'Now, why would I want to turn you into smelly little goats and then eat you?' the witch asked indignantly. 'If I wanted to eat you, I'd eat you as you are, without turning you into anything else.'
Romka pouted sulkily, and Ksyusha hissed:
'Drink your tea and be quiet! Some wizard or other . . .'
They didn't turn into goats, the tea tasted good, and the bread rings and honey tasted even better. The witch asked Ksyusha all about how she was doing in school. She agreed that fourth grade was absolutely terrible, not like third grade at all. She scolded Romka for slurping his tea. She asked Ksyusha how long her brother had had a stammer. And then she told them she wasn't a witch at all. She was a botanist, and collected all sorts of rare herbs in the forest. And, of course, she knew which herbs the wolves were afraid of.
'But why did the wolf talk?' Romka asked doubtfully.
'It didn't talk at all,' the botanist-witch retorted. 'It barked, and you thought it was talking. Isn't that right?'
Ksyusha thought about it and decided that was the way it had really been.
'I'll show you to the edge of the forest,' said the woman. 'You can see the village from there. And don't come into the forest any more, or the wolves will eat you!'
Romka thought for a moment and then offered to help her gather herbs. Only she would have to give him a special herb to keep the wolves away, so they wouldn't eat him. And one to keep bears away, just in case. And she could give him one to keep lions away too, because the forest here was just like in Africa.
'No herbs for you!' the woman said strictly. 'They're very rare herbs, in the Red Book of threatened species. You can't just go pulling them up.'
'I know about the Red Book,' Romka said, delighted. 'Tell me more, please.'
The woman looked at the clock and shook her head. Well-mannered Ksyusha immediately said it was time to go.
The woman gave each of the children a piece of honeycomb to take with them and showed them to the edge of the forest – it turned out to be very close.
'And don't you set foot in the forest again!' the woman repeated sternly. 'If I'm not there, the wolf will eat you.'
As they headed down the hill towards the village, the children looked back several times.
At first the woman was standing there, watching them walk away. But then she disappeared.
'She is a witch really, isn't she, Ksyusha?' Romka asked.
'She's a botanist!' Ksyusha said, taking the woman's side. Then she exclaimed in surprise: 'You're not stammering any more!'
'I am stam-stam-stammering!' said Romka, playing the fool. 'I didn't really need to stammer before, I was just joking.'
CHAPTER 1
WHERE DO WE get the idea that milk straight from the cow tastes good?
It must be something we learn in junior school. Some memorable phrase from the textbook Our Native Tongue, about how wonderful milk tastes, straight from the cow. And the naïve city kids believe it.
In fact, milk straight from the cow tastes rather peculiar. But after it's been left to stand in the cellar for a day and cooled off – now that's a different matter. Even those poor souls who lack the necessary digestive enzymes drink it. And there are plenty of them, by the way: as far as mother nature's concerned, adults have no business drinking milk, it's children who need it . . .
But people usually don't pay much attention to nature's opinion.
And Others pay even less.
I reached for the jug and poured myself another glass. Cold, with a smooth layer of cream . . . why does boiling make the cream – the best part of milk – so smooth? I took a big gulp. No more, I had to leave some for Sveta and Nadiushka. The whole village – it was quite big, with fifty houses – had just one cow. It was a good thing there was at least one . . . and I had a strong suspicion that the humble Raika had Svetlana to thank for her magnificent yields. Her owner, Granny Sasha, already an old woman at forty, also owned the pig Borka, the goat Mishka and a gaggle of miscellaneous, nameless poultry, but she had no real reason to feel proud. Svetlana just wanted her daughter to drink genuine milk. That was why the cow was never ill. Granny Sasha