Read children's horror stories with a happy ending. Very scary bedtime stories for children

Creepypastas are widespread on the Internet - short stories designed to shock or frighten the reader. Did everyone sit around the fire as a child and tell each other creepy stories? Creepypasta is the same thing, only on the Internet. Here are ten of the most interesting such stories, sometimes frightening, but more often stupid. Just don't read it at night - just in case.

1. 1999
Known simply as "1999," the story is one of the most realistic and chilling urban legends on the Internet. The main character of the story is a Canadian blogger named Elliot, who was trying to unravel the mystery of the mysterious TV channel that he watched in 1999. The transmissions were too sketchy, so Elliot somehow realized that the channel was most likely run by a local thug.

Elliot continued to search for information and eventually learned that the owner of the television station was luring children to his house in order to sacrifice them. Elliot also realized that this psycho not only tortures and kills children, but also wears a bear costume and calls himself “Mr. Bear.”
There were only a few shows on the mysterious TV channel; it worked from four to nine in the morning. The first show was called “Boobie” - the heroes in it were living hands on some cheap table. The main character (the hand) was called Bubi, she was in every episode. However, as time passed, the episodes became more and more strange.
During the episode called "The Scissor Game," Boobie was holding a pair of scissors while her other, smaller hand was twitching as if it was being held there forcibly. Then Boobie stabbed her other hand several times with scissors, and at that time a muffled child's cry was heard. Eventually the scissors reached the bone and there was a terrible crunching sound. Elliott never saw any more episodes with Booby.

Next came Mister Bear's Basement, which featured a psycho dressed up as Mister Bear. We will not describe what actually happened on the screen - there are too many gory details. Finding stories online is easy, so you can do it yourself if you feel like it.

In the end, the police intervened in this chaos, and the sadistic TV channel was closed forever.
Elliot, by the way, is a strange guy - would you watch this?

2. Candle Bay
The story appeared in a forum thread that was talking about an old children's show from the 1970s. There was a girl in it who imagined she was friends with pirates. The show was somewhat controversial as throughout one episode all the characters screamed without stopping.

All they did was stand still and scream for the entire episode while the little girl cried. Various people commented on their memories of it, and it became clear that there was something dark and disturbing about the "sweet" low-budget show.

Recent comments made it clear that the show was much more sinister than childhood memory retained. The show's main villain, a skeleton named "Kozhnik", stood out from the rest. Apparently his mouth was sliding back and forth rather than up and down as it usually does. The commentator even remembered that when the girl asked why he had such a strange mouth, he looked straight into the camera and replied: “To chew your skin.”

Another commenter questioned whether the show even existed and asked the mother if she remembered a children's show from the 1970s called "Candle Bay." She was sincerely surprised that he remembered this. Apparently, he asked if the program was still on and tried to tune the TV to the desired channel. Then the air in the room became stale and remained so for 30 minutes.

3. Rake
In 2003, an incident involving a strange humanoid creature occurred in the northeastern United States, which attracted a lot of attention from the local media. After this, most written evidence of what happened mysteriously disappeared from web pages, and people began to see the creature more often. The strange thing is that people reacted to it in different ways - from attacks of panic to almost childish curiosity.

The creature continued to appear, and then the hunt began for it - after all, we must, in the end, find out who or what it is. Finally, in 2006, researchers working together made a frightening discovery - they unearthed almost two dozen documents dating back to the 12th century, all of which spoke of the appearance of a creature called the “Rake.”
One of his most impressive appearances was described by a woman. Here is how it was.
In the middle of the night, the woman suddenly woke up and accidentally woke up her husband. She apologized and her husband turned to look at her. He gasped with fear and hugged his wife - something clearly frightened him very much. At the foot of the bed sat, every now and then turning away from them, that most infamous creature, resembling a large hairless dog.

The couple's eyes were not yet accustomed to the darkness. The creature jumped up and sat down less than 30 cm from the husband’s face. It looked at him for a while and then rushed towards the nursery. The frightened spouses immediately rushed after him, but it was too late: their daughter was lying in her crib covered in blood and dying. Her last words: “It was Rake.”
The rake disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. No one ever saw him again.

