Tanya Grotter and the Throne of the Ancient One

Chapter 3
High-rise on Broiler Legs and Obstacle Course

Near noon, the entire school of magic assembled in the main dragonball field. True, it was necessary to re-equip slightly for the cabin races. The protective magic dome was removed and paths were marked in the sandy arena. Around the field stood the cyclopes, whom Slander had rounded up to keep order. The cyclopes yawned and, leaning on their clubs, stared uneasily at Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya. Dubynya looked fine, although his nose was slightly displaced to the side, and a well-ventilated opening appeared instead of one of his front teeth.

There were almost no vacant spots on the stands, except on the very top, from where, besides the clouds, which the playful cupids, having slipped through to the match without tickets, continually looked out of, it was impossible to see anything at all. The transparent silhouettes of the ghosts soared between the rows. Lieutenant Rzhevskii bowed to acquaintances, half of whom attempted to launch a briskus-quickus at him. Eyeless Horror, after rolling in Wheelchair to the races, entertained all those desiring with candies, on which were traced crossbones and skull.

On Unhealed Lady’s neck hung a supporting muff, looking as if three scores of tassels were already pulled off it, and her jaw was tied up with a towel. “Toothache!” she complained to everyone. And woe to the one who asked “where?” “HERE!” Lady answered, with explicit pleasure extracting her jaw from the muff. The compassionate spectator involuntarily grimaced, and Lady, noticing this, would start to hit him with the spectral umbrella and squeal, “You just look at this dry stick! Cad! And he doesn’t want to hold it!”

Tanya and Vanka Valyalkin were sitting in the first row not far from the judicial bench. Bab-Yagun, who had bustled with the banners more than anyone else, was not with them. Sardanapal suddenly recollected that the races did not have a commentator, and sat Yagun down on the commentator’s tower, something similar to the tower of a volleyball judge. Yagun could see much better from it. True, he had to rattle non-stop, but he managed.

Coffinia, sitting beside them, unceremoniously occupying Yagun’s place and twirling her head in all directions, nudged Tanya with an elbow. “Grotty, look! Thirty-three heroes! Now someone would faint, eh?”

“If you must – faint!” Tanya muttered. She distrustfully examined the stand, on which handsome young men, daring giants in suits of scales of burnt gold, were sitting in glory and studying the playbill with the schedule of the rounds. Despite having heard about them often, she was seeing them for the first time. “And why are they alone? Where’s Uncle Chernomor?” Tanya asked. Coffinia twirled her index finger at her temple and silently pointed at the place of the chief judge, which Academician Chernomorov was occupying. Suddenly recollecting, Tanya bit her tongue. Indeed, she had to slip up like this, and on top of that before whom!

“Dear spectators! With you again I’m the dear to all and irritating to many Bab-Yagun. Usually you can admire me in the field, when I courageously go into tailspin on my roaring vacuum. But that’s for dragonball matches. Now I, wise and courageous as an antique god, am on the commentator’s tower! Oh! Here I already see in the fifth row the pathetically sour, plain face of my best friend Damien Goryanov!” with crimson ruby ears, Bab-Yagun started. “So that you would crack! Antique god!” green with malice, Damien Goryanov snorted. The shielding vest of Bab-Yagun began to crackle, having successfully deflected an evil eye.

“The cabins have crowded onto the start zone before me. By the efforts of Slander Slanderych on each cabin is a linen strip with its number – from 1 to 13. Certainly, this is a very wise, and I would even say shrewd, decision of the Tibidox principal. What if we confused a Chukotsky yurt with High-Rise or a Ukrainian hut?” Yagun said maliciously. The vest again began to crackle – loudly and hysterically like a zoomer. This time he had to deal with a much stronger evil eye: Yagge sternly stared wide-eyed and threatened her grandson with a fist. Slander Slanderych discontentedly rubbed the bridge of his nose and turned away.

