able to say anything coherent at all, but he’s doing just fine! He shouldn’t stop talking!” Tanya interceded for Yagun.
Bab-Yagun precisely did not become silent for a moment, working like a true verbal machine gun. “Sardanapal lets out a start spark! Cabins, yurts, and High-rise are rushing forward, scaring arbiters and cyclopes! Here it is – the culmination of the contest! Crowding each other, bumping with wooden sides, the cabins approach the first obstacle. The first to jump into the ditch is Small Matrena’s cabin. On her tail literally hangs Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! After it, barely lagging behind, Solonina Andreevna’s cabin navigates with its feet. One of the yurts is forced to withdraw – deer hooves refuse to climb into the water and stop on the shore. It’s right: you wash, only wash away your luck!”
“First deep thought I’ve heard from him! Isn’t it true, my dear, very exact reasoning? Perhaps, you also don’t sit in the water all the time?” smiling, Slander Slanderych remarked, trying to put his arm around the mermaid’s waist. “Go away, pesky!” the mermaid squealed and playfully lashed the principal’s fingers with her tail.
“The fight has become more intense!” Yagun shouted a little too much. “Who will reach the opposite shore first? What’s this storm? I understand nothing! Ah, it’s High-rise, jumped into the ditch and now forces a crossing of the obstacle. It splashes right to the bottom: the water barely reaches its knees. The ditch overflows its banks! What sprays! Even fell onto my lot! How unlucky for those sitting in the first rows! They’re probably now wetter than frogs!”
“Mock away, lop-eared! Doesn’t matter, after the races he’ll be waiting at mine! Possible to think that he put us here on purpose!” Vanka said angrily. His yellow soccer shirt was sticking to his body. Water was flowing down his hair. His boots were squelching. Tanya was hit not a bit less, but she, comforting herself, attempted to look at the situation from another angle. “It’s okay, Vanka! It’s not all that bad! No dust now!” she comforted Valyalkin. Coffinia, examining the genealogy of the cabins and dousing High-rise with verbal mud up to the chicken great-grandmothers inclusively, was choking with indignation.
“Small Matrena and Solonina Andreevna are the first to reach the wind-fallen logs. Small Matrena’s cabin attempts to jump over the obstacle while running at full speed and topples over. Unlucky cabin! It’s lying with its foundation up and mournfully jerking its feet, trying to hook onto anything. Interesting, how is Matrena there? Will she be able to get herself out or require the help of genies? Somehow, things don’t work out for the Matrenas today, I would say… Solonina Andreevna’s cabin with long thin legs shows more smarts. It clambers directly onto the logs, digging its claws into the bark. Outstanding manoeuvre! Aza Camphorovna’s cabin passes Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head! It’s gathering speed! Will it really also decide on a leap? This is folly! Indeed, doesn’t Small Matrena’s failure teach it anything? An outstanding leap – best of all that I’ve seen! At the very last moment short wings slide out of the dormer windows on the roof of the cabin. The cabin flaps them and manages the obstacle like a laying hen taking off to the fence!”
“Not bad! They’ve passed Solonina Andreevna! Look at Yagge! How she stares at these cabins – and indeed also wet from top to bottom!” Vanka said in rapture. His mood had improved visibly. Having taken from his pocket a cold cutlet, he looked over it thoroughly, removed a thread from the magic tablecloth, and started eating. Bab-Yagun was not mistaken – Vanka adored cutlets. However, his maimed magic tablecloth issued nothing more besides cutlets and cucumbers, so it left him nothing else. “Fat is detrimental!” grimacing, Shurasik remarked. “Too much talk is even more harmful. You’ll catch a cold and die,” said Vanka and stuck his hand into his pocket for the next cutlet, which the magic tablecloth already had time to prepare for him,
“Oh, my granny mama! That beats all! High-rise doesn’t waste time on a leap! After gathering speed on Broiler Legs, it blows off the wind-fallen logs, scattering them like matches! Making use of this, the yurts and Ukrainian huts immediately rush into the breach. Now only the swamp and two cabins – Solonina Andreevna and Aza Camphorovna – separate High-Rise from victory! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head also still hopes for victory. It seems her cabin is employing new tactics! It’s going to let High-Rise pass in front, using it as a live ram, and go around it before the finish! I swear by its bone leg, this is the right tactic! Used it myself now and then in dragonball!”
