Braxtonburg

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Tuesday September 8th 1938

We quickly swung by our lockers and grabbed our things for our next class; geography. It was room 187. We walked through the hallways and finally made it to our class room. We walked in just as the bell rang. We found Hannah near a few vacant desks near the back of the room. She was waving us over. Blaire and I gladly sat with her. The teacher had written his name on the board; Mr. Ivan. He was in his forties and had black/brown hair and pale grey eyes. He quickly took attendance and ran it down to the office. He was back in about two minutes.

"Hello class, I'm Mr. Ivan and I'll be teaching you geography this year." He told us.

He waited a few seconds, no one said anything.

"Anyhow, let's get to it, shall we?" He said while pulling on a string above. The string was attached to a map of the local area that pulled down from the ceiling.

"Now, obviously this is a map of where we live. Right here is Braxtonburg. I dearly, dearly hope that you all know that's where we live." He joked.

A couple kids laughed quietly.

"Now, does anyone know what this symbol represents?" Mr. Ivan asked, pointing to the railroad symbol on the map.

I raised my hand.

"Yes, Max?" He asked.

"It signifies a railroad." I answered.

"Correct, and this railroad connects Braxtonburg to Fordsville, Cardinal, Vinsville and Spokestown. If you really wanted to, you could take the train as far as Skyline County." He informed us.

Of course, anyone who grew up in Braxtonburg knew this. I kind of figured Mr. Ivan knew that, but it was probably required of him to go through it.

"Okay, now that we've covered the absolute basics, we can move on to the work I have planned for today." He said, walking to his desk and grabbing a stack of worksheets. He walked around the room and handed one to each student. Hannah groaned.

"Oh! I hate geography..." She whined.

I took a look at the worksheet. It was a blank map of the world.

"Class, I want you to label all of the continents of the world on your map. Simple enough, but this is just review." He explained.

I was finished with my map in about two minutes. I put my pencil down and waited for the rest of the class to be finished. When everyone put their pencils down, the teacher took it up with us. Everyone got the right answers. No surprise there.

"Okay good, you all got that. Now here's a map of the country, I want you all to label all provinces and capital cities." He said as he handed out the worksheets.

I got to work as soon as I got mine. I didn't need to think too hard, I already knew this. I finished my map in about three minutes. I saw Blaire and Hannah struggling with it so I whispered a few answers to them. Blaire grinned and Hannah flashed a grateful smile.

"Thanks Max." She whispered.

After a few more minutes, the teacher stopped everyone and we took up the page. Blaire, Hannah and I got it all correct along with a couple other students.

"Okay, I can see we need to spend more time on that..." The teacher trailed off.

The rest of class was pretty boring, just worksheets, review and of course, me helping Hannah and Blaire. Finally the bell rang.

"I'll see you tomorrow, class." Mr. Ivan said as he began to prepare for his next class.

We all filed out of the room and into the crowded hallway.