She wants to be where the people are

Wanderin’ free, wish she could be, part of our world

Written by: Elizabeth Dobbs

The mermaid has been captured!

After her long reign of terror, the monster was finally unmasked as Jennifer Wakefield. In the eyes of many, she was the obvious perpetrator. Wakefield is a health and aquatics teacher here at Ritenour, not only that, but she is also the head coach of the boys swim team as well as the assistant coach for the girls swim team.

There are many rules that Wakefield has for her pool deck; some are stranger than others, but nevertheless, they are her rules. In her time at Ritenour, no student has ever drowned. Considering Wakefield watches the pool hawk- eyed, no students will be drowning in the foreseeable future either. When the girls swim season had just begun to pick up, so had the weird occurrences surrounding the pool. Of course, it would be easy to blame the odd happenings on the swimmers, but those girls are only in the pool for a span of two hours a day, certainly not enough time to wreak havoc.

Wakefield’s counterpart, Andrea Rivera, also had some things to say about ongoing speculations.

“Wakefield is always consuming a special drink to boost her workout. It looks like a normal V8 energy or sometimes Celsius, but it seems to change something about her when she gets in the water,” Rivera said.

In an attempt to gather more information regarding these strange events, the school turned to Social Studies teacher Zach Buxman. Every year he participates in the e-boat races, an event that requires students to build a boat, then race it across the pool. When being interviewed about the occurrences, Buxman became pale.

“I almost had to reschedule the e-boat races last year because of it,” Buxman said.

Buxman also stated that when he would be setting up for the races, he would notice strange things happening when it was just him on the pool deck.

“When I was in the pool, I felt something brush my leg and I saw a blur quickly swim away from me, followed by an awful shriek,” Buxman said.

Senior Jayden Bock is a returner to the boat races year after year. When asked if there were any strange things she could have witnessed, she immediately spoke up.

“Wakefield never lets water touch her while she is standing outside of the pool. She stands very far away from us while we are in the pool,” Bock said.

As shocking as it is extraordinary, she has hidden it well and does not seem to impose any real threat to the students or staffs safety. The Ritenour Board of Education has yet to make a decision on whether or not they will be letting Wakefield go.