Tanya Grotter and the Throne of the Ancient One

“Stop! You psycho!” Zhikin snapped.

Seven-Stump-Holes smiled evilly and spat with aim through the window. “I’ll not stop! Tell me when you don’t have dates, dandy!”

“Okay! Right away!” Zhora Zhikin thought seriously and, reaching for a notebook, started to thumb through it.

“So… Thursday I have… Friday, Saturday, Sunday – also have,” he muttered.

Seven-Stump-Holes ran up and impatiently tore the notebook out of his hands. “And you have to admire this! Our dandy has a date every day, and sometimes even two… And just how does he manage? You don’t use the bisect spell, no? Well, well! Here look, Wednesday this week you have a window!”

“No, Wednesday I also have a date,” Zhikin said in a hurry. “The most-most important! So important that I specially put it in code. Do you see the mark?”

“Where’s the mark? Aha! Crossbones! I’ll hazard a guess who this can be! Coffinia! On Wednesday you have a date with Coffinia!”

Zhikin uneasily glanced at Gunya Glomov. “Nonsense!” he blurted out. “I’m not meeting Coffinia! It’s… eh-eh… Verka Parroteva!”

Seven-Stump-Holes again tried to spit through the window but missed a little. “You don’t fool us! Since when does one put in crossbones as the code for Parroteva? Would draw a bird or something similar with a beak… Or no, if you were to meet with Parroteva, even the cyclopes would know about this! She would jabber to everybody! Don’t lie, dandy! Acknowledge that the bones – it’s Coffinia!”

Zhikin turned pale as a toadstool. Gunya Glomov, scowling, was watching him narrowly. “Why do you say that? Coffinia’s not my type! She’s terrible! And on the whole her hair is violet… If I even agreed to meet her, then only to pass her the summaries of Stinktopp’s lectures…” Zhora muttered unconvincingly.

“Really? How caring! But then why put it in code? Ah yes, so that insolent competitors would not take away the summaries! It’s so understandable, don’t you think, Guny?” Seven-Stump-Holes was touched.

The heavy cognitive work taking place in Glomov’s brain was finally completed. Gunya swung. He never used magic in fights, preferring to employ approved moronoid methods. With the shrill cry of a wounded seagull, Zhora tried to place a magic block, but he did not have time. Glomov’s fist had already arrived at the destination station.

Seven-Stump-Holes looked with satisfaction over Zhikin’s nose. “That’s it! Fairness is restored. Even, in my opinion, a little more than necessary! No matter, Zhikin, don’t whimper! Scars decorated, decorate, and will decorate a man. Even if they’re not on the forehead,” he remarked.

Damien Goryanov came out on all fours from under the bed. After ascertaining that the bench was kicking no longer, he shook down the dust and…only now he saw Bab-Yagun. Discovering his enemy, Goryanov immediately put the most indignant of all available expressions onto his sour face. “Hey, whites, this is my room! I don’t remember inviting any of you as guest! Want to steal something?” he shouted.

“Calm down, Damien! Pin the rap on someone else,” Bab-Yagun said merrily. “What are you busy with here? Let me guess! You’ve set up a society of bruised noses? Holding an organizational meeting?” Goryanov started to seethe. He screwed up his eyes, advanced his head forward, and, like a bull, rushed at Yagun. Yagun quickly stepped to the side and substituted a foot. “Recently you observed the attempt at a ram, undertaken by Damien Goryanov, number two. The wretch completely forgot that he had sent his vacuum Storm-100U off for repairs and achieved a ram by auxiliary means. You can contemplate the consequences of this inconsiderate act on the floor!” he commented.

The enraged Goryanov jumped and again wanted to rush at him, but Seven-Stump-Holes decisively caught him by the collar and moved him aside. “Welcome, whites! Outstanding! You’ll fall in love with us darks, hee-hee, as a friend of my Grandpa Vii said… Don’t you want to participate in our nice magic fun?” he asked.

