Tanya Grotter and the Golden Leech

Tanya lit the fire under the cauldron and, stirring slowly with a frog leg, began to wait for the swamp water to boil. Occasionally either the boiled burdock or the flower of fern floated to the surface. The sliver of a coffin pensively turned like a compass needle in the smelly bubble coming up from the bottom.

At the same time Tanya was curiously watching Vanka Valyalkin, who recently, after attempting to unnoticeably eat a cutlet, dropped it into the cauldron. Now a thick orange smoke was belching from the cauldron; Vanka tried to hide it from Stinktopp, covering the cauldron with the lid. But this did not help. The smoke nevertheless belched, and on top of that, squeaked with a rusty senile voice. Vanka probably had disturbed the rest of some ancient genie. Now the genie was rioting and breaking for freedom.

As Vanka neither tried nor leaned on the cover, Professor Stinktopp discovered this disgrace. With a single red spark he forced the genie to evaporate, and gave Vanka a fat two in his mark book. Bab-Yagun and Zhora Zhikin, founders of the secret Order of Dumdums, immediately congratulated Vanka for initiative, and Gunya Glomov shook Vanka’s hand until he himself got a two. Only then would Glomov calm down and with satisfaction sank to his place.

Suddenly Dusya Dollova almost soared to the ceiling and, miraculously not overturning the cauldron, joyfully began to yell, “Ah! All the same, they’ll give me the leather suit as a gift! How cute I’ll look in it!” Rushing to Dusya’s cauldron, the second graders saw that it was already boiling and it reeked of a marshy slush. The rest could only see Dollova herself, who continued to squeal raptly about a leather suit. “Sehr Gut! Dolloff did efferyzing correctly!” Stinktopp approved.

A minute later, the slush boiled at Rita On-The-Sly’s. In contrast to Dollova, the reserved Rita kept secret what she saw. Only here eyes were glued to the seething cauldron and she was smiling mysteriously.

And then… then everybody was spending their time rushing from one cauldron to another. In the air hung a smelly smoke, from which the eyes watered and the throat tickled. Only Professor Stinktopp alone, who adored awful odours, was pulling it with pleasure into his nose similar to a duck’s beak and was smirking mysteriously.

Tanya was about to rush to Bab-Yagun, shouting that he saw the results of the semi-final of the world dragonball championship, when suddenly something started to seethe quite close by. She understood that her cauldron was boiling.

Forgetting about everything, Tanya leaned over the cauldron and began to peer impatiently into the smoking slush. For a long time she saw nothing except the burdock already boiled quite soft and the shimmering oily stains of dragon mucus. Tanya thought that something had gone wrong with the preparation of the elixir. Having decided to hide this from Professor Stinktopp in order not to infuriate him and not be enrolled into the Order of Dumdums, the girl wanted to pretend that she saw something. She sank her head lower and suddenly understood that the cauldron had disappeared somewhere. The outlines of the classroom washed away. Someone was standing directly in front of Tanya. She darted, shrieked, and fell through somewhere…

She came to from a sharp smell. Looking around, Tanya understood that she was sitting on a chair, the second graders were crowding all around, and Professor Stinktopp was holding in front of her nose a phial with smelling salt. Observing that the girl had come to, Stinktopp with explicit pleasure sniffed the smelling salt, squawked, and, winking his watery eyes alternately, asked, “Ah-ah-ah! Vat’s viz you? Perhaps, you see somezing special, huh?”

“No… nothing… I simply felt sick… from the stink,” Tanya barely whispered.

“Aha! You hear zis? Nerffous young Grotter fear green slime!” Professor Stinktopp drawled mockingly. Coffinia and Verka Parroteva began to neigh disgustingly.

Tanya tried not to look at anyone. She had lied to Stinktopp just now, but did not feel repentance. The truth was too terrible and it was more than possible for her to recount to Stinktopp. Indeed could she utter in everybody’s hearing what she saw, how the academician Sardanapal was sitting in a tight cell, face hidden in a chipped bowl with swill, and beside him, hardly distinguishable in that seething swampy slush, stood a tall bony figure muffled in a raincoat?

For a long time, for a very long time Tanya remembered to the smallest detail the image that flickered for an instant. How real was this foresight? Is it possible to trust it? And if possible, what to do about it now – run to Sardanapal and recount it to him? It is very doubtful that the academician would treat her warning seriously.

Finally, the lesson ended. Professor Stinktopp, after stunning the class with completely insane homework, was pulled in the hammock to the hatch located in the ceiling.

