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Bab-Yagun






 

After sneezing two or three times — with each sneeze the bed was thrown to one or the other side, exactly like a frightened racer, — the mummy energetically swung the foot with the spur, lightly jabbing one of the legs of the bed. The bed obediently reduced altitude. The latch locking the frame jumped aside with a light click. Unceremoniously crushing the cot, the bed lowered directly onto it. Not losing time, the mummy, as far as stretching allowed, squatted and fixed small curious eyes on Tanya. More precisely, with one eye, since its other one was firmly hidden under the bandages. Tucked into the belt above the bandages of the mummy was a marvellous Turkish dagger, according to its size resembled more a small yataghan.

“Turn... So... Now the other side... Well, excellent! No doubts... Oh, my granny mama! It’s her, ” the mummy muttered in an undertone, hurriedly repairing the tousled bandages and, as much as it was possible, assumed a dignified air.

Gadaboutun! ” Tanya, mastering this lesson after meeting the talking heads, screamed out loudly just in case.

“Daboutun? What daboutun? ” The mummy wondered.

Its voice, resonant, high, seemed to Tanya strangely familiar. She was suddenly sure that she had already heard it once... Now only where and when? Among her earlier acquaintances there were no flying mummies. Or even non-flying mummies, if we do not count, of course, green Uncle Herman. But even he more resembled the usual corpse than a mummy.

Gadaboutun! ” Tanya again repeated. If they were going to devour her, then this word should work.

The bandaged one — now the girl was already certain that this was not a mummy nevertheless — began to worry.

“Wait... What’s still with gadaboutun? Really these grumps — Usynya, Dubynya, and Gorynya — were here? ” He was interested.

“Aha, they were, ” Tanya acknowledged, not too surprised that it was known to the mummy from somewhere. Recently she was already surprised by little in general.

The bandaged one hit his own knee with his fist:

“Oh, my granny mama! Lucky you! Rumour has it that now and then they don’t shun moronity... oh, excuse me... I have in mind that it’s better not to have anything to do with them, especially if you don’t know all these foolish opinions which they always change! ”

“But on the whole who are they exactly? ” Tanya carefully asked.

“Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya? ” The bandaged one scratched the back of his head. “Well, they are that... how to explain them to you... not unlike heroes-bouncers, not bad, but with nonsense in the head. Of course, it is possible to summon them, but only as a last resort... When, for example, the evil spirits indeed become quite a bother. But even then it’s undesirable, because who knows what they will come up with. It is better indeed to investigate the evil spirits yourself, while there is still power.”

“It seems somebody already did, ” thought Tanya, already looking at his bandages without the earlier horror. It was awfully unusual for her to talk with a mummy. On the other hand, she gradually began to enjoy it. Fear disintegrated.

“So it’s the evil spirits for you? ” Tanya wanted to ask. More precisely, she only just opened her mouth in order to ask when she was already answered.

“Nothing of the sort! ” The mummy indignantly waved his hands in casts. “It’s nothing to do with the evil spirits. It’s my having been swallowed by a dragon. Otherwise would I really fly on this nightmarish bed? And not for all the tea in China — so that all the guys would take me for a joke? Normally I have an outstanding vacuum of the seven-hundredth series — simply a beaut! Turbine supercharger, two safety shawls, chrome-plated pipe, conditioner with apricot infusion aroma, and other frills.”

It was worthwhile for him to mention the dragon and to speak of the vacuum with admiration, Tanya immediately recalled where she had heard this voice before! And recently — on the magic double bass!

“Listen... But you’re not... not Bab-Yagun? The resilient and loved by all? But indeed the dragon ate you! I heard, as you were shouting, — and hrum-hrum... And it was... well quite recently... How did you succeed to get out from the dragon’s stomach? ”

Bab-Yagun merrily looked at her with the unbandaged eye. His cheekbones — those parts of them, in any case, that were visible, — reddened from pleasure.

“He’s very... But how did you find out? They have not yet removed the healing spells from me and even wound me all around so that the bonegrafts would not scamper about. They indeed should not set a healthy person — nothing good will come of it. My granny would hardly know me in these bandages and in a cast.”

