On a Friday morning in May, there was the usual bustle in the schoolyard in the small town called Simfulensk. Third graders fought with bags of generic shoes. Older boys teased some girls by playfully stepping on their feet. Other schoolchildren competed in climbing up trees and harassed each other by sticking out their tongues. Some impudent kids, there is no other word for them, threw pieces of plaster and lumps of dirt at first graders while portable speakers were blaring, causing the children's white trousers and shirts to turn grey. Fifth-grader Artem Babakin did not participate in this fooling around. He stood behind the rusty school gates and looked hopefully into the distance.
There was very little time left before the start of classes, and it became clear to Artem that his classmate and best friend Dmitry wouldn’t be coming to school today because he was never so late. Artem was discouraged by the fact that his friend had not come. Of course, Dmitry could just be spending time with his father, who often went out to catch fireflies and other insects. But he always warned Artem when he would miss classes. And now he doesn't even pick up his phone! Artem decided to go to his house after school and find out what was going on.
The school bell rang. Schoolchildren rushed through the doors of the small, dilapidated building, almost knocking each other down. The portable speakers fell silent one after another. Artem immersed himself in his thoughts, not noticing the bustle ahead. He ascended the crumbling threshold, along the edges of which there were heaps of last year’s leaves, emitting an unforgettable aroma of either rot or excrement. The school janitor was fired a couple of months ago, and responsibility for cleaning the school grounds fell on teachers. They did not like it. As a result, schoolchildren were forced to rake the leaves, and they did not find a better place for the piles. In addition, the school principal had a fight with the owner of the city's only waste collection company, and now there was no one to pick up the garbage. So, piles of leaves remained at the threshold and increased every day due to other waste.
Artem entered the small, semi-dark lobby. On the left, the teacher's office and the principal's office were next to the restrooms; on the right, there were several empty rooms for rent that no one had leased. Two underground floors were reserved for classrooms. Artem descended the scratched stairs into the narrow corridor on the first basement floor, stretching in both directions. The smell of mold, as usual, climbed into the boy's nose. Dim lamps hummed from the ceiling, and condensation trickled down the walls. The noise of schoolchildren was now and then drowned out by the imperious orders of teachers and the creaks of closing doors.
The first lesson was history; the classroom for it was at the very back of the corridor. Artem walked past two boys his own age, but in different classes, who were as if they were not going to lessons. One of them, who had recently dyed his hair blond, suggested to the other:
"Dye your hair too, girls will start to notice you."
At the same moment, a pretty girl who rushed past on the run gave him an unimpressed slap in the face. The newly blonde winked at his friend:
“Did you see that? She definitely adores me.”
Then Artem walked past the wall poster. On it, in bouncing letters, was written:
"A nickname lowers the barrier between students and teachers. Make a teacher your friend!"
The classroom was brighter than the corridor because it had more ceiling lights. The skinny guard, as always,
