by Peter Robertson

Created on: December 29, 2007

THE MISSING CONTINENT.

Suspects:
1. Mr. Grimes school caretaker.
2. Justin school bully.
3. Michelle school queen.
4. Kale forgetful

My name is Oscar and I love Geography and was certain I'd top the class with my latest project. The assignment was to construct a globe and paste the continents in their respective positions. My father suggested coloring our homeland of North America "red". Something to do with politics he said, I liked the idea because it was the color of my heart.

I had bought a blue ball that best represented the color of the ocean and then carefully cut out a map of each continent and placed them according to my atlas. I even drew an animal specific to that continent on the back side, so I wouldn't get confused. I then bent a coat hanger into shape, attached it to the north and south poles and screwed it to a wooden base. My beautiful round globe spun perfectly. I placed it in our class among others in preparation for the following morning. At first inspection nobody had appeared to put the care or time into their project. I was convinced my Geography teacher, Mr. Jones would give me an "A". I left my work of art, giving Mr. Grimes, the school caretaker who was sweeping the floor, a cheery "hello" on the way out.

The following morning I was first in my seat and anxiously waiting for Mr. Jones and the students to arrive. We were to present our projects one by one and then a vote would be taken on whose was the best globe and presentation.

I sat through several others, confident that mine was the best. When my turn arrived, I strode to the front of the class proudly. I started with how I constructed the globe and explained the positions of the continents, beginning with Asia because it's the largest and ended with ? I was supposed to end with Australia, but it was gone. I looked on the table, the floor and then embarrassingly confessed that Australia was missing!

"It seems the land down under has disappeared. Has anyone seen Australia?" Mr. Jones said jokingly. My moment of glory turned into an embarrassment. "It was there last night" I pleaded, but I couldn't escape the fact that it had vanished.

"Very well Oscar, we will delay marking your project until you find Australia. Look carefully though, Nicole Kidman needs somewhere to go between movies." Mr. Jones explained, amid giggles from the class. The two people who laughed loudest were Justin and Michelle. I didn't like Justin, because he was always trying to put me down and bully me. Michelle was the

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