Tanya wanted to ask what such bonegrafts were but did not. It was unlikely to be something very nice.

“That is to say I am Yagun! Only here’s what... from where do you know who I am? Was I introduced to you? Magic tattooing on the heel is also likely not visible...” Bab-Yagun continued. Unexpectedly, he squinted for a moment and looked askance at Tanya.

Suddenly somehow strangely she had a tickling in her hair, and not only in the hair, but also under the hair, in the head itself.

“No, the match was a week ago, ” Bab-Yagun continued as if nothing was the matter. “You listened not to the direct transmission itself, but its repeat... Besides a wave flies for a long time to reach the moronoid world, when they even pass seven rainbows, well and other jokes along the same line... Exactly, a dragon devoured me. On top of that which one! Goyaryn itself! Good though that they, the dragons, still have the habit of swallowing without chewing.

“I was packed in its stomach with twenty magicians — black and white... And vampires also, and heels of witches. Dark, jolting, terrible heat, simply like in the bath of the cyclopes. Bones scattered all over, skulls, apparently left from some ancient times. Still it would be tolerable but the vampires started a fight with the witches. Those bite, these kick, scratch — gloom. I began to separate them, and here’s the result — not a bone left whole. Mere amateurs... they don’t much love commentators, and here still darkness all around, afterwards you won’t find out. And it’s like I fought a lion! Where is the lion there! Like a Central-Asian genie gone mad because they recently broke his favourite pitcher...”

Bab-Yagun courageously slashed the air with a hand in a cast and began to groan from the pain.

“And how did they reach you? ” Tanya asked. “You yourself said that Goyaryn... that it almost releases no one from its mouth... And bones there all around.”

“Oh, an entire heap of skeletons! In the dark, of course, you cannot count, but by feel... can imagine to yourself how pleasant to grope someone’s skull in the dark, ” said Bab-Yagun. “Oh, my granny mama! Simply a miracle that we got out. They, the dragons, I’ll tell you in secret, on the whole, spit on magic. You’ll not break through them with any spells, perhaps with the strongest, even then very temporarily. Then the immunity against this spell will remain in them for life, and the second time it will no longer work on any account. And Goyaryn... it’s like a five-storey house, only with wings. And the mouth... each tooth is like this flying bed here. In the whole world only five or six magicians whom the dragons obey somehow. But nevertheless Goyaryn had to spit us out... Indeed bilious witches got it painfully on the inside. How they began to pelt with curses and to swear at one another among themselves, someone there carried off someone’s shroud, almost new, here its entire belly began to shake, and it got rid of us. Also, by the way, it helped that one vampire, who threshed me more than others, had rockfoil with him. Such a little plant, but dragons dislike them terribly. They begin to swell from it.”

“And for you... was it not frightening for you? ” Tanya asked, imagining to herself the stomach of the dragon as an enormous black impenetrable bag in which red-hot coals border from all sides on the outside.

Bab-Yagun gave it some thought.

“No need to use the formal ‘you’ with me. I’m, by a negligible margin, one of those... Although it’s unimportant. I simply start to itch from a formal ‘you’ and it’s awfully inconvenient under the bandages... Have to scratch with the Turkish dagger and it’s detrimental for my health! ” He said. “Was it frightening for me? Not a bit. You see, this feeling is generally unknown to me. I indeed also play dragonball. Confident that sometime they’ll take me into the composite team of Tibidox... Whom did our composite team not beat! The water-sprites, the house-spirits, once even the devils and those were inflated! Nowhere is there a stricter trainer — Nightingale O. Robber from the ‘dark’ magicians! No one misses practices with him, he freezes with a look... Yes, do you know the rules of dragonball? ” He recollected suddenly.

Bab-Yagun looked sideways at Tanya, and again in an instant she felt as if someone lightly tickled her brain with the tip of a feather. Yelling, the girl clasped her temples with her hands, and it seemed to her as if something like a plug flew away from her consciousness.

“Ay, it’s painful! Never so abruptly blocked! You nearly pinched me! ” Bab-Yagun sighed and began to shake his head so that part of the bandages was even unwound.

“What, you read my thoughts? Stop! ” Tanya shouted, from indignation easily passing to the informal “you.”

