Sister Pelagia and the Red Cockerel Read Free Page B

my eyes away. What’s the most dangerous thing in the desert, after all? The sun and the heat blunt the instinct of self-preservation, that’s what.”
    Everyone was listening to the speaker with bated breath. Muffin was interested too, but it’s not good to forget about work. Fat-rumped Malke’s purse was sticking temptingly out of the pocket of her short trousers. Muffin even took it out, but then he put it back. He felt sorry for the great fool.
    “Not like that! I showed you!” Magellan cried, interrupting his tale. “Why are you jerking your wrist about! Use your fingers, your fingers! Give it here!”
    He took the ball away from Coliseum and started squeezing it repeatedly.
    “With rhythm, with rhythm. A thousand times, ten thousand! How are you going to hold an Arabian horse by the bridle with fingers like that? Here, catch. Now work.”
    He threw the ball back, but the versifying dunce didn’t catch it.
    The ball struck the deck and suddenly bounced back up mischievously, and with such a solid sound—Muffin really liked that.
    And then the ball went rolling across the deck, bouncing all the way but the fog crept across again from the right and drowned the entire honest company in thick white curds.
    “Butterfingers!” said Magellan’s voice. “All right, you can get it later.”
    But Muffin already had his sights set on the miraculous little ball. To give to Parkhomka the newspaper boy—let the little kid have a bit of fun.
    If only it didn’t go over the side. Muffin quickened his step.
    It must have been a funny sight—two round loaves rolling along, a little one and a big one.
    Stop now, you won’t get away from me!
    The little ball ran up against something dark, stopped, and was grabbed up immediately. Muffin was so absorbed in the chase that he almost crashed into the man sitting on the deck (the one who had brought the rubber ball to a halt).
    “I beg your pardon,” Muffin announced in a cultured voice. “That’s mine.”
    “Take it, if it’s yours,” the seated man replied amiably. And he turned back to his companions (there were two others there with him) and continued the conversation.
    Muffin’s jaw simply dropped. They seemed even odder to him than the previous group. Two men and a woman, but all dressed exactly the same, in loose white robes down to their heels, with a blue stripe around the middle—the woman’s was a ribbon sewn onto her robe, the men’s were daubed on with paint.
    They’re Foundlings , Muffin twigged. The ones the Jews were swearing about. He’d never seen them before, but he’d read about them—these people who imitated the Jews—and about that Manuila of theirs too. You could read about absolutely anything in the newspaper.
    The Foundlings were Russian people, but they had forsaken Christ and turned to the faith of the Jews. Muffin had forgotten why they wanted to be Jews and why they were called “foundlings,” but he did remember that the newspaper had been very abusive about the apostates and written bad things about Manuila. He had deceived many people into turning away from Orthodoxy, and who could possibly be in favor of that?
    And so Muffin took an immediate dislike to these three and started thinking what he could filch from them—not for his own gain, but to teach them not to go betraying Christ.
    He settled down to one side, hiding behind a cable locker.
    The one the ball had run into was really old already, with a crumpled face. He looked like a drunken clerk, except that he was sober. He was speaking gently and courteously. “Verily I say unto you: He is the Messiah. Christ was the false prophet, but He is the absolutely genuine one. And evil people will not be able to crucify Him, because Manuila is immortal, God protects him. You know yourselves that He has been killed already, but He rose again, only He didn’t ascend into heaven, He remained among the people, because His coming is the final one.”
    “Ieguda, I have doubts about