Tanya Grotter and the Throne of the Ancient One
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Durnev, with a face that had turned green, froze in the middle of the room and examined closely the large flakes of ashes on the carpet. “Everything’s lost! We didn’t memorize the address!” he said dejectedly.
Aunt Ninel stared at her husband with horror. Large drops of sweat appeared on her upper lip. “Cookie, only, please, don’t be frightened…” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your tee… teeth…”
Durnev himself had already sensed that something was not right with his teeth. Covering his mouth with his hand, he rushed to the mirror. Here he irresolutely removed his hand. Four thin sharp canine teeth – two on top and two below – came together almost very tightly. “Ninel! It seems I now know what this ‘V.A.M.P.I.R.’ is!” Uncle Herman said hoarsely.
Chapter 2
The Sleeping Adonis
Vanka Valyalkin held onto the battlement and, leaning down, pulled the loose end of the fabric to himself. Ruby-colour letters flared up on the fabric:
TIBIDOX GREETS THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL CABIN RACES!
A mischievous gust of wind tugged at the banner and Vanka, who did not have time to fasten it, almost flew off the wall. Tanya and Bab-Yagun miraculously managed to catch his tangled feet.
“Ugh! How mean it is to use third year students – already almost fourth year – for all kinds of nonsense! Even trained harpies could hang a banner!” Vanka started to grumble.
“Uh-huh, they could! Only they would rip it with their claws. And how it would stink later! You wouldn’t be able to breathe!” Yagun stated.
“Nonsense! It wouldn’t stink! There are completely decent ones among harpies. Ask Tararakh!” Valyalkin began to argue.
“Don’t nitpick, soccer shirt! Think, only ninety banners. And for this we’ll be able to sit in the first row. Even closer than the instructors. I arranged for it!” Bab-Yagun tried to calm him.
“The last time you also negotiated for the giants’ races! As a result they put us in the most inconvenient section and next to Slander on top of that!” Vanka reminded him.
“My granny mama! And how was I to know that Slander would sit there? I could not forbid him from settling himself right in front of our noses and even chatting all the time with his mermaid! This time everything will be different!” Yagun assured him.
Tanya doubtfully looked sideways at him. “Okay, what’s there to argue about?” she said conciliatorily. “We already hung four banners. Let one slip. A small matter! Only eighty-five remain!”
From that memorable day of the match with the Invisibles, more than one-and-a-half years had already passed. And there was no way to call these one-and-a-half years colourless or insipid.
In life – be it the life of a moronoid or a magician – things rarely happen gradually. Much more often fate, sneaking up, hits one on the back of the head with a popgun of surprise. First you, a modest employee, despondently while the day away on an office chair in front of a monitor, bored stiff, then suddenly such a whirl of events spins you that even the bank director shakes your hand for a long time, not noticing the coffee spilled on his knees.
Or otherwise: a moronoid restrains himself for seventy years, runs in the mornings and gargles, in order to wake up one day grey-haired, with knees shot, sagging jaw and, after looking into the mirror, say sadly, “Good morning! Hey, kinsmen, give me, perhaps, a pistol and a half-glass of ethyl green!”
However, there are also pleasant transformations. A schoolboy, standing in gym almost as the last in height, will suddenly appear in September as a tall husky lad with a brittle bass, and his chief tormenter, earlier teasing him on every change, would stand as if by accident closer to the instructor.
In the months that we did not see Tanya, she had changed a lot. She had grown, grew prettier, and in the morning already glanced with anxiety at Black Curtains – would they reflect Vanka Valyalkin, feeding Finist the Brave Falcon with fresh duck meat, or Bab-Yagun on his vacuum cleaner and with a black formal bowtie on his neck? She no longer laughed at Coffinia, when from the same Curtains, sometimes Zhora Zhikin, and sometimes Gury Puper, pulling up their shorts, winked maliciously.
Frequently Tanya relived that moment when she attacked the terrible mouth of Keng-King with the immobilize ball, and Gury Puper sped to cut her off. Sequence after sequence she played over that moment of the match. Pity, everything also ended this way with nothing. At the most critical moment, Grafin Cagliostrov, the chair of the board of arbiters, arrived in a great hurry on an enchanted dental chair. He interrupted the match and made quite a scene.
“Why 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.