The Old Genie Hottabych

THE UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

If you recall, dear readers, it was a hot July noon when the ice-breaker “Ladoga” sailed from the Red Pier in the port of Arkhangelsk with a large group of excursionists on board. Our three friends, Hottabych, Volka and Zhenya, were among the passengers. Hottabych was sitting on deck, conversing solemnly with a middle-aged fitter from Sverdlovsk on the advantages of cloth shoes as compared to leather ones, pointing out the comfort people suffering from old corns found in cloth shoes.

Volka and Zhenya were leaning on the railing of the top deck. They were as happy as only boys can be who are aboard a real ice-breaker for the first time in their lives, and, to top it all, are sailing away for a whole month, not to just any old place, but to the Arctic.

After exchanging opinions on boats, diesel ships, ice-breakers, tug-boats, schooners, trawlers, cutters, and other types of craft skimming over the surface of the Northern Dvina, the boys fell silent, enchanted by the beauty of the great river.

“Isn’t that something!” Volka said in a voice that seemed to imply he was responsible for all this beauty.

“Uh-huh.”

“Nobody’d believe it if you told them.”

“Uh-huh!”

“I’m really glad that we. …” Volka began after a long pause and looked around cautiously to see if Hottabych was anywhere nearby. Just in case, he continued in a whisper, “… that we’ve taken the old man away from Varvara Stepanovna for at least a month.”

“Sure,” Zhenya agreed.

“There’s the Mate in charge of the passengers,” Volka whispered, nodding towards a young sailor with a freckled face.

They looked with awe at the man who carried his high and romantic title so nonchalantly. His glance slid over the young passengers unseeingly and came to rest on a sailor who was leaning on the railing nearby.

“What’s the matter, are you feeling homesick?”

“Well, here we are, off again for a whole month to the end of nowheres.”

The boys were amazed to discover that someone might not want to go to the Arctic ! What a strange fellow!

“A real sailor is a guest on shore and at home at sea!” the Passenger Mate said weightily. “Did you ever hear that saying?”

“Well, I can’t say I’m a real sailor, since I’m only a waiter.”

“Then get one dinner in the galley and take it to Cabin 14, to a lady named Koltsova.”

“That’s the same last name as Varvara Stepanovna has,” Volka remarked to Zhenya.

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s a middle-aged lady and she caught cold on the way here,” the Mate explained. “It’s nothing very serious,” he said, as if to calm the waiter, though the latter did not appear in any way alarmed at the lady’s state of health. “She only ought to stay in her cabin a day or two and she’ll be all right. And please be especially nice. She’s an Honoured Teacher of the Republic.”

“An Honoured Teacher! And her last name is Koltsova. What a coincidence!” Volka whispered.

“Well, it’s a very common last name, just like Ivanov,” Zhenya objected in a voice that was suddenly hoarse.

“Her name and patronymic are Varvara Stepanovna,” the Mate went on.

The boys saw spots before their eyes.

“It’s no matter that she’s Varvara Stepanovna, too. That doesn’t mean she’s our Varvara Stepanovna,” Zhenya said in an effort to reassure himself and his friend.

At this point, however, Volka recalled the conversation that had taken place in the principal’s office when he was there to take his geography examination. He merely shrugged hopelessly.

“It’s she all right. That’s exactly who it is. I’m scared to think what’ll happen to her. Why couldn’t she go some place else!”

“We’ll save her anyway, we just have to think of a way,” Zhenya said darkly after a short but painful silence.

They sat down on a bench, thought a while, and complained of their bad luck: such a journey was really something wonderful for anyone else, but it would be nothing but a headache for them from now on. Yet, since this was the way things had turned out, they must save their teacher. But how? Why, it was all quite simple: by distracting Hottabych.

They had no need to worry today, for she would certainly be confined to her cabin till the morrow. Then they would plan their strategy as follows: one would go strolling with Varvara Stepanovna, or sit on a bench talking to her, while the other would be distracting Hottabych. For instance, Volka and Hottabych might play a game of chess, while Zhenya and Varvara Stepanovna took a stroll down the deck. Volka and Hottabych could be on deck, while Zhenya and Varvara Stepanovna were talking somewhere far away, in a cabin or someplace. The only points remaining to be cleared up were what they were supposed to do when everyone went ashore together or gathered for meals in the mess hall.

“What if we disguise her?” Volka suggested.

“What do you want to do — stick a beard on her?” Zhenya snapped. “Nonsense. Make-up won’t save her. We’ll have to think it over carefully.”

