ME and my CLASSMATES

   We are twenty nine in the class: a wonderful sociable friendly teens, a bit talkative sometimes, but most of the time polite, helpful and curious.

   To tell you the truth, sometimes some of us are a bit impolite. But you can understand why. Later I will explain everything.

   And now, some more descriptions of me and my classmates. I guess it’s difficult for you to remember all my classmates, so I’ll better give the description only of my closest friends. May be, one day I will describe my other friends too, that is, my other classmates.

   Now I want briefly describe us all, starting from myself. I am not boastful, but everyone admits I have a beautiful appearance. Descriptions of different people are the same: beautiful appearance, fair, smart and sociable. Favourite clothes are long skirts. And nobody guesses I am a bit bossy.

   And now descriptions of my classmates. As you remember I can’t describe them all. So I would like to introduce to you those classmates who are in my sport team.

   We all ski in winter and attend the same tourist club in summer.  So we are usually together. You must understand we have got a captain of our team. So I can start my description from the captain. He is very sociable, very polite and helpful. He usually wears jeans and a yellow T-shirt. His appearance is attractive. We call him Captain.

   The second person in our team is a talkative guy with the appearance of a famous film star. So we call him Star. I won’t talk much about his appearance, because everybody in the class always talks about his appearance. I will only admit he is handsome. And his favourite clothes are a bowler hat, which he always wears to the parties and colourful sweaters, which are really attractive  

   The third person in the team is a show off. So we all call him Show off. My description is not long: his appearance is attractive and his clothes are very attractive, because his father travels a lot and brings him lots of attractive clothes from different countries.

   Then comes the description of the appearance of our captain’s brother. I must describe him carefully, because he is a bit older than everybody in our team. He doesn’t look older. His appearance is the same as everybody’s, but he is a bit older. So we call him father.

   Our father is very polite and he doesn’t like children’s conversations. He likes conversations of different people who are a bit older than him. Father is not talkative. He is friendly and helpful. He doesn’t care about his clothes. He usually wears old jeans.

  So now you know five of us: Captain, Star, Show off, Father and me. Sorry, I forgot to tell you they call me Boss, though I am a girl...

   We must talk about the other five people from our team. They all have different appearance. But I don’t want to describe them much. We call them Curious, Careful, Impolite, Cheerful, Boastful. They all don’t care for clothes, even Careful. 

   By the way, Careful is a girl. She is really careful about everything: her study, her after school activity, her room, her pet, her parents and grandparents and her neighbours. She cares for them all. And she also cares for our team. But she doesn’t care for clothes, even smart dresses. It’s difficult to understand why she doesn’t wear smart dresses. I often wear smart dresses and I care for clothes. But Careful doesn’t. She never chats about her clothes. I understand that. I never chat about my clothes either. I never chat even about smart dresses. But I wear them.

   To tell you the truth, we seldom chat. Out team doesn’t like to chat. We usually talk. We talk about important things. We don’t participate in children’s conversations. I believe you understand me. Children’s conversations are no more interesting for us. Of course, some of our classmates enjoy children’s conversations. They chat about our teachers and these teachers’ clothes and their food preferences and telephones. I must admit we talked about those things last year too. But now we are a bit older and we are less talkative. So we don’t talk about unimportant things.

   If you don’t guess what is important for our team, I can say. Of course, the most important things for us are tourist camps and skiing. We also talk about mystery books, our school choir, very scary stories,   folk songs,   the school summer camp, winter weather, Caucasus mountains. As you understand these are not children’s conversations. Of course, we respect all our classmates even those who participate in children’s conversations.        

    Every person in our team has his or her favourite subject for conversations. Me and Star like to talk about our school choir and folk songs. Captain’s favourite conversation is skiing and winter weather. Show off likes conversations about tourist camps and the school summer camp.

   Father’s favourite conversation is about mystery books and very scary stories. Curious likes conversations about our school choir and folk songs.    Careful likes conversations about skiing and winter weather. Impolite likes conversations about skiing and winter weather too. Cheerful likes conversations about mystery books and very scary stories. Boastful likes conversations about tourist camps and the school summer camp. So me and Star and Curious usually talk together. Captain always talks with Careful and Impolite. Father often talks with Cheerful. And we all like to talk about Caucasus mountains.

