Who doesn't love soap bubbles? These cheerful rainbow spheres delight many children. But little Mitya had never seen them before. The thing is, he's still very small and many things that are familiar to us seem extraordinarily interesting and unusual to him.
One day, whilst playing in the park with his mum, Mitya spotted a large transparent sphere floating through the air. The weather was lovely, the sun was shining brightly, and there were many children in the park. Mitya followed the sphere with his eyes and was greatly surprised when it suddenly disappeared. He clearly saw: the sphere was floating along, no one was touching it, when suddenly — pop — and it was gone.
If only he could go up to his mum and ask: "What is this magical sphere?", but he doesn't know how to talk yet, and pointing with his finger won't work, since the sphere has already vanished. So he'll have to figure it out himself.
Mitya carefully searched the park. He ran past the sandpit, climbed up the slide to get a better view and even slid down it, just in case. He walked past the swings, where older girls were swinging high into the air. The magical sphere was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something glinting near a bench. Without hesitation, he headed straight there. And he was right. Before his eyes unfolded an amazing sight: lots of small and larger transparent spheres were floating up into the sky and disappearing. Some spheres fell to the ground and immediately vanished from view.
But the most amazing thing was that these spheres were being created by a little girl, not much older than Mitya himself. She was releasing them from a small round stick. "She must be a sorceress," thought the little boy.
He really wanted to go over and touch these unusual flying spheres. Just then, one of them flew past him. Mitya took a few steps and stretched out his tiny hands and almost caught the sphere, but it suddenly disappeared again. Mitya felt only wet spray on his hands. No matter how hard he tried to catch the sphere, as soon as he touched it, it would pop.
The girl blowing bubbles saw how Mitya was eagerly trying to catch them. She blew a big, big bubble and caught it with her bubble wand. Mitya watched her as if mesmerised. "Definitely a sorceress," he thought. The girl brought the bubble closer to Mitya so he could get a better look at it.
He saw how the sphere shimmered with all the colours of the rainbow, colours whose names Mitya didn't yet know. In this sphere was an entire world, only upside down. But as soon as Mitya reached his little hand towards the bubble, it popped again. The little boy cried from disappointment. He too wanted to master this incredible magic.
Hearing Mitya's crying, his mum came running straight away.
There you are, little one, I've been looking for you all over the park, — she said, scooping the little boy into her arms.
Mitya pointed his finger at the bubbles floating around.
Bub-bles, — his mum pronounced it syllable by syllable, — Did you like the bubbles?
Mitya smiled in response. He didn't know how to tell his mum how much he loved these floating magical spheres.
Come on, let's buy you some bubbles, — said his mum.
Getting his own bubbles, Mitya was overjoyed. He didn't yet know how to blow them, and whenever he wanted to see the shimmering spheres again, he would go up to his mum and hand her the bottle. Mum would always catch some bubbles on the wand and they would look at them together. And sometimes she would even make entire shapes out of soap bubbles. Mitya loved this.
He was sure that very soon he would be able to learn to blow them himself. All he had to do was really want to — and everything would work out!
