§ 5. The Teacher’s Note
(A red-inked intervention in the school diary)
Dear Parents!
I have today read your son's essay, "How I Spent My Summer." I must admit that his creative imagination knows no bounds—not even interstellar ones!
However, I feel compelled to remind you that the purpose of this assignment was to describe real-life events, not to produce fan fiction based on space operas and Soviet-era cartoons! Furthermore, I am deeply concerned regarding the role of "Crocodile Gena" in your son’s liberation from Klingon captivity?!! One can only hope these are merely fantasies and not the lingering side effects of too much "active recreation" in the direct sun.
Grades:
For literary style: 10 (ten)
For factual accuracy: 1 (one)
Request: Please come to the school for a discussion regarding "Chekushka" (exactly who is this character, and why is she "assisting" a child?!)
Respectfully,
Aleksandra Filippovna
---
[ DATABASE: UNDERBREATH ] [ FILE: § 5-8 ]
[ PROTOCOLS: EN // BY // RU ]
[ CURRENT SECTOR: EN_ACTIVE ]
---
§ 6. The Dramatic Rotor
In the kitchen, the cult of black tar reigned supreme. Grandpa didn’t recognize those modern coffee machines—soulless plastic boxes that spit out ersatz-vigor at the push of a button. His cezve, blackened by time and flame, looked like the vector nozzle of a pulse engine from an old Klingon cruiser, accidentally left behind in the Victorian era. The coffee it produced was as thick as resin and as bitter as a truth that no one wants to hear.
Grandpa shoved a mug toward Danka. "Drink," he said. "It grounds you. When reality starts to 'bubble,' you need to pour something heavy inside..."
Then he stopped himself, looked at his ten-year-old grandson’s face, then at the mug—which sloshed with the pure essence of an existential crisis—and quickly snatched it back. "Actually, no, not for you. You’re a bit young to be grounding yourself that way."
He pulled a bottle of milk from the fridge and slammed it down in front of the boy: "Drink this. Three-point-five percent fat. Milk grounds you too, just in its own soft way. When the world starts cracking around you, stomach fat is your personal ballast."
He took a sip of the scalding liquid, winced at the familiar bitterness, and reached for the very top of the kitchen cabinet. There, among jars of nails and old newspapers, lived the Haznica.
The old kerosene lamp smelled of the previous century and soot—a scent that, in our sterile world, feels almost illicit, like contraband. He carefully wiped the glass with a rag, checked the wick, and struck a match. The flame flickered, stretched, and reflected in the grandson’s pupils with an uneven yellow light.
"See?" Grandpa nodded toward the window, where the steel leviathans continued their slow ritual dance on the asphalt. "This isn't a repair, Yo-Yo. This is a zhnitowka. A stitching together."
Danka didn't care about roadwork. His attention was captured by a bird performing insane aerobatics high in the sky, directly above a black rift in the clouds. Grandpa stepped to the windowsill, and the Haznica in his hand cast long, jagged shadows against the wall.
"The world isn't a monolith, grandson. It’s a layered pastry. Sometimes the layers shift, and a thermal emerges—an upward current punching a hole from one 'now' into another. See the bird?”
"I’ve been watching for a while," Danka replied, his eyes fixed on the sky. "That's Galk," Grandpa observed, mesmerized, as the bird at three hundred meters began to be pulled sideways. Not up, not down, but specifically into the side, into the very fabric of the void. "He climbed too high. The thermal ended, and now the rotor is pulling him toward where the sky is the color of a ripe plum, and our Minsk looks like a pile of rusty toy parts."
Grandpa felt Danka shudder. A chill ran down the boy’s spine that had nothing to do with a draft. "Will he be okay?" "I don't know," Grandpa shrugged. "But tomorrow I’m going to your school. We’ll settle those 'parent-teacher meetings' of yours." "Grandpa, it says right there: 'Dear Parents'!" "Don't worry, усё будзе выдатна, I know this crowd! Your teacher..." he gave an ironic grunt. "You think she's just mean? No, Yo-Yo. Most likely she’s an ordinary kaskalya. A petty, malicious spirit, a hollow shell—like a khikhitun. The real Aleksandra Filippovna was probably blown away into one of those thermals last month. This one... she’s just broadcasting noise. Like this spoon."