“Ahoy, my young friends! Where are you?” Hottabych shouted from below.

“We’re here, we’re coming right down.”

They went down to the promenade deck.

“I and my honourable friend here are having an argument about the Union of South Africa,” Hottabych said, introducing them to his companion.

Things were going from bad to worse. If the old man began advertising his knowledge of geography, the passengers would surely laugh at him; he might very well become offended, and what might happen then did not bear thinking about.

“Who’s right, my young friends? Isn’t Pretoria the capital of the Union of South Africa?”

“Sure it is,” the boys agreed.

They were amazed. How had the old man come by this correct information? Maybe from the papers? Naturally. That was the only answer.

“My honourable friend here insists it’s Cape Town , not Pretoria ,” Hottabych said triumphantly. “We also argued about how far above us the stratosphere is. I said that one could not draw a definite line between the troposphere and the stratosphere, since it is higher or lower in various parts of the world. And also that the line of the horizon, which, as one can ascertain from the science of geography, is no more than a figment of our imagination…” .

“Hottabych, I want a word with you in private,” Volka interrupted sternly. They walked off to a side. “Tell me the truth, was it you who filched my geography book?”

“May I be permitted to know what you mean by that strange ” word? If you mean, O Volka, that I… What’s the matter now, O anchor of my heart? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

Volka’s jaw dropped. His gaze became fixed on something behind the old Genie’s back.

Hottabych was about to turn round to see what it was, but Volka wailed:

“Don’t turn around! Please, don’t turn around! Hottabych, my sweet, dear Hottabych!”

Nevertheless, the old man did turn around.

Coming towards them, arm in arm with another elderly lady, was Varvara Stepanovna Koltsova, an Honoured Teacher of the Republic, the 6B geography teacher of Moscow Secondary School No. 245.

Hottabych approached her slowly. With a practised gesture he yanked a hair from his beard, and then another.

“Don’t!” Volka yelled in horror, as he grabbed Hottabych’s hand. “She’s not to blame! You’ve no right to!”

Zhenya silently tackled Hottabych from the rear and gripped him as firmly as he could.

The old man’s companion looked at this strange scene in utter amazement.

“Boys!” Varvara Stepanovna commanded, apparently not at all surprised at meeting her pupils on the ice-breaker. “Behave yourselves! Leave the old man alone! Didn’t you hear me?! Kostylkov! Bogorad! Do you hear?”

“He’ll turn you into a toad if we do!” Volka cried frantically, feeling that he could not manage Hottabych.

“Or into a chopping-block on which butchers carve mutton!” Zhenya added. “Run, Varvara Stepanovna! Hurry up and hide before he breaks loose! What Volka said is true!”

“What nonsense!” Varvara Stepanovna said, raising her voice. “Children, did you hear what I said?!”

By then Hottabych had wrenched free from his young friends and quickly tore the hairs in two. The boys shut their eyes in horror.

However, they opened them when they heard Varvara Stepanovna thanking someone. She was holding a bouquet of flowers and a large bunch of ripe bananas.

Hottabych replied by bowing with a nourish and touching first his forehead and then his heart.

When they were back in their cabin, the three friends had a show-down.

“Oh, Volka, why didn’t you tell me right away, right after the examination, the very first day of our happy acquaintance, that I failed you by my over-confident and ignorant prompting? You’ve offended me. If you had only told me, I wouldn’t have bothered you with my annoying gratitude. Then you could have easily prepared for your re-examination, as is becoming an enlightened youth like you.”

So spoke Hottabych, and there was real hurt in his voice.

“But you’d have turned Varvara Stepanovna into a chopping-block for carving mutton. No, Hottabych, I know you only too well. We spent all these days in terrible fear for her life. Tell me, would you have changed her into a chopping-block?”

Hottabych sighed.

“Yes, I would have, there’s no use denying it. Either that or into a terrible toad.”

“See! Is that what she deserves?”

“Why, if anyone ever dares to turn this noble woman into a chopping-block or a toad he’ll have to deal with me first!” the old man cried hotly and added, “I bless the day you induced me to learn the alphabet and taught me how to read the papers. Now I am always up-to-date and well informed on which sea is being built, and where. And I also bless the day Allah gave me the wisdom to ‘filch’ your geography book — that’s the right expression, isn’t it, O Volka? For that truly wise and absorbing book has opened before me the blessed expanses of true science and has saved me from administering that which I, in my blindness, considered a deserving punishment for your highly respected teacher. I mean Varvara Stepanovna.”

“I guess that takes care of that!” Volka said.

“It sure does,” Zhenya agreed.