Orthography Olympics

Flashbacks often come in series of two or three, and apparently this time is not an exception. This is another one of the time when Maksim did his homework at Lyoshka's and Lyoshka helped him whenever he had difficulties with a subject.

One of Maksim's weak points at the time was orthography; the method Lyoshka thought up was brilliant and helped him very much. Lyoshka would fetch the big old encyclopedia from his bookshelf (a heavy volume bound in brown leather, with slightly yellowed pages), open it at random and say "Hey Maksimka, bet you can't spell this word", then he'd say it and Maksim would try to spell it. When he had got it right, Lyoshka would hand the book over to Maksim and let him pick a word, strategically misspelling it when he felt Maksim could use a little triumph. Maksim loved the little game, and it helped his spelling enormously, without him noticing it. Lyoshka was a true genius when it came to teaching and motivating people...