Victoria Lederman’s "The Improbability Theory," a summary

This book is a fantasy story about growing up, realizing one’s mistakes, and finding true friends, written in 2018. A selfish teenager, cut off from virtual entertainment, suddenly encounters an alternative version of his life, which forces him to radically rethink his relationship with loved ones. The work won the Alice Award, the V.P. Krapivin International Children’s Literary Prize, and took third place in the All-Russian Kniguru Competition. Film studios recently announced plans to adapt the story for the screen.

Quarrel with mother and flight

An ordinary October morning for thirteen-year-old Matvey Dobrovolsky begins with a disaster: due to a power line failure, his internet provider disconnects his home internet service. The boy takes this event extremely seriously. Matvey avoids socializing with his classmates, clashes with his homeroom teacher, Oleg Denisovich, and prefers to spend his free time playing computer games. The situation is further exacerbated by his mother’s disappointing news. Following the death of a close friend from Volgograd, she plans to take her orphaned ten-year-old daughter, Ksyusha, into their apartment. Matvey throws a fit, accusing his mother of selfishness, and categorically refuses to accept the girl, a stranger, into the family.

That evening, while out in the yard, Matvey encounters a gang of three local hooligans: Grek, Medusa, and Pushkin. The thugs hold a knife to his face and demand he hand over his phone. The boy manages to escape and hops on a bus heading out of town. The hooligans pursue him. In a vacant lot near an unfinished house, Matvey hides in a wide concrete pipe, escaping their pursuit. At that moment, meteors fall in the sky. After waiting out the danger, the teenager spends the night in the forest near the campfire of Uncle Yegor, a random fisherman.

Alien reality

Returning home the next morning, Matvey discovers his key doesn’t fit the lock. His neighbor, Aunt Valya, threatens to call the police, mistaking him for a thief. His mother, on the phone, claims she doesn’t even have a son. An unfamiliar girl with brown eyes opens the apartment door.

Matvey goes to school, where he discovers that no one remembers him, not even the security guard and the cafeteria worker. He meets Venya Vatrushkin, a teenager with the social status of a school outcast, constantly getting into minor trouble. Venya notices Matvey’s resemblance to a girl in their seventh-grade class, Class B, named Miloslava Dobrovolskaya. It turns out that Miloslava lives in Matvey’s apartment with his parents, having been born on the exact same day and year as him.

Vatrushkin’s theory

Rejected by Miloslava, Matvey finds support in Vatrushkin. Venya is interested in science fiction and explains, "I have only one explanation: you’re in another dimension." In this dimension, the Dobrovolskys had a daughter. Since Matvey never existed here, his place in the world is taken.

Matvey spends the night in the apartment of Venya and his aunt Svetlana, known at home as Lana. The boys analyze the algorithm of the transition and realize that the passage took place in a concrete pipe during the passage of a powerful space bolide. Vatrushkin persuades Matvey to seek help from Oleg Denisovich. The teacher, initially skeptical, is convinced of the story’s veracity after seeing two identical school passes and a page from his own diary with identical marks.

The life of a double

Miloslava learns the truth and joins the rescue operation, taking on logistics and monitoring her mother’s calls. Alone with his sister, Matvey compares their lives. In his original reality, he broke his legs jumping from a garage roof, which delayed his father’s stay in the city, led to him finding a high-paying job, and the family undertook expensive renovations. In Miloslava’s reality, the garage incident never happened. Her parents went to a high school reunion in Volgograd, had a heated argument, and then her father left to work at a research station in the Arctic. The stress caused her mother to suffer a minor heart attack and lose her prestigious position.

Matvey realizes that his selfish behavior and his mother’s overprotectiveness have made him withdrawn. Miloslava, on the other hand, is growing up responsive, plays music, finds common ground easily, and eagerly awaits the arrival of Ksyusha.

Finding a way back

Matvey is forced to hide from the police and neighbors. Goshka’s father, police captain Ivan Nikolaevich Tikhonov, detains him on the landing, but Miloslava rescues her brother. Later, Matvey gives Captain Tikhonov a description of the hooligans who attacked Goshka, since in this reality, Matvey was unable to save the neighbor boy. Thanks to his testimony, the thugs are apprehended.

Geographer Timofey Timofeevich tells the students via video link that the meteoroid belonged to the Draconid meteor shower. The shower’s peak activity is expected later that evening. The students plan to arrange for Matvey to be transported to the pipe in the vacant lot.

While Miloslava is busy with her own affairs, Matvey attends the school sports competition. There, dressed in his gym uniform, he replaces an injured classmate on the horizontal bar, earning the class victory points. He builds relationships with the other students and protects Vatrushkin from being bullied.

Choice in the vacant lot

The return schedule is missed: that evening, Vatrushkin gets stuck at home due to a broken lock, leaving Matvey with only Miloslava and Oleg Denisovich. Matvey bids them farewell, gives his sister his smartphone, and crawls through the pipe. Once on the other side, he realizes with horror that he’s entered a third possibility: his mother gave birth to twins.

Vatrushkin from the third reality refuses to believe Matvey, but eventually lets him in. Venya suggests that the concrete pipe is a corridor linking dimensions sequentially. To return to the first world, Matvey must crawl through the pipe twice, in the opposite direction. Venya also guesses that the portal is open not only because of the Draconids, but also because of the energy of the new moon, which ends tonight.

They drive to the vacant lot together. Just before the meteor shower begins, Vatrushkin’s foot sinks into the rotten floor of an abandoned house. Matvey tries to free it with a heavy iron rod. Meteors begin to fall. Venya begs Matvey to leave him and run to the chimney so they can get home. But Matvey refuses to abandon his friend. They pull their foot out just as the last star fades from the sky.

Return

Matvey is certain the chance is lost forever. Vatrushkin insists that he at least test the hypothesis about the moon’s phases for his mother’s sake. Matvey crawls through a concrete tunnel, emerges on the other side, and discovers the vacant lot is empty. Vatrushkin is gone.

Realizing that his hypothesis about the influence of the moon’s phases has been confirmed, Matvey passes through the tube once more and finally returns to his first probability. On the highway, he accidentally encounters Oleg Denisovich, driving home from a corporate banquet, and asks him for a ride home. Matvey promises the teacher to change his behavior and become more actively involved in the life of the class.

At the entrance to the building, Matvey meets his mother, who has returned with ten-year-old Ksyusha. He is genuinely happy to see them, hugs his mother, and warmly greets his new sister. The next sunny Sunday morning, Matvey arrives at Venya Vatrushkin’s house on a red bicycle with a foam-wrapped rack. He invites his surprised classmate to ride to the distant lakes, precisely reenacting the scene from Venya’s long-held dream about his lost brother, and finds a true friend.