The Gold Sword

Tanya Grotter awoke at dawn from the cold. On her thin blanket there was ice, and the same icy crust, only slightly thinner, stiffened on the pillow. For a while Tanya was still lying, hoping to hide under the damp blanket, but it was useless — it became even colder and more disgusting. Then Tanya threw off the blanket and hurriedly leaped up, dreaming of diving quickly into the apartment, into warmth.

She pulled the door once, twice, a third time, but it did not yield. Getting up on tiptoes, Tanya discovered that the lower latch was pushed shut. Pipa was up to her old tricks again. The last time she locked Tanya on the sunroom-balcony in the beginning of spring, Tanya caught a cold and spent a month and a half in the hospital with pneumonia. However, the time in the hospital was indeed not so bad, though they gave her a needle daily and even put her on an IV. There, in any case, she was in the warmth and no one nagged her thirty times a day. And now here again...

Tanya started to knock on the glass, but the Durnevs were sleeping soundly in the next room. Only a barrel of gunpowder exploding in the kitchen could wake them. As far as Pipa was concerned, although her bed was right next to it, she only giggled and made disgusting faces at Tanya. However, no faces, even the most disgusting, were as repulsive as her own horse face (inheritance from papa Herman) with round fish eyes (gift from mama Ninel) blinking on it.

“Hey you, fright, open now! ” Tanya shouted to Pipa.

“Dream on! Sit there and freeze. All the same some day they’ll put you in prison, just like your daddy... And it’s disgusting to me: I don’t want you wandering around the apartment. You will steal anything, ” snorted Pipa.

She reached from the drawer of the table a photograph in a frame and, flopping back down onto the bed, began to study it. Tanya did not know who was in this photograph because Pipa always locked it and never even casually turned the frame around. For sure Tanya knew only that Pipa was in love to distraction with whoever was in this photograph, moreover she was so in love that she stared at him no less than an hour a day.

“Come on, come! Show him your pimples! ” Tanya shouted to her.

Pipa started to breathe heavily and furiously.

“Come on, come on! Only make sure you don’t stop breathing! ” Shivering from cold, Tanya again shouted.

Having given this advice, she fumbled around the balcony with her eyes, estimating whether there was anything to hurl at Pipa. And if there was nothing to throw, then perhaps at least a suitable rope in order, after making a loop, to lower it from the window and hook the latch.

The Durnevs never told Tanya the truth about her parents. It gave them pleasure to incite the girl with stories about her papa being put in prison, and her mama dead, begging at a station. Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel allegedly took in the same Tanya from pity. “And it’s clear that we made a mistake! You turned out to be as big a rascal as your daddy was! ” Uncle Herman added obligingly.

And it was a blatant lie — Tanya was not a rascal, although she knew how to stand up for herself. Small, quick, smart, with small curls, she managed to be everywhere at once. Her sharp tongue cut like a razor.

“You have to be on your guard with this one! ” Ninel sometimes declared, she being a person who could easily bite off a hand to the elbow and still without ceremony will tell anyone at all that it is not tasty. In reality Tanya was completely harmless, simply with the Durnevs humiliating her every second, there was no other way to survive.

From the middle of spring to the middle of fall the Durnevs forced Tanya to sleep on the glazed sunroom-balcony, and only when it became quite cold would she be allowed to lie down in the furthest and darkest room of the Durnev apartment. In that room were normally the vacuum, a stepladder, and a malicious dachshund by the name of One-And-A-Half Kilometres. This old bowlegged sausage hated the girl as much as the Durnevs themselves, and, fawning before the masters, was eternally hanging at her heels.

Ten years had gone by from that day when Herman and his spouse discovered the double bass case on their landing. It was again fall, but no longer bright and cheerful as then, but gloomy and rainy. There was night frost, and in the mornings icicles hung on the glazed balcony. Exactly the same ice was formed on both the girl’s thin mattress and her blanket. Possibly, the Durnevs would allow Tanya again to lie down in the room if it was not being redecorated recently.

“Just imagining this slovenly creature lying on the new bed and touching our new wallpaper with her fingers simply fills me with annoyance, ” Aunt Ninel declared.

