Chapter 2
The Cupid in the Cupboard

In all of Moscow there was not a family drearier, more troublesome, and more insufferable than the Durnevs. It consisted of Uncle Herman, Aunt Ninel, and their daughter Pipa (short for Penelope). It was even hard to believe that the Durnevs were relatives of the Grotters. True, this relationship was distant: Uncle Herman was the second cousin once removed of the grandmother of Leopold Grotter, Tanya’s father.
The Grotters had no other relatives among the moronoids. Specifically for this reason, when Tanya’s parents perished in the struggle with Plague-del-Cake, Sardanapal and Medusa stealthily brought the one-year-old girl to Uncle Herman, placing her in a double bass case on his threshold.
With this case made of dragon skin, Tanya was now standing at the doors of the Durnevs’ apartment. Only this time she had the flying double bass in the case, and in her left hand she was holding the bundle with Black Curtains tied up with a special restraining magic lace. While the lace was whole, Black Curtains would not be in the position to play any of their tricks.
Near Tanya’s foot was the trunk, in which the ghosts were quarrelling in an undertone. Lady was pestering Lieutenant with stories about her sores, of which she had more than were mentioned in the medical encyclopaedia. In any case, during those long hours that Tanya was flying over the ocean, gripping with her knees the varnished sides of the double bass, Lady had time to list only those of her ailments beginning with the letter A.
It somehow reminded Tanya of Uncle Herman with his monstrous hypochondria. Durnev only needed to casually sneeze and would immediately go to consult his doctor. If even a head cold was added to the sneeze, Uncle Herman would lie on the bed, cross his arms on his chest, and start to verbosely say goodbye to Aunt Ninel and Pipa.
“Two months! I must live here for a whole two months!” Tanya repeated, looking at the door with melancholy and not deciding to ring the doorbell.
“Quiet! I’ll ring now!” She said to the disagreeing ghosts.
“Holy moly, how terrible! I’ve already fainted!” Lieutenant Rzhevskii, laughing aloud, began to yell.
“What did you say your relatives are called? Uncle Pullman and Aunt Flannel? I’ll show them my tonsils and describe the hepatic colic! I’m sure it’ll be instructive for them!” Unhealed Lady said with enthusiasm.
“Oh yes! Oh yes! Indeed most interesting!” Lieutenant mimicked. “My head simply slips off from interest! Ah, you hold it! Chmyak!”
Unhealed Lady squealed loudly.
“And you, army wit, put the head back on! Discovered how to waste your energy with your head! Brr, what abomination! It’s blinking at me so disgustingly on his knees!” She shouted angrily.
Lieutenant again burst out with the idiotic laughter.
“I warned you! Either you sit quietly or... In short, force yourself!” Tanya adjusted the seal on the trunk and both ghosts in a flash became quiet.
Gathering her courage, Tanya rang the doorbell.
“Interesting, how will the Durnevs react to my return? Most likely not very pleased!” She thought.
The sound of the doorbell had not yet died down but the dachshund already began to bark in the apartment. The dachshund was called One-And-A-Half Kilometres. Fat and troublesome, it was a worthy member of the Durnev family. Its favourite occupation was to nip at the heels of guests. If it was chased into the corridor, then One-And-A-Half Kilometres from malice drooled into the boots there.
In half a minute a door was already thrown open in the depth of the apartment, and thick heels started to thump resonantly on the linoleum. Tanya shivered. Aunt Ninel! Her steps could be recognized out of a thousand.
“Why are you barking, my young rat? Come to mommy!” Aunt Ninel started to lisp like a child.
Her thick heels finally stopped thumping, and Tanya understood that she was being narrowly examined through the peephole.
“Oh, no!” Aunt Ninel howled in an ugly voice. “Oh, no! Herman! Herman! It’s your niece! Not without reason some skeleton was choking me all night tonight!”
Someone else’s footsteps were heard. This time they were quiet and sounded approximately like this: “juk-juk-juk.” Uncle Herman was three times lighter than his spouse. Emaciated, with a green face, he strongly resembled a vampire. And even, it seems, was related to Count Dracula. However, not along Tanya’s line but along some entirely different one. In any case, Yagge so asserted.
Only, in contrast to his relative with big fangs, Uncle Herman was not a magician. And he did not believe in magic at all. Here he would be astonished if he was to find out that Tanya had not been living in the railway station these several months but studying in a real school for magicians.
“Yes, it’s her! I said: frost hits, and she’ll drag herself along without a peep!” Tanya heard the venomous voice of Uncle Herman. “Pipa, Pipa, come here! You also take a look!”
Guessing that now a maliciously rejoicing Pipa would appear in the peephole, Tanya as a preventive measure stuck out her tongue. It was well known that the Durnev’s daughter could not stand her. During her entire early childhood Tanya was poisoned by contact with Pipa. How often she insulted Tanya, locked her on the balcony, told tales, and played dirty tricks! During the time that Tanya was in Tibidox, the school of magic, Pipa could hardly have changed for the better.
“Tanya Grotter! Oh no! It’s really too much that she’s here! I so hoped that something had happened to her! That a brick had fallen on her head or they had put her in prison!” Pipa began to yell, turning away from the eyehole.
“Pipa, what are you saying? Never say that. We must pity a poor orphan. She’s not guilty that she has good-for-nothing parents and she herself is useless just like them,” Aunt Ninel said in an affected voice.
“No-o! Mama, papa, don’t open! Let’s barricade it and not let her in! Let her roll back to where she came from!” Pipa began to squeal, hanging onto her mama’s leg.
“Calm down, Pipa! Not possible to not let her in. The journalists find this out and they will spoil your papa’s career. Better we quietly get rid of her later to the boot camp for children with criminal inclinations,” Aunt Ninel whispered.
“Why later, why not right now?” Pipa yelled. “If you let her in, I’ll leave home! It’s because of her I’m bald! And she also scalded me with tea! Give her a rug, and let her spend the night on the stairs! Is that clear?”
However, Aunt Ninel and Uncle Herman decided otherwise. The lock clicked, the door was thrown open, and Tanya found herself face to face with the Durnevs. Aunt Ninel towered in front of everybody like an unapproachable bastion, like a hippopotamus in a house robe and soft slippers. In her hands the dachshund was seething. Uncle Herman was standing slightly to the side, and Pipa was looking out from behind his back.
The hair which Pipa had lost, attempting to flood the magic book with glue, had time to grow slightly and now stuck out like a short prickly hedgehog. But Pipa had four times more pimples. And she was even in pyjamas. “So, it’s night time at the moronoids now! Oh, I saw that it’s night! Why did I not consider it immediately? I roused them!” Tanya recollected suddenly.
However, in this case the circumstance played into her hands.
“Do you know what time it is? Almost three o’clock!” Aunt Ninel said grumpily. “Already late tonight, I’ll have a talk with you tomorrow!”
Thus far Uncle Herman kept silent; however, his small eyes maliciously drilled into the unknown leather trunk and the bundle with Black Curtains. Tanya surmised that now without fail Durnev would be interested in what these things were and where she took them from.
“Uncle Herman, and how are your rabbits getting on?” She asked, hoping to soften him. “Already asleep?”
Her question — the most innocent, it would seem, — forced all the Durnevs to turn blue with rage. They could not stand to recall this episode in their life. About how Uncle Herman, trying to box Tanya’s ear, hit his hand on the magic double bass. And magical instruments do not like it when they are so treated. As a result Uncle Herman thought of himself as Lisper the Rabbit, brought into the apartment a whole one hundred big-eared fellows and even gave an interview on TV, stating that he was giving up a political career because he adored animals...
“I don’t want to hear about the rabbits anymore! We sent them away to the zoo! Understand? Predators must also be fed,” Aunt Ninel said gloatingly.
“By the way, papa was again elected deputy! Voters almost unanimously voted for him after that interview... Papa is now terribly popular! He even signs autographs!” Pipa added.
“But indeed Uncle Herman... You also truly loved them! You yourself were the very rabbit Lisp...” Tanya was surprised.
Uncle Herman began to stomp his feet. Since he was very emaciated, in order to stomp louder, it was necessary for him to jump up high.
“NO! Keep quiet! I was not anyone! I’m Herman Durnev — deputy! Head of the best faction and chairman of the most humane committee! Is that clear?” He roared, sputtering.
He turned so green that Tanya was afraid that he would hit her, and moved aside just in case.
“Clear, clear. In fact, I’m going to bed ...” she said, sadly thinking that as a rabbit Uncle Herman was much more likable.
Although Uncle Herman almost choked her, the recollection about the “carrot-cabbage” period of his life forced the best deputy to forget about the suspicious trunk. He pressed his temples with his hands and, swinging like a pendulum, left for the bedroom. Behind him, mincing with short legs, Pipa ran away. Only Aunt Ninel was left with Tanya.
“It’s now winter, cold on the balcony; therefore you’ll sleep in the big room! And only try to roam at night along the apartment — I’ll skin you! No switching on the lights! Don’t touch the TV!” She said, looking somewhere at the wall above Tanya’s head.
Aunt Ninel locked all the locks of the entrance door, slid in the chain, and withdrew, following Uncle Herman.
“Welcome! Now I’m home!” Tanya thought sadly.
Having climbed onto the sofa, she hugged her knees with her arms. She recalled the farewell with Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin. Parting, they exchanged addresses. Will they write? She left Tibidox only six hours ago, but already now solitude gnawed her like a worm. She terribly needed someone close and loving, with whom she could talk about everything.
She moved the trunk with ghosts under the sofa, placed the bundle with Black Curtains on the armchair, and lay down, pressing the double bass against herself.
“Only you are left with me! Don’t even know if we’ll be able to fly around here.” Sobbing, she said to the double bass.
The strings of the double bass began to hum sadly.

* * *

The dreariest days stretched on. As if the Durnevs had agreed to poison Tanya’s life, to make it as unbearable as possible.
Pipa spied on her all day and rushed to tell tales at the slightest excuse. Aunt Ninel harassed her with endless fault-finding, but Uncle Herman did not generally notice her, as if there was an empty place instead of Tanya. He even hardly addressed her by name, and once when Tanya sat in his chair in the kitchen, Uncle Herman demanded with disgust: “Get it away from here! It doesn’t fit here!”
Then when the journalists came to them, Uncle Herman transformed unrecognizably. He forced Tanya to sit down next to him, embraced her around the shoulders, and said:
“I’m awfully glad that she was found! She’s like my own! Although, you know, there are so many problems with this girl. My wife and I took her from a difficult family...”
“Practically from the dumpster!” Pipa immediately chimed in.
“Daughter! It’s impolite!” Aunt Ninel was falsely horrified, but immediately she began to whisper loudly: “Although, speaking in strict confidence, so it was... What work it was for us to clean her and teach her the basics of using a knife and a fork!”
Tanya patiently endured all this, although she was a hundred times cleaner than Pipa, and indeed used the fork better than Aunt Ninel herself, who cleaned her nails with it. The Durnevs simply adored telling filth about Leopold Grotter and his wife Sophia.
Till she was ten, Tanya did not know that her parents had perished. She thought that her papa was in prison and mama begged in the station. In any case, the Durnevs lied to her this way. Only in Tibidox she learned the truth that Leopold and Sophia Grotter were the greatest magicians and they perished protecting her, when Tanya was not even a year old.
In school — in her old moronoid school — everything was generally awful. Tanya did not assume that she had time to be so estranged from it. All the subjects seemed terribly confusing to her. There was neither flying journals nor smoking cauldrons nor instructors coming down from the ceiling like Professor Stinktopp in a hammock. No one treated griffins in class like Tararakh nor cast evil eye like Dentistikha so that it would be merrier to teach the spells. Everything was boring and ordinary. But the worst was that there was no magic piloting — Tanya’s favourite subject.
The classmates, incited by Pipa, looked at Tanya suspiciously and all the time tried to find out where the birthmark on the tip of her nose had disappeared to. Did she have plastic surgery? How could they know that what they assumed as an ugly birthmark was in reality the Talisman of Four Elements, lost during Tanya’s struggle with Plague-del-Cake?
Then Genka Bulonov — a confused dolt who once by chance spied Tanya as she was flying on the double bass — was at her heels and badgered her with stupid questions. Soon this tired Tanya, and she in earnest began to consider putting a small curse on him so that he would leave her alone.

* * *

Returning from school on Friday, Tanya discovered that Aunt Ninel was standing by the armchair and holding in her hands the bundle with Black Curtains.
“Here’s a forgetful person! And why did I not hide them?” The girl remembered suddenly.
Shouting “Don’t open it! Mustn’t!” Tanya rushed to the bundle, but Aunt Ninel had already clicked the scissors. The severed magic lace slid to the floor and, after becoming a quick-moving snake, briskly crept away behind the radiator.
“What heavy tassels! But you know, it doesn’t matter! Old-fashioned, but stylish! Where did you take them from?” Durneva asked suspiciously, examining the curtains in the light.
“They were given to me...”
“Ah yes, I know... that most cranky old man!” Aunt Ninel exclaimed contemptuously.
Knowing that the Durnevs would not believe her all the same, Tanya did not tell them anything about Tibidox. They for some reason decided that the girl lived an entire month with some old man and his wife, the address of whom she refused to tell, and this mobile old man allegedly gave Tanya the curtains and the trunk as gifts.
“Know what I’ve decided? I’ll hang them in my bedroom! It’ll be stylish!” Aunt Ninel stated. “Only they must go first to the dry-cleaner! Must be three kilograms of mud on them!”
“Never dry-clean them! Under no circumstances!” Tanya was frightened, noticing that the edge of the curtains began to quiver angrily.
As any self-respecting magic object, the curtains were terribly proud that they had not been cleaned since the time of The Ancient One.
“Possible — never... Forgot to ask you! March to do your lessons!” Aunt Ninel snorted and left, after throwing Black Curtains over her shoulders.
It was clear she could not have noticed what was perfectly evident to Tanya standing behind her. Namely, that Black Curtains vindictively depicted the skull and crossbones. The skull for some reason subtly resembled the face of Aunt Ninel.
Tanya sighed, understanding that it was not possible for her to change the mind of Aunt Ninel. She was thick-skinned like a hippopotamus and obstinate like an entire herd of donkeys.
“Well, okay! I warned her. Then she’ll not complain of insomnia now!” Tanya mumbled and glanced under the sofa, checking if the trunk with ghosts was intact.
The trunk was in place and Tanya calmed down. So, Pipa had not yet gotten here, although she was also always hanging around somewhere nearby.

* * *

That night Tanya could not fall asleep for a long time. She lay on the sofa, looked overhead at the off-white ceiling with the very large crystal chandelier similar to a wasps’ nest, and thought about Tibidox.
A blizzard howled beyond the window. It caught the dry biting snow, whirled it, and threw it at the window. It constantly seemed to Tanya that someone was drumming on the glass, therefore, when they knocked on the window for real, she did not immediately pay any attention.
Only when the knock indeed became quite loud, Tanya turned and... almost yelled from enthusiasm! Incredible! On the outside was a cupid in red suspenders and chilled to the bone.
Cupids, or amours, were the postmen of the magic world. With a bag over their shoulder they rushed around all day from one magician to another and handed out to them letters, messages, and telegrams.
Tanya threw open the window. The cupid flew into the room and, cheeping angrily, started to shake out the snow from the quiver with the arrows. Then he began to shake his mailbag in exactly the same manner, and two envelopes slightly soggy from the snow fell out of it. One letter was from Bab-Yagun and the other from Vanka Valyalkin.
“Hurray! Mail!” Tanya was pleased, pressing the letters to her chest.
Not being able to decide which of the two to read first, she shuffled the envelopes with her eyes closed and opened the one that turned up on top. It was the message from Vanka Valyalkin.

“Hello!” Vanka wrote. “Everything is like normal with me. I did not go to my parents, you know how they are at home. They simply drink terribly. If I turned up, they would begin to take up the belt — no doubt about it.
“Now I’m living with grandmother, missing Tibidox... Remember how wonderful it was to treat firebirds and unicorns? But here it’s better not to deal with harpies: they stink terribly and their claws are sharp.
“Now recently in school one fellow, older than me, already thirteen, started to pick a fight, got into my knapsack, and drank the tincture for mermaids. The misfortune of fish scales terrifies him, indeed he has them on his hands, his cheeks, and on his neck, and I do not know what to do to make them go away. I wrote Tararakh, but thus far he has not answered. I even do not know whether he will answer, because pithecanthropus is not the best with reading and writing. But indeed Tararakh can also ask someone if he wants to... Either Stinktopp, Yagge, or Dentistiskha. On the other hand, this fellow had it coming, because he was simply making my life miserable. There are that sort of things here! And you also write me, do not disappear.
“I frequently remember you. Indeed you know that I... (several more words were crossed out many, many times). In short, so long! Write!
“By the way, completely forgot to tell you. Recently I saw an enormous bird. Well, terribly similar to Lifeless Griffin! True, I just did not grasp whether that was it or not. If it was, it is impossible to understand what is it doing in the world of the moronoids? Well that is all, so long once again, be careful just in case.
“Your friend Vanka.”

Having attentively examined the deleted words in the light, Tanya smiled and opened the envelope from Bab-Yagun. If Vanka wrote his letter on a normal sheet crookedly torn out of a school notebook, then Bab-Yagun used a large piece of birch bark. On the reverse side of the birch bark there was one of his granny Yagge’s prescriptions, in which she prescribed to someone crocodile tears and stonecrop seedpods.
The letter of Bab-Yagun was completely in his spirit, that is, without “hello,” without “good-bye,” and even without punctuation marks. A continuous flow of the consciousness: what I see, so I write.
But at the same time it came not from anywhere but from Tibidox itself. Bab-Yagun was the only student, whom they allowed to remain in the school during repairs. Sardanapal simply could not send him off anywhere because Bab-Yagun had no relatives in the world of the moronoids. There was no one at all except Yagge.

“Here I recently disassembled the vacuum put a new nozzle on the pipe now it will not sneeze on me during takeoff True grandmother says whenever I repair the vacuum she then joins my bones because something slips out of position inside if my hands grow as they normally grow in others Interesting but you sometimes examined your double bass although there is surely nothing worth doing inside Tanya you play dragonball excellently well my granny and I always recall how you then marvellously threw the flame-extinguisher ball into the mouth of the dragon of the werewolves then we were all simply stunned that on the whole somebody almost tumbled down from the bench Pity only the match did not finish because the dragons fought and this pig Shurasik cut into two the Hair of The Ancient One and cooked up all this mess of course maybe we will still play Recently I was in the hangars of the dragons Goyaryn is now in hibernation and Mercury’s wound from the spear has already healed although each day Tararakh goes to it as before
“Here something strange is going on in Tibidox they tell me nothing but only Slander as you remember shut down the Main Staircase and they are all afraid of something cast a heap of spells everywhere Simply it became impossible to walk each second something snaps into action And yet now such a construction is going on here that wow from everywhere gathered house-spirits and wood-goblins and giants and all kinds of evil spirits well you really will not believe how many They build day and night Usynya and Gorynya barely manage to bring stones to them and Dubynya cannot work because the suspension bridge fell on his head He wanted to explain how the bridge works and poked with his crown Granny says another would be beaten down he got nothing except a brain concussion and since then is giggling all the time but will soon be fine
“How is it with you there Uncle Herman not very irritating if he is you tell me I will sort it out with him He is indeed as harmful as She-Who-Is-No-More And here yet one more piece of news When they investigated the blockages in the basement they did not find She-Who-Is-No-More Sardanapal says nothing dreadful but indeed at least a small speck should remain
“Recently I heard how Dentistikha talked about this with Tararakh only they immediately stopped talking when they saw me and ordered me to go where I was going but I was not going anywhere I was simply going for a walk because I am bored here alone granny says study your lessons but I am sick of studying when there is no one to study with and there is nothing to do
“Maybe soon I will attempt to make my way to that Staircase which Slander blocked up because it is terribly inconvenient all the time to go on the far Staircase how can there be something terrible on the Staircase there
Well that is all I am going because the cupid got tired of waiting while I finish the letter and here he searched for granny’s candy and spilled all her tinctures well and he will fly to me because he can then fly away but I have a strong-willed granny She will definitely let someone have it”

Tanya reread Bab-Yagun’s letter two or three times before she understood his scribbling.
“Again disassembled his vacuum!” She thought merrily, deciding that Bab-Yagun had not changed a bit. He always so loves to tinker with magic technology. True, it would be better he stopped his restless hands, because a vacuum with vertical takeoff is a delicate piece and requires special handling.
At the same time Tanya wanted to re-read the letter from Vanka, but here someone started to chirp indignantly and the cupid began to pull her by the night shirt! She had completely forgotten about him! Tanya became conscientious that she did not concern herself with the postman.
“Are you frozen? Do you want to warm up by the radiator?” She asked.
The cupid shook his head and pointed with a finger first to his mouth, and then to his stomach. He was clearly demanding that he should be fed. Chubby cupids had a terrible sweet tooth. Not without reason for the delivery of mail they were usually paid with pastries or candies. They recognized no other forms of payment.
“Fine. Let’s go to the kitchen. Only be quiet... Otherwise we’ll even wake someone up,” Tanya whispered and slipped into the corridor first.
The apartment of the best deputy Herman Durnev, a relative of Count Dracula, was not small at all. Of washrooms alone there were three complete ones, and in the corridor even a place for washing hands. Only Tanya was uncomfortable here. She liked much more the intricate labyrinths of Tibidox — with drafts buzzing, with mysterious chests in the niches, with Turkish flying carpets eaten by moths and which the feet sank softly into.
The cupid, not falling behind, flew after Tanya, flicking his suspenders in anticipation of sweets. In the darkness he did not make out the turn and hit his forehead against the door of Pipa’s room. Bang!
“Who’s there? What do you want?” The daughter of Uncle Herman shouted with a sleepy voice from behind the door.
The cupid, massaging the lump on his forehead, started to squeak indignantly, voicing everything he was thinking about this door. Tanya grabbed him and covered his mouth.
“I ask: who’s there?” Pipa repeated nervously from behind the door.
Tanya understood that another second — and she would begin to squeal. It was necessary to think of something urgently.
“Arf-arf!” Tanya growled quietly, scratching the door with her nails. Indeed if anything, she simply knew how to mimic the dachshund excellently.
Hearing the familiar bark, Pipa was calmed in a flash.
“Get away from here, One-And-A-Half Kilometres! I’m not letting you in! You’ll slobber over my slippers!” She yawned, dropping her nose into the pillow.
In the kitchen Tanya disconcertedly stopped by the cabinet, in which Aunt Ninel stored sweets. She was certain that in the evening Pipa even glued secret threads and hairs around the cabinet. If one of them was torn, tomorrow a terrible screech would rise.
But how was Pipa to know about the existence of the outstanding spell Fogus sneakus, which Tanya learnt from Coffinia? For one who used this black magic spell, it was possible not to fear locks and bolts. True, it was necessary to enter all closed doors only backwards.
After whispering: “Fogus sneakus!”  Tanya turned and, pushing a hand through the door of the cabinet, started to fumble inside. Numerous packets rustled. Although Aunt Ninel was eternally on a diet, it did not prevent her from regularly replenishing the stock.
“Aha, here... What do you want: cookies, wafers, candy, cakes, chocolate, or fruit drops?” Tanya asked, by feel determining which was what.
The cupid began to bounce excitedly and pat himself on the stomach, showing that he wanted absolutely everything.
“And you’ll not burst?” Tanya was amazed. “Well okay, you yourself wanted it.”
When in half an hour she laid out the last cake on the table, the cupid could not even push it into his mouth, although he tried to do this with both hands. His stomach was extended like a rubber pear, and the suspenders, it seemed, were ready to break.
Gratefully squeaking, the cupid flapped his wings and attempted to take off. However, the best he could manage was to fly half a metre. Here strength finally left the overfed postman. He blinked drowsily, smiled blissfully, folded up his wings and — with a dreadful crash collapsed onto the table. Tanya rushed to him. She was convinced that the cupid had broken his neck, but someone with a wrung neck would not be breathing heavily and so sweetly in dreams or put under the cheek a wafer wrapper. Tanya belatedly recalled that Medusa in homework on evil spirits studies advised them on no account to overfeed cupids, because they do not have a sense of proportion. But he asked so sweetly that she could not refuse.
“What am I to do with him now?” Tanya thought. Scolding herself, she began to sweep up crumbs from the table, but here someone’s hasty footsteps were heard in the depth of the apartment. There was already no time to ponder. Grabbing the cupid by the hands, Tanya managed to shove him into the dish cupboard. She had hardly slammed the door shut when someone broke into the kitchen.
Light flared up. A blinded Tanya closed her eyes. When she again assumed the ability to see, she discovered that before her emerged an infuriated Uncle Herman. By his feet the traitor-dachshund burst into barking.
“What are you doing here? Who permits you to come at night into the kitchen? You know how sensitively I sleep!” Uncle Herman roared. “Rice porridge for supper was too little for you?”
“No, not too little. I adore it when porridge sticks to the plate,” said Tanya, attempting to unnoticeably push with a foot a chocolate foil under the table.
Of course this was not hidden from the penetrating eyes of the best deputy.
“You’re lying! You’re a spoilt insolent liar! Exactly like your own father!” He hissed. “Go lively to your room and don’t dare go out anywhere! I’ll speak with you in the morning!”
Tanya turned and, having shrugged her shoulders, left for her room. Uncle Herman, wheezing angrily, dragged himself behind her. In the kitchen the dachshund remained alone. It looked around suspiciously, sniffed, and started to growl at the dish cupboard.
After some time the door of the cupboard was thrown open. An angry cupid looked out from there, on his head was Aunt Ninel’s favourite dark-blue cup pulled down over the eyes. On seeing the cupid, One-And-A-Half Kilometres began to sneeze with malice.
The cupid could not stand everyday rudeness. Not thinking for long, he brought down onto the dachshund a large saucepan, which covered its head. Yelping in fear, the saucepan began to crawl under the chair. Yawning, the cupid carefully shut the doors, placed the quiver under his head, and again fell asleep.