Bab-Yagun, like many great speakers, now and then forgot what he had recently said; he looked at his palm and was glad that he had safeguarded himself with crib notes. “Cabins on Chicken Legs are a very rare mythological form, relating to the kind of zoomorphic structures with no foundation. A new cabin can hatch not more frequently than once every hundred years. In the tree belt of Russia – and they dwell nowhere else – there remained so few of them that they have long been listed as endangered. For this very reason, in order to draw attention to this unique form, they have decided to carry out yearly reviews in Tibidox.”

“Don’t harp on, Yagun! I would really cry from tender emotion! Cutie-tutie, the poor little housies! So that they would step on your tongue!” Coffinia Cryptova shouted from her seat.

Yagun experienced a strong desire to launch a combat spark at her. “I believe my granny. She says that a Cabin on Chicken Legs is not simply a small wooden house with a stove. It’s even a friend. A real friend for centuries. When they drove away her cabin, Yagge almost died of disappointment. Clear to you?”

“Clear. Somebody was a walking vacuum and became an enthusiastic cabin fancier. Any day now he’ll set up an incubator and breed Buyan full of kicking houses,” again shouted Coffinia. Gunya Glomov and Damien Goryanov started to neigh disgustingly.

Bab-Yagun considered that there was no sense for the entire stadium to witness the bickering and quickly changed the subject. “The first international cabin races consist of three stages. The first stage – orientation in locality, the second – Caucasian trick riding, and the last – obstacle course. The winner is based on the total marks of the results of all stages,” he declared.

Shurasik started to write in such a hurry in his little notebook that he blunted his pencil. The rest of the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine spectators did not begin to record but entrusted to memory.

Slander Slanderych, overbearingly inflating his cheeks, went out onto the field. “Cabins, listen to my command! Line up! Be still! Le…right! About turn!” he gave the order in a business-like manner. The cabins treated his words with total disregard. None stirred from its place. Only High-rise on Broiler Legs turned around alone. “Well done! Good girl!” Slander patronizingly addressed her carelessly and suddenly began to squeal: “Hey! What are you doing?” He grasped too late that High-rise turned around because it took into its head to pelt him with sand. And it would be much more convenient to rake up sand standing backwards.

The stands howled with laughter. The disconcerted Slander withdrew hurriedly. The mermaid, whom he as usual delivered to the races in a barrel, hit the water with her tail and splashed Slander. The principal became much cleaner, but then immediately smelt strongly of fish. “Very flattering! Simply very flattering!” grimacing, a squeamish Dentistikha said. She plugged up her nose with a hanky and in a hurry moved to another bench. The mermaid, offended, tried to splash her but missed, and all the water fell on Rita On-The-Sly. On-The-Sly did not mind at all. Since she was three, she had adored pickled herring, the smell of which was close to that of the mermaid.

“Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! Number one! I ask you to love and not to complain, if anyone gets hit by an evil eye by mistake!” Bab-Yagun declared. From the cabin jumped out a decrepit but very frisky old hag. Her right foot was bone, and a yellow tooth grew from her lower jaw. The tooth was a one and only, but then of such a size that it was visible even from the next-to-last row. Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head whistled smartly, instilling a slight envy even in Nightingale O. Robber. “Auntie Lush! I begged you! Let them think that I learned it myself!” Nightingale Odikhmantevich muttered unhappily.

“Well, cabin! Turn your back to the forest, your front to me!” Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head gave an order. The cabin immediately began to creak, shuddered from porch to shutter and from shutter to roof, and began to search pensively for the forest, turning the single window with geranium in different directions. After brief searches, the forest was discovered. True, at the same time, it also found that Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head and the forest were located on the same side; therefore, to turn facing Lukerya with its back to the forest was positively impossible.

Leaving its position, the cabin started to go around its mistress in order to turn up between her and the forest, and almost trampled a junior arbiter who was a former shaman. “Stop!” Sardanapal yelled. “Discredited! Next!” “What? No matter! I’ll win back with Caucasian trick-riding!” Lukerya said. Thumping her bone leg, she climbed back into the cabin and angrily slammed the door.

