Bright voices rang out along the entire street. Today the city residents were about to see the most beautiful, most interesting, and unusual fireworks display ever created by an engineer.
Everyone, everyone, everyone—we're waiting for you today at five o'clock in the square!
The fireworks display was created by an engineer named Leonard. He was one of the city's best inventors and often demonstrated his ideas to people.
Attention, don't miss it—today you'll 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 show, 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!
The engineer-designer Leonard greeted the guests on stage with a microphone.
Get comfortable, just a couple more minutes and our long-awaited show will begin.
Leonard was a very talented engineer. All of his inventions were always successful, and people in the city knew him and loved attending demonstrations of his creations.
The engineer was a bit strange—he barely spoke and constantly muttered something to himself. He also always wore headphones so that no noise would distract him from developing his next invention.
He lived alone in a small apartment on the outskirts of the city. And he had a peculiar trait—he was terribly forgetful and absent-minded, like all talented inventors. Once the engineer left his house wearing different shoes, and another time he 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 lit up all around. In just 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 he had to do was press the button. To launch the fireworks, special blindfolds had to be worn—the ones that had been distributed 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 across the sand, parrots flew about. In all this splendour, people wandered around, 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 they had received at the celebration 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!
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 had 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 logs, build a raft, and sail back to the city?
Suggested a lumberjack.
Everyone supported this idea, but unfortunately, they failed again and couldn't sail back to their loved ones in their city.
All this time, our engineer was wandering along the shore. But because 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 smart and would surely come up with something.
When the engineer removed the blindfold, he looked around in surprise and realized that he was to blame for everything, because he had pressed the wrong button and sent people here instead of launching fireworks.
The engineer began to think about how to help everyone return to their beloved city. And suddenly he saw a ship on the horizon. And then an idea came to him—launch fireworks into the sky that would serve as an
