Mrs Donova's group entered the gym. The assistants, who were already waiting for them inside, began to undress the kids so that they would not get their shoes dirty on the clean pavement. The boys, who saw the mountain of footballs, immediately rushed to them. Most of the girls stood around wondering what all the boys were so excited about, and what could possibly be so interesting about this room. No wonder! It was often rare for girls to become athletes. The adult women's football league was small, consisting of only ten teams. And the fairer half of the sex went into battle even less often, for obvious reasons.

Of course, the children's physical education classes at the Children's Centre were of a general nature only, without any specialisation, and consisted mainly in maintaining a healthy lifestyle among children. If it was necessary to correct posture with specific exercises, an orthopaedist from the local rural hospital was invited. The children were taught sports by a children's coach, while the tutor kept order in the gym and, if necessary, helped to organise the children.

While most of the kids scattered around the room to study the sports equipment, Theodore began to look at the gym in detail. The door through which they had entered was at his back. He stood on the white marked line separating the playground from the rest of the space. The far side of the room had large rectangular windows upstairs through which sunlight streamed in, supplemented by interior light fixtures. In front of the boy were small white plastic football goals that were about 30 centimetres taller than he was. A white net was attached to the back of them. Opposite them, at the far end of the pitch stood exactly the same goal. Ted crouched down on the floor and with interest began pulling at the strings that made up the gate set. Woven together, they formed a diamond-shaped pattern that stretched from bottom to top, flowing from one quadrangular shape to another.

There was a click of the door opening. A children's coach entered the hall, smiling and winking at the budding athletes. The man was about forty years old, of medium height, with a short haircut, muscular and trim. Apparently a former athlete. Gathering the kids around him, the man introduced himself. His name was Mr Petrie. To be honest, he didn't really like it when the kids addressed him so formally, but there was nothing to be done. Rules are rules.

During the first lessons it was hard to organise the kids so that they obediently followed all the commands of their new coach exactly as intended. Therefore, just like the others, the first physical education lessons were only of an introductory nature, rather than any benefit for the young organism. Having spread out gymnastic mats on the ground, teachers tried to show the group basic warm-up exercises, which the latter were reluctant to perform. The kids were constantly distracted by extraneous objects and classmates, laughing and wiggling without stopping.

In the middle of the session, Mr Petrie removed all the extra balls from the playground and, leaving only one, started to encourage the children to play football with him, passing to each of them in turn. Some reacted to this gesture in a sporting way – kicking the ball away from themselves in the opposite direction, others fell to their knees, trying to take the round toy for themselves and run away from the man, and others did not pay any attention to this unknown game for them. Ted belonged to the third group of children. When the turn came to him, and a miniature football slightly hit his foot, he looked at it perplexedly and turned around and went the other way, as if avoiding repeated contact with it.