The Old Genie Hottabych

DREAMING OF THE “LADOGA”

Here we should like to pause for a moment and tell our readers how our three friends came to be aboard the “Ladoga” in the first place.

Naturally, everyone recalls that Volka failed his geography examination disgracefully, which was largely his own fault (he should never have relied on prompting). It is difficult to forget such an event. Volka certainly remembered it and was studying intently for his re-examination. He had decided to do his utmost to get an “A.”

Despite his sincere desire to prepare for the examination, it was not as easy as it seemed. Hottabych was in the way. Volka had never mustered up enough courage to tell the old man of the true consequences of his fatal prompting. That is why he could never tell him he needed time to study, since he feared that Hottabych might decide to punish his teachers, and Varvara Stepanovna in particular, for having failed him.

Hottabych made himself particularly troublesome the day of the unusual football match between the Shaiba and Zubilo teams.

Feeling terribly contrite for all the anguish he had caused Volka at the stadium, Hottabych fairly shadowed him; he tried to regain his favour by scattering compliments and proposing the most tempting adventures. It was not until eleven o’clock at night that Volka had a chance to get down to his studies.

“With your permission, O Volka, I shall go to sleep, for I feel somewhat drowsy,” Hottabych finally said, as he yawned and crawled under the bed.

“Good night, Hottabych! Sweet dreams!” Volka answered, settling back in his chair and gazing at his bed longingly. He was also tired and, as he put it, was quite ready to doze off for some 500 or 600 minutes. But he had to study, and so reluctantly put his mind to his work.

Alas! The rustling of the pages attracted the sleepy Genie’s attention. He stuck his head and dishevelled beard from under the bed and said in a foggy voice:

“Why aren’t you in bed yet, O stadium of my soul?”

“I’m not sleepy. I have insomnia,” Volka lied.

“My, my, my!” Hottabych said compassionately. “That’s really too bad. Insomnia is extremely harmful at your delicate age. But don’t despair, there’s nothing I can’t do.”

He yanked several hairs from his beard, blew on them, whispered something, and Volka, who had no time to object to this untimely and unnecessary aid, fell asleep immediately, with his head resting on the table.

“Praised be Allah! All is well,” Hottabych mumbled, crawling out from under the bed. “May you remain in the embraces of sleep until breakfast time!”

He lifted the sleeping boy lightly and carefully lay him to rest in his bed, pulling the blanket over him. Then, clucking and mumbling with satisfaction, he crawled back under the bed.

All night long the table lamp cast its useless light on the geography text-book, forlornly opened at page 11.

You can well imagine how cunning Volka had to be to prepare for his re-examination in such difficult circumstances. This was the very important reason why Volka (and, therefore, Hottabych and Zhenya) had to fly home to Moscow from Genoa instead of continuing on to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean .

However, Volka soon found out that preparing for the examination was only half the job done. He had yet to think of a way to get rid of Hottabych while he was in school taking the exam, to find a way of leaving the apartment unnoticed.

The telephone rang. Volka went to the foyer to answer it. It was Zhenya.

“Hello!” Volka said. “Yes, today. At noon… He’s still sleeping… What?… Sure, he’s well. He’s a very healthy old man… What?… No, I haven’t thought of anything yet… You’re crazy! He’ll be terribly hurt and he’ll do such mischief we won’t be able to undo it in a hundred years… Then you’ll be here at ten-thirty? Fine!”

Hottabych stuck his head out of Volka’s room. He whispered reproachfully, “Volka, why are you talking to our best friend Zhenya ibn Kolya in the hall? That’s not polite. Wouldn’t it be nicer if you invited him in?”

“How can he come in if he’s at home?”

Hottabych was offended.

“I can’t understand why you want to play tricks on your old devoted Genie. My ears have never yet deceived me. I just heard you talking to Zhenya.”

“I was talking to him on the telephone. Don’t you understand — te-le-ph one? I sure do have a lot of trouble with you! What a thing to get mad at! Come here, I’ll show you what I mean!”

Hottabych joined him. Volka removed the receiver and dialled the familiar number.

“Will you please call Zhenya to the phone?” he said.

Then he handed the receiver to Hottabych.

“Here, you can talk to him now.”

Hottabych pressed the receiver to his ear cautiously and his face broke into a puzzled smile.

“Is that really you, O blessed Zhenya ibn Kolya? Where are you now?… At home?… And I thought you were sitting in this black little thing I’m holding to my ear… Yes, that’s right, it’s me, your devoted friend Hassan Abdurrakhman ibn Hot-tab… You’ll be here soon? If that’s the case, may your trip be blessed!”

Beaming with pleasure, he handed the receiver back to Volka, who was looking very superior.

“It’s amazing!” Hottabych exclaimed. “Without once raising my voice I spoke to a boy who is two hours’ walking distance away!”

Returning to Volka’s room, the old man turned round slyly, snapped the fingers of his left hand, and there appeared on the wall over the aquarium an exact copy of the telephone hanging in the hall.

“Now you can talk to your friends as much as you like without leaving your own room.”

“Golly, thanks a lot!” Volka said gratefully. He removed the receiver, pressed it to his ear and listened.