   But if you hear one of the conversations you can understand who is talking. You don’t believe it? Then, check!  

   A conversation about skiing and winter weather. Whose favourite conversation is this? A conversation about tourist camps and the school summer camp. Whose favourite conversation is this? A conversation about mystery books and very scary stories. Whose favourite conversation is this? A conversation about our school choir and folk songs. Whose favourite conversation is this?   A conversation about Caucasus mountains. Whose favourite conversation is this?

   Of course, we all can talk about mystery books,  a school choir, folk songs,  scary stories, tourist camps and the school summer camp, skiing and winter weather. But not so often.

    I apologize if I describe all these conversations again and again. But I believe you understand why.

  I also believe you have some favourite conversations too. Everyone has his or her favourite conversations. But we can talk a bit more about favourite conversations later.      Now I want to describe a bit more Curious, Careful, Impolite, Cheerful, Boastful.  So some descriptions again.

    Curious, Careful, Impolite, Cheerful, Boastful wear the same T-shirts, like the same food and live in the same house. And they have the same relatives. So I guess you can guess that they all are relatives too. Only their parents are different, but they have the same grandparents.

    They have a very big house with a big yard and a wonderful garden. Of course our gardens are as wonderful as their garden. But there is one curious thing about their garden. There are birch-trees all around it.

   One more curious thing. But this time it’s not about their garden. It’s not about anybody’s garden either.

   It’s about us. So it’s a curious thing about us.

    If you look at us, you will understand that we all look like each other a bit. I look like Show off. Captain looks like Cheerful. Father looks like Careful. Star looks like Impolite. Boastful looks like Curious. But at the same time I look like Star. And Careful looks like Cheerful. And Father looks like Captain (no wonder!). And Boastful looks like Show off. And Curious looks like Impolite.

   It’s because we usually wear the same uniform when we ski and we all are tall and slim. Only Impolite is a bit taller than everybody else.

   Some words about Impolite. He is not really impolite. But he is the most impolite person in our team, so we call him Impolite, though he is generally polite. He is impolite only in some conversations, not in our favourite conversations and not in children’s conversations. Because it’s not polite to be impolite in children’s conversations.

   So Impolite is impolite only in teens’ conversations, which are not attractive to him. But when he enjoys a conversation, he is usually polite. So it’s better to talk with him about the things which he enjoys. Do you remember what is attractive to him? So, talk about things which are attractive to him. You will see he’s a wonderful person and very polite.

   Our team is really wonderful and amazing. I wonder if there are other wonderful teams in the world, which are so friendly and helpful to each other as we are.

   In any weather in winter we come to ski together. We train a lot.

   I apologize, I don’t tell you about our lessons. Lessons are not so important for some of us as skiing. Sometimes lessons are simply awful. I guess you guess when lessons are awful.

   If somebody doesn’t guess about it, I can explain. Lessons are awful, when we are not ready for them. Then we try not to look at our teachers during the lessons. And the teachers don’t guess that the lessons are awful. It’s difficult to stay happy at the lessons when the lessons are awful. That is, when we are not ready for them. So it’s important to be ready for all lessons.

   But we are always happy when we ski. Skiing is a very happy thing. Sometimes we even come out at night to ski. Our parents don’t mind. We come back home cheerful after skiing. But we are not always cheerful after school lessons. Even Cheerful is not cheerful after lessons sometimes. You guess why?

   To tell you the truth I wanted to tell you one scary story. But I started to describe our team and couldn’t stop. It’s difficult to stop descriptions. So I apologize, if I will describe somebody again. I may. But I’ll try not to describe anybody else. I’ll better describe that day and the scary story.

   Everything was fine during the lessons. Everybody was cheerful. It’s important to say it was on Saturday. And on Saturdays we all wear smart dresses. That is, all girls wear smart dresses. Our teachers allow us to wear smart dresses on Saturdays. To tell you the truth, on Saturdays they wear smart dresses themselves.

  
   
 We have a school choir on Saturdays. So we sing folk songs. And I guess all teachers like folk songs. Of course, most people who are older than us like folk songs. No wonder, folk songs are very beautiful. I am happy to be in a school choir and sing folk songs on Saturdays together with my classmates.

