Most of the story is written on behalf of the protagonist, seventh grader Jura, but in some chapters the narration is conducted from a third person.

Thirteen-year-old Jura Paleolog lived Arbat, near the house of Pushkin. He did not notice that he lives near the house of the great poet, until he was told about this by the new literature teacher Fedor Fedorovich, nicknamed Efef.

This teacher turned out to be very unusual - “and he knows special words, and knows how to listen to others, and does not go into the soul if you do not want it,” and he looks into the eyes and not to the side when talking. Yura made friends with Efef and often ran to him "alone" - a one-room apartment. And in the story that happened to Yura, he helped, like a true friend.

Maybe it all started due to the fact that I like to imagine, invent something that should never be.

That day, Yura, nicknamed Sokratik at school, left the house later than usual. All morning he tried to find out from mom where she disappeared the night before, but she kept silent, although she usually told everything right from the doorway.

The news was waiting for Yuru at school: in his seventh grade two newcomers appeared, a brother and sister Kulakov, children of the famous test pilot. After the lessons, the counselor, the tenth grader Boris Kapustin, ran into the classroom and broke the students into links. Yura fell into one link with the brand new Ivan and the red-haired Toshka, the nerd and wit-songwriter Ryabov, Zinka, who considered herself a telepath, and the flirty Lenka. The high and courageous Ivan was chosen as a link.

To begin with, Ivan invited the children to tell about their parents. Everyone began to talk about their fathers, but Jura had nothing to say. His father died three years ago, and his mother worked as a typist. Ryabov tried to make fun, but Ivan stood up for Yura and from that moment became his best friend.

Once Yura stayed with the Kulakovs and returned home later than usual. On the way, he noticed his mother walking with a stranger.

Yura understood why mom was delayed after work and did not tell him anything. Before his death, dad asked him to protect his mother, but how to do it if she is silent. At home, my mother said that she was retyping the dissertation of a young scientist. Obviously, it was with him that she walked along the Arbat. Yura did not say that he saw them together, and mother also said nothing.

On the same evening, Yura’s grandfather bought a TV and forbade his grandson to bring friends to his house — they would break him. The boy’s grandfather was "greedy, unjust."

Worst of all, when a person is only for himself.

Mom adjusted to her grandfather, tried to please him, because he occasionally helped them with money. Yura believed that it was time for him to talk to him for a long time, but did not dare, and constantly forgave his grandfather's antics and insults.

From that day on, mother always came home from work late "and often disappeared from home in the evenings." She still did not tell Yura anything, and he did not dare to be the first to start this difficult conversation.

It is easy to say “shout”, but it is difficult to shout, because it is not known how your shout will be answered.

Yura was very pleased and supported by friendship with Ivan. Classmates envied the boy, because he is friends with the son of "that same Kulakov" and goes to visit him, in a new high-rise building on the Arbat. The sister of Ivan, Toshka, Yura was afraid and called to himself red beast.

Once Ivan announced that their link could be accepted to the Komsomol by the October holidays if it comes out on top in academic performance. On the same day there was an open history lesson attended by an assistant professor from the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. Yura recognized his neighbor, a harmful aunt from the first floor, who did not allow the children to play football under the windows, and was a little scared.

In order to show off his pedagogical talent in front of an assistant professor, the historian first called several excellent students to the board, and then began to conduct an express survey. Each student had to give out some heroic "detail about Suvorov."

All managed except Yura. Instead of some famous saying, the boy blurted out that Suvorov had brought to Moscow to execute Pugachev in an iron cage. This fact violated the idea of ​​Suvorov as a great Russian commander, and Yura put a deuce.

After the lesson, Ivan pounced on a former friend, called him a "mess" and did not listen to any excuses. Yura did not understand why he was so humiliated in front of the whole class, because in the lesson he told the truth.

It turns out that in truth you can’t get far, ‹...› It turns out that for one’s truth is one, but for outsiders another?

After school, Yura waited a long time for Ivan at school to explain his actions without witnesses, but he went home under the arm with Lenka and did not pay any attention to Yura.

The boy went to Arbat together with Efef, looking at the couple looming ahead and dejectedly thinking about "real male friendship." Suddenly, a car braked next to them, a chauffeur - a fat bald uncle - jumped out of it and rushed to hug Fedor Fedorovich. From their conversation, Yura concluded that once Efef was a driver and had an accident, after which he recovered for three years.

That day, Yura did not speak with Ivan. At home, the boy found a stranger. It was that very young scientist, Gennady Pavlovich, whom his mother met. Yura refused to talk with him and sat proud and hungry all evening, turning his back to his mother and Gennady Pavlovich and pretending to teach lessons.

In the evening, Zink’s “telepathic” appeared to pull Yura up through history, and they crammed Suvorov’s biography for a long time. The boy felt that his mother had prepared a whole speech in defense of Gennady Pavlovich, and specially went to accompany Zinka.

