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[goodfriend138]

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A starry night
by Trong Bao

After the death of her mother, little Chuyen turned taciturn and became visibly depressed. Her two-year-old brother Can was the exact opposite. He cried and called out his mother’s name everyday, because he thought she had either just gone to the market or was standing behind the door playing a hide-and-seek game with him when he returned home from pre-school. Poor little thing, he did not know that after the traffic accident that day, she would never come back to him.

On the afternoon of the accident, after receiving a bonus for her hard work at the office, Chuyen’s mother had taken her to the market to get some presents and candies for both her and her brother. Then they had gone to pick up her brother after pre-school and had taken both of them to the store to get some ice-cream.

Chuyen still remembered every detail of that terrible accident quite well. While they were eating their ice-cream on their bike by the side of the road, Chuyen had been boasting about her good result at school: eight marks for her composition about a starry night. Suddenly, a motorbike with two teenagers on it going at maximum speed crashed into them from behind so violently that their mother had lost her balance.

Everyone was tossed off their bikes. Her mother’s face hit the ground hard and scraped against the pavement; Chuyen suffered a minor head injury. After a few days in the hospital in a coma, Chuyen’s mother passed away. Chuyen’s head had to be shaved to stitch up a long gash.

After the accident, Can followed his father to the hospital to visit his mother and sister. He was too young to understand what had happened and kept asking his dad a string of endless questions such as: "Why are the two nurses in white?" or "Why can a police car enter this place?"

He felt sad because his mother did not even smile at him. Suddenly, he shrank back and hid himself behind his father after he spotted the nurse holding a big syringe approaching his mother’s bed. Then he burst out laughing, when he saw his sister’s shaved head. Chuyen just bit her lips tightly and tried not to weep.
(còn típ)

 

[goodfriend138]

tiếp tục(lý do không viết liền mạch:quá yêu cầu kí tự

Since her mother’s death, Chuyen had become another girl; actually she had been forced to become an adult. At the age of eleven, she was now responsible for almost all housework and chores for the family. Every morning she had to go to the market to buy food and vegetables. Then she would return home and cook instant noodles for breakfast for her three-member family and prepare everything for dinner. When her father was busy at work, she was responsible for her brother’s schooling. Even when her father returned home extremely drunk and vomited everywhere, she would have to wipe the place clean. These were all things her mother had previously done, and now Chuyen whole-heartedly took on all the responsibilities herself.

One day, after she returned home from picking up her brother, she noticed a stranger sitting in the living room with her father.

"This is Miss Oanh. Say hello to her, dear," he said.

"Good evening!" Chuyen greeted her in a low voice.

Oanh tried to give Can a packet of cakes and a plastic car. Can reached out to accept the toy, but Chuyen held his hand back. Oanh appeared crest-fallen.

Chuyen dragged her brother, who looked like he might begin to cry, into the kitchen. Chuyen told him: "I’ll get you a better car some day." Can was not persuaded and insisted on receiving the toy at once.

"If you insist on taking that woman’s gift, I’ll tell mom," she threatened him. Remembering his mother, he shouted out, "mom… mom!"

"Stop crying, and be good! Some day when mom returns home, she’ll get you lots of presents," she said in an effort to console her brother.

"No, I want mom to be here right now," he insisted.

"If you behave properly, I’ll take you to where she is," Chuyen said.

For dinner Can ate a lot more than usual. Instead of taking the toy car down from the top of the cupboard, he only snuck covetous glances at it.

After dinner, Can dragged his sister into the courtyard. Ever since their mother’s death, he had a habit of going out there and whispering his mom’s name before going to sleep. In the courtyard, Chuyen pointed at the sky and told him that their mother was staying up there. She pointed to a blue star and said that was their mother, but he pointed to a red star he insisted was her because it twinkled at him. A moment later Can fell asleep and his sister took him inside.

Each time she looked at the starry sky, she believed that her mother was somewhere in the firmament, and that she would come back to them astride a shooting star traveling rapidly across the sky. There was a myth that the soul of certain dead people could be carried on a shooting star down to Earth.