Bab-Yagun guilty and simultaneously looked around fearfully, as if checking whether anyone overheard them.

“Shh! How do you know? Even among the great magicians and then from that distance not all perceive when they are mirrored...” he started to whisper.

“‘Mirrored? ’”

“‘To mirror, to approach with a mirror’... That is, to look into the head. The moronoids call this telepathy. Well they, the moronoids, generally love to invent any clever words. To slip into someone mentally with a glass... well, in the heat of the moment, that is.... and they say ‘telekinesis, telekinesis! ’ Or there you fly slightly from time to time, when you stop walking all together, and they call it ‘levitation’... Well, so you tell no one that I... well, mirrored, in a sense. I’m always awfully unaware I’m doing it, almost no one among us even notices! But you did! ”

“Simply something tickled in my head, ” Tanya was embarrassed.

“I see! It’s the same! High innate foresight! And what a block! Simply like hitting me with a sledgehammer! ” Bab-Yagun exclaimed enthusiastically and, as if struck by some idea, suddenly slapped himself strongly on the forehead: “Ah, I understand — you’re from the Grotter family, and they have all these doodads in the blood... Nevertheless, whatever you may say, but the Grotters are almost the most ancient magic clan. Perhaps Sardanapal has kin a little more ancient, and Medusa, and Grandpa Mazai.”

“What grandpa? ” Tanya again asked in amazement.

“Oh, this was a powerful magician! True, he died long ago already. Once he somehow turned a hundred black magicians by irreversible spell into hares, but then he became conscientious, and his entire life he gathered these hares...” Bab-Yagun explained and continued: “As for myself, I also have an ancient family, although I never brag about this. Perhaps I occasionally mention it to put some upstarts in their place... Promise you’ll tell no one, or there’ll be trouble for me. We, white magicians, are forbidden to crawl into each other’s thoughts. But the black magicians — with them everything is simple. For instance, you hobnob with the evil spirits, for example you throw incinerating lightning — complete freedom. Really just one constraint — you don’t do good deeds, that won’t be bad. Only they also terribly fear She-Who-Is-No-More.”

Suddenly something began to rattle under Bab-Yagun’s bandages, and it was so deafening that the iron bed jumped and began to creak with all its rusty couplings. In the opposite house dozens of windows immediately lit up. Sleepy faces pressing against the glass looked out into the courtyard, not understanding what was happening.

“What’s that? ” Tanya was frightened.

“Ah, don’t pay any attention! It’s my zoomer flying into a rage! Now, until you look at the screen, it’ll not pipe down for anything. Now I...” Bab-Yagun muttered, trying to untangle the bandages in a hurry.

“Carefully, Pipa will wake! And Uncle Herman! ” Covering up her ears, Tanya hurriedly clung to the glass.

So it was: the blanket on Pipa’s bed swelled up like a mound. A round face showed itself from under the blanket.

“She’ll wake up! Now she’ll start to wail! ” Tanya shouted with desperation.

“Don’t worry! ”

Bab-Yagun, with a creak jumped from the bed, hopped on one leg to the door of the balcony, and muttered:

Wheezeus! Shoot, mixed up again... Wheezeis... Wheezeium Relaxium!

However, either something did not go well with the spell or Uncle Herman’s daughter was immune to magic, but Pipa continued to turn her head as if nothing had happened, suspiciously looking in the direction of the balcony.

“Again it didn’t work! But what is it! ” Bab-Yagun hissed angrily. “It’s necessary, obviously, to affix a seal on her, although it’s not desired! ”

Before Tanya had time to clarify what Bab-Yagun had in mind for “affixing a seal, ” he decisively took aim at Pipa with a bent ring finger hampered by a cast and hoarsely growled:

Pointus harpoonus!

A green spark flew out from under the cast and struck Pipa accurately in the left eye. Tanya yelled. The daughter of Uncle Herman blinked crazily several times in the dark, and then heavily, precisely like a killed mammoth, collapsed on the pillow. A toneless bass snore was heard. Judging only by this snore, it was possible to conclude that on the bed lay not a ten-year-old girl but at least a very big male gorilla, in addition suffering chronic head cold.

