It will be ghostly and fabulous. So quiet that you can only hear the smell of pine needles. And it's snowy. Starry. All this will happen.

- What else, mom? Tell me again!

I repeat again.

- And what else? Please!

Children, of course, are looking forward to New Year's Eve. Therefore, you can listen to such tales for a whole year, so that you can then count to nine in a whisper, get lost, correct yourself, smile, laugh. Twelve.

- Mom, why not twenty-four?

- Because the smartest people in the world are, of course, you.

And they still believe in this fairy tale. Every time I tell my children a new fairy tale, I think: what if this is the last? And they have thousands of fairy tales a day. At home, in kindergarten, in a park without squirrels, in a hospital, in a theater, and even here, in the editorial office.

- Tell me, who decorated these Christmas trees? - in the publishing house, on the approach and at the entrance, on almost all floors.

- Well, remember we read about little gnomes who help Santa Claus?

- Wow! Have you seen how the gnomes came here?

- Of course not, because it was at night, when everyone is sleeping.

Just recently the following question would not have arisen, but now there are almost five of them, so:

- Mom, why talk nonsense? We know that the editorial office works around the clock.

Are the stories over? I'm worried. Because even in fairy tales, sometimes things don’t end very well, and when you’re five, it’s too sad when a fairy tale ends in some way. And it’s even sadder if it doesn’t even start.

About twenty-seven years ago, my dad told me about the puppy Filka, who at the beginning of the story was always walking and running “along a bridge on which two boards were missing.” The further plot depended on the circumstances. This fairy-tale puppy was so associated with my childhood that one day I wanted to receive a real gift from Santa Claus - no, not a puppy, but a kitten. Because that Filka had a friend. I know, I know. I understand. This is a difficult childhood desire. But then I believed in the fairy tale, and I spent a whole year learning to read and write, so that later I could take a sheet from my father’s typewriter that smelled of ink ribbon and carbon paper. I couldn’t write straight, so I typed it. To do this, I had to cover myself with my grandmother’s cotton blanket so that none of the parents could hear the fractions of the letters. The next day I gave this letter to my godmother. She promised to send it by mail. Santa Claus.

I waited. I obeyed my mom and dad. I learned all the poems for the matinee in the garden. I held my hand correctly while pressing the piano keys. I put on mittens and, without being capricious, a prickly hat. I even took the galoshes off my felt boots so my mother could put them on the radiator to dry them.

Then, of course, the fairy tale ended. Because there was no one under the tree. I approached her that New Year's Eve maybe thirty-eight times. In the morning, under the tree, a basket was found - and I understand how cynical this is - from which a white kitten was looking out, but it was not alive. Not alive.

I remembered all this as we climbed the editorial stairs. My children counted the steps on it.

- Do you know that there are such stairs on which you can climb to the very sky? Until the New Year's stars? If you reach out to any of them, it will then illuminate your whole life, like a magic lantern.

It wasn't me who said that. I, too, am less and less able to tell them fairy tales every day. But there are many storytellers around. So they tell it.

“Don’t you know that a ladder cannot reach the sky because it has nothing to support it?” — Fedya seems to be on the verge of stopping believing in fairy tales. And I really want to detain him, so:

- Son, you forgot about the clouds. They could easily pass for supports.

“Mom, mom,” he looked at me condescendingly.

- What? Will you tell me that clouds are water? I remember that, honey. But the magic staircase is so weightless, and the clouds are very heavy. That's why my fantasy had to end someday.

He smiled.

- Do you want me to tell you a fairy tale too?

- Come on, just let me get comfortable.

The place chosen for the fairy tale was, of course, not a fairy tale. We were sitting in my office. On the monitor screen there are some absolutely fabulous quotes, although with a demonstration of a slight Christmas rally. One of the favorite tales of financial analysts and traders. There is an ashtray on the table. But we have a fairy tale, and besides, I don’t smoke in front of children.

— Once upon a time there lived one of my mothers. She had a son, Fedyushonok, and a daughter, Mitten.

— So far, everything you tell is not a fairy tale. True story.

“Don’t interrupt me, otherwise I’ll stop telling you,” here he copied me on an ordinary evening. “So.” One day, a mother and her children found themselves in a magical forest, where there were evil wizards and good fairies. Mom and children came to the forest to collect miracles. Wizards did a lot of evil so that they could not succeed. And the fairies helped fill the basket.

- And miracles are over the top?

- Listen. It was almost full, but the son took this very heavy basket of miracles from his mother.

“He’s a great guy,” I closed the window with quotes on the monitor and opened a new file to print everything he said.

— We walked through the forest, it was New Year’s Eve, but it was very light, because the bright stars were shining. I stared at them and tripped over the root of a large tree. And all the collected miracles...

- Have they become reality? — I didn’t want this fairy tale to end.

He thought about it.

Varya listened.

- Okay, mom. May miracles come true if you want them. But I actually wanted to say...

- No need to talk, dear. In order for a fairy tale to remain a fairy tale, in some places it is better to remain silent. Is it true? Then it will be ghostly and fabulous. Quiet. Snowy. Starry. Under the tree is a basket full of miracles.

- So is this a fairy tale or true? “Varya was silent for a long time, but suddenly decided to speak up.

We'll see. Because we won't go to bed on New Year's Eve. After all, we still have so many fairy tales that you’ll become engrossed.

Liza Golikova about Fedya and Vara