Flamy the Dragonet

“In the evening the old man put ten pieces of candy on the kitchen table. Nine were normal, but one was poisoned. The candies disappeared in the night. The next morning only the tracks of nine pairs of small shoes led to the sugar bowl… Bunnies, eyes closed, I said!

“The old man put out another piece of poisoned candy. The day passed and there were fewer tracks. He poisoned another piece of candy, and another, and another. So time after time he poisoned the candy, until one day he saw only one track. A row of tracks crossed the dust sadly and led to the window. Nobody came to the sugar bowl anymore.”

Pookar finished the tale, yawned, and looked at the bunnies, certain that they were already asleep. Nothing of the kind. The bunnies were quietly trembling in their mitten beds.

“Te-te…”

“What te-te…? Watch out, or I’ll spank you!”

“Tell us Cinderella, Pookar!” the bunnies timidly asked.

Pookar grimaced. “Well, fine. Remind me.”

“Once upon a time there was Cinderella. The stepmother and her two daughters forced Cinderella to work a lot and did not let her go to the ball at the palace. In the palace lived a prince…” the bunnies prompted.

“Then Cinderella, like our Muffy, wanted to get married. Right?” Pookar interrupted.

“Yes. How do you know?” The bunnies were surprised.

“Always one and the same! Well, listen to the sequel. Cinderella got tired of them taking her for a fool and preventing her from having a good time. She whacked the stepmother on the forehead with the glass slipper. The slipper, naturally, went to pieces. Then Cinderella locked the sisters in the basement and ran to the ball herself. There she quickly married the prince and arranged her own business.”

“What business?” The bunnies were surprised.

“It’s clear what. With the prince. That was the kind of person she was, this Cinderella of yours!” Pookar yawned and looked at Sineus and Truvor in the hope that they, too, were inclined to sleep.

It was not so, however. The bunnies were whimpering softly in their mittens but were not going to sleep. “Olga didn’t tell it this way! Ah-h!”

Pookar became extremely annoyed and jumped up and down on the spot. “Well, what else do you want? You want that I tell you about vampires or Blue Beard?”

“Olga didn’t tell us about them! Ah-h!”

“I’m tired of your Olga and your fairy tales! I’m asking for the last time: will you sleep or not? I’ll give you three minutes! Already two! If you don’t fall asleep, I’ll call Freddy with the saw![3] And he’ll cut you up into pieces!” Pookar threatened.

You can imagine what started here. Pookar had never heard such a loud squeal. Usually Sineus and Truvor would only whine a little bit, but now, what a storm! Pookar nearly went deaf. He darted around the room, not knowing what to do. Lucky for him, Muffin, awakened by the loud crying, came in and calmed the bunnies. At the same time, the cat expressed to Pookar everything she thought of him and even a lot more that she did not. It turned out that, on the whole, the cat did not have a very high opinion of him.

Pookar held his head with his hands. “You meowed out my soul, nasty Muffy! Not on your life! Next time, you tell the fairy tale! This Cinderella of yours is a pain in the neck!”

Chapter Seven

The Cat Muffin Falls In Love

The cat Muffin lived according to an exact schedule. She slept during the day and played with Masha in the evening – jumped into Masha’s arms, snuggled up to Masha, rubbed against Masha’s legs, or graciously amused herself with newspaper crumpled into a ball. She pretended to believe that it was a mouse. There were only two games Muffin could not stand: she did not like it when her tail was pulled or when she was harnessed to a cart. In these cases, Muffin bristled up and began to hiss, and once scratched the disgusting boy Peter, who tried to suck Muffin into the vacuum cleaner.

However, on waking up one morning, Olga found the cat in a strange mood. Muffin was rolling on the floor and heartrendingly bawling some special raucous meow.

“What’s with you? Hurt yourself? A headache? Sprained your foot?” Olga asked sympathetically.

Muffin lifted her head and looked at her blearily. “Oh, it’s you! Good that you came, although, in fact, you could also not have come.”

“Why?” Olga was surprised. “You yourself invited me yesterday! You were so cheerful. What happened? You caught a cold? I warned you not to lie in the draught.”

Muffin sighed. “What cold? Can you keep a secret?”

“I can. I can do a lot of things: sew, wash, cook dinner, clean the apartment…” the doll honestly started to itemize, bending her fingers.

“Yes, yes! Well, I’ll tell you anyway! I’ve fallen in love,” the cat purred despondently.

“You don’t say! With whom?” Olga was pleased for Muffin.

“One of the cats. You don’t know him,” Muffin said.