* * *

In the morning Tanya waited for a dressing down and even severe punishment from the Durnevs, but Uncle Herman had left early for work, and Aunt Ninel was in a completely complacent mood. When Tanya came into the kitchen, she was sitting at the table and eating a lemon. Tanya only needed to glance at this and her jaws immediately closed. Aunt Ninel herself did not even pucker.
“Every self-respecting person should compulsorily eat a whole lemon in the morning!” She briskly informed the girl. “It’s extremely useful! It restores acidity and cleanses superfluous information from the brain! Please pass me a saucer! Nowhere for me to spit out the pits!”
Tanya was about to move to the dish cupboard, but suddenly remembered that the overfed postman was sleeping there.
“Why are you dawdling? You want me to get up myself?” Aunt Ninel impatiently shouted.
“No need, I’ll do it!” Trying to obstruct the door with her back, Tanya carefully opened the cupboard slightly and with relief took a deep breath. The cupid had disappeared. Likely he woke up early in the morning and flew away.
Tanya handed the Aunt the saucer and sat beside her.
“Ah yes! This morning they brought your curtains from the dry cleaner...” said Durneva.
“Already?” Tanya asked fearfully. She did not think that they would manage so quickly at the dry cleaner’s.
Aunt Ninel raised her eyebrows.
“It was unexpected for me too. By the way, earlier for some reason I did not notice that some stutterer works at our dry cleaner,” she said.
“Soon some stutterers will also live here,” Tanya thought, but she did not begin to spread this. Why load superfluous information into Aunt Ninel’s brain purified by a lemon?
A yelp reached them from under the table. One-And-A-Half Kilometres, relaxed and absent-minded, was lying on the rug and tenderly looking at Uncle Herman’s old cap, which the best deputy usually pulled over his eyes in the warm season, protecting his crown from the impact of the sun. On the dachshund’s forehead was a lump, and the inverted saucepan lay beside the cap.
On Sunday immediately after breakfast Aunt Ninel and Pipa left for the club to go bowling. They did not take Tanya, but she also did not long for it. After dragonball all other games seem uninteresting. And really can anything be compared with the wind whistling all around, and you, gripping the double bass with your knees, speeding away from the dragon overtaking you, and then, sharply swooping down, throw into its mouth a flame-extinguisher or pepper ball?
Seizing the opportunity that no one would interfere with her, Tanya wrote letters to Vanka Valyalkin and Bab-Yagun. “I’ll hide them under the carpet, and at night I’ll send them out!” She decided.
It was dangerous to summon a cupid in the daytime. A chubby tot with wings, flaunting red suspenders, would for sure catch the eyes of moronoids.
Tanya pulled out from under the sofa the leather case, wiped the dust off it and clicked the ancient clasp. The lid was thrown open, and the girl saw the magic double bass of Master Theophilus Grotter — a great inventor and even greater grumbler, whose voice lived now in her ring.
In Tibidox Tanya trained every day, and now, she only needed to glance at the instrument and the irrepressible desire appeared in her to again experience the thrill of flight.
“Certainly, Medusa and Sardanapal warned. Moronoids, they say, will see you, and all such things... But indeed I must practice, otherwise how am I to play dragonball in the spring? And in order that the moronoids would not notice, I’ll simply get to a necessary height and that’s all. Will they begin to examine a tiny speck, on top of that even against the sun?” Tanya thought, easily finding justification for herself.
She got dressed and, taking the double bass, slipped to the balcony.
It was a sunny frosty midday. The snow that had fallen in the night sparkled so that it was painful for the eyes to look at it. Tanya climbed onto the double bass, comfortably holding the bow and, whispering: “Speedus envenomus,” let out a green spark from the ring.
Oh-oh-oh!
At the same moment the double bass tore away from the place and like a bullet soared into the sky. Not without reason Tanya used the highest speed of all existing flight spells. An instant — and she was already flying, deftly manoeuvring between the multi-storied houses. When it was necessary for her to make a turn, she leaned forward, folded an elbow firmly around the finger-board, and with the bow indicated the direction to the double bass.
Imagining that the dragon of the enemy was striving for her, Tanya first soared steeply upwards, then like a stone dropped downward, getting away from its attacks. Long ago she wanted to work out the method, which Nightingale O. Robber, a black magician and their trainer of magic piloting, called “instantaneous turn.”
The essence of “instantaneous turn” consisted of, fleeing from the dragon, deftly turning around on one’s instrument and, continuing to fly backwards, throwing the ball straight into the open mouth. After this, it was necessary to lean back sharply and direct the flying instrument in a perpendicular dive.
It would seem simple, but everything is simple in words, in actual fact to turn around on the swiftly rushing instrument, managing not to lose the bow at the same time, was almost impractical. And indeed immediately after the throw it was still necessary to avoid the dragon’s flame, which it for sure would breathe out, and to sweep over the same ground without crashing into it.
“Here Bab-Yagun would be amazed if it works for me! Especially during a match! He would simply faint! And Coffinia? She in vexation would gnaw off all her nails together with the fingers!” Tanya dreamt.
Over and over again she worked on “instantaneous turn” and persistently faced the fact that during a turn it was not possible to hold the bow precisely. The double bass began to stagger and stalled, and so, if the dragon were close by, she would already turn up exactly in its mouth.
“And if they would give me the pass now? The ball would fall onto the head of the chief referee! And referees cannot stand it when balls fall down on them from above, especially a pepper ball...” Tanya reflected unhappily.
After twenty minutes of practice she was finally certain that to fly far on the double bass backwards with all one’s might is not for everyone. Here is one of two things: must be a born dragonball player or a complete lunatic! After all it is not surprising, who would even dare to fly blindly, not seeing but rather guessing what is happening behind one’s back? The flow of frosty air will literally knock one down from the instrument, and meanwhile behind the back who knows from where the shaft of a crane or the narrow tower of a high-rise will emerge.
Tanya deftly slipped near the finger-board of the double bass and was already sitting normally, facing forward. In front of her were four identical grey nine-storey buildings, which closed around the soccer area in the courtyard. The girl leaned slightly forward and, stretching out the arm with the bow, went into a dive, after deciding to slip through between the buildings. The double bass obediently swooped down.
She had already made up her mind to gain altitude again when suddenly a figure in an orange raincoat flickered on one of the roofs. Tanya was just feeling surprised that a moronoid would be wearing the same raincoat as a magician, when suddenly the figure threw up his hand, and in the next moment the bow in the girl’s hand flared up.
At first the flame only engulfed its tip, but after a second the whole thing was already blazing, and the fire stole up to her hand. Tanya began to yell and from the suddenness almost unclenched her hand. Only at the last moment did she recall that she must never drop the bow. Without it the double bass would be out of control and would smash itself up. Wincing from the pain, Tanya held the blazing bow even more firmly and, having screamed out the safety net spell: Oyoyoys smackis thumpis, began to descend. Here it was already not a question of landing beautifully. The main thing was to not break her neck and to try not to break the instrument.
Thirty metres, twenty... The snowdrifts became white between the buildings. The ground swiftly approached. The double bass almost no longer obeyed the bow. Tanya saw that she was falling straight for an electric cable. If she ran into the wire at this speed, it would simply cut her in half or cut off her feet.
Instantaneous turn! There was no other way out. Tanya quickly bent over and with her whole weight leaned back as in the most complex, the final element of “instantaneous turn.” And the “turn” worked! It worked in the most improbable circumstances! Forcing her back against the double bass and merging with it as one, the girl slipped between the cables, managing to not catch a single one!
“Bangus parachutis!” She screamed out the braking spell.
The ring of grand-dad Theophilus in a hurry shot out a green spark. Thankfully this time at least it dispensed with the tiresome lectures.
And — the spell worked, snapped into action at the very last moment!!! The double bass was again on the ground, having obeyed the bow, which was now a fused stump, already for the last time. It reduced speed, hung in the air and sufficiently inoffensively collapsed into a large snowdrift.
Rolling off the instrument, Tanya dropped the bow and hurriedly thrust her burned palm into the snow. Icy needles pleasantly stabbed the reddened skin. Blisters already began to swell up on three fingers of her right hand.
Suddenly Tanya turned her head. Some recent recollection pierced her, struck her like a slap. The figure on the roof!
Continuing to keep her hand in the snow, Tanya tossed up her head, examining the nearest buildings. No, not this, again not this... Here is that fourth grey building! The ominous figure in the orange raincoat was still on the roof. Holding onto the rails, he attentively peered down. Likely, the man in the raincoat wanted very much to determine whether Tanya managed to survive.
Ascertaining that the girl was on her feet, the silhouette in the raincoat angrily waved his hand, turned quickly on the spot about three times, the raincoat flared up, and he disappeared. Tanya was sorry that she could not make out the face: the distance was too great. She could not even tell roughly what was on the roof: a man, a woman, or an adolescent. But one thing was certain. Recently there was a strong magician on the roof and this magician attempted to kill her. To kill prudently. If she had been at a loss and let go of the bow, there would not have been time left already for her to utter the braking spell.
Tanya recalled that in the second before her bow caught fire, from the finger of the unknown person a purple point precisely jumped! A red spark, which could only be released from the ring of a black magician!
Tanya became terrified. Downright terrified. Really, was all this real? To whom is her death necessary, especially now when Plague-del-Cake is no more? Or the fears of Medusa are true and she is alive? Was it Plague herself or one of her assistants?
There were clearly more questions than answers. Recalling that Sardanapal permitted writing him whenever she wanted, Tanya thought that she would send a letter today. Once she is facing imminent danger here in the world of the moronoids, then perhaps they will allow her to return to Tibidox before the appointed time?
Tanya loaded the double bass onto her shoulder and meandered home. Now when she did not have the bow anymore, the magic instrument became a heavy burden. After a while, tired, Tanya stopped to take a breath and leaned it against a bench by some entrance.
Her palm was hurting terribly, and the girl tried feverishly to remember whether she had a suitable prescription or spell somewhere in the notebooks secretly brought from Tibidox. At dragonball trainings and especially during matches she frequently got burns. But then Yagge was always nearby with the outstanding remedy — vampire bile.
This universal remedy against burns, if the nightmarish smell was not considered, had only one unpleasant special feature — it needed only to be licked accidentally or simply touched with the tongue, and the one who did it would immediately be transformed into a vampire. It transformed instantly and irrevocably. For this very reason the vampire team was never lacking in good players. Now only where to get vampire bile here in the world of the moronoids? Interesting, what kind of face would Uncle Herman have, if she, as a joke, would ask him to run to the drugstore for it?
The iron door of the entrance clanked. From there, a lady in a fur cap came out, decisively dragging behind herself a round-shouldered young oaf with a bandage on his forehead. Noticing Tanya, the lady stopped and said sweetly:
“Misha, look, what a good girl! She plays on the double bass even on the street, in freezing weather! Yet even with a stick you cannot be forced to walk into a music school!”
“To hell with her! She’s simply a crammer! A geek who memorizes!” The young oaf hissed, looking sideways with annoyance at Tanya.
And in spite of the absurdity of her situation, despite that someone recently attempted to kill her, that her palm was scorched, and water was squelching in her boots, — in spite of all these developments Tanya burst out laughing.

Chapter 4
Thirty-Four Firemen

Sometimes it is pleasant to wake up at night. Lying there, looking at the ceiling, thinking about anything. Or even to sit in the kitchen and secretly drink a cup of cocoa. But with one exception... If you are not woken up by Aunt Ninel’s terrible howl, as happened to Tanya towards morning.
Tanya, with a jerk, sat up on the sofa, half-awake and not understanding who was howling and why. Then she jumped and darted into Aunt Ninel’s bedroom. Aunt Ninel, with her head covered by Black Curtains, was squealing and floundering in horror. Uncle Herman was jumping like a confused billy-goat beside her, not knowing from what direction to approach and in general only having a vague idea of what was happening. Not a minute had passed but Aunt Ninel already resembled the cocoon of a rare butterfly.
“Herman! Do something! Cut them, I’m suffocating! Quickly!” Aunt Ninel shouted.
Finally the bewildered deputy began to yank down from the wall the sharp yataghan, which had been presented to him at a reception in the Turkish embassy. His hands were not only trembling but shaking. Tanya understood that one more second — and instead of one quarrelsome aunt she would have two. The Curtains in anticipation of this sniggered sarcastically.
“HERMAN!!! Cut!” Aunt Ninel again began to yell, rolling on the bed like a black cocoon. It seemed she could not imagine what was threatening her. She was afraid of the curtains but should fear Uncle Herman instead.
The bug-eyed best deputy with a reckless look raised the yataghan. It was necessary to interfere promptly.
“Briskus-quickus!” Tanya muttered in an undertone, unnoticeably letting out a green spark.
This plain, frequently used spell worked excellently against both ghosts and simple bio-vampires like the curtains. Not without reason Medusa taught it in the first lesson on evil spirits studies. The Curtains instantly went limp and Aunt Ninel could get out.
“Ugh! I can breathe again!” She was pleased, but suddenly began to squeal, seeing above her Uncle Herman with the raised yataghan and his eyes screwed up.
Durnev was pale and determined. True, such trembling struck him that the bright blade jumped in his hands, presenting explicit danger to both Uncle Herman himself and those around him.
The following five minutes was spent disarming the best deputy and sheathing the yataghan.
“What was it? Ah, understandable... I hung the curtains poorly. They fell from the ledge, I got tangled and almost choked... But only how could they fly so far away from the window?” Aunt Ninel groaned, opening the medicine drawer.
Tanya sensed that it was awkward for her aunt that she appeared before the girl looking so foolish.
Tanya wanted to explain that Black Curtains would suffocate no one. They would only spy into dreams in order to show them later all day. But Uncle Herman did not allow her to open her mouth. Coming to and discovering that Tanya was in their bedroom, he began to jump on the spot and howl:
“And what did you get here for? Well, march to bed, until I hand you over to the orphanage! Why kind of habit did you pick up roaming around the apartment at night?”
“Please look over there!” Tanya said, nodding to Aunt Ninel.
Uncle Herman turned around.
“Wait, Ninelichka, you’re already drinking a third phial of valerian! You’ll calm down so much like you’re dead!” He began to worry.
“I’m shaking all over!” Aunt Ninel said in an icy voice.
Uncle Herman decisively took Tanya by the shoulder and pushed her to the door. But still, before the door was slammed shut, the girl saw that Black Curtains was already mirroring with all its might some dark-blue cutlets with paws, doing a round-dance around a huge fir tree with a sausage for a trunk and sausages as branches... So here is what Aunt Ninel was dreaming about, the third week she unsuccessfully tried to get into the new dress!
Tanya knocked herself on the forehead with a bent finger and returned to the sofa. Thinking to herself what oafs the Durnevs were all the same, she again intended to lie down to sleep when suddenly someone began to drum persistently on the window.
Outside the window was the same cupid, managing to return here and there amazingly quickly: all in one night.
This time the cupid had equipped himself much more industriously. He was without the suspenders, and a dark-blue scarf was wound around his neck. The cupid exchanged Sardanapal’s letter for three gingerbreads and a jar of jam, loudly took a deep breath, and flew away in an extremely business-like manner.
Tanya unsealed the envelope.

“Dear Tanya!” Sardanapal wrote. “I am answering you immediately, while this winged old fox is gnawing pastry and leaving an awful lot of crumbs on the floor... I, of course, understand that you want to return sooner to Tibidox, but repair is not yet finished. In the basement all the cracks are by no means sealed, and of the five collapsed towers only three are restored thus far... With the heroes there are also many problems. Yesterday Usynya on a bet ate a bag of cement and now lies in magic station with terrible constipation. Yagge cannot think of a way to help him. By the way, recently Medusa also spent a whole day in magic station because of a terrible headache. She was talking about dismal assignments, and also the huge quantity of trouble with evil spirits.
“Here is another piece of news, which will interest you for sure. Last night your friend Bab-Yagun attempted to sneak onto the blocked off Staircase. He succeeded in slipping past the cyclopes, but he completely forgot about the guard spells of Slander Slanderych...
“Now Bab-Yagun sits by himself in his room, because it is possible only to jump with frog feet. I hope this example also teaches you something. Slander, whose spell he ran up against, claims that the frog feet will remain with Bab-Yagun for about a week or two, but if there is an attempt to neutralize the magic sooner, then they can remain even for life.
“Tanya! Now about the main thing!
“Each day many letters from students of Tibidox come to me! It would be pleasant if all as one did not invent different nonsense in order to return before the appointed time. Gunya Glomov writes that he accidentally bit the dog and the dog went mad. Rita On-The-Sly allegedly transforms into a vampire at night and chases her parents, and Dusya Dollova maintains that terrorists took her as hostage and are demanding ransom: a box of chocolate, but if there is no chocolate, then they will also settle for fruit drops...
“You say that someone tried to kill you, but Medusa and I do not particularly believe this. Most likely the bow in your hand caught fire for some other reason. Maybe you accidentally uttered the ignite spell? Remember, the ignite spell is not a toy!
“You will be able to return to Tibidox, but not earlier than a couple of weeks, together with the rest of the children. Repair is taking place at full speed so that we hope to be in time, if not completely, then at least partially.
“I am still sending the cupid with the letter to you. But in any case do not attempt to set out for Tibidox yourself! You can perish! The spell of passage is blocked for all except the postmen! To get to the world of the moronoids from the magic world is practically impossible now. Except for a very strong and experienced magician. For the rest it is almost certain death.
“Now about something pleasant:
“Medusa sends you a new bow as a gift. Only she demands a promise that you will not begin to fly anymore in the world of the moronoids and in particular to perfect any ‘turn’ there. The bow is enchanted in such a way that we will immediately be notified about any illegal use of it and we will draw the appropriate conclusions.
“With respect,
“Laureate of Award of Magic Suspenders, Academician,
“Sardanapal Chernomorov.”