“Listen, Yagun, was I unconscious for long?” Tanya asked.

Yagun shook his head. “Ne-a. At most – half a minute. I watched: any minute now you’re going to fall into the cauldron and I caught you. Vanka and I put you on the chair, and here Stinktopp was already mincing over with his little bottle. Well, and his face was malicious! I even thought: did he specially cook up all this? Perhaps, gave you some special sliver or whispered something to the slime?”

Unceremoniously pushing Yagun aside, Coffinia walked past importantly, surrounded by a whole crowd of admirers, whom she now had even more of than Katya Lotkova. After that luckily thrown ball, allowing Tibidox to advance to the semi-final, Cryptova simply enjoyed unbelievable success. When she appeared at dinner in the Hall of Two Elements, the school became quiet for several moments, after which many burst into applause. One enamoured third grader – a very shy youth by the name of Shuonk Chpurikov – once spilled over himself a pot of soup just to draw Coffinia’s attention to himself. By the way, Chpurikov came into Tibidox because every time he blushed, he became invisible without any desire on his part. Indeed, he blushed constantly.

Unexpectedly some kind of noise was heard in the corridor. Coffinia‘s admirers, crowding around her, quickly rushed back to the stairs. Towards them, catching the floor with the fingers of his long arms, leisurely walked Tararakh, the instructor of veterinary magic, behind whom Usynya and Gorynya were dragging the infuriated immortal wild boar. Steam poured from the nostrils of the wild boar and fragments of an ancient, seemingly Greek or Persian, spear protruded from its back.

Noticing Tanya, Vanka Valyalkin, and Bab-Yagun, the pithecanthropus stopped and merrily turned to them, “Why are you so glum? Come from Stinktopp? What did you cook there? Temporary glue? Ointment from warts?”

“As if! Elixir of foresight… Mix with frog leg, throw in coffin slivers, and wait till it boils!” Vanka Valyalkin explained.

Tararakh’s eyebrows crawled to his forehead in amazement. “In second grade? Elixir of foresight? If I’m not entirely off my rocker, according to the program you now have yawning liqueur, decoction of malice, dense-bang mixture, and all kinds of nonsense in this vein. You muddled up something!”

“We studied elixir!” Valyalkin began to argue heatedly.

“But you couldn’t be!” Tararakh brushed it off.

“Yes, we did, did, did!” Vanka was not a bit less excited than his favourite instructor was.

The pithecanthropus wanted to object, but at this moment, Usynya let go of the hind legs of the wild boar and started to slap himself on the forehead, attempting to nail a persistent fly. The wild boar broke loose, knocked Tararakh off his feet, and swiftly dashed along the corridor in the direction of the office of Slander Slanderych. The students jumped in different directions, escaping from the wild boar. “What, have you gone nuts? And if Slander finds out that we drag a magic beast along the corridors! He precisely forbade it very strictly!” Tararakh began to yell at the heroes and dashed off in pursuit. Gorynya rushed after him, but Usynya, with his nails, picked up the murdered fly by a wing, brought it to his eyes, and contemplated his trophy with satisfaction for some time. Finally, he was wearied of it. He sighed, for some reason hid the fly in his breast pocket, and leisurely started awkwardly to follow his brother.

After the last lesson – studies of evil spirits with Medusa Gorgonova, in which they studied talking bedbugs (Vanka and Tanya were chuckling the entire lesson, remembering Professor Stinktopp and in a whisper making all kinds of interesting assumptions on his account) – the friends set off for the Hall of Two Elements. The entire Tibidox had already assembled there for the holiday dinner.

A beaming Professor Sardanapal – rosy, well-fed, with cheeks like a round loaf – in a smart red caftan with laces, with the downy beard combed, wound three times around his belt, stood up in the centre – in the enormous sun mosaic laid out on the marble floor. His luxurious moustaches – the right green and the left yellow – thoughtfully held the eyeglasses with the loose temples. Impressively puffing up his cheeks like a samovar, the for-life and posthumous head of Tibidox opened the small chest, from which two smart fellows immediately jumped out and began with astounding speed to spread the magic tablecloths.

