Flamy the Dragonet

The soldiers instantly stopped fighting and looked up. Nobody!

“Ha-ha! What fools! Ha-ha!”

It was worthwhile to see the soldiers’ faces at that moment. The helmet flew off General and his mouth opened by itself! Gorilla became red and again stopped articulating “r,” “Help! Spook! Tewible wobber!”

Grabber’s tracks started to turn in different directions. The light bulbs flashed brightly. He fired a sticky at random from the gun barrel at his stomach. The sticky flew away into space and was seen no more.

“What fun! Oh, I can’t, funny!” A cheerful voice rang out near the ceiling.

All of a sudden, one more General, similar to the former, like a twin brother, appeared beside Gorilla. “Hiss-hiss! Klutz! Grab that General! He’s an impostor! Iron, forward!” General growled.

“I’m real! Hands off! Not me, grab him!” The real General was scared.

The two Generals ran around headquarters and got entangled once and for all. Gorilla’s mouth fell open and he could not move. Grabber rushed from one General to the other, clicked his claws, and repeated, “Conflicting data! Conflicting data!”

Then one of the two Generals disappeared and a twin Gorilla appeared instead. “Guard! Substitute! Wun for your life!” the twin shouted.

“Mama! I’m scared!” the real Gorilla yelled and ran right through the wall out of the headquarters made of newspapers. Grabber rolled out after him.

A scared General raced behind. He held his helmet and yelled, “Wait, where are you going? It’s not according to regulations! I should be the first to retreat!”

No sooner had the soldiers run out when a terrible crash was heard. It was Pookar’s anti-guest traps snapping into action. While Flamy was distracting General, Gorilla, and Grabber, Pookar and Olga stretched ropes and built anti-guest traps.

A ripped-open pillow fell on Gorilla. He immediately had a fit of sneezing, clucked incoherently like a harassed chicken, and fired the machine gun until the thumbtacks ran out. Grabber was tangled in the ropes and dangling in the air, turning his tracks. General found himself in an empty jam jar. The jar had been placed sideways, and General had barely run into it when the lid was closed. “Boo-boo! Boo-boo-boo-boo!” came from the jar.

Then the friends freed the bunny Truvor. Sineus and Truvor were so pleased that they were back together that they even started crying. They naturally wiped their tear-stained faces on the doll Olga’s apron.

“Well? You need this!” Olga said severely to the soldiers.

“We won’t do it again! Please forgive us!” Gorilla whimpered, wiping his nose with his huge fist.

“Boo-boo-boo-boo! Boo-boo-boo-boo!” rang out from the jar.

“General says that he’ll try to reform,” Scholarchkin translated.

Flamy flew out of the newspaper house, extremely satisfied. “How did I have them? ‘Bang!’ with the tail. And he, ‘Mama!’ How that one jumps, but the piece of iron, that one generally… How he falls! Hiss-hiss! And this one in the helmet, when he sees me, thinks that it’s him! Great! And I to him, ‘There! Here I am for you!’ And he, ‘Ah-h!’” Although Flamy’s story was incoherent, he had success with the audience. The cat Muffin even asked with an “encore!” for a repeat giving more attention to details.

“What shall we do with the soldiers? Perhaps let them go?” the doll Olga interrupted Flamy.

“Let’s tickle them! Let them tell their military secrets! I like that a lot!” the bunny suggested timidly.

“Mama! I’m afraid of tickling! I’m not playing this way!” Gorilla howled. He hopped away on one leg with tremendous speed, dragging the pillow with him. The second leg was caught in the pillowcase. Grabber ran after him, rumbling his iron interior. Behind them, looking back, ran General. “You forgot me! The boss should retreat first!” he yelled.

“Lost your helmet! Which way?” the friends shouted after him.

After a few days, Peter left for Tula and took the box with the soldiers with him.

Chapter Thirteen

The Picnic on the Roof

For a long time Pookar, Olga, and Scholarchkin could not decide whether to tell Masha about Flamy. However, it all happened by itself.

“Hiss-hiss! I can’t hide my whole life. After all, she isn’t Dobrynya Nikitich. Why shouldn’t we meet? I think my mama wouldn’t mind,” Flamy said.

“But you could become invisible,” the doll Olga proposed cautiously.

“It’s boring to be invisible all the time! Everyone looks at you like at an empty spot. Pity!” Flamy was upset.

“Well, then go, meet, once you’ve made up your mind! You’ll die from uncertainty!” said Pookar.

When Masha was home, Flamy got out of the cabinet, where he was hiding. He walked over to the girl and nudged her with his head.

“Don’t bother me, Muffin! Can’t you see that I’m busy?” Masha said, thinking that it was the cat. However, she still looked down and saw a green dragonet with yellow eyes and small wings on his back.

Flamy looked fondly at the girl and uttered, “Hi! I’m Flamy!”

“And I’m Masha,” the slightly bewildered girl said.

“Phew,” Flamy sighed in relief, “now we’ve met! Now we can chat about some polite topic. Do you have mustard?”

“Mustard? In the fridge, probably,” Masha said, surprised.

“Will you let me take it?”

“Yes, of course. Do you want me to bring it?”

“Don’t worry. I ate it all yesterday,” Flamy bragged.