“Yes, pity that we threw out the old sofa... But, she will probably be able to sleep on the floor, on her mattress, ” Uncle Herman said generously when he happened to be in a good mood. However, this occurred extremely rarely, because he had only one good mood and, as is known, one hundred and seventeen bad ones... That Uncle Herman became deputy several years ago and even headed the committee “Loving Aid to Children and Invalids” changed him very little. He, perhaps, became even more disgusting. And moreover, here were new elections at hand! Uncle Herman was walking around all the time gloomy and anxious and, only when going out onto the street, would he with loathing stretch on himself a smile like pulling on old and not very clean socks. From constant preoccupation he was more dried up. Even stray dogs tucked in their tails and wailed mournfully when Uncle Herman passed by.

And having failed to find anything on the balcony that would allow her to reach up to the latch, Tanya became slightly melancholy. She did not intend to beg Pipa to open it for her in order to not give her additional pleasure.

“Well, no matter, chuchundra! You’ll still discover five redundant mistakes in your next homework assignments! ” She thought vindictively.

Tanya wrapped herself in the blanket, pressed her forehead against the glass, and began to look at the courtyard. Below, cars, small like beetles, were parked. The roofs of the garage-cockleshell glistened like silver. The sleepy yard-keeper, to spite everyone still sleeping, was rattling the cover of the waste bin.

“Now if I would be able to fly! I would open the window, spread my arms, and fly far, far away from here, hundreds, thousands of kilometres, to where my papa is! And if I would have wings, well, like that sheet, for example...” Tanya thought sadly.

Under her eyes the big red sheet, trembling on a broken branch of the maple, unexpectedly tore away, soared up the entire three floors, and was pasted to the glass directly opposite her face. While the girl was pondering how it could happen that the sheet flew up instead of down, the latch loudly clanged like the lock of a rifle.

Turning around, Tanya saw Aunt Ninel in a night gown. Wiping her eyes, Aunt looked at her with disgust. In the past ten years she had grown three times as stout and could now travel only in the service elevator. In order that she could squeeze into the kitchen, it was necessary to enlarge the door.

“Why are you hanging around here? ” Aunt Ninel asked with suspicion.

“And why not? Your Pipa locked me in, ” Tanya was bewildered. With the Durnevs she eternally felt guilty. Probably, they were aiming at this, day after day, year after year, poisoning her existence.

“Don’t you dare lie, thankless trash! ” Aunt Ninel snapped, as if she did not just open the latch. “What’s this with ‘your Pipa’? And this after the cousin gave you her beloved pencil case as a birthday present? ”

Tanya wanted to say that the pencil case was old, and all the pens either smeared or did not write at all, but she decided that it would be better to keep quiet. Especially as the next day Pipa purposely cut the pencil case up with a blade.

“Why do you keep quiet? You think it’s pleasant for me to talk with you? March into the kitchen to sort out the buckwheat! You love to eat — love also to prepare! ” Aunt was angry.

Slipping past her, Tanya went to the Durnev’s kitchen with gleaming tiles glazed sky-blue and, having poured buckwheat out onto the table, began to sift the dark grains. To tell the truth, the buckwheat was sufficiently clean, but Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel were crazy about ecologically clean food, extra-pure water, and other similar whims. Of filters alone they had a whole seven pieces in the kitchen.

True, the Durnevs nevertheless forced Tanya to drink from under the faucet in order to not pay for filter cartridges for her. However, Tanya also returned the favour, periodically pouring water from the toilet tank into the teapot for them.

Unwillingly sorting the buckwheat, the girl occasionally raised her head and looked sideways at her reflection in the large nickel-plated extension above the stove. The extension was new like the kitchen, and everything was reflected in it as in a mirror, only not flat but convex.

Either the extension flattered or Tanya actually looked considerably better than Pipa. Well-built, mischievous, sharp-eyed... Here only the small birthmark on the tip of the nose gave her either a mysterious or devil-may-care look.

