But the game was not simple. The boys kept throwing the ball at the members of the opposite team with lightning speed, and Liisi and Marianna were not bad at it either. Soon Kristel, Eero, Helen and Henrik were out of the game. Irja was jumping and running about the court for her precious life. Once the ball whizzed by her shoulder almost touching her hair, but she still managed to escape it. Only Sass and Marianna seemed to be quicker than she. Then Sass tried to catch the ball in midflight, but stumbled and so he was out of the game too. Irja was now the only player left on her side of the court.

"Hold on, Irjasson, keep your ground," Ardo called out to cheer her up. And Irja was going strong. She squatted down when the ball seemed to fly above her head and jumped up in the air when it was aimed at her feet. Eventually even Marianna went out of the game and Liisi, the captain, came out on the court. Irja managed to hit her with the ball at once.

"This doesn't mean a thing, the captain has three lives," announced Liisi when Irja told her to leave the court. "You're out yourself," she cried triumphantly when she hit Irja's left leg.

"No, I'm not," Irja refused to go.

"Irja, you're out," said the others too.

"No, I'm not, I too have three lives," Irja insisted. "How come?" protested Liisi. "You're not the captain in this game."

"Well... Because... because... " Irja did not know what to say.

"Because her father is a cosmonaut," said Helen who was sitting on the edge of the sand-box. Suddenly everybody fell silent.

"Is that true?" asked Ardo.

Irja's face turned red but she gave a nod.

"This doesn't count," cried Liisi. "A game is a game."

Irja now left the court but the others had lost their interest in the game too. The game was played to the end half-heartedly and then everybody gathered around Irja.

"Is your dad also staying here now?" asked Ardo.

"Does he have a sailor's shirt?" inquired Sass.

Irja's eyes lit up. Her answers came with a strange exhilaration and as if she were singing. "No, he's not here now, he's busy with his work-out at the moment. He doesn't have any sailor's shirts, but we have a wardrobe full of space suits."

"Has he been on TV?" asked Marianna.

"Well, yes, but only his back could be seen. He is so modest."

"Has he brought you something interesting from outer space?" inquired Sass.

"Stones... yes, he mostly brings stones."

"Are they precious stones?" asked Marianna.

"Well, yes... Some of them might cost as much as a colour TV, some as much as a racing bicycle. And some of them are quite cheap."

"Do you have a colour TV?" asked Liisi.

"No, we haven't. Father doesn't keep the stones as a rule, he only keeps one or two of the cheaper ones. They're in boxes wrapped in cotton wool, their names on and all."

"We have a colour TV," said Liisi.

"Big dealsson," Ardo was not impressed. "Does your father have a talisman? A thing he always carries with him to bring him luck?"

Irja thought a little, smiled and pointed at the gap in her lower row of teeth, "My first milk tooth that came off. He keeps it in his pocket in a matchbox."

"I've got four new teeth already," boasted Liisi.

"So what?" asked Ardo. And everybody understood that four, five or even a hundred new teeth was nothing compared to Irja's milk tooth that could be orbiting around the universe at the very moment.

"Maybe your tooth is in the state of weightlessness right now?" wondered Marianna.

"Well, it didn't have much weight in the first place," Irja tried to make fun of the whole thing. "Shall we play another game?" she asked.

"Does your father write books about cosmos?" asked Sass.

"Irja's mother is the writer of the family," said Helen.

Liisi was sceptical about it. "That's a lie. She's just trying to impress us. I've never in my life heard of a cosmonaut or writer by that name."

"My mother is a writer all right, you may take my word for it," said Irja. "She just doesn't write children's books."

"You know what, you must sometime bring your father over to our school," suggested Ardo

"Father's always so busy... Even at home he does everything on a run... "

"Good gracious," came a familiar voice from the distance. "Didn't I tell you not to hang behind to play! I keep waiting for you to come home worrying my heart out for what might have happened to you."

That was grandmother. Both Helen and Irja now remembered that they had promised to go right home with the soap.

"We weren't hanging about around the shop," Irja said by way of apology.

"You can chew gum while doing the laundry, we've only had two slices," said Helen. But grandmother had no time to listen to the girls. She grabbed the shopping bag from the border planks of the sand-box and, grumbling, took the girls with her. The children of the new house looked sadly after the daughter of a cosmonaut who was led by hand like any other kid.

"That's not fairsson," Ardo said in Swedish and sighed.

***

Grandmother had changed the bedclothes in the evening and the sheets had a smell of fresh air and bird song which made the girls sleepy and a little dreamy.

Irja was thinking of her mother and father, wondering if they could feel from the distance how certain worries were eating at her heart.

