Chapter 3
The Closet Which Was Not and Is Not There

The Snake of Time is a strange essence. Having rolled up into a ring, it lies somewhere at infinity, and minutes, days, years, and centuries are trapped in a great majority of its scales. They whisper, true, that in the old days the strong black magician Ludwig Snot-Nose put a spell on the snake. The essence of this spell is that time always runs too fast in one’s happy moments, whereas during unpleasant ones it drags on, like cold pasta wound around a fork and will in no way end.

During the first lesson of practical magic Tanya specifically pondered this and the vacations that flashed past imperceptibly, looking with loathing at her slippery cauldron, smelly after the summer, along the bottom of which crawled disgusting white maggots, having managed to appear not without the help of numerous Tibidox flies. But then Professor Stinktopp was extremely satisfied with this, asserting that filth gave additional magic abilities to the cauldrons.

“Not a bad rest! Three weeks lying in magic station in order to discover later that one can’t bathe after bonegrafts! What’s the sense of being a magician if you’re allowed less than the most common moronoid?” Tanya reflected, simultaneously trying not to miss the explanations of Professor Stinktopp.

The wrinkled professor of practical magic walked leisurely around the class and, dropping quick glances in all directions with his spiteful eyes the colour of dried orange peel, growled, “For ze preparation of elixir of foresight you take one large leaf of burdock and vrap up in it flovers of fern and finely ground agate. Copy? Zen you add a splinter of a coffin, dragon mucus, fur of a dead rat, stone from ze goitre of a chicken, and boil efferyzing in svamp vater. Ven it boil, you must not lover a spoon in zere, but stir it viz a cut off frog leg! If you do efferyzing sehr gut, zen ven ze slush begin to boil – somezing interesting vill happen! Copy efferyzing? But now schnell, schnell, young dumdums! Do efferyzing as I said! And I vill vatch you viz great pleasure!”

In Professor Stinktopp’s voice was concealed malicious joy, so badly hidden that all the students noticed it. Even the professor’s favourite Rita On-The-Sly suspiciously raised her head. Coffinia Cryptova squinted, first trying to consider what filth would be prepared by Stinktopp.

Spurred on by an impatient Stinktopp bobbing up and down, the second graders set about pounding agate and getting flowers of fern from a leather bag. Meanwhile Gunya Glomov, transferred into grade two only because in first grade he had mortally bored all instructors, was chasing a dead rat, which had shown extraordinary quickness and bolted, having bitten Gunya’s finger.

Professor Stinktopp grumbled, claiming that one of the senior pupils had revived the rat and that he, Stinktopp, would definitely report this disgrace to Slander Slanderych. Finally, Stinktopp calmed down, drank two spoonfuls of cognac with bile, and even permitted Rite On-The-Sly to partially pluck his waistcoat, which he had already been wearing for many centuries in a row without taking it off. “Indeed I didn’t know it’s made of rat skin!” Bab-Yagun, making a face, whispered to Tanya.

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.