How many long minutes, especially in first and second grade when they teased her terribly and hurt her feelings because of this birthmark, the girl examined it in the mirror! And the longer she examined it, the more often it came to her head that she never saw similar birthmarks on anyone. Her birthmark sometimes changed colour, becoming either pink and imperceptible or almost black. It could decrease and increase in size. Every time that Tanya got sick or not long before some big trouble the birthmark began to pulsate and would even be very hot as if it were being seared with a hot nail. And finally, right beside the birthmark it was possible to make out a scar consisting of two tiny dots. And are these not bites perhaps, and if so, from what? Maybe even the birthmark itself sprung from a bite?

Aunt Ninel looked into the kitchen. Her unwieldy hulk hung above the girl like a reinforced concrete plate.

“Why are you dawdling? Have you sorted out the buckwheat? Cook for us from this pile, and you can prepare for yourself something from these little black dots. And don’t be embarrassed. If bread is needed, take the leftover from guests. The mould on it can be cut off without efforts.”

For breakfast, besides kasha, the Durnevs ate red caviar and sandwiches with sturgeon. Tanya despondently sat on a stool next to the dog dish and chewed dry bread almost like rock. Moreover, when she started to move, the dachshund One-And-A-Half Kilometres growled and hung onto her sneakers with its teeth.

“Don’t you dare tease the dog! ” Aunt Ninel screamed, and a contented Pipa unnoticeably stirred with her feet under the table, trying to anger the dachshund still more.

Unexpectedly from the frail chest of Uncle Herman, stirring the tea with a spoon, a heart-rending sigh was forced out.

“Please, don’t shout! My head aches terribly. I had an awful dream, ” he asked pleadingly.

He had hardly uttered this when Aunt Ninel and Pipa instantly became quiet, and even One-And-A-Half Kilometres, this evil rheumatic pug stopped growling. The fact is that Uncle Herman NEVER IN HIS LIFE dreamt. In any case, in the past he did not talk about them.

“What did you see, pampushka? ” Aunt Ninel sometimes called her husband pampushka, though it would be more correct to call him “skeletoshka.”

There and then, having altered “pampushka” into “skeletoshka” for herself, Tanya began to smile quietly and immediately looked around in fear. No, no one noticed, everyone was staring at the dreamer Uncle Herman in amazement.

Durnev looked fearfully sideways at the window.

“I dreamt of an old woman, ” he said in a half whisper. “A terrible old woman who was sent to us in a cardboard box. An old woman with red eyes and disgusting slobbery jaw. She stretched out her arms... her arms were SEPARATE, not attached to the body... she gripped me by the neck with her bony fingers and demanded...”

“Mommy! What? ” Pipa gave a squeak, dropping from her mouth the piece of sturgeon falling precisely onto the dachshund’s nose.

“She said: ‘Return to me what she’s hiding! ’”

“Return what? ”

“Where am I to know that from? I even don’t know who this ‘she’ is! ” Uncle Herman snapped. He wanted to add something else, but suddenly Pipa screamed deafeningly:

“Eek! This fool nearly toppled the table! I’m scalded by tea!!! ”

Both the older Durnevs at once turned and stared at Tanya. Pipa continued to squeal detestably, wailing that she must urgently be in the hospital and that she could not feel her legs. Tanya sat as in a fog, not understanding what happened and why everyone was looking at her. And then she suddenly perceived that she was squeezing the table-top with her hands. So this is why Pipa was squealing — she, Tanya, for some reason gripped the table and, abruptly pulling it, scalded her with tea!

Aunt Ninel turned around furiously. The stool under her — one of the new, recently purchased stools — cracked deafeningly.

“Don’t you infuriate me, I would but break it! Now march to get dressed and get to school!! ” She yelled at Tanya.

The girl got up and, not understanding why her head was spinning, went into the room. She just now understood that everything happened at that moment when Uncle Herman mentioned the yellow old woman and her words: “Return to me what she’s hiding! ”

* * *

Tanya was sent off to school alone. Pipa was making use of the situation in order to dump everything on the burn and remained at home to watch TV.

“Mama! Papa! Because of this painful attack I cannot go to the test! Now I’ll have precisely a three for this term! It’s thanks to her, this idiot! I get bad marks because of her! ” She howled, although Tanya knew perfectly well that Pipa viewed tests as death in white slippers. Moreover the tea was indeed not quite so hot, and if the puffed up daughter of Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel got burned, then only in her imagination.