   Of course, I sing folk songs not only on Saturdays. I always sing them when I am skiing. But only Star sings them together with me when we ski. We enjoy singing folk song with Star when we ski.

   Coming back to the scary story, which I want to tell you. So we all attended our school choir that day and sang some wonderful folk songs. It’s amazing to sing together.

  
  

 After the school choir we all went home to have dinner. We agreed to meet near the school at three o’clock in the afternoon and to ski a bit. But suddenly a snowfall began. It was a heavy snowfall, so we couldn’t go out in the afternoon. It was not a simple snowfall. It was an amazing snowfall. I guess you don’t guess what was amazing in the snowfall.

  

   The snowflakes were amazing.  Besides, the snowflakes were huge and they sort of danced in the air. But the most amazing thing was to see some people skiing in the street during the snowfall.

   I guess you know that people usually don’t ski during snowfalls. No wonder, it was amazing for me to see those skiing people. I couldn’t guess who they were. Nobody in our village goes to ski during snowfalls. Even our team, though we like to ski very much. I think it’s awful to ski during snowfalls.

   It’s nice to sing folk songs during snowfalls. So as you may guess I was singing folk songs during that snowfall. I usually sing folk songs during snowfalls. And Star also sings folk songs during snowfalls. I know it. I guess some other people in our village sing folk songs during snowfalls too. May be, some people sing folk songs during snowfalls in other villages and even in towns too. But I don’t know it. I know only about Star and myself.

   Of course, some people may prefer to use Internet during snowfalls. But not in our village, because we have no electricity in our village during snowfalls.

   But we don’t care about it. We have lots of communication when we don’t have electricity. Everybody has a lot of free time when there is no electricity. So we usually ski and visit each other at that time or go to our school tourist club.  That is, we communicate with each other more. We even come out at night to communicate with each other, if we don’t want to sleep. Our parents don’t mind. 

  We are a very small village with only friendly cheerful people here.  And I guess it’s awful to live in a big city and not to come out at night and to communicate with each other only through Internet. So you see we have more freedom here.

   It’s difficult to say exactly when we all learnt who those people were. May be, I can remember. But I believe it’s not important. And I want to tell you only about important things.

   So I continue. All those strange people were our new school teachers, a whole team of school teachers. Young, cheerful guys with good education as they said. They came to teach us subjects which we didn’t have at our school. An awful thing! I can’t explain why. May be, you guess. But may be, it’s better to explain it.

    We have wonderful teachers. They teach us well. They come to teach us in any weather and they organize our after school activity, which is various and attractive for everybody. Our school choir is also their achievement. They teach us to ski and use modern means of communication. Our lessons are usually amazing. I don’t talk now about those awful lessons when we are not ready.

   So our school life was not usual. We didn’t have any chemistry and foreign languages and PE. Of course, we knew about these subjects. But we had other subjects instead of chemistry and foreign languages and PE. We had lots of Literature and lots of history instead of chemistry and foreign languages. So we all are very good at Literature and history.

   And we had our trainings instead of PE, though it was our afterschool activity, the same as a school choir.   

   Everybody at our school is good at Literature and history. We prefer them to chemistry, which is a completely awful subject for us. No wonder, we can talk about different mysterious stories during Literature and history. So both Literature and history are our favourite subjects. And chemistry was not important to us, though chemistry was important to most adults in our small village.    They couldn’t allow us to be without chemistry. How awful. They wanted to take care of us.

   To tell you the truth, we wanted to know something about chemistry too. But we wanted some after school chemistry activity. We didn’t care for chemistry lessons. Who cares for something which doesn’t allow to do what you want. And we wanted our Literature and history.

   

   So late that evening when the weather allowed it, we came out to talk about those new people whom most adults called our new teachers. It was important to talk about that awful thing.

   We wanted to do something. So at first everybody expressed his opinion. Everybody in the team was as talkative that night as our other classmates. There were different opinions. Some of the classmates even said that we had to run away to the Caucasus mountains.