Grandpa picked up a fallen teaspoon and tossed it into the sink. "The object exists, but the meaning is gone. I just hope your Filippovna isn't 'the Great' kind."
Danka stared at the lamp’s flame. It seemed that Grandpa's words, which he used to consider senile rambling, were finally clicking into the slots of his own fear.
"Grandpa," he hesitated. "I think I know why you always call me Yo-Yo. Is it because of the toy on a string? Like, I’m spinning too?"
Grandpa turned slowly. The light from the Haznica shining upward turned his face into the mask of an ancient hero—stern and perhaps a bit frightening.
"Close guess, my inquisitive grandson. But it’s not a toy. And it’s not a string. It’s resonance. Look at the letter 'Ё'. Those two dots on top are two worlds, two states. And the letter 'О' is a ring, a trap. Yo-Yo (IO-IO) is the sound reality itself makes when it tries to maintain the balance between 'being' and 'seeming.' And you are the pendulum. As long as you are 'Yo-Yo,' you prevent those points from collapsing. Your name is an access code. In the Gökçerende galaxy, it’s the cry of a bird warning of a storm. It’s your way of not turning into a khikhitun. As long as you answer to that name, you are anchored to 'Home.' To the present."
Grandpa saw two tiny suns flare up in the boy's eyes for a moment. "Finish your milk. It’s time for us to head out there, into the asphalt steam. Let’s see what letter they’re trying to pave into the road this time. Perhaps the very 'Ё' that I lost in my childhood."
They stepped into the hallway. The air was heavy, like curtains in a burnt-out theater. Right by the elevator, reality developed its first serious crack. The door of the neighboring apartment flew open with a crash, and a woman burst out at them.
Danka hid fearfully behind Grandpa’s back. The neighbor seemed infinitely old, though she was barely over thirty—rage had carved wrinkles into her face like ravines. In her empty eyes, the flame of the lamp was reflected, but reflected incorrectly—matte, like in fuel oil.
"My child is having a nap!" she shrieked. "And your drill... that cursed hammer drill won't let him sleep! Have you decided to wall up everything living?!"
Her fingers elongated, turning into bony knitting needles. Danka trembled. "Grandpa... what drill? It was quiet in our place..." "Oh, to hell with her," Grandpa snapped, not slowing his pace.
The elevator doors clattered. Grandpa stepped inside after Danka and held out a palm, blocking the path of this fury. "You can't come. It’s too noisy in here." "What?!" her face broke into gray spots. "Hear that?" he squinted, looking directly into her pulsing pupils. "That’s not a drill, darling. Those are rotors. The Earth is turning on a rusty axis, and if you step into this elevator now, you'll simply be smeared across the walls of the shaft. Go, lull your 'child' to sleep. If he hasn't already turned into a cast-iron iron."
The doors closed. The last thing Danka saw through the narrow slit was the neighbor’s face beginning to "melt," turning into a flat white mask with a black void for a mouth. She was screaming, but the sound was swallowed by the elevator’s turbine.
"Grandpa... you said 'darling' (деточка). But she’s old..." "She’s still young, Yo-Yo. It’s just that the 'stitching' always starts with the face. To you, she’s old because you see the weight of her emptiness. But to me, she’s an underbaked pie. An ordinary kaskalya. She mistakes the noise of a crumbling reality for the sound of renovations."
Grandpa looked at his grandson. "Remember: when the world starts pushing characters like that at you, it means we’re no longer on the asphalt. We’re in the ruts."
The elevator froze, and instead of the usual chime, they heard the distant, mournful cry of a bird.
§ 7. Did Someone Call for the Ambassador?
