In front of him, a giant hermit crab wearing a pair of reading glasses crawled out of the surf. "Well, boy? Answer the question or the tide comes in!"

As soon as he said , the ground shook. The tiny island stretched and grew. Mountains shot up into the clouds—the Himalayas! To his left, the vast Siberian forests (the Taiga) bloomed in seconds. To his right, the dusty Steppes rolled out like a yellow carpet.

"An island is small and surrounded by water," Artem stammered, remembering his notes. "And a continent... a continent is a huge mass of land! Like Eurasia!"

Suddenly, the blue ink on his paper began to swirl. The white desk under his elbows turned into soft, warm sand. The sound of his teacher, Mrs. Volkova, tapping her ruler replaced the sound of crashing waves. Artem wasn't in Room 204 anymore; he was standing on a tiny patch of land in the middle of a sparkling ocean. "Uh oh," Artem whispered.

Artem stared at the blank paper on his desk. At the top, in bold letters, it read:

Artem felt the ground beneath him turn transparent, like glass. He looked down and saw the glowing, red-hot , the thick, gooey Mantle , and the thin, rocky Crust he was standing on. It looked like a giant, flaming onion. "Crust, Mantle, Core!" he shouted.

He sighed, clicked his pen, and read the first question: “What is the difference between a continent and an island?”

Artem blinked. The salty air was gone. He was back in his hard plastic chair. Mrs. Volkova was standing over him, pointing at his paper.