then she noticed another house a little further to the left. Only two rooms hung on its thin trunk – one larger, and the other small, possibly a nursery with one round window at the top.
“Would you believe it, a room like mine,” thought Fanyasha, “with a tiny round window. A little girl like me probably lives there.”
“Only there are only two rooms in her house. That means she lives only with her mother or only with her father, or with her annoying brother. And she doesn’t have a grandmother, and no one kisses the poor baby, no one hugs her, no one praises her and no one tells her stories,” she thought with sadness, sighed deeply and slid down.
In comparison to the life of that unlucky girl, her own life didn’t seem so terrible all of a sudden. She smiled, flapped her wings and whirled in a dance around the room, jumping from the armchair to the bed, from the bed to the dresser.
“How pretty and blessed you are! How this yellow lacy dress suits you! What beautiful eyes! And eyelashes! And braids! And lips! And wings! Lovely!” Fanyasha cooed to her reflection in the mirror, trying to mimic her grandmother’s gentle voice.
From then on, when Fanyasha became sad or bored, she climbed on the windowsill, absorbedly studied the houses of other angels and imagined what their residents were doing.
“Efania, are you up?” asked father one morning, peeking into his daughter’s room.
For some time he was scanning the room wonderingly in search of Fanyasha. To his surprise, the little one was sitting on the windowsill, almost below the door.
“How much you’ve grown! You climbed so high! Aren’t you scared?”
“Not one bit!” Fanyasha replied proudly, sticking her nose up in the air and gracefully tossed her braids behind.
“Since you are so brave, it’s time to show you the house,” with these words her father flew up to his daughter and stretched out his beautiful strong arm.
It’s hard to describe the happiness and glee that filled Fanyasha. Anticipating the long awaited exit out of the room, she was ready to scream as hard as she could, squeal, laugh and cry simultaneously, but decided not to waste time on emotions, and hurriedly jumped off the windowsill and dashed for the door, leaning on her father’s arm.
“What amazing self-restraint and motivation. Bravo, my dear, you take after me,” thought the father and smiled.
“Look, Efania, over there, higher, there is mother’s room right above yours, and across is mine,” told father, and helped his daughter fly up through the wide sun-filled corridor with beautiful oval windows. The higher they rose, the harder it was to fly. Fanyasha felt how tired her wings were. The father caringly took her in his arms.
“And over there, even higher, look, is the room of grandma Nokomis,” he pointed up at the beautiful green door located above the door to mother’s room.
“And what’s over there, even higher? At the very top?” Fanyasha asked with interest when the father started descending. She peered intently up the corridor but could not make out anything except for the movements of the clouds and blurred and scattered purple light somewhere extremely high.
“It’s too early for you to know about this, Efania. Here, let’s look in here and see what your brother is doing.”
They opened the door of the room that was positioned underneath the room of the father. There were notebooks and books of all colors and sizes lying all over the place. Below, next to a large square window, Bosya was sitting at a table and was scrupulously writing something into a white notebook. In front of him lay a large book with a golden cover opened almost at the very beginning, in which magically the words drew themselves carefully and the pages turned themselves. “I wonder what this self-writing book is,” thought Fanyasha.
“Borisey, dear!” called the father, “Take a short break, we are waiting for you in the living room. Fanyasha turns six today, we’ll be congratulating her.”
“But dad, I have exams soon, I don’t have time for celebrating. If I don’t pass the first time, I will have to repeat a year in the Middle School and I really can’t wait to move on to High School,” mumbled Bosya, but did not dare contradict his father. He closed his notebook, then the book, and flew towards the door.
The life of little angels entails staying in a constant state of happiness and love, that’s why for them birthdays are not that important. As for Bosya, he didn’t understand why birthdays were needed. Instead of having fun, he preferred to lock himself in his room and flip through a book or at least to ponder something. Fanyasha, on the other hand, really loved celebrations, gifts and congratulations.
And how wonderful that it was her birthday. That is why father came in the morning and decided to show her the house. What a gift!
“What a wonderful day!” she thought, examining the photos on the walls while descending into the living room down the corridor.
Mother and grandmother were already waiting for them there. Upon seeing the birthday girl, they started clapping and talking over each other, congratulating Fanyasha and kissing her.
“My sweet girl, we have a present for you! Open it!” said the mother tenderly and brought Fanyasha a large caramel-colored box.
“Wow!” shrieked Fanyasha and started laughing when a flock of colorful butterflies flew out of the box and whirled around in circles through the living room. The wings of the butterflies gleamed in the sun and reflected sunrays, and it seemed that the whole room filled with colorful flying twinkles.
Seeing the delight on her granddaughter’s face, the grandmother folded her hands on her chest and also started to laugh. The mother hugged the father, put her head on his shoulder and they both looked at their daughter with enchantment. Even Bosya smiled and preceded to jump and catch butterflies together with his sister, but they briskly dodged their hands and were constantly landing on Bosya’s and Fanyasha’s shoulders, noses or heads, which amused the whole family even more.
“How I wish for her to be a child for a little longer,” said the mother softly. “Childhood is so amazing. Maybe we let her out of the room too early. She is only six. We wanted to wait until she starts school and shield her against the world. There is so much around us that could interfere with her carefree happiness.”
“Not too early at all,” muttered the father. “You should have seen where I found her today! On the windowsill! Yes, imagine that.”
The mother raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“So that means that in the near future she could fly out of the room herself,” said the father very seriously. “Efania is curious and willful; we cannot keep her locked up anymore. It’s time for her to learn more about this world. And by the way, we should remove our photos with the people from the corridor. They hang pretty high, of course, but it’s better to be on the safe side.”
“How fast she is growing,” sighed the mother. “Dear, let’s not let her out till she starts school. I don’t want her to find out about people for as long as possible. Let her live for herself a little bit more.”
Towards the evening, the butterflies calmed down and sat all over the furniture and walls, turning the living into a beautiful colorful garden.
The
