Signature 2020 by The Lovett School

A Note from the Editors Lovett’s Signature publication expresses the 2019-2020 school year through this collection of student artwork and creative writing. In the fall of 2019 and early months of 2020, we were able to connect and create as a Lovett community. While we may no longer be able to connect in the way that we once did, we are grateful to have this compilation of work to serve as a reflection of the time and experiences we had in our classes over the school year. If a year could have a signature style, then you might consider COVID-19 to be the signature of the year 2020. It can be easy to measure this year for what it is not. It is not a time of parties, or gatherings, or even the casual greetings in the hallway that we once took for granted. Instead, it is a time of isolation, sorrow, and uncertainty. Coronavirus is named as such for the crown or halo like effect that appears when viewing the virus through a microscope. Its name almost seems to reflect the impact that it is having on our world. Even in the midst of this tragedy, there is a halo of light surrounding us. We as a school community, and as a world, have certainly tried to make the most of the situation put before us. If we didn’t have enough masks for medical workers, we sat down at sewing machines and made them. If we couldn’t sit in a classroom, we sat at our kitchen tables and learned virtually. If we couldn’t sit next to grandma on her sofa, we visited with her on a group call. If we couldn’t hang out with our friends on their birthdays, we had a

parade in front of their house. These moments are the lights surrounding the darkness. Artists are no strangers to manipulating flashes of light into beauty. We find the beauty in the world, and we highlight that beauty with our paintbrushes and cameras and words. We define our world through images that we make. It would be easy to consider COVID-19 as the signature of a year that started a new decade. But why don’t we instead define this year through the incredible moments of humanity that have become a signature of these otherwise painful times? As members of Lovett’s annual Signature publication, our mark on the year 2020 is this collection which highlights the best of what we are as human beings. We would like to dedicate our artistic endeavors to two special groups of people: The first dedication is to the following teachers who found a way, against so many odds, of still making this edition possible: Ms. Schick, Mrs. Story, Mr. Smith, Mr. Newman, Ms. Walter, and Mr. May-Beaver. Our second dedication is the Lovett Graduating Class of 2020 who have shown us such amazing spirit in these difficult times. This may not be the senior year that they expected to have, but we appreciate each of them for leaving their signatures on the true masterpiece that is the Lovett School. The Editors: Jenny Chen, Montana Dickerson, Kendall Greene, Stewart Hammond, Katie Maier, Georgia Norton, Sarah Packman, and Ansley Stibbs

Wesley Caldwell 1

Ryan Cauwenberghs

Olivia Sidman

Ryan Cauwenberghs

Kamryn Washington

Ryan Cauwenberghs

Henry Haden

Makayla Moran

Drew Schipper

Henry Haden 9

Nathan Chang

Charlotte Pollard

Olivia Sidman 12

Wasswa Robbins

Drew Schipper 14

Stewart Key 15

Stewart Key

Lawson Leebern 17

Parker Coy

Baran Derebail

Kendall Greene 20

The Last Words By Nichelle Haley

I go to seek a great perhaps, I follow and follow the maps. And yet they lead me nowhere. I know there is something beautiful out there. This labyrinth I must ﬂee, Before it all gets to me. The walls around me are closing in. I may never be the same again, And yet of hope my heart is full. I must ﬁnd the correct tool, I don’t exactly have forever, I need to be quick and clever. However, I cannot do this alone Of failure I’d be prone. I will call on my family and friends Of this darkness, they will help me cleanse. We go to seek a great perhaps We follow and follow the maps Alone we would have failed Together we have prevailed. 21

Mackenzie Boden

Mackenzie Boden 22

Lawson Leebern

Henry Haden

Zero to Nine By Ashley Marshall

My entire life, I’ve seen numbers floating above people’s heads. They’re small and invisible to everyone else but me. After twenty years, I still have no idea what they represent. Almost everyone I know has a Zero. I’ll see the occasional One about twice a year, and I’ve seen only one Two before. For as long as I can remember, I’ve fantasized about what those numbers mean. During my freshman year, I thought that they represented the years until someone dies. But most of my classmates with Zeros showed up the following year. During sophomore year, I speculated that they correspond to someone's impact on the world, but the Zero that I saw in the mirror every day made me doubt this theory. By college, I accepted that I would never figure it out. Until I met Jace. When I saw his number for the first time in our philosophy class, I let out a loud “holy -” in the middle of the lecture. I gaped at the Nine that hovered just above his hairline. Parker Vedell After this initial encounter, I did 25

nothing short of stalking him. I checked his Instagram, followed him to parties, and sat next to him in class. He must have thought I was into him, which was true, because he asked me out a month later. Although his number attracted me initially, I couldn’t deny that he was attractive with hazel eyes and dirty blonde hair. He had a goofy awkwardness to him, as if he didn’t know how to stand or what to do with his hands in a conversation. On each date I probed deeper into anything that could tell me what made this boy so special. Nothing came up. Until one winter night, my world turned upside down. Cuddling together on my dorm room couch binge watching Game of Thrones, I lay my head on his chest, his Nine hovering around the edge of my periphery. As our episode transitioned to commercial, the introduction music of the local news channel suddenly occupied the screen. A woman spoke directly into the camera, “We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast to bring you some breaking news. NYPD just issued an APB out on Jacob Carnegie, accused of robbing a local jewelry store and killing the security guard. The security camera footage was released to us half an hour ago. We advise caution; the following footage may be graphic for some viewers.” Despite the distorted video, I could clearly make out the two people in the frame. Both were men; both were Zeros. One lay on the ground, struggling to stand; the other man stood over him, a gun trained on the injured man’s head. Without hesitation, the man with the gun ﬁred two rounds into the back of the victim’s skull, killing him instantly. The victim collapsed on the pavement, unmoving; his blood slowly seeped into the snow. My eyes brimming with tears, I watched helplessly as the shooter’s number clicked from a Zero to a One. 26

Unknown

Katie Maier

Henry Haden 28

The Deranged By Stewart Hammond

There once was a man who dealt with the mad. It was so glum and it took all he had. The patients fastened tightly in their robes Were rolled into his oďŹ&#x192;ce, baring toes. Then there the pair would talk but an instant About how sanity seemed so distant. The man was calm in his long-practiced stance From patients, he received a dreadful glance. His spotless glasses rested on his nose, And he wore pressed white shirts with ties of rose. His hair was locked in blackened seas of strands That eyes pierced through like vases of green sands.