Tanya read the answer of Sardanapal three times before its meaning reached her. A refusal! They forbid her to return to Tibidox! Sardanapal did not believe her! And he even wrote: Maybe you accidentally uttered the ignite spell? Remember, the ignite spell is not a toy!
“Yes, you heard it! What do they take me for? Is there generally such an idiot, who will begin to utter the ignite spell when his instrument is coming out of a dive?” Tanya thought indignantly.
Two weeks! A whole two weeks! And indeed New Year is already almost at hand! It turns out that on the night of the holiday, when in Tibidox, according to rumour, many joyful miracles always happen, but she has to spend it with the Durnevs!
Every avenue of approach to the fir tree, as always, would be barricaded by gifts for Pipa, and only in the most distant corner would be scattered a packet for Tanya. In it would turn out to be old ski boots of Aunt Ninel, some vest without buttons from Uncle Herman, a bottle of shampoo or anything in this vein. That depended on what fantasy got hold of the Durnevs.
Tanya’s eyes started to smart from this explicit injustice. Although the academician and Medusa could also be understood. So many stupid letters came to them that they no longer knew what and whom to believe.
The girl thought for a bit and recalled that the letter nevertheless contained something pleasant. A bow! Remembering Medusa’s gift, she attentively looked over the envelope. The bow was clearly absent, and moreover it could not be here: there was simply no room.
Tanya already wanted to call back the cupid, who had clearly forgotten to deliver a parcel to her, when suddenly a low whistle was heard. Into the window swiftly flew something thin and sufficiently long, resembling an arrow. It flew and froze directly under the chandelier reminding one of a wasps’ nest.
Tanya apprehensively stretched out her hand, but the bow already jumped by itself into her hand. Tanya was stupefied. Her previous bow did not fly by itself and in flight it was more of a burden. The new one, it seemed, imagined excellently that it should do so. Made of magnificently polished dark wood, it was elastic and light. It seemed that it was impatient to race through clouds, steering an unrestrained speeding instrument.
“Obstinate with character, but at the same time sensitive and obedient. A bow not for an amateur but for a true pro. And the most valuable — it cannot be lost. It finds the hand by itself!” Tanya immediately determined, filled with appreciation for Medusa.
If Medusa had not extracted a promise from her that she would not fly in the world of the moronoids, Tanya would instantly test the bow. But now regardless of what she wanted, it was necessary to keep her oath. You will not cheat Medusa: not without reason the evil spirits whisper that she sees to three metres underground. And then there are also these notify spells, with which it is better to not get mixed up...
Tanya opened the case and with great care placed the bow next to the double bass. Then she ran her hand along the warm dragon skin and closed the ancient copper clasp with the mysterious runes. Must wait.
The days before holidays always seem long and the lessons infinite. The second hand seemingly sticks to the dial, and it is better not to look at the minute hand, because soon the feeling emerges that it is moving backwards. The deep fallen snow has turned into slush, then snow falls again, and again becomes slush. In short, melancholy. Melancholy outside and inside.
Tanya let the spectres out of the trunk several times. However, the ghosts were also somewhat sad. The Lieutenant dispiritedly made noises with his knives, and Unhealed Lady complained about her health almost half as usual, which was already suspicious in itself.
“Hey, what’s with you? Offended perhaps? I’ll let you loose!” Once Tanya asked them.
“She calls this loose — to poke the nose into your aunt’s powder-case or to tie Uncle Herman’s necktie into a knot! Ha, ha, and again ha! What, don’t you know that it’s New Year soon?” The Lieutenant growled unwillingly.
“Now it’s excellent! Be glad! A holiday!” Tanya said.
As if hearing obvious nonsense, the spectre indignantly flickered before her eyes.
“What’s to be glad about? That the King of Ghosts always comes on New Year and kills one of us... Wonderful occasion for happiness! I’m simply touched, what ignorant people one has to deal with!”
“The King of Ghosts?” Tanya perplexedly asked him to repeat. “But indeed ghosts are immortal, how is it possible to kill them?”
“Not on your life!” The Lieutenant cleared his throat. “Immortal! And why then forget the knives in my back? You’re joking unsuccessfully and — wow! — twelve spoons and one dagger... Really, it could not be explained in an amicable way? Well, so it’s not possible to put feet on the table and to rush to the ball with cutlets? True, then I was still alive, but what’s the difference?”
Tanya was interested. She heard for the first time the tragic circumstances, with which Rzhevskii became a ghost.
The Unhealed Lady also wanted to have a say, and she interrupted the Lieutenant.
“He’s right...” picking at her ear with a thermometer, she barged in. “Immortal is only the one who was never born. Yes, in contrast to the so-called living, we cannot be pierced with a sword or killed with a brick! We’re not afraid of head colds and we pass through the majority of obstacles. But the King of Ghosts has been given unlimited authority over us. Once a year one of us spectres compulsorily disappears and a new one appears. Of course no one wants to vanish. Even I, in spite of all my ailments... a-choo! still want to live...”
The Lady looked around at everything with a distressed gaze.
“And besides, although alone, if you could call it that, even a pig could feel!” She declared. “At least someone asked me in the morning: ‘How are you feeling, my dear? Is your back aching? Blood hammering in your temples?’ But no — everyone only runs away even before I have time to appear! They screwed up their faces as if I’m a leper!”
Observing that his companion again started whining, the Lieutenant with a loud chomping made his way into the floor. A whole minute passed before his head, carefully looking around, appeared in the flower pot.
“Well then... the King of Ghosts. In Tibidox before New Year we always hid, but nevertheless someone disappeared. Last year Crackpot Grandpa vanished... He was such a strange spectre, clearly not in his right mind. All the time running and searching for something. Didn’t want to hear about my migraines and the polyps in my nose!” Unhealed Lady continued with such a reproach as if this was also the reason why he disappeared.
“And what was he searching for?” Tanya asked with sudden interest.
“Crackpot Grandpa?” The Lieutenant responded. “Either treasure or something... He was generally terribly tight-lipped. Only walked through walls and forever disappeared somewhere. No one ever heard his voice in 300 years. True, they said that he alone knew the way to the Vanishing Floor, a way along which it’s possible to return.”
Tanya moved forward. It was the second time she heard about the Vanishing Floor. So it means there is a safe passage!
“What’s with you, Rzhevskii?” The Lady suddenly exclaimed fearfully. “Why are you telling her this? It’s a secret.... A secret of all the ghosts! If the King finds out, he’ll send you a marker, and then...”
“Don’t barge in, pain in the neck! I told her nothing! How can I describe to her the way when I myself don’t know where it is?” The Lieutenant growled.
Rzhevskii pretended to be brave, but it was noticed that he was pretty disheartened.
Soon the Lieutenant became a wave of smoke and dived into the trunk. Unhealed Lady, continuing the non-stop whining, rushed after him. After understanding that they would tell her nothing more, Tanya slammed the cover shut after them.
In the week before winter vacation two teachers — for Russian and for geography — in one stroke came down with the flu. The principal put in as replacement so much mathematics that numbers and fractions, Xs and Ys were literally dancing before everyone’s eyes.
The mathematician in the school where Tanya and Pipa studied was simply a nightmarish type. His name was Igor Valentinovich. A huge person with a dove-coloured nose and hair straight up like a hedgehog, he resembled Lifeless Griffin. Perhaps he did not smell like rotten stuff but merely earwax. Tanya was almost certain that Professor Stinktopp, the head of the “dark” department of Tibidox, would like him.
Most of all Igor Valentinovich hated jokes and approximate answers. For the slightest deviation from rules he would give “twos.” And he set many rules. Margins in notebooks must be exactly four squares. The compass must be to the right of the ruler. In the pencil case must be two ordinary pencils; moreover each sharpened at both ends. The textbook must be propped up on the bookstand. The mark book must lie immediately behind the textbook, opened onto the page where observations were usually written. A hand raised was strictly perpendicular to the desk — and so on without end. And finally the last, the most impossible rule consisted of knowing all these rules by heart...
But then at the same time there was simply deathly silence in Igor Valentinovich’s class. Any student coughing by accident instantly pulled his head in his shoulders.
On that day the mathematician for some reason was especially out of humour. Having sullenly greeted them, he wrote on the board a problem and ordered everyone to solve it.
The problem read as follows:
At a contest 34 firemen put out 75 bonfires in 3 minutes. How much time will 3 firemen need in order to put out 109 bonfires?
Tanya despondently stared at the board. Well, and the moronoids know how to invent problems for themselves! Any, even the dullest, student of the school of Tibidox, even that Gunya Glomov, would make short work of these bonfires in a second! In order to extinguish a fire, one must say: Trigus sputterus and release a magic spark, and all fires would go out, no matter how many are nearby. Five or a hundred and five if you want. And all firemen, if they are not magicians, have no choice but only to sigh, to water the flowers with the hoses, and to exchange helmets for something to do.
Reflecting on this, Tanya mechanically began to sketch firemen and bonfires in her notebook and she was so absorbed that she shuddered when above her head she suddenly heard a furious howl:
“GROTTER!”
Lifting her head, Tanya with horror discovered that Igor Valentinovich was leaning over her notebook and enraged like hundreds of swamp bogeys.
In Tibidox no one was forbidden to sketch during lessons. Well, you say, really is this bad, if you have in a notebook thirty-four firemen running with their ladders and axes, from time to time vaulting over from page to page? And they will certainly rush, because all figures drawn by a magician immediately come alive. Sometimes even before there is time to draw ears, hair, and feet on them. And it is most inconvenient. Try drawing a helmet on a fireman, who rushes along the page like one possessed.
“Grotter, what are you doing? I’m asking you!” Igor Valentinovich repeated with fury.
“Nothing,” Tanya answered fearfully, quickly covering with her hand the scattering firemen, who were threatening the mathematician with their hoses and crow-bars.
“I also see for myself that it’s nothing! But you must solve the problem!” Igor Valentinovich grew red. “Hand over the mark book!”
Tanya tarried, afraid to remove her hand, under which the little fellows bustled, quickly dragging away their ladders.
The mathematician grabbed the bookstand, but there was no mark book in place. As ill luck would have it, Tanya had forgotten it at home, because all night she was writing letters to Vanka and Bab-Yagun.
The ruler, which Igor Valentinovich was holding in his hands, broke with a crack.
“And no mark book? Parents to the school!” He ordered. “Immediately! March at a trot! One foot here — the other there!”
“My papa will not come. And mama also will not come. They don’t intend to turn red for this fool. We’re already keeping her out of charity! She’s not pla... m-m-mne-mne... Phew!” Pipa wanted still to blurt out something, but suddenly she was choked by her own eraser, which somehow turned up in her mouth for some unknown reason.
“There are no parents, there is no mark book, doing nothing for the lessons... Excellent, simply excellent,” the mathematician said darkly. “Then I’m forced to take drastic measures. I’ll not endure this person in my class. Someone call the principal here... no, better the director!”
“Let me!” Lenka Mumrikova gladly volunteered.
Having loudly whispered to Pipa: “Well, that’s it, the end of Grotter!” she swiftly got out of her seat and ran out of the classroom.
Meanwhile, Igor Valentinovich noticed the ring on Tanya’s hand.
“And what’s this even? How often have I asked you not to wear jewellery to school! Here hand it over, I’ll deliver it to your guardians! You’re still too young to wear such things!”
Tanya made a tight fist. It was not only that her magic ring would end up with the mathematician, but also later with Uncle Herman. Without the ring she would not be able to do anything, not even to summon a cupid to send news to Tibidox.
“I’m not handing it over!” She said quietly but distinctly. Tears welled up in her eyes. Even when she was suspected of the theft of the gold sword, she did not feel so bad.
“NOT HANDING IT OVER? Then I’ll take it!” Igor Valentinovich finally went crazy, roared, and started to forcefully tear the ring off her finger.
Magic rings do not like such treatment. If someone is capable of removing them, then it would only be a strong magician knowing the special spells, and indeed not a moronoid. Moreover Tanya’s ring was special, with the dreadful nature and squeaky voice of Grandpa Theophilus Grotter. True, it could only talk for five minutes a day, but then the quarrelsome nature constantly remained in it.
“Must not!” Tanya shouted, but it was already too late.
Hissing “Here’s to you!” the irritated ring released two green sparks. The sparks slid along the mathematician’s nose, then spilt up, one dived into his right ear, and the other — into the left.
At the same moment Igor Valentinovich’s hair stood up on end. His pupils enlarged, started to rush about in orbit in confusion, and crossed at the bridge of the nose. Tanya was frightened. Exactly the same thing happened to Uncle Herman’s pupils before he changed to Lisper the Rabbit. Really a rabbit again? But no, this time it was clearly something new.
Instantly forgetting about Tanya, Igor Valentinovich released her hand and ran up to the board.
“We’re continuing the lesson! Sit quietly everyone!” He began with a stern voice. “I’ll show you how to solve such problems... I crack them like nuts... It’ll require three firemen... eh-eh... By the way, why are the names of the firemen not written in the textbook? It’s a disgrace! Let’s assume one... m-m... Vasya, the other Peter, and the third... third... m-m...”
The class came to life.
“Seryozha!” Genka Bulonov proposed.
“Right, Seryozha... Where do you know that from? And likely such a fool judging by appearance!” The mathematician was pleased. “Vasya and Peter put out the fires, but Seryozha...”
“Frolics with a cigarette lighter...” Pipa prompted, with difficulty spitting out the eraser.
“With A CIGARETTE LIGHTER?”
Igor Valentinovich shuddered. If earlier his imagination did not go beyond decimal fractions, then now it seethed and gushed.
“Exactly, with a cigarette lighter!” He quickly continued. “Other firemen put them out, and he, the vermin, squeaks like a little wheel — and again a fire! They put out, and again he — squeaks! A nightmare! The problem is deadlocked! Stupid endlessness!”
In extreme uneasiness Igor Valentinovich started to run around the classroom. He even lost one boot but did not notice it.
“Oh-oh! What a disaster! Give me this Seryozha! I’ll show him what to set on fire! And if a paper plant is close by there? And if it has dynamite in storage?” He yelled.
There was a short knock on the door. The director looked into the classroom. He was small and round, awfully similar to the letter “O” trimmed with a crew-cut. Behind his back Lenka Mumrikova was bouncing gloatingly.
“Well? I was in a conference. What’s this again about Grotter?” The director asked unhappily.
Hearing a new voice, Igor Valentinovich stood still. His crossed eyes began to blink suspiciously.
“We’ll look into Grotter later... Who are you? Why are you late? Mark book on the table!” He bellowed to the director.
“Who, me? Me?” The director did not understand.
“Yes, you! What are you, new? What is your name?” The mathematician continued to rumble.
“What’s this, a joke? I’m Sergey Andreich...” the director said mechanically.
The mathematician twitched as if he was stung. His eyes darted in different directions and again came together at the bridge of the nose.
“Aha! Seryozha! You’re incredible!” He said in a sweet voice. “We frolic with the cigarette lighter? We interrupt solving the problem? We want to set the school on fire?”
The director stepped back.
“I don’t understand you,” he said perplexedly.
Better if he was silent. The mathematician immediately leaned over him threateningly and gripped him by the collar.
“You don’t understand?” Igor Valentinovich began to bawl. “Of course you understand! Well, hand over the cigarette lighter here! You started a hundred and nine bonfires, drunk! They wrote about it in the textbook! And what if the cask has gasoline?”
The director escaped, stepped on the foot of Lenka Mumrikova, and jumped out of the classroom, muttering something about the psychiatric hospital.
“Stop! And they still take in such firemen! Parents to the school urgently! And grandma and grandpa also to the school! And let everyone come with a belt!” The mathematician shouted, pursuing him.
Tanya ran out after them. And it is not because of this! In Tibidox they were very strictly forbidden to use magic in the world of the moronoids, but she has been doing that almost every day. She will get it good from Sardanapal and Slander Slanderych!
“Lift the spell immediately!” She whispered to her ring.
“In no way possible!” The ring creaked in the voice of grandpa Theophilus. “It’s a three-day spell. And, besides, I already don’t remember what spell I cast. I have — hee-hee! — total sclerosis.”
“A pretty kettle of fish! But is there anything you can do?” Tanya was angry, watching how the gym teacher Prikhodkin, running up, tied up the kicking and spitting Igor Valentinovich.
“What can I do? I can sing!” On reflection, the ring said and struck up tediously: “Two merry geese were living at grandma’s!”
Knowing that now the ring would not stop until five minutes were up, Tanya quickly thrust her hand into her pocket and ran off to the end of the corridor. But for a long time the squeaky voice was still heard from her pocket:

One grey, another white –
Two merry geese!

* * *

Late in the evening, having already lain down to sleep, Tanya heard sobbing from the trunk with the ghosts. Unhealed Lady was sobbing. Moreover she was sobbing somehow in a special way — bitterly and mutedly. How unlike the demonstrative whining, by which she usually accompanied her complaints on health!
Tanya opened the trunk slightly. A spectre floated out and, sorrowful, bent, sat down on the edge of the sofa, not touching it. The roses on the straw hat drooped sadly.
“What? What’s with you?” Tanya asked.
The Lady unclenched her hand. On it laid a flickering silver plate — narrow and long, something similar to a key.
“It’s the marker. I received it from the King of Ghosts. And it means that he will come after me... I’ll vanish...” She announced sorrowfully.

Chapter 6
A Passenger for the Double Bass

In the morning of January eleventh, on the first day of the third term when Tanya was hurrying to assemble her bag, a cupid numb from the frost flew into the open window.
A letter fell onto Tanya’s knees. She carefully unsealed the envelope. Inside was a dense rough sheet covered in letters sharp as mountain peaks. The letters first flared up, then died out, and then began to move restlessly from place to place. It was not possible to decipher anything.
Tanya thought that these energetic zigzags resembled very little Sardanapal’s handwriting, round with many coquettish curls.
“Can’t understand anything. Who’s this from?” She was at a loss.
At that moment the letters stopped jumping, and in the middle of the sheet was distinctly visible:
“Attention! The letter is encoded in magic cipher. If you are Tanya Grotter, apply your ring to it! If not, better not touch it! There will be trouble!”
“Tanya Grotter — it seems to be for me. So, possible to risk it,” the girl thought with certain doubt and carefully applied to the letter the ring of grandpa Theophilus.
The letters again began to move, shuffled, and were formed into the sentences:

How do you do, Tanya!
Professor Sardanapal is very busy; therefore I am writing to you.
Repair is not yet completely finished. Only three of the five towers are built, but we decided that the prisoners can return already to Tibidox. In recent days in the world of the moronoids magic has been used too frequently, and this is scandalous. Penalties await the guilty ones; therefore they can draw the appropriate conclusions even now...
You are requested to bring Coffinia with you. She has some trouble with her vacuum and cannot get here by herself.
Coffinia’s Address: Zvenigorod City, Lilac Street, Building #5. This is a personal request of Professor Stinktopp. It is better for her to fly out with you instead of postponing. I have removed the spell from your new bow.
All students must be in Tibidox no later than this evening. Classes start tomorrow, and we will not allow any indulgence.
Please observe caution in flight.
Docent of the department of evil spirits studies, instructor of the school Tibidox,
MEDUSA GORGONOVA.

When Tanya finished reading the letter, Medusa’s signature suddenly stretched out and acquired the outlines of her stern Greek profile.
Tanya quickly got up. She simply could not sit anymore. It seemed to her that in her chest, the enormous town-meeting bell, swinging its massive tongue, was hammering invitingly. To Tibidox! To Tibidox! At long last! Even having to convey the offensive Coffinia with her could not spoil her mood.
She jumped out into the corridor. Pipa, already finished getting ready, was squeezing pimples in front of the mirror. Uncle Herman, gurgling musically, was gargling in the bathroom. Aunt Ninel, preparing to accompany them to school, noisily finished drinking tea in the kitchen. Grabbing her jacket and boots, Tanya threw herself back into the room. Here in a minute she got dressed and moved the double bass case and the trunk with the spectres out from under the sofa.
Was she forgetting anything? Ah yes!
She hurriedly rushed into the bedroom and pulled off Black Curtains from the window. There was no longer time to roll them up, so the girl simply threw them over the double bass.
Having jumped up onto the window-sill, Tanya pulled the latch, which clicked like the lock of a rifle, and tugged at the heavy window. Into the room burst the fresh frosty wind, overturning flower pots and swinging Aunt Ninel’s Hawaiian mat hanging on the wall.
Tanya was already sitting on the double bass when the door was thrown open. Pipa pushed her head through from the corridor and began to squeal.
“Papa, mama, she’s at the window! She’s flying away on the black curtains!” Pipa gave a heart-rending yell, without noticing the double bass under the curtains.
Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel ran into the room.
“Well stop, nasty girl! Herman, she wants to throw herself out the window so that you’ll have trouble at work!” Aunt Ninel yelled.
Overturning chairs, the best deputy threw himself at Tanya. Tanya waved her hand. The bow obediently jumped into it.
“Speedus envenomus!”
The ring released a green spark, and already the double bass rushed forward in the next moment. Uncle Herman had time to grasp the puffed up Black Curtains with his hand and began to pull Tanya towards himself.
“Quick, Ninel, help me!” He shouted.
Aunt Ninel rushed to help, but here the free end of Curtains lifted a little and smacked the best deputy on the nose.
Uncle Herman fearfully expressed surprise and jumped back, holding his nose. The double bass escaped out to the street. The Durnevs froze thunderstruck at the window, accompanying the tiny point with their gazes.
“There she is — base ingratitude! I so knew that there’s nothing good worth waiting for from this girl!”Aunt Ninel said with feeling.
“I said that glue poured itself on my head because of her, but you didn’t believe me!” Pipa squeaked.
Uncle Herman also wanted to say something profound, but all majestic thoughts suitable for the situation were somehow lost to him. Durnev sighed, slammed the window shut and stated rather dully:
“Well okay... Better for us! Ninelichka, please find my beautiful dark-blue tie. I want to be well dressed. Today I’m speaking before the ballerinas in the Bolshoi Theatre.”

