Lucy, our Young Pioneer leader, came over to me during recess and said, "D'you think you can sing something at our next school recital? We've decided to have a number with two first-graders as a comedy team. It'll be a satire. How about it?"

"Sure! But what's a satire?"

"Well, you know, there are all sorts of things that need improving. Like lazy pupils and poor achievers. Understand? If we made fun of them publicly and everybody laughs, it'll make them reform."

"They're not criminals. They're just lazy."

"Reform is just a way of saying it. Actually, it'll make them stop and think. They'll feel ashamed of themselves, and then they'll improve. Understand? Anyway, I need your answer now: yes or no?"

"All right. Yes."

"D'you have a partner?"

"No."

"You mean you don't have any friends?"

"Sure, I do. Misha's my friend. But I don't have a partner."

She smiled again. "That's practically the same thing. Is he musical?"

"No, he's ordinary."

"Can he sing?"

"You can hardly hear him. But don't worry, I'll teach him to sing real loud."

She seemed pleased.

"Bring him along to assembly after school. We're having a rehearsal."

I dashed off to look for Misha. He was in the cafeteria, eating a sausage.

"Want to be a comedian, Misha?"

"Wait a minute. Wait till I finish this."

I stood watching him eat. He's very skinny. The sausage looked thicker than his neck. He was biting off pieces instead of cutting it up, and the skin cracked loudly each time he bit into it. That made hot, delicious juice run out of it. It made me so hungry I asked for a sausage, too.

The cook gave me one on a plate. I didn't want Misha to finish his before I did, because it wouldn't be as tasty if I had to eat it alone, so I started biting into mine without cutting it up, either. The hot, delicious juice burst out of my sausage, too. We sat there watching each other and smiling as we chewed away, burning our fingers on the hot sausages.

Then I told Misha we were going to be a comedy team. He was all for it. We could barely wait till school was out.

Lucy was waiting for us. So was a boy who looked like he was probably in the fourth grade. He had small ears and huge eyes.

"Here they are," Lucy said. "This is Andrei Shestakov, our school poet."

Misha and I said hello and then turned away, so he wouldn't think he was so special.

"Are these the actors?" the poet asked Lucy.

"Yes."

"Couldn't you find anything bigger?"

"It's just what we need."

Just then Boris Sergeyevich came in. He went straight to the piano and sat down. "Let's begin. Where are the stanzas?"

Andrei took a slip of paper from his pocket. "Here. I took the rhyme and meter from Marshak's poem about the donkey, the old man and his grandson. You know, 'Who ever heard of it?'"

Boris Sergeyevich nodded. "Read it aloud."

Andrei read his poem.

Vasily's father is good at arithmetic,
He does his son's homework for him each day.
Who ever heard of it, who ever dreamed of it?
Father does homework while sonny-boy plays!

Misha and I giggled. It was true. Lots of kids asked their parents to do their homework for them and then handed it in as if they were real smart and had done it themselves. Then, when they were called on to do a problem in class, they'd get a "D". Everybody knew it. Good for Andrei! That'd show them. Meanwhile, he was reading the next stanza and looking very serious.

See the bright chalk squares all over the sidewalk here,
Tanya and Manya are hopping again.
Who ever heard of it, who ever dreamed of it?
Lessons have started, but what's it to them?

That was great! Andrei was real good, just like Pushkin.

"Not bad at all," Boris Sergeyevich said. "The music'll be very simple, something like this." He took the slip of paper from Andrei, played an accompaniment and sang the whole song through. It sounded so good we all clapped.

"Who will sing it?" he asked.

Lucy pointed at Misha and me. "They will."

"I see. Misha has a good ear for music, but Dennis doesn't carry a tune too well."

"But I can sing very loud," I said.

We began rehearsing. We must've repeated that song fifty or a thousand times. I kept shouting it real loud, and everybody kept trying to shush me up.

"Don't be nervous! Not so loud! Take it easy!" they said.

Andrei was more nervous than anybody, and he was making me nervous. Still, I kept singing as loud as I could. That's because real singing should be loud.

A couple of days later there was a notice on the bulletin board. This is what it said:

My heart skipped a beat. I raced off to my classroom. Misha was there, looking out of the window.

"We're on today!"

"I don't feel good," he mumbled.

I was dumbfounded. He couldn't mean it. After all, we'd rehearsed for so long. What about Lucy and Boris Sergeyevich? And Andrei? And what about all the kids? They'd all see the notice and they'd all be sure to come.