“Nice fun – jumping on a wacky bench?” Vanka Valyalkin asked,

“It’s called RABID BLACK MAGIC RODEO! Heard about it?” Seven-Stump-Holes pushed the bench with a foot. It did not move. It required a next injection of magic for the awakening.

Vanka and Bab-Yagun exchanged glances. Rabid rodeo was an ancient entertainment of the black magicians of Tibidox. It was forbidden but not forgotten all the same. Berserk benches, animated by black invocations, frequently mutilated unlucky riders. Rabid rodeo was even more dangerous than dragonball. Dragons rarely tore up players, more often swallowed them whole and kept them inside till the end of the match. The braking incantations and vampire bile saved dragonball players from serious injuries and burns. There was not any kind of insurance in rabid rodeo. A violent spirit, installing itself into the furniture, forced it to skip around the room and, after unseating the rider, pitilessly trampled him. Whoever managed to stay on the longest was considered the winner. Or at least who managed not to have to go to magic station.

Seven-Stump-Holes, squinting, searchingly stared at Vanka and Yagun. “Well, Yagun, will you take a risk? Or you, Valyalkin! Don’t want to have fun? Climb on the bench, and I’ll say Wildus chamberus!”

“That won’t wash!” Vanka decisively said.

“Why’s that?”

“Wildus chamberus is a forbidden spell. Even your Professor Stinktopp doesn’t use it.”

“What are you saying? Again a wise guy! Shurasik hasn’t stung you by any chance? Or not, indeed…” Stump squinted maliciously. “Yes, he’s simply afraid! Only look at this little white wizard! He’s shaking with horror!”

“Stop, Stump! He’s not afraid!” Tanya stepped in for Vanka. “No one is afraid. However, if The Ancient One introduced a spell into the list, it means he had a reason.”

“Everyone knows that The Ancient One was overcautious. He placed all reviving spells in this list. Probably did not even examine each individually. What can be dangerous in Wildus chamberus! So, a bench jumps and calms down,” Zhora Zhikin said and contemptuously shrugged his shoulders. His nose was already bruised, so now nothing prevented him from taking Seven-Stump-Holes’ side.

“Well done, dandy! I’m proud of you! If The Ancient One actually wanted these spells not to be used, he would on no account make up this list!” Stump stated.

Tanya involuntarily thought that he was right. The list of a hundred forbidden spells, ciphered with special student code, not allowing them to disappear, had long ago already passed from one Tibidox student to another. And everyone secretly, almost under the blanket, learned them by heart, although this was most strictly forbidden. The Ancient One, in spite of all his brilliance, was a bad psychologist. If he did not actually want the forbidden spells to be known, he would have included them in the school program and made them strictly compulsory.

“I so thought that the whites are afraid! The whites, they’re nothing but whites… Only for them to walk arm-in-arm with Tararakh and glance at Sardanapal’s mouth at what clever thing he will say, eh, Vanka? Do I speak right or not?” Seven-Stump-Holes was maliciously interested. Vanka turned pale. He silently pushed him in the chest and made his way to the bench.

“And you’re not afraid that it’ll bruise your pretty little nose? Ah yes, no one is waiting to go on a date with you – then it’s another matter. Who will go on a date with you at all? I would like to see the girl who needs this scarecrow in a soccer shirt! Harpies and such mistake you as one in the garden!” Stump continued to mock.

Vanka silently sat down on the bench and threw a leg over it. Even without this, the sharp features of his thin face got even sharper. “Begin, Stinktopper! I’m ready!” he said.

“Don’t do this! They especially egg you on!” Tanya shouted, rushing to Vanka. She looked at Gunya Glomov so decisively that the healthy fellow moving towards Valyalkin recalled how a spark once scorched his tongue and stepped back.

Meanwhile Yagun was already standing across from Zhora Zhikin. “Intervene or I’ll touch up your nose on the other side!” he warned.

“Is that so! Very scary!” Zhora dodged, but for some reason did not begin to interfere.

