The Protection Potion

The next day before dinner Slander Slanderych assembled everyone in the Hall of Two Elements. His puffy face shook from anger, and under the eyes were bags. Tanya surmised that he did not sleep all night, watching the stairs leading from the teachers’ floor to the basement. Next to the dean stood Academician Chernomorov and Medusa, looking not a bit less stern. However, the severe look did not prevent Medusa from puckering and moving away from Slander, exuding a sharp and unpleasant smell. It was likely that again as on that night when Tanya saw him in the Tower of Ghosts, he had rubbed himself with something stinky.

“Last night something scandalous took place! ” Looking around at everybody with an intent gaze of his gimlet eyes, Slander Slanderych announced. “Someone from the students penetrated to the teachers’ floor, into the office of our most respectable associate the dearest Professor Stinktopp. No one wants to come forward? Well? I’m counting to three... One... two...”

Tanya fearfully shrank. It seemed to her that the gaze of the dean sliding onto her pierced her right through. Really he knows? But from where? Bab-Yagun and Vanka Valyalkin were also clearly worried. Tanya did not see Vanka, but the ears of Bab-Yagun, sitting in front, were blinking like semaphores.

“Three... It means no one wants to come forward? ” Slander hissed threateningly. “Okay, you can keep quiet longer. Fortunately for the burglars, they stole nothing. If they had tried to do this, then they would have instantly perished. So, in any case, Professor, confirm for us. Is that so? ”

Stinktopp giggled maliciously.

“Vell, yes, I protect my properties. Vhat’s zis here? Efferyvhere in my office vas taut viz outstanding black spells... Anyone vho penetrates into ze office in my absences in ze middle of ze night vould immediately become ashes. I can’t imagine at all how he escaped? Eizer it’s a fery powerful magician, or I don’t know at all vhat ze trick is here. Perhaps, he’s all incinerated and ve simply do not notice ze ashes on ze floor? ”

Sardanapal looked reproachfully at Stinktopp.

“I didn’t know about your spells! Does it not seem to you that it’s excessive? ” He shouted with indignation. “I want to remind you that Tibidox is a school! Anyone and for any reason should be able to get to you! I order you to immediately remove all fatal traps and replace them with weaker and safer ones, or I’ll do it for you! ”

Stinktopp sourly looked sideways at Sarnanapal; however, he did not begin to argue. In any case, not in front of everybody. Tanya heard only how he grumbled unhappily:

“Nefferzeless incomprehensible vhy they failed to function? Someone fery deftly neutralized all ze black magic.”

“In that case it could not be the children! No child has such power, especially you yourself make sure that no one got up from the basement, and all the students, as you see, are present, ” raising her voice and turning immediately to Stinktopp and Slander, Medusa asserted.

Those two wanted to object, but the hair on the head of the senior lecturer Gorgonova had raisen so threateningly upright that Stinktopp and Slander preferred to be silent. That Sardanapal was on the side of Medusa also held them back from the dispute.

“Okay, you can have dinner! But we’ll still return to this conversation! ” The dean bellowed and, having abruptly turned on his heels, ran out of the hall.

For the first time dinner took place sombrely, in funeral silence. Even the two fine fellows from the casket did not know how to cheer up anyone in spite of all efforts. Then after dinner Vanka Valyalkin and Bab-Yagun literally attacked Tanya with questions.

“How did you manage to survive? You heard what Stinktopp said? Everywhere there was black magic! How did you lift it? ”

“But I lifted nothing! ” Tanya shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps, it was at the table? I did not approach the table.”

“No, Stinktopp definitely indicated that magic was everywhere. You should have perished but didn’t. It means, you defused all the spells, besides white, but how’s this? You’ll not tell us? ” Bab-Yagun drawled thoughtfully.

“But I don’t know! I DO NOT KNOW! ” Tanya shouted. Vanka and Bab-Yagun began to blink.

“Okay, you don’t want to tell — no need to, ” Bab-Yagun said resentfully and, turning away, left.

Vanka sadly looked at Tanya for a while and then growled: “Bye! Got to go! ” And raced to Tararakh. Tanya recalled that after dinner they intended to treat the firebirds, whose plumage began to grow dim drastically in recent days.