The next day, on the way home from school, Can touched his sister’s hand and reminded her of her promise. "Dear sister, today you must lead me to mother’s place," he said. Chuyen was startled for she thought that he had forgotten what she had promised.

"But you look very sleepy. How can you go see mom later tonight, if you are sleeping?" she replied.

"I’ll stay awake tonight, you’ll see," he said resolutely. It seemed she had no choice but to agree.

Once back at home, their father was nowhere to be found. Chuyen made instant noodles for dinner, and then made two cups of strong tea. She drank one and gave her brother the other.

"It’s too bitter! I can’t drink it, sister. Please give me some milk," he implored after tasting the tea. "If you don’t drink it, how can you stay awake to see mom?"

He refused. "No, I can’t stand strong tea anyway."

"Well, I’ll drink it myself then." She drank his cup of tea, and then led him into the courtyard to wait for their mother’s appearance in the sky.

Unfortunately, there were too many clouds to see the sky. Chuyen locked the door, put the key under the flower pot, and then led her brother to a high hill behind their home in the hopes of seeing the stars more clearly and of being closer to their mother if possible. At first Can seemed in high spirits and kept up with her easily, but a few minutes later he became weary and asked to be carried on her back.

Weighed down by her brother, Chuyen could barely trudge uphill. After a while, she had to stop and let her brother down and rest; then she made herself get up and continue the climb. When she finally reached the peak, she was exhausted, and her brother looked like he was almost asleep. His eyes were drooping shut.

"When mom comes down, wake me up, sister," he said to her before falling asleep.

"Yes, surely, my dear," she assured him.

She felt a bit frightened, because it was quite dark on top of the hill with only faint light reflected up from the street lamps and vehicle headlights below. With such dim light, the bushes looked like ghostly dancing figures. All of a sudden the wind blew violently and cleared away the clouds. Millions of stars appeared through only a little bit of haziness. It became quite cold, and Chuyen took off her coat to cover her brother and kept her eyes fixed above. A few shooting stars chased each other across the sky; each time she was going to wake her brother up, but they disappeared as rapidly as they had appeared.

She thought they should go back, because it must be almost midnight. Her efforts to wake up her brother didn’t work he was sleeping so soundly. Finally, she gave his cheek a good pinch, and he seemed to wake up but didn’t open his eyes.

"Mom, mom!" he shrieked happily. That was the way mom had always gotten him to wake up. After opening his eyes and not seeing his mother anywhere, he was about to cry when Chuyen exclaimed: "There comes a shooting star!" Can stood up. There was a whole group of shooting stars traveling together across the sky. Their brilliant long glares seemed to tear the atmosphere apart.

As the stars were gliding past overhead, Can made a desperate wish that his mother would come home. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought about how much he missed her and loved her, and then opened his eyes wide and stared up at the sky again. Suddenly, he clapped his hands in excitement.

"Sister Chuyen! Stars, stars! Lots of shooting stars! Please come here, mom!" he shouted joyfully. She looked in the direction he was pointing, which was the foot of the hill.

It was not shooting stars at all, but many torches that were spreading their light along the path. Their names were being called again and again.

Obviously, their father, relatives and many neighbours had been in searching for them throughout the night.

"Dad! Dad! We’re up here," Chuyen cried out at last.

 

[phiphikhanh]

Mình cũng có 1 số mẩu chuyện của An-đéc-xen nè:
The Princess and the Pea


There was once upon a time a Prince who wanted to marry a Princess, but she must be a true Princess. So he traveled through the whole world to find one, but there was always something against each. There were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if they were true Princesses. In every case there was some little defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found. So he came home again in very low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true Princess. One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents. It was fearful! There was a knocking heard at the Palace gate, and the old King went to open it.

There stood a Princess outside the gate; but oh, in what a sad plight she was from the rain and the storm! The water was running down from her hair and her dress into the points of her shoes and out at the heels again. And yet she said she was a true Princess!

