TANYA GROTTER AND THE MAGICAL DOUBLE BASS
by Dimitriy Yemets
Eksmo, 2002
This unauthorized translation is by Maureen O'Brien.
Chapter 9: The Scroll of Foresight
The golden sphinx confidently led Tanya through Tibidox's nooks and
crannies. A few times ghosts which wanted to stare at the new girl
surfaced in their direction, and once from a dark wall niche emitting
oppressive breaths flowed out something dark and vague, something like
a dense fog with round openings resembling eyes located nearby. Taking
the shape of monstrous palms, the fog streaked quickly toward Tanya,
but when it noticed Academician Sardanapal's golden sphinx lazily
baring its golden fangs, it hastily withdrew with anxious gurgling
into its own open passage.
Tanya didn't stop to be surprised how Tibidox' architecture combined
narrow doors with wide corridors and vast halls. But they were
combined. Unexpectedly, the next little corridor led them to a huge
staircase built -- or more exactly, chipped out -- from a sheer cliff.
Each little step in it was higher than her belt and so wide that a
divan would easily have stood. Along the staircase were spread stone
figures of Atlas, propping up the massive arches.
"Sheer madness! I have to say, it would have been better if they'd
made the steps lower!" mumbled Tanya, trying to make progress behind
the sphinx.
Hearing her, one of the Atlases snapped his stone teeth, and Tanya
decided to refrain from further criticisms. *They could still drop the
ceiling on my head -- it happens,* decided she.
The staircase led to a huge hall. To Tanya, already used to Tibidox'
splendor, this didn't surprise her much. What astonished her was the
rest -- in the center of the hall, dividing it into two equal parts,
flowed a bluish stream of fire.
That part of the hall that was on the left was as bright as if lit by
an invisible sun. Shedding a line of diamond sparks on the flagstones
and rapidly clapping their wings, firebirds flew across. Behind them
playfully tore along sturdy little cupids dressed, by Sardanapal's
efforts, in red suspenders. A blindingly white unicorn irritatedly
kicked, trying to catch with his adamant hooves the big-eared,
humpbacked horse teasing him with a linen cloth obviously altered
from an old self-filling tablecloth. In any case, when the little
horse jumped back adroitly from the unicorn, from his horsecloth there
poured plates, cranberry pirogies, and smoked hams.
But such brilliant though boisterous merriment was only in one part.
On the right, there where the hall was divided by the line along which
flowed the stream of fire, it was absolute night. In the high arched
hall were worn out pipistrelle bats, on the ground hissed snakes, and
in the far corner, where it smelled gray and moldy, in the semi-dark
towered some kind of dark silhouette. The golden sphinx headed
decisively along the fiery line, keeping to the light side and
disdainfully snorting at the hissing of its snakes.
Tanya hurriedly rushed right along behind, fearing to be deserted by
the sphinx. The little cupids flitted around merrily. The humpbacked
horse on its short, shaggy, pony-like legs galloped friskily
alongside, pouring from its self-filling tablecloth blinis with red
sparks and batrushka pastries. From time to time the tablecloth
slipped off, and then it began to pour saucepans. At the din the
nervous unicorn's ears jumped and again it set about kicking.
When the hall was behind her, for some reason Tanya turned around
and looked back at the dark side. It seemed to her that someone
invisibly followed behind her from that far corner....
Right by the fiery line there began one more passage, a spiral stair
leading upward -- this time of excellent, not colossal, size. The
higher they went, the more distinctly came a voice from above. Tanya
guessed that they drew near the pupils' bedrooms and that now she
would see the children with whom all her next years' learning lay
ahead. Her heart began to beat uneasily, and she, hardly slowing her
steps, began to listen.
"You saw it; someone cast a spell on my shoes. In what should I
begin walking to Practical Magic? Today is an interesting subject: the
preparation of the elixir of courage from skunkbeetles!" whinily
complained some little boy.
