egg!” General lied.
Suspicion started to stir on Gorilla’s stupid face. “Then let’s wash hands together! Let the orange lie here for the time being!” he said.
Leaving Grabber on guard, General and Gorilla got out from behind the bookcase and rinsed their hands in a small puddle. The neighbours above left traces of water all over the floor, constantly flooding Masha’s room, and the puddle never dried. After washing, the soldiers rushed to the orange.
“Keep the peel for me!” General was crafty.
“No, for me! Me! Me!” Gorilla argued.
“Well, as you want… I’ll let you have the peel! All right, I’ll take the flesh,” General yielded.
He decided to cheat the simple-minded Gorilla, and he would have succeeded, but when they returned to headquarters, they found that… the ORANGE had disappeared!!!
“Where is it? What have you done with it?” The soldiers pounced on Grabber.
“No one came into the room! No one went near the orange. Only the two of you!” the robot rattled.
Knowing that Grabber could not lie, General and Gorilla stared at each other with suspicion.
“It’s you! You took it!” General lost his temper.
“No, you! Give me my orange quickly!” Gorilla began to shake General like a kitten.
General’s teeth started chattering. “A d-d-dis-s-grac-c-ce! L-let go r-right now! I’m your co-commander!”
Grabber moved around the two and clicked his claws. He did not know whose side to take.
Suddenly laughter rang out above the soldiers’ heads. “Ha-ha! Hiss-hiss! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!”
The soldiers instantly stopped fighting and looked up. Nobody!
“Ha-ha! What fools! Ha-ha!”
It was worthwhile to see the soldiers’ faces at that moment. The helmet flew off General and his mouth opened by itself! Gorilla became red and again stopped articulating “r,” “Help! Spook! Tewible wobber!”
Grabber’s tracks started to turn in different directions. The light bulbs flashed brightly. He fired a sticky at random from the gun barrel at his stomach. The sticky flew away into space and was seen no more.
“What fun! Oh, I can’t, funny!” A cheerful voice rang out near the ceiling.
All of a sudden, one more General, similar to the former, like a twin brother, appeared beside Gorilla. “Hiss-hiss! Klutz! Grab that General! He’s an impostor! Iron, forward!” General growled.
“I’m real! Hands off! Not me, grab him!” The real General was scared.
The two Generals ran around headquarters and got entangled once and for all. Gorilla’s mouth fell open and he could not move. Grabber rushed from one General to the other, clicked his claws, and repeated, “Conflicting data! Conflicting data!”
Then one of the two Generals disappeared and a twin Gorilla appeared instead. “Guard! Substitute! Wun for your life!” the twin shouted.
“Mama! I’m scared!” the real Gorilla yelled and ran right through the wall out of the headquarters made of newspapers. Grabber rolled out after him.
A scared General raced behind. He held his helmet and yelled, “Wait, where are you going? It’s not according to regulations! I should be the first to retreat!”
No sooner had the soldiers run out when a terrible crash was heard. It was Pookar’s anti-guest traps snapping into action. While Flamy was distracting General, Gorilla, and Grabber, Pookar and Olga stretched ropes and built anti-guest traps.
A ripped-open pillow fell on Gorilla. He immediately had a fit of sneezing, clucked incoherently like a harassed chicken, and fired the machine gun until the thumbtacks ran out. Grabber was tangled in the ropes and dangling in the air, turning his tracks. General found himself in an empty jam jar. The jar had been placed sideways, and General had barely run into it when the lid was closed. “Boo-boo! Boo-boo-boo-boo!” came from the jar.
Then the friends freed the bunny Truvor. Sineus and Truvor were so pleased that they were back together that they even started crying. They naturally wiped their tear-stained faces on the doll Olga’s apron.
“Well? You need this!” Olga said severely to the soldiers.
“We won’t do it again! Please forgive us!” Gorilla whimpered, wiping his nose with his huge fist.
“Boo-boo-boo-boo! Boo-boo-boo-boo!” rang out from the jar.
“General says that he’ll try to reform,” Scholarchkin translated.
Flamy flew out of the newspaper house, extremely satisfied. “How did I have them? ‘Bang!’ with the tail. And he, ‘Mama!’ How that one jumps, but the piece of iron, that one generally… How he falls! Hiss-hiss! And this one in the helmet, when he sees me, thinks that it’s him! Great! And I to him, ‘There! Here I am for you!’ And he, ‘Ah-h!’” Although Flamy’s story was incoherent, he had success with the audience. The cat Muffin even asked with an “encore!” for a repeat giving more attention to details.
“What shall we do with the soldiers? Perhaps let them go?” the doll Olga interrupted Flamy.
“Let’s tickle them! Let them tell their military secrets! I like that a lot!” the bunny suggested timidly.
“Mama! I’m afraid of tickling! I’m not playing this way!” Gorilla howled. He hopped away on one leg with tremendous speed, dragging the pillow with him. The second leg was caught in the pillowcase. Grabber ran after him, rumbling his iron interior. Behind them, looking back, ran General. “You forgot me! The boss should retreat first!” he yelled.
“Lost your helmet! Which way?” the friends shouted after him.
After a few days, Peter left for Tula and took the box with the soldiers with him.
Chapter Thirteen
The Picnic on the Roof
For a long time Pookar, Olga, and Scholarchkin could not decide whether to tell Masha about Flamy. However, it all happened by itself.
“Hiss-hiss! I can’t hide my whole life. After all, she isn’t Dobrynya Nikitich. Why shouldn’t we meet? I think my mama wouldn’t mind,” Flamy said.
“But you could become invisible,” the doll Olga proposed cautiously.
“It’s boring to be invisible all the time! Everyone looks at you like at an empty spot. Pity!” Flamy was upset.
“Well, then go, meet, once you’ve made up your mind! You’ll die from uncertainty!” said Pookar.
When Masha was home, Flamy got out of the cabinet, where he was hiding. He walked over to the girl and nudged her with his head.
“Don’t bother me, Muffin! Can’t you see that I’m busy?” Masha said, thinking that it was the cat. However, she still looked down
