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

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.