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

“Aha! No other way with Goryanov. He takes everyone down indiscriminately. Both us and the visitors,” confirmed Tanya. She involuntarily recalled the last match with the Invisibles. Nightingale O. Robber at training the day before said that two years had already almost elapsed. A new match with the Invisibles, still the champions, could take place already this autumn, if Magciety of Jerky Magtion would not invent new tricks. “And it’s time then to work hard, work, and again work! So that even at night the dragons flicker before yours eyes! First time in two hundred years Tibidox has developed a professional team, and we must not miss the chance!” Nightingale finished his speech this way.

“Solonina Andreevna’s cabin freezes on the edge of the swamp, painstakingly groping with a foot for the mounds. Behind it, Aza Camphorovna’s cabin pushes ahead step by step! Oho, what Aza Camphorovna has come up with! She gets up onto the roof and tests the bottom with a pole! Solonina Andreevna sticks her tongue out at her from the window! Aza Camphorovna answers her with well-aimed spittle! What unsportsmanlike behaviour! The long-legged cabin is already in the middle of the swamp and soon must get out onto the shore… High-Rise, short of breath, is running up to the banks of the swamp. A witch-granny is jumping excitedly in each of its windows and giving advice. The poor broiler brain! Will it manage with this volume of information? High-rise for a while marks time thoughtfully and begins to go back, taking a running start. Leap! The slime flies in different directions! The entire stadium is now already flowing in slime! Even Academician Sardanapal is wiping with his famous shawl of the Milky Way. They say that when the academician sneezes into it, a shower of meteorites appears in all the moronoid telescopes…”

“YAGUN!”

“And why did I say that? It’s altogether only an unverified rumour! Oho! The swamp turned out to be deeper than High-rise assumed! It vanishes in the slush at a depth of the Broiler Legs and sinks in floor after floor. The witch-grannies in panic climb to the roof along the fire escape. Interesting, how will all this end? Aha, after falling in almost to the roof, High-rise nevertheless gropes for the bottom, pushes off, and begins to row! Bravo! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head’s cabin jumps after it. The substantially shallow swamp no longer hides the mounds. Oh, how careless! One Ukrainian hut, two cabins, and two yurts nevertheless contrive to get stuck in the swamp and blunder their success! The rest have moved onto the shore and are racing to the finish! Who will succeed in being first? In front of all is Solonina Andreevna’s cabin! Lagging far behind it hurries Aza Camphorovna’s cabin covered in slime, on the heels of which pursue Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head and High-rise on Broiler Legs. Last trudges Big Matrena’s cabin.”

“Nothing unusual about her trudging! Big Matrena is one-and-a-half times the size of Aunt Ninel!” Tanya remarked thoughtfully. “And three Aunt Ninels equal an elephant,” Vanka qualified, once having seen a photo of Aunt Ninel.

Yagun rose on tiptoes. “The finish line is getting closer! A little more and Solonina Andreevna’s cabin will reach it. Hey, Granny, what are you doing? What did you forget on the field? Someone please detain her, else they’ll trample her!”

Two cyclopes, spreading their arms wide, rushed to Yagge, but the old lady hushed them with a tooth, looked sternly at them, and the cyclopes completely wilted. Yagge ran out onto the field and stopped slightly right of the finish line. “Sashka-messy-slob! Well, recognize me?!” having whistled no worse than Lukerya, she shouted loudly.

“Oh, my granny mama! I’m probably going nuts!” her wonder-struck grandson began to jabber. “Solonina Andreevna’s cabin stands still by the finish line, not stepping over it. It turns to my granny with a squeak! Solonina Andreevna hits it with an umbrella, but the cabin is not obeying. It runs up to Yagge, losing tiles on the way. The mistress, not expecting this trick, tumbles out of the window, miraculously hooking onto the window-sill with the umbrella.”

“Sashka-messy-slob! Come up as before, like mother trained you!” Yagge ordered quietly. The cabin stopped. The green tiles finally crumbled. Under it revealed a tattered roof of straw and brushwood, with the rook nests in the chimney.

Solonina Andreevna sat on the sand, mechanically holding the opened umbrella over her head. Yagge, red and indignant, advanced on her. “So, foreign beet, did you try to fool me? How do you like that, herring, covered up the roof! Painted the porch! And aren’t you ashamed, shameless? She thought that I don’t recognize my cabin on feet! It was a long-legged chicken!”

“You’re out of your mind! It’s an insolent seizure of property! Such can only happen in Russia! I have Antarctica citizenship! Magciety of Jerky Magtion will not leave this alone!” Solonina Andreevna squeaked.

“So that’s how it is, even dragged in Magciety! That’s right, muddle things up! We will now ask the cabin, whose it is. Well, Sashka-messy-slob, tell us, who’s your mistress!”

“Cabins don’t talk! You’ll prove nothing!” Solonina Andreevna objected, with anxiety observing how the cabin, from which she was thrown out recently, began to move back.

“And now we’ll see!” standing akimbo, Yagge promised.

An amazed Bab-Yagun feared most of all to let slip anything. “Don’t know what my granny was planning, but the long-legged cabin clearly intends on a penalty kick. It runs back a couple of dozen metres, rushes forward, and… Contact! Go-o-al! Solonina Andreevna passes over the stands and disappears into the depths of the forest, accompanied by an entire flock of harpies. Now it’s understandable whom these stin… eh-eh… exotic smelling persons are fans of! My granny deftly jumps up onto the porch and shouts something to the cabin! The cabin swiftly rushes forward and steps over the finish line an instant before Aza Camphorovna and Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! VICTORY! Everybody, I can no longer do it, please comment on it yourself! I’m running to them!”

Yagun jumped from the tower. In the same second High-rise on Broiler Legs arrived at the finish line and everything clouded up with dust. When the dust finally settled, everyone saw that Yagge and Bab-Yagun were standing in the middle of the field and affectionately hugging the chicken legs of their newly found cabin…

The fans poured out onto the field with joyful howls. The cyclopes, after setting up chains, tried not to let them through, but Usynya, Dubynya, and Gorynya, who wanted to magtograph against a background of cabins, literally dared them.

The for-life and posthumous head of Tibidox, not stingy on compliments, awarded the winners. Yagge and her cabin won the shining copper samovar. For Aza Camphorovna and Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head, one received a magic tablecloth and the other a new mortar and broom.

“Outstanding broom! A beauty for going anywhere! Simply for Puper in the team if nothing else!” Nightingale O. Robber winked smartly, presenting it to Lukerya. The old woman looked over the broom, picked at the edge of the mortar with a yellow nail strong as tortoise shell, and remained contented. “What Puper! We are no worse than any Puper!” she screeched.

“Tararakh, Slander, Deni! Why are you standing? Please invite all the grannies to the table! Medusa, on this occasion it’s not a sin to pass the cup, eh? Are you with us, Professor Stinktopp? How’s your magic block, it’s not in the way?” the academician asked. The for-life and posthumous head of Tibidox contributed an increase to the wild activity. The tip of his nose was blazing keenly. The moustaches were conducting the combined orchestra of cyclopes. The earlobes were blinking like semaphores. The downy beard first disappeared, then again reappeared.