Once upon a time there lived a girl named ... however, her name does not matter. Due to her height, she was often called Giraffe. This was not entirely fair: the giraffes were high because of the neck, and the Giraffe — because of the legs that started right from the top of her head. (So ​​they talked about her, but she did not take offense.) Much more than a giraffe, she looked like a roe deer or a deer.

She also had long honey curls. Ordinary girl, they would have reached the knees, while the Giraffe went down just below the waist. Therefore, it was still called Rapunzel. True, the guys were too lazy to pronounce such a long foreign word, and Rapunzel turned into puncel, puntsik or just punts. No girl at school had so many names.

Giraffe-Punzel-Punts was the most real model. Every - and top - and photos. Even in the eighth grade, she was told that her height was fate, and they forced her into a model school. A smeared and lacquered Giraffe strutted along the runway like a real fashion soldier. It was spectacular, but not very serious - things did not go beyond the covers of Our Edge.

Giraffe and did not seek a career Claudia Schiffer. She was much more attracted to the physical mathematics department: she was the prize-winner of all the Olympiads, and the teachers had long since come to terms with her indifference to languages, Patriotic Education, the National Idea and other important subjects.

By graduation class Giraffe vymahala to 1, 88, ahead of all the boys. Appearance she was not simple, but with a hitch. In its usual form (unisex, zero cosmetics, glasses, without which she saw colored spots instead of things), the Giraffe attracted attention except for the height or length of its braids. Her asymmetric physiognomy might have seemed to someone even ugly. It was necessary, however, to remove the glasses, and change the unisex to dresses - and the people began to stare at the Giraffe, as if it were an overseas miracle. And if she smiled (infrequently, but from the heart) - everything around us looked like fruits in the heat. For a smile, the Giraffe was forgiven for all or almost all, even a model career.

Her character was rather melancholic than clockwork. She seemed tired of managing her large, beautiful body. Giraffe quickly sour and sulk, it was easy to bring to tears. She was a godsend for teasers, although she was not teased anyway, following an unspoken persuasion - to protect the Giraffe as a rare beast.

But this spring, her melancholy disappeared somewhere. No wonder - so many exciting events were squeezed into several months, as if they were rubber! Giraffe knocked eighteen; she won a super duper olympiad in physics; she was selected for a defile at the Patriotic Palace; all of May and June were clogged with clothes, from which the Giraffe, although it had no shisha, didn’t care! ... And in the finale of all this magnificence - her graduation! One thought is that she is in an awesome dress that the agency will give her for free ... In short, you can hardly find an eighteen-year-old girl who would be left indifferent by this situation.

It is not surprising that all the alarms of the Girafkin city passed by her. War rattled somewhere there, on the border, and here life went on as usual. It was impossible to imagine what could be otherwise. Rumors, winks, whispers on staircases, news headlines and other scum did not linger in the Giraffe head, full of gravitational waves and its dress.And even the mysterious Condor, who intrigued her all spring, faded into the background.

This Condor appeared at school recently, since winter, and was a physical education teacher. Since childhood, a giraffe has been famous for its ability to give nicknames that stuck to their owners like tags. The new fizruk had a hooked nose and angry burning eyes that looked directly into your brain. Of course, fate itself told him to be a Condor. He also limped - the disciples were even surprised how they took him as a physical instructor.

In the gym, the Giraffe was seen once in a hundred years (as she was being forgiven as an Olympiad and prodigy), and she barely intersected with Condor. He both attracted and frightened her; sometimes I wanted to go to him, but every time the Giraffe made up excuses for herself. For a while, she fantasized about all sorts of stories about him, and even wrote down a couple, putting them on the net. The condor was there a duke-werewolf who had the habit of bewitching innocent maidens and taking them on his wings to an impregnable castle so that there ...

What happened next remained a mystery: the Giraffe could not get together and finish writing to the end. Maybe because there were so many exciting events ahead, and maybe not only.

***

This day began strangely. In the evening there should have been a defile at the Patriotic Palace, and the Giraffe, occupied with the usual model concerns, did not immediately see what had changed in the city.

And when I saw it, I did not immediately understand. A long column of military vehicles did not allow her to cross the road, and only because of this, she noticed instead of the usual cherry banners with Oslan — yellow with Beaver.

The mind could not digest it, and the Giraffe climbed into the net. Scrolling through the news, she stopped and stood still for a minute. Then she went on.

“Probably, there will be no defile at the Patriotic Palace. And now the Patriotic Palace itself will not be either, ”she thought. The agency did not respond to calls, and the Giraffe was at a loss.

Passing by the school, she decided to look there.

The schoolyard was unusually empty. The giraffe trampled at the entrance, then looked into the sports ground, where the fry were always jostling. Instead, horizontal barriers were worn by people in an unfamiliar form. They wrung the arms of a lean type and dragged him into a paddy wagon parked nearby.

- Condor! - screamed Giraffe.

One of them turned around and saw a Giraffe.

Exchanging glances with his, he went to her. The giraffe backed away - but the one in two jumps caught her and grabbed her hands.

- Do not touch the girl, the creature, freaks fucking! - came the voice of physical instructor.

“How do you know the Condor?” How do you know his callsigns? Did you work together? Answer me! - shouted the guy who grabbed the Giraffe.

- What are the call signs? - she smelled. - It's just that I called him that - Condor ... I give everyone nicknames ...

- nicknames? - the man laughed and dragged her into the paddy wagon. - We pack both. This sweet couple, apparently, works together. Nothing, we will tell everything, - he spat relishly, looking at the Giraffe.

So no one ever looked at her like a snake or a cockroach. It seemed to the giraffe that she was in a dream, and you just need to wake up back, on a typical morning of a typical day, with a regular defile in the Patriotic Palace ...

***

They were brought to the basement on Malaya Pobedonosnaya, where the Committee of Faithful Oslanians used to be. On the way, the Condor was shouting that the Giraffe had nothing to do with it, cursed with a foul language, threatened to reach the command, and they beat him, breaking his nose and lip. Giraffe pressed into the corner of the van. Her cell phone was taken away from her, and she didn’t even have time to call her parents.

In the former committee of the Faithful, she was interrogated for a long time, demanding some call signs, and she did not understand how these people speaking her native language might not understand that she did not know anything. In the next room was screaming TV:

“In the great war, the Beaver with the Donkey, the beaver's army, as always, triumphs after victory over this dirty animal and his ass fools…”

Then the officer told her:

“My joy, have you forgotten what they are doing to the traitors?” Now we recall. Python here!

A thin type was introduced into the room, and really like a python. He looked with watery eyes to nowhere.

“Die, oslyatina,” the officer said happily, and carefully stuck a syringe into it.Python swung and crawled to the floor, rolling his eyes. The giraffe felt that she could not breathe and went limp along with Python, as if they had a common switch for two, and they knocked him out ...

- Well, yes, faint. Lost feelings, damn it, - the officer said and slammed a giraffe into the gash, which cut the brain in half.

When she could breathe and understand what she was told, she heard:

- With you it will be even worse. Tomorrow we will deal with you, but until then ...

He was still saying something - Giraffe heard him in fragments, as if the stunned brain was turned on and off. Then her ...