“Get down! Don’t be silly!” Tanya was still trying to drag Vanka from the bench, but already understood that this was useless. At times, the calm Vanka became more obstinate than a donkey. And this was precisely such a moment. Seven-Stump-Holes had clearly succeeded in inciting Tanya’s friend.

“Move away! Stump, cast your spell! I don’t want to soil my ring with it!” not looking at Tanya, Valyalkin said.

“Don’t want to soil it, then don’t! But we’re not such moralists! Wildus chamberus!” jumping to the side, Zhora Zhikin and Seven-Stump-Holes shouted in a chorus. The dual red sparks blinded Tanya. The ring of Theophilus Grotter became red-hot and burned her finger. “How many forbidden spells are possible? I’ll have thermal shock!” it squeaked with the voice of Theophilus Grotter.

The bench revived. The red spark gave it improbable quickness. If it skipped like a bull in a rodeo earlier, now it was as if a rabid dog bit it. It managed to be immediately everywhere, bending and bucking with either the front or the hind legs. Vanka clung exactly like a tick. In contrast to the dark magicians, he did not flop with his stomach on the bench but sat up like an equestrian. He held on to a piece of wood with the left hand and balanced with the right, retaining equilibrium. The bench, as if deranged, jumped around the entire room. Furniture crashed and fell. Escaping from its wooden legs, Goryanov, Seven-Stump-Holes, and Zhora Zhikin evacuated under the bed and only rarely decided to put their noses out from under it. Even Tanya and Yagun were forced to step back to the door, ready to slip into the corridor if the bench attacked them.

“What’s going on there? He hasn’t fallen yet?” Stump continually asked with hope.

“Ne-a, still holding on!” Gunya Glomov answered with a hoarse bass. Not knowing by what means he had turned up on top of the cabinet and from there, as if from a captain’s bridge, he viewed the room.

“Yee-haw! Scatter, wet noses! Here it is, your rabid rodeo!” Vanka shouted, flashing by at a gallop around the room.

“My granny mama! What brilliant technique! Respected spectators! Get your moist palms ready for a stormy applause!!! Without a saddle, the born rider Ivan Valyalkin is staying on the prancing bench, adapting to all its intricate movements! The bench throws out all new tricks, but everything is useless! Valyalkin holds onto it as if glued, to the disgrace of the entire dark department of Tibidox and of Professor Stinktopp personally – the head of these confused pranksters!” Yagun started to rattle. It was evident that he missed commentating.

“Would you shut up, Yagun! You were dark probably for more than a year!” Damien Goryanov answered from under the bed.

“I was, but not anymore!” Yagun retorted coolly. “Why the emotion? I’ll be darned! Look at Vanka! Strange that with this talent he, until now, is not in the dragonball team! Yes, it’s possible to replace Zhikin and Goryanov easily together with one Vanka!”

In a couple of minutes, when everyone understood that Vanka was not going to fall, Seven-Stump-Holes and Zhikin disconcertedly came out from under the bed, ascertaining beforehand that the bench was not close by.

“That’s it, enough! He has stayed on three times longer than any of you! Stop your crippled stump, Holes! It’s already clear that he beat you!” Tanya ordered Seven-Stump-Holes. She was the first to feel that Vanka was beginning to tire. Although so far he had managed the jumps of the rabid furniture, Tanya surmised from the tension on his face what it had cost him.

“Solidus realismus!” Stump unwillingly barked. But, in spite of a flashed spark, the bench continued to skip. Seven-Stump-Holes repeated the incantation three more times, but with the same result. On the contrary, from the sparks the bench began to jump with doubled fury. A lamp broke. Gunya Glomov fell down from the cabinet like an overripe pear. “It’s useless. It doesn’t work!” Seven-Stump-Holes said gloomily, lowering his hand.

“Why?”

“Don’t you know?” he snapped. “Solidus realismus is only effective with one red spark, but Zhikin and I plastered it with two! Who asked him to release a spark together with me? This dandy is only good for crashing from the mop and going to very important dates!”

“Don’t you blame it on me, Stump! And generally magic will run low in the course of time, and it’ll be exhausted!” Zhora Zhikin said with hope.

