Veterinary Magic

On the next day the first lesson was evil spirits studies. Medusa Gorgonova entered the classroom and, having nodded dryly to everyone, directed her steps to her table. Two beefy guards from re-educated shamans wheeled in a cage, in which raged a small disgusting creature, overgrown with rigid fur, yellow horns, and an unpleasant tail like a rat’s.

Tanya shuddered. She was convinced that she had met him before, saw these horns — one long and the other small and curved. Exactly, this was Agukh!

“Before you is one of the typical representatives of the evil spirits — a swamp bogey, ” Medusa said in a teacher’s voice, extracting a pointer from the air. “An unpleasant, evil creature, fed by the energy of those whom it made to suffer. It possesses primitive speech skills and weak telepathic abilities. Individual unscrupulous magicians use the bogeys as messengers or accomplices in crimes... This example I caught today in my office. It was poking its nose into my papers, not grasping that I lock up boxes not merely by a key.”

Explaining, Medusa carelessly pushed the pointer through the bars of the cage. Agukh instantly clicked its teeth and gnawed through the pointer in the middle.

“I hate! I hate you, Gorgonova, and Tanka Grotter! Blood will soon be spilled! Much blood! I’ll gut! ” The bogey began to yell.

Medusa with disgust extracted from the cage a fragment of the pointer and threw it into the wastebasket.

“You see what type this is, ” as if nothing happened, she continued. “Fortunately, swamp bogeys are very afraid of specific spells. Here this directs special dread at them: slopis-galoshis-idiotis. ”

Agukh, accurately doused by cold water, stopped screaming out threats and hid in a corner of the cage.

“Ah, no need to say this filth to me! ” It began to squeak in panic. “I’ll be good! I’ll saw off no one’s head! I’ll plant flowers and shuffle my feet! ”

“Wonderful, ” said Medusa. “You may begin.”

She opened the cage and allowed Agukh to get outside. The children exchanged surprised glances. Really Medusa believed it? Meanwhile the swamp bogey unhappily looked around, but already in a second its small eyes lit up with hatred.

“I’ll kill! I’ll gut! For everyone to tremble! ” It began to yell and rushed at Medusa.

“ Sparkis frontis! ” Associate Professor Gorgonova pronounced Softly but distinctly.

The green spark bursting from her ring struck the swamp bogey in the chest and flung it away back into the cage. The door slammed shut. Medusa blew on the ring.

“One more lesson. Sparkis frontis, as you know, is the main shielding spell of white magic. We call it the spell of battle spark. I sincerely recommend ‘dark’ magicians to not use it. This weapon can turn against them. Any questions? Then take it away! ”

The two guards grabbed the cage and carried it out of the class.

“Please remember well what you just saw. I strongly advise you of this, ” Medusa said, especially emphasizing the word “strongly.” At the same time she looked significantly at Tanya, as if what she said and showed mainly concerned her.

* * *

After evil spirits studies everyone set off for dinner, which was usually in the Hall of Two Elements — the sole quarters of Tibidox capable of accommodating simultaneously several hundred people. The black department of Tibidox was assembled on its half while the white was on its. The instructors, both white and black magicians, came down from above along the staircase of Atlases, and downstairs each already joined his own department. With the white students sat the academician Chernomorov, Medusa, and Yagge, and with the black — Dentistikha, Professor Stinktopp, and the trainer of magic piloting Nightingale O. Robber. The dean Slander Slanderych, as a magician-specialist using both white and black spells, walked hither and thither, not fearing the flame.

The ancient oak tables, preserving on themselves random scratches and inscriptions of various centuries, now and then very amusing, were still completely empty. While Tanya was estimating how they would have time to simultaneously lay all the tables quickly, Sardanapal walked out to the middle of the hall and threw open a small wooden chest which was in his hands.

“Two from the chest, identical in person, come quickly to feed us! ” Sardanapal shouted.

In that same moment the cover of the chest was thrown open, and from it flew out two swift whirlwinds. Squinting, Tanya made out that it was two rosy broad-shouldered fine fellows in red shirts, moving with incredible speed. In all of several seconds magic tablecloths unrolled along all the tables, and on them appeared round loaves, small white loaves, pretzels, meat dumplings, cheese dumplings, fruit-filled dumplings, pies, danishes, nut cakes, rolls, raisin cakes, and crepes with salmon or caviar. All this was in such quantity that it could quench any appetite. Seeing that Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin attacked the food as if nothing was the matter, Tanya followed their example. It seemed to her that after Aunt Ninel’s sticky vermicelli and stewed radish she would be in a state to lay waste the entire table by herself. But it was impossible, since the more they took, the more appeared. Twenty minutes had not even gone by but it already seemed to Tanya that one more little piece and she would simply burst. Bab-Yagun, also had time to eat his fill, had a drowsy blank look, only Vanka Valyalkin alone, likely was still ready to snatch a mouthful, but he was a special case...

