Tanya Grotter And The Vanishing Floor

Chapter 3

The Tracks on the Ceiling

When Tanya finally dragged the double bass to the apartment of Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel, her knees were already shaking from fatigue. In order to ascertain that no one was at home, she energetically rang several times. No one answered, and the girl decided to use magic. Having cautiously looked sideways at the door of their neighbour, Staff General Cutletkin, responsible for toothbrushes in the army and who adored peeking through the eyehole, Tanya whispered “Fogus sneakus!” and with her back pushed her way into the apartment.

Turning up on this side, she already wanted to open the door and drag the double bass in behind her, but here something dropped onto her nose. Tanya mechanically wiped the drop, glanced at her palm, and suddenly her throat tightened. On her palm was something sticky and red. Looking up, she saw on the ceiling large red tracks leading in the direction of the bedroom of Aunt Ninel and Uncle Herman. The girl became terrified. She carefully sneaked into the bedroom and… saw Lieutenant Rzhevskii, who was strolling along the ceiling upside down. The soles of the ghost were smeared with ketchup, the very large bottle of which was retained by some miracle in the hands of the spectre.

When Tanya ran into the room, he released the bottle, and it, with a loud smack, crashed onto the carpet by the very feet of the girl. “Missed! Give me the ketchup, I’ll throw again! But you stand right there!” Lieutenant ordered.

Tanya flew into a rage. What will the Durnevs say when they return and casually look at the ceiling? Whom will they consider guilty? Pipa? Of course not! Even if their Pipa blew up the Kremlin, the Durnevs would only be touched!

“Where are you standing?” Lieutenant again began to yell. “I told you to stand there, foolish girl! Company, aim! At Tanya Grotter in volleys – fire!”

“Now there will be volleys at you! Sparkis frontis!” Tanya shouted, throwing up her hand. A green fight spark left the ring and struck the ghost.

Beginning to moan, Lieutenant collapsed from the ceiling onto the bed of Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel. “Oh, no, only not this… What have you done? I’m mortally wounded! I’m dying!” he sobbed, pressing with his hand a wound on his stomach, from where a thin stream of bluish smoke was floating out. “What will Sardanapal say, what will Medusa say? I’ll now disappear! The end for me! Another minute – and I’ll be no more!” He became more and more transparent, shrivelling in front of her eyes.

“I… I didn’t mean to…” Tanya was at a loss.

“Ah-ah, you didn’t mean to…” the ghost groaned, fading in plain view. “Didn’t mean to, but killed me, a foolish but inoffensive ghost, who wished harm to no one… Really I’ll never see beloved Tibidox, I’ll not hear the sound of ocean surf?” Lieutenant Rzhevskii looked up at Tanya reproachfully. His incorporeal hand, light as a puff of wind, touched her hand imperceptibly.

Tears welled up in Tanya’s eyes. “Please forgive me, I didn’t mean to… What should I do now?” she shouted.

“What should you do now?” Lieutenant wheezed. “I want you to know one thing: it was a dishonourable duel! But remember, I don’t agree to die alone! Still a last shot for me!” With these words, Lieutenant Rzhevskii extracted from the air a very large machine gun and, rising slightly on his elbow, started to pour long bursts onto Tanya. Spectral cases flew around the room. This firing did not cause any more harm. “Rat-a-tat-tat! A last shot… one more… The last dozen cartridge clips! Pushkin smears d'Anthès on the wall!” Lieutenant howled, coming alive right before her.

General Cutletkin living on the other side of the wall got woken up by the clatter, fell from the sofa, and dove under the table. Half awake, it seemed to him that a war had begun and hostile parachutists were stealing the boxes of toothbrushes and toothpastes from his balcony.

Meanwhile behind the wall the finally revived spectre discarded the machine gun and started to jump on the bedspread, spilling feathers from a pillow. Tanya, still in tears, looked at him spellbound. “Well, you look at this little fool: she thought that it’s possible to kill a ghost! Really possible to kill a ghost! And she believed it!” Lieutenant Rzhevskii laughed loudly.

