Flyaway Tales Read online

  Flyaway Tales

  Stefano Amadei

  Translated by Rosemary Dawn Allison

  “Flyaway Tales”

  Written By Stefano Amadei

  Copyright © 2016 Stefano Amadei

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Rosemary Dawn Allison

  Cover Design © 2016 Enrico Pintini

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  To my daughter Ivana, my true and sweet love,

  to my wife Tiziana, real light of my eyes,

  that every day they make my heart beat faster,

  that they have changed my life forever.

  Table of Contents

  CINEMA BIANCHINI............................................................................................................4

  MAMMONE CAT....................................................................................................................8

  NEVER BEEN DREAMED.................................................................................................16

  THE MIXTURE.....................................................................................................................18

  ALI AND THE SCRIBE.......................................................................................................21

  A GENIE’S WISH.................................................................................................................25

  CAT'S PEACE........................................................................................................................29

  THE FIREFLY CELESTE...................................................................................................30

  THE OGRE’S GARDEN......................................................................................................31

  T-REX......................................................................................................................................35

  THE GOLDEN BELL...........................................................................................................38

  A THOUSAND YEARS OF LOVE.....................................................................................42

  CINEMA BIANCHINI

  “Look, there are our mothers!” Dario said excitedly. “Go on Max, ask them!”

  A big smile appeared on Dario’s mother’s face as soon as she saw her son with his friend Massimiliano.

  Dario, in fact, was not a very sociable boy and his mom Arianna was very happy that finally he had made a friend.

  She had seen the children whispering to each other and approached them curiously: “What are you two talking about?”

  “I invited Dario to come and sleep over tonight!” Max replied quickly, convinced that, if he did so fast enough Dario’s mother would say, yes immediately.

  Happily surprised Arianna looked at her son for a second or two.

  “You know Dario that you cannot sleep in the big bed as usual if you go to Max tonight, right?”

  “But he will sleep with me!” Max intervened again as he took a step forward and brought his open hand gently to his chest.

  “Massimiliano, if it’s alright with your mom...” concluded Arianna looking around. “Oh, there she is! Children follow me!”

  The afternoon passed quickly and without a care and the two children quickly found themselves at the end of the evening games, yawning and rubbing their eyes.

  Angelo, Max’s dad looked at them and announced: “Tonight we have a guest! Be prepared: you are going to Cinema Bianchini!”

  Dario, who never went out in the evening, was thrilled and, for a moment, he was really sure they were going to the movies.

  “Really? And where is that? Is it far? First I have to tell Mom ...”

  Even Max was very happy that his father had said this, he looked at Dario and winked, as if to say “You’ll see, trust me.”

  “No, Dario!” Angelo replied smiling. “You go to Cinema Bianchini on the little beds!”

  Dario was very disappointed: it was just a way to make the children go to bed, one of the usual adult tricks...

  After all, though, it is not that he had all this great desire to go out. Indeed, he was so sleepy that he would certainly immediately fall to sleep beside Max.

  They brushed their teeth and said goodnight to Max’s mom and his dad read them a story.

  Then, next to each other, in their pajamas, they fell asleep.

  Angelo turned out the light on the bedside table, looked at the two children for the last time in the dim light and went back to his wife.

  “They are sleeping like two angels,” he reported satisfied.

  Dario’s sleep was shallower than it seemed. One of the reasons was that up until that time he had slept in the big bed with his parents because of his huge fear of being kidnapped at night with the bed and everything else besides.

  After a while his parents tried to put his bed next to the big bed, but that didn’t work.

  Fortunately his bed had no wheels. Why make life easier for the kidnappers?

  Even Max’s bed was a real bed for older children, without wheels. For this reason, and because he was sleeping beside his friend, Dario made him feel brave. But he was still sleeping away from home and so he stayed just a little bit awake while he slept.

  At one point in the night he heard loud banging on the wooden shutters that opened onto the balcony.

  Dario woke up and immediately called Max. “Hey, did you hear that noise?”

  Imagine the child’s face when Max, instead of blaming the wind, as one might have expected, said happily: “They have come to take us away! Get ready!”

  At those words Dario was fully awake in a second, but even before he could ask Max to explain (and even before he could call for someone else’s help) out of Max’s bed sprang four white wheels, the window opened and widened, the shutter flew up and the balcony railing disappeared. The two children’s beds set off like rockets down from the apartment building thanks to the wings that disappeared as soon as the little beds touched the ground.

  In front, behind and even above them Dario saw dozens of little beds. They were white, brown, red, pink, with or without a canopy, shaped like a toy car, spaceship, pony...

  And all of them, absolutely every one of one of them, had wheels! And even worse, each one of them held at least one child!

  “We have been kidnapped! They are kidnapping everyone! Help!” Dario cried out terrified.