“It’ll get tired, uh-huh! This is not a horse for you, one that gets tired. What, don’t you know that this is reviving incantation from the banned list? We have sunk so much magic into this bench – enough for a thousand years…” Seven-Stump-Holes appeared disheartened. To leave Vanka on the berserk bench was not part of his plan. He indeed only wanted to break the nose of a moralist from the white department. Nothing more.

Tanya did not tear her eyes from Vanka Valyalkin, not knowing how to help him. Likely, from the constant jerks and hammerings Vanka began to feel giddy. His right hand, by which he retained equilibrium, no longer waved so decisively. Several times, he fell first to one then the other side and only miraculously held his ground on the smooth wooden board. It was impossible to jump off now and Vanka understood this. With such galloping, this was almost equivalent to immediately wringing one’s own neck. Moreover, a second later the berserk bench would turn up on the spot where he landed.

“Hang on, friend! Try Bangus parachutis forte! And then immediately a safeguard!” Bab-Yagun shouted. Possibly, Vanka would have had time to follow his advice, but here the bench bucked and galloped sharply to the side. Vanka had time neither to swerve nor even to shout Oyoyoys smackis thumpis. He hit his head against the wall and, stunned, was thrown off the piece of wood squirming with spite. Vanka had not yet dropped down and Tanya was already rushing to him.

“Tanya, the bench!” Bab-Yagun yelled. He tried to knock down the bench with a fight spark but missed.

Tanya threw up a hand, already understanding that she would not be able to swerve from the bench, pouncing on Vanka and her. The cold hand of horror affectionately took her by the throat. Confused thoughts knocked around like bowling balls in her head, “Now it’ll collapse, now, now…”

Moments went by, and all the time the bench hung in the air. Seconds stretched into eternity. Tanya tried to jump, to grasp Vanka, to drag him away to the side, but could not even move from the spot. Time, resounding in her consciousness, remained the same unyielding for her body, grown in the magic double bass case on Aunt Ninel’s balcony. And then it seemed to Tanya that beyond the window a red glow flared up, with feelers of light pulling Tibidox into its shaky pinkish circle. As if an invisible giant released a red spark from a huge ring the size of the sun.

Suddenly the bench changed the trajectory of the drop and, having wasted all its zeal, tumbled down half a metre to the side of Tanya, exactly like a dead insect, throwing up its legs. All the time Tanya could in no way remove her gaze nor understand why the berserk bench, not having killed them, turned out to be in an entirely different place. Who pacified it and why?

It was unpredictable and even scary. Some outsider’s powerful magic – moreover dark magic – had clearly interfered in the matter. This could be determined by the colour of the flash. The flash was so bright, as if thousands of sparks were collected into a united fireball of unthinkable force. Considering that even three sparks would be an extraordinary phenomenon in magic.

“What was it that calmed it? There was magic for a whole eternity!” Damien Goryanov was agape in amazement, examining the bench. Likely, none of the black or even the white magicians, with the exception of Tanya alone, saw the red glow beyond the window, and already this was incomprehensible. What selective magic is this, that only one can see but the others do not even suspect?!

“It cannot be that the bench was sorry for us. It’s rabid rodeo! The spirit that moved into it didn’t know pity. Some black magician helped me, but black magicians don’t help for nothing… And how would he know what’s going on here at all? It means he was spying, but why? And what magician is he, if he can release sparks more powerful than Plague-del-Cake?” Tanya was puzzled.

Vanka began to moan. After the drop, he had been lying motionless face down on the floor. Tanya with great care turned him over and placed his head on her knees. “Why?! Why on earth did you get up on this bench at all?” she yelled. It seemed to her that she had never been as angry with anyone as with Vanka now. And had never been so worried about anyone.

“I… I simply could not otherwise… you know why…” Valyalkin was barely articulate. But how could he smile so blissfully, when his lips were split with blood, and the whole right side of his face was entirely covered in abrasions?

“Why, you fool? Really, wasn’t it clear that these darks set you up? You knew, you knew!”