But the most annoying thing was that both Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel believed every word of their girlie.

“Oh, Pipa, well what can I do with this criminal? You know meanwhile we cannot send her to the orphanage, and they do not take anyone into the colony until they are fourteen! ” Aunt Ninel lamented, when Tanya, dressed in an absurd crimson-grey jacket, on which instead of buttons there was some ugliness — either rosettes or bulbs, stood in the corridor.

“Nonsense, ” Tanya could not contain herself. “If she will have a three, then only because she has more twos than pimples in her diary. Have you ever seen a person who wrote ‘vegetable’ not only with a soft sign but also in two words? ”

“Don’t you dare speak out! And how, in your opinion, is it written, without a soft sign perhaps? That’s it, I have no more strength! Either some dirty shirker made an appointment with me, pretending to be invalids only on the grounds that they have no arms and legs, or this little monster... I can’t take anymore, I’m leaving...” Uncle Herman groaned and, pressing his temples with his hands, set off for the office.

Aunt Ninel moved up to Tanya, leaned toward her and, with hatred burning in her small eyes sunk into thick cheeks, started to hiss like a snake:

“You’ll pay for this! You’ll pay! Now I’ll definitely chuck your idiotic double bass case from the house! ”

It seemed to Tanya that they precisely jabbed her with a red-hot knitting needle. Aunt Ninel knew how to find her weakest point. Indeed it would be better she called her a dimwit or a degenerate a hundred times — she was already used to this, — but to throw out the case...

“Just try to touch it! ” Tanya shouted. The old double bass case, lying in a cabinet on the glazed balcony, was the only thing in the house of the Durnevs that utterly and completely belonged to her. It is complicated to say why Uncle Herman and Aunt Ninel did not chuck it before now. And another strange thing — why they never told Tanya about how this case turned up in their apartment and who, crying from hunger, lay in it.

“This indeed I will decide, my dear! Have no doubt: today your case will be in the gutter! And now march to school! ” Aunt Ninel snorted with satisfaction.

Pipa, looming behind mama’s back, triumphantly stuck out her long tongue the colour of undercooked liver sausage. Multicoloured spots began to jump before Tanya’s eyes. In order not to fall, she leaned against the lintel. The face of Aunt Ninel seemed to her sculpted from fat.

“If... if you throw it out, I’ll leave home! I’ll live where it’s convenient, at the station, in the woods! You hear? You hear? ” She yelled.

Aunt Ninel was lost for an instant. She did not suspect that Tanya could fly into such a rage. Usually the girl suffered everything silently. Moreover, it came to the mind of Uncle Herman’s wife that if the girl would live at the station, the reporters would sniff this out and it would prevent further advancement of her spouse as deputy of the committee “Loving Aid to Children and Invalids.” And if one considers the elections in two months, a scandal is especially not needed.

“I’m very frightened... And you live in the gutter if nothing else! Nevertheless I’ll chuck the case, if not today, then tomorrow. There’s no need for such a fright to be in our apartment, ” Aunt Ninel barked already not so furiously, more simply to not immediately surrender her position, and, turning heavily on her thick heels, made her way to the kitchen.

Tanya picked up her bag with textbooks — a nightmarishly tight bag on which was depicted a goggle-eyed doll and which more suited first grade, and went out onto the landing.

Waiting for the elevator, she heard how Pipa was squealing hysterically and Aunt Ninel, making excuses, prattled to her:

“Well what can I do? Now we totally must not have a scandal. You know papa soon has elections! He’s so worried, so nervous, and here these petitioners still constantly drag themselves along to him on appointment! Indeed isn’t it enough for them that papa sacrifices two tons of expired canned food yearly in favour of the poor, not counting old clothing? Well no matter, very soon we’ll discard all the dirty rubbish of this beggar, you’ll see! ”

On the way and even afterwards, in the school itself, Tanya was constantly wondering whether she would see her case again or not. Aunt Ninel found an excellent way to spoil her entire day. And even a set of other days too.