Sardanapal clapped his hands:

“Thank you, two from the chest! Perhaps, that’s enough! ”

The fine fellows in red shirts bowed to the waist and dived back into the small chest. Before the cover slammed shut, Gunya Glomov and his friend Yura Idiotsyudov quickly threw several bones in there. They thought that this trick would go unnoticed and they would laugh over Sardanapal, but in the same second the fine fellows with the speed of lightning again fluttered from the chest. One plugged up the noses of Glomov and his friend, and the other in the same moment tipped into the opened mouths half a jar of horseradish sauce.

With loud howls, with tears streaming from their eyes, almost breathing out flame, Glomov and Idiotsyudov jumped up and hurled themselves to the exit, while the fine fellows, extremely pleased with themselves, again dived into the chest.

Sardanapal smiled delicately, pretending that he noticed nothing.

“Finished? Now again to work! ” He gave the order.

“Uh-huh! And now my favourite subject — veterinary magic! ” Vanka Valyalkin said happily, pulling off from the benches the friends grown heavy from satiety.

“Oh yes! Treat teeth in harpies —always dreamed about such work. With the thumb, with the little finger — why waste time on trifles? ” The passing Coffinia Cryptova snorted.

“She somehow cannot forget the last project, ” explained Vanka. “And the matter is really simple, must get the beast to trust you, suggest to it that you will not harm but want to help it. Here Tararakh, our instructor, turns out first-rate...”

This Tararakh actually turned out to be marvellous, so marvellous that Tanya totally shared the enthusiasm of Vanka Valyalkin. True, the first minute she did not greatly like Tararakh — she was even frightened, when into the large hall with barred windows, where it smelled strongly of dragon dung, at first was rolled in a large barrel, and then someone, nudging this barrel from behind, started to yell straight from the threshold: “Look out or you’ll get run over! ”

Having rolled the barrel to the middle of the class, the possessor of the loud voice with Herculean panting guided it into a vertical position and came out from behind it. Tanya stared at him thunder-struck. Tararakh was short, bowlegged, but so broad-shouldered that it seemed he was wider than tall. His hair was long, never combed, eyes black like two olives, and the lower jaw seemed simply enormous.

“Hello, newbie! ” Tararakh said cheerfully, waving a hand in welcome at her. “Today we’re treating mermaids. Carp louse nibbles them to death, the poor wretch; therefore they’re all terribly mean. So, it means, when I open the barrel, don’t poke your nose close. They’re reasonable, but only not quite. Must be careful! And don’t let a mermaid tickle you, or then it will tickle you to death! Clear? ”

“Clear! ” Vanka answered for everyone.

“Excellent! Let’s go! ”

Tararakh decisively pulled the cover off the barrel, and instantly a pale girl with loose green hair showed herself.

“Phew, how she reeks of fish! It’ll now turn me inside out! ” Coffinia said with disgust, pinching her nose.

The mermaid started to laugh unpleasantly and, splashing with her tail, neatly splashed Coffinia with water from the barrel. Moreover, it also reached Rite On-The-Sly, one of Coffinia’s friends looming close-by.

“Ah-ah! What has she done! ” Coffinia began to yell, jumping aside to a far corner of the hall.

“No matter, you’ll dry! Shouldn’t you be pleasant to her? We have such a beauty in her, and you say: she smells of fish! ” Tararakh said.

It was worthwhile for the mermaid to hear a compliment, as she instantly stopped hitting on the water with her tail and began to spruce herself up, giggling in embarrassment and repairing her hair.

Tararakh demonstrated how to prepare a solution for killing carp louse from fir cones, dandelion roots, and poisonous buttercup flowers, and deftly cleansed the mermaid’s tail with it.

“You saw? ” He asked. “And now your turn. Whom have I not summoned for a long time? Dollova! ”

Unwillingly dragging herself to the board, Dusya tried to do the same as Tararakh, but the mermaid suddenly gripped her hand and started to tickle her, and in such a way that Dusya’s eyes stuck out of her forehead.

“Well-well, calm down! ” Tararakh ordered, sending Dusya to her place. “It’s because you took her by the fin! Don’t touch mermaids by the fins, they don’t like it! But here by the scales as much as you like! Who’s next? ”

The lesson flew unnoticeably. In any case, for Tanya. Although many blacks and even some of the whites, she felt, were not too pleased.

“Well that’s it for now! I hope you understand everything about mermaids, ” Tararakh said, after glancing at the clock. “For next class I ask everyone to appear in helmets. We’ll change Pegasus’ shoes, and it, the old fox, kicks wonderfully with its rear left...”

The children began to disperse. Tanya together with Vanka approached Tararakh, who was nudging the mermaid into the barrel.