“And who’s he, this cat?”

“No one… Nothing special…”

“Nothing at all?”

“Absolutely. That’s not the point. I love him.”

Olga shook her curls. “I don’t understand! My head’s all muddled!”

“No wonder. You have nothing there. Some holes for the hair,” Muffin snorted.

Olga was not offended. She was too curious to find out the details of Muffin’s love. Why these details were necessary to her, she did not know, but they were somehow important for the one-and-a-half-year-old doll with blue eyes like all dolls.

“Where did you meet this cat? You’re home all the time,” Olga asked.

Muffin turned over onto her stomach, placed her head on her front paws, and heaved a really deep sigh. “I saw him in the window. He was on a nearby roof serenading.”

“Doing what?”

“Singing serenades. Songs.”

“And he sang well?”

“Couldn’t be worse. Very poorly,” Muffin admitted.

“And you fell in love? You heard this no-need-salt[4] and fell in love?” The doll Olga became all the more interested.

“Have to fall in love with someone. Indeed, it’s spring,” the cat remarked dejectedly.

“And what’s he like, your cat? Good-looking?”

“Nothing of the kind! An ordinary cat of no pedigree. Most likely lives in a dumpster and feeds on fish tails,” Muffin shuddered.

“What did you see in him?”

“I saw nothing in him. NU-THING! I just fell in love! You, doll, are totally stupid!” the cat shouted. Muffin leaped up and began to pace anxiously around the room. She sniffed, jumped up onto the chairs, started to roll on the floor, and scratched the sofa with her claws.

The tidy Olga did not like this love. It was too restless for her taste. “Why are you suffering? Is it really not possible to love quietly? Curl up by the heater and love!” she advised.

“I’m suffering. You really don’t understand that I’m suffering? I just can’t find a place for myself!”

“Can’t you fall in love with someone else? Why him? Because he sang no-need-salt?”

“You don’t understand!” the cat shook her head. “He has nothing to do with it. Even if it wasn’t him on the roof or he wasn’t serenading, I’d still fall in love. It’s spring after all, understand?”

Olga straightened her bow. “Vaguely. It turns out that I should fall in love with Pookar only because now it’s spring?”

Muffin swished her tail. “What are you talking about? You’re too young. And your Pookar is just an immature baby doll. Love, it’s only for adults. Sometimes you simply want to fall in love and you do. So? It’s nothing!”

Then the cat’s face became dreamy again, and Muffin, meowing, began to roll on the floor. “The funny thing is…” she said and stopped rolling. “The funny thing is that this will all pass. I know exactly what will happen. After two or three days. This has happened to me several times before.”

The doll Olga listened carefully to Muffin, thought a little, and smoothed her pinafore. A dreamy and hesitant expression suddenly appeared on her calm face. “Know what… Only don’t laugh! Can I also fall in love with him?” Olga suddenly blurted out.

Muffin, from surprise, even calmed down temporarily. “With whom?”

“Your cat.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask. Just say, yes or no?” Olga demanded, turned red, and puffed up like a balloon.

Muffin paused, looked at the doll, smiled, and purred, “You have to go and do the same? Well, your problem… Fall in love as you please!”

* * *

In the evening Muffin and the doll Olga sat on the windowsill and watched the sun setting behind the multi-storied building. Panting was heard. This was Pookar scrambling along the curtains.

“Aha! Now I’ve found you! Hi, Catmuffy! Hi, Olga! What are you doing here?” he shouted merrily.

Olga turned around. “Ah, it’s only you, Pookar! We’re looking out the window. If you want, you can stay. Only, please, don’t make any noise.”

“What haven’t I seen out this window? A thousand million times I look out it… There!” Pookar slid like a wheel, throwing his short legs up high. Olga and Muffin did not pay him any special attention, and Pookar, having calmed down, also began to look out the window.

“Oho!” he suddenly yelled. “I know what you’re staring at! There, that guy is washing his car again. Here’s a fool! The whole day he can’t stop and washes, washes all the time… You’d think that he has fallen in love with the car! Let’s throw a flower pot at him. It’ll be fun!”

“In love with a car! How original!” the cat Muffin, who only heard this from Pookar’s long tirade, sighed.

“Much more original! A common pig!” the doll Olga said.

“You understand nothing again! Nothing at all,” Muffin waved her off.

“Why?”

“It’s not important with whom you love. You can fall in love with anyone or even anything. The object has no significance! What’s important is the state! Love comes not because someone suitable actually appeared beside you, but because it can’t not come. It comes not from outside but inside,” Muffin said.