Tanya dejectedly sunk directly onto the floor. Even close friends do not believe her. They think that she wants to conceal an important secret from them. Would it be more pleasant for them if the spell of Slander had worked and turned her into ashes?

Fortunately, soon Bab-Yagun and Vanka thawed and came first to her to be reconciled. Vanka’s forefinger was wound in a thick layer of bandage. He described with laughter how the firebird, which did not like the treatment prescribed by Tararakh, pecked him.

“To be sure! Who likes it when they rub you with saliva of kikimora! Then how they began to shine! Simply like New Year trees! ” He exclaimed.

Bab-Yagun looked at Vanka and shook his head:

“Well! Possible to think you treated not firebirds but harpies! They indeed tore your soccer shirt again! There from behind and here...”

Vanka stared at his own yellow soccer shirt, obviously had only now noticed that it was literally cut to shreds by the claws of the firebirds.

“It’s when I held them and Tararakh smeared them. And I didn’t even notice...” he said dejectedly.

“What’s with you? It’s simply a soccer shirt... Such are sold in bulk! ” Tanya tried to calm him.

Vanka raised his eyes to her and then immediately turned away.

“You don’t understand... This soccer shirt... Papa gave it to me as a present when he was still almost sober. I remember, it was an outstanding day. We went to the circus, ate a heap of ice cream, and then in the circus there was this soccer shirt...” Vanka growled. His lips trembled suspiciously.

Even tactless Bab-Yagun, who in another time would definitely call Vanka a whining girl, held his tongue. Tanya looked at the soccer shirt. Although the claws of the firebirds had quite a day, it was still possible to save it.

“I’ll patch it up. Take it off and bring it to me, ” she ordered, sending Vanka off to change clothes.

* * *

Imperceptibly evening approached. The clock in the drawing room already began to creak disgustingly, which was usually before they gathered in earnest to give the command “Break up! ” when suddenly from the street was heard the flapping of wings. Two little cupids, sagging in the air from the weight, dragged into the window a tremendous box covered with dark-blue paper.

“Look! A message has arrived for someone! What if it’s for me? ” Dusya Dollova yelled enthusiastically.

However, the little cupids, looking around in a business-like manner, decisively made their way to Tanya and dropped the box directly on her knees.

“Well, of course, always Grotter! She walks around here as the favourite, the unlucky orphan! Auntie, give me a kopeck! ” Coffinia snorted with envy.

Tanya with difficulty held herself in control to not present her with a kick. She was stopped only by the little cupids, who, not letting her open the box, sweetly somersaulted in the air and begged for candy for the work.

“Better pay them off or they’ll make you fall in love with someone. At least it happens to Shurasik. Just let them release an arrow into someone, ” advised the long-nosed Verka Parrotova, nodding to the little cupids’ small bows hanging on the side.

Looking around at Shurasik, Tanya with surprise noticed that he reddened like a tomato.

Borrowing candies from Dusya Dollova, Tanya gave them to the messengers, and they, dividing them up in flight, flew out the window.

Only then could Tanya finally unwrap the paper quietly. Inside it turned out to be a long cardboard box. Trying to guess what could be lying there, Tanya opened it and... screamed. Pleasure was instantly spoilt. An hourglass glided into her hands — the same that she saw in the mirror in Stinktopp’s office. Only a little bit of sand remained. And that was steadily dwindling, although it was running down as a thin stream not thicker than a hair.

No one among those crowding around Tanya glancing with curiosity under her hand had time yet to grasp what happened, but she already gripped the box and, after making a sign to Bab-Yagun and Vanka, whispered to them:

“We must go somewhere... Fast... Only not to my room, there Coffinia will butt in.”

“Then here! ” In a flash Bab-Yagun found his bearings, his room was right next door, and he dashed to open the door.

Tanya turned up in Bab-Yagun’s for the first time. Nightmarish disorder reigned in his room. Clothing, notebooks, and textbooks were lying around on the floor. Then the vacuum — new and sparkling — completely occupied the entire table.

