In the middle of the session, Mr Petrie removed all the extra balls from the playground and, leaving only one, started to encourage the children to play football with him, passing to each of them in turn. Some reacted to this gesture in a sporting way – kicking the ball away from themselves in the opposite direction, others fell to their knees, trying to take the round toy for themselves and run away from the man, and others did not pay any attention to this unknown game for them. Ted belonged to the third group of children. When the turn came to him, and a miniature football slightly hit his foot, he looked at it perplexedly and turned around and went the other way, as if avoiding repeated contact with it.

The coach was not upset by the fact that not everyone in this hall was interested in sports games. Firstly, he realised that they were still very young children. Secondly, not everyone is destined to become a professional athlete in the future. Most of all, Mr Petrie was surprised by a situation that happened to Theodore a year and a half later, when he was already a second-year student at the CEC. It was this situation that predetermined Ted's further enrolment in a sports school.

It was the 18th of February, 746. Theodore's birthday. Of all the classmates studying at the CEC with him, he was the third oldest. Therefore, studying in his second year, he was already five years old. While many of the other kids were only four. On the one hand, he looked a bit bigger and older than the others, because he had finally started eating a lot of food, several times a day, and had gained a decent amount of weight. On the other hand, Ted was somewhat behind in intellectual development from the overwhelming majority of children due to the fact that in home conditions he was mostly left to himself, both before and after the CEC. Therefore, there was no consolidation of the knowledge the boy had learnt. That is why he was considered to be an average child with no predispositions to any knowledge.

Of course, Theodore had already learnt to read children's literature, specially selected by the tutors to suit his age, although his reading speed was almost the slowest in the course. He was also writing a little, although his handwriting was hard to recognise. Even though the CEC taught him to write in block letters, some of them, such as ‘G’, ‘W’ or ‘Z’, he could not reproduce on a piece of paper. In drawing classes he made some progress, but only in relation to his previous works. Such as ‘Family’, ‘Future Work’ and ‘Nature’. Now his drawings did not consist only in painting a rectangular sheet of paper in one colour. The boy learnt to draw little people, clouds, sun, moon, car and other simple associative images made up of simple lines and dots. It was difficult to call it masterpieces of children's painting, but in the attitude of the pupil himself obvious progress was present.

Theodore did not do well with dancing and singing. It even got to the point that the boy absolutely refused to participate in everything that was connected with these lessons and the teachers had to transfer him to another group for a while during the singing and dancing lessons. The obvious advantage was that Ted had an additional opportunity to socialise with other children while learning with other groups. Thus, he became more liberated and outgoing. Sometimes even too much so. In terms of communication, there was a feeling that he had no equal. The boy changed in front of my eyes, compared to how he came to the walls of this educational centre stiff and silent. And by the way, communication skills were one of the additional characteristics for admission to the school. That certainly added one point to Theodore's score.

As for other classroom activities, the preschooler did not have any high successes there. He was not uninterested in many of them, but he was not particularly fond of them either. Something he did something, for example, modelling from plasticine, and something – just to do. For example, in the lessons of constructor, the boy did not try to build some construction. But some of them turned out really unusual for their age structures. Ted most often chaotically picked up parts and connected them by putting them on top of each other. In the end, the result was a mess.

But what the second-year student was definitely addicted to was sports activities. He was one of the first to find a common language with the coach in the shortest possible time and understood exactly what he required from him. Despite the fact that fiddling with a football at the end of the lesson had a competitive effect, which added enthusiasm to the young pupil, Ted had no love for this sport. He behaved peculiarly on the court, and most often played not according to the rules, despite the large number of warnings and remarks from the coach and Mrs Donova. During the game, the boy always tried to be the first on the ball, forcefully pushing away his opponents and teammates. Yes, it still didn't look like a full-fledged football game, but the coach tried his best to instil the basic rules of football in the preschoolers. He explained to them how to act on the court is possible, and how categorically forbidden.

The situation was different for the boy when it came to playing in the red circle, which was in the centre of the sports hall. In order to instil in the pupils such useful qualities as perseverance, fighting to the very end, and endurance, there was a children's game that allowed to show and develop these strong-willed character traits. It consisted of the following:

The group was divided into three subgroups, each with an equal number of people, plus/minus one additional participant if the children could not be equally divided. Each member of the subgroup stood on the outline of the red circle in any free place and stayed there until the coach's signal, which was accompanied by a whistle or a loud clap of hands. After receiving this signal, the competition began. It consisted in keeping only one of its participants in the centre of the red circle. The permitted techniques were thrusts and arm grabs, with the help of which one could push his opponents out of the designated area. The circle was quite large and occupied almost 1/3 of the site, if we take into account its total internal area. Therefore, there was enough space for all the contestants. After the player's body completely left the red circle, the child was considered a loser and dropped out of the game. When trying to return and continue the competition, the coach or tutor would calm the child and explain to him that the game was over for him, so he had to wait until it was over so as not to disturb the other players.

Today, on Theodore's birthday, it happened to be the second day of physical education. It would be followed by a couple more classes, and then in the dining room Ted would have a little surprise prepared by Mrs Donova in honour of his birthday. In the meantime, the boy was focused on the upcoming competition, which had already become a routine for him. Theodore was most looking forward to this particular game, in which he outclassed everyone in strength and perseverance.

Ted's subgroup of three boys and two girls took their place around the red circle. Each of the children prepared in their own way for the start of the contest. Some simply stood erect, others bent forward a little and redistributed most of their weight onto their supporting leg. One of the girls looked around unhappily, clearly not understanding the meaning of the game and not really wanting to participate. Despite her very ordinary origin, she looked and behaved like a real princess. Therefore, she was extremely capricious and disobedient. She never did what she did not want to do at the moment, which many times upset her tutor, who tried hard to instil in her the desire and interest in various kinds of activities.