Suddenly, the air in the classroom turned cold. The illustrations on the pages began to rise like 3D holograms. A tiny, glowing spruce tree sprouted from the center of the desk, and a miniature brown bear—no bigger than a ladybug—shook its fur and let out a silent roar near the margin of the page.

"Look!" Maxim pointed. The food chain they had drawn was literally moving. A tiny hawk circled the "Consumers" section, eyeing a grasshopper sitting on a penciled line.

Sasha was busy looking at page 49, where they had to classify different types of mushrooms. "See what? I'm just trying to remember if a fly agaric is a producer or a decomposer."

Maxim realized that his workbook hadn't just been filled with answers; it had become a portal. Every correct answer he had written gave life to the ecosystem on the paper.

Maxim entered the classroom, his heart racing. Today was the big day—the presentation of the "Living Organisms" project from pages 48 and 49 of his fifth-grade workbook. He had spent hours labeling the diagrams of cells and explaining the differences between plants and animals, just as Pakulova’s textbook instructed.