4. Where bad children end up
This creepypasta is about a photographer who decides to find out information about an old children's TV show he watched as a child during the Lebanese war. All he remembered was that the half-hour show contained graphic images and scare tactics, apparently to deter children from misbehaving.

According to the photographer, the show was an attempt by the media to keep children under control - every episode kept saying that “bad children go to bed late” and “bad children steal food from the refrigerator at night,” and that this should not be done.

The photographer remembered that in each episode there was a final scene, each time the same - an old rusty iron door slowly grew in the frame, and as the camera approached the door, someone could be heard screaming. The closer to the door the camera was, the louder and clearer the screams became. And then the inscription appeared: “This is where bad children end up” - this meant the end of the episode.

The photographer managed to find the studio where the show was filmed. Although the place seemed to have been abandoned for a long time, the ill-fated rusty door from childhood was still there. Behind the door was a small room with traces of blood, feces and bones. But what scared the photographer most was the microphone hanging in the middle of the room.

5. Keyhole
This is a legend about a man who stayed in the same hotel for several nights. When he received his room keys, the woman at the desk warned him that there was a door with no number on the way to his room. She explained that the room was locked, all sorts of things were kept there, and under no circumstances should he go there or even look inside. The intrigued man went straight to his room and did not ask any questions.

By the second night, curiosity got the better of me. He tried to turn the handles on the door without a number, and realized that the door was closed, as the woman had said. But our hero was not going to give up so easily - he looked through the keyhole. Behind the door was a room very similar to his own. And in the corner opposite the door stood a woman with very fair skin, leaning her head against the wall. The embarrassed man returned to his room, but on the third day he decided to look through the keyhole again.

This time all he saw was red. Just a deep, rich red color. Perhaps the woman in the room realized that someone was spying on her and plugged the keyhole with something.

Our hero decided to ask the woman at the counter about all this. She sighed and asked if he had looked through the keyhole. He replied that yes, he looked, and then the hotel owner told him everything: many years ago, a husband killed his wife in that very room, and now her ghost is looking for him. They say that the ghost itself is very pale, almost white, but its eyes are red as blood.

6. Angel Statue
This story is about a couple who wanted to leave home at night and have fun. They had children, so they decided to call a nanny who had looked after children more than once. When the nanny arrived, the children were already asleep, so she decided to watch TV.

The house, unfortunately, only had one television in the marital bedroom, and the nanny called her employers to ask if she could watch it there. They allowed it, but then the nanny called again and asked if it was possible to cover the angel statue with something, because it made her very nervous. Hearing this, the father fell silent for a while, and then ordered the nanny to immediately take the children out of the house and call the police, because they did not have any statue of an angel.
When police arrived, the nanny and children were found dead in a pool of blood. The statue disappeared.

7. Grifter
"Grifter" is a scary Internet legend that first appeared in 2009. She talks about a video that is apparently so horrific that it scares or makes anyone who watches it hysterical. Apparently, the video contains dying children, agonizing screams and close-ups of corpses.
“Grifter” is truly terrible - yes, yes, the clip exists. Fortunately, the footage is not real: the creator of the legend admitted in 2009 that he borrowed the so-called “documentary footage” from the film “Log.”
And while most people now know it's a hoax, The Grifter is still a scary story worth telling around the campfire. Some viewers even tried to arrange the footage from the video in chronological order to make it seem as realistic as possible.
8. SCP Foundation
Special Containment Procedures, also known as the SCP Foundation, is a fictional organization with a dark past that first appeared in 2007. The Foundation supposedly consists of many doctors, researchers and agents whose goal is to understand and compile a complete catalog of anomalous creatures. And, of course, the Foundation “does everything possible to ensure that materials do not fall into the wrong hands or into the outside world.” And to study all sorts of anomalous problems, the Foundation conducts experiments on death row prisoners.