Following the unlucky Lukerya appeared Glashka-Curdled-Milk, Big Matrena, Small Matrena, Solonina Andreevna, Aza Camphorovna, and other participants. The cabins had different successes with orientation in locality. The Chukotsky yurts managed better than the others did in the first stage. They found not only the forest, cliffs, and Tibidox, but even navigated by the sun, and clearly showed by deer hooves where the equator was. High-Rise on Broiler Legs also passed orientation completely worthily. Unfortunately, at the same time two more shamans and one genie suffered while they were bustling around with tape measures.

However, the cabin of Solonina Andreevna obtained the highest mark; it knew how to carry out surprisingly complex tasks and cleanly turned seventy-two degrees towards the named shoe of Sardanapal – exactly the one with a glued heel. And this despite that it received commands in Latin!

“Well now? Who will deliver the prize ribbon for the first stage? According to the rules, it’s expected to be tied on the right foot of the cabin winning the stage!” Sardanapal briskly said.

“Perhaps we’ll send an arbiter? The cabin is quite ready to kick. Anything can happen!” Dentistikha cautiously said.

The for-life and posthumous head of Tibidox shook his head. “It seems they have already trampled all the arbiters. It has to be one of us! I propose Professor Stinktopp! Who’s ‘for’? I’m ‘for’!” he said. Immediately went up a forest of hands. No one liked Stinktopp. Only Dentistikha restrained, not risking to vote against her immediate superior.

Professor Stinktopp turned yellow as a lemon. “I reject! I’m tired of being trampled! Who vrote ze rules – let zat vun also anser for his sick fantasies!” he screamed.

“And that is a completely sensible proposal! Isn’t that true, colleagues? I agree! Who made up the rules? I ask: who made up these idiotic rules? Why does no one confess? I’ll find out all the same!” Sardanapal repeated angrily.

“You made up the rules,” Medusa whispered to him.

“Oh? Really? That’s annoying!” Sardanapal said when he finished muttering about absent-mindedness and lack of sleep over a hundred years. Professor Stinktopp’s twelve thousand wrinkles beamed malice.

An awkward pause appeared. Yagge, long looking slyly at the field, rescued the head of Tibidox from a difficult situation. “Well now! Hand the ribbon over here! Let’s see whether it has forgotten me, as I approach the cabins,” the old lady volunteered.

The brow of the academician cleared up. “Alright then!” he pronounced happily. “I think we can go to meet our deserved contributor. Eh, colleagues? You’re not against it, Slander Slanderych?” The principal of Tibidox was ‘for’. With both hands. He already began to fear that they would send him to the cabin.

When Yagge appeared on the field, Solonina Andreevna began to bustle, attempting to take the ribbon from her. “Indeed allow me! It only likes me! It doesn’t allow strangers to approach, barely understands Russian!” she said.

“Indeed true! Well, cabin! Come here, little hut!” Yagge ordered quietly. The cabin obediently ran up to her, pattering the tile. Solonina Andreevna pursed her lips. “See, it does! And she said: it doesn’t understand! Well, my dear, give me a paw!” Yagge again ordered. The cabin clumsily raised a sharp-clawed foot and, balancing on the other, stretched it out to Yagge. The old lady tied the ribbon on and, after slapping the cabin on the long leg, moved aside, giving Solonina Andreevna a victorious look.

“Well done, Granny! Simply cannot believe it!” Bab-Yagun was enraptured. “And what’s going on over there? Academician Sardanapal gets up and raises his hand with the ring. One of two things: either he wants to drive away with sparks the harpies that have already made the fans sick with their heart-rending cries, or he is going to announce the Caucasian trick-riding. This will become clear very soon. According to the rules, Caucasian trick-riding is held in three groups. First group – cabins and huts. Second group – yurts. Third group – High-rise on Broiler Legs. Oh, my granny mama, I was nearly blinded! Why does Sardanapal let out such bright sparks? Caucasian trick-riding begins!”

