Tanya Grotter and the Magical Double Bass

TANYA GROTTER AND THE MAGICAL DOUBLE BASS

by Dimitriy Yemets

Eksmo, 2002

This unauthorized translation is by Maureen S. O'Brien, who should've

paid more attention in Russian class. Who knew?

Chapter 1: The Baby in the Case

On a bright autumn morning, when everyone gave the world a long look

and was disgracefully happy, and the foliage on the trees shone like

it was beaten out of gold leaf, out of the entrance of the multi-story

apartment house on Rublevskiy Highway peered a tall round-shouldered

man in a gray overcoat.

They called him German Durnev. He was the director of the Second-Hand

Socks Company and father of a one-year-old daughter, Pipa (short for

Penelopa).

Stopping under the cover of the main entrance, Durnev looked around

disapprovingly. The sun, whose rounded features were as flat as a

pancake, had deserted the neighboring roofs as if he were lazy and

pondering whether he should stand up and rise further or just go down.

In a pile of leaves not far from the door reclined a woman in orange

overalls gazing into an open manhole. Her profile was regular and

Grecian in outline, but copper-red hairs bristled on her which

involuntarily called up memories of snakes. Inside the manhole someone

tempestuously romped and rattled. Sulky sparrows pecked something on

the asphalt, briskly bouncing back like rubber balls from passersby.

From window and cellar to playground and tiny park, on the tops of

the trees and in the sky hung with sponges of stormcloud, off cats'

eyes and women's purses, from automobiles' exhaust pipes to stores'

marquees and all of their summer visitors' scorched noses -- from

everywhere, rubbing its carrot-orange palms, stared the tiny young

newborn, October.

But German Durnev was not affected in any way by all this beauty.

The weather, and nature in general, interested him only so much as it

determined his actions -- whether or not to grab an umbrella or place

spiked winter tires on a car.

He looked at his watch and took out a small box of homeopathic

pills.

"So rude, this sun! One, two... And it's not worth spit to him,

after all... Though if should they fade generally... unless on such a

day someone was in a working mood... Five, six... Early or late,

there's quite enough plaguing me...Or there will be... Seven...." he

mumbled, counting off marble-shaped pills and placing them under his

tongue.

When the marbles had dissolved, Durnev had pondered enough and told

himself, "Well, now I will at least live to see lunch, if my new corns

plaster doesn't give me blood poisoning."

Naturally, Durnev did not suspect that he was being watched from

behind. Watched by a big, miserable bird -- gloomy, rumpled, with a

long molted neck almost without a feather, staring from on top of the

doorway behind him. In the bird's beak, it held a photograph cut

out of a magazine. It looked at this. Yes, this was him, German

Durnev, taken together with his wife Ninel and his daughter Pipa at the

International Suspenders Exhibition at VVTs.

Occasionally the bird dropped the photograph on a tin shingle and

set about comparing the actual Durnev with the photograph. Disgusting

greenish globs of goo dripped from its beak onto the picture.

You can imagine how astonished Durnev would have been if by chance

he'd raised his head and glanced at what sat on top of the door. However,

German Nikitich was not one of those who pay attention to birds -- unless,

of course, it was a boiled chicken laying on a plate in front of him.

Moreover, at the present moment, the shifty mind that led the Second-Hand

Socks company was busy deciding business, like how to sell two boxcar loads

of handkerchiefs as children's wear.

Durnev descended onto the porch and, stepping on the enchanting

bright yellow leaves, ground them under heel a few times with obvious

pleasure. This done, he passed up indifferently a great many other leaves

and settled in his new dark-colored car. The car puttered and caught. The

bare-necked bird heavily plucked itself from the peak and took off right

behind the car, obviously not prepared to lose sight of it.

Sitting on the lawn was a woman. The repairwoman thought for a

moment about this Durnev, then gave the bird a piercing glance and

muttered to herself under her breath, "Did I want to know that the

Dead Vulture was here? The last time I met up with it was when the _Titanic_

was launched. I don't think that a steamship will turn up here, but probably

there will be some kind of trouble."

She threw up her hand, on the middle finger of which was a shining

ring, and whispered in a low voice, "Sparkis frontus!"

At that very instant, a green spark shot out from the ring and

singed the bird's wing. Losing feathers, the Dead Vulture fell like a

stone onto the asphalt. Somehow it hoarsely crowed and took off again,

hurling itself over the nearest apartment building.

