Lucien the hedgehog in the town of strange people

"If-f I ddo o-nnlly thiss… Iff you-u ddon't-t forc-ce mme tto do an-nythin-ng elsse…" The cat looked at her like a cunning fox trapped in a crowd of hunters.

"Yes. Only this," Dasha confirmed, swiping her fingertips over the needles of the hedgehog.

Fox dutifully lowered his head. Lucien jumped onto the table, glowing. He took out the burron and put it in front of him. A cheerful tune began to flow from the little thing. The hedgehog began to dance, holding the pebble with both paws above his head.

I'm jumping in a meadow,

I'm sniffing tall grass.

I will sing dragonflies

I'm gonna howl at the Moon!

Artem grabbed his sister's hands and whirled with her, jumping from one foot to the other.

"Yay! Yay!"

Fox was flattered. Everyone is so happy about his agreement; it seems this is very important. He turned his muzzle to Matvey, wanting to make sure that the tabby cat was also satisfied. But he saw only cold and discontent in the eyes of his brother, which made him feel embarrassed.

Lucien calmed down and turned the burron off. Artem and Dasha lay down on the floor.

"We start?" Lucien asked the children.

"Yep," Artem agreed, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his T-shirt. "What stuffiness is here…"

"Open the window; you can still," suggested his sister.

"It's hot there too, like a steam room!"

"It's a little cooler there."

Artem rose, went to the window, and opened the vent. A light, warm wind blew into the room.

The hedgehog, holding the enchanted note in his paw, jumped from the table to the bed and was right in front of the pets.

"First, listen to the task that is assigned to you. Do you know where this girl lives?"

"Yes." Matvey quickly answered.

Fox stopped the narrow gaze at his brother.

"W-w-why ddo you-u knnow b-but I ddon't?"

The tabby cat froze:

"Er-r, you-u knnow… er…"

"You two can discuss it later." Artem firmly interrupted them.

"Ok-kay, wwe're l-listenning," Fox obeyed meekly.

"You need to get to this girl's house without anyone noticing you," Lucien continued.

"Like mice!" Dasha prompted.

"Ew-w, mmice," the gray cat wrinkled his face. "D-donn't rem-mind mme ab-bout mic-ce!"

"Oh, okay, okay…" Dasha replied with a condescending smile. "I forgot, you don't like mice…"

Lucien continued:

"And you can't talk. Your voices will become very loud."

"This is in-n-terrestinnng…" Fox said, imagining how he and his brother walk streets and scare dogs away with their loud voices.

"H-how arre wwe g-going to t-talk to each-ch othe-err? Wwe will-l n-need it-t!" Matvey asked the uninvited guest, discouraged.

"You won't need to do this. When you get there, leave this note in her yard." Lucien held out the piece of paper to the tabby cat, and Matvey clamped it in his teeth. "Somewhere in a prominent place. But don't go into her house! That's it. After that, you can come back."

"S-sounnds ea-easy," Fox said.

"Then let's start," Lucien replied, raising his paw.

"Wait a second," Dasha asked him and told Matvey: "Put the note down for now, otherwise it will also become invisible."

"No, you don't need to put the note aside. I do it on purpose so that the note is invisible until they deliver it," said the hedgehog. "When they do this, it will become visible."

"Ah, okay," Dasha said.

Lucien pointed his paw at the cats.

Fox's eyes widened.

"Will I feel pain now?" Matvey curled up, hiding his head.

"Not at all. As with the previous spell," the hedgehog answered him. Then he froze and whispered something barely audible. The children only on moving his mouth and twitching his antennae guessed that he was not just frozen.

Then a whitish veil formed literally out of nowhere around the furry brothers. At first barely noticeable, it became increasingly impenetrable. The cats tried touching it with their paws, but how can you touch something that's like fog? Having reached complete opacity, the veil rapidly dissipated. The bed was empty, and the pets disappeared, as if they were not there.

"They're here, right?" Artem quietly asked the hedgehog.

"Sure…" The hedgehog answered and gazed around the room. "Give us a sign or…"

Lucien failed to finish the sentence: the loud "Wwhatt?" like a hurricane swept through the room, shaking the walls and furniture. Dust from the table and from the closet flew off and hung in the air. The ceiling lamp hanging on a wire turned like a propeller. The monster drawings that had been lying aside were now scattered all over the room. The hedgehog was thrown into the wall like a puck into the goal. He fell on the floor with his paws stretched out to the sides. The children with closed eyes and with their hands over their ears recoiled into the center of the room and bumped into each other's backs.