“Only look at Sardanapal! He’s a living Grandfather Frost!” Valyalkin started to whisper, imperceptibly nudging Tanya and Bab-Yagun. Tanya mistrustfully looked at the head of Tibidox and suddenly realized that Vanka was right. In the red caftan, with the beard, Sardanapal amazingly resembled Grandfather Frost. Perhaps, the academician only needed a fur trimmed hat and a voluminous bag. No, it cannot be that this greatest of the currently living magicians would find himself in a tight cell! Anything could be imagined in Stinktopp’s contaminated cauldron, where the swampy slush for sure was mixed with the white worms that do not form part of the elixir and spoiled it!

Sensing that they were looking at him, Sardanapal turned to their table. And in the next minute the quick fine fellows from the chest, given a special sign by the academician, tossed a tablecloth into the air.

“Oh, my granny mama, again this tablecloth with grated horseradish! I’ll hang myself to get away from these vitamins. Sardanapal really finished us off and we’re even ‘white!’ What a Grandpa Frost!” Bab-Yagun began to moan. It was not known whether the academician heard this or not, but he sternly threatened Yagun with a finger.

The ears of Yagge’s grandson started to shimmer timidly and he stuck a fork into a big lump of horseradish. It was good then that the ‘wafer’ tablecloth fell on the neighbouring table, and Seven-Stump-Holes, taking pity, passed to them a very decent cake with chocolate and condensed milk.

True, on moving the cake, Stump went a little too far and the cake left a stain on Bab-Yagun’s overalls. “What, have you gone crazy? Not playing dragonball, you know!” Yagun began to yell. “Pardon me, I absentmindedly gave you a curve ball,” the Tibidox forward guiltily made a helpless gesture.

At the end of the dinner Medusa Gorgonova loudly clapped her hands, attracting attention. “A minute! I want to make a small announcement! This morning a cupid came to us with a message from the world dragonball council! Whom the Tibidox team must meet in the semi-final has been determined. Our opponent will be…” Professor Gorgonova maintained the wearisome pause, “the Afghan Genies!”

Dead silence hung for an instant above the Hall of Two Elements, and then all at once everybody broke away from their places and began to shout. Gunya Glomov, out of the fullness of his feelings, even overturned the table. Slander Slanderych sent a cyclops to carry Gunya by an ear out of the hall, and the cyclops did it with the greatest pleasure.

In the centuries-old history of dragonball, the Afghan Genies became the world champion almost more often than the remaining teams. In overall rating, they were even ahead of the gandharvas and the babai and only marginally inferior to the Invisibles. Not without reason sports reviewers called them “the world bouncers.” Any team meeting the Genies on the play field suffered defeat with an immense score.

“Well, that’s it! The end for us! Now we’re definitely not breaking through to the final!” the defeatist Damien Goryanov exclaimed. “The main thing, you don’t fall off the vacuum. You’re of no use all the same. In Nightingale’s place I would have replaced you with Dusya Dollova long ago,” Bab-Yagun stated. Dollova winked gratefully, but the tactless Yagun immediately added, “After seeing her in the air, all the Genies will immediately begin to die from laughter and will miss all the balls. But Dusya won’t waste time; she will fall onto the head of their captain and set about squeezing him…”

A green spark, large as a chicken egg, was shot from the ring of Medusa and burst with a dry crack. “Attention please! On behalf of the instructors of the school of Tibidox I intend to give a pleasant surprise to the best player who presented herself magnificently in the match with the gandharvas!”

Hardly having heard about a surprise, Coffinia immediately leaped up and with the most readiness advanced forward. It seemed she was disturbed by one thought only: did she have enough hands to take all the pleasant surprises and whether it was necessary to mobilize her boyfriends for this.

However, Medusa did not even turn in her direction. Instead, she gave someone a sign. Four grave panting house-spirits in Russian caftans brought into the hall a large, magnificently polished instrument. The cap of one of the house-spirits walking behind it was always slipping down over its eyes. Inspecting with interest what the house-spirits were carrying, Tanya absentmindedly admired the new polish, giving the instrument, which – of this she was convinced – she had never seen before, a pleasant walnut nuance.

“It was necessary for our masters to work for a while before they brought it back to the proper form. They had to replace the strings, cover it entirely with new varnish, and seriously restore the fingerboard. There was no special hurry, and for this very reason I asked them to do everything without hurry and thoroughly,” impatiently watching, as if expecting someone, Medusa continued. No one came out. Professor Stinktopp caustically giggled and looked sideways at Sardanapal.

Vanka nudged Tanya with a shoulder. “Hey, what’s with you? Fallen asleep? Go quickly! It’s your double bass!” he was astonished. “Not mine!” she growled. “What do you mean not yours? Look carefully! What, can’t you recognize it?” Vanka was angry.

