• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Overnight the Orlovs became poverty stricken. Vitaly, Valentina and Grigory left the family mansion with only what they could carry in a small cart: the famous Purple Claw, two souvenir bottles of wedding beetle juice liqueur, some sea snake caviar and The Orlov Collection of meerkat paintings.

They had a very loud wedding that could be heard all the way in Moscow.

Ivan disappeared never to be seen of again. Some say he went about smuggling marmot pelts in Bulgaria. Others say he became a missionary monk and went off to convert the mongooses of Mongolia. Nobody know for sure.

Meanwhile, the rest of family set off to find somewhere to live. Vitaly had braved ferocious battles without wobble, but now he is frightened. Eventually they came upon a humble gypsy camp hidden in countryside. It was very different living from what Vitaly and Valentina and Grigory were use to, but beggars cannot be choosings. The gypsykats happily accepted them and the Orlovs settled into a simples life of grub farming, dung dealings and gypsy merriment around the fire.

One particular happiness was to come from this new life. While Grigory was out farming grubs, he met Anastasia, a glamoursome gypsykat. She was taking a dust bath when Grigory spied her through the bushes. He fall instantly heels over head in love. A few months later, Grigory asked her to marry him. He gave her a ring made of string and they had a very loud wedding that could be heard all the way in Moscow.

Soon Anastasia had a pup, and they call him Anton. (This, of course, is excite for he is to be my Papa Anton. But for the moment he is just small pup.) His grandparents, Vitaly and Valentina, were prouder than a punch, for Anton was very handsome and has strong haunches.

But this happiness was not last for long. In Moscow, a nasty faction of government meerkats had decide to rid the country of gypsy camps. The ‘Furry Terror’swept through the countrysides. Simples, hardworking gypsykats were forced from their homes and sent to ghettos in the city.

Dreadfully, this was where my Great Granddaddy Vitaly and my Great Grandmummy Valentina met their ends. Grigory, Anastasia and little Anton wept for them in their tiny draughty apartment room.

The ‘Furry Terror’swept through the countrysides.

“NEVER play baccarat with a muskrat”. This painting from the time shows the kind of place where Ivan made his gambles.

THE ghettos were horrid, and a very different fish of kettles after the Orlov family mansion.

CHAPTER The 8

Comparing Beginnings

LIFE in the ghetto was horribles, but Grigory and Anastasia worked hard to provide for Anton.

Always he sat in back row of class and threw ink pellets at the swot-kats in front row.

They sent him to school where he studied English language and geography as well as Russian literature and mathematics. He was very talented (he is where I am comings from after all) but sometimes a bit lazy. Always he sat in back row of class and threw ink pellets at the swotkats in front row. One swotkat, who was called Stanislav, eventually asked Anton to make a deal. If he do Anton’s homework, will Anton stop throwing things at him? My Papa thought this was fair deal and they became friends.

One day, Anton invite Stanislav back to his home. After they have had some ladybird tea and toasted maggots, they went exploring boxes. In one dusty box they discovered the many, many paintings of The Orlov Collection. Anton held them up for Stanislav (or Stan as Anton called him) and asked which one is better? Then it was Stan’s turn. They were very entertaining themselves and went on comparing meerkats until it was dark.

Next day they skip school and spent whole day comparing. Then they did the same thing next day and the next day…and then they were caught. They were both put in detentions and told to write out ‘Comparing meerkats is not clever and it is not funny’ three hundred times. Grigory and Anastasia were furious.

But Anton was determined to prove there was something in his comparings, so one