The blast of wind left behind a mess and a sickening smell of cat canned food. It seems that "the aromas" from the mouths of Fox and Matvey intensified along with their voices.

Lucien rose.

"Well, it's alright now," he said, picking in his ears with his claws. "It's time for you. Hurry up. Don't forget to remain silent!" he commanded, having no idea where to look.

"O-okkay. Llet u-us ooutt" rang out from near the door. These words sounded a little quieter and affected only the bed. The sheet and the blanket on it soared for a second, like a sail that caught a tailwind. The pillow jumped from the bed to Dasha's legs.

"One second!" Artem shouted, opening his eyes. "Just don't say anything else!"

"O-okkay," agreed a thunderous voice, causing the sheets of drawings to flutter everywhere.

Artem opened the door and ran out of the room.

"I didn't think it would be that loud," Dasha said, her hands removed from her ears. “And how did the cats not become deaf?”

"I think I made a little mistake in the comparison," admitted the hedgehog. "But they can't go deaf. To them, their voices seem like normal volume."

Artem returned and blurted out: "Hurray, they're gone!" After that, he started picking up the drawings from the floor.

"Now all we can do is wait. I hope they don't do anything wrong," said the hedgehog.

Chapter 6. The wool poltergeists

The obnoxious human person lives not far away on Shadow Street, which is located parallel to Surprise Street. The tabby cat with the note in his mouth and Fox climbed over the fence at the back of the owners' yard and hurried through the overgrown garden belonging to the hostile old man Vasily. It remains to cross his yard, run across the street – and that's it; they'll be their place of destination.

Fox and Matvey considered Vasily Ilyich crazy because of his gratuitous hatred of representatives of the cat family. Besides, not so long ago the old man became allergic to cat hair, which had never manifested before in all his seventy-five years of life. Now his nose began to itch badly every time the old man saw a cat in his yard. The old man cursed and sneezed, splashing snot. Then he'd take off his boot from his leg and threw it at a cat. Then he chased an animal to the very fence, and it overcame at the speed of an intercontinental missile. As soon as the enemy was outside the old man's yard, all allergy symptoms magically disappeared, and Vasily, with a look of victory, went home in one boot. After that, he was always in no mood to climb nettles in search of a second boot.

Fox and Matvey often had to meet the old man thanks to their friendship with Vasily's dog Strelka, the half-breed of a German shepherd and mongrel. Vasily took her from an animal shelter last year.

The old man often swore at the dog because she loved cats with all her soul; she did not want to offend and drive them away. "I want no lousy cat to set foot on my land!" Ilyich often thundered at her with a raucous, senile voice, but it didn't help. That is why the old man regularly "re-educated" Strelka: locked her in the pantry and starved. The gray cat and Matvey knew about this and tried to be discreet and not to frame for their friend. However, it was impossible to hide from Vasily Ilyich with the dog sitting on a chain.

As the cats were running past the fifty-gallon barrel of green stagnant water, Fox felt the urge to poke fun at Strelka. Put some grass in her doghouse or move her bowl. The cat was sure that it would be funny. But, having passed through the young cabbage beds, the cats saw that the doghouse was empty. The crazy man locked her again! The fluffy brothers thought at the same time and exchanged glances. They were invisible to others but could see each other. Matvey hastened to put his paw to his mouth, reminding his brother about the need to keep quiet. Fox shook his head in agreement. Then the tabby cat pointed his paw toward the street and decisively headed there. We'll be back here soon, the gray cat decided and moved after his brother.

The cats climbed over the mildewed wooden fence of the old man and walked along the side of the street. They were ahead of the funeral procession of a couple of dozen old women and old men. The procession was led by the slowly moving bus with the acid-color inscriptions on the sides:

A DECENT FUNERAL – THERE IS NOTHING EASIER

The man, who was one of the last to walk, was dressed in three pants: white long johns, trousers and jeans on top of the others, and with winter boots on his feet. He complained to the limping man beside him about his freezing feet. All his pants kept falling off, and he pulled them up with every step.

Following his brother, the gray cat returned to the very important question: how does Matvey know where that girl lives? The brothers always walk together, and if Matvey knows where she lives, then I should know too. But I don't know. The cat was determined to ask his brother when they returned home.