There was no dial tone.

“Hello! Hello!” he shouted. He shook the receiver and then blew into it. Still, there was no dial tone.

“The phone’s broken,” he explained to Hottabych. “FU unscrew the receiver and see what’s wrong.”

However, despite all his efforts, he could not unscrew it.

“It’s made of the finest black marble,” Hottabych boasted.

“Then there’s nothing inside?” Volka asked disappointedly.

“Why, is there supposed to be something inside this, too? Just like in a watch?”

“Now I know why it doesn’t work. You’ve only made a model of a telephone, without anything that’s supposed to go inside it. But the insides are the most important part.”

“What’s supposed to be inside? A special kind of filling? The kind that was in the watch, with all kinds of wheels? You just explain it, and I’ll make it exactly as it should be.”

“It’s not like a watch; it’s entirely different. And it’s not so easy to explain. You have to study all about electricity first,” Volka said with an air of importance.

“Then teach me about what you call electricity.”

“To begin with, you have to study arithmetic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, mechanical drawing and all kinds of other subjects.”

“Then teach me these other subjects, too.”

“Uh … well… I don’t know all of them myself, yet,” Volka confessed.

“Then teach me what you already know.”

“It’ll take an awfully long time.”

“That doesn’t matter. I am willing, nonetheless. Don’t keep me in suspense: will you teach me these subjects, which give a person such wonderful powers?”

“On condition that you do your homework well,” Volka said sternly. “Here, read the paper while I go to see a friend of mine about something.” He handed Hottabych a copy of Pionerskaya Pravda and set out for school.

The light-grey school building was unusually deserted and quiet. In the office on the first floor the principal and Varvara Stepanovna were discussing school problems, and on the third floor the loud, cheerful voices of the painters and plasterers echoed through the halls. It was summer and the school was being renovated.

“Well, my dear Varvara Stepanovna, what shall I say?” the principal said with a smile. “One can only envy such a vacation. How long will you be gone?” “I believe for a month or so.”

Volka was glad to hear that Varvara Stepanovna would not be in danger of encountering Hottabych for at least a month. If only she would leave as quickly as possible!

“Aha, the crystal cupola of the heavens!” the principal teased as he greeted Volka. “Well, are you feeling better now?” “Yes, I’m quite well, thank you.”

“Excellent! Have you prepared for your examination?” “Yes, I have.”

“Well, then, let’s have a little talk.”

The little talk embraced almost the whole of sixth-grade geography. If Volka had thought of looking at the time, he would have been surprised to note that their little talk lasted nearly twenty minutes. But he couldn’t be bothered with the time. He thought the principal was not asking the questions in great enough detail. He felt he could speak on each topic for five or ten minutes. He was experiencing the tormenting and at once pleasant feeling of a pupil who knows his subject inside-out and is most worried by the thought that this fact might go unnoticed by his examiners. But one look at Varvara Stepanovna convinced him that she was pleased with his answers. Nevertheless, when the principal said, “Good for you! Now I can see that your teacher hasn’t wasted her time on you,” Volka felt a pleasant chill run down his spine. His freckled face spread into such a broad smile that the principal and Varvara Stepanovna smiled, too.

“Yes, Kostylkov has obviously put in a lot of studying,” his teacher said.

Ah, if they only knew of the terribly difficult conditions under which Volka had to prepare for his exam! What stratagems he had had to resort to, how he had had to hide from Hottabych in order to have a chance to study quietly; what colossal barriers the unsuspecting Hottabych had put in his way! How much more his teachers would have respected his achievements, had they only known!

For a moment, Volka was on the point of boasting of his own success as a teacher (not everyone can proudly say he has taught a Genie to read and write!), but he checked himself in time.

“Well, Kostylkov, congratulations on passing to the 7th grade! Have a good rest until September. Get strong and healthy! Goodbye for now!”

“Thank you,” Volka replied as discreetly as a 7th-grade pupil should. “Good-bye.”

When he arrived at the river bank, Hottabych, who had made himself comfortable in the shade of a mighty oak, was reading the paper aloud to Zhenya.

“I passed! I got an ‘A’!” Volka whispered to his friend. Then he stretched out beside Hottabych, experiencing at least three pleasant feelings at once: the first was that he was lying in the shade; the second, that he had passed his exam so well; and the last, but by no means least — the pride of a teacher enjoying the achievements of his pupil.

Meanwhile, Hottabych had reached the section entitled “Sports News.” The very first article made the friends sigh with envy.

“In the middle of July, the ice-breaker ‘Ladoga,’ chartered by the Central Excursion Bureau, will leave Arkhangelsk for the Arctic . Sixty-eight persons, the best workers of Moscow and Leningrad , will spend their vacations aboard it. This promises to be a very interesting cruise.” “What a trip! I’d give anything to go along,” Volka said dreamily.

“You need only express your wish, O my most excellent friends, and you shall go wherever you please!” Hottabych promised, for he yearned to somehow repay his young teachers. Volka merely sighed again. Zhenya explained sadly:

“No, Hottabych, there’s no question of it. Only famous people can get aboard the ‘Ladoga.’ ”