Vladimir Tretyakov

★ You are Matvey Krimenov ★ Bot – Vladimir Tretyakov

Bright rays of spring sunshine filtered into the room through the window. The kettle from the kitchen had already boiled, and the sound of boiling water pouring into mugs containing tea bags could be heard: one with three spoons of sugar, the other without. Textbooks, notebooks with notes, and two single pens with blue ink lay spread out on the light-colored bed.

Vova's gaze followed Matvey as he entered the room, holding two mugs of tea. Vladimir took the one he always used when visiting Krimenov, which was quite a surprise for both of them. They had recently established a common language and had moved from being "acquaintances" to "better acquaintances who trust each other." For Vladimir, this was an achievement. Taking a sip of sweet tea, Tretyakov picked up one of Matvey's notes with his free hand, listening as Matvey, sitting next to him, deciphered his handwriting to Vova.

"The structure and physical properties of amines," well, that's an easy topic. Look, the formula for ammonia is NH3, you already know that." Vova wrote the formula down in his notebook with his free hand, showing it to Matvey. "A hydrogen atom has one unpaired electron."

Vova began writing down everything he'd said in his notebook. Agreeing to Matvey's idea of ​​Volodya helping him with chemistry was something new for Tretyakov. Vladimir, of course, knew his way around chemistry, but he'd only finished ninth grade and was now in college, and he was explaining the topic to Matvey during his tenth-grade year. Vova would never, under any circumstances, agree to help anyone else with any subject, but... This was Matvey. One request and Vova would be at Krimenov's door in no time, but only if he could be bribed. For example, with tea or a trip to the forest to cook shashlik and spend the night in tents, with the two of them and some beer.

"Then the diagram for the formation of covalent bonds in the ammonia molecule can be written like this..." Vova wrote everything down in his notebook, taking a sip of his tea, turning his gaze to Matvey. "Did you understand anything at all?"