In the morning, Yura went to Ivan’s house to talk with him before school, but found out that he was sick. In the classroom, Yuri immediately began to tease “the former Sancho Panso”, and then the boy lied - he said that he had already reconciled with Ivan. There was no toshka in the class, and there was no one to refute him.

For a whole week, Yura lied about Ivan and his famous father, whom he supposedly met. He got a book about test pilots and retold what he read.

Yura’s mom no longer met with Gennady Pavlovich. Now she was always in a bad mood and looked at her son as the culprit of all her troubles.

So that his classmates would not expose him, Yura would go to Ivan’s house every day after school, supposedly to visit a sick friend. Once Lenka caught him there and asked him to convey greetings to Ivan from her, and then Ryabov appeared and began to beg to conduct him to the Kulakovs. Yura threatened to tell Ivan everything about it, Ryabov went awry, started to fawn and dragged the boy to his home - to see a new camera.

There, Yura saw pictures of Toshka Kulakova and realized why Ryabov was so scared - he was in love. The boy promised Ryabov to keep his secret and confessed to his lies.

Now Yura had only one thing - to repent before Ivan. He went to the Kulakovs' house and collided with Toshka before the entrance. She went to the store and invited the "unlucky Socratic" to go with her.

They walked along, now stretching, then shortening, swimming in puddles, bumping into passers-by and merging for a moment with them, then again coming off and staying together in the whole world.

They walked around the city for a long time. Yura told Toshka why he was nicknamed Socratic. When father died, Yura stopped talking. Zinka tried to make him laugh, and once during a lesson she said that Yura always thinks like the philosopher Socrates, and therefore is silent. Yura was the smallest in the class, and therefore wits added to the nickname the particle "-ik".

In the deli, Yura treated Toshka with a milkshake, exchanging his coveted metal ruble.Then they repented, and Yura went home, overflowing with extraordinary ease and clarity.

And the next day Ivan appeared in the class. Entering, Yura immediately realized that everyone already knew about his lies. Ivan scornfully called him Socrates, and Toshka looked at him and turned away.

Now he has forever lost a friend. Forever lost the right to be equal among all and forever, forever lost the evening that even the day before made him so unusually happy.

He betrayed Yura, of course, to Ryabov, who wanted to curry favor with Kulakov. Now he turned around Ivan and looked away when Yura looked at him. The boy could take revenge, but did not want to become a traitor and a scammer.

Due to the consciousness of his own insignificance, Yura did not sleep well. At night, he suddenly woke up and heard his grandfather and mother talking in the next room. The boy wanted to hail them, but remembered that he had not talked with his mother all evening.

The night before, Yura saw Gennady Pavlovich near his house - he was looking for someone, and the boy guessed who it was. Yura became disgusted, because he knew that Gennady Pavlovich was married. His wife, “tall, chubby, looking like a singer from the Pyatnitsky choir,” came to their house and asked Yura if Gennady Pavlovich was here, and then added that they also had a boy at home.

Yura tried to tell his mother about everything, but the news that Yura saw Gennady Pavlovich near the house excited her, she did not listen any further, she puffed her nose and left. Yura became "unbearably sorry for himself."

The boy tried to fall asleep, but his grandfather's voice prevented him. He talked about his friend Nazarov, who before the revolution worked as the factory manager. Recently, this Nazarov called his grandfather to the hospital, where he had been lying for a long time.

Yura fell asleep for a short while, and when he woke up, he heard his grandfather tell his mother about the treasure walled up in the wall of the old house where Nazarov used to live. He was afraid that the house would be demolished while he was being treated, so he took his grandfather to share and gave him the exact plan.

In the morning, Yura remembered the treasure and decided to stop the greedy grandfather until he appropriated everything for himself. Then he realized that he knew a secret that would not only reconcile him with his classmates, but would also glorify him throughout the school.

No one wanted to talk to me from this famous fifth link. They were all very proud and principled. Nothing, I will win my place among them.

After school, Yura found an old house where grandfather and mother had once lived next door to Nazarov. In the courtyard of the house, he met a girl who was walking a small dog in a huge muzzle. The girl said that the house was being demolished, so it was almost empty.

Yura went into an empty apartment and through a hole in the wall he heard a certain Mikhail Nikolaevich play the cello in the next apartment, and a neighbor who came to him tells about his love for his wife Verochka - a holy woman and a great scientist.

For several days, Yura did not communicate with classmates and every day after classes he came to the old house. Often he saw his grandfather in the courtyard - apparently he waited until the house was completely empty, in order to freely remove the treasure from the wall. Yura hated this money - because of them he could not talk normally with his mother. She did not tell her son about the treasure, and he thought that her grandfather was lured by her stories about a beautiful life.

Grandfather thinks that the most important thing is money. And the most important thing is to ‹...› do something glorious for others, and so that you yourself do not need anything, not even gratitude ...

Yura cunningly found out from his grandfather that the treasure is in the apartment where "the extraordinary Verochka, her enthusiastic husband and their son" now live. Then he resolutely went to his mother to persuade her to give Nazarov's gold to the state. Then everyone will know what he has done, and they will be surprised.