In her bed Helen was dreaming about the possibility of her father being a cosmonaut and her mother being a writer. Helen would then go to the sand-box near the new house with a book under her arm that would have her mother's name printed on its cover, and she would take with her the smallest and least expensive stone that her father had brought her from the Moon. Then Ardo would say, "Could you come to our meeting with your father?" and she would reply, "Well, I don't know, father's always so busy... "

Helen sighed. Her own father was always busy anyway. In spring he was busy because of the ploughing to be done in the fields, then there was the sowing and the planting of potatoes. In summer he was busy seeing to it that hay was properly made, then potatoes needed to be hilled up and the root crops had to be weeded. He was busy in autumn harvesting the crops, making silo and digging potatoes... Only in winter did father come home a little earlier, but even then he kept worrying over fodder, checking one cattle-shed after another...

As to the stars in the sky Helen's father knew them well enough to become a cosmonaut. On New Year's Eve he had shown Helen the Big Dipper, the Pleiades and the North Star... He had not shown her the Seven Thousandth Sandwich Star, but for him to find that star would be no big deal.

"What makes you sigh?" asked Irja.

"I was thinking about my father becoming a cosmonaut too."

"Why not," Irja had no objections to that. "That's a good idea." Irja thought a little and then said, "You know, Helen, I've got to tell you something. It's a secret. Are you Listening? Helen!"

But Helen had fallen asleep already. Irja felt that the burden on her heart had become even heavier. "What might Ardo, Liisi and the other kids from the new house be thinking about right now?" she wondered. And then, in her mind's eye, she saw all of them, one after another. As if she had actually been on the spot.

***

Ardo was sitting at the dining table, gazing out of the window. He had totally forgotten about the pancakes in front of him. Looking &t the star-lit sky, he sighed.

"Come on, eat your pancakes," his mother said to him.

"They're getting cold."

Ardo's mother had spent the whole day in the state farm's potato field digging potatoes and now she felt drowsy in the warm kitchen. Normally it would have taken Ardo a couple of minutes to polish off those twenty pancakes, but this time the boy kept gazing at the stars holding the knife and fork in his hands.

"How long do you intend to stare at those stars?" asked mother. But Ardo's thoughts were occupied with the funny rhymes that kept popping into his mind:

I'm the well-known Irja Raut, my daddy is a cosmonaut, my mother is a writer, I always like to write her.

Ardo looked into his mother's drowsy eyes and asked her,

"Mother, why can't you become a writer?"

"All right, I'll start with it first thing tomorrow morning," mother replied, smiling. "Tonight I feel a little too sleepy for that."

"Honestly, mother, you've told me yourself that you were good at your essays at school. Please start to write, will you," begged Ardo. "And father could become a cosmonaut. Just think what fun it would be: father would fly over our state farm and send us a greetings telegram. And you could write books about him. Father's so clever with machines, he's the best tip-lorry driver in the whole neighbourhood."

"You're right," agreed mother. "Ever since a boy your father's been so clever with all kinds of machines. We must think about it."

"Mother, do tell father when he comes home that he should become a cosmonaut. And first thing tomorrow morning you start writing. I've already bought ten ruled copybooks for you. Please, mother, be a pal, will you," begged Ardo, gently rubbing his head against mother's shoulder. "If you do that I won't want roller skates or a racersson or anything."

"A thing like that cannot be decided at a moment's notice," was mother's opinion. "We'll first discuss this with your father and... "

"Father always says whatever you say. Give me your word of honour that you will."

"Eat up your pancakes now, Ardo, we'll talk about it tomorrow. We'll do whatever father decides."

Now Ardo ate up his twenty pancakes within one minute, washed and dried up the dishes and put them away in the cupboard. He hugged his mother affectionately and asked her, "So you will become a writer, won't you? And father will be a cosmonaut."

"All right, sonny," mother whispered in his ear. "Good night."

***

Liisi was lying on the couch, crying. Her wailing was loud and heartbreaking. Especially when somebody tried to console her.

"Dear Liisi, have a little piece of cake," begged grandmother. "It's very nutritious now that you've refused to have anything else."

"Why don't you eat it yourself!"

"Dear child, tell me where you hurt," asked mother. "Do tell me, I won't put any iodine on it, cross my heart."

"My heart's aching," Liisi burst out and her wailing became even louder.

"Look out of the window, Liisi, see how nicely the full moon is shining in the sky," father said to distract her.

"Why, can't you go there?" cried Liisi. "Oh, daddy, why don't you go to the Moon?"