‘Well, we shall soon find that!’ thought the old Queen. But she said nothing, and went into the sleeping-room, took off all the bed-clothes, and laid a pea on the bottom of the bed. Then she put twenty mattresses on top of the pea, and twenty eider-down quilts on the top of the mattresses. And this was the bed in which the Princess was to sleep.

The next morning she was asked how she had slept.

‘Oh, very badly!’ said the Princess. ‘I scarcely closed my eyes all night! I am sure I don’t know what was in the bed. I laid on something so hard that my whole body is black and blue. It is dreadful!’

Now they perceived that she was a true Princess, because she had felt the pea through the twenty mattresses and the twenty eider-down quilts.

No one but a true Princess could be so sensitive.

So the Prince married her, for now he knew that at last he had got hold of a true Princess. And the pea was put into the Royal Museum, where it is still to be seen if no one has stolen it. Now this is a true story.

So Bertie says that’s how you tell a real princess. Sadie says she would never sit on a pea, but still Bertie won’t say that she’s a real princess and now she’s in a bit of a huff. I’m sure she will cheer up soon because she likes Bertie really.
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Thấy hay thì thanks nhá!

 

[phiphikhanh]

The Flying Trunk


There was once a merchant who was so rich that he could have paved the whole street, and perhaps even a little side-street besides, with silver. But he did not do that; he knew another way of spending his money. If he spent a shilling he got back a florin-such an excellent merchant he was till he died.

Now his son inherited all this money. He lived very merrily; he went every night to the theatre, made paper kites out of five-pound notes, and played ducks and drakes with sovereigns instead of stones. In this way the money was likely to come soon to an end, and so it did.

At last he had nothing left but four shillings, and he had no clothes except a pair of slippers and an old dressing-gown.

His friends did not trouble themselves any more about him; they would not even walk down the street with him.

But one of them who was rather good-natured sent him an old trunk with the message, ‘Pack up!” That was all very well, but he had nothing to pack up, so he got into the trunk himself.

It was an enchanted trunk, for as soon as the lock was pressed it could fly. He pressed it, and away he flew in it up the chimney, high into the clouds, further and further away. But whenever the bottom gave a little creak he was in terror lest the trunk should go to pieces, for then he would have turned a dreadful somersault-just think of it!

In this way he arrived at the land of the Turks. He hid the trunk in a wood under some dry leaves, and then walked into the town. He could do that quite well, for all the Turks were dressed just as he was-in a dressing-gown and slippers.

He met a nurse with a little child.

‘Halloa! you Turkish nurse,’ said he, ‘what is that great castle there close to the town? The one with the windows so high up?’

‘The sultan’s daughter lives there,’ she replied. ‘It is prophesied that she will be very unlucky in her husband, and so no one is allowed to see her except when the sultan and sultana are by.’

‘Thank you,’ said the merchant’s son, and he went into the wood, sat himself in his trunk, flew on to the roof, and crept through the window into the princess’s room.

She was lying on the sofa asleep, and was so beautiful that the young merchant had to kiss her. Then she woke up and was very much frightened, but he said he was a Turkish god who had come through the air to see her, and that pleased her very much.

They sat close to each other, and he told her a story about her eyes. They were beautiful dark lakes in which her thoughts swam about like mermaids. And her forehead was a snowy mountain, grand and shining. These were lovely stories.

Then he asked the princess to marry him, and she said yes at once.

‘But you must come here on Saturday,’ she said, ‘for then the sultan and the sultana are coming to tea with me. They will be indeed proud that I receive the god of the Turks. But mind you have a really good story ready, for my parents like them immensely. My mother likes something rather moral and high-flown, and my father likes something merry to make him laugh.’

‘Yes, I shall only bring a fairy story for my dowry,’ said he, and so they parted. But the princess gave him a sabre set with gold pieces which he could use.

Then he flew away, bought himself a new dressing-gown, and sat down in the wood and began to make up a story, for it had to be ready by Saturday, and that was no easy matter.