* * *

Bending down on the double bass, Tanya rushed over the city. Black Curtains, thanks to which she was almost caught by Uncle Herman, now turned out to be even useful: they held the trunk with the ghosts and the double bass case. Sometimes Tanya took out of her pocket Medusa’s letter, which had become a detailed map. On this map Moscow was the size of a large apple, and the double bass was identified as a tiny pointer.
This pointer confidently moved along the map to its lower left corner, where purple crossbones twinkled. It was not difficult to surmise that Medusa marked Coffinia by this sign. Likely, the stern instructor of evil spirits studies also had a sense of humour.
Building number five on Lilac Street was low, squat, but very long. A set of TV antennas stuck out of its roof. Now between the antennas Coffinia, in an orange jacket, was strolling and gobbling chocolate “magnetized” from the nearest store. Many wrappers were already rustling by her feet.
Coffinia’s vacuum with vertical takeoff and a knapsack with things were lying there, on the roof.
“Hello, unlucky orphan!” She shouted. “Why so long? Walking on the clouds? I’m frozen stiff.”
“And you could jump on the spot. It’s very useful,” advised Tanya, thinking to herself that Coffinia was simply a thankless pig.
“I already jumped, now I’m gobbling chocolate here...” Coffinia imparted. “Well so, you’re taking me?”
Tanya sighed.
“Jump on, what should I do with you? Don’t let moronoids see you,” she said.
Cryptova attempted to get onto the double bass from behind, but it turned out that she took with her so many things that in no way could she settle together with the knapsack. Moreover, Black Curtains, not liking Coffinia much, were always caustically grunting and aiming at throwing her off. Even the spell Briskus-quickus did not work on them because it was too cold and the spark, which the ring released, did not get sufficiently hot.
“Bad business,” Coffinia finally acknowledged. “It’s necessary for you to drag me in tow. I’ll sit on my vacuum, and tie the end of the pipe to your double bass.”
“But can we do it?” Tanya doubted.
“Easily,” Coffinia assured her. “My vacuum is not broken. Only the guiding talisman in it is always untied. It can take off, but here in air it begins to wander.”
If soon after this a pedestrian were to accidentally raise his head and look at the sky, he would be deprived of the gift of speech for a long time. Above Zvenigorod leisurely flew a double bass, which was controlled by a small dark-haired girl of about ten, holding near her elbow a very large trunk. Behind the double bass on a long hose was dragged a vacuum, on which a tall girl with tousled violet hair sat in glory in an orange jacket.
Approximately once every five minutes the damaged vacuum started to be obstinate and would jerk exactly like a bucking bronco. Then the girl with the violet hair clung to it with both hands and began to howl: “Stop, Grotter! Stop! My talisman is untied again!” or “Where are you flying to? Fly there!”
“My map shows the other direction!” Tanya objected.
“Spit on the map! And I tell you that it’s this way!” Coffinia declared.
No need to explain that the flight to Tibidox delivered no pleasure to Tanya. Instead of the usual several hours they dragged out to almost noon. Moreover, all this time Coffinia grumbled and swore non-stop. This began when in flight she attempted to redo her nails from poisonous-green to violet and the wind knocked the brush off her.
When they were carried in a buzzing air stream above the continent, all reference points below disappeared at once. Tanya was already looking at the map non-stop. A thin dotted line and a red pointer confidently guided them over the ocean. The spell of passage could work only at one point of the terrestrial globe, where, invisible to simple mortals, in the ocean there was the famous Buyan Island of magicians. Finally began the moment when the ring on the girl’s finger grew warm and suddenly on the map flared up a large island resembling the head of a giraffe.
“Get ready! It’s time!” Tanya shouted, turning around.
The most critical moment had arrived — the moment of utterance of the spell of passage. It was necessary to decisively, not fearing a split, direct the flying instrument downward, and, releasing a spark, shout “Grail Gardarika.” A moment’s doubt or delay, and death would await them. The body would turn up in one world, and the consciousness — in the other. Not without reason the spell of passage was considered almost the same as the most dangerous spell of the highest magic.
“Hey-hey, Grotter! Wait!” Coffinia began to bustle. “I’ve not yet made up my mind. Let me at least finish counting to three!”
“Well, count!” Tanya agreed. Coffinia took a deep breath:
“One... two... eh-eh... four... five...”
“But where’s three?”
“Really I skipped it?” Coffinia was astonished. “Then let’s start again... Two on a rope... two on a line... two on a flute... Quick, while I haven’t changed my mind! Don’t pull! Oh, mama!!! THREE!”
Tanya pressed her chest against the double bass and directed the bow downward. The wind struck them in the face, the torn shroud of clouds moved aside and immediately crumpled like wet cotton, rolled up into hundreds of balls. The seething ocean became more distinct, more discernible. Already it was possible to make out the separate waves, and the wind was already hurling moist drops into their faces. It was not possible to believe that there was an island below. It seemed, a little more and they would run into the seething water at an enormous speed.
“Grail Gardarika!” Tanya shouted, not making out her own voice in the roar of the ocean.
The ring of grandpa Theophilus shot a green spark. The world began to twirl... started to shimmer... broke up into two... The ocean and the sky merged into a single whole and again separated... It seemed to Tanya that something powerful caught and forced her through the infinitesimally narrow funnel of the sandy hourglass.
Suddenly their swift drop slowed down. A large island emerged from the foam of the ocean. Grey angry waves, seething and gradually softening, rolled on the long sand spit like a narrow wedge jutting into the ocean. Immediately beyond the sand spit began the cracked cliffs, here and there overgrown with red pine trees with uneven roots similar to the tentacles of an octopus.
The double bass was no longer falling but descending in wide circles. Tanya shifted her gaze higher and her heart ached joyfully. She saw a colossal tortoise with a growth on its shell. So enormous and so dear. It was not possible for her to confuse it with someone or something, because exactly such a tortoise was seen from the heights of Tibidox! Where there were folds in the shell of the tortoise, in Tibidox stretched the long and short galleries that connected its many parts.
A gigantic tower was raised at the top of the cliff. This was the famous Big Tower — the main one of the five towers of Tibidox. More accurately, earlier there were five towers. Now there remained only three — the Big Tower and two corner ones. The other two were only beginning to be constructed anew. Evil spirits were swarming on the wooden scaffolds enclosing the bottom of the construction. As one got used to it, it was possible even to distinguish the reddish fur on the backs of the wood-goblins and the small orange helmets on the heads of the house-spirits. For sure they were made to wear these helmets by Slander Slanderych, adoring order in everything.
The double bass made another half circle and Tibidox became visible from the side of the main gates — the only passage through its unassailable walls protected by many spells.
As before, the inscription shone above the main gates of the fortress. The letters of the inscription shimmered, woven precisely from live fire.
TIBIDOX — SCHOOL OF MAGIC FOR DIFFICULT-TO-RAISE YOUNG MAGICIANS. WHITE AND BLACK DEPARTMENTS.
Only now to this inscription was added one more, smaller but distinct:
ENTRANCE TO THE MAIN STAIRCASE IS PROHIBITED!
By the gates walked a gloomy cyclops dressed in sheep skins and holding a poleaxe. Under his single eye was a large shiner. The brother-heroes Usynya, Dubynya, and Gorynya must have been too lazy again to learn the password.
Tanya wanted to get inside faster to see Vanka Valyalkin and Bab-Yagun. She wanted to see how Tibidox had changed in those wearisome weeks when she was living with Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel. She directed the bow downward and began to descend rapidly.
“Hey, hey, be more careful! Not moving firewood, you know! I’m not yet tired of my bones. They are as dear as memory to me!” A familiar howl was heard.
Turning around, Tanya saw Coffinia. The girl from the black magicians was hanging from the hose, dangling her legs in the air. Her pinging vacuum had disappeared somewhere. Coffinia reported that the talisman became untied at the most inappropriate moment and with the utterance of Grail Gardarika the vacuum was simply cut off.
Toying with the poleaxe, the cyclops barred the girls’ path.
“Password!” He bellowed. “Sailboat!” Tanya said.
“That’s the old password,” the cyclops became obstinate. “Need the new one!”
“Easy! Hit the eye!” Coffinia barged in mockingly.
Lieutenant Rzhevskii began to neigh happily in the trunk and the cyclops turned red with malice. His single eye, surrounded by the violet radiance of the shiner, swiftly began to revolve in orbit and was covered with dozens of bluish veins.
“What? What did you say? Here, you want a bump on your head with this?” The Cyclops roared loudly, lifting the poleaxe over his head.
Coffinia began to squeal.
“Cannot hit girls,” Tanya said quickly.
The cyclops thought for a bit.
“Even with a poleaxe?” He wanted to be precise.
“Especially with a poleaxe. You’ll get it from Medusa.”
The cyclops still thought for a minute and sadly lowered the poleaxe.
“But without the password I’ll not let you pass nevertheless!” He said gloatingly.
“Then call Sardanapal. Or some of the instructors,” proposed Tanya.
“Ne-a,” the cyclops shook his head. “I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
“Because you say the incorrect passwords. Humiliating,” the cyclops stated and insultingly turned his back.
Unexpectedly Tanya started to laugh and nudged Coffinia with an elbow.
“What’s with you?” Coffinia frowned.
“Look over there!” Tanya whispered. Cryptova looked and also began to laugh aloud. On the back of the cyclops was traced with chalk a large: Mermaid tail. It seemed to Tanya that she recognized the handwriting of Vanka Valyalkin.
“Hey, I remember! The password is ‘mermaid tail!’” She said loudly.
The cyclops was so astonished that he even sat down on the ground.
“You too... Everyone for some reason doesn’t know, and then guesses,” he complained, crushed. “Yes, exactly, ‘mermaid tail.’ You know who thought of it?”
“Slander Slanderych?” Tanya guessed easily.
“Uh-huh, the same. Now all the passwords are mermaid. The day before yesterday was ‘silver scale,’ three days ago was ‘sweetootsiepapoosie’... My tongue was simply tied in a knot from this ‘sweetootsiepapoosie!’ Okay, the heck with you, stomp.”
The cyclops got up clumsily and opened the heavy gates. Only now, having stepped on the first of the many rock steps leading to the Big Tower, Tanya was finally convinced that she was in Tibidox, in her Tibidox...
She climbed a dozens steps, saw the rope hanging on top, the heavy wheel of the suspension bridge, the familiar chip on the oak doors of the small pantry, and her eyes started to hurt. The sensation appeared in Tanya that she was finally home, in the only home which could be for her.
“My granny mama!” Someone very familiar began to yell enthusiastically.
Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin were already running to her.

Chapter 8
The Most Furious Dragon

Before evening training Tanya searched for Vanka Valyalkin. She found him in the office of Tararakh, the best (and some spiteful critics added: “and only”) veterinary magic instructor in the world.
Tararakh and Vanka Valyalkin were busy with a task far from the most pleasant: taking out a splinter from the foot of a satyr. The satyr, one of the Tibidox builders and who had the legs of a goat, first bleated sorrowfully, then began to scream out something in Ancient Greek. Likely he was cursing. When he was particularly pained, he tried to kick Vanka Valyalkin with the healthy hoof. However, Tararakh held him firmly, and the satyr in no way pulled away from his very strong arms.
Finally, the splinter was extracted and the foot was treated. The satyr, limping, took off, and instead of appreciation violently butted the door with his horns. Vanka Valyalkin and Tararakh took a breath with relief.
“Well, and that was an unpleasant one! Nervous. Almost smashed everything here. You only just started on the splinter, and he immediately began to kick,” said Vanka.
“Really, veterinary magic gets busy with a satyr?” Tanya asked.
Tararakh scratched his hairy chest.
“And the deuce knows busy or not. Here’s a knotty problem. He, of course, is reasonable, but all the same, if we consider it, a goat,” he said.
“Exactly! Here’s what was the matter: at first the satyr went to Yagge at magic station, and she told him: if the splinter were in your hand, I would take it out. But you have the legs of a goat, so you take yourself off, my dear, to Tararakh... In reality, she probably considered that it’s not for her to hold back such a leggy guy. But then Tararakh can hold anyone he likes, even a horse,” Vanka added.
Tararakh cleared his throat with pleasure. He, true, was so broad-shouldered that it seemed he was wider than tall. He had a rather heavy lower jaw as all pithecanthropus, a low forehead, and long hair so tousled as if it had not been combed for a hundred years already. His favourite story was the one about how he became immortal. He repeated it so often that all of Tibidox knew it by heart already.
“Well, likely we closed in on a white dragon...” Tararakh related willingly, “of course, we did not know it was a dragon. Simply, a cave, people were ignorant... Cooked over a bonfire and started to gobble it up... Except that one cannot eat dragons, especially a white one. Well, I watched as all our hunters began to swell up and burst exactly like balloons... Incredibly terrible. I thought I’d now blow up... Yet not only did I not blow up, but even became immortal, because it was my lot to get the special piece, near the tail. A hundred years passed, then a thousand, but I don’t die and don’t even grow old. Like this. And later I generally lost count: all the time I live and live, couldn’t give a damn. And it was so, until Sardanapal found me.
“Who wants tea? With bagels!” Vanka proposed in a hurry.
He knew that Tanya heard this story already two hundred times, and decided to carefully move the conversation along another channel.
“Everyone wants tea!” Tararakh came alive. “There’s hot water, there’s only the matter of what to brew it in? This horned half-goat broke my teapot... Please bring that jar over there!”
The children brought the jar. The jar was the most ordinary, glass. Only here on the side was drawn a skull and bones, under which was labelled: Potassium Cyanide.
“What was in it, poison?” Tanya asked fearfully.
“Yes, like this... Stinktopp somehow gave it to me,” Tararakh confirmed. “And you don’t think that I’m such a fool. I rinsed it. Fill, Vanka!”
“Eh-eh... Thanks. I no longer want anything,” Tanya said quickly.
“And me neither. Better we just have some bagels. Thanks, Tararakh,” Vanka thanked him.
He imagined very well how Tararakh washed jars. He would not even squeeze his hand into the jar. And to say nothing also that the pithecanthropus would not consider hot water in principle.
“Well, as you please!” Tararakh was upset, but very quickly sat up, returning to the familiar theme: “So here, when Sardanapal found me, he even said: ‘Why don’t you study veterinary magic? Of course, you’re not a magician, but you have all the time...’”
Tanya chatted with Tararakh and Vanka for a while until she remembered suddenly that she had to go to training. She got up and began to say goodbye.
“Listen, Tararakh,” she said finally. “Will you not take a look at Goyaryn? They say there’s been something wrong with it recently.”
Tararakh ran his huge hand along his hair, wiping off the crumbs sticking to the palm.
“I already looked at it. I’m there every day,” he said.
“And why is it sick?” Tanya asked.
“The whole point is that it’s not sick. And the temperature in its mouth is normal: a thousand degrees. And the flame is of normal colour. Appetite is also good,” Tararakh said, as if convincing himself. “But something bothers it, that’s clear. Otherwise it would not be awake. They, the dragons, should be in deep hibernation now. And you can’t wake them with cannon. And Mercury is sleeping, and Dazzling... All sleeping like logs.”
“But why isn’t Goyaryn sleeping?” Vanka Valyalkin asked.
Already for a whole minute he had been looking reproachfully at Tanya. He was offended that she had not told him about Goyaryn sooner.
“If I only knew why...” Tararakh drawled. “And only now so much is going on in Tibidox, which is not surprising... Like we’re simply living on a volcano, but everyone pretends that nothing is happening. Sardanapal already hasn’t slept for so many nights, and not only him even. Slander hasn’t slept, Medusa, Dentistikha, in addition... Dragons, they’re not stupid, they sense everything: when it’s fine and when it’s bad... They have a good nose about oho-ho something, especially the old ones like Goyaryn.”
“Tararakh!” She hailed in an undertone. “You tell me, is it indeed connected with the basement? With the cracks?”
Tararakh blinked in amazement.
“You even know about the basement? Well, bright girl! No, I’ll not lie, not with the basement. Everything there likely has been sealed, all the cracks... For a whole week Slander crawled on all fours with a trowel, and all the time Dentistikha communicated something to him on sand. Now Chaos will not break loose if, of course, no one will open the Sinister Gates.”
“So, the Staircase? Or what’s on the Staircase? You indeed don’t think that someone can hide there? Anyone, someone who’s no more?” Tanya asked, carefully but very clearly hinting at She-Who-Is-No-More, Plague-del-Cake.
However, Tararakh already recollected suddenly that he had said too much.
“You do this, Tanya, stop thinking all kinds of nonsense. She-Who-Is-No-More — and in truth she already doesn’t exist. Not without reason the academician says that the titans slammed her. And generally, it will be, so he tells you all the time. Or Slander Slanderych. But I’ll not start,” he decisively said.
“Again the Vanishing Floor... Or not only the Floor? What are they hiding there?” Tanya thought once again.

* * *

The weather was bad, a real winter. A sharp penetrating wind blew from the ocean. The magic barrier did not quite detain it. From the coast the whistle of the oil tanker Papa Carlo hoarsely reached them.
This passing of the tanker along the usual route was excellently visible from Buyan. Even the name on the side and the three-coloured Russian flag, but then from the tanker it was not possible to make out the island, even if they decided to look with strong binoculars. For the crew of the tanker there were only oceanic swells here. The powerful magic of The Ancient One worked this way and only becoming stronger with the years. For this very reason there was no island of magicians on even one of the maps. It did not have to fear either radars of the moronoids or their satellites in space — all the same they would not reveal it.
“And they cannot ram into us by accident?” Tanya asked, nodding to the tanker.
“Ne-a,” Bab-Yagun assured her, when they went to training together. “It’ll simply pass through the island and that’s all... You understand, we’re like phantoms...”
“But we’re not phantoms,” Tanya with some caution glanced at her hand, pink, warm, and completely material.
“Ne-a, not phantoms. We’re us, and the spectres are something else. But the spell of passage protects us. Here’s all magic, and there’s entirely moronoid... In short, these two worlds cannot meet. Once granny and I were sitting in her magic station, a sporting airplane flew through us this way. Literally right through... The pilot didn’t even notice anything. I almost crashed down the chair from surprise, but my granny didn’t even stop knitting. Only grumbled that in bygone times only magicians flew, but now even moronoids get down to strange business. But only how indeed are they a match for flying instruments? Now if only they would be with this!”
Here Bab-Yagun with pride looked at his vacuum and even stroked it along the pipe.
At evening training Nightingale made them split into two teams and play against each other. As goals were two very young dragons, sons of Goyaryn and which the genies specially woke for today’s training. The dragons were sufficiently small — each the size of a car. They still couldn’t swallow anyone, but then they flew so swiftly that it was hardly possible to follow them with one’s eyes. At the same time the dragons even contrived to pour flame on the players. Not too hot but enough for anyone heedless to become a browned cutlet. Good though that all players in advance applied vampire bile to skin and even to hair.
The match came out bustling and was conducted at such speeds that the head of an unaccustomed spectator would get dizzy. Almost all the throws flew wide off the mark — the young dragons were too fast. Only at the end of the second hour Seven-Stump-Holes triumphantly threw a sneeze ball into the mouth of the dragon. This match was the very first for the young dragon, it sneezed repeatedly, turned a somersault in the air, cut into the magic barrier, and in fright tried to flee into the hangar.
Bab-Yagun, the temporary captain of the opposing team, was about to become depressed, but then, having examined the dragon left on the field, at this moment enthusiastically striving for Rita On-The-Sly, suddenly began to roar happily.
“What are you howling for? You lost! We roasted you like piglets!” Damien Goryanov shouted mockingly.
“Eh, my granny mama! It’s us who roasted you like piglets!” Bab-Yagun objected.
“Why is this?”
“Because you mixed up the dragons! You threw the ball into the mouth of your dragon! And ours is there!” Yagun said.
Seven-Stump-Holes and Goryanov did not believe this, dashed to ask the genies, and exactly, it turned out that in confusion they did mix up the dragons. This was not hard because both were the same size and colouring. Even the genies distinguished them with difficulty, by some scales on the bridge of the nose and some insignificant folds on the wings.
“This is dishonest! All the same we won!” An enraged Goryanov began to yell and chased after Bab-Yagun, attempting to throw him off his vacuum.
“Take this indeed, sicko, ha-ha! Don’t forget to fasten a parachute!” Yagun laughed loudly.
He deftly got away from the chase, moving the pipe from one hand to the other and changing height. Then he picked a suitable moment and tried to ram Goryanov from below. Yura Idiotsyudov interceded for Damien. He suddenly flew to the side and almost knocked Bab-Yagun off the vacuum. The friendly match changed gradually into a not quite friendly brawl.
A deafening whistle was suddenly heard. From the field the sand shot up with a vortex. Magic instruments began to be tossed precisely like chips in the air. Zhora Zhikin did not keep his place on his shaky mop with propellers and was hanging from it, having seized it with one hand. With difficulty holding onto the double bass, Tanya looked down and saw Nightingale O. Robber. He, with a cold-blooded look, took two fingers out of his mouth.
“End the bazaar!” He shouted. “Muslin misses! If you are to play like this, the babai will smear you like oil on a plate! Why bother with oil? You yourself can throw open the mouth of your own dragon and throw all the balls there!”
The children became depressed. Really, is everyone really so bad? Or is Nightingale saying this so that they do not weaken?
“Tomorrow morning, everyone to the field! We’ll master the elements of magic piloting. And now march to bed!” Nightingale ordered.
He turned and, limping, left the field. The tired team dragged along behind. Tanya was about to leave with everybody, but then she recalled that today she did not once had the time to practise “instantaneous turn.” For the time being she was keeping her training a secret. Even Bab-Yagun did not suspect anything. Tanya dreamt of mastering this skill in order that her turn would come out in the most decisive minute. For example, during the match with the babai.
“Hey, what are you doing? Wait for you?” Bab-Yagun shouted with surprise.
“No need. I’ll come soon!” Tanya impatiently waved her hand, vexed that she had not managed to remain behind without being noticed.
Waiting until the field became deserted, she ascertained that no one was spying on her, and gathered height. Finding herself under the same invisible dome, she swiftly turned around on the double bass, and then rushed down with her back forward. After repeating this manoeuvre three or four times, Tanya jumped from the double bass and, putting it in the case, set off for the locker room.
The double bass, as always when it was necessary to drag it, weighted down her shoulder, and Tanya stopped to look at Tibidox.
It was already almost twilight. In the spreading dark-blue one could see well, as semicircular window-loopholes were illuminated from within by reddish magic fires. It was particularly interesting to watch the windows of the recently restored Tower of Ghosts. White semi-transparent shadows continually broke away from the garret window and, having circumscribed another circle around the tower, leisurely floated into one of the gun ports. The ghosts were finishing their usual evening promenade. It even seemed to the girl that she saw Unhealed Lady and the Lieutenant among them. Although, possibly, it was also not them. From this distance it was difficult to say for sure.
Having rested, Tanya lifted the double bass, but here the hangar at the edge began to shake from a roar. From all the slots thick smoke belched out. An instant — and everything fell silent again. This time the dragon raged not for very long, but nevertheless something was clearly bothering it.
“Again Goyaryn! Must see what’s there!” Tanya decided. She waited for genies to appear but they didn’t, and then she placed the double bass case on the grass and ran up to the hangar.
It was clear to her that she did not have the strength to open the heavy gates; therefore she simply lay on the sand and deftly, indeed precisely, slipped through the space under the gates. If the girl were fatter, this trick would not have worked.
In the hangar it was dark and smoky. She heard how the dragon was breathing hoarsely in the dusk. A special smell struck the nostrils — sharp, stupefying. It smelt approximately like when a stone covered with algae is taken from the river and suddenly thrown into a bonfire or onto white-hot coals.
Tanya froze, timidly feeling the wall. Earlier it was never necessary for her to be in a dragon’s hangar. She could not even imagine approximately whether the dragon was now, far or near. How many steps to count? Five steps? Ten? Nothing could be understood because of its noisy breathing — there was such a feeling that it was sounded immediately from everywhere.
Tanya took a step, then another, carefully fumbling with her hands before her. Something tinkled resonantly and struck her sole. The girl almost yelled, but suddenly grasped that this was the bucket in which they carry mercury to Goyaryn. Dragons drink nothing except mercury. Water is not necessary to them and in large quantities is even harmful.
Interesting, did Goyaryn hear how she dropped the bucket? Does it know about her presence at all? And what if the dragon swallows her or strikes with its tail? Here, in the close hangar, where there was no double bass or sky, she was totally defenceless. Will someone think to search for her in a dragon stomach?
Tanya took yet several more steps and turned, trying to recall in what direction the hangar gates were. There? Or perhaps there? Now outside it was already so dark that the light under the gates in no way shone through. “At least the moon would look out, otherwise they simply crunch in the darkness...” anya thought sadly.
Suddenly directly before her two green flames flared up at once. Tanya was mechanically drawn to them, but immediately it seemed her heart was broken... It fell and broke into smithereens. She understood that these emeralds sparkling in the darkness were the eyes of Goyaryn. The enormous dragon was very near. Looking intently, Tanya was even able to distinguish its outlines.
She stood, afraid to move. Never before had Tanya dared to approach a dragon so closely. Perhaps during a match, but there it happened all of countable seconds, when necessary, she had made up her mind right away to throw the ball. Here Goyaryn was right beside her. Now it only needed to breathe out flame and that would be it, the end... Even vampire bile, wiped off when she squeezed into the narrow slot under the gates, would not help now.
The green emeralds blinked. Tanya from surprise screeched and recoiled. Immediately a scorching cloud wrapped around her. She covered her face, but immediately understood that it was nothing but smoke. Yes, hot, but nevertheless smoke and not flame. Goyaryn impatiently moved its neck. It was an explicit order for her to stay.
Tanya understood that one step back to the gates of the hangar, and she would simply be carried out from these gates in a jet of flame. Jokes were a bad thing with Goyaryn, the oldest and strongest dragon of Tibidox. Not without reason even the genies were afraid to glance at it more than once and, besides, never alone.
“You want me to sit here with you?” Tanya asked in a trembling voice.
Instead of an answer Goyaryn descended heavily onto the flagstones of the hangar. It was so enormous that as if an entire mountain grew before Tanya. The spicy smell of the dragon — white-hot from within and moist outside — pinched her nostrils.
The girl carefully squatted next to the edge of the deep drinking fountain. Her eyes gradually began to get accustomed to the darkness. She could already work out the outlines where the long neck of the dragon passed to the body and that this strange tapering bend here, along the wall, was its tail.
The dragon screwed up its eyes like a big cat. The sparkling emeralds of its eyes became narrow burning fissures.
“Something hurts in you? Why don’t you sleep, it’s indeed January now?” Tanya asked.
She was not sure that the dragon understood her, dragons are not particularly intelligent, but the intonations of her voice clearly calmed Goyaryn. Tanya only had to stop talking and its neck would begin to move impatiently and the narrow fissures would grow wider. Goyaryn clearly demanded that Tanya talk more.
“So, you’re not sleeping, yes? You’re thinking, you got hold of me to chat with you? Though, of course, it’s boring to sit always in this hangar. Probably you want to fly, yes? No, you don’t? Well, what should I tell you?” Tanya began to talk absent-mindedly.
She talked and talked, afraid to stop, and the dragon was listening all the time. Very soon Tanya already exhausted all the themes. She even retold the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It was all the same to the dragon. It listened attentively even when Tanya began to flounder.
After a certain time the girl grew so much bolder that she stretched out her hand and touched the scales on the nose of Goyaryn. The scales were warm. The same as on her double bass case. Tanya recalled how in childhood she loved to lie in the case as if hiding from the whole world, to stroke it and listen to the quiet squeak similar to a grumble.
The quiet stroking apparently calmed Goyaryn. The hoarse breathing became hardly distinguishable, and the eye-fissures — quite narrow. It fell asleep. Its head sank so low that it was inconvenient for Tanya to stroke its nose, and she guided her hand along the folded neck of the dragon. Unexpectedly Goyaryn began to roar hoarsely and jumped. Afraid to be crushed, Tanya jumped onto its neck and wrapped her arms around it.
“Calm down! Calm down! What’s with you? Everything’s fine!” She started to softly calm the dragon.
The furious bubbling in the incandescent depths of the monster had already begun to grow silent when unexpectedly Tanya fingers brushed against a short spike. It was driven into the folds of the scales on Goyaryn’s neck. She only had to touch the spike and Goyaryn again began to roar and lashed with its tail. The hangar began to drone. And Goyaryn was beating and beating all the time. As if it had lost its senses. If it could reach Tanya, it would definitely kill her. Understanding this, the girl hung on with all her strength.
Short tongues of flames escaped from its mouth, snatching out from the gloom either the trench of the feeding trough, an arch of the gate, or the large transparency stretched above the stand with the red fire axes and the crowbars: Flammable! No smoking in the hangar and no releasing magic sparks!
“So you fly into a rage because of this spike? Yes? You’ll bear it if I take it out?” Tanya shouted.
Knowing that there would not be an answer all the same, she firmly grabbed the head of the spike and pulled it with all her might. Goyaryn hissed from the pain and again breathed out flame. But the spike was already in Tanya’s hands. It was the size of a small dagger and very cold to touch. Its external edge ended with a rounded cap, something similar to the head of a nail. It was not possible to examine anything more in the darkness, and Tanya carefully thrust the spike into the ball holder still attached to her forearm.
Now, when the spike no longer caused it pain, Goyaryn quickly calmed down. Soon it stopped beating its tail and again sank to the flagstones. Tanya carefully slipped down from its neck.
“I’m going, okay?” She asked Goyaryn. “Already time for me to go or they’ll worry in Tibidox.”
Tanya carefully took a step, another... Goyaryn was calm. Moreover, it had clearly fallen asleep. Earlier it must have only been the treacherously driven-in spike preventing it from hibernation.
“I’ll still visit you, okay? But so long for now!” Tanya quickly got ready to whisk into the space already familiar to her, when suddenly the gates of the hangar, clanking, were thrown open.
The girl was blinded by the rays of a set of lamps, at once directed at her face. She hurriedly shielded her eyes with a hand and bounced back to Goyaryn. The dozing off dragon again opened its eyes and started to bubble discontentedly. It also did not like it when they blinded it.
“Ah, here’s where she is!” The triumphant howl of Slander Slanderych was heard. “And we’ve been searching the entire Tibidox for her! Both ‘dark’ and ‘white’ departments on foot! But she’s well and alive here! You will answer me for the disturbance of the regime!”
Shielding her eyes with her hand like a visor, Tanya made out four hangar genies reproachfully curled up in the air next to the stern dean. Two genies had hooks in their hands, and another one held a kind of clamp for unlocking a dragon mouth. However, in spite of all their weapons, the genies preferred to hide behind Slander’s back.
“Why are you standing next to this freak? You want it to devour you? But you’re well and alive here! You are setting off to the moronoids in two days! I’m turning you into a zombie!” Slander again began to roar, shaking his fists.
Tanya lingered. She completely did not want Slander to clutch her in his short fingers and drag her roughly like a bag to Tibidox for punishment.
“Ah-ha, you don’t want to go! So I’ll make you! And why did you rise up? Well, march! Get the girl!”Slander yelled to the genies.
The genies started to flicker timidly, but for some reason they did not hurry to enter the gates. Two with the hooks tried to let the one with the clamp pass forward, but he with all his might made it look like that the clamp jammed.
“I’ll run for oil now, for oil... Would need it to work!” He growled, making awkward attempts to evaporate.
“You what, afraid of this green lizard? This winged crocodile? I’ll drag it by its tail out into the open!” Slander became furious.
It would have been much more useful for the dean to have simply kept mum. Goyaryn did not like insults. Dragons have lived for too long among magicians to not learn at least to make out their intonation.
It began to slowly pull air into its nostrils, fanning the flame inside. The folded sides of the dragon swelled, all the time becoming bigger, wider... The skin was stretching. Behind Tanya’s back seemingly grew a gigantic hill, there was already hardly any room in the hangar. Possibly, someone else would not attach any value to this, but Tanya nevertheless had already been playing dragonball for half a year. She could imagine very well why dragons fanned.
“So will you remove this freak or not? Or is it for me to fling it out of here with a kick?” Slander again began to bawl.
Goyaryn stopped fanning. Both of its emerald eyes precisely pointed at Slander’s chest. The dragon was clearly estimating the distance. The experienced hangar genies dropped the hooks and clamp, fell on the ground, and covered their heads with their hands. Now only a squealing Slander Slanderych alone stood at the hangar gates.
Another instant and...
“Only not with flame! Better with smoke!” Tanya quickly shouted, at the very last moment jumping to the side.
Goyaryn breathed out. The gates broke away and flew to the middle of the field, but if it were only the gates... Tanya remembered for the rest of her life how the terrified dean of the school of magicians, somersaulting, sped away in the air to the darkened wall of distant Tibidox. Even if someone loaded him into a cannon, his flight would hardly be so impressive.
“Good it’s only smoke!” She thought, getting up on her feet and shaking off the sand. The hangar genies, left without their gone-crazy general, already fled along the field, dodging like hares. They clearly did not intend to return with or without reinforcement.
Goyaryn murmured with satisfaction and closed its eyes. Now already no one prevented it from sleeping...