  

   I must admit we all were not very polite talking about the new teachers. I think we were not very fair either. We couldn’t be fair. We awfully wanted them to go back home. That is, to the capital where their homes were. We even didn’t try to describe them as cheerful, polite, smart, respectful, trustworthy people. We were awfully unfair.

   We didn’t want to allow new teachers to use our Literature and History lessons for chemistry and foreign languages.

   And we were not sure that they liked smart dresses at the lessons on Saturdays. What if they preferred something ugly?

   It was awful even to think about it. Our night conversation was not only about ugly and smart dresses(ugly and smart dresses are only choices sometimes).

   I remember one dress which I found ugly(my opinion) and Cheerful found it smart. So even though most of the smart dresses are smart, they still can be ugly for some people. And even though most of the ugly dresses are ugly, they still can be smart for other people. So there can be the battle of opinions about dresses sometimes.

   And that particular night we also had the battle of opinions. Only that battle was not about dresses at all.

   As you can guess it was about decision. No children’s conversations that night, only helpful opinions of us and our classmates.

   I don’t want to describe all our conversations. I don’t care a bit about some of the opinions expressed. So I won’t describe them either.           

   The most stupid idea was that the new school teachers were attracted to our village because of our amazing landscapes. And that they didn’t care for schoolchildren at all. Though we were against the new lessons, we couldn’t support this version. And we started to laugh. Amazing, isn’t it?

   So you see some descriptions and ideas were simply awful. We almost scared each other with those awful descriptions.

   I prefer not to describe all details of our night talk. Everybody said the same things most of the time, because everybody wanted to keep the same lessons. And we didn’t care about new subjects at all.

   I admit we were awful that night. Even Cheerful, who is never awful. Even Father, who is never impolite. Even Captain, who is never unfair. We all allowed ourselves to be awful discussing the means of the future battle with adults. I mean we were ready to protest against the new subjects, though it couldn’t be a real battle, of course.

   I remember the details of our talk, but

   I want to write only about some descriptions. The most important ones, so to say.

  Some of our classmates described the new teachers awfully well. Here are some general descriptions.

   Everyone admitted they were not boastful. In fact teachers are never boastful. Some pupils can be boastful, but teachers can’t. They can be talkative sometimes, but never boastful. So the new teachers couldn’t be boastful either.

   Later that same night we went to the host of the new teachers. I mean we went to the house where they stayed.

  
    We preferred to be honest so we honestly described our awful feelings concerning study of the new subjects. We described them to both: to the new teachers and to their host.

   The host, who was our school principal, listened to us politely. And the new teachers were very friendly which surprised us a lot. They even seemed to enjoy our protest.

  What scared us was their advice to wait a bit. That is, they promised to explain us something important during their lessons which could change our opinion about their subjects.

   To tell you the truth, they didn’t look as awful as in some of our imaginary description. They were sociable and careful and fair. They showed respect to us. They allowed us to be honest and impolite.

    It wasn’t a battle as we had planned. It was an exchange of opinions. And soon some of our shy classmates agreed to come to their lessons.

     At first our team was awfully mad at those shy classmates. We knew lessons of Literature and history were more important to them too, than those new subjects. It was unfair to agree to come to the lessons, when their own preferences were different.

   But shy people can easily agree sometimes. No wonder, they are shy. They don’t like to participate in battles. While we(I mean people who are not shy) enjoy it. (I mean snow battles mostly).

    To tell you the truth, we don’t have any other battles in our village. We don’t have even battles of opinions.

   All adults in our village, that is our parents, grandparents and school teachers have the same smart opinion about everything in the world and about our village life and about our school. No wonder, they all are the founders of our small village.

    I mean they all came from different big cities even from the capital of our country and founded a small settlement. We call it village now. But they called it a settlement at first

   I must admit all new teachers expressed their opinions politely. Though their opinions were a bit different from ours. I mean they all agreed with us that Literature and History were important. They expressed their opinion about these subjects in a more polite way than we did.

   They said both Literature and History were very attractive subjects for them too.  They admitted it.   But a bit later they started to talk about their subjects. I mean chemistry, foreign languages and PE.

   They invited us to their lessons the next morning again. They addressed to those who still disagreed. They promised to listen to our opinions after the lessons.

