no fear. It’ll all be done on the sly, no cry,” Pookar calmed her.
The bell rang and Pirozhkov darted to the peephole. The peephole was Peter Petrovich’s favourite surveillance station. Even when they were not ringing his apartment but the neighbour’s, he would then spy on who and why. However, now he saw nothing through the peephole and realized that whoever was hiding behind the door was small. On running to the door and opening it, Pirozhkov managed to see someone’s legs running into the elevator, which quickly went up.
“Nasty neighbourhood kids being naughty. Well, I’ll fix them! I’ll be on the watch, catch them, and then take them to their parents!” Pirozhkov decided. He quickly ran up the stairs, catching up with the elevator. “Now I’ll show you! You’ll remember me until your discharge from the hospital, you little brats!” Pirozhkov shouted.
Masha was horrified and looked at Pookar reproachfully. Masha was a cautious girl and wished that they had not started all this.
However, Pookar did not seem in the least worried. “The game’s just beginning! Now we’ll have a race of old men in slippers in the opposite direction! On your mark! Get set! Go!” he said. He pressed the “Stop” button and sent the elevator down.
“How do you know what buttons to push?” Olga was surprised.
“I operate by scientific poke and prod. Press all the buttons in a row. Maybe some will work,” Pookar explained. He stopped the elevator on the eighth floor and started to ring Pirozhkov’s doorbell continuously.
Meanwhile, Pirozhkov, craftily lurking on the last floor, was waiting for the kids to get closer. He heard the doorbell of his apartment and realized that he had been taken in. Besides, he remembered that he had forgotten to close the door and did not even bring the key with him.
Pirozhkov rushed down the stairs, shouting, “Now I’ll show you! You and your parents will be evicted, mark my words!”
While Pookar was ringing Pirozhkov’s doorbell, the elevator left. The pranksters quickly looked around to see where they could hide. A footfall along the stairs was approaching. It seemed that Pirozhkov was about to drop onto their heads. At the last minute Masha, Muffin, Pookar, and Olga managed to climb down a few steps and hid behind the garbage chute.
Pirozhkov, breathing hard, came running onto the landing and looked around. “Where did they go? I’ll find out who it is!” He hurried to his apartment to look out the window, waiting for the pranksters to go out the entrance.
Masha sighed with relief. “Phew, got away with it! Almost got caught! I won’t play this stupid game anymore!”
Pookar nodded agreement. “Fine, we won’t play this! We’ll play stretch.”
Before Masha could stop the up-to-mischief Pookar, he instantly pulled out of the garbage chute a piece of thick rope and firmly tied it to the handles of the two opposite doors – Pirozhkov’s apartment and the one across the landing. Both doors opened in, so when one started to pull in, the other door would slam shut.
“Now the fun begins!” Pookar exclaimed and rang both doorbells.
It is necessary to say that in the opposite apartment lived a saleslady of the supermarket dairy department by the name of Avdokhina. This was a wiry moustached female with a shrill voice, who could scream so loudly that even Pirozhkov was afraid of her. Avdokhina and Pirozhkov argued all the time and often spied on each other through the peepholes. They were so similar that they could not get along.
When Avdokhina heard the doorbell, she went to the door and abruptly pulled the handle towards herself. Shortly before that, she had heard Pirozhkov’s indignant voice on the stairs and now decided that he had come to swear. However, the door did not budge. The rope was hindering it.
“Is that so!” Avdokhina shouted and leaned hard on the handle. But she succeeded in opening the door only a very little. With this, she slammed shut the door of Pirozhkov, who was also trying to look out on to the landing.
“Aha, got caught! Holding the door on the outside! Now they won’t have time to escape!” Pirozhkov crowed. He dug his heels in the threshold and began to pull towards himself. Avdokhina felt the tension on the other side and, not to be outdone, leaned all her weight onto the door.
A game of tug of war had begun! Pookar stood in the middle between the neighbouring doors, too short to be seen through the peephole, and watched the scene with interest. Pirozhkov or Avdokhina had to pull with all their might so the door would open a little, but only a little because the rope was short.
“Well, keep it up! Now I have you!” Pirozhkov shouted loudly.
Avdokhina heard this cry and decided that her neighbour was the one who would not let her out of the apartment. “Oh, you scarecrow! Completely lost your mind! Now I’ll get you!” she shouted.
Pirozhkov recognized Avdokhina’s voice and blamed her for everything. He even vaguely suspected that it was Avdokhina who rode the elevator and teased him. “Now I’ll crush you, hooligan! Even a grown woman! Let go of the door now. I’ll tear you to pieces!” Pirozhkov yelled in a voice hoarse from indignation.
Pookar looked at Masha and quietly asked how she liked the new game. Masha shook her head and threatened him with a finger. However, she was glad that they were able to play a trick on Pirozhkov, who was always annoying her parents.
“Let go of the door immediately! I order you!” Pirozhkov yelled.
“Let go yourself!” Avdokhina screamed.
Attracted by the noise, the occupants of the other apartments started to look out. It was time to stop the game. Taking advantage of a short respite of both Avdokhina and Pirozhkov, who were quite exhausted from their exertion, Pookar untied the rope from the door handles, and together with Masha, the cat, and the doll Olga darted away to their own apartment.
There the little imps put their ears to the door and listened. It so happened that Avdokhina and Pirozhkov pulled the door at the same time, counting on a sudden charge to capture the opponent by surprise. They jumped out onto the landing and collided face to face. Each decided that he had caught the other at the scene of the crime.
What happened next, Masha did not manage to find out, because Mama and Papa had returned from visiting. She did not want her parents to find out that she had gone out of the apartment in their absence. All the same, they would not believe that it was not her but Pookar who had started everything. Parents do not understand a lot of things, and it is a pity. They were also children once.
Chapter Six
A Good Fairy Tale for the Bunnies
The bunnies Sineus and Truvor never went to bed without a fairy tale. Every night before bedtime Masha or the doll Olga would tell them the familiar stories of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, or Puss in Boots. However, Masha was not home that evening; she had gone to spend the night with Grandma and had taken the doll Olga with her. The bunnies complained and did not want to go to bed without a fairy tale. In the end, Pookar, who was fond of sitting in silence in the evening, got tired of their whining.
“That’s it! I’ve had enough! You’ll have a fairy tale! Lie in bed and close your eyes!”
Pookar put his hands behind his back and began to pace the room. The bunnies quietly lay in their mitten beds and waited for the fairy tale promised by Pookar.
“What does that
