from under the bookcase at the other end of the room and shouted, “General ordered me to tell you that we’ll show you yet! We retreated on purpose!”
“Just try! We’ll beat you again! Take your stupid Peter and get out of here!” Pookar cupped his hands so that his voice sounded louder.
Gorilla threatened him with a fist and disappeared behind the bookcase.
Chapter Ten
Acquaintance with Scholarchkin
When the toys returned to Olga’s home after the battle with the soldiers, Flamy and Muffin were still asleep. Muffin, according to her mood in general, could sleep all day, waking up only in cases of extreme necessity. Now, the cat was probably dreaming that she was clambering along a tall tree, because she was moving her paws and turning her head in her sleep. Flamy occasionally snored, releasing a small fountain of flame and smoke.
Muffin and Flamy were sleeping soundly. No matter how they were shaken or shouted at, it was all in vain. Finally, a lucky thought came into Olga’s head to clink the lid of a pot above their ears. It worked. Immediately the sleepyheads woke up and began to look around. Olga and Pookar described how they had fought with the soldiers.
“How many were there?” Flamy asked.
“Three…” Pookar, not very strong in arithmetic, counted on his fingers just in case.
“Then it wasn’t Dobrynya Nikitich,” Flamy sighed with relief.
“Who’s this Dobrynya Nikitich?” Pookar asked. “A soldier?”
“I already told you about him! Not a soldier, but a hero.”
“I saw Dobrynya Nikitich in a picture. He’s on a horse and has a sword,” the doll Olga said.
“Precisely… Then one of us ate the horse and left the sword. As I remember now, it was such a huge sword,” said Flamy.
“How big? How many kilometres-metres-centimetres-millimetres?” someone’s thin little voice asked suddenly.
Flamy looked around. “Who said that? Did you, Pookar?” he was surprised.
“Neuh-uh, not me,” Pookar said.
“I did. How many kilometres-metres-centimetres-millimetres was the sword?” the same little voice repeated impatiently.
Everyone saw a stranger in large glasses on a snub nose and a funny red cap standing in the doorway of the dollhouse. The stranger had on a green velvet jacket and black shoes with white laces. He was holding a small briefcase in his hands.
“Who are you?” Olga was astonished.
“Please excuse me!” the guest pronounced stiffly. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m the gnome Scholarchkin, physicist-chemist-mathematician.”
“Are you from the same box as the soldiers?” the doll Olga asked suspiciously.
“No. I had the honour of arriving here in Masha’s schoolbag. Earlier, I lived in the school, but now I’ve decided to leave there. I can’t watch how catastrophically the level of education has fallen,” the gnome said.
Pookar opened his mouth to make a spiteful remark, but Muffin gave him a slight smack with her paw. She was a serious cat and loved to talk about clever subjects.
“I utterly agree with you. A disgrace, simply a disgrace! It was all different in our time. The current generation just doesn’t know what they’re missing,” she meowed, turning to Scholarchkin. The two-year-old cat Muffin never studied anywhere but considered herself terribly highly experienced and grown-up. No one convinced her to the contrary, because Muffin, when angry, immediately began to scratch and bite.
“You have the right views, respectable one! I fully agree with you. May I ask, with whom do I have the honour of talking?” the gnome asked.
“Muffin… That is, Martha,” embarrassed, the cat introduced herself.
“And I’m Flamy!” said the dragonet.
“FLAmy or FlaMY? How should you be correctly struck?” the gnome asked with an air of importance.
The dragon was offended. “No need to strike me. I can surrender!” he growled.
“That’s not what I wanted to say. I’m asking, where is the stress in your name?”
“He’s FLAmy! The stress is on ‘fla’!” clever Olga said. She alone understood what the gnome had in mind.
“I’m Pookar… Olga… He’s Sineus… This is Truvor… That’s the twin hiding behind Olga… Don’t pay any attention, he’s shy…” the friends were introduced.
“Very, very nice… But let’s return to our conversation. So how many metres-kilometres-centimetres was Dobrynya Nikitich’s sword?” the gnome pulled out an abacus from the briefcase and clicked the beads.
Flamy thought for a bit. “I don’t know exactly how many kilothese there were. But it was like this!” He instantly transformed into a sword, big and heavy. It was immediately clear that this was a real sword for a hero. Everybody gasped. They, of course, already knew earlier that Flamy knew how to transform, but when a sword suddenly appeared instead of Flamy, it was impossible not to gasp.
“Curiouser and curiouser! Scientifiker and scientifiker… A curious specimen!” Scholarchkin approved.
The gnome measured the sword with a measuring tape. “Two centimetres three metres five kilometres! To a T,” he said. After clicking the abacus, he took out a small notebook in an emerald binding and recorded the dimensions of the powerful sword.
All the toys, mouths open, watched as the gnome wrote carefully with a red pencil in his little notebook. “Ah! What a poetic look he has… Pity he isn’t a cat…” The cat Muffin was carried away.
Scholarchkin closed the notebook, hid it in the briefcase together with the abacus, and stretched happily. “You have a nice place here! Cosy. Much better than a school desk. I think I’ll stay.”
“Stay, of course. But why did you leave the school? It always seemed to me that it’s nice there,” Olga asked.
“It’s not bad,” Scholarchkin agreed with authority. “But indeed very noisy. Earlier, I suggested the correct answers to those who got twos and they fed me sandwiches. I knew the multiplication table by heart! Imagine! Now, for some reason, I’ve started to forget everything. Three times three is ten. Five times seven is forty-seven. It’s like this every time! Time for a vacation!”
“Where will you live?” Pookar was worried. He liked Scholarchkin, but he did not like the idea at all of that one settling in the boot with him.
“I have a room to spare in the attic. Scholarchkin will be comfortable there. Only have to sweep it,” Olga took the gnome by the hand and led him to see his new home.
Chapter Eleven
The Mysterious Abduction of the Bunny Truvor
The gnome Scholarchkin settled in the attic of the doll Olga’s home. There was no bed,