Tanya did not move from her spot. The house-spirits approached her and started to chirp excitedly, clearly demanding that they be freed from their burden. Especially indignant was the one who could not fix the cap that kept slipping down, its hands were occupied. With no more doubts remaining, the girl took the double bass. The strings began to hum – softly and simultaneously, like an acquaintance. Tanya’s heart trembled. In the past month a day did not pass that she would not think about her instrument, but to the question of where it was and what had happened to it, all the instructors somehow kept significantly silent, and, in the end, Tanya stopped puzzling over it. And now suddenly this… Tanya even did not know whether she was glad or not – everything somehow was mixed up in her thoughts.

Medusa approached her. “I hope you’re not offended that we returned the double bass to you only now and in general kept everything secret? To tell you the truth, everything was already ready a week ago, but Sardanapal waited until Yagge has given you permission to begin training. This morning we finally entreated her. Try to be in shape for the match with the Genies… Well, at least you’re glad?”

“Don’t know… I’m… yes… glad…” Tanya answered incoherently. Medusa looked at her with understanding and smiled. Tanya guided her hand along the fingerboard, on which there was not one noticeable crack now. It could not be determined if the Rope had suffered or not, but she had decided not to ask Medusa directly about this. Indeed, it would be better to clarify this carefully later with the house-spirits, which, getting up on tiptoes, were standing beside her and trying to look into her face. They were also waiting for something, but what? Tanya smiled at them, but this clearly did not satisfy the house-spirits.

“And when’s the match?” Tanya asked. Medusa shrugged her shoulders. “The precise date has not been determined so far. There is complete confusion in the Sports Committee of the Magciety of Jerky Magtion. Likely, the poor devils got an evil eye again… In any event, first the Invisibles must meet with the Polar spirits. And only afterward will our match with the Afghan Genies take place. Certainly Nightingale will inform you in advance,” she said.

A good half of Tibidox had already crowded around Tanya. Students literally climbed on each other’s shoulders in order to have a look at the restored double bass. Kuzya Tuzikov accidentally stepped on the beloved corn of Slander Slanderych, which he, experiencing solitude until the encounter with the mermaid, had cherished for the past two hundred years. The stern dean of Tibidox set up such a howl that the ancient spirits imprisoned behind the Sinister Gates immediately responded to it.

“Everyone march to class, else I’ll cast an evil eye! Quick!” Slander began to yell, pouting and reddening to his bald spot. Red sparks began to leap from his ring, and several plates on the tables shattered. The fine fellows from the chest began to remove the tablecloths in a hurry. The students gushed out in different directions. Slander had a bad reputation in Tibidox. Even Dentistikha could not always remove his evil eye, especially cast in a fit of temper (or as Vanka joked, “under the hot bald patch”).

Passing by Tanya while surrounded by her retinue, Coffinia stopped and provocatively stared at her. “How do you like that, ‘best player!’ Probably you arranged everything, huh? Will my glory not to be left in peace?” she was interested. “Come off it, Crypt!” Tanya snapped. But Coffinia did not lay off. “I don’t understand what these instructors find in you! With what happiness you walk around as their pet, Grotter? Not one ball you scored in the last match, and earlier the snake bow helped you – everyone knows this… Maybe you’ll tell tales on us about everything, huh?” she continued.

Coffinia’s flunkies started to neigh. While Vanka Valyalkin and Bab-Yagun prepared to give a rebuff, although the scuffle would clearly be mismatched, Cryptova moved forward and, as if by chance, pushed Tanya’s shoulder. The strings of the double bass began to hum and – Coffinia began to squeal, a sticky slush smeared on her face. Well, in general, if we look at everything from a philosophical point of view, to have a ladle filled to the brim with pudding stuck to your head is not so unpleasant indeed. Besides, the pudding was fresh, tasty, and everything in this vein… However, Cryptova nevertheless for some reason was not pleased. There live in the world such girls, whom you cannot make happy with anything even if you try till you collapse!

* * *

When everyone was already setting off to class, Sardanapal ran into the Hall of Two Elements. His untied moustaches – the right green and the left yellow – were pertly flicking on the glasses. “Quick! All students remain in Tibidox, and instructors come with me! Where’s Medusa? Where’s Tararakh?” he shouted.