“Hey, but you have a mess here! Was someone here? ” Tanya was frightened, deciding that the harmful swamp bogey also came unexpectedly to Bab-Yagun.

“No...” The grandson of Yagge dismissed it. “I was simply searching for something to clean the vacuum with, then I wiped it with the ceremonial robe there, all the same the end of the year is not here yet... Oho, what a clock! Who sent it to you? ”

“It’s the same that I saw with Plague-del-Cake! I’m sure it’s her last warning! Did the cupids really see her? ” Tanya barely uttered.

Bab-Yagun, shivering when she uttered the hateful name, shook his head:

“No, cupids are not evil spirits. They don’t like She-Who-Is-No-More and have nothing to do with her. Most likely someone simply summoned them — there is this special whistle — and they found this box, and on it... now let us look...” Vanka unrolled the dark-blue paper with a rustle. — Aha! I thought so! It reads: Deliver to Tanya Grotter. Residence floor, room with Black Curtains. The cupids obviously flew there also, but saw you in the drawing room and immediately returned.”

“And what am I to do with it now? ” Tanya asked perplexedly. “For sure there’s some magic in it. Perhaps, break it? ”

“Don’t take it into your head, it can be even worse! ” Bab-Yagun was frightened. “Better leave it here, I’ll then take it to granny. She’ll look into what it’s for... Hey, you hear? What’s happening there? ”

Unexpectedly someone lightly knocked on the door, and then it was opened, and in glanced... Yes, it was Sardanapal himself. Both his moustaches puffed out sternly and significantly. The friends stiffened. The appearance of the academician on the residential floor in the children’s bedrooms could mean only one thing: something extraordinary had happened. Sardanapal glanced for a moment at the hourglass, which was still in the hands of Tanya, and slightly raised his eyebrows.

“I’m waiting for you in the drawing room! Quick! ” He said, disappearing, and in several seconds the children heard that he was knocking on the next door. It meant Sardanapal was assembling everyone and not only the three of them. Understanding this, the friends experienced relief.

Gathered in the drawing room, the children saw that directly on the carpet was a large cauldron in which was boiling some viscous, unpleasantly reeking liquid.

“If I have to drink it, I’ll immediately faint with a crash! ” Coffinia warned. “I’ll even try to beat Shurasik to it, although it would not be easy.”

“Everyone will drink this without exception! Including you, Cryptova, ” Sardanapal broke her off.

His voice sounded so inflexible that no one argued. It seemed before them now was a totally different Sardanapal — not that calm and all-forgiving head of Tibidox that they all knew. Even his bearing had changed. “So that’s what he is, the greatest magician! ” Tanya thought not without admiration.

Meanwhile Sardanapal gave everyone a spoon.

“Tastes awful, I immediately warn you! I’ll not say what it’s prepared from, — you’ll drink more comfortably! ” He informed them.

“But at least what would it be for? ” Verka Parrotova asked timidly.

Almost simultaneously with her posing this question, the walls of the Big Tower trembled. It was heard how the cyclopes rushed stomping along the first floor, setting off for the basement. The academician merely winced, but, likely he was completely not surprised.

“In this cauldron is a protection potion, very strong. After that story with the Hair and many other events about which you don’t even know, I want to be certain that nothing bad will happen to you. And now drink! ”

Pinching their noses, everybody began to scoop out the potion and swallow it.

“Bl-ah! It’s even worse than I thought! ” Coffinia flinched, and Gunya Glomov in confirmation of her words made a dismal face.

At that moment, when Tanya had already brought the spoon to the mouth, her hand suddenly trembled and she spilled everything onto her chest. In this instant practically everybody grimaced, having already swallowed the malodorous tincture, and no one noticed this. Tanya wanted to scoop from the cauldron again, but Sardanapal already whispered something, releasing a spark. The cauldron disappeared.

“Did you drink? ” He asked Tanya.

“Aha, ” she answered before she had time to grasp that she had lied. But having lied, it was already awkward to correct herself.

“Well, good. And now to sleep...” the academician said, somehow smiling mysteriously. “This night will be long, very long...”