* * *

The next morning the entire school knew about the “exploit” of Tanya. Both departments — “white” and “dark” — in a whisper passed on the news to each other and showed how Slander flew in the air.
“Now no one will forget this even in a hundred years! Just think: Slander like a ping-pong ball!” Bab-Yagun was enraptured. “And I, you can imagine, was looking out the window, and there suddenly something dark whined — and into the glass! Well, I was thinking, did they shoot from a catapult perhaps?”
“What do you expect, it’s Grotter herself! Indeed she even got the better of Plague-del-Cake! And she let out the titans!” Dusya Dollova sighed with envy.
“Grotter! Grotter! Tanya Grotter!” It was heard from everywhere.
Even the senior pupils, who usually despised small fries, looked at Tanya with adoration. Gunya Glomov, taking into his head to call Tanya “stupid orphan,” an hour and a half later was taken down from the spire of the Big Tower, on which he was hung hooked by his pants. Vanka Valyalkin asserted that it could not be managed without the complex levitation spell, which was usually taught not earlier than fourth year.
Tanya alone was not too happy. She knew very well that a trial was still waiting for her. So it proved to be. Immediately after her third lesson they summoned her to Sardanapal’s office.
“They’ll send you to the moronoids! Pack your things!” Coffinia hissed in an undertone, when Tanya went past.
“Good luck!” Vanka shouted. “We’ll stand up for you! Keep it up!”
Tanya despondently nodded. How will they, interestingly, stand up for her if Sardanapal and Medusa decide to send her from Tibidox?
When Tanya, hanging her head, entered the office, everyone was already gathered there. Sardanapal was sitting sternly at the table and drumming on it with his fingers. Beside him, crossing her arms on her chest, stood Medusa.
Slander Slanderych, recently returned from magic station, where Yagge was busy with him all night and all morning, was entirely in bandages. His right arm hung on a sling. But then the small closely planted eyes simply blazed with fury. It was even terrible for Tanya to look at them — two icy gimlets instantly began to bore into her.
“We gathered here in order to discuss your behaviour,” Sardanapal began. “I don’t remember that we encountered anything similar in the last fifty years... I’m certain that it is necessary for us to take the most serious measures; otherwise discipline in Tibidox will be undermined once and for all.”
The academician paused. Tanya did not remember when she had ever seen him so angry before. His long moustaches straight-away jumped with agitation.
“The saddest thing is that you study in the ‘white’ department. The department, which must serve as an example for the entire Tibidox. If you study in the ‘dark,’ I would not be so disappointed. But now it turns out that I was let down by the one I especially trusted. Literally knifed me in the heart,” Sardanapal continued sadly. “Recently I spoke to Professor Stinktopp. He is very contented. He is extremely contented, although also hides it. He says that for a long time he has expected something in this spirit from the white magicians. ‘Earlier you were white, but now you have become filthy,’ he declares. I can imagine yet how many more similar wisecracks are in store for me to hear.”
Medusa nodded in agreement. Tanya stared at her feet. She felt that her cheeks were burning. To let down the “white” department so. A disgrace!
Sardanapal searchingly looked at her.
“Now I want Slander Slanderych to briefly bring us up to date,” he asked. “Please, Slander! Begin!”
Slander Slanderych, limping, came forward.
“Last night they reported to me that the student Grotter had disappeared. She was not in her room at eleven or half past eleven. Her roommate Cryptova knew nothing. Moreover, she was already asleep and hurled a pillow at me. I don’t blame her: all black magicians have a bad nature, especially half asleep. I roused everybody and organized a search. We combed all the floors, towers, and basements. The students of the school, even those already sleeping, were woken up and all participated in combing the territory.”
“Horror! And this in this difficult time!” Medusa said with reproach.
Slander nodded indignantly.
“Then someone recalled that she was at dragonball training in the evening. I summoned several genies, armed them, and set off together with them for the field. Soon we succeeded in discovering the double bass case lying not far from Goyaryn’s hangar. We opened the hangar and saw the student Grotter there. I proposed to her to leave, but she instead darted to the dragon and began to set it on me. And — here’s the result! I miraculously remained alive! This young lady almost became a killer! Here, look at this!”
The dean theatrically showed his bandages.
Tanya wanted a flagstone to fall from the ceiling and crush her. Then at least it would not be so shameful. Sardanapal again began to drum his fingers on the table. His gold sphinx began to roar and stared in an unfriendly manner at the girl.
“So, you’re convinced that it’s she who made Goyaryn attack you?” The academician specified.
“She, she! She shouted at it to kill me! She ordered it! I barely remained alive! Must turn her into a zombie, deprive of all magic abilities, take away the ring, and send her into the world of the moronoids! This is what I propose!” Slander hissed.
Tanya trembled. If beside her there was not the cage with books, which she managed to cling to, she would fall. Really again to Uncle Herman? Oh, no! Better she live in the station!
Sardanapal turned to Medusa.
“We heard the opinion of the dean. But what does our instructor of evil spirits studies think about this?”
“The instructor of evil spirits studies considers that first we must establish the truth. To turn into a zombie is a matter of five minutes,” Medusa said, after a delay.
Her copper hair, like snakes, was hissing slightly. Tanya became more terrified yet. More terrified than even in the hangar of Goyaryn. That one could scorch her, but did not threaten to send her to Aunt Ninel.
“If the student Grotter breathed fire on the respected Slander Slanderych, I, without any doubt, would agree with turning her into a zombie and sending her away,” Medusa continued. “Now it is worthwhile to look into the situation in more detail. So, we’ll repeat once more. What exactly did the girl shout, when you, Slander Slanderych, broke into the dragon’s hangar?”
“She... eh-eh... I don’t exactly remember what she said... the sense was that it would breathe on me! She set it! It’s clear!” Slander screamed out.
He fixed a furious look at Medusa, but she was not too frightened of his icy gimlets.
“That is, you assert that Tatiana Grotter shouted approximately this: ‘Goyaryn, breathe on Slander Slanderych so that he, like a bowling ball, would fly three hundred metres in the air, knock down all the scaffolds and press his nose into the window of Sardanapal’s office,’” Medusa refined.
Sardanapal involuntarily smiled.
“And indeed true, everything was so,” he said. “Slander, after breaking the glass, flew directly into my office, and on his neck was hanging the window frame. And he, on the move, right away started to roar: ‘I’ll grind this Grotter into powder! She nearly finished me off!’”
Medusa approached very close to Tanya and squatted on her haunches next to her.
“Now we’ll listen to you,” she continued. “What can you say in your own justification? Note that the discussion now deals with your future fate. Whether you’ll remain among us or... you yourself know what this ‘or’ can be...”
Tanya had a tickle in her throat.
“I... I didn’t want...” she muttered. “I only remember that they blinded me with a lamp. Then I was afraid that Goyaryn would incinerate Slander Slanderych. Goyaryn began to fan, became enormous as a mountain... And I shouted something, but what it was, I no longer remember...”
Her voice broke off. She became silent, understanding that now she would burst into tears. Medusa encouragingly placed a hand on Tanya’s shoulder.
“Dear girl! You don’t remember, but then one of the genies remembers,” she said. “You shouted: ‘Only not with flame! Better with smoke!’ In other words, you understood that the dragon could no longer not breathe out, otherwise it would simply explode. Flame or smoke — one or the other... Slander, would you rather flame be breathed out on you?”
The dean was sullenly silent.
“So, you wouldn’t?” Medusa was more specific. “Taking into account that you were not protected by vampire bile, you would have become ashes immediately — here’s all there is. In this case the smoke was much more preferable, even despite that the frame in the office of the honourable academician, until now, has not been fixed...”
“And I fear drafts!” Sardanapal added. The enraged Slander perceived that they took away his victim right from under his nose.
“But she left in the night for the hangar! She did not have a right to go there at all!” Slander shouted. “We searched the entire Tibidox for her! We woke the entire school for the search!”
“And here it’s already a serious misdeed,” agreed Sardanapal. “And for that Tanya Grotter undoubtedly will receive punishment. Docent Gorgonova and I will consider what precisely. But she will not be exiled to the world of the moronoids, this is already clear...”
The disappointed Slander Slanderych even jumped on the spot. His small eyes opened wide with malice and they became quite like that of a fish. Likely, he had expected an entirely different decision.
“You’re making a big mistake, Sardanapal! This Grotter... does it mean nothing to you that she already let out the titans? She disrupts all school rules, she’s wilful... If we don’t punish her, soon here in the school everyone will walk on the ceiling, not just the ghosts!”
“And not surprising! Indeed even the honourable dean sets them such an example, knocking out a window with his head!” Medusa said softly.
“WHAT? I SET AN EXAMPLE?”
For a moment it seemed to Tanya that Slander would now rush to Medusa, but this did not take place. The dean turned sharply and went away to the window, having threateningly hissed:
“Okay! I’ll still investigate this Grotter! I’ll not take my eyes off her! You’ll understand how foolish it is to trust this girl...”
Tanya looked at Sardanapal perplexedly, and it seemed to her that the academician winked at her encouragingly, as if urging especially not to be disturbed. However, when he started to talk, his voice was stricter than normal:
“Get to work! We’ll inform you what penalty will be given. Henceforth try to treat school rules with greater respect!”
The gold sphinx, stepping softly, went along the carpet, accompanying the girl to the doors. Medusa left following her.
“Wait! Is my bow still with you?” She asked.
“Yes,” confirmed Tanya, afraid that Medusa would take it away as punishment for the misdeed.
“Don’t be frightened. I’m not taking away your bow, although, possibly, it would also be worthwhile to deprive you of flights. But we, nevertheless, will pick for you another, more acceptable punishment,” associate professor Gorgonova calmed her. “I wanted to ask you about another thing. How does the bow behave in the air?”
Tanya tried to recall her sensations.
“It’s outstanding, better than the previous one, but I’m still not entirely used to it. It’s very wilful... Sometimes it seems to me that it makes decisions by itself, where to fly and what to do. As if I’m not controlling it, but it me,” said Tanya.
Medusa pensively licked her lips.
“But, when you concentrate, you nevertheless take precedence over it?” She made it specific.
“When I concentrate, yes.”
“Clearly,” nodded Gorgonova. “For some reason it also seemed so to me, when I recently by chance saw your training... Nothing more you want to say?”
“No, nothing.”
“Then, good luck. And try to be more disciplined. If you actually complete a serious misdeed, Sardanapal and I will not be able to shield you, keep that in mind!”
The instructor of evil spirits studies, squinting, looked at Tanya and returned to the office.
But Tanya suddenly grasped that she said nothing to Medusa about the spike, which she discovered in the neck of Goyaryn. The spike, which, hidden, was now lying under her mattress. The girl wanted to return to the academician’s office, but the gold sphinx, having had time already to jump up onto the door, sneered slightly, showing by all its looks that it would not let her through.
Tanya shrugged her shoulders and, calling the sphinx a foolish cat under her breath, dashed to removal of evil eye. Dentistikha could not stand the late ones. Against the most persistent she even used the bustler curse. All those cursed till the end of the day could move only by running, moreover in such a hurry that they rammed their noses into door posts and overturned chairs. There was even a case when one somewhat dense second-year boy, an admirer of Coffinia, almost choked on soup, hastily attempting to eat it quickly with two spoons.
On the other hand, Cryptova’s admirers always had a few screws loose. Some of them did not even need to be cursed.

Chapter 10
Wiza Cockwiza and Hugo the Sly

Tanya put down the pen and flexed her fingers. It seemed to her that any minute now her hand would fall off from fatigue. She had just now finished writing a five-page report on evil spirits studies: Methods of domestication of water-sprites: experiment, facts, commentary. And it was still necessary to prepare for Dentistikha’s lesson tomorrow.
Yes, not without reason the instructors said that the children would not have time for mischief. With such a load! And here you almost limp to bed in the evening!
Tanya snapped her fingers and the textbook on removal of evil eye, having put down short legs exactly like a spider’s, crawled to her along the table. The pages rustled and the book was opened at the necessary place.
Tanya scanned the exercises, and she wanted to howl very quietly. Two were still okay, tackling themes already studied, but here the third...

EXERCISE ON REMOVAL OF EVIL EYE
The black magician Boyagun put a mute curse on the white magician Chikhun. The white magician Chikhun thought it through and removed it. How did he do it?