The cabins jerked from their places, instantly tossing a cloud of sand into the air. Dust clouded up the stands. Those sitting in the first rows got most of it – they turned out to be in the centre of a sandstorm. “Thanks to Yagun! He had to play such a dirty trick! Three days busy with banners in order to swallow sand!” Vanka said, in a vain attempt to make out at least his own feet.

“Shurasik! Do something!” turning around, Tanya shouted. The sand squeaked on her teeth. But, as luck would have it, nothing floated up in memory except the now already quite unnecessary Speedus-envenomus.

“Useless! According to the new rules, all serious magic is blocked in the field,” despondently answered a voice from the adjacent dust cloud.

“How about evil eyes?”

“Evil eyes and jinxes – these are not magic. They’re petty underhand actions of worthless envious people!” Shurasik categorically stated.

“Oh, come on, how indignant! And the day before yesterday he put an evil eye on Verka Parroteva! The wretch for half an hour considered herself a Bengal tiger and was chasing Dusya Dollova. What did she yell? ‘I’m a tiger-dolleater!’ Must invent some such thing!” Coffinia beat around the bush.

“Dollova asked for it. No one asked her to put a spitting spell on my inkpot! She spoiled my entire notebook on study of evil spirits!” Shurasik complained.

The dust finally settled down only when the cabins had run off to a decent distance. Tanya saw that the cabins rushed by in uniform little jumps, similar to dancing. They braked on the turns and flapped their doors.

Suddenly the shutters of the end cabin were thrown open, and a rheumatic bent granny changed direction on the windowsill. “Ah! Fir stick, forest thick, a bachelor went quick!” she shouted smartly and, after waving to spectators, courageously climbed up onto the roof. The spectators greeted her with friendly applause. The jumping cabin rigidly entered the turn, leaning to the left.

“Dangerous moment! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head almost flies off the roof; however, she miraculously manages to hold on. I’m sure she used her unique tooth. The cabin again gets onto a straight stretch and Lukerya reaches the chimney all the same! Bravo! First of all the participants! Not without reason she was waiting so for Caucasian trick-riding! I recall that according to the rules of the contest Lukerya must still squeeze through the chimney into the cabin, light the stove and, having first cooked the cutlets, entertain the spectators… Ha-ha! Did they really check the cutlets? Here I’m teasing my friend Vanka Valyalkin, a big fan of cutlets! But it’s actually necessary to light the stove! The participant, the first to do this, will receive the ribbon as winner of this stage!” Afraid to miss anything interesting, Bab-Yagun continually jumped up onto the seat of the tower and gesticulated.

Tanya waited with impatience until the cabins again turned up in her part of the stadium in order to see something at least. But here the yurts on deer hooves, appearing as a separate group, rushed forward and everything again was hidden in dust. “Somehow I’m not meant to be a spectator. Quite another matter to be a participant!” Tanya thought, forced to breathe through the shawl.

“A minor defect of the organizers, of course, cannot spoil the pleasure of the spectacle!” Bab-Yagun stretched himself out to the utmost from the tower and everything was excellently visible to him. “You’ll see how Big Matrena skilfully trick-rides! True, I foresee that for a sportswoman of such a build it won’t be easy to squeeze into the chimney! Solonina Andreevna deftly jumps onto the tiles, clinging to a ledge with an umbrella. Not bad! Glashka-Curdled-Milk, number three, uses a not less inventive motion! She throws a cat tied with a rope onto the roof. The frightened cat takes off into the chimney and there only remains for Glashka to secure the rope. Now she indeed won’t fall down…”

Shurasik sneezed sadly behind Tanya. “I can’t even see my little notebook!” he said in sorrow.

“Write blindly!” Vanka advised him.

