The Old Genie Hottabych

HOTTABYCH’S FATAL PASSION

For several days Hottabych remained in the aquarium, pining away for his brother. Gradually, however, he got used to his absence and once again everything was back to normal.

One day he and the boys were talking quietly. It was still rather early and the old man was lolling under the bed.

“It looks like rain,” Zhenya said, looking out the window.

Soon the whole sky became overcast with clouds. It started to drizzle.

“Shall we turn it on?” Volka asked off-handedly, nodding towards a new radio set his parents had given him for being promoted to 7B. He turned it on with obvious pleasure.

The loud sounds of a symphony orchestra filled the room. Hottabych stuck his head out from under the bed.

“Where are all those people playing so sweetly on various instruments?”

“Golly! Hottabych doesn’t know anything about radios!” Zhenya said.

(There was one omission on the “Ladoga” for all its excellent equipment — they forgot to install a radio set in the lounge.)

For nearly two hours the boys watched Hottabych delightedly. The old man was overwhelmed. Volka tuned in on Vladivostok , Tbilisi , Kiev , Leningrad , Minsk and Tashkent . Songs, thunderous marches, and the voices of people speaking in many tongues obediently poured forth from the set. Then the boys got fed up. The sun peeped out and they decided to go for a walk, leaving a fascinated Hottabych behind. The strange events which then occurred remain a mystery to Volka’s grandmother to this very day.

Soon after the boys left, she entered Volka’s room to turn off the radio and distinctly heard an old man coughing in the empty room. Then she saw the dial turn by itself and the indicator move along the scale.

The frightened old woman decided not to touch the set, but to find Volka immediately. She caught up with him at the bus stop. Volka was very upset. He said he was improving the set, that he was making it automatic, and he begged his grandmother not to tell his parents what she had seen, because it was supposed to be a surprise for them. His grandmother was not at all comforted by these words. Nevertheless, she promised to keep his secret. All afternoon she listened anxiously to the strange mumbling coming from the empty room.

That day the radio played on and on. At about two o’clock at night it went off, but only because the old man had forgotten how to tune in on Tashkent . He woke Volka up, asked him how to do it, and returned to the set.

A fatal thing had happened: Hottabych had become a radio fan.