Tanya with relief understood that the fight spark caused no harm to the spectre. To frighten off ghosts there is another reliable spell Briskus-quickus. Tanya already intended to utter it, but first she decided to clarify by what means the ghosts managed to get out. “Why are you not in the trunk?” Tanya asked.

“Because we were thrown out of the trunk! Thrown out insolently and inconsiderately!” a sad voice from the cabinet complained, and Unhealed Lady floated out through the door. By some mysterious means, Aunt Ninel’s lilac scarf was retained on her neck, and the nose, powdered by something, turned red from tears. Likely, the suffering Lady poked her nose into moth-eaten small packets.

“Who threw you out of the trunk?” Tanya asked quickly. She tried to talk as little as possible with Unhealed Lady, because that one could chatter anyone to death.

Unhealed Lady winced, “And it’s interesting to you? Really? It was an unpleasant girl with a fat face. She didn’t want to hear about my ulcer. And she squeals simply abominably. If I were alive, I would have had a cardiac arrest on the spot. But, fortunately I’m already dead…”

“Pipa! So that’s who let you out!” Tanya exclaimed. Suddenly everything became clear. For some reason Pipa returned home alone without Aunt Ninel, and got to her trunk after all. “Excellent! Well, you did me an ill turn!” Tanya said bitterly. “And now Pipa most likely is already rushing to bowling in order to broadcast everything to Aunt Ninel!”

“Not likely! She isn’t rushing anywhere! She’s frightened and sitting in our trunk! It’s the only place we can’t penetrate into because of the Minotaur skin!” Unhealed Lady stated.

“What? Pipa’s in the trunk?” Tanya did not believe it. She rushed to the sofa. The seal with Sardanapal’s personal stamp was dangling on one wire. However, the stamp itself, fortunately, was whole. Someone was wheezing quietly in the leather trunk.

“Now you believe that she’s there?” Lieutenant Rzhevskii was interested. “She hid there when I – hee-hee – asked her to repair a little knife in my back. We occasionally moan so that she doesn’t get bored there. Here watch!” Issuing blood-curdling moans, the spectre started to fly above the trunk. The trunk began to shake a little and bob up and down. The daughter of Uncle Herman began to squeal.

“Rzhevskii! Leave her alone, I say!” Tanya ordered, after considering that Pipa could go completely crazy from terror. Moronoids are quite unfit for such encounters. But Lieutenant was not thinking of stopping. The more violently the trunk bobbed, the more worked up he got. He even started to pour ketchup onto the trunk, groaning, “Blood! Blood everywhere!”

“Well, stop! Briskus-quickus!” Tanya shouted angrily. The spectre was pulled with a loud chomping sound into the floor, and Unhealed Lady, becoming a grey fog, quickly darted into a vase. “Never handle ghosts this way. Terribly dusty in here! I have choo… aller… choo! gy!” the vase immediately began to moan.

The trunk stopped shuddering. The one sitting in it was clearly listening. “Come out, Pipa! Otherwise you’ll suffocate,” ordered Tanya.

“I’ll not come out! It’s you, guilty of everything! Cursed witch! Must burn you on the stake!” Pipa answered from the trunk, managing to sob and hiss at the same time.

Tanya was angry. The daughter of the Durnevs, as always, stuck to her own repertoire. “Come out, I say! Who asked you to look in there anyway? Did I ever ransack your things?”

“So what? This is my apartment, my parents’. And all the things here are mine, nothing here is yours… Oh-oh-oh! I’m scared! Fo-o-ol!” Suddenly Pipa’s voice trembled, and she burst into tears. Tanya almost went deaf. Lieutenant Rzhevskii with his frightening howl was simply an amateur compared to Pipa.

