"Okay," Maxim whispered, rubbing his eyes. "Let’s look at the GDZ (Готовые Домашние Задания)."

S.A. Telyakovskii’s name was printed clearly on the spine, a name Maxim usually respected, but tonight, the man's problems on sine waves and tangent identities felt like a personal mountain he couldn't climb. Tomorrow was the big unit test, and if he didn't solve Problem #244, he was doomed.

Maxim sat hunched over his desk, the blue-and-white cover of his 10th-grade algebra textbook mocking him. It was 11:00 PM, and the "Trigonometric Functions" chapter felt like a coded message from an alien civilization.