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Sophie, a mother of two children, leaves home for a couple of days and leaves a note asking her sons, Mishka and Anton, to have lunch with their neighbor Natasha. But the boys find her scary and decide to cook the porridge themselves. Before this, they go on a planned fishing trip, where they eat sandwiches that their mother prepared for them in advance.

When the boys return from fishing after the sweltering heat, they are thirsty and hungry. The younger brother Anton, who is 8 years old, asks the elder brother what he is going to cook, entrusting Mishka, who is 10 years old, with the responsibility for food for these days. The older brother confidently replies that he will cook the porridge and gets down to business. He quickly pours all the cereal into a small saucepan, turns on the stove and immediately leaves the kitchen, leaving the porridge to cook.

After a while, the boys sit relaxed on their chairs, minding their own business. Mishka talks about how great he is at cooking, not paying attention to what is happening in the kitchen. At this moment, the lid of the pan loudly falls to the floor, which scares the guys. They run to the kitchen and see the porridge overflowing over the edge of the pan. Brother Mishka begins to collect the porridge, trying to stop the process. When the porridge is ready, the brothers sit down at the table, waiting to try the food. Having tasted a spoonful of porridge, they chew for a long time, trying to feel the taste, but in the end they spit it all out on the floor.

The guys go to drink water to remove the bitterness from the tasteless dish, but in the window they notice a silhouette that scares them. In their haste, they drop the bucket of water, but manage to turn off the light to make it appear that they have gone to bed. When the silhouette approaches the door and knocks briefly, the boys crawl closer to see who it is. But, getting up from the floor, they find no one at the door. This allows them to go to the well for water, where Mishka dropped a bucket without a rope and left a kettle there hanging on a fishing line. They were able to drink only when they pulled out a glass of water on a fishing line.

Mishka’s enthusiasm doesn’t end there. He offers to cook crucian carp, which angers Anton because he is tired and began to doubt his brother's abilities, but does not stop him. While Mishka is cooking in the kitchen, Anton falls asleep, but wakes up to the smell of burning and smoke in the house. Having run to the kitchen, he sees Mishka extinguishing the fire in a frying pan with water where the crucian carp were.

The older brother copes with the danger, but is angry. Kicking the door open, he sits down on the porch, with Anton next to him. The younger brother reassures the older brother, trying to instill hope, and remembers the apple that rolled under the cupboard in the morning. When he finds it, he sees that it has rotted, showing that there is no more hope.

In the morning, Anton wakes up alone and sees that Mishka is again trying to cook something. This time the younger brother stops the restless Mishka and decides to go eat with another neighbor - Aunt Galya.

Along a long path, divided into dark and light sides, the boys walk next to each other, showing how different people can be, regardless of age. They meet Aunt Natasha, who frightens them with her sudden appearance. After hearing deafening screams, the neighbor invites the boys over for dinner, allaying their fears. The brothers understand that Natasha is not so scary, they overcome their fear of the unknown and learn to listen to adults.