The Order of the Yellow Skull

Methodius pushed open the door. The early Moscow evening accepted him into its damp embraces reeking of railroad linen not yet dried. The wind whistled some frivolous little motif at the wires.

Manoeuvring between pedestrians, Methodius reached the high school.

“I’m going to Glumovich!” He said to the tall guard strolling by the entrance gates.

“He’s waiting for you?” The guard asked.

A longhaired young fellow with a split front tooth little resembled a person, who would have an appointment with the omnipotent director of the most expensive private school in Moscow.

Methodius already knew from Julitta that Glumovich was not any agent but simply one of the moronoids, who had handed over their own eidos to Gloom in exchange for fulfillment of some special desires. By agreement, his eidos should still be in the hunchback Ligul’s darx until the end of the year. Now Glumovich was being sly and dodging in order to postpone this moment at least for about ten more years. Certainly, he would hang onto Methodius with both hands.

Not fully trusting the boy’s statement that his director was waiting for him, the guard brought Methodius to the office. Behind the door with glass inserts, someone’s face appeared white. It was Glumovich, who was agitated but was walking from the table to the door and vice versa. Fulfilling the duty of the author to describe all new heroes, I will say that Glumovich was tall, emaciated, and insinuating. Like a sick fox.

On noticing Methodius, Glumovich rushed to him, but recollected and changed his steps.

“You may go!” He said to the guard.

The guard was slightly surprised; he left nevertheless.

Methodius surmised that Glumovich was experiencing the utmost contradictory feelings towards him. On the one hand, he was the terrible director of the most pathos-arousing high school in Russia, and Methodius was altogether only a new student bringing not a kopeck to the school. On the other hand — he was nothing but Glumovich, a moronoid having sold his eidos, and before him was Methodius Buslaev — the boy whom Gloom itself was looking to with hope.

“How do you do... eh-eh... little friend! Here’s your trunk. The driver brought it. I hoped to see you still in the daytime. You were detained... eh-eh... over there, where I think?” He greeted Methodius, continually jumping from servile muttering to the negligent speech of an important leader.

“Yes,” said Methodius, contemplating Glumovich’s aura. It was porous and all in black spots. Methodius did not want to savour this energy.

After thinking a little, Glumovich generously extended his moist skinny hand to Methodius.

“Next time... eh-eh... little friend, try to come earlier and not skip classes. We have strict discipline and mandatory attendance in the school. You must spend the night in your room. Furthermore, in our high school there are rules, which all students are obligated to follow. Nine hundred and twelve rules in all. I’m sure you will learn them in the course of time. Furthermore, inside the school you will be obligated to wear a soccer shirt with the emblem of the high school and the number of your class. Agreed?” He said with a complacent intonation.

Glumovich’s speech sounded smoothly like that of a guide. He must have repeated this to every new student.

“A soccer shirt with numbers? The kind as if we’re prisoners? And does the window in the room open? What if I take it into my head to run down to Bald Mountain?” Methodius asked lazily. He heard about Bald Mountain from Julitta in passing, but concluded that in the given situation there would be no need for details. And in fact, Glumovich bit his tongue.

Methodius smiled. After the crowds of agents and the brisk Aida Mamzelkina with her instrument of necro-work, Glumovich seemed like a small fry to him. No more than the seven of diamonds in the card deck of life.

“Come, I’ll show you your room,” continued Glumovich. “You won’t be living alone. Single rooms for students contradict the rules of our high school. Rule number eighty-three. Your roommate will be Vova Skunso. Remember: Skunso. Stress to the last syllable.”

“He’s Italian?” Methodius asked.

“No. Nationality differences don’t exist for us. Under the threat of expulsion, we even must never say the word Russian. Only citizen of Russia. Rule number three... The boy is very good, very informed. You will obtain enormous pleasure from contact with him,” Glumovich assured him.

“Really? Then I can’t wait to see this Vova Skunso!” Methodius insolently stated.

Reliable wit suggested to him that indeed they would not kick him out of this high school, even if he managed to break all nine hundred and twelve rules. In any case, for the time being the director would have some illusions at his expense.

Glumovich looked at Methodius with anxiety. Then he turned and went ahead, showing the way. They went up to the second floor. The staircase was beautiful, with semicircular windows, but Methodius did not like the railing. They concluded with wooden figures. You take it into your head to slide down — and the finale is clear. At best, a dozen splinters. At worst — also a dozen! — even fractures. Moderately soft runners covered the steps. The corridors were moderately wide. The ceiling was moderately high. In general, “moderation” was the central idea, around which revolved the life of the high school Well of Wisdom. Numerous photographs of past graduated students hung on the walls. The complete name of the happy fellow and the important post, which the student managed to occupy, were obligatorily shown on a card under each photograph.