Here, rack your brain. In the top secret, with transparent pages, Encyclopaedia of Magic Prompts, given to her as a New Year present by Bab-Yagun, Tanya read the remove spell —Jabberus rotus, but how to utter it if the curse is indeed mute? And with such a curse the tongue also would not move. Tap out the alphabets in Morse code?
Having slaved over the problem for a quarter of an hour, Tanya turned for help to Coffinia, who had already finished all her lessons and was now trying to force her skeleton to dance. But the skeleton only clicked its teeth and, like an epileptic, was shaking on the support.
“Nasty Page! You do everything to spite me! But still you pretend that you love me!” Coffinia became furious when the skeleton, not having even started to dance once, fell to pieces.
The bone hand lying on the floor stirred, as if Page was trying to say, don’t you know I can? We already finished dancing!
“Crypt, did you do evil eye?” Tanya asked. Coffinia stared at her with an appraising look.
“Naturally!” She confirmed.
“And solved the one with Boyagun and Chikhun?”
Cryptova nodded complacently.
“What, you don’t have enough brain, unhappy orphan?” She was interested. “Oh well, must help the stupid. Here watch!”
Coffinia waddled to Tanya’s textbook, released a red spark from her ring and loudly pronounced:
“Wiza cockwiza, show the answer!”
In that same second the book slammed shut, began to spin on the table, and then again opened at the same place. Where recently there was an exercise, now appeared clumsy letters clearly written by hand:
The white magician bathed in the first dew of the morning, which removes all forms of evil eyes except the fatal curse.
“Wiza cockwiza, hide the answer!” Again Coffinia ordered.
The clumsy letters began to twirl, started to jump, and disappeared.
“Learn, while I’m alive!” Cryptova said contentedly.
Tanya thought that when it was necessary to make life easier, black magicians beat the whites hands down. Those cheats!
“And you do all your lessons this way?” She asked.
Cryptova tenderly petted herself on the head.
“Naturally... Poor little Coffinia cannot be overstrained! She’s so beautiful that it’s detrimental to her! You know what this spell with cockwiza is called? Cram spell. It’s not in the reference books, and it’s also not studied in classes. It’s in the list of a hundred forbidden spells, which The Ancient One compiled. It’s the type of spells, which cannot be used.”
“Why not?” Tanya pricked up her ears.
She never heard of the list of forbidden spells before.
“And from where am I to know why? Cannot, and that’s all there is. Maybe, so the students wouldn’t copy,” Coffinia shrugged her shoulders.
“And where do you know this spell from, if it’s forbidden?” Tanya doubted.
Coffinia puffed up her cheek and rolled her eyes significantly, she adored putting on airs.
“Me? A fellow in fourth year taught me,” she dropped negligently. “I also tried to teach it to Glomov, simply from boredom, but only Gunya’s head is completely full of holes. He, even when he copies, bungles with ten mistakes. No, cannot get anywhere with him.”
Coffinia started to yawn.
“A-e-e-h! Pity, this spell doesn’t work in exams,” she complained. “The Teaches eternally put a block on wiza cockwiza. They’re also not quite fools, especially our ‘dark.’ Your ‘white’ — idiots. To cheat them — as easy as spit! They block wiza cockwiza, but what is written by hand on the palm — they don’t see.”
“Even Sardanapal is easy to cheat?” Tanya was interested.
This strange conversation with Coffinia occupied her. For some reason it seemed to her that any minute now she would find out something important.
“Sardanapal? Yes, he’s simply a bearded babe!” Coffinia answered contemptuously. “Now Medusa — that one you simply will not fool this way. She sees right through everything. Sharp lady. Tricks also don’t get passed with Slander, indeed he’s formerly one of us, ‘dark.’ Even now as he drops a quick glance — simply death! Everything freezes from within! And why he moved over to the ‘white,’ with an ulterior motive here somehow. Anyone can see that he’s not ‘white’ in any way. And all the same most of all I only love our Stinktopp, this old rascal! Here your watch, some say he’ll scheme against Sardanapal and become the most important in Tibidox...”
Here Coffinia again yawned, and such that she almost dislocated her jaw.
“But now to sleep! You do what you want, but I, bye-bye! And don’t think about making a noise! Don’t forget that you’re in my hands: any second I can tell Stinktopp who slipped him the magic tablecloth hanky!”
“Very terrified!” Tanya snorted. “And I’ll tell everyone that you dreamt of Gunya Glomov in pink pyjamas and with a butterfly net.”
Coffinia turned pink and, turning away, growled that this was all nonsense, but for some reason she was not too confident. Clearly wanting to put an end to this theme soon, Cryptova jumped onto the bed and, curling up into a ball, muttered the wash spell “Cleanus tubecleanus.”
The toothbrush and a wet towel flew up to her and began their customary work. And within a minute even pyjamas appeared on Coffinia. This did not surprise Tanya. She had long ago gotten used to her roommate not even tying a string in the usual way but using the spell Bowus threebowus.
“But the one I recently can’t figure out is this Dentistikha!” Coffinia said sleepily, climbing under the blanket. “She has become a totally different person. Even her eyes have changed colour. Sick, huh?”
“How did they change color? What kind of nonsense?” Tanya did not understand.
“Of course not, they’re normal in class. And later, she hides them behind glasses! But when yesterday at twilight I met her in the corridor next to the workshop of magic objects, her eyes were so blue. Can you imagine?”
“So what, many people have blue eyes. It’s pretty!” Tanya said.
“You understand nothing, Grotter! They were not simply blue! They were like searchlights! And the light from them was such — blue and very bright. And no glasses, as if she doesn’t need them at all! Right away I almost became blind. Good though she didn’t notice me.”
“You’re sure this was next to the workshop?” Tanya asked quickly.
Already the second time she had heard about this place. The first time was from Vanka, who discovered the magic tablecloth behind the statue of a fish.
“Leave me alone, orphan! I’m already in a coma!” Cryptova answered sluggishly.
She turned to the other side and was soon wheezing sweetly. Black Curtains gloatingly trembled. They carefully stretched over to Coffinia and, covering her head, started with all their might to spy on her dreams.
Today Coffinia dreamt of the forward Seven-Stump-Holes fighting a duel with the skeleton. Seven-Stump-Holes and the skeleton enthusiastically fired at one another with ancient flint pistols, moreover, for some reason instead of bullets, from the pistols flew out little hearts, which immediately transformed into soap bubbles. Gunya Glomov, in the red suspenders of the cupids and with wings like an elf, caught the bubbles with a butterfly net.
“Well now, again Gunya! And already even in suspenders! No, now Coffinia will definitely say nothing about Vanka to Stinktopp,” muttered Tanya.
She decided to watch till the end of the dream, but here someone lightly knocked on the window.
Tanya looked and saw Bab-Yagun. He was not alone. Behind him on the same vacuum, holding firmly onto the belt of the grandson of Yagge, sat Vanka. Black Curtains, chocking in impressions, almost tumbled down from the ledge. One curtain started to reflect the vacuum, another remained faithful to Coffinia’s dream, so that as a result some kind of jumble turned up: Gunya Glomov playing on the pipe of a vacuum as on a reed pipe.
“Hey! Do you hear?” Yagun began to whisper loudly. “We thought of a way to penetrate the Main Staircase! An outstanding method! Only why didn’t we think of this earlier?”
“Don’t fidget!” Vanka Valyalkin pushed Yagun with a fist.
He was concerned about falling from the vacuum. Especially as the restless grandson of Yagge started to bob up and down every second. But it also seemed to Tanya that Vanka was hiding something under his soccer shirt, something sufficiently restless, such that he had to constantly hold it back with his hand.
“What method? Through the cyclopes?” Tanya was interested.
Yagun hesitated mysteriously.
“No, through a loophole,” he said. “There in the tower there is an outstanding small loophole. It leads directly to the staircase. Very high. Certain: Slander, when he was placing his spells, forgot about it. So, you’re with us?”
Tanya nodded, glad that she hadn’t had time to undress.
“Then jump onto my vacuum! The loophole is too narrow: your double bass won’t pass through! And later, it doesn’t have the ability to hover motionlessly,” Bab-Yagun started to give orders.
He adored emphasizing the advantages of his vacuum over the double bass.
After ascertaining that Coffinia was sleeping soundly, Tanya carefully opened the window slightly and began to balance on the wide iced-up window-sill. The internal courtyard of Tibidox below together with the snow-covered square had become white. Tanya’s head got slightly dizzy. She was not afraid of heights only when she felt under herself the saddle-shaped, always warm side of her double bass.
As it turned out, she was justifiably uneasy. She had barely jumped onto the vacuum behind Vanka and firmly grabbed his belt when the overloaded machine slipped into an air pocket. Windows flashed by. The snow-covered square of the courtyard steadily moved towards them from below. Tanya had time to think that a little closer — and Lieutenant Rzhevskii would be telling everyone an anecdote about three flat cakes!
“Pilotus kamikazes!” Finally Bab-Yagun recollected suddenly, switching to the slower but more reliable spell.
The vacuum began to drone in an overstrained way and, on leaving the air pocket, began to gradually gain altitude. While this was happening, the paved cobblestone courtyard was all but several metres away.
“What, you were on Speedus envenomus?” Vanka attacked Yagun.
He could not believe that Yagun would think of uttering the high-speed spell, knowing that his vacuum would be overloaded.
“I somehow wasn’t thinking,” Bab-Yagun was embarrassed. “And generally, you stick with something, you don’t change!”
“I could smack you over the head!” Valyalkin said dreamily.
“Don’t even think about it! First, you’d get it yourself. And secondly, the vacuum would get out of control!” Yagun warned in a hurry.
They went around the Big Tower from the north, flew under several small arches, and then Bab-Yagun directed the pipe upward. The vacuum leisurely crawled along the voiceless wall assembled from enormous stones.
“We’re now going up along the Main Staircase, but only on the outside...” explained Yagun. “Well, and this Slander is an ass! Really, he thinks that all flight spells are blocked in Tibidox. But it’s earlier they were blocked, till the repair. And now there are already no old ones, but they have not yet extended the new ones.”
“And how did you find out about the loophole?” Tanya asked.
“Took a telescope with me to training... But here it is, see! I indeed thought we would slip through.”
The vacuum froze. Tanya saw directly in front of her in the continuous stone a narrow loophole with a rounded niche on top, excellently fitted out for shooting from a crossbow or releasing fight sparks. Bab-Yagun carefully directed the vacuum there and set it on a wide landing, where the reddish reflections of torches, flaring up with their appearance, danced on the moist stones to the left and right.
Bad presentiment got hold of Tanya. She for some reason doubted greatly that Slander Slanderych had forgotten about this loophole. Rather, it smelled like a trap. If they catch them, she would get it most of all. After the incident with the dragon Slander would seize on any transgression in order to take away her magic ring, turn her into a zombie, and return her to the world of the moronoids.
Gruff voices reached them from below. Tanya carefully leaned over the rails. In the area below three cyclopes were playing self-shuffling cards. One of them cheated. From the top Tanya could see very well how he, pretending to scratch his neck, unnoticeably took down excess cards from behind his collar. The other two cyclopes were constantly losing and obediently offered their foreheads to him for knuckles. The winner bent an enormous finger and snapped with enjoyment, knocking out his friends’ last bit of wit. Their foreheads droned exactly like copper cauldrons.
Vanka Valyalkin took down a torch from the wall and lit up the marble steps going up. Two crackling curtains clearly of magic origin became distinctly visible.
“Even shielding magic here!” Vanka said.
“Uh-huh. Last time I also ran up against such a thing. Jumped back with frog feet... Ribbit, ribbit, pooh, disgusting to recall,” Bab-Yagun frowned. “Okay, now we’ll verify whether I can make a fool of Slander.”
He took a small knapsack off his back and took out of it an orange robe. Dropping it onto the steps, the grandson of Yagge started to mutter something, once in a while glancing into a small book, which, cheeping, began to prompt him with a high-pitched voice. Finally he shot out a green spark and took a step back.
The orange robe slowly pulled away from the floor as if a restless spectre had settled inside it. Having inflated from within, it leisurely floated along the stairs. Everything contracted inside Tanya. After the incident when her bow flared up, she could not look calmly at anything orange. But there were many orange raincoats and robes in Tibidox — all the instructors and many students wore them.
“Let’s go! Cannot lag behind!” Bab-Yagun rushed ahead.
The orange robe slowly floated halfway up the stairs and softly encountered the first magic obstacle. A greenish curtain dazzlingly flared up, changed colour, and faded. The same also happened with the next.
“How did you manage to remove Slander’s spells?” Vanka was surprised.
Bab-Yagun’s ears started to turn crimson, which was visible even in semi-darkness.
“It was necessary to rack my brain,” he said contentedly. “For two weeks while I had frog feet, I only thought about this. I jumped around the room and thought. And then it dawned on me: the spells of Slander work on everyone except him, right? Because if they work on Slander himself, he would not be able to walk here and check everything. But once he walks and pokes his nose everywhere, it means this magic is not dangerous to him. Right?”
“Likely logical. Not without reason they say that only Slander himself can remove the spells of Slander,” confirmed Tanya. For the time being she still did not understand what Yagun was driving at.
“And it’s simpler after that! I found his old robe in my granny’s cabinet. Once he was treated in magic station and left it by accident. Well, and then remained the trifle: to animate it... Now this booklet helped me greatly here!”
Bab-Yagun with pride showed the small shabby booklet, which recently prompted spells to him. The book cunningly winked with the eye depicted on the cover, and red letters lit up continually: Tricks of White Magicians in the Retelling by Hugo the Sly.
“What, he was actually sly?” Tanya thought.
And even handsome! Letters immediately assured her. And in an instant even the name of the book changed. Now the inscription on the cover said: Tricks of White Magicians in the Retelling by Hugo the Handsome and Smart.
Grasping that the book was reading her thoughts, the girl rapidly blocked her consciousness. Yes, this Hugo really was nobody’s fool.
“Where did you get this book? In the library?” She asked.
“Ne-a,” Bab-Yagun said. “Abdullah would not give it to me. It’s in locked access. Fortunately, this Hugo was once treated by my granny and presented to her an autographed copy. This huge flourish there on the first page.”
“And what did this Hugo have? What was he treated for? Not from craftiness?” Vanka was archly interested.
“Uh-uh, granny no longer remembers,” Bab-Yagun absent-mindedly drawled. “Some nonsense. Either dandruff or a wisdom tooth... Or perhaps, simply pushed a pencil into his own nostril and could not get it out. With them, the writers, now and then such things happen, especially when inspiration strikes suddenly.”
The booklet started to grumble unhappily. Hugo the Sly was clearly dissatisfied by such an opinion of him.
Following the robe slowly floating in the air and in a mysterious manner repeating all of Slander’s movements, even exactly the same way he twitched his shoulders, the children climbed up along the marble stairs. Now and then spectres floated out from the knightly armours and the walls, but they were increasingly somewhat unfamiliar and wild. One had jutting out from its chest a terribly long spear, on which other spectres hung their old-fashioned stockings and caftans to be dried. Among these spectres there was neither the Lieutenant nor Unhealed Lady nor even Eyeless Horror. The spectres looked sullenly at the three friends and, not answering questions, made their way into their refuges.
Three times greenish flashes flared up around the robe, and once even red. Likely, Slander was not stingy on guard spells. Moreover, some of them were so well disguised that the already customary semi-transparent curtain was not even noticeable. A long tongue of flames continually touched Slander’s old robe and instantly pulled away guiltily as if believing that they mistook it for somebody else.
By now the spells let pass quite freely the children following behind. Probably, they considered that those following were together with Slander and could not be detained.
Hugo the Sly’s booklet was giggling non-stop. Its deceased author was extremely satisfied with the adventure at hand. Even his portrait passed through from the back cover to the front: the face round as a pancake, a short pulled up nose, and a magnificently powdered wig. From time to time the portrait of Hugo began to gesticulate animatedly and even stuck his tongue out at Tanya.
They climbed up this way for a sufficiently long time. When Tanya had already lost count of the steps, Vanka Valyalkin suddenly stopped, grabbing onto the rails. Tanya, not expecting this, flew against him and struck her nose against his shoulder. She wanted to be indignant but suddenly saw what Vanka and Yagun already saw, and stopped abruptly.
The Main Staircase had broken off. Directly before them, separated only by a small landing, stretched a silvery white suspension bridge. It passed right through the rock wall as if the wall did not exist, and came to an end in an enormous hall with narrow columns, which first disappeared, then again were depicted by sharp white lines. It was still difficult to examine anything, without getting onto the bridge anyway.
Hugo the Sly threw up both hands in panic and, horror depicting on his face, vanished behind a small window. Several seconds later he again showed himself, but already without the wig. He was looking extremely depressed. He continually plucked at his bald spot with his hands, pretending he was pulling his hair out.
“The Vanishing Floor!” Bab-Yagun whispered.
Vanka Valyalkin squinted mischievously.
“Let’s run to the hall and back! Dare?” He proposed.
He was about to take a step onto the bridge, but Bab-Yagun dragged him by force away from the edge.
“Gone nuts?” He demanded. “Tired of living? Here look!”
Yagun pointed at Hugo the Sly. That one was already tired of plucking fuzz from his bald spot. He leaned up to his waist out of the window and, propping up his head with his hands, contemplated the Vanishing Floor. When his glance reached the columns, Hugo the Sly began to tremble and with dexterity that in no way could be expected from someone this fat, hotfooted back into the window. His well-fed thighs in stockings and the old-fashioned shoes with bows flickered for a moment.
Slander’s orange robe hung motionless above the landing. Its empty hood first shuddered, swelled up like a bubble, then again deflated. Unexpectedly it started to move, blindly hit against the walls several times and, swinging, floated to the suspension bridge. The children tensely followed it. The robe reached approximately half of the bridge without any interference. It seemed that, a little more, and it would find itself between the columns, but here the silvery bridge suddenly became a vivid scarlet. It whirled, began to move like a piston as if an invisible wave swept under it, and touched the robe.
The robe flared up, shook restlessly like a frivolous skirt and — disappeared. And in an instant the suspension bridge calmed down and, creaking from time to time, began to sway like nothing had happened.
The children exchanged glances.
“Oh, my granny mama! Let’s go back... Indeed cannot make our way to the Vanishing Floor here,” Bab-Yagun said hoarsely.
Tanya recalled that Lieutenant Rzhevskii told her about Crackpot Grandpa. This mad spectre for many centuries searched for treasure in Tibidox. Whether he found it was unknown, but he succeeded in discovering the secret path to the Vanishing Floor. A way not only was it possible to get there, but also to return.
“Slander guards the Main Staircase in vain. All the same the true path to the Vanishing Floor is not here,” she said.
“But where?” Vanka quickly asked.
“Don’t know. But somewhere. Someone knew how to bring the spike and the magic tablecloth from the Vanishing Floor,” said Tanya.
For some reason the recollection of this sufficiently inoffensive tablecloth, which also only knew how to grab a lingering poor fellow by the nose, did not give her rest. Why did the thief of the spike hide it behind the statue next to the workshop? Why was the tablecloth necessary to him at all? But indeed it was necessary!
And what was Dentistikha doing near the workshop, if Coffinia was not lying?
Then Tanya even shuddered, startled that she had not thought of this earlier: what had Coffinia herself forgotten near the workshop?

* * *

They had already made up their minds to go back when suddenly from the gnawed hole of Vanka Valyalkin’s yellow soccer shirt fell out a fat guinea pig that, squealing, rushed to the suspension bridge.
“Where are you going?” Vanka shouted. “Not there!”
But the guinea pig was already on the bridge and purposefully stomped forward, to that place where the robe had recently disappeared.
“Come back!” Vanka again shouted and rushed after it.
Before Tanya and Bab-Yagun had time to stop him, Valyalkin in two leaps reached the middle of the bridge and, having caught the guinea pig, darted back.
Tanya ran up to the edge of the landing. She saw how the bridge behind Vanka’s back became crimson and swiftly strove for him, rolling like a wave. But he, it seemed, even did not suspect anything. Another instant — and the same fate as Slander’s orange robe awaited him.
“Jump!” Tanya yelled. “Jump quickly!”
Vanka looked around, losing a precious second, and, seeing the whirling mound of the bridge, he jumped. It was not his best leap, but indeed it was necessary for Vanka to jump, pressing the guinea pig against his chest, and the support already went out from under his feet. If Tanya and Bab-Yagun had not caught him under his arms and dragged him onto the landing, he would really have fallen down. Vanka was lying on his stomach and catching his breath, and behind his back the suspension bridge swung in unrestrained but already useless anger.
“Huff-huff-huff!” Someone’s angry snuffling was heard.
The rescued guinea pig shook itself as if nothing was the matter and unhappily began to sniff its dark side covered in red spots.
“Hey you, though a guinea pig, still a pig!” Tanya said to it reproachfully.
She could not control herself and, stretching out her hand, affectionately tousled Vanka’s hair.
Hugo the Sly carefully poked his nose out from the window, looked around, and with admiration gave Valyalkin thumbs up. He then extracted from behind his ear a long goose feather, anxiously touched it to see if it was sharpened, and vanished into thin air to somewhere.
“Here’s the unlucky scribbler! Dashed off to write down your feat!” Bab-Yagun said not without envy.
Tanya had long noticed that Yagun and Vanka had a kind of friendship-rivalry. On one hand, inseparable, but on the other — a month did not pass that they would not fight. Especially when Bab-Yagun began to joke about the beasts and Vanka in revenge kicked his new vacuum, asking if he had forgotten to fill this junk with rotten tomatoes.
“Yes well, never mind... Don’t drop it!” Vanka unhappily growled, hiding the guinea pig under his soccer shirt.
Finding itself in darkness, the guinea pig with satisfaction discovered that night had come and dropped off.
Illuminating the way with a torch, the children went down along the marble stairs. Although there was no longer Slander’s robe with them, the spells let them pass with ease. Probably, they remembered that they went up with the owner. Only one black magic spell flared up and shrouded them in pungent smoke. Fortunately, from the booklet Hugo the Sly quickly showed his face and growled out something. The smoke immediately dispersed.
Reaching the vacuum that had been left behind, Bab-Yagun diligently tried to start it, but the vacuum only sneezed. On Bab-Yagun, on the spell Pilotus kamikazis, and on the green sparks.
“But why is it so!” A distressed Bab-Yagun stomped his foot.
Immediately from under the vacuum a concealed rat with frog feet (another victim of Slander’s tyranny!) jumped out and leaped into the slot. In its teeth was the nibbled rope from the magic talisman responsible for vertical takeoff of the air car.
The loud slaps of cards and the dissatisfied puffing of the losers were still heard from below.
Bab-Yagun despondently scratched his forehead.
“Here’s a rotten trick! And what are we to do now? Cannot go through the loophole, and cyclopes below! Indeed simply sit and wait till Slander makes his rounds and discovers us! Listen, Tanya, perhaps we’ll summon a cupid and send him for your double bass? It’ll not climb through the loophole, but we can leave it outside.”
This proposal did not attract Tanya. She knew the cupids too well to be sure: they would drop and break the double bass in five minutes.
“One cupid cannot drag it,” she said. “But to summon two or three — they’ll make such noise that they’ll rouse the entire school. And on top of that they’ll begin to tickle Coffinia and wrap Black Curtains around her... Think of something else!”
She carefully leaned over the rails and looked down. All the time the same roguish cyclops was winning. The other two obediently offered their foreheads, on which lumps already had time to swell up. Tanya exerted herself to recall the necessary spell, which Medusa had taught them not so long ago in class.
“Paperykus creepoutus!” She whispered.
The roguish cyclops moved his shoulders, puzzled, feeling a light tickling between them. At first from under the collar crept out the queen of clubs, after the queen a ten, and then also the ace of diamonds. The cards slid along the shaved back of the cyclops’ head and, like having made excessive use of butterfly nectar, recklessly began to flutter before his nose. The friends of the cyclops stared dully at them, not immediately understanding where this addition to the deck was taken from. The cheat himself spoiled everything, darting with his nose, he began to bashfully brush off the cards and even tried to rip the queen of clubs into small pieces.
“Guard! Murder!” The queen of clubs began to squeal, beating the cyclops on the fingers with a fan. “Beat him up, guys! He’s a cardsharp!”
The other two cyclopes exchanged glances. On their flat faces at once reflected one and the same deep thought. They slowly got up.
“Ah-ah! Don’t approach, I’ll hit!” The misbehaving cyclops uneasily seized a club.
In the next moment a ball of three entwined cyclopes rolled downward, on its way colliding into all of Slander’s spells, and after it hurriedly ran Tanya, Vanka, and Bab-Yagun, panting under the weight of the vacuum knocking against his knees.
“And why did I buy a vacuum without small wheels? What an ass!” Bab-Yagun scolded himself.
Stepping over three sorrowfully croaking frogs, one of which held in its mouth the queen of clubs, the friends returned via familiar corridors to the residence floor.
There everything was quiet. Their night journey had passed unnoticed.