It all started with a creature codenamed "SCP-173", which is described as a statue with a bloody face and short limbs. It was found that the creature is unable to move while being looked at, but as soon as eye contact is broken, the creature immediately kills the victim - breaking his neck. Well, so that they don’t take their eyes off him, probably.

SCP-682
Another example is "SCP-682": it is said to be a reptile-like creature that cannot be killed. By the way, it is most popular on the SCP wiki.

9. Jeff the Killer
Jeff was a little boy. His family moved to a new house, and the very next day after the move he was invited to a neighbor's birthday party. He decided to take his brother Liu with him.

While Jeff and Liu were waiting at the bus stop, they were attacked by three teenagers. Jeff successfully defeated and left his attackers lying in the street with broken arms and stab wounds. And then Jeff realized that his greatest pleasure was inflicting pain on others. This feeling was always with him, but it became stronger when someone made him angry.
Shortly after this incident, Jeff's mother woke up in the night due to screams coming from the bathroom. She walked in and found Jeff carving a permanent smile into his cheeks with a razor. He also managed to cut off his eyelids so that he would never sleep. Realizing that her son had gone crazy, she ran to the bedroom to wake up her husband, but Jeff stood in her way with a knife in his hand. The last thing she heard was: “Mommy, you lied.”
Jeff killed both parents - only his brother remained. Liu woke up when he heard muffled sounds coming from his parents' bedroom. When everything calmed down, the boy tried to sleep again, but could not get rid of the feeling that someone was watching him. Suddenly someone's hand covered his mouth, and he felt a blade plunging into his stomach. Liu tried to break free, but it was too late. “Shh,” Jeff said, “you just need to sleep.”
Jeff was never seen again, but legend has it that he is still in the house, waiting for his next victim.

A selection of 4 scary fairy tales for children. For the best scare effect, it is recommended to read at night!

A fairy tale about a swing

One boy had a long nose. And his name was Yegor. One day Yegor came out into the yard and immediately sat down on the swing. And he began to swing - up and down, up and down. And back and forth. He rode for two hours and still wasn’t enough for him.

Other children in the yard began to ask:

Egorka! Let us have a ride too!

But Yegor did not answer, but only began to sway even more strongly - up and down, up and down. And back and forth. Only the long nose flashes. Then the other children joined hands and began to sing a teaser that they themselves had composed:

“Egor has a long nose,
"I've grown attached to the swing!"

Yegor was offended, but did not get off the swing. And the children were also offended and went to eat pancakes with sour cream. Egor swayed some more and decided that it was time to go home and eat something, but he couldn’t stop - the swing didn’t want to let him go! He was already spinning and screaming - nothing helps. The swing rocked even more and creaked so much that the sour cream on the other children's pancakes turned sour.
Then the Little Sorceress came out into the yard and shouted:

Egorka! Let's ride!

“I would give it,” Yegor answered, “but I can’t get off the swing!”

Why? What's happened?

Yes, I was swinging and swinging, and other children began to tease me with the Long Nose and also that I was rooted to the swing. Help me!

You've been bewitched! - exclaimed the Little Sorceress.

Well, break the spell on me!

“It’s not so simple, we need to come up with a spell that will stop the swing,” answered the Little Sorceress and sat down to think on the edge of the sandbox.

And Yegor kept rocking and screaming.

At this time, a policeman was walking by, who immediately realized that something was wrong. The policeman grabbed the swing to save Yegor, but only he himself stuck to it and they began to swing together.

“I think I’ve come up with an idea,” the Little Sorceress said quietly, “let’s try it now.” - And she muttered quickly and quickly:

“Swing-swing, forgive Egor
And let me go home as soon as possible.”

Then something jingled and the swing stopped. Yes, so quickly that the policeman fell into the flowerbed in surprise, and Yegor fell on him. Then Yegor jumped up and ran home to eat pancakes with sour sour cream. And the policeman smiled and went to his department to write a report about the boy’s rescue.

And the Little Sorceress sat down on the swing and began to swing - up and down, up and down. And back and forth. And when the next morning Yegor went out into the yard, she immediately gave way to him. Well... almost immediately.