“How smart you are, Muffy! You’re so smart; no wonder you’re not married!” Pookar breathed out enthusiastically. The cat hissed angrily.

“Steady, Muffin! Hush, Pookar! Let’s just look at the sun!” said Olga.

Pookar and the cat obeyed and also began to admire the sunset.

Chapter Eight

Pookar and His Anti-Guest Defence

The doll Olga lived in a little house on the windowsill between the flowerpots. Having a good imagination, one could tell everyone that one has a house with a garden in the mountains. Silver cones sparkled on the railing of the porch. The little house had a small room, a kitchen, and an attic, and was beautifully painted in watercolour.

Pookar lived in an old size-46 boot. It was always as messy in the boot as in his pockets. Things lay in a pile, and Pookar himself usually sat on the very top of the pile to welcome guests.

A large cardboard cookie box served as the home for the bunnies, with windows and doors cut out with scissors. Sineus and Truvor painted the inside with markers and coloured pencils. The bunnies, as you remember, slept in mittens. They were often afraid at night, and the mittens had to be washed in the morning and hung out to dry on the desk lamp. “It smells like a nursery school,” Pookar wrinkled his nose. Apart from the mittens, the bunnies had a table and chairs of empty thread spools in the box. There was also a small mirror, into which the doll Olga loved to look when she visited.

One morning, after waking up in the mitten beds, the bunnies breakfasted on carrot salad, washed down with carrot juice, and decided to go visiting. They took off to Pookar’s.

Pookar was already awake and building something. “Aha!” he said when he saw Sineus and Truvor. “You’re just what I need. I’m building anti-guest traps. Here, hold this rope!”

Pookar hung a large pillow over the door and, satisfied, looked at his own work. “A nice trap! Works as it should! A guest will think it’s the bell, he’ll pull, and the pillow will fall on his head… Boom!”

“Won’t the guest be hurt? It’s probably not nice to throw pillows at those who come to visit you,” the bunnies asked with unease.

“Well, too bad! It’s called E-TI-QUETTE. All of Europe is now busy with only this,” Pookar exclaimed.

“Oh! It must be awfully scary to live in this Europe!”

“On the contrary, it’s fun. The host of a home initially kicks a visitor downstairs or pours shampoo into his tea, and then politely apologizes for any inconvenience. The visitor says, ‘Doesn’t matter, don’t worry! Please come to my place tomorrow for a mug of poison.’”

Pookar whirled around the room. He pulled the rope, suspended balls and pillows, hid crackers under seats, and filled water pistols with water. Then he sat down on the doorstep and started to wait patiently.

Finally, the bolder of the two twins, Truvor, ventured to ask, “P-Pookar, but P-Pookar, who are we waiting for?”

Pookar turned his red head to him. “Guests, who else? Why else would I build the traps?”

“But no one will come. Today Olga has this…general cleaning. The cat Muffin is sleeping, and it’s better not to touch her. Otherwise, she decides, half-awake, that you’re a mouse. She hasn’t seen real mice.”

At that moment, a scream and the sound of a fall were heard somewhere close. Pookar darted off from the spot. “What’s that? Who crashed there?”

They ran around a pile of stuff and saw the doll Olga, sitting in a puddle and strewed with feathers from a pillow.

“Where did you come from? You have general cleaning today!” Pookar asked suspiciously.

“I already finished… Now I stumbled over something and this happened!” Olga started to cry.

“I see,” said Pookar. “Never mind, and relax. Nothing terrible has happened… Just a little etiquette. By the way, where did this puddle come from? It wasn’t here earlier.”

“This isn’t a puddle. It’s apple jelly,” Olga uttered through her tears.

“Apple jelly? My favourite apple jelly?” A perplexed expression appeared on Pookar’s face.

“You’ve been asking for a long time, so I made some.”

Pookar stamped his foot. “Oh! Why didn’t you warn me that you would bring jelly? Why? Always intrigues, forever hiding everything from me! What, Olga, you couldn’t carry it more carefully? Who asked you to fall?”

“I’ve always walked here. I don’t know how it happened.”

“It was probably your anti-guest trap snapping into action. You see, Pookar, the rope’s tight!” the bunnies Sineus and Truvor explained happily.

Pookar made threatening eyes at them, but it was already too late.

“A trap for guests?” Olga repeated slowly. “What kind of trap, nasty doll?”

“Just a little trap. Nothing serious. Not even a trap, but nothing. Just a string, so short…” Pookar stammered, backing away.

