Tanya Grotter And The Magic Double Bass

Емец Дмитрий Александрович

“We, wabbitth, have terwibly thtwong hind pawth! We can kick marvellouthly with them!” he bragged to Tanya, gnawing the broken off leg of a chair. “Phew, thith unthavouwy thtump! I can’t thtand thith plathtic bark! My teeth will ache from it! Don’t you have carwotth or cabbage?”

Not answering, Tanya continued to stare at him in amazement. The rabbit obviously did not like it. His whitish eyebrows gathered on his narrow forehead.

“What, can’t you hear, girlie? Don’t underthtand wabbit thpeech? Carwotth, I thay, no?” he lisped.

“Yes… In the kitchen… In the vegetable box…” Tanya muttered.

“Thankth, girlie! You think I’m thtupid, think I didn’t know you? I know much!” Uncle Herman said with a conspiratorial look and skipped off, shaking the floor with his very strong size forty-seven soles. “Hey, deviouth! Don’t detheive me! You’re Little Wed Widing Hood!” he shouted, threatening her with a finger as he left.

Not a minute had passed as the characteristic sound came from the kitchen: Durnev, the very same self-styled Lisper the Rabbit, likely discovered “carrotth” and now hurried to gobble them together with the bag. In any case, to the crunch of chewing carrot was added periodically the rustling of packaging.

Tanya carefully got out from under the double bass, examining it with a mixture of horror and admiration. She never doubted for a minute that precisely it was mixed up in the sudden temporary insanity of Uncle Herman. Indeed, at that moment when she turned the pin for tuning the strings, Durnev also imagined himself as Lisper the Rabbit.

Recalling the warning on the birch bark, Tanya in a hurry weakened the tension of the string and checked whether cracks appeared in the neck. No, the double bass, fortunately, did not suffer, if one doesn’t count the small scratch left by Uncle Herman’s nails.

A key began to grind in the doors. Considering that this could be either Pipa or Aunt Ninel, Tanya quickly hid the double bass in the case and started to move it into the cabinet. Booming leaps already rolled along the apartment – it was Lisper the Rabbit jumping to meet his relatives.

And when, a minute later, the terrible dual howl of Aunt Ninel and Pipa was heard in the corridor, Tanya surmised that he met them.

“You’re not Little Wed Widing Hood! You’re the Fat Bwoad, and you’re her daughter! Don’t touth me! I’ll kick! I have thtwong hind pawth!” Uncle Herman squealed deafeningly, fleeing from them around the entire apartment…

Chapter 4

Forgeli Botchli?

“Twang!” Tanya pressed the third string from the edge closer against the middle of the neck and it hummed. The sound hardly dissipated as a round thick-necked head in a copper helmet appeared on the balcony. It was the size of a considerable cauldron and it rotated its pupils menacingly. The look on the head was openly predatory. The bent nose was once dented by someone’s fist, and a long scar stood out on the cheek…

“Forgeli botchli?” it growled, when its pupils, having stopped revolving, settled on the girl.

“Not forgeli not botchli… A mistake…” Tanya muttered, attempting to hide behind the double bass.

The head smirked, baring ground-off yellow teeth, each of which was the size of a good fist. Furthermore, it became noticeable that something terribly similar to the sole of boots got stuck between the two front teeth.

“What is ‘not forgeli,’ specifically?” the head asked hoarsely. “Where’s the magic response? What, did they not warn you that I could tear apart whoever uses magic objects illegally? Beatings in alleyways, and all such.”

“No, they didn’t,” Tanya quickly blurted out, considering that this was her only justification.

“And I’ll not believe it for life! And if they didn’t warn you, it means you’re not a witch but one of the moronoids!”

“Yes, I’m a witch… That is, I… Please wait, I’ll explain everything…”

Tanya moved back in fright and, hoping that the head would disappear, in a hurry passed the bow along the adjacent string.

“T-wang!” the string hummed intensely. No, the head did not disappear, instead beside it immediately appeared another, even more murderous than the first, decorated with a downy sergeant-major moustaches.

“Where are the evil spirits? Blabbli gabbli intertwineli?” it asked with a voice that grated on the hearing like sandpaper.

Tanya went “Oh,” experiencing a burning desire to show up a hundred kilometres away from here or, at the worst, to simply fall under the floor.

“Blabbli gabbli intertwineli?” the head repeated impatiently.

“Hello, Usynya!” the head that appeared on the balcony earlier barked. “I think the time has come to gobble up someone. Someone who summons us without knowing the simplest magic response…”

“Exactly, Dubynya… Time to punish these little green witches! They’ll know when to get mixed up with spells!”

“And most likely she’s not even a little witch but one of the moronoids… I hate it when these nothings imagine themselves magicians. I would rip off the hands that give them magic tools…”

Tanya in fear gripped the bow. She wanted to wave it at them, knowing that now and then they disappear with this, but by chance brushed against yet another string. “Gad, again! What now!” she thought, experiencing bad presentiment. And the presentiment did not deceive her.

“T-w-angg!” the string clanged spitefully, and instantly a third head, bald like a billiard ball, rolled out next to the first two. Its face was flat as a pancake, with the same set of small porous grooves as in a pancake, eyes exactly narrow slits, but then the enormous mouth stretched from ear to ear. It was clearly felt that even if this head was not entirely slow-witted, then a bit crazy.

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