“We graduate into adult life the well-prepared. All our students reach significant heights! Here, take a look: Maxim Karyabin. Head of the State Bank’s credit card division. And here’s Boris Vilkin — our pride! Last year’s Nobel Prize winner for his contribution to the development of cosmetics and make-up for disguise,” Glumovich informed him.

“What, was he actually so pimply?” Methodius asked, examining the photograph with a defeatist attitude.

“Phew! What, do you see negative sides in everything?” Glumovich could not refrain.

“I learned this from Eddy. He says: either you are dissatisfied with life, or it will be dissatisfied with you. I personally think that acridity — it’s this predisposed complication of the brain that I have,” stated Methodius.

“And here’s your room! Very convenient!” Glumovich said, stopping at the door with the number “five” and knocked on it.

The door opened. Met saw a sufficiently large room divided into two parts by a long cabinet. Red boxer gloves were hanging down from the ceiling. A flaxen-haired adolescent of about thirteen, pink and white, with light eyebrows and short crew-cut, was strolling around the room and talking on a cell phone. He was taller than Methodius, wider in the shoulders, and generally larger.

“Get acquainted, Vova! This is Methodius Buslaev, your new roommate,” said Glumovich.

“I’ll call you back later...” said the adolescent negligently into the phone. “Hello, hello, newbie! I’m Vladimir Skunso. Have you heard of President Skunso of the delegates? I’m his son...”

Methodius looked sideways at Glumovich, as if asking whether there existed some rules forbidding bragging, but Glumovich discreetly kept mum. Obviously, such a rule did not exist.

“I sympathize!” Methodius said, after deciding to put Skunso in his place. It was better to do this immediately right there and then.

Skunso chewed his lips, attempting to digest the information. But, not having really digested it, he said:

“Papa now has all kinds of important transfers in the service. No matter, after his transfer I’ll dump this wretched high school. Only not to England, it’s indeed painfully strict there. But then in France, they say, it’s not too bad,” he stated, not batting an eye at the presence of the director. After hearing his educational institution described as wretched, Glumovich sniffed in offence, but as a highly experienced leader, pretended he was deaf.

“And I don’t like France. Frogs for breakfast is nothing, it’s possible to endure, but when they give you the same frogs not just for breakfast but for dinner, moreover without ketchup, it’s indeed too much...,” stated Methodius.

It was his style. He always talked in such a way that it could not be understood whether he was speaking seriously or joking. Skunso looked at Methodius with suspicion, not knowing whether to believe him or not. It was evident that he was hastily considering who was before him. He was dressed indifferently, but then the director himself brought him. And even on the whole, can you really figure someone out now according to the clothing? “Only salesmen of Chinese screwdrivers wear good suits now! Seven in one for the price of two for five!” Eddy Khavron loved to say repeatedly the same quote all the time.

“And who’s your father?” Skunso carefully asked.

“A cosmonaut. He was smoking inside the space suit during space walk, and his oxygen cylinders exploded,” answered Methodius.

Skunso looked at him distrustfully. Methodius perceived that he was being x-rayed, weighed, and considered unfit, being put down in a classification somewhere between an amoeba and a microorganism of a shoe.

“Remember, you said I’ll get enormous pleasure from contact with my roommate?” Methodius asked Glumovich.

“Yes.”

“Well. I don’t.”

“Me neither!” Skunso said.

“Boys! Stop! I beg you! Shake hands! This is so miraculous, so nice, so promising!” Glumovich said with sugary enthusiasm.

Methodius and Vova Skunso at once hid their hands behind their backs. Clever Glumovich decided that it was a convenient moment to make his escape.

“Boys, I’m so glad that you found each other! Happy entry into adult life!” He briskly cooed and disappeared.

In that very second the last friendliness of Vova Skunso evaporated. He approached Methodius and poked a finger into his chest.

“So, well... If you want to remain here and not to have problems, learn several rules. First: I’m not Vova to you!”

“Then who are you?”

“Vovva! Two v’s. From now on, you’ll call me that. Notice the difference?” Skunso edifyingly said.

“Vaguely. What, you’re Vovva according to your birth certificate?” Methodius was interested.

“According to my birth certificate I’m Vladimir. But for you — personally for you — Vovva! Got it?”

“Got it. Vovva, so Vovva. Let a psychiatrist investigate further. What other rules are there?” Met said in mockery.

“You’ll not get under my feet and not go to my half of the room. Do you see the cabinet? Draw a mental line from it to the door. Done? And now draw it in reverse — to remember better! Everything that’s on my side from the cabinet — is mine.”

“And if I drop something and it rolls to your side? The boots over there?” Methodius asked.

“You really have round things that roll? Then they’re my trophies. You won’t get them back. Walk barefoot... Now further. Do you have many things?”

“This trunk here.”

“So, a few. Half of the shelves for you will be too much. I’ll give the two end ones to you.”