When he had it ready it was Saturday.

The sultan, the sultana, and the whole court were at tea with the princess.

He was most graciously received.

‘Will you tell us a story?’ said the sultana; ‘one that is thoughtful and instructive?’

‘But something that we can laugh at,’ said the sultan.

‘Oh, certainly,’ he replied, and began: ‘Now, listen attentively. There was once a box of matches which lay between a tinder-box and an old iron pot, and they told the story of their youth.

‘”We used to be on the green fir-boughs. Every morning and evening we had diamond-tea, which was the dew, and the whole day long we had sunshine, and the little birds used to tell us stories. We were very rich, because the other trees only dressed in summer, but we had green dresses in summer and in winter. Then the woodcutter came, and our family was split up. We have now the task of making light for the lowest people. That is why we grand people are in the kitchen.”

‘”My fate was quite different,” said the iron pot, near which the matches lay.

‘”Since I came into the world I have been many times scoured, and have cooked much. My only pleasure is to have a good chat with my companions when I am lying nice and clean in my place after dinner.”

‘”Now you are talking too fast,” spluttered the fire.

‘”Yes, let us decide who is the grandest!” said the matches.

‘”No, I don’t like talking about myself,” said the pot.

‘”Let us arrange an evening’s entertainment. I will tell the story of my life.

‘”On the Baltic by the Danish shore-”

‘What a beautiful beginning!” said all the plates. “That’s a story that will please us all.”

‘And the end was just as good as the beginning. All the plates clattered for joy.

‘”Now I will dance,” said the tongs, and she danced. Oh! how high she could kick!

‘The old chair-cover in the corner split when he saw her.

‘The urn would have sung but she said she had a cold; she could not sing unless she boiled.

‘In the window was an old quill pen. There was nothing remarkable about her except that she had been dipped too deeply into the ink. But she was very proud of that.

‘”If the urn will not sing,” said she, “outside the door hangs a nightingale in a cage who will sing.”

‘”I don’t think it’s proper,” said the kettle, “that such a foreign bird should be heard.”

‘”Oh, let us have some acting,” said everyone. “Do let us!”

‘Suddenly the door opened and the maid came in. Everyone was quite quiet. There was not a sound. But each pot knew what he might have done, and how grand he was.

‘The maid took the matches and lit the fire with them. How they spluttered and flamed, to be sure! “Now everyone can see,” they thought, “that we are the grandest! How we sparkle! What a light-”

‘But here they were burnt out.’

‘That was a delightful story!’ said the sultana. ‘I quite feel myself in the kitchen with the matches. Yes, now you shall marry our daughter.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said the sultan, ‘you shall marry our daughter on Monday.’ And they treated the young man as one of the family.

The wedding was arranged, and the night before the whole town was illuminated.

Biscuits and gingerbreads were thrown among the people, the street boys stood on tiptoe crying hurrahs and whistling through their fingers. It was all splendid.

‘Now I must also give them a treat,’ thought the merchant’s son. And so he bought rockets, crackers, and all the kinds of fireworks you can think of, put them in his trunk, and flew up with them into the air.

Whirr-r-r, how they fizzed and blazed!

All the Turks jumped so high that their slippers flew above their heads; such a splendid glitter they had never seen before.

Now they could quite well understand that it was the god of the Turks himself who was to marry the princess.

As soon as the young merchant came down again into the wood with his trunk he thought, ‘Now I will just go into the town to see how the show has taken.’

And it was quite natural that he should want to do this.

Oh! what stories the people had to tell!

Each one whom he asked had seen it differently, but they had all found it beautiful.

‘I saw the Turkish god himself,’ said one. ‘He had eyes like glittering stars, and a beard like foaming water.’

‘He flew away in a cloak of fire,’ said another. They were splendid things that he heard, and the next day was to be his wedding day.

Then he went back into the wood to sit in his trunk; but what had become of it? The trunk had been burnt. A spark of the fireworks had set it alight, and the trunk was in ashes. He could no longer fly, and could never reach his bride.

