Flamy the Dragonet

Mama came into the room. She immediately noticed the blanket on the floor. It even seemed to her that something was moving under it. “Oh! There’s something there!” she exclaimed.

Pookar half opened one eye and saw the blanket lift a little at the edge. He closed his eyes, imagining what would happen now. Shouts, surprise, fright, and then someone would come from the zoo and take Flamy away. “There’s no one there! Just the blanket lying about… It only seemed so to you,” Pookar heard.

“But I saw! There was something there!”

“You’re tired from work, my dear. Time to take a vacation or, perhaps… quit it altogether, this work…”

“Yes, but you know…” the voices began to move away.

Mama and Papa went out, continuing their adult, uninteresting conversation. The toys breathed a sigh of relief.

“The danger’s over! But where’s Flamy? Where did he go?”

Pookar and the bunnies went around the room, looking through all the cracks. Flamy had seemingly vanished into thin air. Pookar even rummaged in his pockets just in case and Olga looked into the teacups. Flamy was nowhere.

“What if we dreamt him up?” Sineus suggested.

“Exactly! Otherwise, where would he have gone to?” Truvor agreed.

Olga and Pookar only made a helpless gesture. They could not understand anything. Ringing laughter was unexpectedly heard from above. The toys raised their heads and saw nothing. Just a most ordinary ceiling. But what was that? Where did the other chandelier come from? Were there really two? In fact, there were two chandeliers, like twins, on the ceiling.

“Hello, hello! You don’t recognize me?” the second chandelier said cheerfully. It tumbled onto the floor but did not break; instead, it turned into a beaming dragon.

“I didn’t know that I can do all these tricks. Only where didn’t you search! Even in your pockets! Ha-ha! Thought you dreamt me up?”

“But how did you do that?”

“I transformed!” Flamy uttered with difficulty through his laughter. “Became invisible and then changed. Listen, if I can, it means I’m already grown! I grew while sleeping in the trunk.”

“Crazy! I would like that!” Pookar said enviously.

“Pookar, you don’t have such talent and don’t try,” Olga laughed.

Chapter Five

A Very Difficult Old Geezer

Masha’s parents often went visiting on weekends and she stayed home alone. They considered her old enough to occupy herself independently one night a week. However, everyone knows how boring a long, long night is when there is no one else around, all homework is done, and all cartoon recordings have already been watched eighty times. Of course, you could read a book, but who is going to read when no one sees this and praises you?

One such Saturday Masha was sitting in the armchair and petting Muffin. The cat was purring sleepily. Masha was bored and did not know what she could occupy herself with. She almost started to cry from idleness, when she suddenly heard scurrying under the bed and Pookar (who do you think?) ran out from under there. Olga, her head covered with a dishcloth, was pursuing him.

“Bad Pookar! Why did you add laundry detergent to my kasha? I’ve been spewing soap bubbles for an hour already!” Olga shouted.

Here Olga and Pookar noticed Masha and froze.

“You, you’re real! You can talk!” Masha exclaimed, beside herself with amazement. Then she paused in indecision. She did not know what to do: get angry that the toys did not reveal the secret to her sooner or be pleased that now she would always have someone to play with.

“Hello, Masha! How’s it going, how’re you growing?” Pookar shouted.

“Never met anyone in my life who could say so much nonsense in one minute! Oh!” Olga released a soap bubble.

Masha squatted down beside the arguing toys. “You’re funny. Now I can always play with you!”

“That’s for sure. And even right now. We’ll go ride the elevator! Up and down, up and down,” Pookar suggested.

Masha had her doubts. “I don’t know. They left the apartment to me. They said that I should look after the cat and not open the door to anyone.”

“Poor excuses! If you don’t want to play with us, then say so. You won’t be opening the door to anyone. How could you if you’re riding the elevator?”

“And the cat? How will I look after the cat?”

“We’ll bring the cat along. Enrich your distasteful life with new impressions!” Pookar declared.

Masha, the doll Olga, and Pookar left the apartment and summoned the elevator. Draping over Masha’s arm was the cat Muffin, who wished to keep her own scholarship secret and said only “meow!” and “sh-sh!”

Masha and the toys just rode the elevator at first, but they soon got bored and started to frolic. Pookar came up with ringing all the doorbells in a row and as soon as steps were heard in the hallway, springing into the elevator and riding off. They played this game for quite a long time. It was fun. When a door was opened and someone stuck his head out, the pranksters were already laughing in the elevator.

“What if someone finds out what we are doing here?” Masha asked.

Pookar contemptuously brushed this aside with his chubby hand. “Fiddlesticks-theatrics! Would the residents in indoor slippers chase us down the stairs?” He, however, did not take into account that in the world there was Pirozhkov.

Pookar jumped out of the elevator on the eighth floor and, after leaping atop the back of the cat Muffin, persistently rang several times at a metal door. In this apartment lived Peter Petrovich Pirozhkov. He was a terribly difficult old geezer. Masha only had to make a little bit of noise in her room, or the cat Muffin to drop some plate, and he would begin to bang on the heater. Pirozhkov banged long and hard, and then ran to complain to Masha’s parents that they would not let him rest “for time honestly earned.”

“What have you done! This is Pirozhkov’s apartment! Now he’ll catch us!” Masha was frightened.

“Have 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!”