They turned to the right, once again to the right, and descended the short stairs going down. The mean person brought Tanya to the high plastic arch.

“Go through the detector!” he ordered.

Tanya, shrugging her shoulders, took a step through the arch. She knew that she had nothing. An instant – and the detector literally began to shake from ringing. The eyebrows of the mean little fellow predatorily went up.

“Take out keys and all metallic objects,” he ordered.

Tanya fearfully took out keys and again took a step into the arch. The detector again began to shake.

“Well, that’s it, Grotter, the end for you! The sky in a cell, friends in stripes! You will run errands for someone for apple cores and toothpaste tubes!” Mumrikova shouted.

“Quiet!” Prikhodkin ordered her. “This machine is most likely defective… Here I’ll go through now… There, it’s quiet! What a skunk! Really she could… no, I don’t believe it!”

“So… now we’ll find out… Come here! Not to me! To this screen!” The mean person dragged Tanya to the low screen, and he went up to the monitor. The girl heard as he muttered, “Hm… as if there is no sword… There is nothing… But why then does it ring? Some stupidity… Well and she didn’t swallow the sword…”

“May I leave?” Tanya asked.

“Yes,” Lieutenant Colonel Chuchundrikov allowed. Picking up the handset of the internal telephone, he shouted into it, “Did they rewind the film? Well who’s there? The girl?” They answered him something.

“You’re sure? Absolutely?”

Continuing to hold the handset in his hand, the mean person looked darkly at Tanya, then at the teacher.

It seemed to Tanya that her heart fell from a high, very high altitude. And it broke into smithereens. Her back got soaked, her palm were covered with sweat. Lieutenant Colonel stubbornly kept quiet. The girl blinked and, already standing with tightly closed eyes, heard the words. “It means this. Your student here has nothing to do with it. You can take her away. At the moment of the theft the tracking camera did not lock in on her.”

Lena Mumrikova squealed from disappointment.

“Well, here you see! But what was on the film?” Prikhodkin exclaimed. The nose of the tiny Lieutenant Colonel hardly reached the button on his stomach.

“None of your business,” the Lieutenant Colonel answered.

“How is it not my business? She’s my student!” Prikhodkin was angry.

“I don’t have the right to reveal anything. The investigation isn’t finished. I’ll ask you to clear the museum!”

However, when they left the hall a minute later, it seemed to Tanya, slightly delayed because her legs felt like cotton wool, that he said to his assistant in an undertone, “Either you’ll explain to me what it was on the film or I won’t envy you. And I won’t envy myself.”

“You eat the noodles from the day before yesterday. They’re sticking together a little, but you can warm them up. Only don’t take it into your head to set fire to the apartment – it’ll happen with you,” Aunt Ninel said sullenly.

“Thankie!” Tanya blurted out mockingly. “Interesting, why doesn’t Pipa eat them? Afraid the noodles will wind around her teeth? Or crawl from her ears? It would be quite lovely with her hairdo.”

“Hold your tongue! Or you’ll be left without breakfast!” Aunt Ninel bellowed.

Considering that even day-before-yesterday noodles were better than nothing, Tanya grabbed a fork.

Three and half days had passed since the incident in the museum. The first day was altogether a nightmare, because, when Tanya returned home, they already knew everything there. It turned out that Irina Vladimirovna and Lenka Mumrikova phoned almost simultaneously and, chattering, each excitedly reported her own version. What these versions were, Tanya did not know exactly, but the Durnevs went completely berserk. Likely, they decided that she stole the sword, and even if she did not, then it did not happen without her participation.

“I said that you’d end up in prison!” Uncle Herman, stomping his feet, began to yell. Then he gripped his side and collapsed onto the chair. “My heart is breaking! When I found out about this, I ate nine instead of seven balls of homeopathic medicine!” he squealed. “If I die now, it’ll be on your conscience! What a stain on my deputy career!”

“Herman! The heart’s not there!” Aunt Ninel whispered.

Pipa poked her head into the kitchen.

“She specially plotted everything! She scalded me, and went on the excursion…” she squeaked.

For someone scalded to death by tea she was looking pretty good, except that she was covered with humongous pimples the size of half a fist. But it was due to her gorging on too many sweets…

“Shut your mouth!” not being able to control herself, Tanya shouted at Pipa. Her nerves were on edge, she had lived through too much today. It seemed to her that a fine string was stretched inside her and any minute now it would break.

“Why do you talk to your cousin like that? And you, Pipa, go! What else can you pick up from this criminal!” Aunt Ninel said, pursing her lips.