There is a boy named Vlad in our yard: the kids call him "Schizo." He is indeed a little strange: always disheveled, wearing dusty pants with patches, he seems to be developmentally delayed...
The doorbell rang. Rimma Konstantinovna, an elderly woman in her eighties, took her eyes off the newspaper and walked down the hall to the door, shuffling her flip-flops on the old parquet floor.
The sewer hatch opened, and flakes of snow whistled in as a snowstorm raged outside. The boys downstairs greeted Sanya, a skinny teenager of about thirteen, dressed in a dirty, shabby down jacket, with a lively murmur...