A very scary tale

In one Sicilian city, boys began to disappear at night (girls if you are talking about the girls in the ward), and only boys (girls if you are talking about the girls in the ward) who did not sleep after the rising of the moon disappeared.

Moms and dads shed many tears until the terrible secret was revealed.

The fact is that at night a ship with blood-scarlet sails entered the bay. At night, sailors went to the shore in boats. Having found a boy/girl awake on the shore in some house, they put the child to sleep and took him away.

The ship's crew was cursed and in order to get rid of the curse it was necessary to collect a collection of 239 small children's brushes.

On the ship, a terrible doctor cut off his hand while the child was under anesthesia.

The child, waking up from anesthesia and not yet understanding what was happening, looking at the stump, asked the doctor:

Uncle, where is my pen?

To which the doctor replied:

Here she is.!!! Here she is!!! Here she is!!!

The last line is staged to the closest child... You simply shake your brush in front of his face.

The children are immediately scared, but then they start laughing.

Scary tale "Carnation"

Once upon a time there lived a mother and daughter. Nobody came to them because they had a nail sticking out in the floor. He stuck out in the very middle of the room and the girl had to walk around him all the time. The girl often asked her mother:

Mom, let's take out this nail!

What are you, daughter! Never, ever touch that nail. And never invite anyone into your house.

And why?

Because someone will want to pull out this nail, and then there will be trouble!

What will happen?

Better not ask me, daughter. A terrible, terrible misfortune will happen.

And the girl stopped asking. Years passed like this. The girl grew up and wanted to invite guests.

And then one terrible, terrible autumn evening, the girl’s mother went to the cemetery to get some fresh air; and the girl called the guests. The guests began to dance, but the nail kept getting in the way. Then the guests said:

Let's get this nail out!

And the girl screamed:

It is forbidden! No need! Something terrible is going to happen!

But the guests laughed at the girl and, seizing the moment, pulled out the nail. And then there was a terrible roar. Some time later the doorbell rang. The girl wanted to open the door, but the guests shouted:

No need! Do not open!

The girl was a pioneer and therefore still opened it. A woman dressed all in black stood on the threshold. She immediately began to enter the apartment. She kept coming in and coming in, and the guests and the girl backed away and backed away until the apartment ran out.

What have you done... - said the black woman in a quiet, creaky voice, like a dead man’s. - What have you done. - she repeated a little louder. “Under this floor, in my apartment...” and then she screamed in some terrible inhuman voice. - ... the chandelier fell down!!!

Scary fairy tale "The Flower of Seven Flowers"

Once upon a time there lived a girl, Zhenya. And then one day on New Year’s Eve she received a seven-flowered flower as a gift from Santa Claus. Zhenya was delighted, and in the evening she went to the disco. She tore a red petal from a seven-flowered flower and said:

I want to have sausage! - and began to hang out at the disco. Five hours later, Zhenya got tired of sausage, she tore off an orange petal and said:

I don’t want to feel like I’m getting sausage, and I immediately stopped doing it. She sat for a while and felt sad. Then she tore off a yellow petal and said:

I want me to have fun! - and she felt so happy that it’s impossible to retell that she soaked in joy. When there was no one to amuse, Zhenya tore off a green petal and said:

I don’t want to have fun, and I immediately stopped having fun. Zhenya looked around at the floor strewn with young corpses and decided to punish herself. She tore off a blue petal and said:

I want to be sad,” and then I started crying.

Zhenya reached her yard, knee-deep in tears. In the yard, she saw a neighbor’s boy, Vitya, who was trying to climb onto a bench so as not to get his shoes wet. Zhenya had long liked Vitya for his beautiful crutches. She wanted the same ones, covered with skillful intricate carvings, trimmed with gold and ivory, studded with diamonds, rubies and emeralds, but, unfortunately, she was not lame, like Vitya.
Now that Zhenya was feeling so bad, it seemed to her that Vitya was not happy enough. Maybe he needs something else besides crutches? My wife was prevented from thinking by the tears flowing from her eyes in continuous streams. She tore off the blue petal by touch and quickly said:

I want me not to be sad,” and, having stopped crying, she swam up to Vita.

