The classmates, dressed much better, contemptuously looked askance at Grotter.

“Here’s an eyesore… She dressed herself up so that now they’ll give her a kopeck… Disgraces everyone!” they grimaced.

Tanya had not one friend among them, and if one even appeared temporarily, Pipa and all her toadies began to ridicule her right away. Therefore not one friend remained next to Tanya for a long time. A week would not pass when she would side with Tanya’s persecutors and gloatingly ridiculed her birthmark from the opposite corner of the class. And Tanya understood her perfectly: it was necessary to curry favours with Pipa, making amends for her friendship…

Accompanied by the small round-shouldered guide, who looked so decrepit as if he was much older than all local exhibits, they passed several halls. Tanya listened at first with interest, but gradually her interest disappeared because the guide was speaking approximately one and the same words, “Eh-eh-eh… Before you a signet r-ing, presented by Catherine II to Count Orlov… Selling this ring, it was possible to purchase 10,000 pea-sa-nts… And this is the diadem, presented to the tsarina by Prince Potemkin… It would be possible to ac-qu-ire 15,000 pea-sa-nts with it.”

The guide uttered all these numbers so indulgently and ordinarily as if off-duty, he was only occupied with trading peasants, on the sly bartering them with exhibits from his museum.

They were already in the sixth or seventh hall when suddenly something compelled Tanya to stop. At the same time, it was as if something light and weightless stirred in her chest.

Under the convex armoured glass, a gold sword lay on a high pedestal illuminated by several high-power lights. Its wide blade serrated a little along the edges was covered with intricate characters. All around there were so many pleasing priceless weapons, but for some reason they did not stick in her mind, yet here was this sword… It was possible to think that once she already held it… Some delirium… Uncle Herman never even bought her a plastic sabre, but here a gold sword… And he would sooner eat his necktie than imagine such a thing to himself. Nevertheless, it stubbornly continued to seem to Tanya that this sword was known to her.

A little more and Tanya would find the answer, in her consciousness a tiny little gold spark already began to appear, but here someone carelessly removed it from the display case.

Beside it loomed the guide, automatically repeating like an old record some text cut into the memory.

“Before us a sword found in the tomb of a Scythian leader. You will focus your attention on the signs covering its blade. They are interesting in that they have no analogy to any written languages known to us… They defy deciphering, so that most likely it is simply a design with which the master decorated the sword during its casting.”

“And how many peasants can be bought with it?” Pavlik Yazvochkin, the chief wit of the class, interrupted.

The guide looked sideways first at the sword, and then at the wit. It seemed he was evaluating them with his eyes, precisely an old man and a loan shark.

“How many pea-sa-nts, I don’t know. But a couple thousand of such as you, it is indeed possible…” he said sadly. “Now let us move on to the next exhibit… You see the two-pood ring from the golden gates, which, according to the legend, fell down on the crown of Julius Caesar the minute he triumphantly entered Rome as the head of his legions…”

The entire class following the guide spilled over to the adjacent display case. Only Tanya remained near the sword. Involuntarily, not realizing what she was doing, the girl stretched out her hand in order to touch the sword. Of course, her fingers hit on the armoured glass. Immediately a bell began to jingle, and in only a second the huge supervisor, resembling a gorilla rented from the zoo and on which were stretched haphazardly a skirt and a tight wig, clutched Tanya by the sleeve.

“Didn’t they tell you: don’t touch anything! Here I’ll call security now… Where’s the teacher?” she yelled louder than the siren.

“Please don’t pay any attention! She’s with us, a character, a fool! Her papa is a convict,” Lena Mumrikova barged in, emaciated, a girl cast in unhealthy green, the chief among Pipa’s toadies.

“Shut up, green toad!” Tanya exclaimed, not recognizing her own voice.

She terribly wanted to attach Mumrikova’s nose to the glass so that the surveillance would snap to action once more, but it was not possible to do this because the supervisor continued to hold her tight.

Fortunately, instead of Irina Vladimirovna, who for sure would tell tales to the Durnevs, gym teacher Prikhodkin, falling over, approached them.

