The Old Genie Hottabych

THE FLIGHT

In one corner of the magic carpet the pile was rather worn, most probably due to moths. On the whole, however, it was wonderfully preserved and the fringes were as good as new. Volka thought he had seen exactly the same kind of carpet before, but he could not recall whether it was in Zhenya’s house or in the Teachers’ Room at school.

They took off from the river bank without a single witness to their departure. Hottabych took Volka’s hand and stood him in the middle of the carpet beside himself; he then yanked three hairs from his beard, blew on them, and whispered something, rolling his eyes skyward. The carpet trembled. One after the other, all four tassled corners rose. Then the edges buckled and rose, but the middle remained on the grass, weighted down by the two heavy passengers. After fluttering a bit, the carpet became motionless.

The old man bustled about in confusion.

“Excuse me, O kind Volka. There’s been a mistake somewheres. I’ll fix everything in a minute.”

Hottabych was quiet as he did some complex figuring on his fingers. He apparently got the right answer, because he beamed. Then he yanked six more hairs from his beard, tore off half of one hair and threw it away, and then blew on the others, saying the magic words and rolling his eyes skyward. Now the carpet straightened out and became as flat and as hard as a staircase landing. It soared upwards, carrying off a smiling Hottabych and Volka, who was dizzy from exhilaration, or the height, or from both together.

The carpet rose over the highest trees, over the highest houses, over the highest factory stacks and sailed over the city that was blinking with a million lights below. They could hear muffled voices, automobile horns, people singing in row boats on the river and the far-off music of a band.

The city was plunged in twilight, but here, high up in the air, they could still see the crimson ball of the sun sinking slowly beyond the horizon.

“I wonder how high up we are now?” Volka said thoughtfully.

“About 600 or 700 elbows,” Hottabych answered, still figuring out something on his fingers.

Meanwhile, the carpet settled on its course, though still gaining height. Hottabych sat down majestically, crossing his legs and holding on to his hat. Volka tried to sit down cross-legged, as Hottabych had, but found neither pleasure nor satisfaction from this position. He shut his eyes tight to overcome his awful dizziness and sat down on the edge of the carpet, dangling his legs over the side. Though this was more comfortable, the wind tore at his legs mercilessly; it blew them off to a side and they were constantly at a sharp angle to his body. He soon became convinced that this method was no good either, and finally settled down with his legs stretched out before him on the carpet.

In no time, he felt chilled to the bone. He thought sadly of his warm jacket that was so far below in his closet at home, hundreds of miles away.

As a last resort, he decided to warm up the way cabbies used to do in the olden days, long before he was born. His father once showed him how it was done when they were out ice skating. Volka began to slap his shoulders and sides in sweeping motions, and in the twinkling of an eye he slipped off the carpet and into nothingness.

Needless to say, if he had not grabbed on to the fringes, our story would have ended with this unusual air accident.

Hottabych did not even notice what had happened to his young friend. He was sitting with his back to Volka, his legs tucked under him in Eastern fashion and lost in thought. He was trying to recall how to break spells he himself had cast.

“Hottabych!” Volka howled, feeling that he wouldn’t last long, as he hung on to the fringes. “Help, Hottabych!”

“O woe is me!” the old man cried, seeing that Volka was flying through the air. “Shame on my old grey head! I would have killed myself if you had perished!”

Muttering and calling himself all kinds of names for being so careless, he dragged a petrified Volka back up on the carpet, sat him down and put his arm around the boy, firmly resolved not to let go of him until they landed.

“It would be g-g-good t-t-to h-h-have s-s-something w-w-warm to wear!” Volka said wistfully through chattering teeth.

“S-s-sure, O gracious Volka ibn Alyosha!” Hottabych answered and covered him with a quilted robe that appeared from nowhere.

It became dark. Now it was especially uncomfortable on the magic carpet. Volka suggested that they rise another 500 elbows or so. “Then we’ll see the sun again.”

Hottabych greatly doubted that they could see the sun before morning, since it had already set, but he didn’t argue.

You can imagine how surprised he was and how his esteem for Volka grew, when, as they rose higher, they really saw the sun again! For a second time its crimson edge was barely touching the black line of the far horizon.

“Oh, Volka, if only I had not promised myself faithfully to obey your modest request, nothing would prevent me from calling you the greatest dope in the world,” Hottabych cried ecstatically. However, when he saw how displeased Volka was, he quickly added, “but since you forbade it, I shall limit myself to expressing my amazement at the unusual maturity of your mind. I “promised never to call you a dope and I won’t.”

“And don’t call anyone else by that name, either.”

“All right, O Volka,” Hottabych agreed obediently.

“Do you swear?”

“Yes, I do!”

“Now don’t forget,” Volka said in a tone of satisfaction that puzzled Hottabych.

Far below them forests and fields, rivers and lakes, villages and cities sailed by, adorned in softly glowing pearly strings of electric lights. A sea of clouds with hard round edges appeared;

they darkened and disappeared in the blackness below, but the carpet kept on flying farther and farther away to the south-east, closer and closer to the strange land where the young prisoner Zhenya Bogorad was probably already suffering at the hands of fierce and terrible slave traders.

“To think that poor Zhenya’s breaking his back at hard labour,” Volka said bitterly after a long silence.

A guilty Hottabych only grunted in reply.

“He’s all alone in a strange land, without any friends or relatives. The poor fellow’s probably groaning,” Volka continued sadly.

Hottabych again said nothing.

If only our travellers could have heard what was happening that very minute, thousands of miles away to the East!

Far away in the East, Zhenya Bogorad was really groaning.

“Oh no, I can’t!” Zhenya moaned, “Oh no, no more!”

In order to describe the circumstances under which he uttered these heart-rending words, we shall have to part with our travellers for a while and relate the experiences of Zhenya Bogorad, a pioneer group leader of 6B (7B, as of the day before) of Moscow Secondary School No. 245.