“I cannot stand this spell. Indeed it... eh-eh... strikes the ears painfully. But only it for some reason works for me. The rest jams up something there.” Bab-Yagun looked a little embarrassed.

“Uh-huh, ” Tanya growled. It was the only thing she found to say.

Meanwhile Bab-Yagun’s zoomer, getting more incensed by the minute, continued to produce deafening sounds, which sounded increasingly more nightmarish with each minute.

“Well, do something! ” She shouted.

“One minute! Here’s the pest, not pulled out! Hooked onto the bandages! Well I! ” Bab-Yagun in the heat of the moment pulled out the Turkish dagger and, with an energetic stroke cut the bandages, and extracted something similar to a tin dish. It was worthwhile for him to pass a hand along its bottom, as the jingling sound instantly stopped, although it still rang in Tanya’s ears for a ling time and she heard everything as if through a pillow.

When Bab-Yagun cut the bandages, simultaneously with the zoomer rolled out something similar to a bright disk approximately the size of a metallic 5-rouble coin. Tanya wanted to pick it up, but Bab-Yagun shouted:

“Must not, don’t touch it! It’s a bonegraft! Anyone who has whole bones must not touch it! ”

And in fact, the coin suddenly released six long fragile legs and quickly whisked into a slot between the wall of the balcony and the cabinet. Tanya noticed for a moment that on its back a cut opened up, which could perfectly well be jaws, and sufficiently powerful besides.

Meanwhile, on the dim bottom of the zoomer a rosy moustached face flared up. The right moustache curled by itself into ringlets, and the left persistently tried to reach into a nostril, forcing the owner to smack it exasperatedly with a finger. This obviously amused the moustache, and it, choosing a moment, again began to steal up to the nostril.

“Bab-Yagun, do you hear me? ” The possessor of the moustaches panted loudly. “This is Professor Sardanapal! I want to you to behave as cautiously as possible! On no account attract the attention of the moronoids! It’s extremely undesirable for us now. You’re not making any noise there? ”

“Oh, my granny mama! And no, I’m not making noise, ” Bab-Yagun answered in a whisper, and uneasily looked askance at the illuminated windows. Although the zoomer had already ceased wailing, so far they did not hurry to dim.

“What? Why are you muttering there? Up to mischief, I suppose? I know you! Remember — silence, silence, and again silence! You should at least have learnt something from me? Recall my lessons of conspiracy! ” Sardanapal said severely.

Tanya looked thunder-struck at Sardanapal, whom she heard about from the speaking heads. Judging from the fact that he was feared even by the impetuous bouncers inclined to cannibalism, he possessed enormous magic power. But here he clearly was not solid enough. While Sardanapal himself in a loud bass urged Bab-Yagun to silence, his right moustache launched a fight with the left. Both moustaches rocked like cobras, and they delivered quick blows to each other with their tips. Clearly this was not the first time the moustaches fought and soon enough, coming to an agreement, together they began to tease the academician’s magnificent beard, which was calmly resting on his chest. They were leading it this way: the right moustache snapped it a little from its side, and when the angered beard pursued it, from the other side flew the second moustache, and the game began anew. This did not please the beard terribly. It got into a rage and shuddered more violently with each minute, something the moustaches were striving for.

“Bab-Yagun, grave times are coming, ” continued Sardanapal. “The evil spirits are behaving extremely suspiciously. There is evidence that they are again gathering in crowds, which had not taken place for ten years before now. Individual groups reach the lower levels of Tibidox, although, it goes without saying, they don’t yet dare to communicate with the cyclopes... You do understand what this implies? Especially now when the gold sword is stolen? ”

“Ay-ay-ay! Gloom, ” Bab-Yagun uttered, but it seemed to Tanya that he was not too frightened.

“On the other hand, why is he disturbed? What worse can happen to him when he already has not a single whole bone? ” The girl thought, just in case placing a block so that she could not be mirrored. But Bab-Yagun likely was too occupied by the conversation with Sardanapal.

“Now precisely: gloom! ” The academician continued without feeling the irony. “Hm... Well, okay. This is not a zoomer kind of conversation... Did you find Tanya? She’s alive? Everything’s in order with her? ” He asked with uneasiness.