"What is this?" asked the annoyed father. "Whatever have you done to the child? Why is she saying things like that to her own father? To me, Johannes Kaarup, the chief book-keeper of the state farm!"

Liisi sat up on the couch. "Daddy, please become a cosmonaut."

"What do you mean? Become a cosmonaut?" said father, dumbfounded with the idea. "With that excellent post I've got after the sixteen years or study to get it, you suggest all of a sudden that I should start training for a new job. Not for the world!"

With a new outburst of wailing Liisi threw herself on the couch again.

"Liisi dear, there's a new bunny cartoon on TV."

"You may watch those stupid bunnies yourselves. If father doesn't become a cosmonaut, I'll die. I'll starve myself to death. I'll jump out of the window!"

"Do you have to be so stubborn?" grandmother whispered to father. "You've only got one daughter and you let her starve herself to death. Can't you try to please her just this once and become a cosmonaut? See how desperate she is."

"I can't. Even a ride on a swing makes me dizzy, how could I possibly fly in space and endure the state of weightlessness."

"Try to skip the weightlessness," suggested grandmother. "Look at your wife. She's already used up three ball-point pens writing day in and day out, a woman who has never in her life put anything on paper except the weight of calves... Yet now she's trying, keeps studying and practising. She takes every wish of her child close to her heart. She feels that a mother must become a writer if her daughter wants it so badly."

Father went to the kitchen. He smoked two cigarettes in a row. When he was about to light the third one he heard Liisi choking with sobs in the living-room, and he ran to his daughter.

"All right, my girl, I'll try to do what you want," he promised. Liisi's face lit up. She hugged her father and called out to her grandmother, "All right, Granny, bring me that cake and some cookies, too. I'm not going to die yet."

When Sass's mother returned home from work she was all set to scold her son for the mess in the room and all the screws and bolts littered about on the floor. She was a cleaning woman and one thing she could not stand was a mess. To her great surprise she saw that the room was clean and tidy and in the kitchen she found Sass frying potatoes.

"Hi, mother," said Sass. "Dinner's almost ready. The kettle is boiling too. Sit down at the table, please."

Mother was dumbfounded with surprise. She wondered if it was Mothers' Day or something, but the calendar said it was September just as it had been yesterday.

"Come on, what have you done again?"

"A button came off a pillow-case when I was fluffing out the pillows... "

"Fluffing out the pillows?" wondered mother. Sass had tidied up the whole apartment of his free will!

Mother took a seat at the table and ate the potatoes her son had prepared. They tasted good.

"That's how we're going to live from now on," said Sass. "You will never clean another room because tomorrow you'll become a writer."

A potato almost stuck in mother's throat. "Are you out of your mind?"

"No, I'm not," said Sass. "You've done enough cleaning in your life, now time has come to write memoirs about it. As to father, we'll send him an aerogram to his ship to tell him to become a cosmonaut."

"Why on earth? Your father's a good fisherman."

"What is sea compared to outer space? Remember what father said when he left for the sea: I was to be the head of the family. And now, as the head of the family, I say that you'll become a writer and father, a cosmonaut. As to me, from now on I'll get only good marks at school."

"I find this hard to believe," said mother doubtfully.

"Maybe even excellent marks. As the son of a cosmonaut I must get excellent marks at least in physical education and math."

Sass's mother ate everything that was on her plate, drank a cup of tea with raspberry jam, thought about the whole thing a little and admitted, "I must say I'm beginning to like the idea."

***

On that evening similar decisions were reached in the families of Eero and Henrik, Kristel, Kadri and Marianna. The other children living in the neighbourhood also wanted to follow their example. Soon all the skilled workmen of the state farm had decided to become cosmonauts and writers. In the whole neighbourhood there were neither farm hands nor milkers, neither lorry drivers nor herdsmen, neither book-keepers nor cleaning women left — they had all decided to start a new career. At first it meant a lot of hard study for the beginners because one cannot become a cosmonaut or a writer overnight. But since they all were smart and hardworking people they did not have too many difficulties and it did not take too long before the first book by a writer of the village was published and the first space flight of the state farm cosmonauts was becoming a reality. The first cosmonauts were Helen's and Ardo's fathers.

Helen, Kristjan and grandmother were having breakfast and listening to the radio. Helen's mother had locked herself in her room as she was finishing her first book, Memoirs of School-life. "Call me over for the countdown," she said to the others from her room.

"Attention! Attention! The cosmonauts are approaching the spacecraft," announced the radio. "There comes Helen's father, with Ardo's father at his heels."

"Our dad comes first," Kristjan was glad.