  Max could not stop laughing!

  “Come on stop it! Really, don’t tell me, you’ve never been to Cinema Bianchini,” and he continued to laugh out loud.

  The little beds all seemed to be going in the same direction and strangely, no matter how large the city and how many people lived there, they met no passersby, no cars, no red lights and not even a video camera saw them.

  Like invisible ghosts they arrived in front of a building: they had arrived at Cinema Bianchini.

  It was a low building and you could tell right away that it was one of those old movie houses where once they showed only one film at a time.

  Dario’s initial fear soon turned into joy because of the night tour and now he was a little worried.

  The little beds, in fact, had politely placed themselves into single file in front of the ticket office.

  “Max, I have no money for the ticket!” Worried, he turned towards his friend who reassured him motioning to stay calm and to do exactly as he did.

  The ticket collector came to the counter and looked at them all from under his half-moon spectacles.

  “How many?”

&
nbsp; “Two,” said Max, “... reduced.”

  “Very funny! Who is he?”

  Dario’s blood froze in his veins.

  “My brother, can’t you see?”

  “Yeah” the ticket collector pretended to believe him.

  “Then these tickets?” Urged a woman.

  “Yes, yes, wait...” Max answered searching in the back pocket of his pajama trousers.

  He pulled out a small white card and gave it to the cashier.

  “Yours too, please!” she urged Dario impatiently who looked around petrified.

  “Come on kid, get moving: your pajama pocket, is there on the left!”

  He had always wondered what pajama pockets were for. He had thought they had no use but were only to make pajamas beautiful. It is not that you are going to buy anything when you are go to bed ... Now he knew he was very wrong.

  In fact as soon as Dario stuck his fingers in his pocket with great surprise he pulled out his ticket. It was black and white, there was a drawing of a bed with knobs on the headboard and on the top appeared the inscription Cinema Bianchini and, under the drawing, the motto With the head on the Pillow and Valid for one Child. In the angle at the top was a red stripe reading Reduced.

  Still speechless Dario gave it to the woman who said, “Very good! Are you sure you are his brother?” she asked, pointing at Max with a nod of her head, “I’ve never seen you before in these parts ...Ah, it’s the first time you slept in your own bed, right? Well remember only children who sleep in their own beds can come here! Have fun! Next!” she shouted.

  In single file the bed went into the great central hall. The walls were completely covered with multicolored drawings by all the children who had gone there. Mostly there were drawings of monsters, bogeyman, wolves and other scary things.

  But as children’s fear is not gray and gloomy as it that of grown ups, everyone used as many colors as possible because, if you make something colorful it is much less scary. And maybe, in the end, it doesn’t frighten you anymore.

  Tables and seats, throughout almost all the large room, had many children sitting on them all intently drawing.

  “Hello, my name is Valeria! Sit here and you can also draw something that frightens you!” The little girl pointed to two chairs right next to her.

  “My name is Max and he’s Dario!” said Massimiliano pointing at himself and his friend who smiled at Valeria and said a shy ‘hello’.

  “If you don’t know, here are the sheets of paper ... if you need anything you can ask for it in this yellow tube! Crayons, colored pencils, markers, paintbrushes and watercolors, everything!”

  Max was shocked: he knew all these things, he had already been there several times, but Valeria was so sure of herself ... and then she was so cute with those red braids so he didn’t feel he could interrupt her ... “A red marker!” He ordered from the curved tube that stuck out, without thinking too much about it, and certain he was making a good impression on Valeria, but nothing happened.

  “You don’t do it like that!” Continued the child, “You must be more polite! Watch me: A red marker, please!”

  A round hole opened in the middle of the table and a hand in a white glove held out the marker to the little girl.

  “See that?” She looked at Massimiliano who went red, then she thanked the hand that waved and went back into the hole, which closed behind it.

  “But there’s nobody there!” Dario said after he had looked under the table.

  “I don’t know where it comes from, but it doesn’t do anything! Isn’t it funny? We draw now and then we hang our fears where we want!”

  “What are the drawings for?” Dario asked.

  “So that we won’t see a film that will frighten us!” said Valeria simply.

  Dario drew two kidnappers quickly and Max drew a ghost.

  “And what did you paint?” they asked Valeria together.

  “Lightning! I am always so afraid at that time!”

  Everyone nodded, then Dario made an amazing discovery. Right next to where he was going to put his drawing was another: a yellow shark with purple teeth that looked down kindly at him from behind. Below he could read Arianna.

  “That was my mom’s when she was little like me! How nice, I didn’t know she was afraid of sharks! You know Max it is the same shark that’s on the sign of her scuba diving shop!”

  When they had finished drawing the little beds took them into the next room, even more beautiful and colorful, perhaps than the first. They were enveloped in the festive sweet scent of cotton candy and popcorn.

