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

did you start the game without me? How dare you? You’ve violated all the decrees of the sports committee of the Magciety of Jerky Magtion!” shaking with fury, he stated.

      “My friend! We already delayed the game for almost half an hour. If we did not let out signal sparks, the spectators would have smashed the stadium. Pity that you were late,” said Sardanapal.

      “WHO WAS LATE? Me? I was here an hour early!!! Someone set the spell of passage in such a way that I was carried past Tibidox ten times and fell into a swamp!” Grafin Cagliostrov began to yell, spattering droplets of poisonous saliva. Those that fell onto the judicial stand changed into live cockroaches. Squeamish Dentistikha moved aside and brought a scented hanky up to her nose. Now everyone had already noticed that Grafin Cagliostrov appeared, let us say softly, poorly. He was covered entirely in slime, and in his ear a quite ordinary – definitely not a golden one – leech was moving. Tararakh for some reason was embarrassed; he unnoticeably moved aside and started to pick his nose with a thick finger.

      “Oh, oh! Vhat misfortune! An unknown person played a nasty trick on you! I am all in absolute horror!” Professor Stinktopp started to lament and excessively eagerly set about shaking the algae off Cagliostrov.

      “Enough! I am voiding the scores of the match! Here’s my seal!” Having pushed Stinktopp aside, Cagliostrov stuck a hand into an inside pocket. A frog jumped out of the pocket. Judging by the sizes of its eyes, it was clearly suffering from Graves’ disease.

      “And this is all that confirms your authority? In that case we have a full bog of them,” Medusa filtered the words through her teeth.

      “Do you want to joke, darling? I’ll end this farce! This fixed match!” Cagliostrov shouted. He rummaged in his pocket and, after snatching out a fairly wet parchment, waved it.

      “But, please, if you call off the match and void the scores, then what will become of the championship? According to the laws of your … my apologies, our Magciety, an interrupted match can resume no earlier than two years,” said Sardanapal.

      “This is wonderful! I’m not hurrying anywhere! But while a new game date hasn’t yet been set, the Invisibles, as before, will be considered the world champion!” Cagliostrov vindictively hissed and in an undertone pronounced, “Actus cheat macaqis interruptum toughis!” The parchment with plenary powers changed into an enormous bat. The bat rose above the field, puffed up, and burst into a dazzling violet flash. The stands began to drone angrily. The genie dragon handlers, on order, surrounded the dragons and began to crowd them towards the sandy arena, intending on driving them into the hangars.

      “There! You know this spell, Sardanapal. And you know the rules! There will not be a match between the Invisibles and Tibidox in the next two years under any condition. Now even The Ancient One wouldn’t be able to do anything,” Grafin smirked. Sardanapal clutched his heart. His beard rushed forward and made an attempt to wind around Cagliostrov’s neck. The academician barely had time to hold it with a hand.

      A bench fell with a deafening bowling strike. Tararakh got up. His huge lower jaw trembled. In his eyes were tears. “This mole interrupted the match… He interrupted when his celebrated Invisibles already almost lost! What is created now in the children’s minds?” he said hoarsely.

      Grafin Cagliostrov alarmingly looked sideways at the pithecanthropus and began to move back. Tararakh moved slowly but determinedly. The benches fell one after another. “I’m warning you, I’ll defend myself! I have a blue belt in combat magic!” Cagliostrov began to yell.

      “I have a fist the size of your head!” Tararakh said affectionately. “Better stand on the spot, slug, or it’ll be worse!”

      “Academician! What, aren’t you going to interfere? Get your gorilla away from me! He has the eyes of a killer!” Grafin began to whimper.

      Sardanapal turned away. “What, in fact, is happening? My laces are untied. I see nothing,” he said, ruefully examining his boots. The laces on them not only were untied, but also were so tangled up by some mysterious means that they presented a big enough threat to life and demanded immediate attention of the academician.

      Tararakh finally overtook Cagliostrov, shook a barely noticeable speck of dust off the shoulder of the chair of the board of arbiters and, having almost tenderly picked him up off the ground, pulled him by the jacket lapel towards himself. “You’ll not get away with thi-i-i-is!” Cagliostrov said wistfully and, having tucked in his elbows, blinked in a doomed manner.

      The dragon Keng-King of the Invisibles, not having had time to be taken away from the field yet, was considerably surprised. It had never seen a flying person with a trashcan on his head. This striking spectacle became so ingrained in the soul of the impressionable pangolin that for a long time it still did not spit out the swallowed players and only languidly sighed… Nevertheless, the match had already been put off, and nothing could be done about it.

      The cabins participating in the races began to arrive the next morning, when the school day had only just started for the third years. Good that the first lesson was veterinary magic, and Tararakh himself would also enjoy taking a look.

      The pithecanthropus wavered for about five minutes, casting askance looks at the window, from which a large part of his students no longer tore themselves away, and then stated, “Ahem, attention! I propose to change the theme of the lesson! Write! Cabins on Chicken Legs. Hmm… Special maganatomical features and all such in this vein. Ready? Then I don’t understand why you’re still sitting? Get on your feet and march to the courtyard! What hints don’t you understand?”

      The third years jumped with a triumphant roar, overturning desks, and moved towards the doors. Only Shurasik alone remained on the spot. “But what about the seven-headed hydra? Really, will you not dictate the symptoms of diarrhea in aquatics?” he squeaked in protest.

      The pithecanthropus stopped. The question caught him by surprise. “Eeee-ehhh… Excellent, Shurasik! I was thinking exactly whom to entrust with guarding the hydra! Keep an eye on it, lest it climb out from the portable tub!” he said, shutting the door.

      Shurasik remained in class alone. Water splashed. The third of the hydra’s seven heads leaned out of the tub. The small spitefully derisive eyes stopped at the unhappy guard. “Shoo! Quick! March! Ugh, you’re told!” Shurasik shouted in a cowardly manner. He took a mop and started to push the hydra back into the tub. The third head disappeared, but the fourth appeared almost immediately. The wood crunched. The mop broke into two and disappeared in the hydra’s mouth. Shurasik even did not have time to notice precisely which one. After dropping the remaining stub, he clutched his stomach. “O-o-oh, no! I’m not okay! But only bears and hydra suffer from diarrhea!” he shouted in protest.

      They poured out into the courtyard just in time. The first cabin was already marching onto the drawbridge. The guard cyclops Dumpling Maker saluted it, placing a huge hand against a protruded ear.

      The cabin moved with a quick march step, throwing the pimply chicken legs out far. A moss-grown hag with one tooth in her mouth and bushy eyebrows looked out of its window. The straw roof of the cabin, similar to a mop of wheaten hair, bounced. Sparks fell from the chimney.

      Slander Slanderych winced and attempted to send the genie Abdullah for the reference book on fire prevention. “Go yourself, worthless! Don’t load the snowy donkey of my patience with granite blocks of your mistrustfulness!” the quarrelsome genie began to roar. He was upset with the principal for not allowing him to read solemnly to the guests his Poem of a Thousand Curses. After hearing that a snowy donkey served as the genie’s patience, Slander was so puzzled that he gave up and went unnoticeably away to the side.

      Following the first cabin, its friends were already rumbling on the drawbridge. Dumpling Maker was standing so still, chest out, eyes staring, with a hand exactly stuck to one ear. Miraculous bliss did not disappear from his face even when one of the cabins, making room for a neighbour, carelessly bumped him into the ditch. I’ll not understand vhere ze natural Greek gets such sergeant-major zeal from! Russia treats all alike!” Professor Stinktopp muttered disapprovingly.

      In total the participants in the prospective