Bab-Yagun looked over at the girl.

“You’re alive? ”

Tanya nodded.

“She says that she is. In my opinion it’s possible to believe her, ” confirmed Bab-Yagun.

“Strange. That is, I wanted to say: remarkable, ” Sardanapal corrected himself.

“Although, of course, these living corpses now and then so deftly disguise themselves that you’ll not guess for the entire world... While you haven’t driven in the stake, never...” thinking for a bit, Bab-Yagun added.

But the academician was no longer listening. He looked at the place where, as he assumed, Tanya must be standing.

“How do you do, my girl! How have you been living all these years? Sure it has been sufficiently foul for you after all, but it can’t be helped — it’s necessary for all of us to sacrifice something. You’re not offended that we wrapped you in a bubble in the world of the moronoids? ” He asked affectionately.

“I... all this is so... I even did not know... Please excuse me, indeed I even...” Tanya caught her breath from excitement. Only yesterday she was — oppressed, a degraded orphan, now they informed her that she belonged to one of the most ancient magic families.

“Unfortunately, I neither see nor hear you — this zoomer only works with Bab-Yagun, ” continued Sardanapal, when the girl was completely entangled in her feelings. “Listen to everything he’ll tell you. In no later than a week you must be in Tibidox. In this week you should learn the necessary spells for the passage into the magic world, learn to use the double bass and the magic ring! Without this you will not be able to find yourself in Tibidox: the transitional gates will not let you through. Do everything that Bab-Yagun will tell you! We’ll also try to remove the curse here. But then, possibly, you’ll not... what should take place will not happen.”

Tanya was on guard. It seemed to her that Sardanapal almost told her something actually important. Although it is possible that he expressly let the cat out of the bag. He wanted to prepare her for some such thing which she had yet to find out in due time. If it will come.

“And what should take place? ” She asked, forgetting that the zoomer nevertheless would not transmit her voice.

Suddenly, the rosy face of Sardanapal grew brown, filled with blood.

“And what is this! Leave me alone! ” He bellowed.

At first Tanya was frightened that she enraged the white magician with something, but almost immediately she understood that the reason was not her. The academician started to wheeze. His beard, once and for all driven out of its wits by the tricks of the moustaches, went after one of them and repeatedly wound around the neck of Sardanapal. Making sure that the beard in the heat of the moment twined itself around full length, the moustaches at once pounced on its edge and twice passed it under the base, thus tying the beard into a knot and immobilizing it. Convinced that their enemy had been made a fool of, the moustaches, satisfied by the success of their trick, stretched out into two exclamation marks.

“Enough! End connection! ” The academician shouted and, grabbing the beard, started to pull it off his neck. The last thing that Tanya heard before the zoomer went out once and for all was his yell:

“It was the last warning! Where are my scissors? ”

“How strange he is! ” Tanya was surprised. Bab-Yagun hesitated.

“But what do you expect? All geniuses are strange. And this is Academician Sardanapal himself! The head of Tibidox! Chairman of the guild of white magicians, author of works on alchemy, removal of curses, restraining the evil spirits, and dragon authority. Laureate of the Award of the Magic Suspenders, which is presented once a century! True, recently he has become very absent-minded. Forgets all contracts. Sometimes even confuses names. Maybe, someone worked a deferred curse or there is a chronic wasting disease... It cannot be cured to the end.”

“Listen... Will they take me into Tibidox forever? I mean, will they toss me back to Uncle Herman again in a couple of months? ”

“Impossible, ” Bab-Yagun twisted his head around. “Whoever finds himself in Tibidox never returns to the moronoids. At any rate, if the person doesn’t want it at all. But usually there is no such person.”

“And Tibidox — what is this? Not unlike a boarding school? Or an institute of magic? ”

“Tibidox... eh-eh... It’s a school. A completely special school, ” Bab-Yagun explained.

For some reason, she could not clearly understand why, it seemed to Tanya that he was evading the question. Or, in any case, said anything but what he could say.

Suddenly Tanya distinctly heard a noise in the hallway. Granite heels thudded on the linoleum. The steps were so booming that it was possible to decide that the Stone Guest was stomping here.