* * *

Soon after Sardanapal left, Bab-Yagun slipped right behind him and, by a sign showed Tanya that he was taking her hourglass to Yagge. Tanya wanted to break into a run after Bab-Yagun, but Shurasik, embarrassed, already approached her.

“And where’s your pin? Why aren’t you wearing it? ” He asked.

“Eh-eh... It seems, I lost it somewhere, ” Tanya impatiently answered, looking sideways after the moving away Bab-Yagun. “But indeed you’re also not wearing yours.”

Shurasik frowned.

“I’m a different matter... Then they’ll say that I make friends with myself. Wait, I’ll bring you a new one! ”

“No need! ” Unable to control herself, Tanya began to yell, but, after glancing at Shurasik, she recollected suddenly and affectionately slapped him on the shoulder: — You didn’t understand me. This means nothing. You are very nice, and I’m totally not laughing at you. And without this idio... very nice little heart. But now I have to run. Good night! Hop-hop! ”

Waving her hand at Shurasik and forgetting him in a flash, she rushed along the corridor after Bab-Yagun, but he had already disappeared somewhere, and Tanya did not yet know Tibidox so well as to find the magic station on her own.

Heaving a sigh, she set off for her room in order to finish her lessons. According to the timetable there was another dragonball training tomorrow; therefore it was necessary to cram everything also for the day after tomorrow. Especially as Dentistikha, as if having gone crazy, assigned to them each time four chapters, not counting the number of spells, which must be learnt by heart.

Shurasik, still like a dummy, knocked on her door, and Tanya pretended that she did not notice it. “It must be that he’s fallen in love with me! I’m lucky with these Genok Bulonovs! ” She thought.

Coffinia, yawning, had already lain down to sleep. Discovering that Tanya intended to be occupied, she kicked up a row and calmed down only when Tanya promised to guard her from Black Curtains.

“And what kind of nonsense will you be dreaming today? Likely Yurka Idiotsyudov with a bouquet of burdock, galloping astride on Gunya Glomov to make a declaration of love to you, ” Tanya minced her words, and Coffinia in a hurry held her tongue.

“Only don’t tell anyone anymore, or I’ll put an evil eye on you...” She growled, dived under the blanket, and soon, judging by the happy expression of her face, started to dream the same dream.

Black Curtains started to snigger nastily and from their own bitchiness even got tied up in a bundle.

Tanya finished evil spirits studies, copied several recipes for practical magic and already undertook to sew Vanka’s soccer shirt, when suddenly she sensed... Even she herself could not clearly describe what precisely... A vague anxiety suddenly poured out from the tip of her nose and along her entire body... Tanya could not stay in one place and leaped up. Coffinia as if nothing had happened was breathing heavily on the bed, Black Curtains limply stirred, evidently calculating how to play planks on them. Everything was seemingly calm, but here the anxiety would not go away anywhere and only increased in strength.

Suddenly there was a short knock on the door and Tanya heard the agitated voice of Bab-Yagun asking her to open it.

Tanya opened. Bab-Yagun, pale as a corpse, leaned against the wall.

“Listen! I asked granny about the protection potion. She says that such actually exists, but sweet to taste. And from the fact that Sardanapal gave it to us, it almost shook me to the core! ” He said with difficulty.

“So, it means, the potion was not...”

“Right, not protection... Sardanapal under the guise gave us something different... And you know, I’m feeling strange somehow...” Bab-Yagun shook and slipped down along the wall to the floor. The hourglass, which he was holding in his hand, fell and broke with a faint plop. However, even without that it was already clear that all the sand had dripped down... Time had run out...

Tanya rushed to Bab-Yagun and began to pull at him, but the body of Bab-Yagun, lying on the carpet, precisely hardened. It was hard and stiff. Tanya carefully knocked on his hand, and the hand of Bab-Yagun answered with a knock like a wooden door or a tabletop. Pressing her ear against his chest, Tanya heard that the heart of Bab-Yagun was ticking, but it was beating sparsely and indistinctly.

“Hey, get up! Run to the magic station! And you wake up! Trouble! ” Tanya yelled, rushing to the bed and beginning to shake Coffinia.

