“Why?”
“Don’t ask. Just say, yes or no?” Olga demanded, turned red, and puffed up like a balloon.
Muffin paused, looked at the doll, smiled, and purred, “You have to go and do the same? Well, your problem… Fall in love as you please!”
* * *
In the evening Muffin and the doll Olga sat on the windowsill and watched the sun setting behind the multi-storied building. Panting was heard. This was Pookar scrambling along the curtains.
“Aha! Now I’ve found you! Hi, Catmuffy! Hi, Olga! What are you doing here?” he shouted merrily.
Olga turned around. “Ah, it’s only you, Pookar! We’re looking out the window. If you want, you can stay. Only, please, don’t make any noise.”
“What haven’t I seen out this window? A thousand million times I look out it… There!” Pookar slid like a wheel, throwing his short legs up high. Olga and Muffin did not pay him any special attention, and Pookar, having calmed down, also began to look out the window.
“Oho!” he suddenly yelled. “I know what you’re staring at! There, that guy is washing his car again. Here’s a fool! The whole day he can’t stop and washes, washes all the time… You’d think that he has fallen in love with the car! Let’s throw a flower pot at him. It’ll be fun!”
“In love with a car! How original!” the cat Muffin, who only heard this from Pookar’s long tirade, sighed.
“Much more original! A common pig!” the doll Olga said.
“You understand nothing again! Nothing at all,” Muffin waved her off.
“Why?”
“It’s not important with whom you love. You can fall in love with anyone or even anything. The object has no significance! What’s important is the state! Love comes not because someone suitable actually appeared beside you, but because it can’t not come. It comes not from outside but inside,” Muffin said.
“How smart you are, Muffy! You’re so smart; no wonder you’re not married!” Pookar breathed out enthusiastically. The cat hissed angrily.
“Steady, Muffin! Hush, Pookar! Let’s just look at the sun!” said Olga.
Pookar and the cat obeyed and also began to admire the sunset.
Chapter Eight
Pookar and His Anti-Guest Defence
The doll Olga lived in a little house on the windowsill between the flowerpots. Having a good imagination, one could tell everyone that one has a house with a garden in the mountains. Silver cones sparkled on the railing of the porch. The little house had a small room, a kitchen, and an attic, and was beautifully painted in watercolour.
Pookar lived in an old size-46 boot. It was always as messy in the boot as in his pockets. Things lay in a pile, and Pookar himself usually sat on the very top of the pile to welcome guests.
A large cardboard cookie box served as the home for the bunnies, with windows and doors cut out with scissors. Sineus and Truvor painted the inside with markers and coloured pencils. The bunnies, as you remember, slept in mittens. They were often afraid at night, and the mittens had to be washed in the morning and hung out to dry on the desk lamp. “It smells like a nursery school,” Pookar wrinkled his nose. Apart from the mittens, the bunnies had a table and chairs of empty thread spools in the box. There was also a small mirror, into which the doll Olga loved to look when she visited.
One morning, after waking up in the mitten beds, the bunnies breakfasted on carrot salad, washed down with carrot juice, and decided to go visiting. They took off to Pookar’s.
Pookar was already awake and building something. “Aha!” he said when he saw Sineus and Truvor. “You’re just what I need. I’m building anti-guest traps. Here, hold this rope!”
Pookar hung a large pillow over the door and, satisfied, looked at his own work. “A nice trap! Works as it should! A guest will think it’s the bell, he’ll pull, and the pillow will fall on his head… Boom!”
“Won’t the guest be hurt? It’s probably not nice to throw pillows at those who come to visit you,” the bunnies asked with unease.
“Well, too bad! It’s called E-TI-QUETTE. All of Europe is now busy with only this,” Pookar exclaimed.
“Oh! It must be awfully scary to live in this Europe!”
“On the contrary, it’s fun. The host of a home initially kicks a visitor downstairs or pours shampoo into his tea, and then politely apologizes for any inconvenience. The visitor says, ‘Doesn’t matter, don’t worry! Please come to my place tomorrow for a mug of poison.’”
Pookar whirled around the room. He pulled the rope, suspended balls and pillows, hid crackers under seats, and filled water pistols with water. Then he sat down on the doorstep and started to wait patiently.
Finally, the bolder of the two twins, Truvor, ventured to ask, “P-Pookar, but P-Pookar, who are we waiting for?”
Pookar turned his red head to him. “Guests, who else? Why else would I build the traps?”
“But no one will come. Today Olga has this…general cleaning. The cat Muffin is sleeping, and it’s better not to touch her. Otherwise, she decides, half-awake, that you’re a mouse. She hasn’t seen real mice.”
At that moment, a scream and the sound of a fall were heard somewhere close. Pookar darted off from the spot. “What’s that? Who crashed there?”
They ran around a pile of stuff and saw the doll Olga, sitting in a puddle and strewed with feathers from a pillow.
“Where did you come from? You have general cleaning today!” Pookar asked suspiciously.
“I already finished… Now I stumbled over something and this happened!” Olga started to cry.
“I see,” said Pookar. “Never mind, and relax. Nothing terrible has happened… Just a little etiquette. By the way, where did this puddle come from? It wasn’t here earlier.”
“This isn’t a puddle. It’s apple jelly,” Olga uttered through her tears.
“Apple jelly? My favourite apple jelly?” A perplexed expression appeared on Pookar’s face.
“You’ve been asking for a long time, so I made some.”
Pookar stamped his foot. “Oh! Why didn’t you warn me that you would bring jelly? Why? Always intrigues, forever hiding everything from me! What, Olga, you couldn’t carry it more carefully? Who asked you to fall?”
“I’ve always walked here. I don’t know how it happened.”
“It was probably your anti-guest trap snapping into action. You see, Pookar, the rope’s tight!” the bunnies Sineus and Truvor explained happily.
Pookar made threatening eyes at them, but it was already too late.
“A trap for guests?” Olga repeated slowly. “What kind of trap, nasty doll?”
“Just a little trap. Nothing serious. Not even a trap, but nothing. Just a string, so short…” Pookar stammered, backing away.
“Oh, you bad Pookar! Now I’ll show you!” Olga shouted.
She started to chase Pookar, who took to his heels in fear on his short legs, making excuses on the run, “I didn’t want… It was just a string! Ouch! Not on the back! Better on the head, it’s soft!”
“Here’s to you and apple jelly!” Pookar often repeated afterwards. “And all because of this ETIQUETTE. That I would ever trust good manners!”
Chapter Nine
Invaders from a Shoebox
Masha had a cousin Peter, who was already ten. Peter lived with his mama and papa in the city of Tula, but sometimes came to Moscow for a visit. Peter was mean. He pulled Masha’s hair, shot her with a water pistol, and teased her with unpleasant words like crybaby, dummy, runt, and others. It cannot be said that Masha loved Peter and looked forward to his arrival.
This time, Peter brought with him a large box tied up with a string. It would seem that a box was a box, nothing special, but the strange thing was that Peter let nobody look in it. It all started with this box. This is what happened.
“What a nasty one, this Peter! Yesterday he wanted to put me in a pot, and when I scratched him, he ran to complain to Mama. He’s not only a meanie, but also a tattletale,” the cat Muffin complained one day.
Pookar nodded. “I also don’t like Peter. Last time he almost tore my arm off. He wanted to check whether it’s sewn on firmly. Isn’t that stupid?”
The dragonet Flamy was rushing about the room, unsuccessfully trying to catch up with his own tail. “Doesn’t work! Keeps the box under his paws all the time. I wonder what Peter has hiding in there. What do you think, Pookar?” he asked.