a horrible duty On Thursday Sasha came to school earlier than usual. She was on duty. All the more Yura couldn’t help her, because he had been down with quinsy for a fortnight already. Sasha threw the ventlight open and looked out of the window. She felt good from the dazzling sunlight. But suddenly the girl felt a little sad. She remembered that they would move to a new place soon, she would have to go to a different, unknown school. But the girl was glad to be able to get rid of Viktor, who was a bundle of mischief and who had been summoned to the headmaster’s office already. He was also always ready to fight and all the children feared him. He annoyed both the pupils and the teachers, but he made Sasha’s life the hardest. Some pupils started to come to school. Sasha remembered suddenly to finish some work. She watered the flowers in the pots, washed the duster that was white from chalk, cleaned the blackboard in the classroom and prepared a piece of chalk. In the first class she went to the teacher’s table and reported that 37 pupils were present in class, Yura was absent, he was still ill. Sasha took her place and the teacher turned to the blackboard to take the piece of chalk, but she couldn’t find it. She turned to Sasha. Sasha answered that the chalk had to be in its place. Sasha became very ashamed of herself and blushed. She thought that the teacher would consider her as a negligent day monitor as the teacher had (had) to waste some time looking for another piece of chalk. The question “where has the chalk disappeared?” pestered the girl. She had only calmed down by the middle of the class and began listening to the teacher.