The Cup of Galfar. Alderosa's Daughter. Alexander Pererva

do you like it?” asked Zand, noticing the girl’s surprise. He added, his hand on the telescope: “It’s all my handiwork. Pretty much everything here was made with these hands of mine.”

      “It’s really cool,” Allie answered and walked around the mysterious construction. “What is this for?”

      “I’ll tell you if I have the time. Now look to the south. No, not at the sea, the opposite direction. There, by the forest. See?”

      Allie, and then Lu and Lemonade, looked in the direction Zand was pointing. There, about nine hundred feet from the tower, on the edge of the forest, something weird was happening. From time to time some flat objects rose from the ground, ascended forty to fifty feet above the tree tops and, undulating slightly, began to glide through the air, gradually picking up speed, until they disappeared behind the distant hills. It was impossible to figure out what those objects were and to estimate their size. Allie couldn’t understand whether those were birds or some kind of flying machines.

      “Uncle Zand, what are those?” she asked, staring at the forest edge.

      “Sit down here,” Zand pointed at the chair.

      Allie did just that and sat down by the telescope. The chair was hard but comfortable. Zand stood near her and moved a switch on the board. The cogs and wheels started turning, and the whole construction, telescope, Allie, Zand and all, started rotating slowly. When the telescope faced south, Zand stopped it, bent down, looked through the eyepiece and turned some knobs on the switchboard. A minute later he said with satisfaction:

      “There. Now you look.”

      Allie looked, and saw a meadow, covered with thick soft grass and bright flowers. It was so close that it seemed she could reach out and touch the flowers. The grass had grown very tall, at least waist-high. Only a few random patches shaped like circles or ovals with rough edges had short, dark, intensely green grass. It looked as if it had been trimmed by a lawnmower. Suddenly Allie saw a wave ripple over one of those patches, like the wind that sways the stalks in a wheat field. But the wind couldn’t have stirred such short grass, besides, the tall grass growing just next to it was absolutely still. There came another wave, then another, and now the whole lawn looked like tumultuous sea. Then something happened that Allie had been expecting: the undulating round lawn about twelve feet in diameter slowly took off the ground and up into the air. It stayed in one spot for some time and then started moving away due south.