The Tale of the Little Thieves

Beyond the mountains, beyond the hills, where the cottage cheese was made with skills, lived an old man, a grandfather. He lived in his little apartment in the Spruce-Central housing estate, beautifully and contentedly. Every month, the kind postwoman faithfully brought his pension right to his door—his little treasure. Everything would have been in perfect order if three half-witted, hunger-thinned individuals hadn't appeared on the estate.

These individuals were known far and wide as the worst kleptomaniacs. Due to their offenses, they started being called "the Little Thieves." And it happened, as it eventually had to: these Little Thieves set their sights on our dear and kind old man.

One day, they rang his doorbell, and to the question: "Who, oh who, could it be, breaking my doorbell for all to see?" they replied: "Old man, grandfather, open your little room to us; we'll just have two little rums with you, and as soon as we warm up, we'll go on our way."

The old man, unlearned by the millions of TV news warnings about such scum, opened the door and let the Little Thieves into his apartment. At first, the Little Thieves behaved politely and nicely, but as soon as the old man went to the toilet, they immediately split up and ransacked the place. They took his savings and disappeared from the apartment without a trace.

The grandfather, noticing his mistake and foolishness, started shouting from the window: "Beyond the mountains, beyond the hills, police long-hairs, where are your skills? The hooligan Thieves took my money away!"

As is often the case, the "long-hairs" were nowhere to be found, and so it all faded into nothing. Our old man mourned and fretted for a while, but after some time, he got over it. That day, our gang of Little Thieves returned to the housing estate. They were so sure of themselves, so overconfident, and also a bit dim. They completely forgot they had already been there. Perhaps from the constant rum-sipping, their brains were so erased that they not only crawled into the same place on the same estate, but the cows even picked the same old man.

So they rang his bell, and our sentence echoed inside him: "Who, oh who, could it be, breaking my doorbell for all to see?" The Little Thieves replied: "Old man, grandfather, dear senior, open your little room to us; we'll just put ten little fingers inside, and as soon as we warm up, we'll go on our way."

The old man paused and said to himself: "Hey, Pepa, didn't this happen once before? Of course it did! These are surely those three half-witted Little Thieves again. Just you wait, you hags; I'll give you something you won't forget until the day you die!"

He just slightly cracked the door open, and as soon as the Little Thieves stuck their meddling, thin fingers in, preparing to burst into the apartment, he slammed the door shut using the full weight of his body.

The Little Thieves wailed, driven mad by the pain; they scrambled away from the apartment and only realized beyond the mountains—well, what do you think? That they didn't have those fingers anymore. The grandfather picked them up and threw them to the cats. They had a nice feast and stuffed their little snouts.

The bell has rung for the day, for the Little Thieves, it’s the end of the way.