The Absent-Minded Engineer
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The Absent-Minded Engineer

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A fairy tale about a talented but extremely absent-minded engineer who wanted to throw a celebration for the people by staging an unusual fireworks display, but instead of that—ended up taking the entire city on a small adventure!

Bright voices rang out along the entire street. Today the city residents were about to witness the most beautiful, most interesting and unusual fireworks display ever created by an engineer.

Everyone, everyone, everyone—we're expecting you today at five o'clock in the square!

The fireworks display was created by an engineer named Leonard. He was one of the best inventors in the city and often demonstrated his ideas to people.

Don't miss out, today you'll be able to see something special! A fireworks display will be launched into the sky that no one on Earth has ever seen before.

This time he decided to delight the people with a beautiful, bright, and amazing fireworks display, because there were so few celebrations in the city where everyone gathered together.

And so the long-awaited evening arrived. Women came in beautiful dresses, and some of the men wore fancy tuxedos. Children were given free balloons, and loud, cheerful music played all around. Everyone was anticipating the spectacle.

Good evening!

A loud sound rang out as the music quieted down.

I'm delighted to welcome you to my colourful, magical show!

Greeting the guests on stage with a microphone was engineer-designer Leonard.

Get comfortable, just a couple of minutes and our long-awaited show will begin.

Leonard was a very talented engineer. All of his inventions were always successful, people in the city knew him and loved coming to demonstrations of his inventions.

The engineer was a bit strange—he hardly spoke and constantly muttered something to himself. And he always wore headphones so that no noise would distract him from developing his next invention.

He lived alone in a small flat on the outskirts of the city. And he had a peculiarity—he was terribly forgetful and absent-minded, like all talented inventors. Once the engineer left his house wearing different shoes, and another time he even forgot to turn off the water and flooded his downstairs neighbours.

And so the long-awaited moment arrived. People were waiting for the show—clapping, whistling, shouting and laughing. Festive music began to play, and searchlight beams shone all around. In a couple of seconds, millions of beautiful, colourful lights would shoot into the sky.

The engineer sat at the control panel, and everything seemed like it should go perfectly. Everything was ready, all that was left was to press the button. To launch the fireworks, special blindfolds had to be worn, which were handed out to guests at the entrance.

And suddenly something sparkled, glittered, a terrible crack sounded and the entire city plunged into darkness…

... Morning. Bright sunshine shone overhead. Monkeys ran along the sand, parrots flew about. Wandering through all this magnificence were people, seeing nothing and bumping into stones. It turned out these were the people who had come to watch the fireworks. The show didn't happen, but because of the engineer's absent-mindedness—he pressed the wrong button—all the guests ended up on a deserted island.

The blindfolds that people had received at the festival were still covering their eyes. That's why they couldn't see anything around them.

And only one boy, freeing his eyes, cried out:

Where are we? People, take off the blindfolds from your eyes!

The people around were bewildered. How could this have happened? How did they all end up here? And so they decided that no matter what, they needed to get back home. But how? After all, they were surrounded by sea.

Why don't we build a ship and sail away from here on it?

Suggested a man who was a gardener by profession.

They decided to gather dry branches, tie them together with vines and sail away. But of course, they met with failure. The first wave capsized the boat and everyone ended up in the water.

Maybe we should chop down some logs, build a raft and sail back to the city?

Suggested a lumberjack.

Everyone supported this idea, but unfortunately, they failed again and weren't able to sail back to their loved ones in their city.

All this time, our engineer was wandering along the shore. And since he had headphones on his ears and a blindfold over his eyes that he forgot to remove, Leonard had no idea that he had ended up on a deserted island along with everyone else.

Help!

People cried out, and seeing the engineer, they rushed to him for help, because he was so clever and would definitely come up with something.

When the engineer removed the blindfold, he looked around in surprise and realised that it was he who was to blame for everything, because he had pressed the wrong button and instead of a fireworks display, he had sent people here.

The engineer began to think about how to help everyone get back to their home city. And suddenly he spotted a ship on the horizon. And then an idea came to him—launch fireworks into the sky that would serve as an 'SOS' signal.

In the pocket of his jacket was a control remote. The engineer pressed the right button and fireworks shot into the sky. Within five minutes, the ship was already at the island. Happy, joyful people hugged each other, and very soon everyone found themselves back in their homes with their loved ones.

Read fairy tales and nothing like this will ever happen to you!

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The fairy tale The Absent-Minded Engineer is available in FB2 format for phones, tablets, computers, and e-book readers.
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