After six hundred feet, the cats got to the right house. Crossed to the other side of the street, they climbed between the iron bars of the fence to the white brick-lined house.

At the same time, a cat of angelic appearance climbed into Nastya's yard through a gap in the side fence. White, short-tailed, with a silver butterfly on its collar. A silly smile appeared on Fox's face, while Matvey frowned like a rain cloud. The white cat strolled in the yard, enjoying the sun. But, as soon as she noticed the brothers, her mood changed. Hissing menacingly, she moved toward the brothers. The gray cat did not move; it seemed that the mind had left him. The tabby cat, squeezing the jaws holding the important note more strongly, backed up and slipped under the viburnum bush.

"Musya, Musya! Kitty-kitty-kitty!" Suddenly, a female voice was heard from behind the fence.

The angel with ominous eyes snorted ferociously, rushed to the call of the owner, and disappeared into the hole in the fence. The tabby cat crawled out from under the viburnum bush. He approached his brother from behind and touched Fox's back with his paw. Fox turned around, as if waking up from a dream.

The cats returned to their task. They ran along the stone-lined path deep into the courtyard, looking around, thinking about where to leave the note. They did not find any suitable place, but the hedgehog forbade them to enter the house. What to do? Where to put the note? With the help of gestures, the cats agreed to take their time and think about a good place for the note. And to make it easier to think, they returned to the front garden and lay down on soft grass under the window, from which a conversation was heard.

"So, they're hiding something? Someone?" Nastya's mother asked in a deep, almost masculine voice.

The brothers pricked up their ears.

"I'm sure this is someone crazy. Demented," answered a tall girly voice.

"Why are you whistling? Stop it! It's already making my ears hurt!" Tatiana Yulievna barked at her daughter.

"Okay, okay, mom," Nastya chirped in a normal voice.

"Why demented?" Tatiana Yulievna asked harshly.

"Cause, this man, this is definitely not a woman, I understood by his voice…" Nastya began.

"Did you eavesdrop?" Tatiana Yulievna interrupted her daughter, roaring so loudly and furiously that the cats shuddered. "No, it just can't be! I couldn't even imagine that my daughter could spy! Shame, it's a big shame!"

Nastya kept quiet.

"Shame on you! They should invite you and show you everything! The way everybody invites me!" Her mother resented, louder and louder.

She lied – nobody invited her and, moreover, showed her nothing. She had to obtain important information on her own, patiently huddling against the walls of houses, wiping windows with her clothes. Conversations about money were the most interesting because Yulievna wanted to know about every neighbor's sale and purchase in advance. But she always listened to the end of conversations about everything else. She believed that this daily ritual of hers allowed her to stay abreast of city events, and she could not imagine her life without this. If some day she had to miss "her walk," she would stop at a window of her house and start whining like an animal locked in a cage. She stood and howled all day and all night, driving her daughter, weak-willed husband and closest neighbors crazy.

"They didn't, so I had to do this. That man is dangerous and crazy! I wanted to help…"

Her mother roughly broke her off.

"Enough. Why is he crazy?"

The gray cat was so fascinated by eavesdropping that the task with the note slipped his mind.

"Ah… he was talking some nonsense about planets. He told how he flew to Earth. From a satellite! Talk about magical lakes… About wigs, singing stones… I almost laughed at this point. It's so funny…"

"Psycho," Tatyana Yulievna diagnosed.

"And one more thing…"

"What?"

"When The Babakins noticed me, they rushed to fight me!" Nastya pretended to cry.

"WHAT?" Her mother yelled. Immediately after this, there was a sharp sound of chair legs moving on the floor tiles. It seems that she quickly got up from the chair out of indignation.

Outraged, Fox rose sharply. He was not the smartest of animals, but he could distinguish lies from truth. Moreover, he saw everything when he lay on the kitchen floor. But what about his brother? Is he probably also shocked by such a big lie? The gray cat looked at him and became angry: the tabby cat slept sweetly, twitching his antennae thanks to a blade of grass tickling his face. Butterflies and the chirping of birds lulled him to sleep. The rumpled note lay near his nose. Fox remembered the hedgehog's task and pushed his brother.

"They yelled at me like people in a mad house! Called me names… Pushed me, I almost fell down their stairs. Now my back and side hurt." Nastya complained with a pretending suffering voice.