"Oh-oh, now Helen's father stumbled... One of the steps seems to be broken. Where could we find a craftsman to repair it? Luckily Helen's father managed to take two steps at a time. Now Ardo's father too managed to enter the spacecraft. We expect to get further details any minute now."

"Come here, mother, they're going to launch it any minute now," called Helen.

Aunt Leida entered the kitchen with a ball-point pen in her hand and leaned against the door, deep in thought.

The radio crackled a little. Then the reporter continued, "Dear listeners, because of an unexpected fault condition we must interrupt our transmission. Unfortunately the entire space centre as well as the spacecraft are filled with so much dust that it is impossible to see or hear anything... Is there a cleaning woman left somewhere who hasn't become a writer? I repeat: there is a pressing need for a cleaning woman. Our next transmission will be in an hour."

Grandmother was disappointed. "What a mess. This way we won't know if Heldur's spacecraft will be launched or not."

"Sass's mother could help them out now," said Helen.

"Sass's mother is busy writing a poem she has named In Shipshape Fashion," said Aunt Leida. "She is becoming a wonderful poetess."

"Be that as it may you mustn't forget to eat breakfast," said grandmother decisively. "Eat up your porridge, children. It's made of the last semolina left in the house."

"I want some butter in my porridge," grumbled Kristjan.

"I'll go shopping in the afternoon and bring some butter, semolina and other things," grandmother promised. "You'll have to do without butter now."

"Kristjan wants butter."

"Never mind what you want. I have no time to go shopping right now. Leida, don't you have any business in the village?" asked grandmother.

"Oh no, I can't go shopping now. When inspiration comes I must write," Aunt Leida replied and went back to her room.

"Please, Granny, may we go shopping?" asked Helen. "This time we won't hang around playing with the children from the new house."

"I was top of the class in traffic regulations at our kindergarten," said Irja.

Once again grandmother gave the girls the shopping bag and the purse and instructed them, "Get me two cakes of laundry soap, one kilogram of semolina, two packets of butter, half a kilogram of sausage and... well, look for yourselves what else we might need."

Again Helen and Irja were on their way to the shop. And again the manager of the state farm gave them a lift in his Volga. This time, however, he was not wearing his brown coat but a nice yellow space suit.

"I'm the manager of the cosmonauts now," said the manager of the state farm.

"But why are there jam stains on your space suit?" Helen asked him.

"That's because there are no dry cleaners left anywhere nowadays," complained the manager.

"When I grow up I'll become a dry cleaner," promised Irja.

"Good girl," the manager praised her. "It was a pleasure meeting you."

The girls entered the grocery. Now it was fitted with silvery sliding and revolving shelves loaded with books of all sizes in bright covers.

"We mustn't waste any time today," Irja reminded Helen. Helen told the shop-assistant that she wanted two packets of butter, two cakes of laundry soap, one kilogram of semolina, half a kilogram of sausage and two peppermint gums. The shop-assistant gave them a bright smile, came out from behind the counter and began to fill their shopping trolley with all kinds of books.

"Here you are. This is Soap As Such, here's The Secret Life of Butter Wrappers, then there's a book for children, Sausage and the Nightingale... What else should I give you? Oh yes, the humorous tales, Semolina and Carolina, and then something about peppermint... There's a collection of poems about peppermint, Wind in the Peppermint Leaves. Was that all? You still owe me two kopecks, but never mind, your father will settle that some other time. Thank you for coming, you're welcome anytime."

"Don't cry, Helen," said Irja. "The shop-assistant didn't realise that we wanted real butter, real soap, real semolina and real sausage. Grandmother has no use for The Secret Life of Butter Wrappers or Sausage and the Nightingale."

The smile on the shop-assistant's face became even wider as she said,

"Don't let the look of things deceive you: though shop-assistant I may seem to you, a poet am I deep at heart — just a beginner in that art. The poem under work is called All You Can Find in Grocery Store. As I am not in a selling mood don't bother me by asking food. Selling food is boring, dull, a job cut out for some numbskull.

Besides, where should I get all those goods for you? The corn needed for semolina has not been harvested, threshed or milled yet... and you know all those other things they haven't done to it. The cream needed for butter has not been skimmed yet, because there's no milk, as nobody has milked the cows: all the milkers are either in outer space or sitting at their desks writing books. Good bye, girls, don't fail to read my poem about the grocery store when the book is published."

The shop-assistant then took all the books out of the shopping trolley and put them back on the shelves.

"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Helen when they were standing outside on the doorstep.

"Come and play with us," called Ardo from the yard of the new house.

"We're the children of cosmonauts and writers, every one of us," called Liisi.

"Come play the ball-game of writers with us."