“Ugh, help, children! Will have to release her into the pond! ” He puffed, trying to close the cover on the cackling mermaid. This he finally succeeded, and, having deftly jumped up, sat on the barrel.

“Tararakh, this is Tanya Grotter! ” Vanka Valyalkin said.

“Uh-huh, thought so! Won’t confuse you with anyone else, ” he nodded.

Understanding that he had her birthmark in mind, Tanya wanted to feel offended, but for some reason she could not. It was not possible for Tararakh to conceal malice — he was so cheerful.

“Probably you want to find out why I’m so strange? ” The instructor of veterinary magic continued. “The jaw is heavy and all that? Indeed I’m not a magician at all — neither white nor black. I’m a pithecanthropus.”

“A pithecanthropus? But they lived awfully long ago! ”

Tararakh smiled. His teeth were very large and powerful, although uneven.

“You see, what kind of story turned out... Well, we likely brought down somebody, and it turned out to be a white dragon — very rare. Even among the dragons such is one in a million. Well I found this out later, probably after several thousand years. But at the time we simply wanted to gorge... And the rest who ate the dragon with me were shorter, less lucky. First they swelled up like balloons, and then — bang! Good that the pithecanthropus is not nervous in general or somebody would definitely faint... Later I was indeed told that white dragons could not exist in any case. Only eat one piece near the tail and you get immortality. So I toiled until finally Sardanapal picked me and I learn to care for magic creatures. I like this work very much.”

Unexpectedly Tararakh, as if recalling something, grew gloomy.

“Here’s another thing, children. Don’t poke your nose into the basements and tell others not to either.”

“You’re talking about the Walled-up Basement, where the Hair is? ” Vanka asked.

Tararakh shook his head:

“No... there you’ll not go either: all the passages are blocked there. I’m talking about the lower basements, where the Sinister Gates are... Something has begun to shake lately: as if someone is forcing his way through from that side. I told Sardanapal and he says: indeed, don’t be alarmed. But I know that you don’t joke with the Sinister Gates! Well I’m going...” Tararakh energetically tipped the barrel and rolled it to the exit. The mermaid inside was laughing loudly: she probably liked to tumble.

Returning from lessons, Vanka and Tanya discussed what they recently heard.

“And what are these Sinister Gates? ” Tanya asked.

“Enormous copper gates. Beyond them the jails begin exactly... Well, where they imprison spirits of Chaos and ancient gods. If they escaped, what nightmare would start. Everything would turn upside down, and how much blood would be spilled — rivers. But only don’t be alarmed: the Sinister Gates will never be opened. The cyclopes guard them, and generally Sardanapal also keeps an eye on them.”

“And if someone nevertheless contrives to open them? ” Tanya asked.

“But they tell you it’s impossible! ” Vanka repeated. “Still the Hair exists! In reality everything is supported by it, and the Gates only ensure. But if something happens to the Hair, then only the Gates will save everything from Chaos. Shh, you hear? Someone’s coming! ”

Behind the turn of the corridor someone’s footsteps were shuffling.

“I’ll show you how to shoot at the ceremonial portrait of The Ancient One! I’ll have you know, piglet! ” A raspy voice was heard. Along the corridor, dragging the ear of a leaning little cupid, stomped Slander Slanderych.

Having almost flown into Tanya and Vanka Valyalkin, the dean very sternly looked at them and released the little cupid, breaking his bow beforehand. Picking up the fragments from the floor, the little one began to roar and took off, fluttering his little white wings and rubbing that ear crushed like a dumpling.

“I’ll show you! You’ll know how to break bows! ” He threatened Slander and, straightening the red suspenders, darted away into the window.

“Interesting, what was Slander doing here? Did he come to admire the portrait of The Ancient One? ” Tanya wondered when the dean disappeared.

“Of course not. He was probably on the Vanishing Floor and on his way back there, ” assumed Vanka.

“The Vanishing Floor? ” Tanya again asked. Vanka hesitated mysteriously.

“It’s one of the riddles of Tibidox. The whole day it’s a floor like any floor, and then suddenly it disappears heaven knows where. Snap — it’s gone. The stairs abruptly come to an end, and further is white fog and void. Imagine? Then after some time the Floor again appears, and everything is likely in place: statues, pictures, but if someone was there or even some of the magicians, then that’s it. Those who disappeared together with the floor never returned.”

“But Sardanapal? He also cannot retrieve them? ” Tanya was astonished. For some reason it seemed to her that Sardanapal was all-powerful. Not without reason everybody said that he was the greatest magician since The Ancient One.

Vanka shook his head:

“Neither Sardanapal nor Medusa, no one... They say here’s some special form of magic. Even not magic, but generally something incomprehensible. The only thing they did, — they blocked up the Floor with this spell that not a single student could penetrate there... But nevertheless there was the case when two idlers from third year found their way there... True, this was already ten years ago.”

