Esther Corwin is a primary school teacher. The small school where she is invited to work is located at a military base on the distant planet Agrave, surrounded by aggressive nature and aborigines who are unfriendly to people. The main character is a professional in her field, but she does not like children, and she considers everything connected with children’s imagination - games, fairy tales and fantastic stories - to be nonsense that only distracts children from their studies. Being a sensible and practical person, she could not even imagine that one day the fate of hundreds of people... and her own life would depend on the outcome of a “stupid children’s game.” Written in 1958, the story “The Last Step” is part of the author’s published in 1965 collection "The Anything Box". Not published in Russian.