Unhealed Lady, hiding in the vase, had just been describing some of her regular sores. On hearing Pipa’s sobbing, Lady decided that Pipa was crying from sympathy and also burst into tears herself. “How touching! Didn’t think that the history of the corn on my heel would upset you so. Not exactly like all these insensible donkeys!” she said, sobbing.

Lieutenant Rzhevskii, already recovered from the action of the restrain spell, carefully floated out from the corridor. This time the restless spectre was in a dark-blue work robe, with a mop in his hands. He had clearly borrowed both from the cabinet of the maid who came to the Durnevs three times a week. “Little lady, I very much apologize! A cleaning woman was called? I’m here!” Lieutenant asked and, without waiting for an answer, started to fly around the room, grinding red tracks onto the ceiling.

Tanya understood that if Pipa was not immediately driven out of the trunk and the ghost returned there, this could end with anything. Once and for all, the ghost completely letting himself go would destroy everything in the apartment and start to fly through the entire building frightening the neighbours, and Pipa would sob and squeal until someone called the police.

“That’s it, Pipa, come out! Out of there quick! I need the trunk!” Tanya ordered. She tried to open the lid but Pipa clutched with a death grip and held it from within.

“Wait! Now I’ll drive her out!” Lieutenant Rzhevskii made use of the fact that the lid of the trunk was slightly raised during the fight, and, holding the mop atilt, infiltrated through the slit. “And here’s also the brigade of maid-psychopaths with new rags for the nose! Need to wipe your tears?” he cooed.

From the trunk was heard no longer a screech but a howl. The lid was thrown open, and Pipa jumped out like she was scalded, pursued at her heels by the off-his-rocker spectre and by Unhealed Lady. Moreover, Lady got the idea into her head to tell Pipa how once during an operation the surgeon left his glasses in her stomach.

Pipa howled non-stop, arbitrarily rushing along the room and trying to force her way through into the corridor. But every time Lieutenant Rzhevskii appeared in her way, with a straight face juggling his own ears and nose. Pipa waved her hands at him and jumped back.

Tanya sat on the bed and, having propped up her head with her arms, was observing all these disgraceful goings-on. Then she recalled that she had left the double bass on the stairs, and went out for it. The double bass was in the same place where she had left it. Staff General Cutletkin was too frightened to stretch his greedy paws out to it.

“Enough is enough! Must also go insane gradually!” she thought, returning. “By the name of the Sovereign of Spirits go back!” Tanya pronounced and, sitting down, touched the warm seal with the stamp. Something flared up dazzlingly. A whirling tornado stirred the curtains. An unknown force pulled the ghosts into the trunk. The lid was slammed shut. Sighing with relief, Tanya carefully repaired the stamp and began to move the trunk under the sofa.

By inertia, Pipa still ran around the room several times, and then she jumped out into the corridor and from there began to threaten Tanya with all kinds of trouble. “Now you wait! Papa will see the ceiling, and then they will precisely send you to the colony for minors!” she squealed.

“But I didn’t smear the ceiling!” Tanya objected.

“But I’ll say that you did! You, you! Nevertheless, no one will believe in ghosts! I’ll say that you took a boot, put it on the mop and made prints on the ceiling!” Pipa started to giggle disgustingly. She recovered amazingly quickly after the shock.

This threat was the last straw. Tanya flared up. She pressed Pipa into a corner, took aim at her with the middle finger, released a pair of green sparks as a warning, and pronounced with utmost seriousness, “Fucusdruidis pipus beyond max-convertus!” After this, Tanya turned and quietly walked to her room.

As she also expected, a worried Pipa rushed behind at a trot. She was terribly suspicious – well, simply a spitting image of Uncle Herman. “Wait! What did you just say?” she muttered.

“What did I say?” Tanya did not understand.

“Well this… pipus boaris… fucus… something there…”

Tanya turned and, squinting, looked at Pipa. “Ah, that’s what you’re talking about! It’s a delayed spell of transformation!” she explained significantly.

