"We should get away from this place, right now, Leonardo!"
"Be quiet, Carlo!"
Ten-year-old Carlo swallowed. The humming noise grew louder and louder and became more threatening with every passing second.
His friend Leonardo had approached a wasps’ nest which was in the ruin of a barn. Already since spring Leonardo had always taken one and a half hour walk from the village of Vinci to the old barn in order to watch the wasps' nest. During this time he had observing the wasps gradually building it by using the wood of the rotten barn.
The nest was about the diameter of a children's head and consisted of a material that was apparently made of the wood – by the wasps scratching it from the wooden walls of the barn with their tiny mouth tools. The places where they had served themselves could be seen clearly. Fine chips were left in the holes.
What Leonardo was particularly interested in was the material that shaped the nest.
A few years ago he once saw an abandoned nest found by his uncle in the attic. The material had felt like ...
Paper!
That came to his mind again recently because his own paper stock was completely exhausted. During the last few weeks, Leonardo had had so many ideas that had to be necessarily noted that he had already fully subscribed all back pages or gaps. He had had ideas about fantastic machines of all kinds. Airships, equipped with cannons, ships, with which you could travel underwater, but also practical things, such as an appliance which turned the roast over the fire steadily so that there would not occur any burnt spots.
But if wasps were able to make paper, you could perhaps make use of it!
Unfortunately, his uncle did not possess that wasps’ nest anymore, so Leonardo was not able to test if the nest could be unfold or cut into pieces on which you could write.
With a branch that Leonardo had found in the forest, he touched the nest.
The hum grew louder.
"They get angry!" said Carlo.
"I have to see where the entrance is!" said Leonardo."Besides, it is already late in the year! Most wasps must be dead!"
"But you hear them humming, so they are still alive!" protested Carlo."I know that you can chase away wasps with smoke or water – but by knocking against their nest, I am