“What happened?” Rita On-The-Sly started to worry. “The water-sprites and the wood-goblins are again battling for the ruins!” Sardanapal answered absentmindedly, not even noticing that he had answered someone he should not. Rita On-The-Sly was eternally mistaken as someone else. Indeed such was her magic ability.

Soon all the instructors dashed away somewhere, taking with them as heavy artillery Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya. The students, dying of curiosity, rushed to follow, but the cyclops at the gate had been given a strict order to let no one out. Rattling with the chain, Dumpling Maker partitioned off the drawbridge with a rail and, playing with the poleaxe, got up next to the wheel.

Gunya Glomov, Damien Goryanov, Seven-Stump-Holes, and Kuzya Tuzikov began to tease him, but the cyclops only chuckled indulgently. Attempting to bring him to white heat, the pranksters did not forget to follow whether the eye of the cyclops had started to revolve in orbit or roll under. This meant the time to take to one’s heels promptly – even Dentistikha could not remove the evil eye of Dumpling Maker.

Bab-Yagun pulled Tanya by the hand. “I know where we’ll be able to see everything! Come! Only quietly so that any Goryanov doesn’t stick to us!” he whispered, unnoticeably moving back.

“And what are these ruins Sardanapal was talking about? Where do they come from at all? Tibidox has been rebuilt!” Tanya asked.

Yagun looked at her with mockery. “What does it have to do with Tibidox? You must think there is nothing on Buyan besides Tibidox!”

“But where?”

“Well, you’re boring me with your questions! One might suppose that your last name is Pain-in-the-Neck… Later you’ll understand, run!” his ears impatiently shimmering, Yagun interrupted her.

They ran past the inside courtyard of the Tower of Ghosts and found themselves on the tight, overgrown with hawthorn, little square between the desolate wall and the tower. Having scrambled onto the shoulders of Vanka, accusing him of the intention of crushing his head, Yagun slipped into a small niche and pulled his friends after himself. They found themselves on a narrow staircase covered with a red carpet. From time to time the carpet shuddered and inflated like a bubble – under it the sleeping poltergeist Mikheich was making a racket. Somewhere below in the basements, the mixed choir of ghosts were rehearsing, performing Kalinka-Malinka. The chorus sounded well, but the thin treble of Lieutenant Rzhevskii clearly interfered with it. The brash spectre sang not only past the notes but also, it seems, another song altogether.

“Hey, what are you doing there, sleepyhead? Decided to sign up for the choir also?” Yagun shouted impatiently, lowering his head already from the next landing. Tanya, looking around, got up and in no way could get rid of the feeling that she had already been here once. This feeling only strengthened when on the way they came upon two black headstones.

After noticing the friends, the headstones roused themselves. “Tanya Grotter. At long last! Uncle Herman,” was written on the headstone on the right. “Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin. To brothers from mourning Glomov,” Gothic letters mockingly began to jump on the adjacent one.

Not able to control herself, Tanya launched a Briskus into the headstones and immediately felt sorry about this. “Tanya Valyalkina. From grandsons and great-grandsons,” the right headstone angrily highlighted. “Tanya Yagunova, stupid orphan. From the moronoid house management,” the left one began to argue.

“Here’s a dirty trick! I was wrong to get mixed up with them. Good that neither Vanka nor Yagun noticed anything,” Tanya thought and whisked upstairs in a hurry. Soon they were already standing on the little narrow viewing balcony, the jutting out canopy that hung exactly above the ditch. Tanya thought that earlier she was never in that part of the Island Buyan and completely did not know it. The windows of her room in the Big Tower looked out onto the internal courtyard and the play lawns. The Dragonball field was on the other side.

“And there are the ruins… Where are you looking? More to the right… The-re, to where Usynya and Gorynya are running!” Bab-Yagun gesticulated. Having stared at it, Tanya saw that the ditch proceeded to the swampy bed of a brook, overgrown to a disgrace with prickly stubbles of reed, and that, in turn, ended at the lake. On the shore, half splashing in the water, half rotting on dry land, the ruins stretched, sullenly goggling at Tibidox with blind collapsed windows.

Now a genuine battle was in full swing at the ruins. Transparent, elastic water-sprites, something similar to wineskins well-packed with slime, attacked squeaking, clumsy wood-goblins. On the side of the water-sprites appeared also a shock brigade of mermaids, of whom the famous chosen one of Slander was kicking up a bigger row than all. She howled, knocked down wood-goblins with powerful hits of her tail, and threw rotten fish, which some decrepit green duckweed helpfully brought to her, at them.