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Лаймен Фрэнк Баум

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. B1 / Удивительный волшебник из Страны Оз

© А. А. Грек, адаптация, словарь, упражнения, 2024

© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2024

Chapter 1

The Cyclone

Dorothy lived in a little house in Kansas, with Uncle Henry, Aunt Em, and a small black dog whose name was Toto. They had a little house. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a large bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner.

When Aunt Em came there to live, she was a young, pretty wife. Now, she was thin, gray and gaunt, and never smiled. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.

Uncle Henry worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. Uncle Henry never laughed. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke. It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. There were no trees and no hills in Kansas, and it was often very windy. Even the grass was not green. Sometimes the wind came very fast and very suddenly. It was a cyclone, and it blew trees and people and houses away.

Everyone had cellars below the houses. And when there was a cyclone, people came into their cellars and stayed there. One day Uncle Henry went out and looked up at the sky. Aunt Em was washing the dishes. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Suddenly Uncle Henry ran quickly back into the house. 'There will be a cyclone,' he called to Aunt Em and Dorothy, 'We must go into the cellar!'

Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept.

Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid below the bed, and the girl ran after him. Aunt Em, very scared, threw open the trap door in the floor and went down the ladder into the little, dark hole. 'Quick, Dorothy!' she screamed. 'Run for the cellar!' Dorothy caught Toto finally and ran after her aunt.

But before she came there, the cyclone hit the house.

And then a very odd thing happened. The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.

The house moved, and it went slowly up, up, up into the sky. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were down in the cellar below the ground, but the house, Dorothy, and Toto went up to the top of the cyclone. Dorothy looked through the open cellar door and saw hills and houses, a long way down. She closed the cellar door.