“I also write blindly. Only the paper is somewhat strange and the line in no way ends,” said Shurasik.

“Watch what you’re doing! You’re writing on my back! And I was wondering what’s crawling on me!” suddenly Coffinia began to yell. Shurasik began to tremble and dropped the pencil.

Bab-Yagun, having sat too long, jumped up on the tower. “Oh, my granny mama! Slander Slanderych with a green flag signals High-rise on Broiler Legs to start! I’ll now become deaf! What a nightmarish crash! The stadium shakes. The spectators fall like ripe apples from the benches. Interesting, what rules did Sardanapal devise for this cabin? Will someone really have to clamber onto the roof? You fall – your bones really won’t be whole… Oh, I see that for High-rise there is an insignificant change in the rules. The witch-grannies inhabiting it – and there are about two scores of them inside – briskly clamber along the fire escape, helping each other…”

High-rise, shaking the stadium, moved to the other end of the field. The dust settled down. Again, it became possible to breathe without the shawl.

“Cryptova, ah Cryptova!” Shurasik sorrowfully asked.

“What’s with you?” Coffinia snapped.

“Don’t twist about! Let me copy from your back what I wrote down earlier.” Coffinia silently pulled the notebook out of his hands and flung it onto the field.

“Ah, Chukotsky yurts?” Bab-Yagun exclaimed with feelings. “I never assumed that it’s possible to dash so swiftly on deer hooves! Here only the rules of Caucasian trick-riding differ a lot for yurts than for cabins. They don’t have brick chimneys! The mistress of a yurt must get outside and, having gone around the yurt, must again be at the entrance. Naturally, the yurt rushes at a gallop at the same time! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head has disappeared into the chimney already quite a long time ago! It seems to me, I see smoke! Yes, so it is – even sparks occasionally escape outside. I’ll be darned! Interesting, with what is she stoking? Did she shove a dragon into the chimney? In big-time sports anything can happen.” This time the attack evil eye was so powerful that even the shielding vest did not help. Yagun flew off the commentator’s tower and ploughed his nose into the sand. An insulted Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head angrily slammed shut the shutter.

While Bab-Yagun shook himself down and again got back up the tower, the judges had finished assigning marks for the second stage. Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head got the prize ribbon. The second place went to Solonina Andreevna. The third was divided between Glashka-Curdled-Milk and the mistress of one of the Chukotsky yurts. High-rise on Broiler Legs, unable to control itself, kicked a cyclops that had accidentally ran out onto the field and was disqualified from this stage. Meanwhile a team of house spirits and a score of genie dragon handlers attempted to extract Big Matrena, who was stuck in the chimney. Fatty sighed and cursed those, thanks to whom she climbed into the chimney.

“I’m really furious! Not exactly coping and then hurled evil eyes already!” Bab-Yagun was indignant, again nestled on the tower. “Okay, who wants to harp on an old thing! I managed at the proper time! Any minute now the third stage – obstacle course – will begin! The limitation on serious magic has temporarily been lifted. The genies and surviving shamans are rushing along the field, creating fabricated obstacles. The first obstacle, which the participants have to overcome, is a deep ditch. Immediately after the ditch are artificial wind-fallen logs. And finally, an impassable swamp, which can be passed exclusively along the mounds concealed under water. According to the assurance of experts, during prolonged wanderings in a forest cabins have to overcome similar obstacles under natural conditions in search of worms…”

“Yagun! What nonsense? I’ll take away the mouthpiece!” Sardanapal was outraged.

Yagun cautiously covered the mouthpiece with a palm. “I’ll take back my words! They don’t peck worms! And they stagger so along the forest just for fun! But, Academician, is it worthwhile to carp at such trifles? It suppresses my artistic imagination!”

“In my opinion Yagun’s…full of it!” Coffinia said, displeased. Shurasik began to nod in agreement. Since she took and flung away his little notebook, he was upset with the entire world.