   They even apologized they had to teach us their subjects instead of Literature and History.

   The new teachers were really polite, so our team promised to come to their lessons just one time. The shy classmates became more cheerful at those words. Our team’s opinion was important to them. And we agreed to come, just like them.

   To tell you the truth, we all became curious about the future lessons. The new teachers promised interesting lessons, so we expressed hope to see some amazing things at the lessons the next morning. Everybody was glad our battle was over. At least for a day. Though it was only the battle of opinions, as you remember.

   I admit we couldn’t fall asleep for a long time that night.

   I mean I couldn’t fall asleep for a long time that night. And I guessed the other classmates couldn’t fall asleep for a long time that night either. I can’t explain why I couldn’t fall asleep. May be, I was thinking about foreign language teachers or about amazing things the next morning. I can’t explain it exactly, I apologize. Please, don’t think that I don’t remember what I was thinking about exactly. I remember that pretty well.

   I can’t explain it exactly, because it isn’t simple to explain everything. I must admit it.

  

  The next day was important for me. I guess it was important for Captain, for Father, for Star, for Careful and for my other friends. I believe you remember them all now.

   I guess you understand why the next morning(or even day) was important to us. We had to make right decision about new subjects. To tell you the truth, I hoped there could be a heavy snowfall the next morning. I mean on the one hand I was curious to go and participate in the lessons. On the other hand I was scared about our Literature and history lessons.

   I hope you remember they call me Boss. But I must admit I was a bit scared too.

   There was no snowfall the next morning. It was awful. We had to go to school and participate in the new teachers’ lessons.

   
    I put on my dress, took my schoolbag and went to school.

   The team was near the school. They waited for me. We always enter the school together. It’s our decision.

       I admit there was the time when we didn’t enter the school together. Then we made a decision to enter the school together on important days, when we had to take part in competitions.

   
   And we liked it. It made us more cheerful. Even Cheerful who is always cheerful was more cheerful.

   So as you see it was a right decision. You can say there are no competitions sometimes for a long time.  I agree with you. There are no competitions sometimes for a long time. But there are other important events, like a school choir concert. In fact there are important events at our school every day. For example we always celebrate coming of different seasons. I admit it’s one of my favourite celebrations. May be, I will describe it to you some time. Though I can’t promise that.

   I remember I am describing the first day with our new school teachers now. So I can’t describe coming of different seasons at this moment. I guess you will enjoy that description too. But coming back to new school teachers, I promise to be honest with all my descriptions.

   So our team made a decision not to participate too much in the chemistry and foreign language and PE lessons. We didn’t care for those subjects. And we were not cheerful when we entered the classroom that morning. Even Cheerful wasn’t very cheerful. Of course, we were curious. That I admit. But we preferred our other subjects as you remember.

   The first lesson was the promised chemistry.

   We were surprised when we saw the chemistry teacher in a bowler hat. A bowler hat always causes battle of opinions among our classmates. Me and Show off and Captain don’t care for bowler hats. So we don’t participate in those battles. Careful, Cheerful, Father, Star, Curious and Boastful care for bowler hats. So they always participate in those battles. And the other classmates participate in those battles of opinions too.

   In my team’s opinion it was an ugly bowler hat. They even called it awful, an awful bowler hat. But I don’t care if it was awful or just ugly. As you remember I don’t care for bowler hats at all. And Captain and Show off don’t care for bowler hats too.

   So we didn’t care for a bowler hat on the chemistry teacher’s head. And so we didn’t participate in the unspoken battle of opinions about the ugly(or awful) bowler hat. It’s difficult to say exactly if it was ugly at all. So I don’t describe it here.

   I’d better describe the teacher. I mean his appearance. I mean I won’t describe the bowler hat, but only the chemistry teacher himself.

   He was young and slim. I can call him good-looking. And he was wearing a warm sweater and original trousers which matched the bowler hat. I mean they both were the same colour. I don’t remember the exact colour now. I guess it was white or a bit yellow. But he looked modern and handsome. I guessed that he was a person who allowed smart dresses on Saturdays. I understood he took care of his appearance too. So we called his appearance attractive later. And we call him Attractive too.

