Flamy stretched his neck, grabbed the handle with his teeth, and the door clicked. The night before Masha and Mama went to the store and bought food for the entire week. What was not there! Milk, cheese, sausage, ham, oranges, a pot of diet soup for Mama, and a bottle of liqueur, which Papa drinks “for digestion.”

Flamy studied all this for a while and then asked, “Where’s the food? There are only some boxes and jars here!”

“The food is inside. First, wash your hands!” Olga ordered. She had not known Flamy for very long but was already giving him orders.

“Hands?” the dragon was surprised. “I have no hands! I only have feet, and a whole four of them!”

Olga pondered. “Well, okay! Wash your feet!” she said.

“What nonsense! Where is it seen that people wash their feet before meals? Maybe you’ll even say ears?” Pookar was outraged.

“It would be a good idea for some people to wash their ears, Pookar!” Olga said maliciously. Pookar stuck his tongue out at her.

“I want to eat! I want to eat!” Flamy grumbled.

Olga went to the refrigerator. “Soup?”

Flamy carefully licked the soup and shook his head.

“A chop, then? You should like chops.”

The dragon took a bite and grimaced. “No, I don’t want chops.”

In the next three minutes, it was revealed that Flamy ate neither bread, potatoes, sausage, nor hot dogs. However, Pookar liked most of all that Flamy did not like jam.

“Wait, I’ll see what else I can find!” Olga said and went to the kitchen cupboard.

Pookar took advantage of her absence and decided to play a prank. “I know what dragons like. Try mustard, Flamy! It’s very tasty! You just have to swallow a lot quickly.”

“Don’t, don’t!” the bunnies wanted to shout but did not have time.

The hungry dragonet instantly licked all the mustard out of the jar. However, instead of jumping to the ceiling, as Pookar expected, Flamy licked his lips contentedly and let out a jet of flame from his nose.

“Wow! I couldn’t do it earlier. Yummy! Perhaps, I’d be able to have some more!” he exclaimed.

“Why does it smell burnt in here? Did you light a match? I’ll give it to you!” Olga asked the bunnies severely when she returned.

“Not us! It’s Flamy! Pookar fed him mustard and he breathed fire right away! Flamy also didn’t know that he can.”

“Yeah! It’s me! Isn’t it great?” Flamy boasted.

Olga saw an empty mustard jar and started to advance menacingly toward Pookar. He instantly hid behind Flamy.

“You don’t understand, doll! He liked it. All dragons eat mustard.”

“It’s true, it’s true! And even red pepper in pods. Because we breathe fire,” Flamy confirmed.

“You’re lucky, Pookaroid, or else I’d give you a licking as mustard dessert!” Olga stopped chasing Pookar.

Realizing this, Pookar looked out bravely from behind the dragon. “Well, assuming it’s still unknown who would beat up whom,” he declared.

Flamy and his new friends moved from the kitchen to the room and played indoor Olympic games. The bunnies Sineus and Truvor excelled in jumping. They could easily jump over Flamy. Pookar did not jump so well but somersaulted remarkably. His round body was created ideally for somersaults. Flamy flew around the kitchen like an awkward, heavy bee and almost broke the lamp.

The doll Olga was afraid of staining her new dress and just clapped her hands and laughed, watching the others having fun. She suddenly remembered that Mama and Papa would soon return from work. The adults would scold Masha for scattering the toys, so they had to tidy up the room.

Flamy hesitated a little and asked, “Can I live with you in the room? It’s boring alone in the closet!”

Pookar and Olga looked at each other and agreed. “Of course, you can. Only be careful. Nobody must see you,” said Olga.

“Why?” Flamy asked.

“Because!” Pookar interrupted. “If they see you, they’ll take you away to the zoo, detain you with your head in a test tube and study you. People – they’re like that.”

“Are we telling Masha about Flamy?” the bunnies asked together.

Pookar shook his head. “Not yet. Though big in appearance, she’s but a girl, and you can expect anything from them.”

The doll Olga did not like any attack on girls. “But we can’t tell a lie! It’s not good to lie,” she objected.

“Who’s lying? To lie is to say something that isn’t. But when you don’t talk about what is, it’s a CON-SPI-RA-CY.”

“Then it’s clear. It’s quite another matter. Then we won’t tell anyone,” the bunnies promised. They liked difficult words more than they understood their meaning.

“Hurray!” Flamy shouted. “I’ll live in the room! When someone comes, I’ll hide. Right?”

“Uh-huh,” Pookar assured him.

Chapter Four
About What Every Little Dragonet Can Do

In the evening on the green carpet in front of the dollhouse, Olga gathered all the toys to celebrate the resettlement of the dragonet Flamy to the room. Olga was bustling about in the kitchen. Sineus and Truvor were helpers; they carried spoons, forks, bowls of jam, cookies and pickles, cans of fish for the cat Muffin, and jars of mustard for Flamy.

Meanwhile, Muffin was teaching Flamy good manners. She found him funny but a little uncouth, and immediately got busy with his education.

“How do you walk? You stomp like a rhino! Should walk like this… Feet move softly and carefully!” Muffin strolled gracefully along the rug.

“Ne-uh. If I walk like that, then what about my fearsome dragon huff? All dragons huff. They can’t do it differently,” Flamy grumbled.

“You’re as stubborn as a rhino!” Rhino was the only wild beast known to Muffin. She once saw a picture of it in a children’s book and remembered it very well. Since then, it had become her source of negative examples for life. “Walk like a rhino,” “stupid like a rhino,” “drink milk like a rhino,” the cat repeated incessantly.

“It’s unclear why this Moscow cat is obsessed with the rhino. Muffy, watch you don’t marry a rhino! You would!” Pookar once remarked and immediately got one on the forehead for it. The cat Muffin’s foot might be soft, but it was painful.