“But what do you want? A cabin race isn’t dragonball, which everybody understands! We wouldn’t be able to say anything coherent at all, but he’s doing just fine! He shouldn’t stop talking!” Tanya interceded for Yagun.

Bab-Yagun precisely did not become silent for a moment, working like a true verbal machine gun. “Sardanapal lets out a start spark! Cabins, yurts, and High-rise are rushing forward, scaring arbiters and cyclopes! Here it is – the culmination of the contest! Crowding each other, bumping with wooden sides, the cabins approach the first obstacle. The first to jump into the ditch is Small Matrena’s cabin. On her tail literally hangs Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! After it, barely lagging behind, Solonina Andreevna’s cabin navigates with its feet. One of the yurts is forced to withdraw – deer hooves refuse to climb into the water and stop on the shore. It’s right: you wash, only wash away your luck!”

“First deep thought I’ve heard from him! Isn’t it true, my dear, very exact reasoning? Perhaps, you also don’t sit in the water all the time?” smiling, Slander Slanderych remarked, trying to put his arm around the mermaid’s waist. “Go away, pesky!” the mermaid squealed and playfully lashed the principal’s fingers with her tail.

“The fight has become more intense!” Yagun shouted a little too much. “Who will reach the opposite shore first? What’s this storm? I understand nothing! Ah, it’s High-rise, jumped into the ditch and now forces a crossing of the obstacle. It splashes right to the bottom: the water barely reaches its knees. The ditch overflows its banks! What sprays! Even fell onto my lot! How unlucky for those sitting in the first rows! They’re probably now wetter than frogs!”

“Mock away, lop-eared! Doesn’t matter, after the races he’ll be waiting at mine! Possible to think that he put us here on purpose!” Vanka said angrily. His yellow soccer shirt was sticking to his body. Water was flowing down his hair. His boots were squelching. Tanya was hit not a bit less, but she, comforting herself, attempted to look at the situation from another angle. “It’s okay, Vanka! It’s not all that bad! No dust now!” she comforted Valyalkin. Coffinia, examining the genealogy of the cabins and dousing High-rise with verbal mud up to the chicken great-grandmothers inclusively, was choking with indignation.

“Small Matrena and Solonina Andreevna are the first to reach the wind-fallen logs. Small Matrena’s cabin attempts to jump over the obstacle while running at full speed and topples over. Unlucky cabin! It’s lying with its foundation up and mournfully jerking its feet, trying to hook onto anything. Interesting, how is Matrena there? Will she be able to get herself out or require the help of genies? Somehow, things don’t work out for the Matrenas today, I would say… Solonina Andreevna’s cabin with long thin legs shows more smarts. It clambers directly onto the logs, digging its claws into the bark. Outstanding manoeuvre! Aza Camphorovna’s cabin passes Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! It’s gathering speed! Will it really also decide on a leap? This is folly! Indeed, doesn’t Small Matrena’s failure teach it anything? An outstanding leap – best of all that I’ve seen! At the very last moment short wings slide out of the dormer windows on the roof of the cabin. The cabin flaps them and manages the obstacle like a laying hen taking off to the fence!”

“Not bad! They’ve passed Solonina Andreevna! Look at Yagge! How she stares at these cabins – and indeed also wet from top to bottom!” Vanka said in rapture. His mood had improved visibly. Having taken from his pocket a cold cutlet, he looked over it thoroughly, removed a thread from the magic tablecloth, and started eating. Bab-Yagun was not mistaken – Vanka adored cutlets. However, his maimed magic tablecloth issued nothing more besides cutlets and cucumbers, so it left him nothing else. “Fat is detrimental!” grimacing, Shurasik remarked. “Too much talk is even more harmful. You’ll catch a cold and die,” said Vanka and stuck his hand into his pocket for the next cutlet, which the magic tablecloth already had time to prepare for him,

“Oh, my granny mama! That beats all! High-rise doesn’t waste time on a leap! After gathering speed on Broiler Legs, it blows off the wind-fallen logs, scattering them like matches! Making use of this, the yurts and Ukrainian huts immediately rush into the breach. Now only the swamp and two cabins – Solonina Andreevna and Aza Camphorovna – separate High-Rise from victory! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head also still hopes for victory. It seems her cabin is employing new tactics! It’s going to let High-Rise pass in front, using it as a live ram, and go around it before the finish! I swear by its bone leg, this is the right tactic! Used it myself now and then in dragonball!”

