“Grotter, what are you doing? I’m asking you!” Igor Valentinovich repeated with fury.
“Nothing,” Tanya answered fearfully, quickly covering with her hand the scattering firefighters, who were threatening the mathematician with their hoses and crowbars.
“I also see for myself that it’s nothing! But you must solve the problem!” Igor Valentinovich grew red. “Hand over the mark book!”
Tanya tarried, afraid to remove her hand, under which the little fellows bustled, quickly dragging away their ladders. The mathematician grabbed the bookstand, but there was no mark book in place. As ill luck would have it, Tanya had forgotten it at home, because all night she was writing letters to Vanka and Bab-Yagun.
The ruler, which Igor Valentinovich was holding in his hands, broke with a crack. “And no mark book? Parents to the school!” he ordered. “Immediately! March at a trot! One foot here – the other there!”
“My papa won’t come. And mama also won’t come. They don’t intend to turn red for this fool. We’re already keeping her out of charity! She’s not pla… m-m-mne-mne… Phew!” Pipa wanted still to blurt out something, but suddenly she was choked by her own eraser, which somehow turned up in her mouth for some unknown reason.
“There are no parents, there is no mark book, doing nothing for the lessons… Excellent, simply excellent,” the mathematician said darkly. “Then I’m forced to take drastic measures. I’ll not endure this person in my class. Someone call the principal here… no, better the director!”
“Let me!” Lenka Mumrikova gladly volunteered. Having loudly whispered to Pipa, “Well, that’s it, the end of Grotter!” she swiftly got out of her seat and ran out of the classroom.
Meanwhile, Igor Valentinovich noticed the ring on Tanya’s hand. “And what’s this even? How often have I asked you not to wear jewellery to school! Here hand it over, I’ll deliver it to your guardians! You’re still too young to wear such things!”
Tanya made a tight fist. It was not only that her magic ring would end up with the mathematician, but also later with Uncle Herman. Without the ring, she would not be able to do anything, not even to summon a cupid to send news to Tibidox.
“I’m not handing it over!” she said quietly but distinctly. Tears welled up in her eyes. Even when she was suspected of the theft of the gold sword, she did not feel so bad.
“NOT HANDING IT OVER? Then I’ll take it!” Igor Valentinovich finally went crazy, roared, and started to tear the ring forcefully off her finger.
Magic rings do not like such treatment. If someone were capable of removing them, then it would only be a strong magician knowing the special spells, and indeed not a moronoid. Moreover, Tanya’s ring was special, with the dreadful nature and squeaky voice of Grandpa Theophilus Grotter. True, it could only talk for five minutes a day, but then the quarrelsome nature constantly remained in it.
“Don’t!” Tanya shouted, but it was already too late. Hissing, “Here’s to you!” the irritated ring released two green sparks. The sparks slid along the mathematician’s nose, then spilt up, one dived into his right ear, and the other – into the left. At the same moment, Igor Valentinovich’s hair stood up on end. His pupils enlarged, started to rush about in orbit in confusion, and crossed at the bridge of the nose. Tanya was frightened. Exactly the same thing happened to Uncle Herman’s pupils before he changed to Lisper the Rabbit. Really a rabbit again? But no, this time it was clearly something new.
Instantly forgetting about Tanya, Igor Valentinovich released her hand and ran up to the board. “We’re continuing the lesson! Sit quietly everyone!” he began in a stern voice. “I’ll show you how to solve such problems… I crack them like nuts… It’ll require three firemen… eh-eh… By the way, why are the names of the firefighters not written in the textbook? It’s a disgrace! Let’s assume one… m-m… Vasya, the other Peter, and the third… third… m-m…” The class came to life. “Sergey!” Genka Bulonov proposed.
“Right, Sergey… Where do you know that from? And likely such a fool judging by appearance!” The mathematician was pleased. “Vasya and Peter put out the fires, but Sergey…” “Frolics with a cigarette lighter…” Pipa prompted, with difficulty spitting out the eraser.
“With A CIGARETTE LIGHTER?” Igor Valentinovich shuddered. If earlier his imagination did not go beyond decimal fractions, then now it seethed and gushed. “Exactly, with a cigarette lighter!” he quickly continued. “Other firemen put them out, and he, the vermin, would flick the little wheel – and again a fire! They put out, and again he – flicks! A nightmare! The problem is deadlocked! Stupid endlessness!”
In extreme uneasiness, Igor Valentinovich started to run around the classroom. He even lost one boot but did not notice it. “Oh-oh! What a disaster! Give me this Sergey! I’ll show him what to set on fire! And if a paper plant is close by there? And if it has dynamite in storage?” he yelled.
There was a short knock on the door. The director looked into the classroom. He was small and round, awfully similar to the letter “O” trimmed with a crew-cut. Lenka Mumrikova was bouncing gloatingly behind his back. “Well? I was in a conference. What’s this again about Grotter?” the director asked unhappily.
Hearing a new voice, Igor Valentinovich stood still. His crossed eyes began to blink suspiciously. “We’ll look into Grotter later… Who are you? Why are you late? Mark book on the table!” he bellowed to the director.
“Who, me? Me?” the director did not understand.
“Yes, you! What are you, new? What is your name?” the mathematician continued to rumble.
“What’s this, a joke? I’m Sergey Andreich…” the director said mechanically.
The mathematician twitched as if he was stung. His eyes darted in different directions and again came together at the bridge of the nose. “Aha! Sergey! You’re incredible!” he said in a sweet voice. “We frolic with the cigarette lighter? We interrupt solving the problem? We want to set the school on fire?”
The director stepped back. “I don’t understand you,” he said perplexedly.
Better if he was silent. The mathematician immediately leaned over him threateningly and gripped him by the collar. “You don’t understand?” Igor Valentinovich began to bawl. “Of course you understand! Well, hand over the cigarette lighter here! You started a hundred and nine bonfires, drunk! They wrote about it in the textbook! And what if the cask has gasoline?”
The director escaped, stepped on the foot of Lenka Mumrikova, and jumped out of the classroom, muttering something about the psychiatric hospital.
“Stop! And they still take in such firemen! Parents to the school urgently! And grandma and grandpa also to the school! And let everyone come with a belt!” the mathematician shouted, pursuing him.
Tanya ran out after them. And not because of this! In Tibidox they were very strictly forbidden to use magic in the world of the moronoids, but she has been doing that almost every day. She will get it good from Sardanapal and Slander Slanderych!
“Lift the spell immediately!” she whispered to her ring. “In no way possible!” the ring creaked in the voice of Grandpa Theophilus. “It’s a three-day spell. And, besides, I already don’t remember what spell I cast. I have – hee-hee! – total sclerosis.”
“A pretty kettle of fish! But is there anything you can do?” Tanya was angry, watching how the gym teacher Prikhodkin, running up, tied up the kicking and spitting Igor Valentinovich. “What can I do? I can sing!” the ring, on thinking it over, said and struck up tediously, “Two