“Dollova asked for it. No one asked her to put a spitting spell on my inkpot! She spoiled my entire notebook on study of evil spirits!” Shurasik complained.

The dust finally settled down only when the cabins had run off to a decent distance. Tanya saw that the cabins rushed by in uniform little jumps, similar to dancing. They braked on the turns and flapped their doors.

Suddenly the shutters of the end cabin were thrown open, and a rheumatic bent granny changed direction on the windowsill. “Ah! Fir stick, forest thick, a bachelor went quick!” she shouted smartly and, after waving to spectators, courageously climbed up onto the roof. The spectators greeted her with friendly applause. The jumping cabin rigidly entered the turn, leaning to the left.

“Dangerous moment! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head almost flies off the roof; however, she miraculously manages to hold on. I’m sure she used her unique tooth. The cabin again gets onto a straight stretch and Lukerya reaches the chimney all the same! Bravo! First of all the participants! Not without reason she was waiting so for Caucasian trick-riding! I recall that according to the rules of the contest Lukerya must still squeeze through the chimney into the cabin, light the stove and, having first cooked the cutlets, entertain the spectators… Ha-ha! Did they really check the cutlets? Here I’m teasing my friend Vanka Valyalkin, a big fan of cutlets! But it’s actually necessary to light the stove! The participant, the first to do this, will receive the ribbon as winner of this stage!” Afraid to miss anything interesting, Bab-Yagun continually jumped up onto the seat of the tower and gesticulated.

Tanya waited with impatience until the cabins again turned up in her part of the stadium in order to see something at least. But here the yurts on deer hooves, appearing as a separate group, rushed forward and everything again was hidden in dust. “Somehow I’m not meant to be a spectator. Quite another matter to be a participant!” Tanya thought, forced to breathe through the shawl.

“A minor defect of the organizers, of course, cannot spoil the pleasure of the spectacle!” Bab-Yagun stretched himself out to the utmost from the tower and everything was excellently visible to him. “You’ll see how Big Matrena skilfully trick-rides! True, I foresee that for a sportswoman of such a build it won’t be easy to squeeze into the chimney! Solonina Andreevna deftly jumps onto the tiles, clinging to a ledge with an umbrella. Not bad! Glashka-Curdled-Milk, number three, uses a not less inventive motion! She throws a cat tied with a rope onto the roof. The frightened cat takes off into the chimney and there only remains for Glashka to secure the rope. Now she indeed won’t fall down…”

Shurasik sneezed sadly behind Tanya. “I can’t even see my little notebook!” he said in sorrow.

“Write blindly!” Vanka advised him.

“I also write blindly. Only the paper is somewhat strange and the line in no way ends,” said Shurasik.

“Watch what you’re doing! You’re writing on my back! And I was wondering what’s crawling on me!” suddenly Coffinia began to yell. Shurasik began to tremble and dropped the pencil.

Bab-Yagun, having sat too long, jumped up on the tower. “Oh, my granny mama! Slander Slanderych with a green flag signals High-rise on Broiler Legs to start! I’ll now become deaf! What a nightmarish crash! The stadium shakes. The spectators fall like ripe apples from the benches. Interesting, what rules did Sardanapal devise for this cabin? Will someone really have to clamber onto the roof? You fall – your bones really won’t be whole… Oh, I see that for High-rise there is an insignificant change in the rules. The witch-grannies inhabiting it – and there are about two scores of them inside – briskly clamber along the fire escape, helping each other…”

High-rise, shaking the stadium, moved to the other end of the field. The dust settled down. Again, it became possible to breathe without the shawl.

“Cryptova, ah Cryptova!” Shurasik sorrowfully asked.

“What’s with you?” Coffinia snapped.

“Don’t twist about! Let me copy from your back what I wrote down earlier.” Coffinia silently pulled the notebook out of his hands and flung it onto the field.

