Professor Pelikan's Lost Socks
Professor Pelikan was famous all over the Bizarre Corner for two things: his astonishingly exuberant imagination and his collection of the world's craziest socks. Each one was different: peas, stripes and even socks shaped like dinosaurs (with teeth sewn onto them to bite his ankles during lectures).
One morning, just before his morning tea with strawberry marshmallow, the professor discovered that his favourite pair - yellow and turquoise with flying cats - had disappeared without a trace. All that lay in the drawer was a sad, lonely egg (unhatched, the professor assured him, but anyway... suspicious).
- That's impossible! - he exclaimed, until a sparrow sitting on the windowsill blinked in surprise. - Socks can't just evaporate!
At the same moment, there was a knock at the door from his neighbour Marta, who is known in the neighbourhood for her own peculiar passion: collecting mugs with funny inscriptions. In her hand she held a mug with the inscription "Coffee works wonders. Leave tea to the scientists!".
- 'I hear you're having trouble with your socks,' she said with a laugh, glancing meaningfully at the professor's feet, which now, in just slippers, looked particularly snug.
- 'Yes, and a serious one,' groaned the professor. - My cat-and-fly had disappeared. All that's left is this strange egg. I have no idea what could have happened!
Martha leaned closer and looked at the egg suspiciously.
- 'Maybe it's a sign? Maybe someone is trying to tell you that it's time to .... to hatch a new collection? - she joked. But the professor already had his own theory, because his imagination was not letting up.
Together they decided to investigate. The first trail led through a study full of inventions: to a spinning sock ironing machine, a drawer with a sign "DO NOT OPEN! (unless you're a sock)" and the notorious map of the House, on which mysterious new footprints had appeared.... Could they have been tiny claw prints?
Suddenly, a quiet, rustling laughter came from behind the door - as if someone very small and very funny had just tipped another sock.... The professor and Martha looked at each other with wide-open eyes.
Would they dare to look inside? Will they discover who is behind the series of sock hijackings? Or would they find something they didn't want to find at all?
Only one thing was certain: from now on, nothing would be the same in Dziwnowski Zakątek.
Author of this ending:
English
polski
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