But her roommate stubbornly did not open her eyes, and even in a minute Tanya suddenly understood that Coffinia’s hand, which she was shaking, was as heavy and stiff as Bab-Yagun’s. Seized by a terrible suspicion, she rushed into the adjacent bedroom, to Dusya Dollova and Verka Parrotova, and, whispering the break-in spell Fogus sneakus, dived in there. Dusya Dollova and Verka Parrotova were lying on their beds motionless like statues.

“ This night will be long, very long! ” Tanya recalled the words of Sardanapal and his incomprehensible chuckle. Why did he say so? Did his words have some hidden meaning? Now the answer to these questions was already clear.

Tanya ran by several more rooms, but it was the same everywhere. Everyone who had drunk Sardanapal’s potion in the evening became stiff and barely gave any signs of life, if we do not consider the weak palpitation. Really could Sardanapal have gone to the side of Plague-del-Cake, he, the founder of Tibidox? And they, fools, still suspected Slander Slanderych and Professor Stinktopp. As if the prophecy did not clearly warn:

Guile of immortals not possible to reckon –

Even the one who cannot will commit treason.

“And really Sardanapal could betray? Certainly not... Here the prophecy also came true, ” Tanya thought. She did not notice how she turned up in her own room again. Her legs brought her. From the broken hourglass emerged a bluish fog, forming into shaky, unpleasant outlines of letters:

I hope you already saw what the Wooden Fiend is capable of. Now no one will interfere with me. Tonight after midnight I will open the Sinister Gates. Plague-del-Cake.

Tanya involuntarily glanced at the clock. The only hand already approached the highest line. No more than ten minutes left till midnight. Plague-del-Cake, vile monster escaped from the jails of Tibidox, the killer of her parents, was already below. Soon she would open the gates, and then Chaos would gush out in a wide stream into the world.

Suddenly Tanya shook. It seemed to her as if the book of her memory, closed from infancy, was thrown open to the first pages of life. In the girl’s ears voices persistently began to sound:

“ Oh, what a dark-complexioned baby! Come to the hands of Auntie Plague! And you, Grotter, stop, if you want to live! ” Someone wheezed.

“ Get away! Don’t touch the girl! ” A male voice shouted.

Disgusting squeaky laughter — and almost immediately a high female screech, after which Tanya heard a child’s crying — her own crying.

“ Here to you! Take it! ” The man shouted. A faint crackle was heard, the kind when you release sparks. A whole shower of sparks. The ring on Tanya’s finger was red-hot.

“ Sparks? Really you think that this green shower and sickly white spells will hurt me? Crawl, my little scorpion! Kill her before their eyes!

“ And later... later you will return to me what is necessary to me! ” Someone hissed.

Earlier Tanya had never experienced hatred for anyone. Even Aunt Ninel and Pipa, frequently insulting her, did not provoke in her this feeling. She did not love them, but no more than that. No, she will not forgive Plague-del-Cake for the death of her parents, she will not let her open the Sinister Gates.

Afraid that she did not have time, Tanya rushed to the magic double bass. She took it, but she suddenly recalled that all flight spells are blocked in the corridors of Tibidox. The girl already began to put the case back when her hand stumbled upon the clay jug. She grabbed it and jumped out of the room.

“Hey, where are you going? I heard how you slammed the doors... What, elephants chasing you? ” Someone hailed her.

Vanka Valyalkin looked sleepily from the room. Without his yellow soccer shirt, in the usual training robe of white magicians he looked somehow unusual.

“It’s all Sardanapal! You’re really not stiff? He put everyone to sleep with his potion! You remember his words about the ‘long night’? ” Tanya shouted.

“Yes? Well, so... You know me. I can gobble up anything I want. Potions also don’t act on me. I was indeed born so, ” said Vanka, not without pride looking sideways at his hollow stomach.

The clock wheezed, preparing to strike midnight.

“Quick, to the basement! There’s Plague! She wants to open the gates! ” Tanya darted from the place.

“Wait, it’s impossible! There are the heroes and the cyclopes... Wait, at least I’ll put shoes on... Well okay, barefeet! ” And Vanka Valyalkin dashed after Tanya. His pink heels resonantly thumped on the carpet.