Hello, Vitya. I've been wanting to tell you for a long time that you're a cool dude, and I want to do something cool for you so that you don't become a pussy on this bench.

With these words, Zhenya tore off the purple petal and said:

I want Vitya to have sausage...

And the good girl didn’t have any more petals...

1. I put my child to bed and he says to me: “Dad, check for the monsters under the bed.” I look under the bed to calm him down, and I see my child there, looking at me with horror and saying in a trembling voice: “Dad, there’s someone else in my bed.”

2. Doctors told the patient that phantom pain is possible after amputation. But no one warned about how the cold fingers of the amputated hand would scratch the other.

3. I can’t move, breathe, speak or hear - it’s dark all the time. If I had known, it would have been better to ask to be cremated.

4. I woke up because I heard a knock on the glass. At first I thought someone was knocking on my window, but then I heard another knock... from the mirror.

5. They celebrated the first successful cryogenic freezing. But the patient had no way to show them that he was still conscious.

6. She couldn’t understand why she was casting two shadows. After all, there was only one lamp in the room.

7. A smiling face stared at me from the darkness outside my bedroom window. I live on the 14th floor.

8. This morning I found a photo of myself sleeping on my phone. I live alone.

9. I just saw that my reflection in the mirror was winking at me.

10. I’m working the night shift and suddenly I see a face looking directly into the surveillance camera under the ceiling.

11. The mannequins were delivered wrapped in bubble wrap. I heard from the other room how someone started to eat them.

12. You woke up. But she doesn’t.

13. She asked me why I sighed so heavily. But I didn't sigh.

14. You came home after a long day of work and are already dreaming of relaxing alone. You look for the switch with your hand, but you feel someone’s hand.

15. My daughter always cries and screams in the middle of the night. I visited her grave and asked her to stop, but it didn’t help.

16. Day 312. The Internet is still not working.

17. You have already begun to fall asleep in a deep, peaceful sleep, when suddenly you hear: someone whispered your name. Are you living alone.

18. As usual, I kissed my wife and daughter before bed. I woke up in a room with soft walls, and the doctors said that I had all dreamed.

19. While falling asleep, you pulled one leg out from under the blanket. Someone immediately grabbed you by it.

20. The relatives of the deceased were never able to leave the crypt. Someone locked the door from the outside.

21. My wife woke me up last night to tell me that a burglar had broken into the house. But she was killed 2 years ago.

22. I had a wonderful dream until I woke up to the sound of someone hammering. Afterwards, I only heard clods of earth falling on the lid of the coffin, muffling my screams.

23. The last person on Earth was sitting in a room. There was a knock on the door.

24. After a hard day at work, I was rushing home to quickly see my wife and our child. I don’t know what was scarier, seeing my wife and child dead or realizing that someone was still in the apartment.

25. Mom called me into the kitchen, but on the way there I heard my mother whisper from another room: “Don’t go there, I heard that too.”

26. I never go to bed, but I wake up every time.

27. Doctor’s conclusion: The newborn weighs 3,600 g, height 45 cm, 32 molars. He is silent and smiles.

28. She went into the nursery to look at her sleeping baby. The window was open and the bed was empty.

29. “I can’t sleep,” she whispered, crawling into bed with me. I woke up in a cold sweat, clutching the dress in which she was buried.

30. You hear a terrible scream in the hallway, but you can’t open your eyes or move.

31. I come home, my mother shouts from the kitchen, “Go to dinner,” and an SMS immediately comes from my mother: “I’ll be late, warm up something for yourself.”

32. I used to think that my cat has vision problems: she cannot focus her eyes when she looks at me. Until I realized that she was always looking at something behind me.

RUSTY SCISSORS

Last year, I had to fly to another city for business reasons. I needed to spend one night there, so I opened my laptop and found a cheap hotel that was closest to the airport.

