Flamy the Dragonet

“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 and saw a green dragonet with yellow eyes and small wings on his back.

Flamy looked fondly at the girl and uttered, “Hi! I’m Flamy!”

“And I’m Masha,” the slightly bewildered girl said.

“Phew,” Flamy sighed in relief, “now we’ve met! Now we can chat about some polite topic. Do you have mustard?”

“Mustard? In the fridge, probably,” Masha said, surprised.

“Will you let me take it?”

“Yes, of course. Do you want me to bring it?”

“Don’t worry. I ate it all yesterday,” Flamy bragged.

“Why ask then?”

“Just because. To keep conversation going,” Flamy spun around on the spot, trying like a cat to catch his tail. Only his tail was green and thin with notches. “I can never catch it! An absolutely unpredictable tail. No matter how I try, it always manages to slip away at the last moment,” he complained.

Masha hesitantly touched the shiny scales on Flamy’s back. She could not believe that her conversational partner existed in reality.

“Do you like me? You can pet me!” Flamy gave her permission.

“You’ve already met? Then let’s play!” Pookar shouted, leaning out of his boot-home.

“What are we going to play?”

“Nothing! We’re going for a walk on the roof.” Pookar jumped out of the boot. He was in his usual field outfit: a pot on his head and a bottle-opener in his hands.

“I don’t know. Of course, I’ve almost done my homework, but…” Masha said doubtfully.

“No ‘buts’… Great adventures don’t wait!” Pookar was indignant.

Masha agreed to take a walk on the roof with the condition that none of the toys would go up to the edge. “It’s dangerous!” she said. Muffin also started to make up her mind. The roof was the place the cat always longed to be. There she could casually meet her beloved cat. Hoping for that, Muffin washed with a paw and made herself pretty.

By a lucky chance, the hatch to the roof turned out not to be locked. The roof was flat, enclosed by handrails along the edges. There was a light breeze. Flamy immediately began to fly and Pookar ran.

Muffin quietly looked around and, realizing there were no cats, got upset. “Didn’t much want to!” she murmured to herself under her breath.

Masha walked around the roof a little bit, at first carefully, then more boldly. She even risked looking down, holding the handrail tightly. Somewhere far away cars, looking like toys, were going by.

“Look what I can do!” Flamy yelled and deftly looped in the air. He became so twisted that for a moment his head and tail almost touched. Masha even caught her breath. She was afraid that Flamy would fall, though she was afraid in vain. Flamy descended onto the roof next to the girl.