“Whose transformation? And why delayed?”

“Because it doesn’t act immediately! And it’s even a trivial spell in general, don’t pay any attention.”

“Trivial?” Pipa asked again distrustfully.

“Uh-huh. Simply if this evening I have any trouble or you blather anything unnecessary at all, you will grow pig ears, and bristle will appear on your face! You will go to school in a gas mask… Hey, Pipa, what’s with you?” Pipa began to tremble. She remembered very well the fur, which grew on the hand of her chief toady Lenka Mumrikova, when they attempted to flood with glue the teach yourself book of magic.

Not without reason Pipa was the daughter of the deputy. In a flash she considered everything and horror appeared in her eyes. “But if you have no trouble?” she quickly asked. “If there isn’t any?”

“Hmm… Then, possibly, the spell won’t snap into action,” said Tanya, looking at Pipa attentively. She already understood that she had won. The senseless spell composed in a hurry proved to be right on target. How would Pipe know that delayed magic comes only in third or fourth year instruction? Nevertheless, moronoids are moronoids. They believe any fortune-teller advertising in the newspaper!

Tanya also never found out what Pipa made up precisely and how she explained to her parents the mess in the apartment, but there was no trouble for Tanya. Most likely, Pipa simply slandered someone among her friends, because she also was sensible enough not to mention the ghosts. The Durnevs only undertook this – they called in a team of plasterers in order to repair the ceiling urgently.

Now and then Uncle Herman was sufficiently indecisive and was generally softer than usual. In a week, a TV crew would come in order to film the best deputy in the bosom of his family. Durnev was already prepared beforehand: he mastered an affectionate smile in front of the mirror and, thinking that no one would hear him, rehearsed solemn speeches in the washroom. Tanya distinctly made out, when the water was draining, how he was repeating, “Herman Nikitich Durnev… And this is my family! Welcome to our hospitable home!”

Durnev said to Tanya, “We’ll have Nikolai Shmyglikov as a guest, he hosts Meet the Family! Think of it, because you’ll also be in the shoot! I already warned the TV cameramen that we have adopted a poorly brought up orphan. They are interested in you. Try not to show your worst side. And in order that you won’t stir too much, you will also hold the dachshund in yours hands.” “And if nothing else the rab… reptile,” Tanya corrected herself on noticing how Uncle Herman immediately turned red.

Tanya especially did not listen to Durnev’s instructions because she was certain that in a week she would already not be here. Today she will send the letter, and tomorrow or the day after Sardanapal will allow her to return to Tibidox. And how can it be otherwise?

In the evening, when the Durnevs had settled down to sleep, Tanya carefully switched on a lamp and sat down to write a letter to the academician. “Must not disturb him too much,” she thought, with a swish pulling out a double-sided sheet from a notebook. “I’ll begin seemingly casually…”

“How do you do, dear Sardanapal! You asked me to write how things are with me, how I am studying, and about my spirits in general. I am studying indifferently, because you know what textbooks the moronoids have. Unbearable boredom, but they are not textbooks. They do not fly around the classroom, and the pictures in them do not come alive…

“And now I have some insignificant matter, because today someone tried to kill me. Someone with a fight spark set fire to the bow when I was working on the ‘turn.’ Only please do not be disturbed, because my spirits are fine. The Durnevs do not bother me much. That is, they do, of course, but it is possible to live with.

“The ghosts are behaving well. Recently they chased Pipa into the trunk. Pipa herself was guilty, because no one asked her to poke her nose where she should not. Aunt Ninel cleaned Black Curtains (well and were they in a rage!) and hung them in her own bedroom…

“Certainly you will allow me to return to Tibidox. But for the flight I need a new bow.

“Hope to see you soon

“Respectfully yours Tanya Grotter.”