* * *

Arriving at school, Tanya soon realized that Pipa was absent from the test for nothing. For nothing because they cancelled the test, and instead of it arranged an excursion to the Armoury, which should have been on the following Thursday.

After the first class a terrible bustle broke out. A red bus with the sign “EXCURSION” drove into the schoolyard and began to signal. The class teacher Irina Vladimirovna was frantically swinging her arms — if these were not arms but wings, she would certainly take off — and shouted:

“Children, are you listening to me? The test has been cancelled! Everyone who has paid get into the bus! The rest go to help the cleaning woman wash stairs from the first to the fifth floor! ”

Tanya sighed, sensing that this applied to her. The Durnevs paid only for Pipa. They never paid anything for Tanya — neither gifts for New Year, nor theatres, nothing. Even for school breakfasts or tickets Uncle Herman always handed out the money with the greatest reluctance, and that was only because if he refused to give it, it would immediately attract someone’s attention. As far as pocket money was concerned, it was not even worth mentioning. The only money that Tanya held in her hands in her entire life was a five-rouble coin she somehow found in winter, frozen in a puddle. She was so bewildered that she did not know how to spend it. The coin lay in her pocket for a long time, but later Aunt Ninel found it and stated that Tanya stole it from Pipa. By the way, for each five they paid Pipa fifty roubles, and forty for a four. However, more often Pipa got by with thirty roubles.

While her classmates got into the bus, Tanya continued to stand beside in embarrassment, estimating, whether she would be made to carry a rag along the steps or it would be possible to at least ask to bring water. She had already turned around in order to leave, but Irina Vladimirovna overtook her and, anxiously bobbing on the spot — she generally behaved exactly like a hen, — clucked:

“Grotter! Tatiana! Why are you not on the bus? You need a special invitation? ”

“I don’t particularly want to... I cannot stand these museums, ” Tanya said, trying not to look at her.

Irina Vladimirovna again bounced.

“Untrue, Grotter! You simply know that they did not pay for you! But they paid for Penelope. All the same money will be wasted. March into the bus and don’t make me nervous! ”

Not believing in such luck, Tanya quickly got into the bus. Of course, in three years the Durnevs will reproach her that the unfortunate Pipa, scalded by boiling water, was lying almost in a coma and not taken to the Armoury because of her, and so they will find something to sting her. But for the time being it is possible to sit in the bus, look out the window at the houses floating past, and be glad. And later there will still be the excursion and the same long road back to the school. A whole day of happiness! And everything that will happen later, and all matters, is possible to simply discard from the head.

Tanya found for herself a pretty good place by the window, where next to her sat sullen and silent Genka Bulonov, from whom it was not worthwhile to wait for any dirty tricks, and nestled her forehead close to the glass. Swaying with difficulty, the bus left the schoolyard.

Grey damp houses gleamed. The signboards of stores began to sparkle. Trees dazzling with vividness spread like multicoloured card packs. Traffic lights winked. Dirty puddles scattered merry drops in the air. Passers-by looked around at the bus, and it seemed to Tanya that each was looking precisely at her and thinking: “It’s carrying her, here she’ll go to the Armoury, but I have all kinds of boring business! ”

When they passed along their district, several times large advertising panels flashed. From the placards Uncle Herman looked pink and merry. The best deputy — your deputy! The inscription under his photograph said.

On the placards Uncle Herman really looked quite good even.

Only Tanya alone, perhaps Pipa and Aunt Ninel as well, knew how many hours the photographer wasted with Uncle Herman and how much cotton wool he told him to put under his cheeks so that Uncle Herman would look a little less like a vampire.

But now even the physiognomy of “the best deputy” seen everywhere could not poison Tanya’s happiness. She was going to the museum! For the first time in her life something pleasant has come her way! It was indeed as if they muddled up something in the sky and the horn of abundance, always spilling on Pipa, spilled on her by mistake.

“You... this...” someone’s hoarse voice was heard beside her. Tanya turned around in wonder. Likely Bulonov uttered it, and she had completely forgotten about his existence. As well as the fact that he generally knows how to talk.

“What’s with you, Bouillon? ”

“Nothing...” Bulonov growled out and again was immersed in silence. He had such a contented look as if he already knew the future of ten days ahead.