At that moment, Pookar was writing a poem, which he intended on reading at the festive dinner. The poem was awfully stubborn and did not want to be written. Pookar was chewing on a pencil and suffering.

“Give me a rhyme for the word ‘ground’!” He nudged Olga in the side.

“Leave me alone. Don’t you see I’m busy?” The doll was spreading jam on bread.

“No, you’re not… I am. Spreading jam on bread is nothing like creating verses.”

“Then create them in silence. Or else you’ll be left without sandwiches,” the doll Olga talked back.

When the preparations were finished, everyone was invited to the table. The bunnies sat on small stools with carved legs, Olga sat on an armchair, Pookar climbed onto the cat’s back, and Flamy placed his heavy head on the edge of the table.

Everyone glanced around the table, wondering where to begin. The dragonet looked fondly at the jar of mustard. Sineus and Truvor shyly treated each other to carrots. The cat Muffin dreamily sniffed the can of fish as if smelling a rose.

“Please wait! I’ve finished the poem!” Pookar shouted suddenly.

He struck a pose, stretched out his right arm, cleared his throat, ran his fingers through his messy red hair, and began to wail in anguish,

 
“Cats walked along the ground,
Their legs moving,
Cockroaches were all around,
In manna kasha bathing.”
 

The toys clapped their hands. “Not bad! Not bad at all. A good poem. Well done!”

Pookar looked down modestly. “I dedicate my quatrain to the dragonet Flamy.”

Flamy was moved. “Really? Very nice of you. Would you read it once more, as I wasn’t listening the first time. I didn’t know that the poem was dedicated to me,” he admitted.

“Then why did you praise me?” Pookar asked sullenly. “Okay, listen!”

 
“Cats walked along the ground,
Their legs moving,
Cockroaches were all around,
In manna kasha bathing.”
 

Pookar repeated the quatrain three more times, and each time it seemed to him all the more successful. “I read and I weep! I can’t even believe that I wrote it,” he said.

Pookar’s poem was to everyone’s liking. Muffin liked that Pookar mentioned cats. The bunnies liked that everything rhymed and, most importantly, no one was eaten or killed. Olga alone was dissatisfied with the cockroaches. It seemed to her unhygienic.

“Let’s eat! No need to put it off! Long live cabbage and carrot pies!” the bunnies shouted.

“What a wonderful day! Today I woke up, today a great poem was dedicated to me, and I’ve found friends!” Flamy exclaimed, dipping his long forked tongue into the mustard.

“We’re also glad that we found you and you’ve become our friend!” Olga assured him.

“And we’re even more glad that you don’t eat jam,” Pookar added, licking the spoon.

The meal was barely over and the dishes put away when everyone heard a key in the lock and voices in the hallway.

“It’s the people! Hide, quick!” they shouted to Flamy. He darted around the room, searching for somewhere to hide. He was fussing so that he knocked over a chair and made a lot of noise.

“What fell in the room?” Mama asked in the hallway.

“The cat probably broke something again. I’ll take a look,” Papa replied.

The door handle started to turn. The bunnies clung to each other in fright and closed their eyes. Olga stayed still and pretended to be an ordinary doll in a white lace dress with a little pocket on the apron and a big blue bow. A doll that said “Ma-ma!” when she was turned upside down. However, before the door opened, Pookar all the same pulled the blanket from the bed and threw it on Flamy at least to hide the dragon somehow.

Papa came into the room and looked around. “It looks like the cat. She jumped on the back of a chair and knocked it over!” he said.

“Meow! Meow!” Muffin rubbed against his leg. In the presence of people Muffin uttered only “meow!” because she was certain that far from everyone was worthy of acquaintance with a talking cat.

Mama came into the room. She immediately noticed the blanket on the floor. It even seemed to her that something was moving under it. “Oh! There’s something there!” she exclaimed.

Pookar half opened one eye and saw the blanket lift a little at the edge. He closed his eyes, imagining what would happen now. Shouts, surprise, fright, and then someone would come from the zoo and take Flamy away. “There’s no one there! Just the blanket lying about… It only seemed so to you,” Pookar heard.

“But I saw! There was something there!”

“You’re tired from work, my dear. Time to take a vacation or, perhaps… quit it altogether, this work…”

“Yes, but you know…” the voices began to move away.

Mama and Papa went out, continuing their adult, uninteresting conversation. The toys breathed a sigh of relief.

“The danger’s over! But where’s Flamy? Where did he go?”

Pookar and the bunnies went around the room, looking through all the cracks. Flamy had seemingly vanished into thin air. Pookar even rummaged in his pockets just in case and Olga looked into the teacups. Flamy was nowhere.

“What if we dreamt him up?” Sineus suggested.

“Exactly! Otherwise, where would he have gone to?” Truvor agreed.

Olga and Pookar only made a helpless gesture. They could not understand anything. Ringing laughter was unexpectedly heard from above. The toys raised their heads and saw nothing. Just a most ordinary ceiling. But what was that? Where did the other chandelier come from? Were there really two? In fact, there were two chandeliers, like twins, on the ceiling.

“Hello, hello! You don’t recognize me?” the second chandelier said cheerfully. It tumbled onto the floor but did not break; instead, it turned into a beaming dragon.

“I didn’t know that I can do all these tricks. Only where didn’t you search! Even in your pockets! Ha-ha! Thought you dreamt me up?”

“But how did you do that?”

“I transformed!” Flamy uttered with difficulty through his laughter. “Became invisible and then changed. Listen, if I can, it means I’m already grown! I grew while sleeping in the trunk.”

“Crazy! I would like that!” Pookar said enviously.

“Pookar, you don’t have such talent and don’t try,” Olga laughed.