When I arrived at the hotel I was disappointed to see how dirty and unkempt the place was. I tried to find another hotel, but there were no rooms available anywhere. There was nothing to do, I had to stop there.

Entering my room, I felt a heavy unpleasant smell in the air. And the room itself was somehow creepy and cold. I lay down on the bed, but I was terribly uncomfortable. After shaking out the linen on the bed, I found a strange thing. It turned out to be rusty metal scissors.

"God. This is terrible!” was all I could say. “The maid didn’t even bother to clean this room properly.”

I picked them up and placed them on the bedside table. I was so tired that I immediately went to bed. I decided to complain about the scissors the next morning.

Lying down on the dirty sheets, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. At night, I had a strange dream. I felt someone sitting on me, very heavy, and I felt how this someone was looking intently at me.

I don’t remember exactly what time I woke up, but the room was still dark. When I reached over and turned on the light on my nightstand, the hairs on my head stood on end.

Rusty scissors lay on my chest. Their blades were pointed at both sides of my throat and even broke the skin. Another couple of centimeters and my throat would have been cut.

SHADOW IN THE MIST

When I was little and still in school, my father often took me hiking in the mountains. One day, we were very late, not noticing how it was already getting dark. A thick fog lay on the ground, and we could hardly make out the road. My father held my hand so that I would not stumble and fall.

As we went downstairs, I noticed a small dark figure in front of us. My father suddenly squeezed my hand very tightly.

Aw, dad, it hurts! – I exclaimed.

Father looked at me. There was genuine horror on his face.

“Close your eyes!” he barked. “And don’t open them until I tell you.”

He said this in such a tone that I immediately listened to him without asking any further questions. So, holding my hand tightly, he led me through the fog.

As I thought we were passing by the place where I noticed the dark figure, I heard a faint muttering: “Die, die, die, die, die...”

The rest of the way my father was silent, and only almost at the house did he finally allow me to open my eyes. Since then, he hasn't talked about it and refused to say what it was.

20 years have passed. I came to visit my father. We shared a bottle of vodka with him and had a heart-to-heart talk, like father and son. I remembered that incident in the mountains, and I dared to ask about it again.

“Remember that little dark figure in the fog?” I said. "What was it?"

My father was silent for a while, and then quietly whispered: “It was you.”

Having said this, he drained his glass and flatly refused to talk about it further.

PHOTOS FROM THE SCHOOL TRIP

When I was in sixth grade, our entire class went on a camping trip. All the kids took cameras and cameras with them and filmed our trip. Returning to school, we began to look and show each other all the photographs we had taken, when suddenly one girl said: “OH! WHAT IS THIS?"

Everyone ran towards her to see what she saw. One photo was taken of a boy from our class while he was sitting on the bus. There was nothing strange in this photo, if not for his reflection in the window.

His face in the reflection of the window looked yellow and swollen, disfigured and distorted, and there was some kind of white shadow behind him. Looking closer, it became clear that it was a skull. It was terrible.

When the boy saw the photographs, he began to cry and became hysterical. Everyone in the class was scared. The class teacher sent the boy to the infirmary and forbade us all to discuss this case.

Seven days later the boy died due to a brain tumor.

WHERE IS MOM?

There was a taxi driver whose wife went missing. He had to raise his five-year-old daughter alone. My father had to work a lot, so he could not spend much time at home. He often left home in the morning and returned only late at night.

His neighbor was a lonely woman who was happy to sit with the girl when her father was not at home. Every night, the girl woke up and cried, calling for her father. But one day, she stopped crying. After listening, the neighbor heard the girl laughing. It seemed like she was talking to someone.

“Her father has probably returned,” the neighbor suggested.

She opened the bedroom door and saw the girl sitting in bed alone and laughing in the dark. There was no one else in the bedroom. The neighbor decided to find out the reason for the girl’s strange behavior.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked.

With mom,” the girl answered. “When I cried, my mother came to me, hugged me and kissed me on the cheek.

The woman was puzzled.

“But I’ve been here all the time, and the front door is closed,” she said. -How did she get in?