"Actually my father is a GEOLOGIST, so there!" Irja called out in reply.

"Geologist? What sort of a jobsson is that?" asked Ardo.

Suddenly all the windows of the new house flew open and all the mothers called out to the children, leaning out of the windows, "Do not disturb us now that we've got inspiration coming on! We're writing books about teeth orbiting the Earth."

Helen and Irja went running home.

"What shall we say to grandmother?" asked Helen in despair.

"Let's try to sneak past her into the bedroom and pretend to be asleep," suggested Irja.

Holding their breath the girls quietly opened the door to the kitchen. Grandmother was washing the dishes. Kristjan was building a house with his blocks. The girls managed to sneak past them unnoticed. Fortunately their beds had not been made yet and they both slipped under their blankets and pretended to be asleep.

Irja heard Crook begin barking outside. Then somebody entered the house.

"Did you hear someone come in, Helen?" Irja whispered.

But Helen had actually fallen asleep. Irja listened. Grandmother was asking somebody to take a seat and then she began to clatter with cups and saucers. A woman's voice said, "Oh no, you mustn't," and a man's voice added, "Thank you." Grandmother commented, "You must be tired with the journey." The woman said, "I wish you didn't take so much trouble." Good grief! It was no ordinary woman's voice. It was the voice of HER OWN MOTHER! Irja flew to the kitchen and jumped into her mother's lap. Mother's clothes were still cool from the night air and they smelt good. Her own real dear mother. And on the other side of the table there was her own real dear father. What did it matter that he was not a cosmonaut but only a geologist. Irja climbed from her mother's lap into her father's lap and pressed her cheek against father's bristling cheek that smelt of the wind.

"It's a long time since the last get-together of this family," said father joyously. Helen's grandmother looked at them with a smile and put the butter dish and the breadbasket on the table.

Now Irja remembered that they had not bought any butter and that the shop-assistant had even taken The Secret Life of Butter Wrappers back... How could she explain all that to the others?

"Father, please tell them you're not a cosmonaut but a geologist. A geologist is sometimes also an important person, isn't he?"

"Of course he is," said father and smiled. "What's all this talk about cosmonauts?"

"Well, you see... " Irja began, casting her eyes down. "All of a sudden everybody here has become a cosmonaut or a writer... And there's no butter, semolina or soap at the grocery, only books... You see, I happened to tell a fib about you being a cosmonaut, you know, because everybody here seemed to be so important and I thought that a geologist wasn't half as important as a tractor driver or an iron-smith or the head of the department... Then I just had to tell that fib and the others believed me and that's how it all happened. It's all my fault, you see... "

"Do try to leave a few 'you sees' out, will you," said mother upbraidingly. "Tonight you seem to be stretching out your bed-time story a little. Are you awake or still dreaming?"

"Didn't Helen's mother become a writer?" Irja wondered.

Grandmother began to laugh, "What a fanciful child. Helen's mother is a teacher and right now she's at the schoolhouse, at the harvest festival together with her pupils. They brought in all the root crops in the school's kitchen garden and threw a party for that occasion."

"Then I must've dreamed about it," said Irja shaking her head. "What about Helen's father? Did he make it to outer space?"

"His outer space is right here at this state farm," replied grandmother. "Do have some supper," she said to Irja's parents and took the lid off the butter dish. It was full of yellow butter.

A bit worried, mother touched Irja's forehead with her lips. "Maybe you are running a temperature? Have you caught cold?"

Father said, "Never mind, I think I've got it now. You see, Irja," he addressed his daughter, "although I'm not a cosmonaut, the iron-smiths and tractor drivers cannot do without me. If geologists didn't discover new iron ore deposits there would be no steel for all the machines people need. For the same reason cosmonauts too need me. Cosmonauts also need Uncle Heldur and Aunt Leida and your mother and tractor drivers and milkers and cleaning women... We are all very important to one another. Do you see? Now don't worry about it any more and go to bed."

Irja nodded in agreement but something was still weighing on her mind. "It's just that today I lied to the other children... "

"This wasn't the first time you stretched the truth, was it?" said mother.

Father said, "That's something you must straighten out yourself. I'll come with you if you wish. Sleep tight now."

"Good night," Irja replied and pattered off to bed. It would not be easy to go to the other kids tomorrow and admit to having told them a lie. But after all this was not the end of the world, was it? What a good thing it was that adults had arranged all the big and important things so wisely.

There was still one small but important thing to look forward to: what did her parents bring her this time? Surely they had brought her something. Irja closed her eyes tight and tried to imagine what it could be. Was it a lunar vehicle? Or, perhaps, even a doll's pram?