Chapter 12
About Buka, Byaka and... Babai

This was her first spring on the island. Tanya was amazed how swiftly it arrived. It seemed just several days ago there were slush and puddles everywhere, and then a green wave ran along the hills, the ravines, and the weathered slopes of the mountains.
It was strange to look at the gnarled trees in the forest with tender-green, timid, and seemingly even indistinct foliage suddenly twitching.
The cupids all dropped their postal responsibilities and rushed above the flowerbeds all day merrily cheeping, laughing loudly, and shooting golden arrows into people.
The mermaid lay on the sand bar all day and was warmed by the sun. When she was approached, she hurled and splashed fish skeletons. Most of them, it goes without saying, fell to the lot of Slander, because the others bypassed the side of the pond.
The dean, a former black magician, was eternally running around wet, antsy, and angry. Even Sardanapal did not dare to address him. Slander had a lot of work: it was necessary to prepare Tibidox for a meeting of fans and participants in the world cup of dragonball, which was to begin in only several days.
But now Slander already stuck on a dragon hangar an enormous poster with animated letters:
March 27 in the main dragonball stadium of Buyan
COMPOSITE TEAM OF TIBIDOX VS BABAI
SPECIAL RULES of dragonball world championship
Forbidden:
1. To get on the stands without tickets.
2. To occupy someone else’s seat.
3. To tease the dragons or to get onto the field during a match.
4. To cast fatal curses on umpires and referees, or even on players of either teams.
5. To fight, using fight sparks, spells, evil eyes, trickery, or even umbrellas, clubs, and bricks.
“Classic!” Bab-Yagun exclaimed mockingly. “I adore Slander! You want to fight — fight! Only don’t use umbrellas and trickery! Come, let’s see what he allows.”
Permitted:
1. To use talismans of happiness and amulets of success.
2. To start fireworks, salutes, yells, and other magic and non-magic means of expression of enthusiasm.
“And they allow yells in vain!” Vanka commented. “Here you watch, before the second match they’ll already be forbidden. The same was at the last championship. Who wants to become deaf at the very beginning? What do you think, Tanya?”
“Uh-huh. No one,” Tanya agreed with him, contented that Bab-Yagun and Vanka had finally thawed.
The unpleasant case with the chaos spell was forgotten for the time being, even Plague-del-Cake did not appear anymore on Black Curtains. But for how long?
Now Curtains day and night showed the halfback Zhora Zhikin — a dark-complexioned young fellow of thirteen. It was likely that Coffinia had fallen in love again. Seven-Stump-Holes and Gunya Glomov had been sent off to the retirement list.
Each morning Coffinia, with indignant howls, tried to shake off the image of Zhikin from Curtains, but every time the image stuck out its tongue and flew away on the mop with propellers. Curtains started to giggle nastily and giggled until briskus-quickus was hurled at them.
All this frankly amused Tanya. She frequently saw Zhikin at training so she knew about him. His mop with propellers even accelerated quite dashingly, but only while no obstacle appeared in its path. Then the mop turned out to be even more useless than a broom, and it was necessary to literally dig Zhikin out of the sand, a thick layer of which covered the stadium.
“Tomorrow the babai will fly in,” reported Yagun. “You know where they’ll be staying? In the Tower of Ghosts. Lieutenant Rzhevskii is prepared even now. He promises that he’ll howl and frighten the babai all night so that they’ll play badly. And Eyeless Horror has ordered Wheelchair to squeak in the room of their trainer till dawn.”
“That’s dishonest!” Vanka was indignant. “Must tell Medusa.”
“And okay to you. It’s known to all that the babai use forbidden means. Why do you think they have such a pile of talismans? And when they begin to lose, they even throw spell-traps about. Try proving something then,” said Yagun.
“Where do you know that from?” Vanka did not believe him.
“My granny has been watching all the championships for 300 years. Indeed all their tricks are known to her. She also knows the trainer of the babai — Amat. She says, put him somewhere in the middle between Slander and Stinktopp and multiply all this by Tararakh.”
Tanya honestly tried to visualize the result, but she was not able to do so. The middle between Slander and Stinktopp was easily found, but here it could not be multiplied by Tararakh somehow. Something got stuck in the imagination.
They had recently returned from morning training. Tanya did not have time even to grease the strings with wax and put the double bass away in the case. Her head was still slightly spinning from the set of barrels and loops, which it was necessary for her to carry out. On her cheek was an abrasion — Seven-Stump-Holes was not quite accurate in a pass to her. It was difficult to catch the ball released with such power. True, it would hardly be easier in the match with the babai.
Tanya felt that Nightingale O. Robber was satisfied with her, although more frequently he grumbled but almost never praised. Unless he muttered “not bad” under his breath.
Here only the new bow — the gift of Medusa — that Tanya had difficulty getting accustomed to. No argument, it was much better than the previous one, but now and then it seemed to Tanya that it behaved too wilfully.
Goyaryn, already awake, with scales polished to a blinding lustre by the genies, trained together with the entire team. It grew heavy in the winter and this disturbed Nightingale, who already had time to make inquiries about the dragon of the babai.
Bab-Yagun, squinting, took a good look at the green strip in the horizon.
“We’ll slip to the woods?” He proposed. “It’s marvellous there now!”
Thinking that she had not yet thoroughly seen Buyan, and Tibidox — it was by no means the whole island — Tanya readily leaped onto the double bass. Waiting till Vanka climbed up behind her, she allowed the bow to jump into her hand and uttered the spell. Bab-Yagun, bending down to the pipe of the vacuum, had already rushed forward.
They flew over a barely looping narrow path stretched between the hills, keeping somewhere level with the peak. They passed over the sternly growing dark firs, the frivolous reddish pines, and the gnarled oaks, which were only slightly inferior in antiquity to the famous Cove oak. Tanya would not be surprised that on each of them turned out to be a gold chain with an enormous black cat wandering around. Far away, barely distinguishable beyond the cracked mountain, a narrow strip of ocean turned blue.
Bab-Yagun likely knew the way well. Soon he turned around and briefly waved his hand, showing that it was necessary to land.
“Bangus parachutis!” Tanya uttered the braking spell and descended to a small clearing tightly surrounded by the forest.
On the clearing grew one lonely tree — a slight steeple-crowned birch, similar to a lit candle.
“Aha, I guessed right! Now’s the right time!” Bab-Yagun said contentedly. “See what happens now and make a wish! Only don’t miss the moment!”
He picked from the ground a weighty twig and, having swung it around, threw it into the crown of the birch. The impact on the stem was brief, the leaves only rustled and froze, there was also precisely nothing. But then something suddenly flared up. From the small birch was detached a transparent ghost, powdered by gold dust, exactly the shape of the crown.
The golden cloud of pollen froze in the air, and then slowly, almost elusively crawled to the grove. Having reached the green edge of the forest, the ghost disappeared.
“Did you have time to make a wish?” Bab-Yagun asked Tanya.
The girl shook her head. Everything had happened too fast.
“No?” Bab-Yagun was distressed. “I warned you! Here I cast a spell so that we would triumph over the babai. And you, Vanka?”
Vanka smiled mysteriously.
“I’ll not tell,” he said. “Yes, there’s one dream... Whether it happens, that’s another matter.”
They had already made up their minds to fly away when Tanya noticed that to the right of the birch closer to the grove there was a strange little cloud, something reminding her of a human silhouette. It was Unhealed Lady. She was despondently floating along the meadow, once in a while dipping her neck near the ground in order to touch with her nose the flowers in the field and to inhale their fragrance.
“Yes, I know that to us ghosts the sun is mortally dangerous. But no, you don’t have to chase me into the damp and dark of this nightmarish tower! Better I perish here! I’ll wear myself out to death!” Unhealed Lady groaned like her heart was breaking, hardly noticing the children.
“Why did you decide that you’ll perish?” Bab-Yagun hesitated. “You were recently at my granny’s. Yagge said that for a spectre you simply have the health of a bull and you’re blooming.”
“Don’t you dare talk so to a woman!” Lady was insulted. “Your granny understands nothing about noble ailments! Let her treat head colds and corns! I know death threatens me, and I’ll accept it with di... with dignity!”
Unhealed Lady dropped her head to her chest and began to sob bitterly. The children exchanged glances. Certainly, Lady was a known alarmist to the entire Tibidox, but indeed even an alarmist must have some reason.
“Last night I again met the King of Ghosts...” she said through tears.
“It’s impossible! He appears only on New Year’s Eve!” Bab-Yagun began to argue.
“But it was definitely him... He looked at me and loathsomely smiled with that toad mouth. And who else can have such a hump? And then, then he disappeared into the wall...” swallowing her tears, Lady said.
“Where was this?”
“In the old part of Tibidox, by the workshop of magic objects. I loved to cry there in solitude, but I’ll not go there anymore for any price... now someone is always roaming there, especially at night. He stomps, interferes with crying, and this fish statue grinds so loudly...”
“The fish statue grinds?” Tanya could not believe it.
“Well yes, he is always moving it aside!” Lady exclaimed crossly.
She was annoyed that they were questioning her about this nonsense instead of feeling sorry for her.
“Who moves it aside? The King of Ghosts?”
“OF COURSE NOT, NOT THE KING!” Lady began to yell, finally driven out of her wits. “Oh pitiful dimwits, you’re spoiling my last moments! Why would the King move anything when he can pass through the walls? They tell you that the King was not alone there! There was even some character in an orange raincoat with him!”
Tanya sensed how her hand clutched the bow by itself.
“In an orange raincoat? Who is he, did you recognize him?”
Unhealed Lady indignantly stared at her:
“I was in shock! And also I did not stare in general! I by default despise everyone who is indifferent to my health! But now, I beg forgiveness: at this time of the day according to my schedule, I have a twenty-minute faint. Must always treat ones responsibilities seriously!”
The Lady flickered, moved the straw hat with roses to her eyes and, having languidly rolled her eyes, slipped down into a faint. But even in a faint she did not forget to cast looks at the clock.
“The fish statue and the workshop... Again they... It’s indeed there that I found the magic tablecloth. Will have to visit there again...” said Vanka.
“Only after the match!” Bab-Yagun stated obstinately. “Now Tanya and I must sleep well at night so that the babai won’t give us a disgraceful thrashing. Clear to you?”
“Clear,” nodded Vanka.
He broke off a blade of grass and began to pensively chew it, casting looks in the direction of the huge rock tortoise Tibidox, resting against the sky with sharp scale-towers. This humbleness seemed suspicious to Tanya.

* * *

The day before the match the babai flew in. The whole Tibidox poured out onto the walls to meet them. There was not a single loophole without a curious face looking out. Gunya Glomov in his joy even managed to fall down from a battlement of the fortress and now his neck was in a cast, under which bonegrafts crawled.
All the instructors except Tararakh, whom Nightingale asked to look at Goyaryn again, crowded on the upper gallery of the Big Tower.
Sardanapal, with the moustaches smelling sweet, with the beard combed, was discussing something quietly with Medusa. Professor Stinktopp impatiently minced along the gallery on his thin curved legs, continually repairing the enormous foreign medal hanging on his waistcoat. According to rumour, the medal was awarded to him by the great Merlin. According to other rumours, Stinktopp simply found this medal somewhere and forgot to return it to its owner.
Dentistikha smiled dreamily, looking either to the distance from where the babai should appear, or into her book of the dialogues of Plato, whom she once knew personally.
Slander Slanderych, dressed in a new Schutzstaffel uniform (a war trophy of 1945, in memory of the taking of Reichstag by Soviet troops), was magnificently shaved. A tight roll of white birch bark with the salutatory speech protruded from his unbuttoned holster.
The dean continually cleared his throat significantly and adjusted the monocle in his eye. Next to him, the head of a mermaid stuck out from an enormous barrel, which he somehow managed to drag over to the Tower. So that the mermaid would not splash, there was water only at the very bottom of the barrel.
Even Eyeless Horror, the most terrible spectre of Tibidox, floated out to the wall in Wheelchair, which he used when he wanted to inspire special fear in someone. Horror smirked nastily. He had on a shirt smudged with blood, a medicine dropper sticking out of each vein, and a rubber tube dived into his mouth. Never before was the spectre dressed up so nightmarishly. Tanya thought that an unforgettable night was waiting for the babai.
Lieutenant Rzhevskii was also rather well prepared. All the knives and daggers protruding from his back were polished and sharpened. From time to time the brash spectre, as if accidentally, opened slightly the bag he had brought with him, a bag filled to the brim with dynamite.
Close at hand with the Lieutenant, languidly straightening her hat, walked Unhealed Lady. It was likely that she recovered satisfactorily from the previous fainting spell, but it was not yet time to drop into a new one. However, just in case Lady was constantly looking at the clock so as not to miss the moment.
“Attention, school! The spell of passage has snapped into action! They’re flying in!” The loud cry of Sardanapal reached the top.
Tanya got up on her toes, impatiently examining the white fluffy clouds, which indeed covered Tibidox like downy pillows.
Just as those standing on the walls had already completely lost patience, from the cloud nearest to them emerged something resembling part of a crane. The babai flew in a strict order: the trainer in front, the dragon in the center, and ten players at perfectly equal intervals on both sides of it.
Hairy and broad-shouldered, these ancient Egyptian demigods awfully resembled monkey-baboons, except that they were of taller build and had a more intelligent look. With their legs gathered under them, they sat on small woven rugs with tassels, gliding in the air with striking and even partly suspicious swiftness.
The team probably controlled the rugs mentally or by voice, since the hands of the babai remained free. A sad sigh rolled along the wall. All the players and fans of Tibidox in a flash grasped that the free hands gave the babai unquestionable advantage. Try to catch a ball when the second hand is busy with the bow or the pipe of a vacuum, but here with two hands — like doing nothing!
“Ah!” Yura Idiotsyudov sighed despondently. “Now it’s understood why almost no one has succeeded in beating them!”
Having flown up to the wall of Tibidox, the babai trainer Amat — undersized, very thickset, with cheeks hanging down exactly like a bulldog — looked around and shouted something to his team. All the babai at once, like at a parade, turned in the same moment and began to fly around Tibidox in a lap of honour.
They deliberately flew slowly. Motionless, still as idols, they literally adhered to the rugs each with ten small amulets hanging.
“We know these honour laps! They’re intimidating!” Spitting out to the side, the forward Seven-Stump-Holes said softly.
Having approached the Big Tower, the babai already without any kind of command soared sharply upward and froze, allowing the spectators covering the walls to examine their dragon.
Dusya Dollova began to squeal in horror. Not only Dusya Dollova — even Tanya felt treacherous trembling in her knees.
The Egyptian dragon was brownish with a small snout. Where it proceeded to the neck, it was protected by jointed-to-the-head bone breastplates with sharp outgrowth. The lower jaw was considerably larger than the upper. Two sharp and thin canine teeth came out upward almost vertically, a little fold of skin lifting a bit on the upper lip also preventing it from lowering. Therefore the mouth of the Egyptian monster seemed half-open, but not so that a ball could be thrown there.
The dragon’s green eyes deprived of pupils resembled two gigantic emeralds, which first grew dim then flared up dazzlingly. It was dangerous to look into them: the head would begin to spin and the will would start to weaken.
The slimy scales clearly impregnated with poison grew lighter towards the belly, becoming dirty-yellow. The enormous leathery wings, easily keeping the dragon in the air, ended with several sharp spikes, one of which — the upper — was like the tip of a spear. The long and flexible tail crowned with a bone sphere the size of a small sledgehammer, which undoubtedly would be extremely unpleasant to receive on the top of the head.
But this was not the most annoying discovery. Normal dragons get by only with a pair of hind legs. Their front legs change into wings. This Egyptian theromorpha had four legs. Long and strong, they concluded with powerful claws — three in front and one bending from behind.
Tanya tried not to look at them, but they nevertheless involuntarily attracted her gaze.
“Interesting, did the babai explain to their dragon that it must swallow the players of the enemy but not kill them?” Bab-Yagun drawled with doubt.
“Somehow I doubt this very much. Please look only at their fat trainer. I’ve never seen such a malicious face on anyone!” Verka Parrotova got in. She adored answering all questions, especially those not addressed to her.
Having completed the lap of honour, all the babai descended in such perfect order to the drawbridge. The one-eyed cyclops, patrolling with a poleaxe by the gate, according to habit was about to ask for the password, but only until his pupil, roaming in orbit, met the emerald eyes of the dragon.
Then the cyclops threw open the gates with such zeal that he even dropped the poleaxe.
A minute had not even passed when the babai, leaving the dragon below, got up to the wall. These were serious and stern guys. Each held under an arm the rolled up flying rug. The arms of the babai were very long and strong, but their legs were short, so that on walking they continually leaned their fingers against the ground.
“Ah, I’m dying! What magnificent men!” Unhealed Lady sighed, beautifully slipping down along the wall.
She clearly hoped to draw attention to herself, but, unfortunately, her hopes were not realized. All gazes were riveted to Lieutenant Rzhevskii, who threw at the babai sticks of dynamite, from which there was much noise and — no harm.
“Hur-ray! Take that, fascist, a grenade! Be afraid! Counter-terrorists offence!” He howled.
The babai looked at the Lieutenant with bewilderment. Some looked with amazement and even twirled a finger at the temple.
“This be also your ceremonial welcome?” The babai trainer Amat inquired with a noticeable accent.
From the Big Tower, panting from the quick run, Slander Slanderych literally rolled down. He hurriedly snapped his fingers and, with a chomp, Lieutenant Rzhevskii was pulled into the wall, having time on farewell to squeak in a thin voice: “Treason!”
The dean of Tibidox cleared his throat, caught his breath, and, pulling his lengthy speech out from the holster, began to read it out.
“Hee-hee... On this festive day preceding the opening of the world championship... we of all the white and black magicians are glad to greet the respected Egyptian guests to Buyan land...” he briskly began.
The trainer Amat vigilantly evaluated the size of the birch bark roll and impolitely interrupted Slander:
“We almost fly past your island... Good my dragon Flying Meatball have a good feel. We especially for long not feed it in order it be mean. Old chap, you ask your fan not to approach it, it tear them up to small shred.”
The Tibidox players, exchanging challenging glances with the babai, involuntarily shuddered. Their worst assumptions were confirmed. Before them was a dragon-cannibal, a dragon-killer, capable in its fury of anything.
Slander, whipped by his own oratorical impulse, straightened his monocle and again stared at the white birch bark, but Amat had already rushed to embrace Sardanapal, who had time to come down from the Tower.
“Oh, old prankster! Glad that you be still alive! I hope your team be as good as your beard!” The Egyptian exclaimed.
The academician smiled, showing that the joke was appreciated.
“Tomorrow we’ll find out,” he said. “But where’re your fans? Or have you already run out of little babaichiki in Egypt?”
The eyes of the stout person narrowed slightly; however, the smile became even wider.
“Oh, no question! Our fan come flying here tomorrow! In the morning be many-many fan here! On the stadium leave no empty place!” He certified. “But where be your composite team? Or you — Ha-ha! — hide your player from me?”
“Why hide? Here they are!” Sardanapal pointed to the children standing in a semicircle.
The small eyes of the chief babai for a moment thoughtfully stopped at Seven-Stump-Holes and already quite without interest glided along the rest. Tanya with shame perceived that they were not even taken seriously. The babai looked on them as cannon fodder, which they would turn into minced meat tomorrow.
Amat leisurely removed from his neck a leather strap, on which was hung a transparent stone similar to a large drop of amber.
“Old chap, let bet that my team win! I bet my Amulet of Truth! It turn red when someone around it lie! If I lose, I turn it over to you. If your team lose, you turn over to me your Ring of the Sovereign of Spirits!” He proposed.
Tanya felt that Sardanapal was at a loss for a moment. His ring was the property of the entire Tibidox. Without it the school of magic would lose a substantial part of its guard magic. However, to forego the bet meant to show that he did not believe in his own team. How could the children play after this?
“Done,” nodded the academician. “My ring against the Amulet of Truth.”
The babai swelled up with pleasure. It was possible to think that the magic ring was already on his finger.
“Tomorrow we crush you in the dust!” He exclaimed with conviction.
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, the moustaches of Sardanapal began to mockingly bounce.
“That’s the thing, who’s in the dust!” He commented. The head of Tibidox did not make anymore predictions concerning tomorrow’s match.

* * *

Amat did not let them down. When the next morning the chief umpire of the match, the Persian magician Tistrya, prepared to blow the whistle and to let out into the sky two signal sparks for the start of the game, there was not one vacant spot in the enormous stadium.
The first fans began to arrive even in the evening and then they arrived the whole night and the entire morning. Some, not calculating, flew past the island, and it was necessary for the heroes Usynya, Dubynya, and Gorynya to urgently fish them out of the ocean. Usynya even got his socks wet at the same time and was very distressed. The socks were a gift to Usynya from Tsar Gorokh seven hundred years ago. The brother-bouncer treated the tsar’s gift so tremulously that it was never washed. At night he timorously placed the socks by his pillow and set them beside his Herculean club.
Now Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya sat in the passage and, putting their hands up as visors in order to not be blinded by the sun, examined the sky. The heroes also would not mind moving to the stands, driving off or even squeezing part of the fans, but they feared Medusa, once in a while sternly threatening them with a finger.
Slander Slanderych, trying to personally verify all tickets and expose forgeries before the match, almost went crazy, began to snap, and was taken away to magic station. His post was replaced by two cyclopes. First they zealously started to check tickets, to jostle and be rude, but soon they lost their ground and were embezzling, accepting from those without tickets bright buttons, foreign coins, and bottles of liqueur. As a result the stadium was packed with one-and-a-half times more spectators than it was meant to accommodate. Many had to stand and some even had to hover in mid-air. Fights continually broke out.
Order was not restored even when Slander, having run away from magic station, returned. As it was explained, his reason was in order, simply the dean in the heat of the moment had put an evil eye on some eastern deva, who used a terrible five-letter curse.
The composite team of Tibidox gathered around Nightingale O. Robber. The trainer of magic piloting used this moment for last minute instructions.
“Everyone gather around!” He bellowed. “I believe in you! We’re indeed not such stooges! Zhikin, Lotkova, don’t fly far from Goyaryn! Don’t let it get down to the ground: the babai love to attack on top! Their forward at first will try to lure it after himself, and then to force it to the ground and pelt it with balls! All clear?”
“Clear, clear,” confirmed Zhikin, starting the motor on his mop.
The beauty Katya Lotkova with foresight moved away from Zhora in order not to fall under his propeller. She was again in dark glasses. In recent months Lotkova had been wearing them and not taking them off. In any case, Tanya never saw her without the glasses.
“Tuzikov, be more confident in the centre line! Participate more actively in a pass!” The trainer continued to give orders. “Seven-Stump-Holes, be more careful with their dragon! Don’t fly to it from below: remember the claws... Better from the side of a wing, there it won’t be able to wave its tail... On-The-Sly, a little more movement along the field! No straight attacks! Spoil the game of the babai! Grotter...”
Tanya raised her eyes to the trainer. The black magician emotionally limped to her, dragging the leg that would not bend at the knee. His terrible voice, shrill like a trumpet, sounded unusually soft.
“I... I rely on you... Be careful, girl! Not too much risk! The babai for sure will try to bring you down from the double bass. Don’t waste energy on secondary balls. Remember, your ball is the immobilize. At the worst, a pepper or a stun! Okay?”
“Okay,” nodded Tanya.
“Questions? No? Then everyone get up on your instruments!!!” Nightingale again flew into a rage.
He turned and began to hobble from the field to the bench where the babai trainer Amat was already sitting, complacently stroking himself on the stomach.
“Eh, are there instructions for me?” Bab-Yagun recollected suddenly, overtaking Nightingale.
“Only one. Don’t fall from the vacuum onto my head!” The trainer growled.
Bab-Yagun froze offended for an instant, and then, again filled with self-confidence, returned to the team.
“Well, what did he say to you?” Damien Goryanov asked maliciously.
“And you didn’t hear, you deaf? He said: follow after Goryanov so that he doesn’t cry for mommy!” Bab-Yagun retorted.
“What? What nonsense did you say?”
Goryanov was about to punch him, but Idiotsyudov, the captain of the team, caught him by the collar and shook him.
“After the match, is that clear to you? And now march to the vacuum and give your best! If Sardanapal loses his ring because of us, I’ll simply burn with shame!” He said.
Having waved to Vanka sitting in the stand, Tanya sat down on the double bass and carefully tightened the pins.
“You’ll indeed try, okay? Don’t let them throw mud in our face!” Tanya said to the double bass.
The strings began to hum quietly.
Before settling on the vacuum, Bab-Yagun fastened a small magic mouthpiece to his collar. Sardanapal again entrusted him to be the commentator — moreover not a simple commentator but a playing one. Possibly, this was not the most correct step, but nevertheless no one managed this better than Yagun, so there was no need to choose.