“Aha! No other way with Goryanov. He takes everyone down indiscriminately. Both us and the visitors,” confirmed Tanya. She involuntarily recalled the last match with the Invisibles. Nightingale O. Robber at training the day before said that two years had already almost elapsed. A new match with the Invisibles, still the champions, could take place already this autumn, if Magciety of Jerky Magtion would not invent new tricks. “And it’s time then to work hard, work, and again work! So that even at night the dragons flicker before yours eyes! First time in two hundred years Tibidox has developed a professional team, and we must not miss the chance!” Nightingale finished his speech this way.

“Solonina Andreevna’s cabin freezes on the edge of the swamp, painstakingly groping with a foot for the mounds. Behind it, Aza Camphorovna’s cabin pushes ahead step by step! Oho, what Aza Camphorovna has come up with! She gets up onto the roof and tests the bottom with a pole! Solonina Andreevna sticks her tongue out at her from the window! Aza Camphorovna answers her with well-aimed spittle! What unsportsmanlike behaviour! The long-legged cabin is already in the middle of the swamp and soon must get out onto the shore… High-Rise, short of breath, is running up to the banks of the swamp. A witch-granny is jumping excitedly in each of its windows and giving advice. The poor broiler brain! Will it manage with this volume of information? High-rise for a while marks time thoughtfully and begins to go back, taking a running start. Leap! The slime flies in different directions! The entire stadium is now already flowing in slime! Even Academician Sardanapal is wiping with his famous shawl of the Milky Way. They say that when the academician sneezes into it, a shower of meteorites appears in all the moronoid telescopes…”

“YAGUN!”

“And why did I say that? It’s altogether only an unverified rumour! Oho! The swamp turned out to be deeper than High-rise assumed! It vanishes in the slush at a depth of the Broiler Legs and sinks in floor after floor. The witch-grannies in panic climb to the roof along the fire escape. Interesting, how will all this end? Aha, after falling in almost to the roof, High-rise nevertheless gropes for the bottom, pushes off, and begins to row! Bravo! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head’s cabin jumps after it. The substantially shallow swamp no longer hides the mounds. Oh, how careless! One Ukrainian hut, two cabins, and two yurts nevertheless contrive to get stuck in the swamp and blunder their success! The rest have moved onto the shore and are racing to the finish! Who will succeed in being first? In front of all is Solonina Andreevna’s cabin! Lagging far behind it hurries Aza Camphorovna’s cabin covered in slime, on the heels of which pursue Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head and High-rise on Broiler Legs. Last trudges Big Matrena’s cabin.”

“Nothing unusual about her trudging! Big Matrena is one-and-a-half times the size of Aunt Ninel!” Tanya remarked thoughtfully. “And three Aunt Ninels equal an elephant,” Vanka qualified, once having seen a photo of Aunt Ninel.

Yagun rose on tiptoes. “The finish line is getting closer! A little more and Solonina Andreevna’s cabin will reach it. Hey, Granny, what are you doing? What did you forget on the field? Someone please detain her, else they’ll trample her!”

Two cyclopes, spreading their arms wide, rushed to Yagge, but the old lady hushed them with a tooth, looked sternly at them, and the cyclopes completely wilted. Yagge ran out onto the field and stopped slightly right of the finish line. “Sashka-messy-slob! Well, recognize me?!” having whistled no worse than Lukerya, she shouted loudly.