“Well, definitely not. I’ll take exactly half, even if I have to gather empty bottles on the street in order to put something on them,” decisively stated Methodius.

He already reckoned that he could totally feel at home here. After all, the room, which he shared together with Zozo and her brother, was approximately the same size, and it was indeed much more cluttered.

They were quiet. Then Methodius asked:

“Do you have girls here?”

“We have classes together. But they live separately, in the right wing,” unwillingly said Vovva Skunso.

Someone knocked on the window. Vovva came alive, jerked back the curtains and threw open the window. Methodius saw that on the wide cornice of the second floor was a well-fed curly adolescent in a red soccer shirt with the emblem of the school.

“Here you gave birth to a crocodile

With your own fate.

Let them burn polycandelon in the skies,

Darkness — in the grave,

(Poem of V. Solovyov.)”

He said loudly and, moving aside the flowerpots with his stomach, crawled into the room.

“Pasha Sushkin. Son of the minister of culture and gymnastics,” Vovva let drop in an off-hand manner.

It was clearly read in his voice that the minister of culture and gymnastics was not his equal.

Pasha Sushkin stared at Methodius.

“Now who is this? Who’s he?” Pasha asked.

“My papa is a banker. While parking, he accidentally smashed into the district militia officer Tavrii and is hiding in order not to pay for repairs!” Methodius said in a mocking tone.

“A-a-ah!” Pasha Sushkin drawled in understanding and alternately winked with both eyes.

“Complication of idiocy in an inflated form! If someone asks me again who my father is, I’ll do him harm!” Methodius thought.

“I know what you’re thinking!” Pasha said shrewdly.

Methodius was slightly worried. Last time he took similar statements too seriously.

“What?” He asked.

“You’re thinking that you’re lucky to be in our company. In mine and Skunso’s.”

“I’m in seventh heaven. I’ll now take a power saw and saw you into memorable souvenirs,” said Methodius.

“My friend, apply the brakes to your humorous attempts! Your monotonic humour casts a depressive boredom over me,” Sushkin said with disgust. He clearly hoped to nail Methodius to the fence with this phrase. But it did not work here.

“From the point of view of commonplace erudition, not every human individual is capable of truly reacting to all tendencies of potential action,” coolly answered Methodius.

Zozo taught him this phrase. “Not important what it means, but it knocks fools healthily down a peg! The main thing is to say it without any strain like something you understand. Somehow with this phrase I put a puffed-up physicist down lower than any chemist,” she declared.

Pasha Sushkin, who had nothing suitable ready for the occasion, was lost, exchanged glances with Skunso, and went away with him behind the cabinet. Sushkin disturbing the line did not trouble Skunso.

“And where is the preventive shot on border crossing?” Met asked.

Sushkin and Skunso pretended demonstratively that they heard nothing.

“As always?” Methodius heard the voice of Sushkin,

“Aha. Run to Zaplevaev and Andrukha Bortov. And I to Drell. Tell them there that...”

Vovva Skunso looked around at Methodius and lowered his voice. Now Methodius heard only “Shu-shu-shush.”

“Understood?” Skunso asked near the end.

“No problem!” Pasha Sushkin answered and left the room. This time by way of mastering the new experience of using the door.

“Hey! You would put on Achilles’ helmet,

A copper helmet on a copper forehead,

It was heavy, and the body is sickly:

You will fall under it,”

His voice reached them from the corridor.

A couple of minutes later Vovva Skunso also left for somewhere. Methodius shrugged his shoulders. He did not like this foolish mysteriousness at all. On the other hand, he did not want to pay great attention to these halfwits of blue blood.

He began to put away his things. There were few of them. Jeans, sweater, toothbrush. All this would be accommodated perfectly even on one shelf, but in order that Skunso would not become presumptuous, Methodius tried to do it such that his things would occupy as much space as possible. He had already intended to kick the trunk under the bed when suddenly he sensed the presence of the book under the belt of his pants, where he had shoved it two hours earlier. Met pulled it out. Written on the cover was A. Shmakov-Dyavkin. How to work out cosines.

“What’s this?” Methodius thought, when suddenly he understood that this was Ares’ Book of Chameleons, which had changed its appearance again. He opened the thirty-first page and found the thirteenth line from the top. This time the tuning to deep sight happened almost instantly. The letters obediently misted and delivered:

This night you will find out many new things about yourself. Ares.

Methodius wanted to close the book, but first he mechanically leafed through it. His sight, not having time to return to normal, moronoid sight, now saw strange things. On those dull pages, where very recently A. Shmakov-Dyavkin inoffensively discussed cosine, dashingly dealt with sine, and nicely picking his teeth with tangent, bloody runes were scattered and ominous letters were jumping.

On the last page, Methodius discovered a table of contents:

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 569