The little girl pointed to the door to the basement and whispered - She crawled out of there...

A chill ran down the neighbor's spine, and she immediately called the police.

PANTRY

When my father retired, he had a lot of free time. He began to look for something to do with himself.

“There's a lot of wasted space at the end of the hallway,” he said. “It can be converted into a storage room.”

My father, being an enthusiastic person, spent two whole days on his new project. He nailed some shelves to the wall and installed a door at the end of the hallway, creating a small closet. The next day when I returned home, my father was nowhere to be found and I noticed a shiny new lock on the closet door.

The next evening, father was not at home again. Mother was very alarmed and asked me to inspect the pantry. I broke the lock and we went into the storage room.

Inside, we found my father. He sat on the floor, his eyes expressed nothing and he quietly laughed at something. What did he do? How was he able to lock the door while he was inside? We didn't get the answer to these questions because the father went crazy. He is still sitting in his closet, looking somewhere and smiling happily at something.

EMERGENCY CALL

The emergency call to the duty desk was received at approximately half past seven in the morning. An elderly, desperate woman called, she said simply terrifying things. The task force quickly responded to the call and at eight in the morning was already at the apartment of the caller, or rather her neighbors.
The seasoned investigator Kalmokov felt uneasy; he was simply turned over with fear. It looked like a monstrous, heartbreaking dismemberment, an incredibly brutal murder took place in the apartment. Pieces of human flesh and body parts were lying everywhere: an arm, a leg. The investigator had never seen so much blood; it seemed to be everywhere in this apartment. But the worst thing, in his opinion, was a boy of about six standing silently in the corner of one of the rooms and covering his face with his hands. According to neighbor Marya Petrovna, who discovered all this horror, the boy screamed loudly, cried and called for his mother. Kalmokov was perplexed as to who dealt so horribly with the boy’s parents. He had already begun to suspect the neighbor Marya Petrovna herself of this, began to ask her intrusive questions in a rude tone in a rude manner. To which the boy, who had previously been silent all the time, said:
- Don’t yell at Aunt Masha, she’s good and kind, she didn’t do this.
Kalmokov turned and said in a whisper:
- Who?
- And that pale guy over there who sometimes crawled on our ceiling, and now stands behind you, he’s very, very angry.
The boy pointed his finger behind the backs of investigator Kalmokov and neighbor Marya Petrovna....

Vanya and Masha considered themselves completely adults. It is completely unclear why dad was worried when they went outside on their own. And mom started repeating the same thing over and over again. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t take candy and toys from strangers, don’t get into cars, and everything in the same spirit.

This time the children went to the store. Mom ran out of milk, and pancakes were planned for breakfast. Dad, as always, began to tell the rules. Vanya thought: “Well, how long can you repeat the same thing? Parents are so boring sometimes.”

The children took the money and left the house.

“Phew,” Vanya sighed, “by the time mom and dad give you all the instructions, you’ll forget why you went to the store.”

- Oh, I’m not listening. “It’s still the same words every time,” Masha agreed.

The children saw that on the road a woman had dropped bags of groceries and was holding a small kitten in her hands.

- Poor cat, what should I do with you? – the woman wailed, “how can I bring you to me?” Look how many packages I have. Are you probably hungry? Of course, I would feed you at home.

Vanya and Masha stopped. They felt so sorry for the kitten. He was so small and meowed so much. He must be very hungry.

- Children, hold the kitten. I'll try to take all the food, and you give me the cat. I already have one cat at home, I hope they will become friends,” the woman gave the cat to Masha.

Vanya for a second remembered all his mother’s words. About what you shouldn't talk to strangers. But the woman was so beautiful and the kitten was so small that all thoughts disappeared. This is not some scary guy in a dark jacket and evil eyes.

Finally all the packages were collected. But it turned out that it was impossible to take the kitten along with the food.

- What to do? Maybe you can help me bring it home? “There’s my entrance,” the aunt pointed to the neighboring house.

- Of course we will help! – Vanya headed towards the house.

“Vanya, mom said not to go anywhere with strangers,” Masha remembered.