The mysterious person began to blow on the red hot ring.

"I hate those living corpses. It's impossible to kill them a second

time. Much better to have simply lounged around," she grumbled.

At that moment, in the manhole someone once again crashed to the

ground with a terrible din. Water splashed.

"A-choo!" sounded out of the manhole so deafeningly that even the

manhole cover jumped.

Forgetting about the bird, the repairwoman -- if, of course, this

_was_ a repairwoman -- anxiously bent over the manhole.

"Academician, you're catching cold! I beg you, at least put on your

scarf!"

"Meduziya, I won't act like a freak! A diver doesn't need a scarf!"

answered a voice at once.

But this didn't calm the woman at all.

"Bother the hair of Drevnir -- this is not sneaking into some gate! Only

picture it -- you, a member of the Academy of White Magic, head of the

Tibidox wizards' school, Sardanapal Chernomorov -- forced to lower

yourself to lying around doing warding spells! Where, may I ask, are

our junior magicians? Where are the assistants?" she asked, pursing her

lips severely.

The clattering in the manhole ceased. Onto the surface rose a short

fat little man dressed in orange overalls, from which water flowed

down. Not -- pardon me! -- not at all on his coveralls, but on his

cloak. His coveralls could only be seen by someone not paying much

attention at first glance. Exactly the opposite was true of the orange

cloak on her companion.

"A-choo!...Meduziya! All this is, really, such a cinch and gives

nobody any trouble...A-choo! I stood helpless for two years in a

magician's cabinet without practicing. It was too confining for even a

lazybones, and I couldn't turn into a pig without a ring. So no more

talk about the higher disciplines like theoretical magic, levitation,

evil eye removal or the making of talismans."

Ending this unbearable -- in his view -- argument, Academician

Sardanapal raised himself up on his tiptoes and looked around

animatedly. The right side of his mustache was green, but the left

yellow. Yet that wasn't the odd part; it was that these mustachios

were never for a second in a state of rest. They wriggled like two

living strings, then became entangled as they tried to entwine the

overalls' straps and pull them off the fat man right under his nose.

Truly, it wasn't that simple to do this, since the open holes didn't

hold on much to the handles, so long working loose so much in

individual spells.

As for the Academician's beard, its color was always indefinite,

since no sooner had it appeared than it hid. Only one thing could be

said for certain -- the beard was phenomenally long, so long that it

was tacked down to wind repeatedly around his torso, but its end

was concealed in his pocket.

Finally sweeping off his drenched cloak, the head of the magic

school muttered, "Firstus drumus!"

Steam piled out from the clothing, and a few moments after, it was

perfectly dried out.

"Ach, what an odd little fall day!" exclaimed Sardanapal, turning to

his companion. "It's just like the day they chopped off my head the

first time! Do you agree, Meduziya?"

The lounging teacher, Docent Meduziya Gorgonova, made a face and

waved fingers along her neck.

"Oof! From the stinky I expect only foul remarks. They chopped my

head off, too. Some hot-blooded type in winged sandals, staring into

his own shield. Back then I was a badly brought up witch with

nightmarish habits, and only you, Academician, re-educated me," said

she.

Sardanapal's whiskers quivered with embarrassment.

"Stop! How many times will you thank me? Glueing your head back on

was merely a trifle. It wasn't anything new among serious mages, ones

fully experienced with spatial tranfer spells. Well, and if you gave

up your former habits -- praise and honor to you! My services

were...ahem...minimal...ahem...."

"How can you say that!" exclaimed Meduziya. "I only turned travelers

into sculpture! Anyone who looked at me instantly turned into stone!"

"Nonsense! That's not how I remember it. You were quite a young

girl with a complexion full of pimples. The pimples cast that horrid

spell, and by chance they caught sight of them. To speak frankly, I

understood you perfectly: those were the ancient Greeks, who stuck

their curious noses everywhere. You even moved to an island to get a

little farther from their eyes, but all the same they wandered about

nearby, waving swords. To me, all that was needed was to cure you of

pimples. Then what a beauty stood there! Even Koshchei the Undying

and his crowd turned red when you came flying into Tibidox on the

skeleton of your faithful horse...."