“Oh, you bad Pookar! Now I’ll show you!” Olga shouted.

She started to chase Pookar, who took to his heels in fear on his short legs, making excuses on the run, “I didn’t want… It was just a string! Ouch! Not on the back! Better on the head, it’s soft!”

“Here’s to you and apple jelly!” Pookar often repeated afterwards. “And all because of this ETIQUETTE. That I would ever trust good manners!”

Chapter Nine

Invaders from a Shoebox

Masha had a cousin Peter, who was already ten. Peter lived with his mama and papa in the city of Tula, but sometimes came to Moscow for a visit. Peter was mean. He pulled Masha’s hair, shot her with a water pistol, and teased her with unpleasant words like crybaby, dummy, runt, and others. It cannot be said that Masha loved Peter and looked forward to his arrival.

This time, Peter brought with him a large box tied up with a string. It would seem that a box was a box, nothing special, but the strange thing was that Peter let nobody look in it. It all started with this box. This is what happened.

“What a nasty one, this Peter! Yesterday he wanted to put me in a pot, and when I scratched him, he ran to complain to Mama. He’s not only a meanie, but also a tattletale,” the cat Muffin complained one day.

Pookar nodded. “I also don’t like Peter. Last time he almost tore my arm off. He wanted to check whether it’s sewn on firmly. Isn’t that stupid?”

The dragonet Flamy was rushing about the room, unsuccessfully trying to catch up with his own tail. “Doesn’t work! Keeps the box under his paws all the time. I wonder what Peter has hiding in there. What do you think, Pookar?” he asked.

Pookar declared that he was getting hungry and could not think on an empty stomach. “Let’s go visit Olga! Just in time for dinner,” he said.

“It’s awkward somehow… We can’t dine at hers every day! We were there yesterday,” Flamy hesitated.

"And the day before, and the day before that,” the cat Muffin added.

“We have to go all the more to not break tradition!” Pookar continued to entice. He did not want to go alone, afraid that Olga would chase him away. “Imagine what a pleasant surprise it’ll be for Olga. She’s probably sitting at the table now and thinking, ‘What am I to do with this jar of mustard?’ She thinks, ‘Let me throw this out, as Flamy won’t be coming today.’ Then she looks at the can of fish and thinks, ‘Will Muffin come visit today? If not, then I’m throwing out everything.’” The cat Muffin licked her lips.

On Flamy’s face was reflected the intense effort of thought. “Pookar, do you think that Olga still has mustard left? And she’s actually going to throw it out?”

“Of course. Just yesterday, I heard her say, ‘A full cupboard of this mustard! Should throw them all out, all the same no one eats them,’” Pookar said with inspiration. He was not lying at all. His head was simply arranged so that he believed everything he said.

“Why, she has forgotten about me! Let’s go, quick. We may still have time!” Flamy was scared.

The cat Muffin thoughtfully rubbed her face with a paw. “Of course, Pookar, you exaggerated a lot… You can’t do without that in order not to talk nonsense… But, on the other hand, Olga may in fact throw out the cans of fish. She’s so absent-minded sometimes.”

Pookar climbed onto Muffin’s back, Flamy worked his wings, and they went to Olga’s home.

No one noticed that the lid of the mysterious box had moved aside. At first, a head in a shiny helmet poked out, turned around a bit, and disappeared. Whispering was heard from the box. Someone said, “One! Two! Three!” and a large opening instantly appeared in one of the walls, as if someone had sawed through from inside the box.

Three soldiers, bought as a gift for Peter on his birthday, got out of the opening and looked around. They had been hiding in the box for a few days, waiting for the opportune moment to carry out a sortie and find out whether there was something in the room they could invade.

“Gorilla, have the toys left?” one of the soldiers whispered, looking around. This was a rotund, chubby man in a general’s uniform, appeared very warlike. A polished helmet gleamed on his head.

“Yes, Commander! No, Commander! Don’t know, Commander!” Gorilla said distinctly.

“Shut up, klutz!”

“But you yourself asked if they’ve left. Here I said…”

“Enough!!! Silence!!!”

“As you wish, Commander…” Gorilla was offended. Gorilla was a soldier of enormous size and very strong. He held in his hands a multi-barrel machine gun that fired thumbtacks. A few bombs of chewing gum hung from his belt. Gorilla’s head was small and he was strictly advised against thinking too much.

“Grabber, where are they? Where did these stupid dolls go? Go and have a look!” General ordered.

