"How can one word have so many endings?" he groaned, his pen hovering uselessly over his notebook.

For a week, Maxim was a ghost. He flew through his assignments in ten minutes, copying the elegant solutions from the screen. His teacher, Maria Petrovna, raised an eyebrow at his suddenly flawless homework, but Maxim just offered a nervous smile. However, the "Magic of the GDZ" had a price.

That evening, Maxim looked at his failing grade and then at the Ramzaeva textbook. He realized the GDZ wasn't a map; it was a crutch that had made his "mental muscles" go soft.