To be honest, Grandpa didn't feel like dragging himself to the school at all. He imagined the smell of bleach and overcooked cutlets from the cafeteria, the terrifying swarms of children during recess jumping chaotically and without brakes on everyone's feet, the deafening screams... God help them—schoolchildren! This vierchal was comparable only to the howl of a fire alarm. And the educators... oh, he almost forgot about them! Women with massive backcombed hairdos that we used to call "lousy beehives" back in school, which could literally see right through you. He feared this epic encounter, so he donned the mask of a serious scientist and, sighing but hoping for victory, set off for the negotiations.
Grandpa adjusted his glasses, knocked on the staffroom door, and, without waiting for an answer, entered with the air of someone who was at the very least the Minister of Intergalactic Relations. Aleksandra Filippovna was sitting over a stack of notebooks, and her expression did not bode well.
"Good afternoon, Aleksandra Filippovna. I’m here about Danka. His parents, unfortunately, had to depart urgently for a business trip to the Tatooine sector, so I am here as his plenipotentiary representative."
The teacher slowly removed her glasses. "So you are... that grandfather?" She struggled to find the words. "Have you read what he wrote? Klingons? Saboteur crocodiles? And some kind of 'Chekushka'?"
Grandpa sighed heavily and sat down across from her, clasping his hands. "Aleksandra Filippovna, I understand your concern. But let’s take this step by step. What disturbs you the most? The Death Star issue?" "What disturbs me is that the child is living in a world of hallucinations!" she exclaimed.
"Now, why is that?" he countered calmly. "His parents really are working on a very top-secret project. It’s a massive construction involving thousands of droids and enormous budgets. The work is being carried out in a vacuum; communication is poor, and there are constant delays with the delivery of hyperdrive engines... You know our suppliers! And Danka—he’s just a very observant boy. He sees his parents' stress and transforms it into these metaphors."
"And Chekushka?!" the teacher nearly reached a scream. "That’s... that’s a slang name for a bottle!"
Grandpa looked at her with slight pity. "Aleksandra Filippovna, what bottle? Chekushka is a call sign. She’s a specialist in cybersecurity and electronic intrusion. Small, inconspicuous, she can slip into any access port. She is the brain of the entire rescue operation. And Gena—well, you know Gena-types: kind but stern when it comes to Empress Shapoklyak. You ask them for anything, and they’ll work themselves to the bone until it’s done."
"Yes, yes," she nodded absentmindedly, "you can't crush a Gena with one finger..."
The teacher stared at him in silence for about a minute. The staffroom became so quiet that one could hear someone in the next classroom clumsily trying to recite a poem by Vasil Bykau. "Are you... are you serious?" she whispered.
"Absolutely," he leaned forward. "And if I were you, I would give him a 'ten' not just for style, but for preserving a state secret. Because he didn't write a single word about the laser installations, even though he knows their schematics by heart. That is patriotism!"
"I’m afraid that now I shall have to summon your parents to the school!" She stood up, crossing her arms over her chest and threateningly swaying her "lousy beehive.”
"Mine?!" Grandpa practically choked.
"Yes, yours! Or the police! Or Child Protective Services!"
"Fine, fine, I see you require evidence," he said. To finally finish the teacher off, he pulled out a squared notebook completely filled with those very blueprints of the Death Star. "There, you see? This is a copy. The original blueprints were stolen, and right now his parents are attempting to deliver them to Tatooine."
"So, they stole them? Heroes indeed! The child is being raised in a family that isn't even ashamed, but rather boasts about the secret misappropriation of someone else's property!"
"Nobody is boasting!" Grandpa flared up. "They stole from those who had stolen before them, but you’re better off not knowing about them—you couldn't handle the truth!"
"I couldn't handle it?!" She began to rise from her desk again, her "lousy beehive" swaying threateningly—now resembling a Warhammer, a weapon that hadn't even been developed yet specifically for the destruction of Death Stars.
"Alright... rum-pum-pum..." he drummed a snippet of the Rebel March on the table. "The truth it is: in reality, two mermaids wrote off the blueprints from Koschei..."