She stood the whole day long on the roof and waited; perhaps she is waiting there still.

But he wandered through the world and told stories; though they are not so merry as the one he told about the matches.
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Thấy hay thì thanks nhé!

 

[phiphikhanh]

The Steadfast Tin Soldier



There were once upon a time five-and twenty tin-soldiers–all brothers, as they were made out of the same old tin spoon. Their uniform was red and blue, and they shouldered their guns and looked straight in front of them. The first words that they heard in this world, when the lid of the box in which they lay was taken off, were: ‘Hurrah, tin-soldiers!’ This was exclaimed by a little boy, clapping his hands; they had been given to him because it was his birthday, and now he began setting them out on the table. Each soldier was exactly like the other in shape, except just one, who had been made last when the tin had run short; but there he stood as firmly on his one leg as the others did on two, and he is the one that became famous.

There were many other playthings on the table on which they were being set out, but the nicest of all was a pretty little castle made of cardboard, with windows through which you could see into the rooms. In front of the castle stood some little trees surrounding a tiny mirror which looked like a lake. Wax swans were floating about and reflecting themselves in it. That was all very pretty; but the most beautiful thing was a little lady, who stood in the open doorway. She was cut out of paper, but she had on a dress of the finest muslin, with a scarf of narrow blue ribbon round her shoulders, fastened in the middle with a glittering rose made of gold paper, which was as large as her head. The little lady was stretching out both her arms, for she was a Dancer, and was lifting up one leg so high in the air that the Tin-soldier couldn’t find it anywhere, and thought that she, too, had only one leg.

‘That’s the wife for me!’ he thought; ‘but she is so grand, and lives in a castle, whilst I have only a box with four-and-twenty others. This is no place for her! But I must make her acquaintance.’ Then he stretched himself out behind a snuff-box that lay on the table; from thence he could watch the dainty little lady, who continued to stand on one leg without losing her balance.

When the night came all the other tin-soldiers went into their box, and the people of the house went to bed. Then the toys began to play at visiting, dancing, and fighting. The tin-soldiers rattled in their box, for they wanted to be out too, but they could not raise the lid. The nut-crackers played at leap-frog, and the chalk ran about the blackboard; there was such a noise that the canary woke up and began to talk to them, in poetry too! The only two who did not stir from their places were the Tin-soldier and the little Dancer. She remained on tip-toe, with both arms outstretched; he stood steadfastly on his one leg, never moving his eyes from her face.

The clock struck twelve, and *****! off flew the lid of the spice- box; but there were no spices inside, nor any hot curry powder, only a little imp–that was the beauty of it. Now an imp is a magical creature, a little like a fairy, only more naughty.

‘Hullo, Tin-soldier!’ said the imp. ‘Don’t look at things that aren’t intended for the likes of you!’ She meant that he shouldn’t look at the little dander.

But the Tin-soldier took no notice, and seemed not to hear.

‘Very well, wait till to-morrow!’ said the imp.

When it was morning, and the children had got up, the Tin-soldier was put in the window; and whether it was the wind or the little imp, I don’t know, but all at once the window flew open and out fell the little Tin-soldier, head over heels, from the third- storey window! That was a terrible fall, I can tell you! He landed on his head with his leg in the air, his gun being wedged between two paving-stones.

The nursery-maid and the little boy came down at once to look for him, but, though they were so near him that they almost trod on him, they did not notice him. If the Tin-soldier had only called out ‘Here I am!’ they must have found him; but he did not think it fitting for him to cry out, because he had on his uniform.

Soon it began to drizzle; then the drops came faster, and there was a regular down-pour. When it was over, two little street boys came along.

‘Just look!’ cried one. ‘Here is a Tin-soldier! He shall sail up and down in a boat!’

So they made a little boat out of newspaper, put the Tin-soldier in it, and made him sail up and down the gutter; both the boys ran along beside him, clapping their hands. What great waves there were in the gutter, and what a swift current! The paper-boat tossed up and down, and in the middle of the stream it went so quick that the Tin-soldier trembled; but he remained steadfast, showed no emotion, looked straight in front of him, shouldering his gun. All at once the boat passed under a long tunnel that was as dark as his box had been.

