Methodius Buslaev. The Midnight Wizard
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When he again tumbled into the basement, Borya Grelkin had finished pensively licking his fingers. “You know, it’s a somewhat strange taste! But on the whole, generally speaking, trash!” Grelkin uttered a phrase of a length simply phenomenal for him.
“What’s ‘it’?”
“The prune!”
“What prune?” Methodius did not understand.
“There, lying in your knapsack. Your knapsack dropped with a crash from the stump, I began to gather your textbooks, and there – pop! – a prune. I gobbled it. You don’t mind?”
Methodius pondered slowly. What prune! He had already leaned over in order to take the next stump, when suddenly he froze in the stupid pose. The fruit from the charismatic tree, it was in the box! In the morning before school, he hid the box with the stone among old notebooks, and the fruit for some reason slipped into the knapsack. And now it was safely resting in Borya Gelkin’s stomach. Methodius stared narrowly at his classmate. No special changes had taken place in Borya Grelkin. Outwardly he was still the same amusing penguin, but already slightly more talkative and with a smile. Probably, basic magical changes were still ahead. Methodius wanted to deal a blow to Borya Grelkin, but this was so not possible, like kicking a chow-chow puppy. Borya emitted such geniality. Methodius spat and rolled from the basement the stump next in line…
Borya Grelkin stroked his own tummy with his hand and uttered several grating phrases, inspirational for the task. His usual caked dirty-white aura rapidly thickened and was saturated with colours, involuntarily attracting and charging those, whose energy outlines were weaker. But Methodius was indifferent to it. His energy outlines were strong, and in his immediate plan, eleven more stumps still loomed.
Chapter 3
The House with a View of Gloom
The day and the evening passed dully, this was, however, completely in the spirit of their family. Eddy Khavron hung out at home and, panting, was lifting weights, not forgetting while pausing to call Methodius a wimp and a sap. The very strong sweaty body of Eddy Khavron smelled of a stable. “At your age… huuu… I was unlike those, who… in short, you’re a fool!” he summed it up, lowering the weights so decisively that his sweat pants began to crack.
His sister Zozo Buslaeva had locked herself in the bathroom, turned on the water, and was talking on the phone. Once in a while Methodius heard how his mother laughed loudly and provocatively, even muffling the water. This laughter indicated only one thing: Zozo was concocting for herself a date with the next-in-line example with no understanding of women. Even now, Methodius, in advance, was ready to swear that this was some mothball dolt poured into another mould. He determined this by Zozo’s strained laughter, which was heard twice more often than normal. A feeling suggested to Methodius that the collocutor bored mother stiff and she had already mentally written him down as surplus.
Methodius usually endured Eddy’s laughter and commentaries. His patience was wasted if and only if Khavron blurted out, “Listen, I understand that you’re doing homework! But could you not write smaller so that the ink in the pen isn’t used up so fast?”
“Fine!” Methodius said obediently and thirty times finely wrote on the last page of the notebook: Eddy is a fat hippo, squared! “Like this?” he asked, showing the notebook.
“Smart kid! Excellent!” Eddy said with approval. Methodius understood that he read nothing and in general was already distracted from his economic daydreams.
“Ha-ha-ha! You’re such a dear! It seems I’ve known you for a hundred years! No, two hundred years! Ha-ha! Certainly, I don’t have in mind that you’re so old! For a man the main thing is the soul… What you did say, pardon me, is the main thing? Ah, what a comedian you are! Simply Petrosyan Khazanovich Zadornov!” Zozo trilled from the bathroom and shouted with suffering laughter.
Methodius drew a long thick line and shoved the notebook into the drawer. He was fed up with this delirious pair. He felt that he was ready to throw open the window and take a step directly from the windowsill to the clouds. At this moment he understood that today, he would definitely draw on the carpet that same rune from the bottom of the box. Come what may, but he simply could not remain here any longer. Methodius recollected about the three scoops of ashes, which would be left of him, if he incorrectly drew the rune, but even this suddenly seemed unimportant. Either he would become a wizard and flee from here, or let them gather him from the carpet.
The genuine Swiss clock of Chinese manufacturing squeaked unmusically and pitifully, indicating midnight. Methodius, getting up on his elbows, waited patiently until the clock finished torturing the small battery. Not so long ago Edward Khavron had gargled in the shower and run off somewhere. Possibly even to work. He would positively not appear until morning. Zozo Buslaeva was lolling about on the narrow sofa. She had an unhappy look even when sleeping. In the morning, she was expected to get up at the crack of dawn and run five kilometres, teasing doggies out for a walk, and jumping over puddles.
She was introduced to the new admirer, the essayist Basevich from the newspaper Yesterday’s Truth, at the exhibition of auto tires, where the creative person was thoughtfully picking at a Matador tire with his nail, vaguely hoping to scrape up a theme for his new article. Besides work, Basevich turned out to be a health nut. He ate only beets, cooked onions, cabbage, and millet sprouts. Sometimes a couple of cucumbers and a peach. And nothing else.
“A woman, who doesn’t drink a glass of untreated spring water on an empty stomach, does not exist for me!” he stated to Zozo in the first five minutes of acquaintance. Clever Zozo immediately assured him that she drank untreated spring water not only on an empty stomach, but also in place of dinner, and she loved cooked onions only more than beets. She did not suspect that she was a ten. Against a background of mutual love for cooked onions, their hearts rushed towards each other. Moreover, Zozo, never getting up earlier than noon, to the happiness of Basevich, turned out to be a fan of early morning runs. Basevich immediately became happily excited and, while the highly experienced Zozo was turning over in her mind what the deuce attracted her beyond his language, he stated to her that for the first time after his three unsuccessful marriages, he saw not a frivolous female bitten by the rabid dog of materialism, but a real wise woman.
Overall, the romance developed rapidly and was interrupted for two days only by the unsuccessful experience with the hog. Fortunately, the fan of millet sprouts did not find out about it. About that approximate time, he had scorched his vocal chords gargling with iodine, for two days could not talk on the phone, and was only croaking hoarsely. However, even in this state he had sufficient strength to phone Zozo on the previous night and croaked that the next day at six in the morning he was coming on the subway in order to jog a little under the windows of the dear woman. It was necessary for Zozo to dig out her tracksuit urgently from the mezzanine and to take Methodius’ running shoes. Luckily, their shoe sizes coincided.
Methodius took out the box and carefully opened it. The bottom of the box was flooded by a deathly glow. The transparent stone blazed in the darkness. The fog inside stretched out and attempted to take the shape of a rune – the same one as on the bottom. The rune suddenly seemed awfully hideous to Methodius. It was like a crushed beetle spreading half-bent legs in different directions. The centre was a circle.
“It’s time!” Methodius thought. Cautiously looking over at the sleeping Zozo, on whose face the bluish light from the box fell, Methodius hurriedly got dressed, sneaked into the kitchen, and placed the box on the table. He stretched out his hand and decisively took the transparent stone. It was only slightly warm to touch, but, when Methodius, becoming familiar with the rune jumping like a cardiogram, made several strokes in the air, the stone heated up and became almost scorching. The fog inside became a reddish snake, throwing itself to the walls, positively trying to break loose.