Running into the room, the best deputy saw that his wife, covering her mouth with her hand, was frozen at the door.
“Ninelie, which happened?”
“M-m-m! M-there!” Aunt Ninel mumbled in horror.
Uncle Herman rather cowardly glanced into the wardrobe. Things were chewed up and soaked with sticky mucus. Mucus was dripping from both his new black coat and his spouse’s evening gown. The smell issuing from them was so loathsome that Uncle Herman instantly understood why his wife was holding a hand to her mouth.
“I don’t understand… I took a shirt from here ten minutes ago and everything was in order! And the dog could not have done it, it can’t reach so high to nibble!” the deputy said, puckering. “Nothing is gone?”
Aunt Ninel’s eyes glided along the shelves. She abhorred touching the things with her hands. “No, nothing. Everything’s in place… Although… yes, exactly, no sweater! It was here, underneath!”
“What sweater?”
“Tanya Grotter’s sweater, the one she wore at home! And who would hanker after such junk? It’s disgusting even to wash the floor with it! I’m a fool, why didn’t I immediately throw it out?” Aunt Ninel groaned.
Uncle Herman’s knees buckled and he dejectedly collapsed onto the sofa. No, this in no way resembled an ordinary theft. Especially as even the most adroit pilferer would not know how to penetrate into the apartment through closed doors and the glassed-in balcony, on top of that in the presence of the owners!
“Again this vile Grotter! It’s always her! Her! And why did we take her into the house then? Should have sent her to a settlement even in infancy! No, ship her directly to prison from the maternity ward!” the best deputy groaned.
It did not even enter Durnev’s head that someone besides Tanya herself could steal the sweater, although even this, according to him, disgusting girl would hardly begin to chew on the things of her Uncle Herman at that.
“Good that Pipa is now resting in camp by the sea! We could at least save her from this horror!” Aunt Ninel said, full of suffering.
Soon, having dressed up in one of the suits miraculously left intact, one he had to fish out from the wardrobe with the aid of the mop, Uncle Herman left for the Duma. His clothing, hands, and hair gave off the sharp smell of cologne, which Durnev scented himself with in order to drown out the sickening stink of mucus.
Aunt Ninel summoned the domestic help, who was having a day off, and decisively started cleaning up. After putting masks over their faces, the women extracted everything from the wardrobe and sent them away for dry-cleaning. This was that same dry-cleaner where the workers were still stuttering after the acquaintance with Black Curtains, which they attempted to free from centuries-old magic dust. The domestic help had hardly carried in the enormous bags with the malodorous things, when the receptionist immediately fainted, and the manager locked himself up in the office, weighing whether he should voluntarily turn himself in at the psychiatric hospital.
Meanwhile, Aunt Ninel set off for the glassed-in balcony, where Tanya once lived from spring to late autumn, and conducted a thorough search there. “It’s time to dispose of this girl’s trash! Everything to the last pin!” she muttered, throwing into the garbage can everything that could still remind her of the orphan. Into the garbage went Tanya’s broken pencil case (special thanks to Pipa), water colours, school notebooks, book stands, and all the other things discovered in the wooden locker on the balcony. Aunt Ninel got rid of them with methodical carefulness, at the same time without taking the thick rubber gloves off her hands. “Enough surprises for us! Everything into the dumpster! Everything!” she repeated, tearing up into shreds Tanya’s school diary and furiously ramming the crumpled papers into the can.
When it was the turn of the school bag – a really nightmarish school bag, which you will rarely see even on a first-grader – a charred stump, on which the remains of varnish were still visible, suddenly dropped out of a side pocket. “And what else is this? Some vile stick! She dragged in all kinds of trash!” Aunt Ninel grimaced with disgust. She did not know that this fragment, the old bow of the double bass, flared up in Tanya’s hands during flight. Durneva decisively broke the charred stump with her knee and flung it into the can. She already aimed at sending off the worn boots next when suddenly the garbage can began to tremble, began to shake and… Aunt Ninel heard a ringing voice, which at once filled the entire balcony.
“Oh, my granny mama! With you again I am the resilient, beloved by all and irritating to many commentator Bab-Yagun! The playing commentator, by the way, which is doubly critical! If someone intends to give me an evil eye – forget it at once: I’m secured by Yagge. Furthermore, I have elicited from Dentistikha her best reflecting amulet!
“I am sitting on my dear vacuum, fuelled by splendid rubbish and mermaid scale, and I am prepared for takeoff. There still remains several minutes until the Tibidox – Gandharvas match begins.
“On the Island Buyan – eh-eh… on which palm did I write the crib? – a remarkable July noon. The sun shines like a polished copper basin, and a refreshing breeze blows from the side of the ocean. The hangars shake from dragon roars. From the cracks pours thick black smoke, so familiar to all true fans of dragonball. Several times together with the smoke outside, the howling genies escaped, vanishing into thin air. Personally, I’m not surprised: the dragons have not been fed for a long time so that they will hunt the opposition’s forwards more actively.
“The hero-bouncers Usynya, Gorynya, and Dubynya are sitting between the platforms and angrily mumbling, when someone accidentally steps on their feet. I will reveal the secret of this mumbling. Today a mute spell has been cast on the entire trinity so that it, as has already happened before, would not deafen spectators by its howls. True, pity that there are no spells against assault and battery, otherwise the pair of cyclopes, attempting to force their way to the match without a white ticket – I swear to you, all shielding tickets are white! – would not even run to magic station prior to the beginning of the game…”
Aunt Ninel finally figured out where the voice was coming from. She stared wildly at the speaking rods, staggered, and sat down on the floor so heavily that she almost brought down the balcony. Unhappy daughter of Eve! How could she know that it is not possible to handle magic objects – even those broken and three quarters burnt – so unceremoniously? Now both fragments caught magic radio waves, and the walls of the garbage can served as an amplifier.
With each minute the voice of the garbage can became increasingly louder, increasingly more distinct. It resounded no longer just through the balcony, but also through the entire apartment of the Durnevs, even penetrating through the wall to the neighbours. There behind the wall General Cutletkin was overbearingly tapping with a pencil on the table and studying the price of used toothbrushes. Uncle Herman presented this price to him yesterday with a secret intention.
“The Indian gandharvas are considered some of the favourites of the dragonball world championship,” the brisk voice chattered. “They say, once they began as celestial musicians, playing at the feasts of ancient gods. However, after the ancient gods together with the spirits of chaos were imprisoned in the basements of Tibidox, the gandharvas remained out of work and took up dragonball professionally. It happened that they have defeated even the babai, the Invisibles, and the Bald Mountain witches. I personally am not surprised. Not without reason these half-magician half-birds spend a large part of their life in the air. They came down to earth only to harm people – so it was, in any case, until The Ancient One put prohibition on any magic interference in the life of the moronoids.
“The gandharvas need no magic objects for flight, although for some reason each holds a rounded three-stringed lute. Many suspect, though true, it has not been proven, that they use the lutes for all kinds of forbidden tricks in the field. In any case, even my granny – a fan of five-hundred years! – has never seen the gandharvas part from their lutes.
“The gandharvas are very well-fed. Few of them have less than three chins, and even the tummies are also o-ho-ho! It suggests the thought: have the gandharvas moved from nectar to beer? Short slow-moving wings grow directly from the shoulders.