"Most likely someone stuck a piece of paper with spells on it in
your insole there. You drag it out, and you're in business," someone
advised him, probably some little girl.
"I know, it's some piece of paper, but I can't take them out! The
shoes take off, and when I catch up with them, they'll kick! It'll be
a nightmare if I miss the lesson! Then my grade point average will be
4.9 instead of 5.0!"
A door slammed. Someone appeared in the corridor. "You got that
already with your Klopp, Shurasik! My GPA's down past 2.9, but I don't
come crashing down in a faint because of it. Or do you want them to
embroider your name in gold thread on the pantaloons of honor?"
sarcastically said a resounding little boy voice.
"VALYAKIN! You BEWITCHED this! Return my shoes, or I'll hurt you!"
he yelled, with suspicion moving into assurance.
Deciding that there was no sense in hiding further, Tanya climbed up
to the landing.
She saw a big round sitting room from which led out a multitude of
bedroom doors. In the sitting room were at least twelve kids, all
mostly her age. Noticing Academician Sardanapal's golden sphinx, they
pointed first at it, and then also at her, whom he led near.
Beside the bedrooms, located close to the stairway, hopped a gangly
barefoot teenager with an affected look -- probably Shurasik --
releasing sparks from his ring and seriously preparing to aim an
attack at a small skinny little ten year old, dressed in a
ridiculously long yellow T-shirt that went down to his knees. In the
air beside the little guy, evidently pestering him with reminders,
flew a toothbrush.
"Damageus pimplus greenus!" yelled Shurasik in the instant Tanya
appeared on the floor.
Waving his magic ring hand, Shurasik threw green sparks at the
skinny little guy that quickly sped along toward his face. But an
instant before they touched him, the little guy adroitly jumped back
and substituted for his face a mirror which he'd been holding behind
his back up till then, so that it reflected the features of Shurasik
himself. When the spark struck his reflection, Shurasik suddenly
squeaked and covered his face with his sweater. But Tanya had time to
notice that his face was covered with healthy pimples almost the size
of a five-kopeck coin, and already coated in green.
Shurasik threw himself into his bedroom. His bewitched shoes, aiming
themselves, flew right after, so as to continue to tease him in there,
too. Everyone burst out laughing.
"Damage like that'll last a week for sure. Good thing I had the
mirror to try to catch it," thoughtfully said the little guy in the T-
shirt. Cheerfully looking at Tanya, he introduced himself, "Vanka
Valyakin. You know how I got in here? I ate a whole shop."
"And the security guards' truncheons," added Tanya.
The little guy began to smile. "Sardanapal told you? And he didn't
say why I ate them? That they tried to beat me with those truncheons?
In general, it's a good thing they took me into Tibidox immediately
after this case. The lopears would just have sent me to correctional
school...."
"Then we would just have met there! If Uncle German kept his
promise," said Tanya.
The little guy's eyes stopped on her mole. They were the first that
had looked at her without loathing, without the desire to insult her,
but on the contrary, with understanding.
"But you aren't...aren't Tanya Grotter?" suddenly blurted he.
The little girl was slightly embarrassed. She wasn't yet used to the
surprise that her name produced in wizards.
"Yes, that's me," she nodded, and for some reason added, "In
person."
Vanka Valyakin whistled softly, refraining from further oh-ing, and
Tanya was grateful to him for that. But the others, beginning to be
surprised, could in no way come to a halt.
"That's her. Tanya Grotter herself. The only one who's seen She-Who-
Is-Not," whispered Dusya Pupsikova, emerging from somewhere. She was a
round-faced little girl of eleven years who'd accidentally turned her
friend into cake.
"Her parents destroyed her! And she herself crushed the scorpion of
She-Who-Is-Not! Staggering! This nightmarish mole is really a magical
spark burn -- a trace of that night!" cried Verka Popugaeva, a
supercurious person of thirteen years whose nose bore the clear print
of a door. It happened back in the human world, when she spied on her
older sister kissing a boy. Then was manifested Verka's ability to see
through solid objects.
