Plot Summary

Two inseparable friends, Vitya Maleev and Kostya Shishkin, cause a lot of grief for the pioneer group: their diaries are constantly filled with failing grades. The friends are too preoccupied with soccer. Only dusk forces them to leave the sports field. Vitya Maleev's mother takes away her son's football, but the friends invent new entertainments, and the number of failing grades in their diaries grows alarmingly. Kostya Shishkin, under the pretext of "illness," stops attending school altogether. Based on the story by Nikolai Nosov.