   I can’t call his chemistry lesson a lesson at all. It was a mysterious performance, awfully cheerful. And the chemistry teacher was awfully sociable. He cared about everybody’s opinion. And he allowed everybody to participate in his mysterious experiments, which were awfully attractive.

   It’s difficult to say exactly what was the most attractive thing at the lesson. We became more and more curious during the lesson. I remember one scary experiment he made. It’s difficult to say exactly what was scary in it. May be, the teacher’s words made everybody be scared. He talked in a very mysterious tone. So we all were enchanted. Nobody chatted during the lesson. (To tell you the truth, we seldom do. We respect our teachers. And our teachers respect us.)

   But we simply couldn’t talk. No wonder, the teacher in his bowler hat showed us a really great performance.

   A show, we can say. So we called him later a Showman. We still call him Showman. I mean we call him both Attractive and Showman.

   So we were impressed by the teacher and his wonderful, awfully wonderful performance. And at the end of the lesson we understood why the chemistry teacher was wearing a bowler hat during the lesson. He was keeping there some things for his most amazing experiments. No wonder, a bowler hat is very good for keeping different things there.

   So no wonder, there was no battle of opinions about chemistry after that first lesson of chemistry.

   The next lesson was foreign language lesson. And so there were two teachers performing during the lesson. I mean one foreign language teacher was a man and another foreign language teacher was a very young woman. The man wasn’t old either, but he was a bit older than the woman. And they both wanted us to make a decision about the foreign language.

   They didn’t teach the same foreign language. They taught two different foreign languages. The first language was German and the second language was French. So you can guess that the man was the teacher of German, and the woman was the teacher of French. And they both tried to explain the difference between German and French. They tried to help each person in the class to choose a language.

   I can’t call their lesson a great performance, because it wasn’t a performance. It was a curious conversation of two sociable people with us. They cared for us and wanted to know our opinions and feelings. There were no conversations. Of course they performed some songs in German and French at the end of the lesson. And we enjoyed their songs, though to tell you the truth, we enjoy our school choir more than German and French songs. May be, because we sing folk songs mostly, as you remember. And folk songs are very special.

   I believe you want me to describe their appearance a bit more. So here is some description. The man had no bowler hat, of course. As you remember the chemistry teacher had. But foreign language teachers don’t need bowler hats for their lessons, because they don’t keep anything there. Because a foreign language lesson is a lesson, where  pupils can talk. (A good lesson for talkative pupils!)

   To tell you the truth, it was difficult to make a decision what language to choose.

   But I have to describe you the teachers’ appearance a bit more. So the German teacher was wearing a blue T-shirt, though it was winter as you remember. And the French teacher was wearing a very smart dress.  So in my opinion she can enjoy Saturday smart dresses. I believe you remember that our teachers allow us to wear smart dresses on Saturdays.

   So smart dresses were important for her, too. It was my first opinion about our French teacher. No wonder, I had to choose French later. You can understand I love smart dresses myself a lot.

   The decision of our team was the same as mine. No wonder, we prefer to be together. But most of our classmates made a decision to study German. May be, because they liked a cheerful German teacher. I mean he wasn’t German, of course. I mean he was a teacher of German language, a German language teacher, so to say.

    To tell you the truth, I can’t say that the teacher of French wasn’t cheerful. May be, she wasn’t as cheerful as the teacher of German language. And she wasn’t as cheerful as Cheerful. But she was cheerful too, even a bit more cheerful, than our director. And he is very cheerful sometimes.

   To tell you the truth, both foreign language teachers looked the same. I mean they both were blue eyed and dark haired. And they both smiled a lot.

   The PE teacher was a bit older than all other new teachers. And he was a bit plumper than others, though PE teachers usually do morning exercises and must be very slim.

   But the PE teacher wasn’t slim. Of course, he was not plump either. But we called him Plump later. Only because he wasn’t slim. And there was nobody at our school whom we called plump.

   He didn’t care for clothes. He still doesn’t care for clothes. His usual clothes are trainers and a sport tracksuit. But, of course, they match.

   So Plump was not so sociable as the other new teachers. But he was the bravest. We learnt that later. (He stayed in the Caucases mountains by himself lots of times and climbed cliffs and rocks).

