Sixth Grade Last Hurrah

It's still a Civil War bicentennial year in 1964. My friend Paul LaPann and I are still obsessed by it. We both read all the books we can find on the subject, and last year Dad took us to Gettysburg, and he's promised to take us down to Fredericksburg some summer.
I don't know how we do it but Paul and I convince Mrs. Carey to let us do a special report on the Civil War during class time.
We prepare maps and drawings and do our research. The day arrives and we're ready. Mrs. Carey has given us the entire afternoon to teach the class all we know about the War Between the States.
John Brown and Harper's Ferry. Slavery and Harriet Tubman. Fort Sumter and Bull Run and Gettysburg and Antietam. We talk of battles and the underground railroad and Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. We hold up our drawings and point out battlefields on our maps. The afternoon goes by and we still have more to say. The school day is almost over, so Mrs. Carey stops us and tells us we can finish up the next day.
Tomorrow comes and in the afternoon Paul and I continue on with our stories. Mrs. Carey never figured we'd come up with so much stuff to say and after an hour or so she tells us we have to finish up, so we leave out some things and get to Appamattox and the surrender.
Paul and I could go on forever with the Civil War, but our teacher has had enough and I imagine our classmates have too.
The school year is winding down and it's our last time together as a class. Most of us have been together a long time, if not since Kindergarden, then the First Grade. I've known Nancy and Judy, Sheila and Joyce, Paul and Tommy and Richie and the others a good part of my life, and now we face an uncertain future. Will we stay together in that new high school going up behind my house, or will we all be separated? We'll still be in Woodbury Heights, but it won't be Woodbury Heights; there will be kids from National Park and Westville and Wenonah as well, and it will be called Gateway not Woodbury Heights elementary.
We go on our class trip, and guess what? We go to the World's Fair! My second time there soon after my Dad took us, and it's just as amazing as the first time I went. A great way to end the year.
Before school is over we continue our Team Tag on the school grounds, the boys against the girls.
We guard our captives even closer now, it will be hard to let them go.