In the courtyard of Jura, a docent neighbor met with her little daughter, who said that his mother “was standing in the porch with some uncle.” And again, Yura did not dare to do anything - did not speak with either Gennady Petrovich or his mother.More recently, Yura was an open boy, but because of the death of his father and constant quarrels with his grandfather, "frankness began to leave him ... he was silent and suffered secretly."

In the evening, after another quarrel with his grandfather, Yura found a bundle with a drill in the hallway and realized that it was impossible to hesitate. He went to Ivan and told him about the treasure. He immediately became “kind and generous” and forgave Yura for his stupid boast. Ivan decided that tomorrow they would come to the old house with the whole class, they would explain to Verochka that there was a treasure hidden in the wall of her apartment, and they would hand it over to the bank.

The next day, Yura was met in the classroom as a hero, and Toshka looked at him point blank.

In general, it was a real celebration, some kind of holiday, which had no end.

Yura was only worried about one thing: he had not yet talked with his mother and grandfather, and thus "wrote them down as his opponents." This prevented him from sleeping, and in the morning he finally started talking about the treasure. However, neither mom nor grandfather knew anything about gold. It turned out that the whole conversation Yura had a dream. Mom explained to her son that this happened when he was little: he dreamed something, and he thought that it really happened.

Now Yura could only leave "closer to the pole" - he could not tell the truth to the guys. He went to Efaf to ask for money for the journey, but the teacher became angry and called him a coward. It turned out that Fedor Fedorovich was not a driver, but a pilot. After a terrible accident, he spent three years in bed. Doctors said that he would not get up, but Fedor Fedorovich stood up. He understood:

A person is decorated not only with strength and victory, but also with recognition of his own defeat. But flight and cowardice still did not save anyone.

Fedor Fedorovich sent Yura to the guys. He believed that the boy would not run away, otherwise he should not have come as a teacher to this school.

A crowd of children gathered in the courtyard of the old house, even the counselor Boris Kapustin came to take pictures of everyone. Yura could not utter the terrible words “amidst this general delight,” therefore he told the truth only to Ivan and Boris. Yura did not wait for sympathy from a friend - Ivan immediately told about everything else.

The guys left, and Yura was left alone in an abandoned apartment. He again heard the voices of his neighbors. During the experiments, Verochka had an accident - her face was burned. She was blinded, and her husband decided to abandon her, because he was “not created for exploits” and did not want to suffer. Yura was “so overwhelmed by someone else’s misfortune” that for a while he forgot about his troubles, went to a neighboring apartment and offered his skin for transplantation.

Old Mikhail Nikolayevich, who went through the war with a light bullet pierced, was disappointed in his courteous neighbor and was terribly happy when the boy offered help to a completely unfamiliar woman. So, everything experienced by him was not in vain. He knew that nothing would help Verochka now, but went to her doctor for the sake of "this small, thick-lipped, shaggy guy."

Yura "became famous" for the whole school. The boy was dismantled at the teacher's council, they wanted to send him to a psychiatrist, and first-graders bypassed him. Yura gathered courage and told his mother about the wife of Gennady Pavlovich. It turned out that the stately “singer” was his sister, she passed to get acquainted. The outraged mother called Yura an egoist and stopped talking to him.

In the classroom, only Zinka spoke with Yura, who was not a telepath at all. She believed that Yura was thinking about her, therefore, she said that she was reading his thoughts. The Kulakovs did not pay attention to Yura, and it seemed to the boy that he dreamed of a walk with Toshka.

Once in a lesson, Zinka blurted out that Ivan was dreaming of Lenka. He tried to laugh at Lena, but Yura stood up for her. This time, Ivan's class did not support. Toshka openly opposed her brother: she brought Yura to her home and directly told him that he was using his father’s authority for his own purposes. This was heard by Kulakov Sr., in which Yura recognized the “driver”, an acquaintance of Efef - they tested planes together.

Leaving father and son for a serious conversation, Yura and Toshka went for a walk.Yura told the girl about Mikhail Nikolaevich and Verochka. Toshka immediately went to the old house to offer Verochka her help, but it turned out that the house was empty, - Mikhail Nikolaevich moved out.

A girl with a dog walked in the yard. She complained that a neighbor in their communal apartment could not stand the dogs and forbade her to keep the dog. Toshka had already called home, her mood improved, and she rushed to protect the girl and her dog from her evil neighbor.

She was like a drummer, she beat a fraction on her drum and called me to attack. She just wanted to fight fiercely all the time.

The battle ended in defeat - the neighbor simply threw the pioneers out of the room, but Toshka was not going to give up. Yura also decided that he would fight.

They stood and thought. Toshka hoped that her brother was not completely missing. Yura remembered his mother and Gennady Pavlovich and thought that he should be more generous to them, because all people are judges of each other.

Someday everyone will understand each other perfectly and come to the aid at the first call. Everyone will be happy, and "everyone who wants to have a dog."