Have you ever seen the explosive emission of a local continuum into itself? An implosion, so to speak? Well, Grandpa had.
Hardly out of the school gates, he hurried to congratulate Danka: "You can rest easy. Filippovna won’t be bothering you anymore!"
"Really? How did you manage that? No one in school could handle her."
"I’m from a different school!" Grandpa smiled smugly. "The ambulance just took your mentor to the loony bin."
"What loony bin?!"
"A special one. Sanatorium-type, strictly for teachers..."
But the grandson wasn't listening; he continued to worry. "Grandpa, what have you done?! Now Megera will take her place... and she’s completely unhinged—a real witch!"
"I may have overstepped, then... what do we do now?"
"What else? We have to save her... we can’t do this without Grandma and her pack of wolves... where is she now?"
"Hunting. Or sewing something together."
"What?"
"It’s all the same to her: universes, pockets, or tails for wolves. She promised to arrive on Saturday. Can we manage until this what’s-her-name—Marya Vanna—shows up?"
§ 8. ChyKa
Once upon a time, there lived Chyrvony Kapyalyush (Red Hat), and she had seven wolves in her service. She pampered and cherished them, only occasionally hitching them to her wagon if she needed to fly somewhere far away. For shorter distances, Little Red preferred to travel on foot—she’d toss an axe over her shoulder and march forward with a whistle! The wolves, of course, went with her, though they remained free and unharnessed.
And so they frolicked until they had slaughtered all the dragons. Little Red herself didn't eat them, but the wolves claimed that dragon meat was surprisingly tender, especially in soup.
(Need a recipe? Here you go!)1
But while dragons used to be easily caught by scattering bait right near the porch (followed by a thud, bang, axe—off with the head), their range of distribution had significantly narrowed. Well, that’s the technical term; in reality, it had expanded significantly, but it began to resemble a donut. And right in the very center of the donut hole stood the house of Red... Chyrvonaya... it takes too long to write, let's just call it the house of ChyKa. That hole grew and grew until ChyKa began to wonder: "Why have the dragons started bypassing my dwelling, first by a mile, then two, and now by a full seven?"
Oh, wait, that’s not how it happened at all: she didn't "wonder" anything. The wolves simply came to her and said they hadn't eaten in ages.
"Then go catch a dragon!"
"Ha! We can't defeat a dragon on our own. Come with us!"
"Well, if you can't manage that, go catch some rabbits! And anyway, how did you get out of the enclosure?"
"Someone snapped the wires..."
ChyKa sent the wolves off to hunt for rabbit meat while she went to check the wires. It was then that she discovered Darth Vader tangled in them, "straining with his last bit of strength to fulfill the mission" assigned to him by the Lord of the Dark Sith... I always get it mixed up—The Dark Lord of the Sith.
One might get the mistaken impression that she kept the wolves in an enclosure for fear they’d cause mischief, but the truth was quite the opposite: the enclosure was built so that the dragons wouldn't attack them. Even though the dragons could fly, they were deathly afraid of electricity. Once they got zapped a couple of times, they stopped showing up around there.
After replacing the fuses in the fence's grid, Chyrvony Kapyalyush sat on a stump, pulled out a rabbit pasty, took a bite, and pondered: "Something is rotten in my kingdom! What did I tell them when I was half-asleep? If there’s no heraldic paper—write on the ordinary kind? No. In the absence of a maid, do the cleaning yourself? Also no... Ah! I sent them to hunt rabbits!"
She realized she had made a grave mistake. If the wolves changed their diet, they would devour every rabbit in existence, leaving nothing for her. Rabbits might multiply in a geometric progression, but wolves eat even faster!
"No, it wouldn't do for us to change our diet—neither for me nor for the wolves!" ChyKa thought to herself. She finished her pasty and then let out a shout that echoed through the entire forest, so powerful that the moon slipped off its axis, the neighboring mountains trembled, and even the sea began to storm: "Hey, my darlings! Quick, get into the harness! We're going dragon hunting!"