“You’re what? Her teacher?” the supervisor asked mistrustfully.

“Aha! It’s my teacher! Beloved, from the very first class,” Tanya immediately confirmed.

“And you keep quiet!” the supervisor bellowed. “I’m asking the man: are you the teacher?”

“Yes…” confirmed Prikhodkin.

“Eh-eh, if so…” the supervisor stupidly fixed her eyes on the stomach of the gym teacher. It was enormous, as if Prikhodkin swallowed a ball, and involuntarily inspired respect. “Then here’s what we’ll do: please hold this, your teenybopper, and don’t let go! Don’t dare let her touch anything!” she decided.

“I’m already taking her away.”

The huge fingers of Prikhodkin closed like a steel handcuff on the wrist of the girl. He dragged her like a kid after himself along the halls for a while, but then for some reason he needed his hand. He unclenched his fingers and released Tanya. She hurriedly ran off several steps and turned, checking whether he would remember about her. But the gym teacher only absent-mindedly fumbled with his fingers somewhere below as if vaguely recollecting that he was holding something, and began to stomp after the class.

Then he paused for a moment and – possibly, it only seemed to Tanya – in a friendly way winked at her. Tanya was grateful to this scattered-brained stout person. Furthermore, she recalled that in his classes Prikhodkin always treated her rather well and called her “Baby Grotter” as a joke: “If you would all run the hundred-metre like Baby Grotter!” Or: “Today we have the long jump. Baby Grotter will show us how it should be done…”

They passed more halls and, according to the internal placement of the museum having traced a semicircle, they again found themselves not far from the exit. Here the guide whispered something to the teacher, looked sourly at the children, and left.

“Attention! Everyone look at me! Now you can wander along the halls independently. We’re meeting here in ten minutes! And remember what I said: don’t touch anything, don’t grab, and don’t mark! Mumrikova, don’t you dare throw candy wrappers into the Chinese vase! It was not made for that five hundred years ago!” Irina Vladimirovna shouted.

The classmates wandered off in the Armoury, but the majority dashed into the gift shop to buy souvenirs and postcards. Tanya, willingly separating from the class, again set off for the hall where the sword was. After all, she wanted to look at it again, if the supervisor would not drive her away.

Unexpectedly, the birthmark on Tanya’s nose started to hurt, as if someone was scorching it with a match. Such a thing had never happened before. Grimacing, Tanya rushed to the nearest mirror in a heavy ancient frame. The birthmark seemed to her especially ugly at this moment, like a lump of buckwheat porridge sticking to the tip of her nose. How she hated it at this moment!

“Get off from my nose! I tell you – there!” she shouted to the birthmark.

Suddenly a terrible howl was heard, eardrums could burst from it. It seemed all the sirens in the Armoury simultaneously snapped into action. Lights began to blink. Running into the hall, Tanya saw that there was an enormous gap in the glass of the display case, the sword had disappeared, and the supervisor so like a gorilla was lying in a formless heap on the floor. At that moment when Tanya entered, the narrow little pane on the lattice window of the museum slammed shut. However, the hall, even without that, was full of noise.

Tanya froze fearfully. The stamping of many feet was already heard in the corridors. Remembering that they would find her here, the girl wanted to run out fast but she was too late. Into the hall ran the guards, the guide, workers of the museum, Prikhodkin and Irina Vladimirovna, and a good half of the class.

Rushing to the broken display case, they froze wonder-struck. Others attempted to switch off the siren and bring the supervisor round.

“Stolen! What was in this case?” someone shouted.

“The gold sword!” the round-shouldered guide said with infinite despondency in his voice. “And what do you think: for forty years already I’ve been tormented by the pr-remonition that this would happen one day. About seventeen years ago I even shared my considerations with the now deceased director.”

“It’s that same sword that Grotter touched! She was the very first here!” Lena Mumrikova began to bawl suddenly.

“It wasn’t me!” Tanya shouted, but almost no one was listening to her. And even if they did, they did not believe her.

A ring of people surrounded Tanya, staring at her. No one walked up close to her, as if she was a leper. At this moment, the supervisor opened her eyes slightly. On seeing Tanya, she groaned, “Again this girl!” and fainted again.