Grabber was a robot, metallic and shiny. Claws like those of a crab served as his hands. The right claw was in the form of a pair of pliers for grabbing and the left like a pair of scissors for cutting. It was precisely the robot, with his claw-scissors, that had cut a hole in the box, through which the soldiers had climbed out. A gun barrel that fired stickies with a terrible force stuck out of Grabber’s iron stomach. A key jutted out of the robot’s back. It was necessary to wind it every hour, otherwise the robot would switch off.

“I can’t, Commander! I’m not programmed to go and have a look. I’m only programmed to grab!” the robot reported.

“You’re not soldiers, but klutzes! Have to do everything myself. Can’t entrust anything to anyone!” General stamped his feet.

Grabber and Gorilla looked at each other.

“General, why did we get out of the box?” Gorilla asked and scratched his head.

“To conquer all indiscriminately, blockhead! First, we’ll take over this room and these dollhouses will be ours. We’ll build a base here and then attack the ice-cream kiosk. Kids love ice cream very much. We’ll force them to throw away all the toys. Instead of old toys, different kinds of teddy bears, dolls, and bunnies, let them buy pistols and Tommy guns!”

“Good thinking, General! We would never have thought of that!” Gorilla was thunderstruck.

“That’s why I’m the commander and not you!”

“General, the toys have come out of the house. They’ll be here in five minutes. I see two dolls and two midgets with big ears,” Grabber suddenly reported.

“Those are rabbits, you stupid piece of iron! Everybody ready for ambush! When they come closer, we’ll capture them,” General whispered.

Gorilla and Grabber hid in a box and General behind a leg of the bed.

“I hid well, right, Commander?” Gorilla yelled from his hiding place.

“Shut up, klutz! They’re already close!” General threatened Gorilla with a fist.

The doll Olga was glad to have guests. As Pookar predicted, she had something to treat each of them. Pookar got a whole pot of apple jelly and a plum cake. There was canned fish for Muffin. Olga had stored up a jar of wonderful, very strong mustard for Flamy. Anybody’s eyes would have crawled to their forehead with such mustard, but it suited Flamy’s taste. He even started to snuffle with pleasure. Muffin and Flamy were promptly stuffed and they started to feel drowsy.

“One shouldn’t go for a stroll after lunch! Self-respecting animals sleep after lunch!” Muffin purred, yawning.

“That’s it! And after waking up, we can dine immediately. We’ll grow!” Flamy agreed. He was a rare sleepyhead. After all, he had already slept in the trunk for a hundred years. Muffin and Flamy instantly fell asleep, huddled close to each other.

“You clearly overfed them, Olga! It seems that only I haven’t finished eating!” Pookar remarked. Having said this, he unnoticeably undid his belt and moved it to the last hole.

Olga took the rabbits by the paws and took them for a walk. Pookar lazily dragged himself along behind them, his hands in his pockets. Making small talk, the friends were gradually getting closer to where Grabber, Gorilla, and General were hiding.

When the toys got close enough, General jumped out from behind the leg of the bed and fired a water pistol at Olga. “Hooray! Catch them! No one gets away! Catch them all!”

Gorilla jumped out of the box, confusedly firing the machine gun and yelling, “Stwike! Stwike!” When Gorilla got excited, all the sounds got mixed up in his mouth and he stopped articulating “r.” Grabber was running amuck working his tracks, snapping his claws, and speeding towards the bunnies. “Hold it there, rabbit hats!” he rattled.

At first, victory was on the side of the soldiers. The doll Olga screamed and almost fainted when General spattered her lace apron with a water pistol. Gorilla threw one of the sticky bombs and Truvor’s feet instantly stuck to the floor. In response, Pookar gave General such a push that he fell and became entangled in his sabre, “Help! Untangle me, quick!” General yelled. Grabber, who had almost caught Sineus with his own claws, dropped him and ran to help General.

At that moment, Gorilla seized Pookar and raised him high above his head. “Wow, what a sharp little fatty! Won’t get away fwom me!” Gorilla boomed.

Grabber, forgetting about the bunnies, clicked his claws and advanced on Olga. The doll pushed the robot away and said angrily, “Don’t touch me! We’re scarcely acquainted. Your hands are cold!”

Olga accidentally touched the key on Grabber’s back and started to turn it the wrong way. Something clicked in the robot and his tracks starting spinning at different speeds, so that the robot started to travel in circles. Olga had discovered by chance Grabber’s most vulnerable spot. “Damage of working mechanism! Breakdown! Breakdown! Breakdown!” Grabber repeated mechanically.