Maxwell School Elementary School is larger on the inside than the outside. The vast maze of hallways and classrooms is divided into two wings, the North Wing where students attend classes and the South Wing, the Unknown Zone, that is off limits to everyone. Rumors abound about this forbidden wing, especially about Classroom One, said to grant the one true wish, the inner most desire, of anyone who steps inside.

Today, Berkeley, California

Maxwell School Elementary School is larger on the inside than on the outside. The northern wing alone has over six-hundred classrooms and thirteen miles of halls. Exploring the maze of hallways without a staff escort is not only unwise but also dangerous. Even with the color-coded direction signs students often get lost. Only last fall, a third-grader left his classroom to visit the restroom and didn't return for two days. Another time, a first-grader wandered from her class line on the way to recess, and Max, the school bloodhound, had to be called to track her down.

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School School has two wings. Students attend classes in the North Wing. The South Wing, also called the Unknown Zone, is strictly off-limits to everyone, including teachers.
Little is known about the Unknown Zone. But as with most forbidden places, wild rumors abound about the wing. Fifth graders tell the younger students wild tales of dark halls with sudden drop-offs, crooked stairways leading nowhere, shifting walls, and hidden booby traps. They tell stories about mutant creatures roaming the halls, classroom floors that turn to quicksand, and indoor blizzards that fill rooms with snowdrifts. One popular tale talks about a chest of gold that Juan Portolá, a Spanish conquistador, buried under the South Wing. Flecks of gold found in a boys’ room toilet is proof to many students that this rumor is true.
“You never know what might happen in the Unknown Zone," the fifth-graders say. "Things get lost; lost things are found. Maybe you’ll freeze or maybe you’ll fry. Maybe you'll starve or maybe you’ll find pans of pizza. Maybe you'll reach an exit, or maybe you'll be trapped there forever. It's like the Bermuda Triangle, Area 51, a carnival fun house, and the spookiest haunted house all in one.”

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The most riveting rumor about the Unknown Zone, however, the one School School students discuss the most, concerns Classroom One. That story goes like this:
If you did enter the southern wing and you did find a way through the maze of hallways and you didn’t fall through the floor or get chopped to bits by the wild people and you didn’t get stuck in a giant spider web or trapped in a bamboo snare, you might reach a mysterious classroom. Enter this room, Classroom One, and your wish—not any wish but your one innermost desire—will come true. 

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Contents

Today, Berkeley, California
1. Packing
2. Skinned Knee
3. In the South Wing
4. The School School Story
5. The Zone Guide
6. Maria 1849 East Bay Hills
7. Reentry
8. An Upside-Down Classroom
9. Bernard 1906 Berkeley, California
10. Farther In
11. The Handyman
12. Alien Picnic
13. Dorothy 1923 Berkeley, California
Part Two
14. The Workout Room
15. Gloomy Halls
16. The Chasm
17. Rainbow 1968 Berkeley, California
18. Three Sisters
19. In the Threshold
20. Jillian 2018 Berkeley, California
21. Stella School
22. Classroom One
23. Back to Class
24. Dinner
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