“And then what? ”

“And then nothing. No one has seen them since although there are various rumours, especially among the ghosts...”

Tanya shivered.

“And Slander is not afraid to go there? ”

“Don’t know. Maybe he knows the precise time when the Floor disappears next, and perhaps hides something there... With this Slander you understand nothing at all. Like he’s black but sometimes uses white magic. All of Tibidox knows like their own five fingers that he wanders along the basements at night. Slippery character... And what kind of gaze he has — exactly like a drill, ” Vanka said, shuddering.

Recalling Slander’s icy glance literally freezing her at their first meeting, Tanya could not but agree with him.

* * *

In the evening when the clock hanging in the drawing room was persistently pointing to the pillow and emitting unpleasant squeaky sounds, thus shaking from the disturbance, Shurasik suddenly went out to the middle of the room and in a trembling voice asked everyone not to break up.

“Oho-ho! Now it’ll be something! ” Coffinia snorted. “I bet they’re reading us a three-hour lecture About the benefit of washing feet before bed. Or Theory and practice of cleaning teeth in light of recent discoveries of magic medicine. ”

“Or arranging a dressing-down for me on the story with the boots, ” added Vanka.

On the pale cheeks of Shurasik appeared red spots.

“Please be quiet, please all be quiet... Don’t! ” He exclaimed imploringly. “I want to do nothing of the kind! I want to ask forgiveness. To ask forgiveness of all of you — white and black.

“For what? What are you up to now? ” Bab-Yagun tensed up. “I hope it’s nothing to do with my vacuum? ”

But Shurasik did not even hear him.

“I want to ask forgiveness for myself, for the fact that I am what I am... I... it hurts me that everything turns out so. I’ll without fail try to turn over a new leaf and no longer be such... a boring, haughty know-it-all, ” making an effort with himself, he pronounced.

Bab-Yagun’s jaw even dropped: not too bad, to say such a thing about oneself!

“And nevertheless Shurasik’s a fine fellow! I really wouldn’t be able to do this, and indeed I’m also not without reason! ” He whispered to Tanya.

Meanwhile Shurasik extracted from somewhere a large box filled with clear red cardboard little hearts.

“Here...” Shurasik said in embarrassment. “I made these as gifts. If someone considers that they can be friends with me and take me as I am, please take these little hearts and wear them on your chest... If not, then don’t. Simply I’ll know that you don’t like me and... and... you don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

With downcast eyes, he muttered some spell, and immediately the little hearts, jumping out of the box, began to fly over to everyone, one to each who was in the drawing room. Tanya attentively examined her little heart. On it with the smallest pebbles, selected with a rare skill, was traced “WF.” It was terrible even to imagine how long it took Shurasik to prepare a whole box of them!

“And what’s this ‘WF’? Wacky freak? Witless fool? ” Coffinia was interested, the only one, it seems, on whom Shurasik’s speech did not produce an impression. However, it seemed Coffinia in general could not be touched. Unless to say to her how stunning she was.

“WF — ‘We be friends! ’” Shurasik exclaimed almost with tears. “It means that the one, who wears this little heart of friendship, doesn’t hurt my feelings and doesn’t laugh at me! What, I’m guilty that I am what I am? Why I always have little homework? ”

“It goes without saying that you’re not guilty, ” Vanka encouraged him and was the first to pin the little badge to his soccer shirt.

After this Bab-Yagun, Rita On-The-Sly, Dusya Dollova, and also all the others did the same. Tanya sighed and followed the general example. True, to wear on one’s chest a red little heart with the inscription “WF” is indeed awfully absurd. On the other hand, if you do not pin it on — you will inflict terrible insult on Shurasik. Just think: the wretch did not sleep for several nights: cut out and glued these little badges!

“I’ll wear it for about two days, and then I’ll lose it the first chance, ” she thought.

Of all who were in the drawing room, only Coffinia and Gunya Glomov did not pin on the little hearts; however, they also did not intend to return them to Shurasik.

“I, perhaps, will pin mine on Black Curtains! They’ll be extremely pleased to receive this small present! ” Coffinia stated.

On hearing this, Shurasik flared up from the insult. He was about to rush to Coffinia in order to take away her badge, but suddenly his eyes started to roll, and he collapsed in a faint. Coffinia twirled a finger by her temple and, shoving the little heart into her pocket, left. Gunya Glomov reached out for her. Soon the rest dispersed, including Shurasik, coming to, madly batting his eyelashes, repeating: “Where am I? ”

“You know, ” Vanka said pensively, accompanying Tanya to her room, “I’ll not tease Shurasik anymore. I didn’t suspect that he suffers so deeply.”