The next morning, Lyudmila Petrovna paced the aisles. She stopped at Maxim’s desk, her glasses sliding down her nose. She tapped his notebook.
The flickering cursor on Maxim’s laptop felt like a heartbeat. It was 1:45 AM, and the "Algebra and Beginnings of Analysis" textbook was staring him down with the cold indifference of a KGB interrogator.
Maxim’s heart hammered. "I... I remembered what you said about the relationship between area and the antiderivative, ma'am. I tried to visualize the curve."