Tanya sensed that she was blushing, moreover she was not simply blushing but had become crimson, exactly like a tomato. She attempted to justify herself, but no one was listening to her.

“Excellent! I don’t believe my eyes! Grotter swiped the gold sword!” Genka Bulonov exclaimed, almost choking from such enthusiasm and sticking chewing gum on the throne.

“It wasn’t me!” Tanya shouted.

“Shut up! There was no one else in the hall! Search her!” Lena Mumrikova shouted.

Tanya, sweaty and bewildered, moved back, flying with her back against Irina Vladimirovna.

“Grotter! Tatiana! What horror! What disgrace! How could you?” she clucked.

“Really, will no one stand up for me?” Tanya thought with horror, but then as if through a fog she heard the voice of the gym teacher Prikhodkin, “I’ll not allow her to be searched! She was with me all the time! And how could she knock down this hippo?” he said in a bass voice, nodding at the supervisor lying on the floor, who again began to raise her head.

“Oh-oh-oh… The hippo himself… I’m dying…” she groaned and carefully, in order not to hurt the back of her head, fainted anew.

Squeezing through the crowd, a mean confident person approached Tanya.

“Lieutenant Colonel Chuchundrikov. Security service,” he introduced himself. “Come with me!”

Tanya dejectedly trudged right behind, sensing how behind her the amazed and simultaneously enraptured classmates were dragging themselves along like a split herd. How do you like that – a demure Grotter and suddenly she did such a thing!

They turned to the right, once again to the right, and descended the short stairs going down. The mean person brought Tanya to the high plastic arch.

“Go through the detector!” he ordered.

Tanya, shrugging her shoulders, took a step through the arch. She knew that she had nothing. An instant – and the detector literally began to shake from ringing. The eyebrows of the mean little fellow predatorily went up.

“Take out keys and all metallic objects,” he ordered.

Tanya fearfully took out keys and again took a step into the arch. The detector again began to shake.

“Well, that’s it, Grotter, the end for you! The sky in a cell, friends in stripes! You will run errands for someone for apple cores and toothpaste tubes!” Mumrikova shouted.

“Quiet!” Prikhodkin ordered her. “This machine is most likely defective… Here I’ll go through now… There, it’s quiet! What a skunk! Really she could… no, I don’t believe it!”

“So… now we’ll find out… Come here! Not to me! To this screen!” The mean person dragged Tanya to the low screen, and he went up to the monitor. The girl heard as he muttered, “Hm… as if there is no sword… There is nothing… But why then does it ring? Some stupidity… Well and she didn’t swallow the sword…”

“May I leave?” Tanya asked.

“Yes,” Lieutenant Colonel Chuchundrikov allowed. Picking up the handset of the internal telephone, he shouted into it, “Did they rewind the film? Well who’s there? The girl?” They answered him something.

“You’re sure? Absolutely?”

Continuing to hold the handset in his hand, the mean person looked darkly at Tanya, then at the teacher.

It seemed to Tanya that her heart fell from a high, very high altitude. And it broke into smithereens. Her back got soaked, her palm were covered with sweat. Lieutenant Colonel stubbornly kept quiet. The girl blinked and, already standing with tightly closed eyes, heard the words. “It means this. Your student here has nothing to do with it. You can take her away. At the moment of the theft the tracking camera did not lock in on her.”

Lena Mumrikova squealed from disappointment.

“Well, here you see! But what was on the film?” Prikhodkin exclaimed. The nose of the tiny Lieutenant Colonel hardly reached the button on his stomach.

“None of your business,” the Lieutenant Colonel answered.

“How is it not my business? She’s my student!” Prikhodkin was angry.

“I don’t have the right to reveal anything. The investigation isn’t finished. I’ll ask you to clear the museum!”

However, when they left the hall a minute later, it seemed to Tanya, slightly delayed because her legs felt like cotton wool, that he said to his assistant in an undertone, “Either you’ll explain to me what it was on the film or I won’t envy you. And I won’t envy myself.”