“Where did you come from? You have general cleaning today!” Pookar asked suspiciously.

      “I already finished… Now I stumbled over something and this happened!” Olga started to cry.

      “I see,” said Pookar. “Never mind, and relax. Nothing terrible has happened… Just a little etiquette. By the way, where did this puddle come from? It wasn’t here earlier.”

      “This isn’t a puddle. It’s apple jelly,” Olga uttered through her tears.

      “Apple jelly? My favourite apple jelly?” A perplexed expression appeared on Pookar’s face.

      “You’ve been asking for a long time, so I made some.”

      Pookar stamped his foot. “Oh! Why didn’t you warn me that you would bring jelly? Why? Always intrigues, forever hiding everything from me! What, Olga, you couldn’t carry it more carefully? Who asked you to fall?”

      “I’ve always walked here. I don’t know how it happened.”

      “It was probably your anti-guest trap snapping into action. You see, Pookar, the rope’s tight!” the bunnies Sineus and Truvor explained happily.

      Pookar made threatening eyes at them, but it was already too late.

      “A trap for guests?” Olga repeated slowly. “What kind of trap, nasty doll?”

      “Just a little trap. Nothing serious. Not even a trap, but nothing. Just a string, so short…” Pookar stammered, backing away.

      “Oh, you bad Pookar! Now I’ll show you!” Olga shouted.

      She started to chase Pookar, who took to his heels in fear on his short legs, making excuses on the run, “I didn’t want… It was just a string! Ouch! Not on the back! Better on the head, it’s soft!”

      “Here’s to you and apple jelly!” Pookar often repeated afterwards. “And all because of this ETIQUETTE. That I would ever trust good manners!”

      Chapter Nine

      Invaders from a Shoebox

      Masha had a cousin Peter, who was already ten. Peter lived with his mama and papa in the city of Tula, but sometimes came to Moscow for a visit. Peter was mean. He pulled Masha’s hair, shot her with a water pistol, and teased her with unpleasant words like crybaby, dummy, runt, and others. It cannot be said that Masha loved Peter and looked forward to his arrival.

      This time, Peter brought with him a large box tied up with a string. It would seem that a box was a box, nothing special, but the strange thing was that Peter let nobody look in it. It all started with this box. This is what happened.

      “What a nasty one, this Peter! Yesterday he wanted to put me in a pot, and when I scratched him, he ran to complain to Mama. He’s not only a meanie, but also a tattletale,” the cat Muffin complained one day.

      Pookar nodded. “I also don’t like Peter. Last time he almost tore my arm off. He wanted to check whether it’s sewn on firmly. Isn’t that stupid?”

      The dragonet Flamy was rushing about the room, unsuccessfully trying to catch up with his own tail. “Doesn’t work! Keeps the box under his paws all the time. I wonder what Peter has hiding in there. What do you think, Pookar?” he asked.

      Pookar declared that he was getting hungry and could not think on an empty stomach. “Let’s go visit Olga! Just in time for dinner,” he said.

      “It’s awkward somehow… We can’t dine at hers every day! We were there yesterday,” Flamy hesitated.

      "And the day before, and the day before that,” the cat Muffin added.

      “We have to go all the more to not break tradition!” Pookar continued to entice. He did not want to go alone, afraid that Olga would chase him away. “Imagine what a pleasant surprise it’ll be for Olga. She’s probably sitting at the table now and thinking, ‘What am I to do with this jar of mustard?’ She thinks, ‘Let me throw this out, as Flamy won’t be coming today.’ Then she looks at the can of fish and thinks, ‘Will Muffin come visit today? If not, then I’m throwing out everything.’” The cat Muffin licked her lips.

      On Flamy’s face was reflected the intense effort of thought. “Pookar, do you think that Olga still has mustard left? And she’s actually going to throw it out?”

      “Of course. Just yesterday, I heard her say, ‘A full cupboard of this mustard! Should throw them all out, all the same no one eats them,’” Pookar said with inspiration. He was not lying at all. His head was simply arranged so that he believed everything he said.

      “Why, she has forgotten about me! Let’s go, quick. We may still have time!” Flamy was scared.

      The cat Muffin thoughtfully rubbed her face with a paw. “Of course, Pookar, you exaggerated a lot… You can’t do without that in order not to talk nonsense… But, on the other hand, Olga may in fact throw out the cans of fish. She’s so absent-minded sometimes.”

      Pookar climbed onto Muffin’s back, Flamy worked his wings, and they went to Olga’s home.

      No one noticed that the lid of the mysterious box had moved aside. At first, a head in a shiny helmet poked out, turned around a bit, and disappeared. Whispering was heard from the box. Someone said, “One! Two! Three!” and a large opening instantly appeared in one of the walls, as if someone had sawed through from inside the box.

      Three soldiers, bought as a gift for Peter on his birthday, got out of the opening and looked around. They had been hiding in the box for a few days, waiting for the opportune moment to carry out a sortie and find out whether there was something in the room they could invade.

      “Gorilla, have the toys left?” one of the soldiers whispered, looking around. This was a rotund, chubby man in a general’s uniform, appeared very warlike. A polished helmet gleamed on his head.

      “Yes, Commander! No, Commander! Don’t know, Commander!” Gorilla said distinctly.

      “Shut up, klutz!”

      “But you yourself asked if they’ve left. Here I said…”

      “Enough!!! Silence!!!”

      “As you wish, Commander…” Gorilla was offended. Gorilla was a soldier of enormous size and very strong. He held in his hands a multi-barrel machine gun that fired thumbtacks. A few bombs of chewing gum hung from his belt. Gorilla’s head was small and he was strictly advised against thinking too much.

      “Grabber, where are they? Where did these stupid dolls go? Go and have a look!” General ordered.

      Grabber was a robot, metallic and shiny. Claws like those of a crab served as his hands. The right claw was in the form of a pair of pliers for grabbing and the left like a pair of scissors for cutting. It was precisely the robot, with his claw-scissors,

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