   At the first minute of our PE lesson Plump looked at us carefully, then he counted us and made a decision to do morning exercises on the sport ground. We had to run there from our gym. And our gym is a very cosy place, especially in winter.

   Of course, our team prefers to be outside the school during our training activity. I believe you remember we all ski. But our classmates prefer to be inside the gym. No wonder, it’s awfully cosy and warm.

   Only Plump, that is, PE teacher didn’t care for warm cosy places. And he doesn’t care for cosy warm places now. But he loves summer camps and tourist camps. Of course, we learnt about it later. The first day he only mentioned that he preferred morning exercises outside.

   We were awfully happy to be outside too. He invited us to participate in a snowball battle. So it was the greatest snowball battle we ever had. And we all started to respect him very much the first lesson. No wonder, he allowed us to fight with each other, but taught us to be careful. That is, to care for each other.  He didn’t care that he had no mittens. He made lots of snowballs and participated in the snow battle too. And he is very good at battles. And he was the star of that snow battle, though we have Star already. To tell you the truth, Star wasn’t a star during the battle. No wonder, he isn’t so good at snow battles as our PE teacher whom we call Plump. Plump is a real star. I mean a battle star. It was awfully exciting to participate in the snow battle.

   I know snow battles are always exciting. But that snow battle was the most exciting one. And the lesson was awfully wonderful.

  

   As you can guess we admired our new teachers and their lessons became attractive to us at once. Nevertheless we didn’t want to allow our school principal to change something in our everyday school programme. It was not simple to make a decision about keeping Literature and History. We were honest with our principal and our new school teachers. We said we made a decision to have chemistry, foreign languages and PE as our afterschool activity.

   The principal didn’t want to agree with us. He said our afterschool activity were trainings like skiing and our school choir and other activities. He said he didn’t care for children’s opinion. He said we talked like children and couldn’t make decisions ourselves. He said our parents made a decision to teach us chemistry and foreign languages and PE instead of so many lessons of Literature and History.

   It was really a battle of opinions. We couldn’t allow our principal to teach us chemistry and foreign languages and PE instead of so many lessons of Literature and history. Though we understood he cared for us. I guess we were really awful that day after the lessons. And that wasn’t a children’s conversation.

    It’s difficult to describe exactly that long conversation. It was adults’ conversation. We made decision about our future life. It was awfully important to make a right decision.

   At last when we were almost ready to run to Caucasus mountains

(though Show off said it wasn’t a very wonderful idea), the new teachers expressed opinion about having eight lessons each day instead of usual six lessons.

  
    The principal said it wasn’t an attractive idea. He didn’t agree to have eight lessons at school each day instead of usual six lessons. But when we admitted that it was more attractive to us to have eight lessons at school each day instead of six lessons, he promised to think.

   Somebody may think it’s awful to have eight lessons every day. But we enjoy it, because we still have lots of lessons of our favourite Literature and History. And we have our new lessons too: chemistry with a mysterious chemistry teacher in his amazing bowler hat, foreign languages when part of the classmates studies German and the other part of the class studies French and PE with its great snowball battles and spring spring sprinkling and autumn rain showers.

   No wonder, we are unusual school in an unusual settlement

faraway from big cities: friendly, sociable, cheerful. And it was our team: me-Boss, Captain, Father, Boastful, Cheerful, Curious, Show off and Star who made that great decision about keeping all our Literature and History lessons. We are a great team of kids(teens, may be) who ski every day and participate in the school choir and love folk songs. An awfully friendly, honest, sociable team!!!

Vocabulary

 to admit – признавать  

afterschool activity – внешкольная(послешкольная) деятельность      

to agree – соглашаться 

to apologize – извиняться

to care - заботиться   don’t care(doesn’t care) -не заботиться( быть безразличным к чему-либо)  Я безразлична к еде - I don’t care for food

He doesn’t care for clothes – Он безразличен(Ему нет дела) до одежды

careful - заботливыйI

to explain - объяснять

to express -  выражать

foreign language – иностранные языки

important - важный

 to invite – приглашать

to mean – иметь в виду     

opinion – мнение 

to participate - участвовать

(to take part) - принимать участие

to promise – обещать