  Dario looked around with his mouth wide open and then again at Max and Valeria.

  “It’s so nice here that every time I think it is the first time!” said Max.

  “You’re right!” Dario answered still amazed.

  Behind the counters, which of course were the right size for children, were thousands of glass containers where they could see colorful beautiful candy in all shapes and flavors.

  There was a label on each jar that told you exactly how the candy tasted.

  “Whirling Joy” appeared on the spiral shaped lollipops, “Long-lasting Happiness” for the green candy that explodes in the mouth, “Peace of the Angels” on soft marshmallows with blue and white stripes, and so on. Below, in smaller writing could be read a warning: “Valid only for candies at Cinema Bianchini: It is advisable to take as much as you want. Greatly improves the health!”

  As they had done for the colors they politely asked the yellow tube for what they wanted.

  This time, before giving her what she wanted, the hand gave Valeria a ticket. Valeria read it out loud: ‘This is your last admission to Cinema Bianchini. Your free tickets in the possession of your parents have expired. You cannot come in if you are older than 7-years old. To apologize for this great inconvenience please accept our most coveted delicacy: The Great Ice Cream Goblet Forgetty, as well as a great number of free tickets that you can use for whoever you want when you are grown up. To invite someone here you just have to say ‘Tonight you go to Cinema Bianchini’ or anything like that. Children must sleep in their own beds. And parents are forbidden to enter. Happy Birthday From The Management.’’

  “I knew it! Tomorrow I will be eight years old!” commented Valeria resignedly, as she smiled as she put all her complimentary tickets into her pocket before she dove into the inviting mega ice cream.

  Finally they returned to their beds, they made their way to the heavy red curtains, which drew aside as they passed, allowing them to enter.

  They found themselves floating in space, floating in formation like little spaceships. They could see the blue and brown earth, the silvery moon and more stars than you can imagine.

  Suddenly the little beds started to fly in a group toward Earth until the flock of children in pajamas reached a green lawn where they all settled down gently.

  They could follow the gentle flight of a butterfly fluttering at their side, run faster than a leopard, and make anything appear from dolls to cups of steaming tea...

  The following morning Arianna telephoned Max’s father “Angelo, but what did you do to my son? I never saw Dario so happy! From tonight he said he wants to sleep in his bed and asked me a lot of questions about Cinema Bianchini!” “That’s funny, I almost forgot!”

  Said Angelo at the other end of the phone.

  MAMMONE CAT

  Badwinter reluctantly stirred the black pitch bubbling slowly in the pot.

  “The smell will never go away ever! Never! Every time I have to prepare this stinky stuff it always takes me forever to clean the cave!”

  “I have never heard a devil complain so much! I think you’re the most boring in all hell said the cat Mammone from his corner, stopping for a moment to lick his black fur.

  “I didn’t ask you to come and live here, you’re free to go whenever you want, you know?”

  “I like it here: it’s so funny seeing you try to be a devil! Believe me, you’re not very good!”
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  The cat came closer, but not too close so as not to be splashed by the pitch, then continued, “You’re right about one thing, I’m going to go on a tour! I’m a little hungry!”

  “Well, good kitty, go eat some liar’s tongue!” Mammone hissed at Badwinter and glared at him out of his green eyes.

  “If I don’t have to, I won’t eat that boring stuff. Today I want to rest, I think I will go to Earth.”

  “I wish I was a fly to see how long it will take you to lose another one of your lives!”

  Mammone did not answer and walked toward the mouth of the cave.

  “Don’t wait up!”

  “Stay out for as long as you want, believe me it may be best if you don’t come back at all.”

  “Don’t hold your breath! Didn’t you know that cats are attached to the caves and not to the demons? When you’re done with that stuff try and air the place up a little.”

  Badwinter growled something.

  “Ah, don’t stop stirring, otherwise it will all stick to the bottom of the pot!”

  Laughing under his whiskers the cat walked away in a hurry to avoid the pitchfork that Badwinter had thrown.

  “He laughs longest who laughs last, cat in my boots! No, no! I knew it, it has really stuck to the bottom! Another pot to throw out...” Badwinter said sadly.

  Still very amused, Mammone looked around to make sure no one was watching.

  Then he began to turn around on himself, chasing his own black tail. Moving faster and faster he soon disappeared from sight in a whirl of dust.

  When he stopped, Mammone found he was on Earth, on a gravel road.

  In the distance, between the haystacks, he could see a farm.

  He went straight there after giving himself a scratch below the red collar which had his name printed in large gold letters.

  When he reached his destination he went to the back door, which entered the kitchen.

  The smell that came out was unmistakable: freshly baked bread.

  He entered rudely and without asking permission, as if he had always lived there.