‘Where can I be coming now?’ he wondered. ‘Oh, dear! This is the imp’s fault! Ah, if only the little lady were sitting beside me in the boat, it might be twice as dark for all I should care!’

Suddenly there came along a great water-rat that lived in the tunnel.

‘Have you a passport?’ asked the rat. ‘Out with your passport!’

But the Tin-soldier was silent, and grasped his gun more firmly.

The boat sped on, and the rat behind it. Ugh! how he showed his teeth, as he cried to the chips of wood and straw: ‘Hold him, hold him! he has not paid the toll! He has not shown his passport!’

But the current became swifter and stronger. The Tin-soldier could already see daylight where the tunnel ended; but in his ears there sounded a roaring enough to frighten any brave man. Only think! at the end of the tunnel the gutter discharged itself into a great canal; that would be just as dangerous for him as it would be for us to go down a waterfall.

Now he was so near to it that he could not hold on any longer. On went the boat, the poor Tin-soldier keeping himself as stiff as he could: no one should say of him afterwards that he had flinched. The boat whirled three, four times round, and became filled to the brim with water: it began to sink! The Tin-soldier was standing up to his neck in water, and deeper and deeper sank the boat, and softer and softer grew the paper; now the water was over his head. He was thinking of the pretty little Dancer, whose face he should never see again, and there sounded in his ears, over and over again:

‘Forward, forward, soldier bold! Death’s before thee, grim and cold!’

The paper came in two, and the soldier fell–but at that moment he was swallowed by a great fish.

Oh! how dark it was inside, even darker than in the tunnel, and it was really very close quarters! But there the steadfast little Tin-soldier lay full length, shouldering his gun.

Up and down swam the fish, then he made the most dreadful contortions, and became suddenly quite still. Then it was as if a flash of lightning had passed through him; the daylight streamed in, and a voice exclaimed, ‘Why, here is the little Tin-soldier!’ The fish had been caught, taken to market, sold, and brought into the kitchen, where the cook had cut it open with a great knife. She took up the soldier between her finger and thumb, and carried him into the room, where everyone wanted to see the hero who had been found inside a fish; but the Tin-soldier was not at all proud. They put him on the table, and–no, but what strange things do happen in this world!–the Tin-soldier was in the same room in which he had been before! He saw the same children, and the same toys on the table; and there was the same grand castle with the pretty little Dancer. She was still standing on one leg with the other high in the air; she too was steadfast. That touched the Tin-soldier, he was nearly going to shed tin-tears; but that would not have been fitting for a soldier. He looked at her, but she said nothing.

All at once one of the little boys took up the Tin-soldier, and threw him into the stove, giving no reasons; but doubtless the imp in the spice-box was at the bottom of this too.

There the Tin-soldier lay, and felt a heat that was truly terrible; but whether he was suffering from actual fire, or from the ardour of his passion, he did not know. All his colour had disappeared; whether this had happened on his travels or whether it was the result of trouble, who can say? He looked at the little lady, she looked at him, and he felt that he was melting; but he remained steadfast, with his gun at his shoulder. Suddenly a door opened, the draught caught up the little Dancer, and off she flew like a fairy to the Tin-soldier in the stove, burst into flames–and that was the end of her! Then the Tin-soldier melted down into a little lump, and when next morning the maid was taking out the ashes, she found him in the shape of a heart. There was nothing left of the little Dancer but her gilt rose, burnt as black as a cinder.

And that’s the Storynory of The Steadfast Tin Soldier. I think the ending was rather sad, don’t you? He was such a brave little soldier. But not all stories have happy endings. Bertie says that when he was a prince, he always looked after all his toys, really carefully, and always put them away in their correct places. He would never lose a good little soldier like the one in the story.

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Thấy hay thì thanks nhé!@_@