Chapter 18 Chapter 18 In Kite City

Kite City is located on the beach, next to a river.There are no trees here, so the streets are not as beautiful as those in Greentown.But here, like a flower city, there are many flowers growing everywhere.The houses are beautiful.Each house has a towering spire, the top of which is either decorated with a wooden rooster that turns back and forth in the wind, or a toy windmill that keeps spinning.Many of these windmills are fitted with wooden castanets, rattling incessantly.There are kites flying everywhere over the city.Flying a kite is a favorite pastime of the residents, hence the name of the city.Residents have special whistles attached to these kites.The structure of the whistle is very simple.It is made of a thin thread stretched over an ordinary paper tube.The tubes tend to wobble in the wind and make a rather annoying jingling or buzzing sound.

The different sounds of kites and the rattling of small windmills merged, resulting in a constant buzzing over the city. The windows of every house are fitted with barred shutters.The shutters are closed when football is played in the street, which is also a favorite game of the residents.This modified barred window panel lets in enough light into the room while doing an excellent job of protecting the glass from footballs shattering it.For reasons that cannot be explained, the football never goes where it should go, but it always flies to the window. Cars go down the main street.Turn into an alley and stop by a wooden gate with a corner door.High above the gate is a wooden spire topped by a gleaming glass sphere.The ball is like a mirror, reflecting the entire street upside down, including houses, walls and cars driving to the gate.

The driver—he was called Donut, by the way—gets out of the car, goes to the corner door, and presses a button concealed in the fence.The corner door opened without a sound. "Come in," said Bagel, inviting Screw and Chisel, "and I'll introduce you to Screw. He's an interesting man. You'll see." The three friends walked into the yard, turned left and went to the house.Walking up a small stone staircase, Bagel found a button on the wall and pressed it.The door opened likewise silently, and our friends entered a room. The room, apart from the rope bed suspended from the wall, was utterly bare, without any furniture.A little man in a sky-blue jumpsuit was lying on a rope bed with his legs curled up to his chest and his hands deep in his pockets.

"Where are you going to sleep by this time, Little Screw?" Bagel greeted him. "It's already dawn." "I didn't sleep at all, I was thinking." The screw replied, turning his head to the visitor. "Come and get acquainted, these are the two masters, the little screw and the little chisel. They need a soldering iron." "Hi, please sit down," said the little screw. Little Screw and Little Chisel looked around blankly, and saw nothing in the whole room to sit on.Small Screw reached out and pressed a button next to the rope bed.At this time, open three folding chairs from the opposite wall at once, which are modeled after the folding chairs in the theater.Small screws and small chisels sit down.

"Did you notice that everything here is controlled by buttons?" asked the little screw. "Press one button and the door will open, press another button and the chair will come out. If you need a table, please... ..." The little screw hit another button.Opening a table top from the wall, almost touching the head of the little chisel sitting on the chair. "Very convenient, isn't it?" asked Screwdriver. "Excellent!" admitted the screw, looking around for fear that something might hit his head. "Technology that has reached the level of fantasy!" Screwlet boasted.

"The only inconvenience is that you have to sit against the wall," said Bagel. "I'm thinking about how to make the chair move." The inventor replied. "Maybe it's easier to make some ordinary chairs?" said the little chisel. "That's a good idea! The simplest and most common chair should be invented!" said Screwdriver happily. "Isn't this as simple as a genius. Brother, it seems that you are also a mechanical expert?" "Mechanics," replied the little chisel, "we are both mechanics." "So you're going to use a soldering iron?"

The little screw pressed another button, and to the amazement, the rope bed slowly lowered.The rope bed is lowered until the little screw lying in it drops to the floor. "When you come out of an ordinary rope bed, you may hang your legs on the rope, and you will break your nose if you fall," said Little Screw, standing up from the floor. It’s completely eliminated. You can safely drop to the floor and get back up. Same thing when you need to go to bed, you lay down on the floor, press a button and the rope bed lifts you to the necessary height.” The little screw started walking around the room, pressing various buttons, and finally opened some tables, chairs, shelves, and opened various small doors of cupboards and storage rooms; at last he pressed another button and disappeared in the underground.

"Come here!" His voice came from the courtyard a minute later. The friends walked into the yard. "This is my garage." Small Screw said, leading the small screw and the small chisel to a stone shed with iron doors and iron windows. He pressed the button, and the iron door slid upward like a theater curtain.Inside the door was a strange car with many wheels. "It's an eight-wheeled steam car cooled by pistachio ice cream," explained Screwdriver, "with four wheels on the bottom and four on the top. The bottom wheels are usually used for driving, and the top wheels are designed to handle rollovers." .All the wheels are installed at an angle, that is, oblique, so it can not only drive like all cars, but also drive sideways, or even reverse, that is, completely head down. In this way, various All kinds of accidents can be prevented.”

The small screw got into the car, performed the driving in four states, and then continued to explain. "In this car," he said, "in place of the normal water tank is a boiler that heats the soda. The steam from the soda increases the pressure on the pistons, so the wheels spin faster. Behind the boiler is the pistachio ice cream. Can, this ice cream is necessary to cool the cylinders. The melted ice cream from the heat travels down a pipe into the boiler and lubricates the engine. Cars have four gears: first, second, third, fourth, and reverse and side fenders. There is a laundry facility in the rear of the car. It can do laundry while the car is running at any speed. At rest, when the car is parked, it chops firewood, muddles, makes bricks, and peels potatoes .”

The friends were amazed by the grotesque car, and then went to the small screw's workshop, which was full of all kinds of junk.There are some old broken bikes, bike parts, scooter bikes and lots and lots of various wooden tops and spinners.The little screw looked for a long time in the workshop, looking for a soldering iron, but there was nowhere.He rummaged through the rags, suddenly slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, and said: "Well, I'm so confused! I forgot the soldering iron at the little ghost. You have to go to the little ghost to get it." "It's all right, we'll be there in a short drive," Bagel said.

"Who is this little wit?" Screw asked when our friends said goodbye to Screw and walked outside the gate. "Ghost is a writer," replied Bagel. "Really?" said Little Chisel aloud. "It was interesting to meet him. I never once talked to a living writer." "You'll get to know him right away. He's a very interesting fellow, too," said Bagel, getting into the car.