- Well then, put the kitten on the ground. “I’ll come back for him later,” the woman looked upset, “unless, of course, he runs away and the dogs don’t eat him.”

“Okay, come on, we’ll help you,” Masha agreed. It’s a shame to leave such a little one alone on the street.

With the baby in their arms, the children reached the apartment. The woman opened the door. And then a terrible thing happened - not a kind and sweet aunt was nearby, but a terrible, evil old woman.

- Gotcha, darlings! – she pushed them into the house, closed the huge lock and roughly dragged the children into the room.

- My old man will rejoice! “We have new kids for dinner,” the witch laughed.

The kitten meowed pitifully and turned into a huge green toad. There were two more boys and one girl sitting in the room. Everyone was chained to large iron rings on the wall. It was dark and dirty. And very scary. The girl was crying. The boys were silent and quietly wiped away their tears.

The old woman chained Masha and Vanya. She stroked the toad and, grinning contentedly, left the room.

“Did you also believe that she would give you beautiful toys?” – asked one of the boys.

“We helped carry the kitten,” Vanya answered.

The children met. The boys - Misha and Sasha - came for toys, and the girl - Marina - for candy.

- How scary! “I told you not to go,” Masha was ready to burst into tears.

“Don’t cry, we’ll figure something out,” Vanya tried to reassure his sister. But the chains were strong, and the rings were firmly driven into the wall.

The toad watched the children carefully. She was nasty and huge. Suddenly she spoke:

- The owner will come soon. And then there will be a delicious dinner. And I'll enjoy it too. I love little girls.

The children were silent. Masha and Vanya thought that they shouldn’t have listened to mom and dad. And the toad was having fun:

- But dad told you - don’t talk to strangers, don’t go anywhere with strangers, don’t believe touching stories. Run away and scream if someone approaches you. How badly we deceived you. Quack!

Masha so wanted to turn back time and run away from her pleasant auntie. Vanya remembered how dad told him that even if someone says that they know their parents, don’t believe them and call them!

- Masha, do you remember daddy’s phone number? Let's call him, he will save us! – Vanya was delighted.

“The phones in our house don’t work,” the toad croaked.

Masha started screaming:

- Help! Fire! Save! We're on fire! — that’s what mom and dad taught if someone attacked you at the entrance. They said that the neighbors would definitely look out at such a cry.

The old woman entered the room. She was very angry.

- You're disturbing me from sleeping! I'll punish you if you make noise. No one will hear you anyway. It’s late, my dear,” and rattling the big keys from the chains, she left again.

It began to get dark outside the window. The toad dozed off. Evening was approaching, and the old man was soon to return. The children were cold and hungry.

Suddenly there was a terrible noise outside the door. Everyone raised their heads. It seemed like someone was breaking down the door. Then there was thunder, lightning flashed, and the door slammed. The children heard loud screams. Something fell, someone knocked. Finally everything became quiet. The light came on in the room. The toad jumped out of the open window.

- Masha, Vanya! - Mom and Dad ran into the room, - We found you!

Mom was sobbing, dad was hugging the children tightly. The parents of Misha, Sasha and Marina were also here. Everyone cried with joy and hugged.

- Mommy, where are the old woman and the old man? - asked Masha when everyone calmed down a little.

“The police took them,” my mother answered.

- But how did you find us? - Vanya spoke guiltily.

“We realized that something happened when you were gone for a long time.” Dad and I went outside to look for you. We noticed that all the birds were restless. They were flying towards us. And all the time it was as if they were showing the way somewhere.

Marina’s mother told her story:

- And the cats brought us here. I was looking for Marina, and the cats around me meowed, rubbed against my legs and pulled me here.

Misha's mother said that they were brought to the witch's house by puppies. And Sasha’s parents saw ants that lined up in an arrow pointing to the house.

Everyone went home. Masha and Vanya remembered the lesson well. And they never broke the rules again. They understood perfectly well that not every child could be saved by birds, animals or ants. And it’s better to listen to mom and dad in such serious matters.