The tabby cat stretched out and yawned sweetly. Noticing Fox's angry expression, Matvey hastened to shut his mouth. Fox, barely holding back from anger, pointed his paw at the window. But Matvey, still sluggish thanks to sleep, did not understand what this raising of his brother's paw meant.

"Oh, woe… I told you that whether you do good or not, good will not follow! So you did a good thing, worried about them, but what did you get in response? Underage trash, they will regret this. Give me my phone!" she shouted in the last sentence so that the cats shuddered again. The paw of the tabby cat slipped off the face of his brother, and the gray cat, now not restrained by anything, growled:

"You-u-u fforgot-tten wwhy wwe are h-here?"

The Lazutkins' yard has not yet seen such wind. The note crumbled into small particles. In an instant, the kitchen window got a lot of cracks, like a spider web. The trees twitched violently. The side fences on both sides fell into neighbors' yards. Sparrows, chirping here and there, were thrown behind the back fence. Viburnum bushes and young vegetable plants from the garden were ripped up by the roots and were thrown behind the fence to the sparrows. The laundry that was drying on the rope behind the house swirled in a whirlwind and flopped onto the empty planting beds. The roof of the shed fell over to the side. The grass all over the yard property was flattened, as if a giant iron had run over it. The hurricane did not affect only the cats, who were looking around the yard with bulging eyes. Apparently, bad weather has no effect on its organizers.

The brothers went out onto the path in the courtyard. Matvey, who was already fully awake, shook his head, looking at the damage caused. Fox, having lost his anger, lowered his head guiltily because the hedgehog said that they would become loud, but he couldn't even imagine that it would be SO loud!

At this point, the cats smelled the odor of roasting meat coming from the back of the house. Both twitched their noses and headed for the source of the smell. They turned the corner of the house. Realizing the smell was coming from the ajar door of the house, the tabby cat was upset: the hedgehog forbade them from entering the house; therefore, they wouldn't get any meat.

Suddenly the head of a red-cheeked woman peeked out from behind the door at threshold level. She swept the threshold with her short curls, which looked like a tangle of many thin wires. The woman's eyes bugged out at the mess in the yard. There were hysterical cheers behind her.

"Mom, what's there?! Mom?!"

"Everything is fine," Nastya's mother muttered and stood up. "I'll go check. But you stay here! Probably someone threw a stone at our window."

"A stone, what stone?!"

"Oh, come inside!" The woman pushed her daughter into the house.

Tatiana Yulievna, who until today had been a talkative and bold woman, now looked like a pale shadow of herself. She sneaked out of the house and looked around cowardly.

The tabby cat thought for a bit and concluded that their task was completed. The point of the task was to distract Nastya so that she wouldn't tell anyone about the hedgehog. They accomplished it, albeit differently. Now, these two human females would definitely not remember about the cat's owners and the guest. Moreover, the note no longer existed. The cats had nothing more to do here. Matvey stopped his brother, who was sneaking up to the door, and pointed his paw at the street, making it clear that it was time to return. Fox nodded, agreeing, but his thoughts were far away.

Nastya's mother walked around the yard and wailed in a quivering voice:

"What's going on? What's going on? Oh, what a disaster, what a disaster!" After she went to the front door, saddened.

Nastya, seeing the approaching mother, leaned out of the door:

"Mom! Mom!? What was it?"

"I told you not to go out!" Tatiana Yulievna pushed her daughter inside again and stopped at the threshold and looked with tears in her eyes at the yard as if for the last time.

The cats hurried away. Matvey went first, and the gray cat followed. Nothing foreshadowed surprises until the tabby cat, slipping between the fence bars, discovered that Fox had disappeared. Matvey furiously stamped his paw and barely managed to shut his own mouth with his paw: he almost said a cussword. Rushed to the front door, but it was already closed. Of course, his gray brother is in the house. Where else could he be? There is no other place nearby with such an amazing smell of meat. At that moment, the door swung open as if by a blow. Nastya screamed her head off and jumped out onto the threshold.

"Ghost! Mom! What to do?! Mom!"

Tatyana Yulievna ran out behind her, breathing noisily and with his hand on his heart. Both jumped off the threshold and, trembling with fear, pressed close to the brick wall.

Following the pleasant smell, Matvey went into a room with a closet. The door immediately slammed shut, almost touching his lush tail. The tabby cat went deep into the house and stopped at the kitchen door. The first thing he noticed was the window with almost opaque glass due to many cracks. And he couldn't ignore his brother on the table, wiping the plates with his tongue.