Tanya Grotter and the Throne of the Ancient One. Дмитрий Емец

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.