“Ah, Chukotsky yurts?” Bab-Yagun exclaimed with feelings. “I never assumed that it’s possible to dash so swiftly on deer hooves! Here only the rules of Caucasian trick-riding differ a lot for yurts than for cabins. They don’t have brick chimneys! The mistress of a yurt must get outside and, having gone around the yurt, must again be at the entrance. Naturally, the yurt rushes at a gallop at the same time! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head has disappeared into the chimney already quite a long time ago! It seems to me, I see smoke! Yes, so it is – even sparks occasionally escape outside. I’ll be darned! Interesting, with what is she stoking? Did she shove a dragon into the chimney? In big-time sports anything can happen.” This time the attack evil eye was so powerful that even the shielding vest did not help. Yagun flew off the commentator’s tower and ploughed his nose into the sand. An insulted Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head angrily slammed shut the shutter.

While Bab-Yagun shook himself down and again got back up the tower, the judges had finished assigning marks for the second stage. Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head got the prize ribbon. The second place went to Solonina Andreevna. The third was divided between Glashka-Curdled-Milk and the mistress of one of the Chukotsky yurts. High-rise on Broiler Legs, unable to control itself, kicked a cyclops that had accidentally ran out onto the field and was disqualified from this stage. Meanwhile a team of house spirits and a score of genie dragon handlers attempted to extract Big Matrena, who was stuck in the chimney. Fatty sighed and cursed those, thanks to whom she climbed into the chimney.

“I’m really furious! Not exactly coping and then hurled evil eyes already!” Bab-Yagun was indignant, again nestled on the tower. “Okay, who wants to harp on an old thing! I managed at the proper time! Any minute now the third stage – obstacle course – will begin! The limitation on serious magic has temporarily been lifted. The genies and surviving shamans are rushing along the field, creating fabricated obstacles. The first obstacle, which the participants have to overcome, is a deep ditch. Immediately after the ditch are artificial wind-fallen logs. And finally, an impassable swamp, which can be passed exclusively along the mounds concealed under water. According to the assurance of experts, during prolonged wanderings in a forest cabins have to overcome similar obstacles under natural conditions in search of worms…”

“Yagun! What nonsense? I’ll take away the mouthpiece!” Sardanapal was outraged.

Yagun cautiously covered the mouthpiece with a palm. “I’ll take back my words! They don’t peck worms! And they stagger so along the forest just for fun! But, Academician, is it worthwhile to carp at such trifles? It suppresses my artistic imagination!”

“In my opinion Yagun’s…full of it!” Coffinia said, displeased. Shurasik began to nod in agreement. Since she took and flung away his little notebook, he was upset with the entire world.

“But what do you want? A cabin race isn’t dragonball, which everybody understands! We wouldn’t be able to say anything coherent at all, but he’s doing just fine! He shouldn’t stop talking!” Tanya interceded for Yagun.

Bab-Yagun precisely did not become silent for a moment, working like a true verbal machine gun. “Sardanapal lets out a start spark! Cabins, yurts, and High-rise are rushing forward, scaring arbiters and cyclopes! Here it is – the culmination of the contest! Crowding each other, bumping with wooden sides, the cabins approach the first obstacle. The first to jump into the ditch is Small Matrena’s cabin. On her tail literally hangs Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! After it, barely lagging behind, Solonina Andreevna’s cabin navigates with its feet. One of the yurts is forced to withdraw – deer hooves refuse to climb into the water and stop on the shore. It’s right: you wash, only wash away your luck!”

“First deep thought I’ve heard from him! Isn’t it true, my dear, very exact reasoning? Perhaps, you also don’t sit in the water all the time?” smiling, Slander Slanderych remarked, trying to put his arm around the mermaid’s waist. “Go away, pesky!” the mermaid squealed and playfully lashed the principal’s fingers with her tail.

“The fight has become more intense!” Yagun shouted a little too much. “Who will reach the opposite shore first? What’s this storm? I understand nothing! Ah, it’s High-rise, jumped into the ditch and now forces a crossing of the obstacle. It splashes right to the bottom: the water barely reaches its knees. The ditch overflows its banks! What sprays! Even fell onto my lot! How unlucky for those sitting in the first rows! They’re probably now wetter than frogs!”

