In a city unknown to us lived a boy named Tyoma. He grew up in an ordinary family with his parents, grandfather, and grandmother. Tyoma was no different from his peers—he loved to play and take walks—but he fell asleep poorly and was fussy in the evenings. Because of this, the Dream Fairy had to wait a long time for Tyoma to fall asleep before she could send the little boy a magical dream.
Many children don't know that in every city lives a Dream Fairy in a cozy little house. In the house there is a special room where silver bells are kept. For each child living in the city, there is their own special bell. As soon as a child falls into a deep sleep, the bell begins to ring loudly.
Hearing the melody, the Fairy takes a shimmering rainbow-colored ball from a round-bellied pitcher and blows on it. The ball sets off on its journey, flying high above the houses to reach its little child and deliver a magical dream. When the balls arrive at the children, they sleep beautifully, because while dreaming and playing and having fun with friendly fairy-tale characters, the little ones grow quickly. And while the children sleep soundly, adults restore their strength for the next day.
One evening, something went wrong. Tyoma didn't want to fall asleep again. His parents, exhausted from a whole day, couldn't get their son to bed. They read fairy tales, sang songs, but nothing helped. The Fairy stayed awake all night, waiting for the signal from Tyoma's bell, but it stubbornly remained silent.
The next evening the boy refused to sleep again, and this continued for several weeks: the Fairy waited for the bell's signal, the parents didn't sleep. One such evening, the exhausted Fairy could no longer stay awake and fell asleep without sending magical dreams to the children lying in their beds. Not having seen sweet dreams, the little ones didn't want to sleep and wouldn't let their elders rest.
Moms and dads, not having slept at night, couldn't do their work or work, they lacked strength and fell asleep on their feet. Children slept little during the day or secretly, so no one would see. The Fairy, tired of this chaos and worry, fell into a deep sleep, continuing to sleep day and night. The adults were so exhausted that they stopped going to the store, buying groceries, and preparing delicious breakfasts and nourishing lunches. The houses ran out of milk, bread, and the children's favorite sweets.
Tired and hungry, Tyoma wandered around the room and decided to pick up scattered toys. Without hurrying, he began stacking blocks one on top of another and created a tall tower that balanced on the smallest, most unstable block. The tower began to lean, and the blocks tumbled right onto the boy. He screamed. Hearing the noise, his parents ran into the room.
Mom and Dad saw their son's happy eyes, and he said to them:
I understand why order was disrupted in the city! It's me—I'm that very block that destroyed everything!
For a long time afterward, the parents talked with their son about understandable things and incomprehensible actions that Tyoma would learn about in the future when he grew up and became an adult. The conversation stretched late into the evening. The boy wished his parents sweet dreams, lay down in bed, and dreaming about what he would become when he grew up, he fell into a deep sleep without realizing it.
That evening the Fairy woke to the insistent ringing of Tyoma's bell, which she hadn't heard in a long time. She was delighted and hurried to the precious pitcher to get the ball to send to the little boy. In his sleep, Tyoma saw himself as an astronomer, talking with bright and mysterious stars, and remembered that once he was a small child who didn't want to sleep in his cozy bed.
In the evening city it became quieter and quieter, the lights in the windows went out one by one, and from the Fairy's little house came the long-awaited little bells, and beautiful, kind dreams flew to children in all corners of the city.