“Aunt Ninel! She’ll now come in and notice you! ” Tanya sighed, at the same time thinking that there was nothing surprising that Aunt Ninel woke up. One zoomer was enough, but here still more deafening Pipa’s snore and the embedded ear of “conspiracy” of the academician Sardanapal.

“Notice me? Impossible! ” Bab-Yagun stated.

“Why impossible? She almost always approaches the balcony. At least to check whether I’ve decided to open the window into Pipa’s room in order to warm up slightly.”

“Relax! I said: she’ll not notice me, and she’ll not notice me. It’s not even necessary for me to purge her memory, ” Bab-Yagun smiled mysteriously.

At the moment before the door finally opened, he poked himself in the chest with a finger and quickly pronounced:

Shedus spectacus! ”

A magic ring sparkled with a green flash — and Bab-Yagun dissolved. In the air remained only the floating bandage, inside which — now this especially caught the eye — was empty. And in several seconds even the bandage disappeared — probably the invisible spell worked gradually.

Tanya rushed to the cot, pressing her cheek against the sheet damp for the day, and pretended to be sleeping. She heard how Aunt Ninel entered the room and on tiptoes approached Pipa. Not knowing that her mother loomed, Pipa loudly and distinctly said in her sleep:

“Oh, G.P.! Oh dear G.P.! I also want to be like you! ”

Aunt Ninel shook her head and carefully woke her daughter.

“Pipa, my poor dear, you’re talking in your sleep. And were you crying? It seemed to me there were some sounds...”

“Ha-ha? What? Leave me alone, ” Pipa answered in drowsiness, trying, not opening her eyes, to kick her dear mama.

“Strange, ” Aunt Ninel wondered. “Well, sleep, little daughter... And all the time that sound was like: vbdzz-vbzz... Even papa heard it, though he also slips on the night headphones. Let me kiss you! ”

Extending her lips, Aunt Ninel leaned over Pipa and loudly gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. A sound was heard immediately, as if someone with all their might punched with a fist into dough. The gold dream of an idiot was realized. Pipa nevertheless hit mama with a foot.

“Oho-ho! How this girl cries if her crying can be confused with the sound of my zoomer? ” Bab-Yagun whispered in amazement when Aunt Ninel withdrew in a waddle. At first his bandages appeared, then the Turkish dagger, and then gradually also he himself.

“Better you don’t hear it, trust me, ” Tanya wished. “All who heard her become stutterers.”

“And why are you not? ”

“It no longer works on me. I got used to it from childhood. Now when she starts to spit — here’s indeed a full finish. All camels scatter.”

“Oh, my granny mama! And you’re lucky with the relatives. The aunt alone is worth something, ” Bab-Yagun sympathized.

“You haven’t seen Uncle Herman yet, ” Tanya hemmed.

“Why haven’t I? When Sardanapal sent me here, he ordered Medusa to show me you and all your relatives in the white mirror... Well, so that I wouldn’t mix up anything. Your Uncle Herman, of course, is a picturesque character. How green he is. Nevertheless the blood has its effect. He would be extremely astonished, but the famous vampire Count Dracula is his own great-great-grandfather.”

It seemed to Tanya that she misheard.

“Dracula is Uncle Herman’s great-great-grandfather? ”

“Well, yes... Or something like that. I heard this from my own granny, and she knows everything about kinship. She is not clever, but what a true chest of knowledge! ” Bab-Yagun said. Suddenly he sniffed tactfully and snapped his fingers. In a second — and in his hand appeared a long loaf with smoked sausage, clearly borrowed from the refrigerator of Aunt Ninel.

“This I call to take with hap-tsap, a quick grab. By the way, the spell sounds like that. True, some clever fellows call it teleportation, ” Bab-Yagun explained, predatorily taking a bite directly off the stick of sausage.

“So, Uncle Herman is also... well, a magician? Since Dracula is his granddad? ” Tanya defined more accurately.

