Yes, all the objects in the fireplace hall had just such gloomy history. Thus, taking from the table a random pencil stub, it was possible to assume with confidence that either it had been shoved into someone’s eye, or Lavrentii Beria,[3] sitting at home on a settee under a fig tree, had made notes with it on official papers.
At first, it was not too pleasant for Methodius and the rest to be among such objects; however, they soon got accustomed to it. Well, a chair is a chair, a table, a table, and a knife, a knife. Man was created such that nothing terrifies him infinitely. What is the difference who, when, and whom, if the firewood in the fireplace, which once warmed the great inquisitor, crackles so comfortably at home? Possibly, this was Gloom’s plan – to gradually, step by step, concession after concession, to erode the ability to wonder and be horrified and to push back the boundary of tolerance, until finally, permissiveness becomes all-encompassing.
Zuduka, the only one of Chimodanov’s artificial monsters he brought with him, jumped out from under the table. Hobbling, Zuduka made its way to Moshkin, dragging a sneaker by the lace.
“You found it! Smart boy! Good boy!” Eugeny was moved.
Zuduka hurriedly hobbled to him, for some reason continually looking back.
“Don’t! I don’t advise it!” Chimodanov said lazily, cutting a wafer cake with Yashka the convict’s knife.
“Why? It’s mine!” Eugeny was surprised. The sneaker was already in his hand.
Zuduka, which he was about to thank, fled with all possible haste, not waiting for a reward.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with your sneaker, but if I were you, I wouldn’t put it on…” Petruchio continued thoughtfully.
“Yes, but…”
“You don’t notice anything suspicious? That’s right! A smoldering fuse! Throw it, idiot!”
Moshkin obediently threw it. A white flash tossed the sneaker up and tore it to shreds. Tongues of flame danced on the curtains. Eugeny put them out with water left in the carafe the minute he glanced at it.
“Zudu-u-uka!” Chimodanov screamed, shaking his fist. “Zudu-u-ka! I’m going to kill you!”
The bald monster, giggling, hid under the sofa, on which the actor playing Othello, overdoing it, once strangled the actress playing Desdemona.[4] There was no possibility whatsoever to pull Zuduka out from there. After kicking the sofa several times for order, Chimodanov squatted down and picked an empty small box off the floor. Then another, and another…
“Everything’s clear. It stuffed the whole sneaker with match heads! It must have been planning a big bang!” he informed them.
“Why?” Moshkin asked.
“Just because. It’s a genius of malicious thoughts. You didn’t offend it?” Chimodanov asked.
“No. I didn’t even look at it!” Moshkin said, losing confidence with each following word.
Petruchio nodded. “Clear,” he said.
“What’s clear?”
“It’s angry that you didn’t pay it any attention. Zuduka is terribly self-centred.”
“And who would?” Nata chuckled. “His owner is solid ‘b-but!’ with double underscores.”
Nata got up and, having approached the mirror, began to examine herself attentively. She did not do this like teenage boys and their fathers, i.e. statically, without changing anything in himself and only visually evaluating the width of the shoulders and how the suit fits, but very actively, in a feminine way. Her hands flittered, now fixing her hair, now anxiously touching different parts of her skin, which must have seemed problematic to her.
“How do you like it here? This house in the centre and the other absurdities?” she asked languidly.
“It’s quite something… If we forget that we were recently nearly finished off,” said Chimodanov. “Besides, there’s no need to hide monsters from anyone! Even if Zuduka smashes all the walls here, Ares only grunts. At home, if you accidentally break the TV, you’ll be nagged to death… ‘Think about your behaviour! Do you need to put road signs in the hallway?’ And all that… What, is it my fault that Zuduka found a chainsaw? Huh?! Why did you saw the legs off the nightstand, scamp?” Petruchio kicked the sofa again. Something moved under the sofa.
“Do you miss your mother?” Moshkin asked.
Chimodanov shrugged his shoulders uncertainly. “I see her a couple of times a week. That’s enough for me. I didn’t think she would give in to me studying in some boarding school, but Glumovich charmed her terribly! He joined her in the civil commission! Counts traffic lights on Tverskaya Street, translates letters into English, and recently unscrewed a No Entry sign somewhere and presented it to her together with a bouquet,” he yawned.
“And if your mama has a fancy to appear unexpectedly at the school to visit you there?”
“Don’t think so. Ares swore that she wouldn’t even have such thoughts,” Petruchio said confidently.
“And you, Moshkin, how do you like it here?” Nata asked.
Eugeny honestly thought about it. “I don’t know. Still not used to it. Although Ares said that, in addition to water, I’ll possibly be able to control fire in a couple of years. It seems, I only need to grasp the essence… The main thing is primary magic and the gift of a guard. The rest is here!” he touched his forehead with a finger.
“And how do you like it here?” Chimodanov asked.
“It’s cool here,” Nata said. “Better than home. A massive room with an oak bolt. No one can poke his nose in.”
“Don’t you miss home?”
“Are you kidding? I don’t want to be home! I essentially didn’t have a home,” Nata stated.
“How’s that?”
“It’s like this. Mama has a new husband. All the time this ‘attention!’ Butts in telling me how to dress. ‘This is indecent! You’re running around with such hair?’ And all that. And then my older sister got married. If mother’s husband is a soldier, then this one is a bozo. He put a password on the computer. Takes my tapes without asking and writes some of his own nonsense on them.”
“How many rooms do you have?”
“Two,” Nata said.
“Oho. Fun for you! And you didn’t think to… well, you know?” Petruchio uttered.
“Zombify? Are you kidding? Then where would I go to get away from those two baboons? They so hate each other. Mama’s husband is this soldier all over, while Inka’s husband dodges the army.”
Nata said this so disdainfully, as if her mother and sister were married not to people but to some irksome cockroaches. Moshkin thought that it was better not to pity her now. You would only get it in the nose for pity.
Nata’s gaze stopped pensively at Methodius’ door. “By the way, who thinks what about Buslaev? In my opinion, he’s all right, a normal guy, although this girl that’s with him… pfff…”
“Are you talking about Daph?” Chimodanov asked dreamily.
“Yeah. Some walking absurdity! How she squints her eyes when she’s angry! I’m, you know, good and all that, but you got to me. The enthusiasm? The backpack? A cat with wings! And the balalaika in a holster?”
“I emphasize: it’s a flute,” Chimodanov said drily. Whatever Nata might say, he liked Daphne. But he liked Methodius considerably less. Although, it was not surprising. People are much more lenient to creatures of the opposite sex. They willingly forgive everything that, for which their own sex would have been smeared on the wall long ago.
Nata looked at Chimodanov very sourly. “You