"Are you crazy? How can you let everybody down?"

"I think I've got a stomach ache." He sounded awful.

"That's because you're scared. I've got one, too, but I'm not backing out."

Misha looked thoughtful. The minute the long recess started all the kids raced to the assembly hall.

Misha and I trudged along behind them, because now I didn't feel like getting up in front of everybody, either.

Just then Lucy came running over, grabbed each of us by the hand and dragged us off down the hall. My knees kept buckling. I must've caught Misha's stomach ache.

There was a space set off near the piano, and all the kids from all the classes and the teachers, too, were crowding around it.

Misha and I took our places by the piano.

Boris Sergeyevich was sitting on the piano bench. Lucy announced in a real announcer's voice:

"You will now hear a song on a topical subject. The words are by Andrei Shestakov. Our singers are the world-famous comedy team of Misha and Dennis. Let's give them a hand!"

Misha and I took a step forward. Misha was as pale as a ghost. I was feeling fine, except that my mouth felt dry and fuzzy, like I had a ball of cotton in it.

Boris Sergeyevich began to play. Misha was supposed to begin, because he sang the first two lines alone. Then I was supposed to sing the last two lines alone. Anyway, Boris Sergeyevich started to play. Misha raised his left arm like Lucy had showed him and was about to begin, but he missed his cue. Then it was my turn. I mean, according to the music. But I didn't sing my two lines, because Misha hadn't sung his.

Misha dropped his arm back into place, and Boris Sergeyevich began from the beginning, slowly and loudly. He banged on the keys three times, as he was supposed to, and on the fourth bang Misha raised his left arm again and finally began to sing:

Vasily's father is good at arithmetic,
He does his son's homework for him each day.

I was right on cue and shouted:

Who ever heard of it, who ever dreamed of it?
Father does homework while sonny-boy plays!

Everybody burst out laughing. That lifted a weight from my chest. Then Boris Sergeyevich banged on the keys three times again and on the fourth Misha raised his left arm carefully and, for some reason or other, began from the beginning again:

Vasily's father is good at arithmetic,
He does his son's homework for him each day.

I guessed right off that he'd made a mistake, but I decided to sing the rest of the stanza while we were at it, and then maybe everything would go right after that. So I sang my two lines:

Who ever heard of it, who ever dreamed of it?
Father does homework while sonny-boy plays!

Luckily, nobody made any noise, because they probably all guessed that Misha'd made a mistake and were now saying to themselves, "Oh, well, things like this happen. We'll just wait for the next stanza."

Meanwhile, the music was banging on and on. Misha looked sort of green under the gills. When the music reached the place where he was supposed to start he threw out his left arm again and began to sing like a record when the needle gets stuck in a groove, for the third time now:

Vasily's father is good at arithmetic,
He does his son's homework for him each day.

I felt like cracking him good and hard with something heavy, so I shouted angrily:

Who ever heard of it, who ever dreamed of it?
Father does homework while sonny-boy plays!

"You're nuts! Why d'you keep singing the same thing? Sing the second stanza!" I hissed.

"Nobody asked you!" he snapped and then said very politely to Boris Sergeyevich, "I'm ready, Boris Sergeyevich." Boris Ser-geyevich began to play. Misha looked bolder. He raised his left arm again and, on the fourth bang, yowled as if nothing were wrong:

Vasily's father is good at arithmetic,
He does his son's homework for him each day.

The kids were squealing and shrieking. Then I noticed Andrei. He looked miserable. Lucy was all red in the face and dishevelled and was making her way through the crowd towards us. Misha stood there with his mouth hanging open as if he'd surprised himself. Meanwhile, I was belting out my half of the stanza:

Who ever heard of it, who ever dreamed of it?
Father does homework while sonny-boy plays!

It's hard to describe what was happening. While everyone was laughing so hard, Misha's face turned from green to purple. Lucy grabbed his hand and dragged him off, shouting to me over her shoulder.

"You sing it alone, Dennis! Don't let us down! Go on!"

I stood there by the piano and decided not to let them down. I was very calm, and at my cue I suddenly threw out my left arm, like Misha had, and bellowed, really amazing myself:

Vasily's father is good at arithmetic,
He does his son's homework for him each day.

I don't really remember what happened after that. It was something like an earthquake. I was sure I'd drop through the floor, but it was just everybody, all the kids and all the teachers, keeling over.

I'm surprised I didn't die. I probably would've, if not for the bell.

I'm never going to be a comedian again.