* * *

“Ready!” The chief umpire of dragonball, the squint-eyed and cheerful magician Tistrya, threw up his right hand.
Two orange signal sparks tore away from his ring and exploded with a deafening crack.
Immediately twenty players — ten babai and ten from Tibidox — soared into the sky. The babai immediately lined up in their usual battle formation — a wedge, only now in front was not the trainer but the captain of the team. This was a serious broad-shouldered babai with a fur-covered forehead and small eyes battered into a heap. His flying carpet glided in the air with such speed that in following it, Coffinia’s head started to spin and she fell down like a log.
“Oh, my granny mama! What a glorious sunny day!” A little short of breath after a swift takeoff, Bab-Yagun began. “We are in the main dragonball stadium of Tibidox. A signal was just now given for the start of the match between Tibidox and the babai — the first match of this season! With you, I am the always cheerful and loved by all Bab-Yagun on an outstanding new vacuum. I hope, by the end of the match at least a pipe will survive, and at least my sense of humour. Ha-ha! This, it goes without saying, is a joke!”
However, Tanya for some reason keenly felt that it was indeed not such a joke. Especially when the babai exchanged glances with some special expression.
Bab-Yagun dropped slightly and extracted from his robe powerful binoculars.
“What’s the noise there below? It’s the people in the stands roaring! The moment everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived. The gates of the North and South hangars are thrown open simultaneously. The genies fearfully rush to the sides and — the dragons fly out! Our Goyaryn is still accelerating for takeoff, but the Egyptian Flying Meatball is already swiftly gaining altitude! Brr! I don’t feel well... I haven’t seen such a monster for a long time. Belching out tongues of flames, Flying Meatball hovers under the magic dome, looking out for prey. I, of course, understand that they don’t feed dragons before matches, but did the babai at least feed their dragon sometimes? In any case, this cranky bird clearly intends to snatch a mouthful in the field today. Its green eyes examine chubby Damien Goryanov with curiosity. I would even say, ‘devour.’ I suppose, it’s difficult to condemn it for this choice...”
“YAGUN! I WARNED YOU!!!” Damien Goryanov howled at the top of his voice, spurring his Storm-100U vacuum.
“Boys! Boys!” Rita On-The-Sly shouted, and the captain Idiotsyudov showed Goryanov a fist.
“Oh, my granny mama! Why are the referees lingering?” Bab-Yagun continued. “The dragons are already in the air. It’s time to release the balls! Here they are... Chief umpire Tistrya gives a signal, and the referees will carry out the basket with the balls! I remind you that there are five: flame-extinguisher, stun, pepper, sneeze, and immobilize. The balls are thrown into the mouth of the ‘goal,’ that is, the dragon of the opponent’s team, and they explode, freeing the magic charge concealed in them.”
Tanya frowned. “Why is he explaining? Really can someone not know the rules of dragonball? Perhaps a moronoid would by some chance worm his way in among the spectators,” she thought.
A junior referee pulled the cover off the basket and jumped away, covering his head. Immediately the five balls — each a different colour — rose up swiftly.
The Tibidox and babai players rushed to them at once. The balls looped in the air, getting away from pursuit. Remembering the advice of Nightingale, Tanya kept to the side for the time being, not participating in the struggle. She was only vigilantly taking a good look, attempting to understand where the dark-blue stun ball and the yellow immobilize ball could be found at any given moment.
From her position of observation in the centre of the field both dragons were well visible to Tanya. So far Goyaryn was still calm, it attacked no one and only rarely breathed out short tongues of flames mixed with smoke. It always flew into a rage slowly and thus far was sufficiently peacefully disposed.
But then the Egyptian dragon Flying Meatball behaved splendidly purposefully. It already chased Liza Zalizina for a minute and a half, attempting with long jets of flame to knock her off the clock. While Liza succeeded in slipping away, always changing the direction of flight, her cuckoo was already in a panic. Moreover, the most striking thing was that Lisa did not even have a ball. The dragon attacked her clearly out of gastronomic interest.
“What a swift start to the game! Staggering battle tension!” Bab-Yagun exclaimed. “The babai succeeded in seizing the balls. They took possession of three balls, and the team of Tibidox only one! The fifth ball has not yet been caught by anyone; however, the forwards of the babai are already courageously attacking Goyaryn. Katya Lotkova and Zhora Zhikin try to interfere with them. Zhikin quickly accelerates on his mop... Now there will be a collision of Zhikin with number three of the babai team, Appendicitisa! Flying carpet and mop are quickly closing in...”

Chapter 13
Raincoat, Spike, and Dagger

Bab-Yagun dropped his head onto the evil spirit studies textbook, which immediately started to sympathetically fan him with the pages.
“Enough! I can’t take it any longer! Better let them turn me into a zombie!” He groaned. “We’re the heroes of the match with the babai, the pride of Tibidox! We helped Sardanapal preserve his ring and won for him the Amulet of Truth! Well, tell me: is it really possible to assign us so many lessons?”
“Why are you nagging me? I assign them to you perhaps? Complain to Medusa!” Vanka Valyalkin snapped.
In recent days he had become somewhat nervous, antsy. Likely he overdid it, trying to carry out all the tasks. And indeed it was still necessary to help Tararakh.
“Aha, you complain to her!” Bab-Yagun snorted. “She’ll only reiterate something about exams! She becomes quite brutal. I would exile such instructors straight to the basement, on that side of the Sinister Gates. There she would sweep away all chaos and build ancient gods according to size.”
“And I agree with you...” Tanya said conciliatorily, tearing herself away from writing a report on practical magic.
The report was called Marshy Leeches in a System of Contemporary Universe and had to contain only her own thoughts. The theme for the report was given to her by Professor Stinktopp, who, after the incident with the ring of grandpa Theophilus, would seize any excuse.
“Precisely on that side of the Gates! And so that she would sit there and not croak!” Bab-Yagun continued to be indignant.
He was looking in the other direction and did not see that the thick Vampire-Lamia Dictionary (the third expanded edition edited by Docent Medusa Zevsovna Gorgonova) carefully took off from the desk.
“Look out! From behind!” Tanya shouted.
Bab-Yagun turned around, jumped, and took to his heels.
The Vampire-Lamia Dictionary rushed after him, continually diving like a bomber.
“Oh, my granny mama! I’ll not do it anymore! Medusa is good! The best! BANG! Only not on the head! She also thinks so badly of me!” The grandson of Yagge howled.
Tanya smiled. Bab-Yagun acted carelessly berating Medusa. The instructor of evil spirits studies knew how to stand up for herself, even in absence.
After some time Yagun returned disconcerted.
“I also bungled it, don’t you think! It’ll remember me for a long time!” He growled and silently sat down for the lessons.
Approximately in an hour the little round table at which they were doing homework became bored and began to dance on bent legs. The pen slid and Tanya put a blot on the white birch bark with the report. The blot immediately crawled away and developed into a malicious smiley.
“Briskus-quickus!” Tanya shouted, forcing the table to calm down.
All the furniture in Tibidox was alive, and this generated many difficulties. For example, chairs had a habit of jumping at that very moment when they were already almost being sat on. And desks began treacherously to squeal: “Guard! He’s copying!” when during exams a despairing student tried to take out a textbook.
Tanya examined the blot angrily. And it had managed to be placed at the very end when the report was already almost finished! And why goose feathers for magicians, really not possible to use ball-point pens, pencils, or felt-tip pens? No, say what you want, but it is much simpler at the moronoids...
Tanya attempted to dry the blot but it deftly fled from her along the entire sheet, smearing the surviving letters. At the same time the blot contrived to take the form of gallows, a skull, or a small Professor Stinktopp with his head in the form of a horseradish.
“Yagun, what to do? It won’t wipe off!” Tanya complained.
Bab-Yagun hesitated:
“And it’ll never be erased. Better not chase it. Here needs a special blotter.”
“Do you have one?”
“Ne-a, not now,” Yagun shook his head. “My granny has. You want me to run to magic station?”
Tanya turned down his aid and left for magic station herself. She was tired. It seemed to her that her brain was hard-boiled like an egg.
Summer vacations would soon begin! As the senior pupils asserted, vacations in Tibidox were always spent very interestingly. The entire three months on the ocean coast, in the forest, and in the mountains! No lessons, no work, only dragonball training. Not so in foreign magic schools where the students are always kicked to the moronoids for vacations.

* * *

The Main Staircase was still guarded by cyclopes, and in order to get to magic station, it was necessary for Tanya first to traverse the Hall of Two Elements, and then along the old stairs of the Atlases with the enormous steps.
The stern Atlases stood on the marble pedestals and held on their shoulders the stone arches of Tibidox. Once in a while either one or the other began to show off its strength and tried to raise the ceiling higher than the others. The remaining Atlases became offended. They angrily roared, started to shake the arches, and the Big Tower began to move like a piston. Usually Sardanapal sent his gold sphinx down to calm them.
Now however, the majority of the Atlases were dozing standing up, the rest were sullenly looking ahead, not paying her any attention so that Tanya rushed by this dangerous section without any adventure. Short of breath, she was almost already scrambling to the last step when loud voices were suddenly heard in front.
This was so unexpected that the girl instantly whisked behind the foot of the Atlas last in line and, squatting to her haunches, lurked there.
From a side corridor leading to the drawbridge Tararakh and Slander Slanderych appeared. Both were smudged with duckweed and slime and smelling like a swamp. They stopped in front of the stairs in order to tidy themselves.
“True that everything’s in order with her? She’s not sick?” Slander asked anxiously.
“Normal. Only stop her from drinking fish oil. She yells out songs the entire night — not possible to sleep!” Tararakh muttered, picking algae off his chest.
“But she asks for it!” Slander was astonished.
“Who cares who asks for what. Didn’t they teach you in school that evil spirits cannot be overfed? And indeed all the more for one accustomed to hard drinking. You’re what, a kid? They don’t even pour coffee for such a hysterical woman.”
The stern dean sighed.
“Love is love... But why did her scales turn green? It isn’t dangerous?” Again he began to worry.
“Summer is coming, the pond is blooming, therefore she turned green. What will become of her, this big fish? And you won’t kill her with a spear!” Tararakh answered in cold blood.
“No, don’t you call her that!” Slander was insulted. His voice trembled. “She... she’s not that! She’s not a big fish! She has, you know, a soul! An enormous soul! Vulnerable! She struck me with her tail, and yesterday, imagine, she smiled so affectionately and kissed me on the cheek!”
Tararakh sympathetically cleared his throat.
“Would tear off the cupid’s ear for such business! What they do to guys!” He growled.
Having said good-bye to Slander, the pithecanthropus was about to go down the stairs, but suddenly he returned.
“Wait! The children already know that dragonball matches here in Tibidox are postponed for an indeterminate period?” He asked anxiously.
“No, they don’t,” answered Slander.
“That’s mean! They’ve been waiting for so long! Why won’t you tell them the truth?” Tararakh was indignant.
“What truth?”
Slander Slanderych immediately changed. His tiny eyes again became piercing and his movement abrupt.
“The truth about what’s happening in Tibidox. And about what happened last night,” said Tararakh.
“No! They must not know! I convinced Sardanapal to keep everything a secret. It can breed panic. Possibly in several days it’ll be necessary to shut not only the Staircase but also the entire Tower. I can’t even begin to imagine where we’ll put the students. Possibly, it’ll be necessary to send them away again to the moronoids.”
“So, it has not yet stopped pulsating?” Tararakh asked with uneasiness.
The dean darkened.
“Not only has it not stopped. Each hour the radiance becomes increasingly brighter. The magic passage widens. My spells already almost do not hold it in control. It seems that an enormous funnel which draws everything in itself opened there. Even the cyclopes make up their minds not to go up higher than the second landing now — and I can understand them.”
“This after that terrible case?” Tararakh asked.
“Yes, after that. It indeed went mad.”
“But such... such happens only when it seizes a catch!”
“Likely that this time it also got it. Don’t know how, but it did. And the worst, we, till now, don’t know who penetrated there and how it was done. Like everything else in this place,” Slander unwillingly answered.
Tararakh went down the steps sadly. Now he was very close to Tanya, so close that he could touch the foot of the Atlas behind which she was hiding. The girl tried to not breathe loudly in order to not give herself up. It was also already clear to her that she heard what she should not have heard.
“Just look at that business! The funnel has already opened three times,” the pithecanthropus said pensively. “The first time the day before we sent the children to the moronoids. The second time — not long before their return. And now... And every time we did not manage to find out whom precisely became its victim. All students and instructors are in place, evil spirits cannot become a catch at all, therefore are not taken into account. The head just about cracks from all these thoughts!”
“Tibidox always knows how to keep its secrets,” Slander said sullenly.
Dragging out the algae sticking to an ear, the dean dully examined it for a while. Then he threw it onto the floor, trampled it and, waving a hand at Tararakh, disappeared into one of the corridors.

* * *

After some time Tararakh also left and Tanya, stupefied, forgotten about setting off for Yagge, and sat motionless for a long time. Dragonball matches postponed! And possibly cancelled altogether! And this when the Tibidox team for the first time after many years finally has not bad chances! And now even the mysterious flickering of the Vanishing Floor!
Tanya tore away from the place, rushed to Bab-Yagun and Vanka and recounted to them the overheard conversation. Vanka frowned: the news clearly did not please him. Bab-Yagun behaved even stranger. He was not a bit astonished and even did not show disappointment. Instead he complacently stated this:
“You see how wisely I acted, sending you to my granny! Appreciate me while I’m alive! By the way, you’re certain that they were talking about the Vanishing Floor?”
“But what else? Where is there still a magic passage and which Slander protects with spells?” Tanya was surprised.
Bab-Yagun licked his lips.
“Well, if it’s about the Floor, then it’s about the Floor. Really I’m arguing?” He said.
“Something else I don’t understand,” Tanya continued thoughtfully. “Tararakh was surprised that the Floor already has three victims but all students and instructors are in place. Also no one could appear from the other side: the spell of passage would not let them past. How do you explain this? How could three disappear there but no one missed them?
Bab-Yagun hesitated.
“What’s incomprehensible here? Can only be one explanation. Sufficiently bad.”
“What?”
Yagun lowered his voice and beckoned them to himself. “Imagine that everyone who visited the Floor the last time — and such curious sharp lads for some reason can always be found, and not only among the ‘dark,’ — by some miracle knew how to return now among us. Will we notice that they disappeared? No, of course not! Anyone not in place for an hour or two? And no one will miss him in this short time.”
“Nonsense!” Vanka cut him short. “If someone would visit the Floor, he would indeed recount it. Would not be able to keep it to himself! Though secretly, but would blab. It’s such glory! He would forever be in the history of Tibidox! Only think — return alive from the Vanishing Floor!”
“Perhaps also would blab...” Bab-Yagun agreed, squinting. “But would blab only if he remains as before. And suppose these three returned, but returned already as someone enslaved by powerful magic. As pitiful zombies, slaves of the King of Ghosts and She-Who-Is-No-More...”
Yagun had hardly uttered the terrible name when Tanya experienced dizziness, recalling the yellow old woman from her dreams. Yesterday Coffinia assured her that she again saw her on the Curtains.
“You think Plague-del-Cake is there on the Floor? Hiding there and turning anyone who penetrates to the Floor into a zombie?” She asked in horror.
“I don’t know whether she’s there or not but such can never be excluded,” Bab-Yagun shrugged his shoulders. “I simply assumed that these three that returned — three spies — are now hiding somewhere among us. They are lurking and waiting for something... Then it becomes understandable who stuck the spike into the neck of Goyaryn and who attempted to kill you when your bow caught fire.”
“Who?” Vanka thoughtfully looked at Yagun.
“Someone from this trinity. Recall what Tararakh said. First the magic passage opened when they were still only making up their minds to send everyone to the moronoids. Then — when everyone was at the moronoids. And the third time very recently. So, only the very first zombie could attempt to kill Tanya. The second most likely took the spike with him and stuck it into Goyaryn, and here the third... what the third will do, I still don’t know... but also sure it’s some filth... Hey, what are you doing?” Yagun stared at Tanya in surprise.
“I’m sketching. Easier to think,” she said.
Having moved a clean sheet of white birch bark to herself, Tanya quickly drafted three figures, which immediately with villainous purposefulness dispersed to the corners. The first figure was muffled up in a long raincoat, the second swung a long spike similar to a dagger; and the third... the third seemed lost, as if it did not yet grasp what role was assigned to it in this mysterious play.
“Here look!” Tanya said, pointing to the first figure. “This zombie appeared when we were still in Tibidox. It means, logically speaking, this can turn out to be either a student or an instructor. Right?”
“Careful! The pen!” Vanka exclaimed.
Tanya carelessly presented the feather too close to a drawn figure and it contrived to singe it with a tiny spark. True, the flame turned out to be weak, but it was still worthwhile for the girl to blow it out. Vanka attempted to give the figure a flick, but it started to laugh aloud, turned on the spot, and disappeared.
“A nightmare! And it’s nothing but an unhappy figure! Well, and they’re created in Tibidox!” The grandson of Yagge sighed and stared with some special expression at the second figure, which threateningly swung the spike as if forbidding to be approached.
“But-but, my granny mama, without hysterics! We don’t much fear your spike!” Yagun said negligently. “Ready to argue that this second zombie is an instructor. But who? There were no students in Tibidox. Agreed?”
“Not exactly? Not one?” Vanka was interested, looking in his direction.
“Not one,” confirmed Yagun.
“Fine,” nodded Vanka. “So, everything is clear with the second. But here who’s the third?”
“With the third again incomprehensible. Everyone’s under suspicion — students and instructors,” Tanya nodded to the last, the most mysterious figure.
Grasping that the discussion was about it, the figure quickly crossed to the centre of the sheet and started to wave its hands and jump as if trying to draw attention to itself. Tanya began to tensely examine its gestures, but here Yagun suddenly crumpled the white birch bark decisively and, having tossed it up into the air, burnt it with a fight spark.
“Sparkis frontis! So it’ll be with all spies and traitors! And no use messing around with them!” He said and, gathering the notebooks, set off for his own room to lubricate the vacuum.
The forgotten Vampire-Lamia Dictionary flew after its owner.
Vanka Valyalkin took in Yagun with a joyless glance and lowered his head into his hands.
“Why are you so sour?” Tanya asked him.
“No reason.”
“Really, tell me! I see that you’re hiding something! Indeed I know you!”
“Okay,” Valyalkin unwillingly agreed. “Yagun’s information did not startle you? Well, that he figured out so quickly that the zombies of She-Who-Is-No-More are hiding among us and therefore it’s impossible to determine who was on the Floor and who was not?”
“On the whole yes. He cracked it in a jiffy. Simply like a detective,” agreed Tanya.
Vanka nodded.
“That’s just the point. I also didn’t pay attention at first, and then understood that Yagun didn’t tell the whole truth. Remember his reasoning about the second figure? He stated that only instructors and no students remained in the school.”
“And indeed it wasn’t so? Really, we didn’t stick around for two months among the moronoids?” Tanya was indignant.
“All but not all... Yagun himself was in Tibidox. Moreover, he tried to penetrate to the Floor... He even wrote us about it, remember?” Vanka announced with unwillingness.
“So what, he tried. It didn’t work out for him. He ran up against the guard spell. Remember his frog feet?” Tanya stood up for Yagun.
“Be that as it may... But where did he jump to on them, on his feet? It’s all strange, very strange...” Vanka said.
“No, Bab-Yagun cannot turn out to be a zombie! He’s... he’s Bab-Yagun! Our Bab-Yagun! You understand?” Tanya protested.
“I’m also not convinced that he’s a zombie. I simply point out that there are too many coincidences,” Vanka said unwillingly.
In his tremendous oversize yellow soccer shirt he seemed slender and dishevelled like a sparrow. And so worried.
Tanya’s mood was ruined. She did not want to suspect Bab-Yagun, but at the same time caught herself at the thought that there was a portion of truth in Vanka’s words. It suddenly came to her mind that indeed today he was also the first to utter the name of She-Who-Is-No-More — Plague-del-Cake. Why did Yagun so confidently declare that Plague was on the Floor?
Valyalkin, all this time attentively observing her, smiled in encouragement.
“And I agree with you! Maybe everything is normal with Yagun. I myself also don’t particularly believe that he can turn out to be a zombie. Indeed he’s too slick! But then for the other zombie I calculated completely accurately.”
“Who is he?” Tanya was tense.
“Not he, but she. Destistikha! Remember you said that Coffinia saw her near the magic workshop? And later this bluish glow from her eyes... Have you ever seen that in normal magicians? No, she’s really the zombie. I think it’s worthwhile for us to follow her. Agree?”
“Agree...” nodded Tanya.
Now, when they at least had some plan of actions, she no longer felt so helpless.

* * *

Next day, having waited till the end of the class on removal of evil eye, Tanya approached the tattered stuffed bear, on the neck of which has hung a silver tablet “I love Greenpeace!” According to some information, this bear died of fatal curse, which the same Great Tooth put on it, while according to others — it was the hunting trophy of Lieutenant Rzhevskii, which he, after becoming a ghost, somehow contrived to drag into Tibidox, making a fool of the spell of passage. When it was necessary, the spectre became very aggressive.
Looking around and discovering that no one was looking at her, Tanya quickly dived behind the stuffed animal and lurked there. Having placed a small pocket mirror facing out, she began to carefully observe what was going on in the class.
Leaving the room, Vanka turned around and, as they agreed upon, unnoticeably gave her thumbs up. This meant that the place was good and Tanya could not be seen.
Gradually the spacious accommodation was deserted. Dentistikha sat at the teacher’s table and leafed through the diary. It seemed nothing was of interest to her anymore. But it was only so until the last student had left. Then the Great Tooth quickly got up and tightly shut the classroom door, turning the key twice in the lock.
Tanya for some reason recalled the day when everything began. Was Dentistikha not the first to discover the Vanishing Floor and sound the alarm? She was unusually frightened by something when she broke into the office of the academician. Could it be that at that moment she was already under the action of the magic that turned her into a zombie? Then she still resisted but soon the magic sucked her in totally, made her an obedient slave. If that was so, then Dentistikha also stood in the orange raincoat on the roof.
Tanya’s head started to spin. The fear which she experienced in the air squeezing the blazing bow returned. And here the Great Tooth turned to the stuffed animals and hailed softly:
“Don’t hide! I see you!”
Tanya almost dropped the mirror.
“Have you been waiting for long? Come out! Or you want me to approach? Really you thought it possible to hide from me?” Dentistikha impatiently repeated.
With a doomed sigh, Tanya already wanted to get out, but here a distinct rustle was heard somewhere right next to her. Someone moved out from behind the stuffed snow leopard adjacent to the bear and isolated from her refuge only by a thin partition. Tanya carefully shifted the mirror. At first she saw someone’s legs, then the back, and finally bright hair.
“Why the foolish tricks?” Dentistikha was angry. “I asked you not to come to me any more! This is dangerous! When it’s necessarily, I myself will summon you.”
The instructor crossly pulled off the thick glasses. A deathly-bluish light spurted from her eyes. The girl standing with her back to Tanya, now made a half-turn to her and also removed her dark glasses. Tanya almost yelled. She recognized Katya Lotkova. The eyes of the first beauty of Tibidox shone exactly like Dentistikha’s.
The burning looks of the teacher and the student met. It seemed that a duel took place between Dentistikha and Lotkova. A duel of looks.
Afraid of becoming blind, Tanya quickly took away the mirror. And just in time. One of the desks flared up. The massive lamp began to swing with a clang on the chains. However, it was possible not to worry anymore because the duel ended as swiftly as it began.
“Okay, enough... Your foolish jokes bore me!” Dentistikha growled, removing her look. “What do you need?”
“I can no longer be like this. I cannot hide, I cannot walk around in these glasses. Have you already figured out how to get rid of it?” Katya Lotkova asked.
Negligently snapping her fingers, Dentistikha extinguished the blazing desk.
“I tried. So far nothing,” she said.
“But it must be urgently removed! Urgently! Cannot imagine a more apt situation.”
The instructor nodded.
“I know, I already thought about this. We will remove it tomorrow night. Full moon is the most suitable time. But for this it is necessary to break into his office... Take a dagger with you!”
Katya Lotkova shuddered.
“You want me to do it?” She asked.
“Unimportant who will do it. The main thing is to put an end to it. Agree?”
Hesitating a little, Katya nodded.
“Fine. I’ll try to reach the dagger.”
“So, agreed. We’ll meet at three in the office of Sardanapal,” repeated Dentistikha.
Showing that the conversation was over, she put on the glasses. Katya followed her example. The Great Tooth approached the door and opened it, letting Lotkova out into the corridor.
The instructor looked at her from behind for a while, and then she muttered:
“The girl begins to tire me. Possibly I made an error when I trusted her... Well, no matter. Soon everything will end.”
Dentistikha smiled and, taking the journal from the table, left the classroom.
Tanya with difficulty got out from behind the stuffed bear. She was trembling. She did not doubt that she became a witness to a terrible plot.
“Yes, you heard! Dentistikha and Lotkova want to kill Sardanapal. To stab him at night with a dagger! Good though, here Bab-Yagun had nothing to do with it!” In horror she turned to the bear.