“Why ask then?”

“Just because. To keep conversation going,” Flamy spun around on the spot, trying like a cat to catch his tail. Only his tail was green and thin with notches. “I can never catch it! An absolutely unpredictable tail. No matter how I try, it always manages to slip away at the last moment,” he complained.

Masha hesitantly touched the shiny scales on Flamy’s back. She could not believe that her conversational partner existed in reality.

“Do you like me? You can pet me!” Flamy gave her permission.

“You’ve already met? Then let’s play!” Pookar shouted, leaning out of his boot-home.

“What are we going to play?”

“Nothing! We’re going for a walk on the roof.” Pookar jumped out of the boot. He was in his usual field outfit: a pot on his head and a bottle-opener in his hands.

“I don’t know. Of course, I’ve almost done my homework, but…” Masha said doubtfully.

“No ‘buts’… Great adventures don’t wait!” Pookar was indignant.

Masha agreed to take a walk on the roof with the condition that none of the toys would go up to the edge. “It’s dangerous!” she said. Muffin also started to make up her mind. The roof was the place the cat always longed to be. There she could casually meet her beloved cat. Hoping for that, Muffin washed with a paw and made herself pretty.

By a lucky chance, the hatch to the roof turned out not to be locked. The roof was flat, enclosed by handrails along the edges. There was a light breeze. Flamy immediately began to fly and Pookar ran.

Muffin quietly looked around and, realizing there were no cats, got upset. “Didn’t much want to!” she murmured to herself under her breath.

Masha walked around the roof a little bit, at first carefully, then more boldly. She even risked looking down, holding the handrail tightly. Somewhere far away cars, looking like toys, were going by.

“Look what I can do!” Flamy yelled and deftly looped in the air. He became so twisted that for a moment his head and tail almost touched. Masha even caught her breath. She was afraid that Flamy would fall, though she was afraid in vain. Flamy descended onto the roof next to the girl.

“Never do that again! It’s even scary to look at,” Masha requested. Flamy stuck out his long forked tongue. He always did this when he was satisfied.

Pookar looked around in search of new entertainment. His eyes caught the TV antenna. It was a thin metal tube, from which iron feelers came out on both sides. “What an outstanding swing! Now we’ll have fun!” he shouted and rushed to the antenna.

Pookar and Flamy caught hold of the opposite ends of an antenna element and started rocking. They squealed with delight and each time took off even higher.

“Come to us!” they shouted to Masha.

“Now no one can watch TV all over the building! You’re shaking the antenna!” Masha threw up her hands.

“Nonsense! What fool would be watching TV during the day!” Pookar dismissed it and rocked even harder.

However, just at that moment, Pirozhkov and Avdokhina turned on the TV to watch the news. Neither Pirozhkov’s nor Avdokhina’s TV was working. The screen only flickered.

“Probably something with the antenna! Have to take a look!” Pirozhkov thought and ran out of the apartment. He certainly would have caught the pranksters, but Muffin heard him pounding up the stairs. The cat quickly slapped Masha with a paw, forcing her to listen.

“Here they come! Hide, quick!”

Pookar and Flamy jumped down from the antenna and started to rush about the roof.

“Quick, behind the vent!” Masha, who had already managed to hide, called them.

Pookar and Flamy dived for it. At that moment, the omnipresent Pirozhkov appeared on the roof and looked around suspiciously. He looked for a second at the vent, and it seemed to Masha, who was peering out from there, that Pirozhkov noticed her. However, she was lucky. Pirozhkov turned away and walked over to the antenna, still continuing to shake.

“Strange! No wind, but the antenna is shaking. I don’t understand!”

Pirozhkov reached out and held back the antenna. At that very moment, Avdokhina appeared on the roof. She had also decided to come up and see what was happening. The first one Avdokhina saw was Pirozhkov, doing some tricks with the antenna.

Avdokhina already had a low opinion of Pirozhkov earlier. After the recent incident with the doors, this opinion did not improve. Now, Pirozhkov had taken it into his head to shake the antenna. Avdokhina thought that he had gone nuts. “He’ll even drop from the roof, wacko!” she thought and, having decided not to curse, quickly hid behind a vent pipe – fortunately not the one where Masha and Flamy were, but another. Hiding behind the vent, Avdokhina accidentally stepped on a piece of rusty iron.

Pirozhkov heard a noise and, turning, saw Avdokhina dive behind the vent. He thought that she had been shaking the antenna to annoy him and then hid. Since Avdokhina rode the elevator and held the door to his apartment, Pirozhkov considered that she was capable of any dirty trick. Now he would tell her everything he thought of her! Pirozhkov rushed to Avdokhina.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Примечания

1

According to the 12th century Primary Chronicle, the history of Kievan Rus' from c. 850 to 1110, Sineus and Truvor were brothers of Rurik, the founder of the Rurik Dynasty that ruled Kievan Rus' until the 17th century.

2

Dobrynya Nikitich is one of the most popular heroes of the Kievan Rus era, a warrior who completes many feats in epic poems, one of which describes his triumph over the dragon.

3

This refers to Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street and Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th series.

4

This refers to a 2008 short Russian poem about love that starts with No need salt/No need water/Give me love/…