Tanya finished and applied her ring to the letter. She repeatedly saw how adult magicians signed this way. The ring of Theophilus Grotter hesitated sufficiently and with explicit enjoyment made a beautiful imprint. It did not even need an inkpad for this.

Having summoned a cupid with the special whistle, Tanya entrusted the envelope to him. The cupid poured alphabet cookies into his mailbag and pushed off, hurriedly flapping his wings and breaking through into air pockets.

Tanya collapsed onto the sofa. Her burnt palm was hurting, and little sparks of fuzzy recollections jumped before her eyes. The double bass… the bow… the figure in the orange raincoat… knives in Lieutenant’s back… the violet pimples of her dear cousin… ugh… possible to go crazy. “But soon all this will end!” she thought. It cannot be that after this letter Sardanapal would not allow her to return to Tibidox. And once that is the case – goodbye, Durnevs! Hello, the school of magic!

Chapter 4

Thirty-Four Firemen

Sometimes it is pleasant to wake up at night. Lying there, looking at the ceiling, thinking about anything. Or even to sit in the kitchen and secretly drink a cup of cocoa. But with one exception… If you are not woken up by Aunt Ninel’s terrible howl, as happened to Tanya towards morning.

Tanya, with a jerk, sat up on the sofa, half-awake and not understanding who was howling and why. Then she jumped and darted into Aunt Ninel’s bedroom. Aunt Ninel, with her head covered by Black Curtains, was squealing and floundering in horror. Uncle Herman was jumping beside her like a confused billy goat, not knowing from what direction to approach and in general only having a vague idea of what was happening.

Not a minute had passed but Aunt Ninel already resembled the cocoon of a rare butterfly. “Herman! Do something! Cut them, I’m suffocating! Quickly!” Aunt Ninel shouted.

Finally, the bewildered deputy began to yank down from the wall the sharp yataghan, which had been presented to him at a reception in the Turkish embassy. His hands were not only trembling but shaking. Tanya understood that one more second – and instead of one quarrelsome aunt, she would have two. The Curtains in anticipation of this sniggered sarcastically.

“HERMAN!!! Cut!” Aunt Ninel again began to yell, rolling on the bed like a black cocoon. It seemed she could not imagine what was threatening her. She was afraid of the curtains but should fear Uncle Herman instead.

The bug-eyed best deputy with a reckless look raised the yataghan. It was necessary to interfere promptly. “Briskus-quickus!” Tanya muttered in an undertone, unnoticeably letting out a green spark. This plain, frequently used spell worked excellently against both ghosts and simple bio-vampires like the curtains. Not without reason Medusa taught it in the first lesson on evil spirits studies. The Curtains instantly went limp and Aunt Ninel could get out.

“Ugh! I can breathe again!” she was pleased, but suddenly began to squeal, seeing above her Uncle Herman with the raised yataghan and his eyes screwed up. Durnev was pale and determined. True, such trembling struck him that the bright blade jumped in his hands, presenting explicit danger to both Uncle Herman himself and those around him. The following five minutes was spent disarming the best deputy and sheathing the yataghan.

“What was it? Ah, understandable… I hung the curtains poorly. They fell from the ledge, I got tangled and almost choked… But only how could they fly so far away from the window?” Aunt Ninel groaned, opening the medicine drawer.

Tanya sensed that it was awkward for her aunt that she appeared before the girl looking so foolish. Tanya wanted to explain that Black Curtains would suffocate no one. They would only spy into dreams in order to show them later all day. But Uncle Herman did not allow her to open her mouth. Coming to and discovering that Tanya was in their bedroom, he began to jump on the spot and howl, “And what did you get here for? Well, march to bed, until I hand you over to the orphanage! Why kind of habit did you pick up roaming around the apartment at night?”

“Please look over there!” Tanya said, nodding to Aunt Ninel. Uncle Herman turned around. “Wait, Ninelie, you’re already drinking a third phial of valerian! You’ll calm down so much like you’re dead!” he began to worry.