“Well nothing, so hold your tongue! Got carried away here! ” Tanya snorted and, instantly forgetting her neighbour, was again occupied with what was happening beyond the window.

And there something interesting was actually taking place. Suddenly a large Russian borzoi was linked to the bus and for a long time was running next to it. Still it startled the girl why this expensive dog went for a walk without its owner. It was also strange that this borzoi was tearing along not in the manner of a normal dog, with confused barking attempting to grab hold of a wheel with its teeth. It was speeding along intelligently, all this time without turning its watchful eyes away from Tanya. It was even possible to think that the borzoi was perturbed by something and was attempting to communicate something to her.

Suddenly Genka Bulonov yawned with such a dreadful click of his jaws that half the bus turned to him. Tanya was also distracted for an instant, and when she again looked out the window, the Russian borzoi had already disappeared. There, where the bus had recently pulled up to the traffic light, stood a skinny red-haired woman with the dishevelled red hair moving so threateningly, as if... no, certainly these were not snakes. The skinny woman, it seemed, without special interest looked sideways at the bus and, turning, walked away. Her strange long raincoat was bespattered by mud in the same places as the fur of the borzoi rushing along the puddles. Tanya even leaped up, but the bus was already moving. An instant — and in the glass again flickered only grey houses, telephone booths, and transparent bus stops.

Several minutes passed before Tanya finally discarded this story from her head.

Yes, today was definitely a special day, resembling very little the previous three thousand two hundred and eighty-five days past since that evening when a worn double bass case appeared on the landing of a multi-storey house on Rublev Road...

Before the entrance into the Armoury the children were arranged in pairs. Doing a recount of everyone, Irina Vladimirovna almost fainted from the responsibility. The potbellied gym teacher Prikhodkin, sent on the excursion as a second escort, behaved in a more even-tempered way: counted no one and only blinked despondently. Likely he would with great pleasure doze in the bus.

“We’re visiting the museum in pairs! All exhibits we touch only with our eyes! With eyes, I said! Remember, everything is under surveillance! Just try to break a display case or stick chewing gum onto the tsar’s throne! ” Irina Vladimirovna squeaked threateningly.

Genka Bulonov immediately came to life. It was evident that the idea of using chewing gum attracted him by its novelty.

When her turn arrived to hand over her jacket to the cloakroom, Tanya, as always, sensed awkwardness. Under the jacket she had a dreadful jean shirt with a frayed collar, which was befitting perhaps to be thievishly tossed into the garbage bin at three in the morning. Although the Durnevs were rich, they always dressed the girl very badly — in the most worn and dirty junk, which Uncle Herman’s firm dealt in. And Aunt Ninel always picked such footwear, either too small for Tanya or big to such an extent that she had to shuffle with the soles on the floor so that her feet would not slip.

Not surprising then that, seeing Tanya in these rags, even Aunt Ninel, as dry and tactless as an African rhino, now and then experienced some kind of pang of conscience and began to tell all the teachers indiscriminately: “Yes, I agree, we don’t dress her very well. However, she’ll tear everything all the same! But what do you want from the daughter of a thief and an alcoholic? My husband and I accomplished unpardonable stupidity taking her in, and now we bear the cross.”

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. At first Tanya listened 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. And 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 text cut into the memory.

“Before us a sword found in the tomb of a Scythian leader. You will focus 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’s 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 do not 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: you’re 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. For awhile he dragged her like a kid after himself along the halls, 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 cloakroom to buy souvenirs and postcards. Tanya, willingly separating from the class, again set off for the hall where the sword was. She wanted to look at it after all, 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. At this moment the birthmark seemed to her especially ugly, 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 sirens in the Armoury simultaneously snapped into action. Lights began to blink. Running into the hall, Tanya saw that an enormous hole gaped in the glass of the display case, the sword 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. In the corridors the stamping of many feet was already heard. 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 have 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 again she fainted.

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

“Classy! 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.

“A-a-a... 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 arranged such a thing!

They turned to the right, once again to the right, and descended the short stairs downward. 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 did not swallow this 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 is not 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.”