Dad was forty years old, Slavik - ten, hedgehog - and even less.
Slavik dragged the hedgehog in his hat, ran to the couch on which Papa was lying with an open newspaper, and, out of breath with happiness, shouted:
- Dad, look!

Dad postponed the newspaper and examined the hedgehog. The hedgehog was snub nose and cute. In addition, the Pope encouraged the son's love for animals. In addition, Dad himself loved animals.
- A good hedgehog! Said the pope. - Lovely! Where did you get it?
"He gave me a boy in the yard," said Slavik.
- Has presented, means? - said the pope.
"No, we exchanged," said Slavik. - He gave me a hedgehog, and I to him a ticket.
"What ticket?"
"Lottery," said Slavik, and released the hedgehog to the floor. - Dad, he needs milk to give ..
- Wait with milk! Said my father sternly. "Where did you get the lottery ticket?"
"I bought it," said Slavik.
- Who?
"My uncle's on the street ... He sold a lot of these tickets." Thirty kopecks ... Oh, Dad, the hedgehog under the sofa is useful ...
- Wait you with your hedgehog! - Dad said nervously and planted Slavik next to him. - How did you give the boy his lottery ticket? .. But what if this ticket won something?
"He won," said Slavik, not stopping to watch the hedgehog.
- So how did it win? - Dad asked quietly, and his nose became covered with droplets of sweat. - What won?
- Fridge! Said Slavik and smiled.
- What?! - Dad somehow strangely trembled. - Refrigerator?! .. What are you talking about? .. How do you know this ?!
"How - where?" Slavik was offended. - I checked it on the newspaper ... There the first three figures coincided ... and the rest ... And the series is the same! .. I already know how to check, Dad! I'm an adult!
- Adult ?! - Dad so hissed that the hedgehog who crawled out from under the couch, curled up in a ball of fear. - Adult?! .. Do you change the refrigerator for a hedgehog?
"But I thought," said Slavik frightenedly, "I thought that we already have a refrigerator, but there's no hedgehog ..."
- Shut up! Cried my father, and jumped from the sofa. - Who ?! Who is that boy?! Where is he?!
"He lives in the next house," Slavik said and cried. - His Senya name is ...
- Come on! Dad shouted again and grabbed the hedgehog with his bare hands. "Come quickly!"
"I'm not going," Slavik said, sobbing. - I do not want a refrigerator, I want a hedgehog!
"Come along, you mutter," his father croaked. - If only to return the ticket, I'll buy you a hundred hedgehogs ...
"No ..." Slavik bellowed. - You can not buy ... Senka did not want to change, I could hardly persuade him ...
"Too, apparently, a thinker!" Said his father maliciously. - Well, quickly! ..
The Seine was eight years old. He stood in the middle of the courtyard and looked with fear at the terrible dad, who in one hand was carrying Slavik, and in the other he was a hedgehog.
"Where?" Asked my father, advancing towards Senya. "Where's the ticket?" A crook, take your thorn and give me the ticket!
"I do not have a ticket!" Said Senya, and trembled.
- And where he?! Cried my father. "What did you do to him, the usurer?" Sold?
"I made a dove out of it," Senya whispered, and whimpered.
- Do not Cry! Said my father, trying to be calm. "Do not cry, boy ... So you made a pigeon out of him." And where is this dove? .. Where is he? ..
"He's on the cornice," Senya said.
- On which cornice?
"Look at that one!" - and Senya pointed to the ledge of the second floor.

Dad took off his coat and climbed down the drainpipe.
The children watched him with delight.
Twice my father broke, but then he crawled to the eaves and took off a small yellow paper pigeon, which was already slightly watered.

Descending to the ground and breathing heavily, my father unfolded the ticket and saw that it was released two years ago.
"When did you buy it?" - asked the father of Slavik.
"Back in the second grade," said Slavik.
"And when did you check?"
- Yesterday.
"It's not the same circulation ..." Dad said wearily.
- So what? - said Slavik. - But all tsiferki converge ...
Papa silently stepped aside and sat down on the bench.
His heart pounded madly in his chest, orange circles floated before his eyes ... He heaved his head down heavily.
- Dad, - Slavik said softly, coming to his father. - Dont worry! Senka says that he still gives us a hedgehog ...
- Thank you! Said the pope. - Thank you, Senya ...

He got up and went to the house. Suddenly he felt very sad. He realized that it would never be possible to return that happy time, when with a light heart they change the refrigerator to a hedgehog.

Author: Grigory Gorin.