Vanka squeezed Tanya’s hand. “I never told you this… I would do this again… I would do it for you, because you were beside me and I could not…”

“What ‘and I’?” Tanya cut him short. “In your opinion, I would be very pleased if this wounded stool would kick you?”

“You don’t understand… How can you understand, when I’m a scarecrow in a soccer shirt, which… with which no one… What do you understand at all?” Not finishing, Vanka smiled even more blissfully and rolled his eyes.

“Yagun, why are you standing there? You really don’t see? Help me!” Tanya shouted. Tanya and Bab-Yagun grabbed Vanka and dragged him to magic station. Shurasik actively helped them. Incidentally, it appeared that all this time he was curiously eavesdropping near the door, occasionally summarizing in his notebook moments interesting to him. Seven-Stump-Holes, Zhikin, Damien Goryanov, and Gunya remained in the room. It was not acceptable for true black magicians to help whites. If, of course, they themselves were not white once, like Shurasik.

“Phew!” Zhora Zhikin said with contempt. “Did you hear what he was chattering? I’m ready to argue this pitiful soccer shirt has fallen in love with Grotty! And the most entertaining is that only Grotty alone, it seems, doesn’t understand this. Here I, for example, always realize when they have fallen in love with me. Yesterday when Coffinia knocked down a tray of stewed fruit on me, I immediately grasped that I must ask for a date, because in general no one asked her to go a long way around on a crawl, and on top of that stumble on level ground…” After recollecting that he had blurted out too much, Zhikin fearfully looked sideways at Glomov, just in case, to insure his nose.

But Gunya, for his luck, was not listening attentively to the incoherent muttering of the local philanderer. He was sitting on the floor and for some reason continually shaking his hand. The tiny silver ringlet, cutting into Glomov’s finger thick as a choice wiener, looked absurd. But here indeed you can do nothing – magic rings make their own choices. Once and for life. “Listen, Damien, somehow everything turned out dull! The bench didn’t quite nail the fellow… But something else is bothering me: my ring for some reason has absolutely stopped producing sparks!” Gunya complained in a bass, again shaking the ring.

“You simply haven’t cleaned your ring for a long time… Let me try! Wildus chamberus!” Goryanov gave the order. The red spark, hardly released from his ring, faded. The wooden bench unwillingly jerked a leg, turned towards the ceiling, and froze anew. “And my sparks for some reason have become dull too. Magic has disappeared. Maybe someone put a block on it, eh?” Damien said anxiously.

“Exactly… Something has happened with magic. Either Slander hanging about somewhere close by, or I don’t know what…” Seven-Stump-Holes unwillingly acknowledged.

Some time afterwards Gunya Glomov, all the time still dully looking at his ring, brought it to his face and shook it carelessly. The spark that jumped out scorched his long-suffering nose. “Wow, darn, it did! Either there is or there isn’t magic! When I was still living with the moronoids, electricity threw such tricks at us! First it destroyed everything in the entrance, then burned again!” Gunya was surprised.

“What’s with moronoids and electricity here? You’re delirious!” Goryanov winced with disgust. Damien, like many in Tibidox, had a low opinion of Glomov’s wit. And he even could not surmise for once what kind of bright thought strayed accidentally into Glomov’s head, empty as a dusty pantry. Gunya, not arguing, shrugged his shoulders. In general, he, with all his eccentricities, was a forgiving fellow and was used to yielding to everybody, when the matter did not concern a fight or Coffinia.

Meanwhile Tanya, Yagun, and Shurasik had already carried Vanka to magic station. Near the door, Shurasik sniffed nosily and with foresight disappeared. He had a head cold and a cough, and was afraid that Yagge would catch him and, after covering him with a mustard plaster, force him to steam his feet and breathe over a potato. In the treatment of slight illnesses, the old lady willingly leaned towards rigid moronoid methods. “You’ll not do it again!” she declared.