Tanya smiled awkwardly. Why, she herself remembered exactly nothing
of what they now said about her. Gradually the whole crowd encircled
her. Each tried to touch her or, if only from a distance, to wave to
her. Nowhere before had she felt herself so popular. Back in the world
of the lopears, she was exactly noone and she was not needed.
And now, when she already was ready to be swallowed up by the earth
from her popularity and was daydreaming about that just to become
invisible, suddenly they all heard a dissatisfied snarling. It was the
academician's sphinx, who decisively squeezed through the crowd and
made a way for her to one of the bedrooms.
"Well, so long! Rest! We'll see you another time!" Vanka Valyakin
snapped his fingers, calling his toothbrush.
"Ook-och-eek-ach-phoo! She's with us now!" chorussed Dusya Pupsikova
and Verka Popugaeva.
Tanya had hardly entered when the sphinx, beginning to spin like a
top, turned into golden dust and rapidly flew away. With a quiet bang
the door locked behind Tanya's back. Looking around, the little girl
realized that she found herself in a small room divided down the
middle by a line -- indeed, just as in the Hall of the Two Elements,
with the only difference being that this line was not fiery. At the
window looking out into a garden hung long black blinds, sluggishly
stirring upon her approach.
The bed to the right of the window was wooden and covered with a red
down-filled comforter, but in general was rather ordinary. But the bed
on the opposite side...Tanya even jumped back from surprise...Yes,
precisely. This was not a bed but a good-sized coffin with its lid up,
nailed onto patterned wooden legs. The mattress of this 'little bed'
was enormous, satin, and shaped like a heart. On the mattress, legs
crossed, lay a beautiful damsel of twelve years with violet hair. She
followed with her glance a brush which, flying, painted her toenails
poison-green.
Tanya guessed that this was her roommate -- a little girl studying
black magic in the Dark section of Tibidox, about which Academician
Sardanapal spoke with such deep sighs. And after another second, Tanya
realized that the maiden, cocking an eye at her, was attentively
looking her over. At that, she'd already examined her for a long time.
"Hi!" said Tanya.
"Bye!" said the little girl in a rich voice, something like Aunt
Ninel's. She sat up with a jerk, and dangling her legs from the bed,
aimed at Tanya her already revealed glance.
Her eyes were of different sizes and different colors. The right one
was narrow, sly, slanted to a Mongol slit, and obviously inclined to
evil-eye; and the left was big and blue, with long, naively batting
eyelashes. Depending on which side was looked at, the maiden might be
received as an obvious rascal or a simple fool.
"You're Gravinya Cryptova," said Tanya.
"I know without you how they call me, too. And you are Grotter.
Tanka Grotter -- the idiotic orphan who blew up She-Who-Is-Not. On
whose nose might this absurd mole still be? You want to say that you
will live here?"
"Yes, I will. And don't think that I will stop to ask your
permission," said Tanya, deciding that with this maiden politeness was
not owed.
"Well, well. Living." Gravinya disdainfully threw this at the other
bed. "Just remember that you are not the first. All three neighbors
which were placed here flew out like corks. Two of them still stutter,
and one, though she doesn't stammer, shakes her head all the time. We
black mages don't love white ones...."
"All right. Lie in your little coffin, wheeze out your two little
noseholes and don't come forward!" Tanya dismissed her, thinking that
Fate had slipped her the next Pipa. But it wasn't like there either,
and here was her own bed, table, closet, and whole half of room. With
Uncle German she'd been content with the loggia.
"No, she already insults me! Learn that if you last, I'll sic this
on you! Hey, Page!" Gravinya jabbed her little finger at the corner of
the room. There stood a robust skeleton in a big hat, carrying a dark
cloak on his shoulders. From his eyesockets two lipsticks stuck out,