Bab-Yagun twisted his head, showing that his mouth was full. As soon as he swallowed, he was able to answer:

“Kinship with vampire and magic abilities — absolutely different things. It is necessary to be born as a magician, but anyone can easily become a vampire. And what’s so good being a living corpse? Nothing good in it — indeed you can believe me. I know a whole heap of them.”

“Stop for a bit, ” Tanya was suddenly out of countenance, “it turns out Dracula is also my great-great? Indeed I’m a relative of Uncle Herman.”

“Nothing of the sort! ” Bab-Yagun was indignant. “Uncle Herman and Dracula are entirely along another line in the kinship, on the maternal. And you, the Grotters, have nothing of the sort as kin! You have as kinsfolk Queen Cleopatra, Ali Baba, the pharaoh Tutankhamen, the old genie Hottabych, and Snow White with the seven dwarfs. Well and even Count Cagliostro. Indeed my granny knows! ”

Unexpectedly Bab-Yagun recalled something and mercilessly slapped himself on the forehead with a hand.

“Well, and I’m a lamebrain! Completely forgotten about my errand... Here, keep this! Sardanapal ordered to transfer it to you so that you would prepare for the flight to Tibidox. I’ll fly in for you in exactly a week, but you still have to learn a lot of things.”

Turning back the edge of the mattress on the flying bed, he pulled out a very thick book. Wheezing from the effort, Bab-Yagun wiped its dusty cover with a sleeve and handed it to Tanya:

“Watch and guard it! It’s an exceptionally rare book! It was extremely difficult to acquire it from the Tibidox library. The library genie even tried to take my soul as guarantee, but I lied to him that my soul howls at night, and then he gave it to me without any guarantee. You should see our genie Abdullah! Even Eyeless Horror doesn’t risk appearing in his presence after the time he obliterated the thirteenth letter on the thirteenth page of the thirteenth volume of Secrets of Fatal Curses. By the way, possible that he became eyeless precisely after this incident. However, it’s not acceptable to ask about this.”

Listening to the brisk chatter of Bab-Yagun, Tanya, trembling, took the book from his hands and, looking at the cover, discovered that she was holding in her hands nothing but A Thousand Tips for a Young Hostess.

“Strange, ” she wondered and, opening the book at random, read:

Tip 8. Linen will not soil so fast if you add to the washing powder several drops of lemon juice.

“Perhaps he mixed something up? ” She thought, getting acquainted with Tip 24:

For the preparation of small loaves you will need:

150 g of butter or margarine, 250 g of powdered sugar, 6 eggs, dried lemon peel, 70 g of raisins, 70 g of sugared or preserved fruits, 400 g of flour (desirably the best kind), a pinch of baking soda...

But Bab-Yagun was beaming so that it was clear: no, the book is precisely what is needed. Hiding disappointment, Tanya opened it nearer the middle:

Tip 567. If in a restaurant or cafe a stranger persistently pesters you, do not panic. Place on his clothing a perceptible spot of sour cream or ketchup, after which immediately phone 01- 02- 03- 04.

“Some nonsense. And where’s the magic here? They’re what, bringing me to Tibidox as a cook? ” Tanya thought unhappily. Deciding that it would be more proper to not read everything indiscriminately but examine the index, she looked at it and read:

Secrets of darning with small crosses.............5

New life for an old teapot..........12

Washing of woollen articles.............75

“Well, how’s the book to you? ” Bab-Yagun happily asked her, interrupting her acquaintance with chapter eighteen about exterminating moths.

“Eh-eh... Very cognitive. It teaches... eh-eh... all sorts of useful things, ” afraid of offending him, Tanya muttered, thinking to herself that Aunt Ninel bought similar books by the dozen in a week, at the same time not getting mixed up with a troublesome genie.

“Well, what are you reading there? ” Bab-Yagun, catching the note of disappointment in her voice, looked at it over her shoulders and burst out laughing: “So here’s what the matter is! All this hogwash confused you! It’s for masking in case the book falls into the hands of the moronoids or someone from the evil spirits! But now watch and memorize! ” Bab-Yagun quickly flicked to a page with his forefinger and whispered: “ Chilloutum!

In that moment the exterior of the book changed. In Tanya’s hands appeared a chubby shabby volume in a binding of dragon skin, on which was printed in gold decorative letters:

 


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