Fairy Tale Fuss. Sergey Pyatenok
with jam?" Vanya really tried his best to open the hatch.
"I can't believe a girl is trying to teach me," the brother thought with anger and took a strong poke at the hatch, which did not even notice that poke.
"Maybe this door is magic? Then you have to say a magic word!" Masha suddenly voiced her theory.
"What?" Vanya asked ironically. "What magic door, what magic word, trah-tibi-doh, abracadabra, you mean? Hah!
"No, for example, Open Sesame!" Masha said as an expert.
"Aha! Maybe you want also to say…" Ivan was struck dumb with amazement. The door, which he tried to open anyhow for five minutes, opened just by a simple command.
On the Other Side
Dull light entered the tunnel. The children saw a large room with various burning candlesticks. The walls were decorated by unusual portraits and intimidating stuffed wild animals, among which the most innocent were a stuffed small mouse and a stuffed fat black cat in the moment of chasing the mouse.
In the middle of the room there was a long table covered with a painted tablecloth and a gold chandelier on the ceiling decorating the strange room. The chandelier had hundreds of burning miniature candles. The room had no windows or doors, as if the hatch was the only exit from there.
Vanya put away the flashlight, poked his head inside and wanted to have a better look around, but just stumbled into the room instead. It was Masha who pushed him in, as she also wanted to see where they got.
"Hey, why are you pushing me? the brother asked his sister as he hopped up from the floor.
He thought that somebody could already be there, somebody who did not like uninvited guests. But there was absolutely nobody in the room.
"I also want to see! Masha told selfishly as she hopped off the tunnel. Wow, what a strange room. And how dirty it is!"
"But then, no predator will approach you now, as it will be afraid!" Ivan giggled looking at a wall-size portrait with some important man wearing armor. His yellow face had rich red brows and long, down to shoulders, thin moustache. In his hands he was proudly holding his heart shining with bright light. He had such sly red eyes that momentarily made the boy sick to his stomach of this painted person.
"Beh-beh-beh!" Masha proudly stuck out tongue at her brother. "But then, daddy says that I'm the most beautiful girl in the world! He doesn't say that to you."
"It would be very strange, if our dad told me that I'm the most beautiful girl in the world!" Ivan snapped.
"Fool!"
"You are not any better!"
"I will now…"
"Stop sparring," the boy interrupted her in mid sentence. "Let's better find an exit here."
Having thought a little and, apparently, agreed, the girl began examining the room with the brother. They looked behind the closets and inside them, even under the table, but they did not find anything.
Vanya got tired of useless search, took one of the chairs with a comfortable carved back standing near the table, and said:
"We're trapped! It's a dead end!"
"Oh, how hungry I am!" Masha rubbed her growling stomach. "Vanya, I'm hungry!"
"Well, where will I find food? Look, there's nothing here except the tablecloth, even no plates."
"Maybe the tablecloth is also magic?" the girl hopped in place. "Tablecloth, tablecloth, please give us something to eat. Please!"
"Well, you see, it is an ordinary one" Vanya told and tried to find something in his backpack. "But I must somewhere have mom's sandwiches with sausage and cheese. Here they are! Help your…self!" the boy could hardly finish his phrase, he looked amazed.
"No, thanks, leave your sandwiches for yourself," his little sister, who was already chewing something, replied.
The table that only seconds ago was empty now had so many dishes on it that it seemed it would break under their weight. Gold cups with tasty salads, ripe fruit, spit-roasted turkey, shashlik and cups full of kvass.
"How is it possible?" the surprised managed to say only.
"And the tablecloth also turned out to be magic!" Masha told joyfully. "So, maybe you'll eat with me? After all, you couldn't have known."
Ivan already decided to have some kvass from a cup, when he started to have doubts. "And what if all the food is poisoned?" he thought. "Maybe the tablecloth is specially left here not to let anybody exit the room?»
"Stop, you cannot eat this food! It can be poisoned!" Vanya told as he was snatching a spit with juicy shashlik out of the hands of his sister.
"Whatever gave you that idea?" Masha opposed grabbing another spit. "Who would need that?"
"Me!" suddenly sounded somewhere from the hole. The next second a big red fox hopped in the room.
Vanya rubbed his eyes.
"Who me?" the boy asked as he still did not believe that an animal was talking to him.
"Me!" the fox repeated calmly rising up on its hind feet. It clapped it paws three times and instantly turned into a human – the man from the painting, who was now not in armor, but in a grey suit. "Koschei the Deathless in the flesh! Please give me a warm welcome!"
"What?" Ivan was struck dumb.
"What, what! Koschei is my name!" the man told smoothing his shabby suit. "Haven't you ever heard about me?"
"Y-yes, I have!" Vanya confessed. "But that were just fairy tales!"
"So, now you see that I'm wholesome and alive!" the man said and smiled, as he pompously took the most beautiful chair opposite to his painting. "In fact, you boy almost broke my nose today. It aches even now!"
"What do you mean your nose? Which nose?" the boy was totally confused about what was going on.
"Do you have a short memory?" the old man gave a light smile again. "Do you remember the bear by the roadside?"
"So was it you?" Ivan looked at him with surprise. "Wait a little! I got it, you are a crazy wizard! The only thing I don't get is what you want."
Koschei sat back with arms across and began his story:
"You know, I am so old, so old that I don't even remember my age. In my youth I tried to marry princesses, the most beautiful girls in the kingdom, fought with brave lads, who thought mistakenly that they could defeat me. But then I got bored even of that. Yes, I'm evil, I've already done a lot of filthy things, and I will do an uncountable number of them in the future.
All my life I've made different traps and fought with the Good. Well, I hate to see, when people are happy. It's so disgusting for me. And only recently I suddenly came to know a thing, for which I hated myself. It turned out that all my deeds are just a child's play, and I am just an ordinary fairy tale character on the side of the Evil, who is deprived of the opportunity to defeat the Good forever. I was created by somebody to frighten small children, who believe in fairy tales, at nights. You don't believe already, don't you?"
"No!"
"It is noticeable! So what is your name?" the old man asked as if by chance.
"Ivan."
Having heard that, Koschei pulled a wry face.
"Oh, I don't like this name. It brings only woes. One Ivan – troubles, another Ivan – problems. But those Ivans were bigger, so I don't think I'll have any difficulties with you. Well, then… After all that, I disappointed in everything and started to think what I could do to get into your world, the real one, where the Good does not always defeat the Evil. After numerous unsuccessful attempt I nearly gave up, but once I was lucky to get an interesting book. In that book I found answers to many of my questions. I found out how to make a hole between the fairy tale and the real worlds, and how to make this hole a constant passage into the real world. By the way, you came here to me along this passage. The book also told that fairy tale characters cannot just come into the real world. They lose their fairy tale features quickly and turn