Tanya Grotter And The Vanishing Floor
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The mathematician in the school where Tanya and Pipa studied was simply a nightmarish type. His name was Igor Valentinovich. A huge person with a dove-coloured nose and hair straight up like a hedgehog, he resembled Lifeless Griffin. Perhaps he did not smell like rotten stuff but merely earwax. Tanya was almost certain that Professor Stinktopp, the head of the “black” department of Tibidox, would like him.
Most of all Igor Valentinovich hated jokes and approximate answers. He would give “twos” for the slightest deviation from rules. And he set many rules. Margins in notebooks must be exactly four squares. The compass must be to the right of the ruler. In the pencil case there must be two ordinary pencils; moreover each sharpened at both ends. The textbook must be propped up on the bookstand. The mark book must lie immediately behind the textbook, opened onto the page where observations were usually written. A hand raised was strictly perpendicular to the desk – and so on without end. And finally the last, the most impossible rule consisted of knowing all these rules by heart… But then at the same time there was simply deathly silence in Igor Valentinovich’s class. Any student coughing by accident instantly pulled his head in his shoulders.
On that day, the mathematician for some reason was especially out of humour. Having sullenly greeted them, he wrote on the board a problem and ordered everyone to solve it. The problem read as follows:
At a contest, 34 firefighters put out 75 bonfires in 3 minutes. How much time will 3 firemen need in order to put out 109 bonfires?
Tanya despondently stared at the board. Well, the moronoids know how to invent problems for themselves! Any, even the dullest, student of the school of Tibidox, even that Gunya Glomov, would make short work of these bonfires in a second! In order to extinguish a fire, one must say Trigus sputterus and release a magic spark, and all fires would go out, no matter how many are nearby. Five or a hundred and five if you want. And all firemen, if they are not magicians, have no choice but only to sigh, to water the flowers with the hoses, and to exchange helmets for something to do.
Reflecting on this, Tanya mechanically began to sketch firefighters and bonfires in her notebook and she was so absorbed that she shuddered when above her head she suddenly heard a furious howl, “GROTTER!” Lifting her head, Tanya with horror discovered that Igor Valentinovich was leaning over her notebook and enraged like hundreds of swamp bogeys.
In Tibidox no one was forbidden to sketch during lessons. Well, you say, is this really bad if you have in a notebook thirty-four firemen running with their ladders and axes, from time to time vaulting over from page to page? And they will certainly rush, because all figures drawn by a magician immediately come alive. Sometimes even before there is time to draw ears, hair, and feet on them. And it is most inconvenient. Try drawing a helmet on a firefighter who rushes along the page like one possessed.
“Grotter, what are you doing? I’m asking you!” Igor Valentinovich repeated with fury.
“Nothing,” Tanya answered fearfully, quickly covering with her hand the scattering firefighters, who were threatening the mathematician with their hoses and crowbars.
“I also see for myself that it’s nothing! But you must solve the problem!” Igor Valentinovich grew red. “Hand over the mark book!”
Tanya tarried, afraid to remove her hand, under which the little fellows bustled, quickly dragging away their ladders. The mathematician grabbed the bookstand, but there was no mark book in place. As ill luck would have it, Tanya had forgotten it at home, because all night she was writing letters to Vanka and Bab-Yagun.
The ruler, which Igor Valentinovich was holding in his hands, broke with a crack. “And no mark book? Parents to the school!” he ordered. “Immediately! March at a trot! One foot here – the other there!”
“My papa won’t come. And mama also won’t come. They don’t intend to turn red for this fool. We’re already keeping her out of charity! She’s not pla… m-m-mne-mne… Phew!” Pipa wanted still to blurt out something, but suddenly she was choked by her own eraser, which somehow turned up in her mouth for some unknown reason.
“There are no parents, there is no mark book, doing nothing for the lessons… Excellent, simply excellent,” the mathematician said darkly. “Then I’m forced to take drastic measures. I’ll not endure this person in my class. Someone call the principal here… no, better the director!”
“Let me!” Lenka Mumrikova gladly volunteered. Having loudly whispered to Pipa, “Well, that’s it, the end of Grotter!” she swiftly got out of her seat and ran out of the classroom.
Meanwhile, Igor Valentinovich noticed the ring on Tanya’s hand. “And what’s this even? How often have I asked you not to wear jewellery to school! Here hand it over, I’ll deliver it to your guardians! You’re still too young to wear such things!”
Tanya made a tight fist. It was not only that her magic ring would end up with the mathematician, but also later with Uncle Herman. Without the ring, she would not be able to do anything, not even to summon a cupid to send news to Tibidox.
“I’m not handing it over!” she said quietly but distinctly. Tears welled up in her eyes. Even when she was suspected of the theft of the gold sword, she did not feel so bad.
“NOT HANDING IT OVER? Then I’ll take it!” Igor Valentinovich finally went crazy, roared, and started to tear the ring forcefully off her finger.
Magic rings do not like such treatment. If someone were capable of removing them, then it would only be a strong magician knowing the special spells, and indeed not a moronoid. Moreover, Tanya’s ring was special, with the dreadful nature and squeaky voice of Grandpa Theophilus Grotter. True, it could only talk for five minutes a day, but then the quarrelsome nature constantly remained in it.
“Don’t!” Tanya shouted, but it was already too late. Hissing, “Here’s to you!” the irritated ring released two green sparks. The sparks slid along the mathematician’s nose, then spilt up, one dived into his right ear, and the other – into the left. At the same moment, Igor Valentinovich’s hair stood up on end. His pupils enlarged, started to rush about in orbit in confusion, and crossed at the bridge of the nose. Tanya was frightened. Exactly the same thing happened to Uncle Herman’s pupils before he changed to Lisper the Rabbit. Really a rabbit again? But no, this time it was clearly something new.
Instantly forgetting about Tanya, Igor Valentinovich released her hand and ran up to the board. “We’re continuing the lesson! Sit quietly everyone!” he began in a stern voice. “I’ll show you how to solve such problems… I crack them like nuts… It’ll require three firemen… eh-eh… By the way, why are the names of the firefighters not written in the textbook? It’s a disgrace! Let’s assume one… m-m… Vasya, the other Peter, and the third… third… m-m…” The class came to life. “Sergey!” Genka Bulonov proposed.
“Right, Sergey… Where do you know that from? And likely such a fool judging by appearance!” The mathematician was pleased. “Vasya and Peter put out the fires, but Sergey…” “Frolics with a cigarette lighter…” Pipa prompted, with difficulty spitting out the eraser.
“With A CIGARETTE LIGHTER?” Igor Valentinovich shuddered. If earlier his imagination did not go beyond decimal fractions, then now it seethed and gushed. “Exactly, with a cigarette lighter!” he quickly continued. “Other firemen put them out, and he, the vermin, would flick the little wheel – and again a fire! They put out, and again he – flicks! A nightmare! The problem is deadlocked! Stupid endlessness!”