“Mock away, lop-eared! Doesn’t matter, after the races he’ll be waiting at mine! Possible to think that he put us here on purpose!” Vanka said angrily. His yellow soccer shirt was sticking to his body. Water was flowing down his hair. His boots were squelching. Tanya was hit not a bit less, but she, comforting herself, attempted to look at the situation from another angle. “It’s okay, Vanka! It’s not all that bad! No dust now!” she comforted Valyalkin. Coffinia, examining the genealogy of the cabins and dousing High-rise with verbal mud up to the chicken great-grandmothers inclusively, was choking with indignation.

“Small Matrena and Solonina Andreevna are the first to reach the wind-fallen logs. Small Matrena’s cabin attempts to jump over the obstacle while running at full speed and topples over. Unlucky cabin! It’s lying with its foundation up and mournfully jerking its feet, trying to hook onto anything. Interesting, how is Matrena there? Will she be able to get herself out or require the help of genies? Somehow, things don’t work out for the Matrenas today, I would say… Solonina Andreevna’s cabin with long thin legs shows more smarts. It clambers directly onto the logs, digging its claws into the bark. Outstanding manoeuvre! Aza Camphorovna’s cabin passes Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! It’s gathering speed! Will it really also decide on a leap? This is folly! Indeed, doesn’t Small Matrena’s failure teach it anything? An outstanding leap – best of all that I’ve seen! At the very last moment short wings slide out of the dormer windows on the roof of the cabin. The cabin flaps them and manages the obstacle like a laying hen taking off to the fence!”

“Not bad! They’ve passed Solonina Andreevna! Look at Yagge! How she stares at these cabins – and indeed also wet from top to bottom!” Vanka said in rapture. His mood had improved visibly. Having taken from his pocket a cold cutlet, he looked over it thoroughly, removed a thread from the magic tablecloth, and started eating. Bab-Yagun was not mistaken – Vanka adored cutlets. However, his maimed magic tablecloth issued nothing more besides cutlets and cucumbers, so it left him nothing else. “Fat is detrimental!” grimacing, Shurasik remarked. “Too much talk is even more harmful. You’ll catch a cold and die,” said Vanka and stuck his hand into his pocket for the next cutlet, which the magic tablecloth already had time to prepare for him,

“Oh, my granny mama! That beats all! High-rise doesn’t waste time on a leap! After gathering speed on Broiler Legs, it blows off the wind-fallen logs, scattering them like matches! Making use of this, the yurts and Ukrainian huts immediately rush into the breach. Now only the swamp and two cabins – Solonina Andreevna and Aza Camphorovna – separate High-Rise from victory! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head also still hopes for victory. It seems her cabin is employing new tactics! It’s going to let High-Rise pass in front, using it as a live ram, and go around it before the finish! I swear by its bone leg, this is the right tactic! Used it myself now and then in dragonball!”

“Aha! No other way with Goryanov. He takes everyone down indiscriminately. Both us and the visitors,” confirmed Tanya. She involuntarily recalled the last match with the Invisibles. Nightingale O. Robber at training the day before said that two years had already almost elapsed. A new match with the Invisibles, still the champions, could take place already this autumn, if Magciety of Jerky Magtion would not invent new tricks. “And it’s time then to work hard, work, and again work! So that even at night the dragons flicker before yours eyes! First time in two hundred years Tibidox has developed a professional team, and we must not miss the chance!” Nightingale finished his speech this way.

“Solonina Andreevna’s cabin freezes on the edge of the swamp, painstakingly groping with a foot for the mounds. Behind it, Aza Camphorovna’s cabin pushes ahead step by step! Oho, what Aza Camphorovna has come up with! She gets up onto the roof and tests the bottom with a pole! Solonina Andreevna sticks her tongue out at her from the window! Aza Camphorovna answers her with well-aimed spittle! What unsportsmanlike behaviour! The long-legged cabin is already in the middle of the swamp and soon must get out onto the shore… High-Rise, short of breath, is running up to the banks of the swamp. A witch-granny is jumping excitedly in each of its windows and giving advice. The poor broiler brain! Will it manage with this volume of information? High-rise for a while marks time thoughtfully and begins to go back, taking a running start. Leap! The slime flies in different directions! The entire stadium is now already flowing in slime! Even Academician Sardanapal is wiping with his famous shawl of the Milky Way. They say that when the academician sneezes into it, a shower of meteorites appears in all the moronoid telescopes…”

“YAGUN!”