Yagge was standing over a pot boiling without fire, whispering something to the pitch and occasionally throwing into it a bunch of steppe grass, or coltsfoot, or dry camomile. Seeing Vanka unconsciously sagging in the hands of Tanya and Yagun, she threw up her hands and, not asking anything, rushed to him. The pitch in the pot, left without care, indignantly flared up and was shrouded in steam.

Only after all Vanka’s abrasions were thoroughly processed, the head bandaged, and he, green like Uncle Herman, was put to bed, did Yagge sternly turn to her grandson. “How did he get to be this way?”

“Granny…”

“Don’t Granny me! I also know that I’m not grandpa! Answer: how?”

“He…fell from the stairs of the Atlases. You know how the steps there are… Rolled to the very bottom!” Yagun instantly considered it was better not to mention the rabid rodeo.

“Oh, what grief, from the stairs! How often have I told Sardanapal to alter the steps, perhaps he’ll do something!” Yagge began to groan sympathetically.

Yagun took a breath with relief and unnoticeably winked at Tanya, contented that he had successfully fooled Granny. However, he relaxed too soon. The old lady suddenly stretched out her hand and, having caught her grandson by a protruding ear, pulled him to herself. “Whom do you want to deceive? Who am I to you, Sardanapal? Or Stinktopp? Don’t you try to fool me!” she hissed.

“But Granny… My ear! Granny!” Yagun started to exclaim in pain.

“What Granny? Again Granny? What did it cost me to drag you back to the white department, do you know? What, I begged Sardanapal so that my grandson would skip on benches? Rascals, arranged rabid jumps! Hammered new nonsense into the head! Well no matter, I’ll give you what-for! You think, without a mother, no one would keep an eye on you?”

“Oh-oh-oh! How do you know about rabid jumps?” Yagun was thunder-struck, from surprise even forgetting about the swollen ear.

“And indeed I’m a complete fool! I’ve lived my entire life in the forest, never saw, never knew anything that can hurt so! I swear by the cabin, there will be hell to pay if Medusa or Slander finds out! You’ll make a racket with the whole gang in the dark department!” Yagge said.

Suddenly a new sound distracted the old lady and in a flash killed her flame. Pale Vanka – his head was bandaged so that only one eye was visible – sat up in bed and searched for someone with his eye. Tanya ran up to him. “Listen!” Vanka’s voice hardly broke through from under the bandages. “Go to my room – look in the cabinet… There’s a nestling! Feed it every two hours. At night also. Only don’t touch it with your hands – you’ll get burnt! And don’t look at it in the dark – it’ll hurt your eyes later!”

“What’s this nestling?”

“A firebird. Someone frightened it from the laying, and it abandoned the eggs. I gathered them and cast the incubation spell. The rest of the eggs perished, but this one hatched. Well, it was difficult with it: it squeaked right through every night.”

“So that’s where you always ran away to! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It was a secret. I wanted to present it to you on your birthday… In the fall it’ll already be a big bird, a beautiful bird…”

Vanka could not stand expending so much energy. Unexpectedly, he began to fall sideways and would have rolled off the bed, if Yagge and Tanya had not caught him. Yagge lowered Vanka’s head onto the pillow and began to bustle over him. Tanya, having repeatedly lain in magic station, already had time to study the old lady’s habits. Like now, Yagge only bustled about this way in the most dangerous cases. Now and then even magic seemed powerless…

“That’s it? Communed? Brought a patient that almost popped off? Yagun, why are you twirling around? Quick away from here – I don’t wish to see you! And you, Tanya, quick! The boys I understand, mischievous heads, but here I was mistaken in you!” Yagge said, decisively escorting them from magic station.

“Yagge, listen, will he live?” lingering over the threshold, Tanya asked in a whisper.

The old lady tenaciously took her by the chin and turned to the light. “What are you talking about! The eyes have been to a wet place! Should have thought earlier! There it – your stupidity – lies and cannot stir a hand!”

Tanya sobbed and pressed against her. “Yagge! He will die, yes? YAGGE! Why are you silent?”