"Awful old man! Forty kilograms of silver-plated bones, a golden

skull, teeth of amber -- and all this in armor from Paco Grobann!"

frowned Meduziya.

"But you don't dispute that he was in love with you!"

Docent Gorgonova blushed with embarrassment. Lovely stains suddenly

blazed up in different spots on her cheeks, looking like something off

a cherry tree.

"Sardanapal! I only asked!" she exclaimed reproachfully.

The whiskers of the White Mage Academician sagged guiltily.

"Cursed spite! After that, though I by accident drank a tincture with

harpy poison, I couldn't get away from him in any way. I tried the

dragon's furnace, a half glass of green stuff with bitter basilisk

water in the morning and taking it in front of him -- nothing helped!"

he announced.

"I'm not apologizing, I'm not taking offense. I simply don't love it

when you utter that name in my presence...." Meduziya relented.

"Better tell me now: did I really drag after you all this way from

Tibidox, just to visit this very smelly manhole, the odor of which you

breathe in so as to steal the keys and small change from passersby?

Just don't be tricky. We have, after all, known each other for three

thousand years already."

Sardanapal looked reproachfully at his companion and blew his nose

in a gigantic handkerchief decorated with stars, which he called into his

hand in some mysterious way. The stars on the handkerchief winked at

each other and formed intricate constellations. The resulting asterism

of the Altar tried to sneeze meteorites at the constellation Sagittarius.

"Meduziya, you reason like a magician. We delivered ourselves at the

man's usual place. Keys -- this is not highly suspicious. The man

deprived of keys has a real chance to spend the night on a small

bench and catch a head cold...like myself here, for example."

"You have a cold because you didn't put on a scarf when we flew over

the ocean...And the needs of the lopeared disturb me very little, in

this world filled with enchanted manholes, enraged turnstiles and

cellars that slam shut with a bang. We should protect them, not sit

with folded hands. Scarcely will we leave when _they'll_ be at this

manhole again, laying on incantations. And we can't do anything about

it."

Seeing that his companion was beginning to get angry, Academician

Sardanapal began to blow on the handkerchief, and that began to fade

away on his palms, though first beginning to turn into a blue bath

sponge.

"Pardon me, Meduziya. In recent days, I suspect someone also

enchanted my sense of humor. I can't reject the thought that the Tadjik

Genies hexed it when I forbade them to triple the dust devils...hmm...

You saw the man, the only one that he followed from the entrance?"

"I saw. But how did you? I want to say, they were above ground!"

Sardanapal mysteriously smiled:

"Oh, if I want to catch sight of something, a few meters of asphalt

don't bother me. And what do you think about them?"

"Extremely unpleasant types...brr...Even from the lop-eared you

normally expect more."

"Now, now, Meduziya, don't be so harsh. If only from respect for the

memory of Leopold Grotter."

"LEOPOLD GROTTER? He knew him?" exclaimed Meduziya, stricken.

"More than that. He's his heir. And even rather close -- Leopold's

the nephew of his grandmother's second cousin. Naturally among the

lop-eared, this relationship is even closer -- to them the seventh water

is sour -- but any of us, like you, would know the formula of mage-kinship

from Astrocactus Paranoidal!"

"He's a relative of Grotter! Then that's why we...."

"Shh!" The Academician suddenly raised a finger to his lips, ordering

Meduziya to hush. Both mustachios at once went taut and pointed at the

manhole.

Nodding, Meduziya noiselessly advanced on the manhole and squatting,

sharply thrust her hands into it. For just a second, a disgusting

squeal was heard out of the hole.

"There it is! She grabbed me! But now....!" yelled the teacher.

When Meduziya's hand emerged on the surface again, her fingers

were firmly clenched in the ear of a tiny little woman with a prominent

violet nose and green hair. The feet of the hissing little woman were

very strange -- flat, like flippers -- and they waved around vigorously.

The prisoner hissed, spit, snapped her triangular teeth, and tried to

kick Gorgonova with her right flipper, then her left, then both in turn.

"I kill and hack-ga to get you back-ga! Unless you lets walk-gi the one

who talks-gi! Phooey-gi on youey-gi! And on youey-gi phooey-gi!"

"Look! A young kikimora -- a kikimorka! A curious specimen -- rather

large...." Chernomorov commented, examining Meduziya's catch with

interest.

"More of the undead!" squeamishly winced Meduziya. "Sometimes I start