Jenny ran round the shed, from the roof of which taut strings stretched in all directions.
She set the rickety ladder back against the window, climbed it and jumped down onto the floor of the loft.
How strange!
The loft appeared to be inhabited!
On one of the walls were hanging some twists of twine, a lantern, two crossed signalling flags and a map of the locality marked with mysterious signs.
In a corner lay a pile of straw covered with sacking, and an upturned soap box.
A large wheel that looked like a ship's helm was sticking out from the wall near the mossy sieve of a roof.
Above it hung a home-made telephone.
Jenny peered through a crack in the wall.
Outside, the foliage of the overgrown gardens stretched rippling like a sea and pigeons were frolicking in the sky.
Jenny decided to make the pigeons seagulls and the old shed with its ropes, lanterns and flags—a big ship.
She'd be the captain.
It was great fun.
She turned the wheel.
The taut strings had begun to vibrate and hum, the wind whistled and whipped up the green waves.
It seemed just as though her "ship" were slewing slowly and majestically through the waves.
"Helm to port!" she commanded loudly and put her weight on the heavy wheel.
Just then a few straight and narrow shafts of sunlight broke through the holes in the roof and fell on her face and frock.
But Jenny understood that these rays were the searchlights of enemy vessels trying to pick her out and decided to give battle.
Wrenching the creaking wheel, she manoeuvred to right and left, imperiously rapping out her commands.
Soon the sharp searchlight beams paled and died out.
That, of course, did not mean that the sun had hidden behind a cloud.
It meant that the routed enemy squadron was going to the bottom.
The battle was over.
Jenny wiped her forehead with a dusty palm. Suddenly the telephone rang.
Jenny had not expected that—she had thought it was a toy telephone.
She began to feel uneasy.
She picked up the receiver.
A sharp voice came through.
"Hullo!
Hullo!
Who's there?
Who's the silly ass who's breaking the wires and sending out stupid, incomprehensible signals?"
"It's not an ass," Jenny muttered in confusion. "It's me, Jenny."
"You crazy girl!" the voice exclaimed with a suggestion of very real anxiety. "Leave the wheel alone and run for your life!
They'll come piling in at any moment and knock your head off!"
Jenny dropped the receiver, but it was too late.
A head popped through the window—Geika's—and then Sima Simakov, Nick Kolokolchikov and the others all tumbled in one after another.
"Who are you?" asked Jenny, backing away from the window in fright. "Go away!
This is our garden.
I didn't ask you to come."
But a silent, compact wall of boys advanced shoulder to shoulder on Jenny.
Cornered, Jenny let out a scream.
At that moment yet another shadow darkened the window.
The boys turned and opened ranks, and Jenny found herself face to face with a tall, dark-haired boy in a blue, sleeveless shirt with a red star embroidered in front.
"Less noise, Jenny!" he said loudly. "You mustn't shout.
No one's going to hurt you.
We know each other, you and me.
I'm Timur."
"You're Timur?!" exclaimed Jenny incredulously, opening wide her tear-filled eyes. "You mean it was you who covered me with a sheet last night?