Whether it was a long journey or a short one, the road eventually led Little Red to a blue sea, which was storming like nobody’s business. The wolves stopped and stared, stupefied (or, according to another version, with horror), at a sight never seen before. Volcanoes were erupting, lightning was flashing, and lightsabers were lopping off mountains like mere reeds. The clouds showered everyone now with ash, now with hail.
"What is that?!" the wolves asked Little Red Hat, their voices stammering in unison.
"Let me think," ChyKa began, her voice tinged with alarm. Then, with a sigh of relief, she gave the last wolf in the harness a playful slap on the back. "Ah, I’ve got it! Darth Vader finally found his nemesis, Jedi Timothy, and now he’s going to mince him like cabbage!"
"Doesn't look like it," said the lead wolf, Zibi, turning his head back.
"It looks exactly like it! Or at the very least, he’s going to give him a taste of his own medicine," replied the ravenous Red Hat. "Alright, let’s not interfere. Turn us around."
"Mistress, still—" Zibi tried to make a U-turn on the narrow path, but nothing was working. Then he let out a howl so loud that for a brief second, the battle on the land, in the heavens, and on the sea came to a standstill. "Alright, single file! Turn around one by one! You’re pushing like a bunch of sheep! Mistress," Zibi, now at the front of the reversed line, stopped across from Kapyalyush, "that crocodile doesn't look much like a Jedi, does he?"
"A lot you know about Jedis. Thanks to the power of the Light Fire, he’s transformed into the ancient Egyptian god Sabak—Jedis are like that, they can do these things. But no matter, Darth Vader knows how to put out these cigarette butts..."
"A Sabak, you say?" the other wolves chimed in. "Maybe we should help Darth? Yeah, I can’t stand dogs!" "Me neither!" "Me neither!" "I am of the same opinion!"
"Shut up, Zhuzhu!" Zibi snapped, even nipping the first troublemaker on the ear. "He said a Sabak, not a sobaka (dog). We’ll check Wikipedia when we get home!"
"If we get home..." Zhuzhu whimpered anxiously, running alongside Zibi.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"You see, Mistress," Zibi stopped the harness, "you see, Mistress, the birds whistled to us that the dragons have a new overlord..."
"And?" ChyKa still wasn't following.
"And he has three heads!" Zhuzhu blurted out. "And they say he’s wicked smart, spits fire, and isn't afraid of electricity! A problem, however!"
"What was that last bit? I didn't catch it," ChyKa said, confused.
"Well, 'however'—nevertheless, nonetheless, nonetheless. They’re synonyms."
"No, about the electricity?"
"Ah. The current doesn't shock him."
"We’ll have to look into this," Little Red Hat began thoughtfully drumming Mendelsohn’s Wedding March on the carriage box. "So you're saying he's a mutant, and in isolation too..."
"No, we didn't say anything about insulation!" the wolves barked in discord.
Goodnight, little ones! The continuation of our story will be in the late-night edition of the Crime Chronicles. Our correspondent Zhuzhu is at the epicenter of events... or the explosion... honestly, who knows where she’s wandering off to...
1 Green dragon meat is best; failing that, you can use caiman or Far Eastern dragon. So: place a couple of kilograms of dragon meat in a large pot, cover with water, and simmer for an hour or an hour and a half, skimming off the foam. Then remove the meat (preferably with a slotted spoon, not your hands), cut it into cubes, and set aside. Toss a bay leaf into the pot, a couple of sliced onions (you can peel them first), a couple of chili peppers, and sugar and salt to taste. Simmer for another hour, then strain the broth. Next, sauté sliced onions in oil until golden—you know the drill—add them to the broth along with some flour, and cook, stirring, until golden brown. Finally, add tomato puree, lemon juice, eggs, and the meat, and simmer for another ten minutes. Then remove from heat and eat. And don't just eat it—devour it. Do not "dine."
---
[ END OF FILE: § 5-8 ]
[ >> PROCEED TO PROTOCOL § 9-10 ]
---
[ EXTERNAL DIRECTORIES // CONNECT ]
---