"When I become president, I will give an order to my people and they would punish you! Oh, you'll pay me a high price for that! You will drop down on your knees before me, pleading for mercy."

 

We beat him even more, but I have to admit that at the same time we began to doubt. Who knows what if this fool really becomes president some day? What if he really wants to revenge on us then? There would be the only one thing for us to do in this case - to emigrate from the country!

 

And I must confess that there were some serious reasons for such thoughts. Our strange classmate really was a quite different boy among all the other students.

 

 

 2

 

First, Khmurik was a grade grubber. Really he was the biggest grade grubber that I've ever seen. Any science didn't come easily to him, but his persistence and obstinacy were impressive. He studied hard, day and night. And his efforts gave results. He was a student with predominant good grades.

 

He took his mother's maiden name Steshenko when he turned sixteen, getting a passport for the first time. His father left his mother and him long ago. The father's family name was Khmurov and it was Russian name. On Khmurik's opinion, such surname would not suit him for his future career of the president of Ukraine. So he took the mother's one. The family name of his mother was Steshenko. It is also not sounded good enough, but at least it was undoubtedly Ukrainian.

 

Second, as I remember Khmurik has never been photographed and it seems that I do not have any picture of him. Every year a photographer visited our school in order to do a collective portrait of our class. Yehor knew when he comes and just did not appear at lessons that day. If some other classmate was trying to make shots of our class by his amateur camera somewhere on the street or just in the classroom, Khmurik did his utmost not to be caught in the frame.

 

We all were surprised by such his strange behavior but Khmurik was declaring: ‘When I become president all these pictures can compromise me. I must always keep my nose clean.'

 

In short, this boy was really crazy about his idea.

 

Khmurik had not any close friends, but as soon as our graduation came nearer we became friends.