcasm.
“You can see they haven’t,” said Karlsson. “What do you suppose this is?” he said, pointing to a piece of cardboard which was nailed to the wall beside the cupboard. Quite right! In a corner at the bottom of the cardboard there was a rooster—a tiny little red rooster. Otherwise the cardboard was empty.
“The title of this picture is ‘A Very Lonely Little Red Rooster,’ ” said Karlsson.
Eric looked at the little rooster. Karlsson’s thousand rooster pictures—did they, after all, only consist of this miserable little specimen of a rooster?
“ ‘Very Lonely Rooster,’ painted by the World’s Best Rooster Painter,” said Karlsson, in a voice trembling with emotion. “Oh, what a beautiful and sad picture! But I mustn’t start to cry, because then my temperature will go up.”
He threw himself back against the cushions and held his forehead. “You’re to be like a mother to me. Go ahead!” he said.
Eric did not quite know how to begin. “Have you got any medicine?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes, but not any that I’d like to take,” replied Karlsson. “Have you got a penny?”
Eric took a penny out of his pants pocket.
“Give it to me first,” said Karlsson. Eric gave him the penny. Karlsson held it tightly in his hand and looked very cunning and pleased.
“I know what medicine I can take,” he said.
“Which?” asked Eric.
“Karlsson-on-the-Roof’s Cure-All Medicine. It’s half gumdrops and half chocolates, and you stir it all up together thoroughly with some cake crumbs. Do that, and I’ll have a dose right now,” said Karlsson. “It’s good for a temperature.”
“I don’t think so,” said Eric.
“What do you bet?” said Karlsson. “I bet you a bar of chocolate that I’m right.”
Eric thought that perhaps this was what Mommy had meant when she said that you could decide who was right by a sensible discussion.
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The Story of Two Sisters Who Were Jealous of Their Younger Sister
Category: Arabic folktales
Read times: 17 -
There was once an honest journeyman tailor, by name Labakan, who learned his trade with an excellent master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him.
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