: A friendship between a boy collecting stones and a girl collecting echoes ends in betrayal and resentment. They break up forever.

The story is conducted on behalf of the boy Seryozha.

The action takes place in an area called Synegoria. Boy Seryozha collects stones on the seashore. Here he meets the girl Victorina, which everyone calls Vitka. Seryozha proudly shows her her collection of sea stones, but she does not make any impression on Vitka. The girl promises to show her collection - she collects an echo. Intrigued boy meets with Quiz the next day.

Together they go to the mountains, where Vitka shows him the diversity of his echo collection. After a while, they begin to be friends. Sergei even gets used to her way of swimming naked.

Once, while swimming, a group of boys appears on the beach. Seeing a naked girl, they begin to play a trick on her. Vitka asks Seryozha to help, give her her panties, but the boy just stands and does nothing. The girl takes offense at him, and, dressed, runs away, finally calling him a miserable coward.

Seryozha promises the boys to show the echo collection, but cannot fulfill his promise. When they climb the mountains and start screaming, the echo does not respond. Thinking that they are being deceived, the angry boys leave.

Soon Vitka finds Seryozha and informs him that he is going home to Kharkov. She tells why the echo did not answer him. It turns out that the place to shout is of great importance.

The boy runs to the bus station and sees his girlfriend on the bus. Driving near the stream, Vitka, according to the old sign, throws a coin into him in order to return.

Seryozha wants the day of departure to come sooner, then he would also toss a coin, would definitely return here and meet with his girlfriend. This was not destined to come true. When the day of departure arrived, Seryozha forgot to throw a coin.