“Aha! No other way with Goryanov. He takes everyone down indiscriminately. Both us and the visitors,” confirmed Tanya. She involuntarily recalled the last match with the Invisibles. Nightingale O. Robber at training the day before said that two years had already almost elapsed. A new match with the Invisibles, still the champions, could take place already this autumn, if Magciety of Jerky Magtion would not invent new tricks. “And it’s time then to work hard, work, and again work! So that even at night the dragons flicker before yours eyes! First time in two hundred years Tibidox has developed a professional team, and we must not miss the chance!” Nightingale finished his speech this way.
“Solonina Andreevna’s cabin freezes on the edge of the swamp, painstakingly groping with a foot for the mounds. Behind it, Aza Camphorovna’s cabin pushes ahead step by step! Oho, what Aza Camphorovna has come up with! She gets up onto the roof and tests the bottom with a pole! Solonina Andreevna sticks her tongue out at her from the window! Aza Camphorovna answers her with well-aimed spittle! What unsportsmanlike behaviour! The long-legged cabin is already in the middle of the swamp and soon must get out onto the shore… High-Rise, short of breath, is running up to the banks of the swamp. A witch-granny is jumping excitedly in each of its windows and giving advice. The poor broiler brain! Will it manage with this volume of information? High-rise for a while marks time thoughtfully and begins to go back, taking a running start. Leap! The slime flies in different directions! The entire stadium is now already flowing in slime! Even Academician Sardanapal is wiping with his famous shawl of the Milky Way. They say that when the academician sneezes into it, a shower of meteorites appears in all the moronoid telescopes…”
“YAGUN!”
“And why did I say that? It’s altogether only an unverified rumour! Oho! The swamp turned out to be deeper than High-rise assumed! It vanishes in the slush at a depth of the Broiler Legs and sinks in floor after floor. The witch-grannies in panic climb to the roof along the fire escape. Interesting, how will all this end? Aha, after falling in almost to the roof, High-rise nevertheless gropes for the bottom, pushes off, and begins to row! Bravo! Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head’s cabin jumps after it. The substantially shallow swamp no longer hides the mounds. Oh, how careless! One Ukrainian hut, two cabins, and two yurts nevertheless contrive to get stuck in the swamp and blunder their success! The rest have moved onto the shore and are racing to the finish! Who will succeed in being first? In front of all is Solonina Andreevna’s cabin! Lagging far behind it hurries Aza Camphorovna’s cabin covered in slime, on the heels of which pursue Lukerya-Feathers-on-the-Head and High-rise on Broiler Legs. Last trudges Big Matrena’s cabin.”
“Nothing unusual about her trudging! Big Matrena is one-and-a-half times the size of Aunt Ninel!” Tanya remarked thoughtfully. “And three Aunt Ninels equal an elephant,” Vanka qualified, once having seen a photo of Aunt Ninel.
Yagun rose on tiptoes. “The finish line is getting closer! A little more and Solonina Andreevna’s cabin will reach it. Hey, Granny, what are you doing? What did you forget on the field? Someone please detain her, else they’ll trample her!”
Two cyclopes, spreading their arms wide, rushed to Yagge, but the old lady hushed them with a tooth, looked sternly at them, and the cyclopes completely wilted. Yagge ran out onto the field and stopped slightly right of the finish line. “Sashka-messy-slob! Well, recognize me?!” having whistled no worse than Lukerya, she shouted loudly.
“Oh, my granny mama! I’m probably going nuts!” her wonder-struck grandson began to jabber. “Solonina Andreevna’s cabin stands still by the finish line, not stepping over it. It turns to my granny