The old lady softened. Having pushed Tanya away, she encouragingly pinched her cheek. “What Yagge? The slightest little thing, then Yagge! Okay, I won’t start torturing you, although it’s worthwhile! Your friend will survive, provided you don’t hang around here every two hours. Now I’ll show you and Yagun what-for! I’ll cast an evil eye! By the hair of The Ancient One I swear, I’ll cast an evil eye! And I won’t allow you into magic station anymore, mark my words!” she threatened, decisively pushing both through the door.

* * *

Guessing when they would succeed in seeing Vanka again, Tanya and Bab-Yagun dejectedly meandered back. Not wanting to go through the Hall of Two Elements, where they would immediately be attacked with idiotic questions, they decided to go by a roundabout way – through one of the recently constructed galleries. For this, they had to get up to the very top of the tower narrow as a pencil and in which the work on practical magic usually took place.

“Well, indeed a stench here! Must be something burning again at Stinktopp’s!” Yagun made a face.

Suddenly a door was thrown open and, wrapped in escaping dove-coloured smoke, Professor Stinktopp himself jumped out of the laboratory. Stumbling on level ground, he rushed past the children and ran like a duck waddling in a hurry to the stairs.

“Where’s he going?” The smoke stung Tanya eyes.

“How am I supposed to know? Let’s run to have a look!” Yagun instantly decided.

Through several flights, Stinktopp turned to the teachers’ floor and began pounding on Dentistikha’s door. The Great Tooth looked out almost immediately. Straightening her glasses thick as two magnifiers, she was examining an album of medieval engravings. Noticing Stinktopp, Dentistikha dropped the book from consternation. The troubadour, secretly kissing the queen on the last page, having been thrown out of the album, hastily bounced to the side and began to read verses loudly. “Not bad, young man, not bad! Excellent alliteration! And what wonderful rhythmical dip in the third stanza!” the queen languidly said, repairing her hair-do.

“Deni, Deni! Recently eferyzing repeats itself! My medicine of zree stenches vent bad and all ze vhite vorms crawled avay from last year’s cutlets, vhich I prepared for ze rotten one in ze basement!” Professor Stinktopp shouted.

“Really again? Must report to Sardanapal urgently!” Deni began to worry.

Stinktopp angrily waved his hands at her. “Vhy do you trust your Sardanapal all ze time? Zis charlatan only chat eferyday viz his ozer vorld grandpa and couldn’t care less anymore! He lost ze canopy from ze ancient bed! Ze ozer night ze cauldron disappeared! And my dear boy Shurasik cut up ze hair long ago! I cannot blame him in zat: zen he vas in ze vhite department!”

“Well, well! Perhaps not everything is so terrible. What if it’s only someone’s absurd joke?” Dentistikha said soothingly.

Stinktopp flinched as if they stuffed him with lemons. “A JOKE! It’s not a joke to take all zese zings! Zis is a file plot! Ze one who arranged zis vanted to leaff us all vizout…”

“Professor, they’re eavesdropping!” Dentistikha shouted. Here was what preceded the warning cry. Bending down for the album, the Great Tooth noticed that the queen and the troubadour had picked up their ears, and she frowned. “Well, march into the book! I’m telling you now!” she ordered.

“What impudence! We can’t but they can!” puffing up with indignation, the queen squeaked.

“Who?”

“Those there who stick their heads out from the landing! Already twice!” the troubadour tattled, pointing a finger at Tanya and Bab-Yagun.

Stinktopp turned so sharply that he stepped on his corn. “Seizus-catchus.” he shouted, and Tanya and Bab-Yagun flew out of their refuge, as if a rubber band got them. “Who is zis here! Vhy did you vander here? Spying? I say: spying?” saliva spattering, Stinktopp began to squeal.

“We were not spying!” Bab-Yagun was insulted.

“Vhat vere you doing?”

“We… simply this way… eh-eh… wanted to find out whether the white department has to study the question on meanness?” Yagun said.

“Find out? Here I find you out! LE-EEAFF HERE! MAAAARCH!” Stinktopp began to squeal. Red sparks began to jump out of his ring.