Sadie Burge

His visage was ashen and stark at best For little had he known, he was possessed By mayhem which he had long strived to heal The madness was controlled by his dark seal Escaping to disturbed depths of the brain Where paradoxical torment caused strain So the man had his sessions of advice Covertly obsessed by his patientsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; vice His conďŹ&#x201A;icting conscience was set ablaze And left with chaos which he could not phase Until the nights approached and he let loose The rampant plague, the source of the recluse, On the city in an anarchic rage Which all of the police could not assuage Slowly, the man became an enigma, Which represented the social stigma Of an individual's innate need To satisfy a darker, monstrous creed The man now long-deranged sits in his room And he waits to see another patient soon So he can grow what he omits to avow A madman has put on grand display how Insanity is not internal sin But one that travels wide from kin to kin... 30

Stewart Hammond

Towner Schunk

Margaret Lindsay

Kate PitďŹ eld

Stewart Hammond

Paige Bogard

Hannah Crenshaw

Wesley Caldwell

Julia Hunt

Margaret Lindsay

Katy Burch 42

Walter Reeves 43

Casey Wade

Charlotte Pollard

Henry Haden

Margaret Lindsay

Ansley Stibbs

Stewart Hammond 47

Georgia Norton

2084

By Katie Maier “The hardest things to remember are the things we never thought to fear,” Elisa tells Mar. From the blank expression on her granddaughter’s face, Elisa recognizes that the child either did not understand the statement or was not shattered by it. “Cause,” prompts Mar. “Why,” Elisa says, to remind the child of that forgotten being once known as the question. Nowadays, the children request knowledge by saying the next thing they wish to be said. Questions are things of the past.

“Why,” Mar repeats, to signal that she has been listening, whatever that means anymore. “Well,” recalls Elisa, “I vaguely remember when smartphones—” “Smartphones are,” Mar interrupts, then adds, “Vaguely are.” Her invice—the device ingrained into the body—tells her the definition of both words, but Elisa explains their meaning. “Smartphones were the first devices that gave you what you wanted to know as soon as you wanted it. ‘Vaguely’ is ‘not much.’” Mar’s gaze absently drifts to the fast-moving colors of her invice. Eye contact is also a thing of the past, and Mar knows nothing of the past (despite her knowing of its details). Elisa continues. “I vaguely remember the start of smartphones. I remember when my mom got one. I remember when my big sister begged her for one of her own. But I don’t remember how smartphones slowly started being everywhere, how people started getting everything they wanted to know Instantly, how devices got rid of the need for thinking itself. I never saw them as dangerous at first, not until the invice started.” “Yes,” says Mar to assuage her grandmother. She does not know how to say many other words besides “yes” and “cause.” The youth do not speak anymore because spoken words have no power, being things of the past. In truth, Mar would not know any words at all if her grandmother wasn’t a trad—a refuser of the invice. Trads are quite rare; they must refuse a network of knowledge for the sake of their own knowledge. Such a refusal is incomprehensible to most, even to those born in Elisa’s time. “Trad cause,” prompts Mar, since even her invice cannot explain her grandmother’s choice to a satisfactory extent. Fortunately, a bit of wonder, however small of a sliver it is, still exists inside of Mar. “I am a trad because invices are destroying humanity. And in

humanity, there is God, or at least something more than this.” “Humanity are,” prompts Mar. “God—” Elisa breaks in to save her granddaughter from impossible definitions. “Don’t try to define those things on your invice. It can’t tell you that. It can’t tell you anything that means anything.” Mar’s focus returns to the flashing colors. Eyes squinting, Elisa looks at the granddaughter who would never think to reciprocate a stare, or thought, or emotion. Elisa prays—or perhaps only wishes—that Mar’s fading wonder will save her from 2084.

Camille Lewis

Kendall Greene

Palmer King

Lawson Leebern

Ava Vinci

Claire Wallace

Sylvie Heiner

Stewart Key 57

Dailey Moog

Unstitched

By Mackenzie Boden “What’s that on your lip?” Five words make the sun and the moon reverse in the sky until I blink and I’m four years old again. Five words make the previously healed skin over my cheek split, black thread weaving its way through my face. I’m there again, but this time it’s backwards. The Tinkerbell sticker unsticks itself from my pink dress and floats back into the nurse’s hand. I try to walk forward but my feet disobey, walking backwards into the tiny room, no bigger than a closet. The pristine white counter and the cold metal table beckon me, and my body floats onto it. A thin white sheet wraps itself around me, tighter and tighter until I can’t move my arms and legs. Two straps fly over the side, fastening me to the table. A doctor peering over, brandishing a silver needle, disrupts my blurring vision. The thread in my face, stitch by stitch, unweaves itself. My left eye won’t open with the blood crusting it shut. I hold back my screams so the string of skin keeping my top lip attached to my face won’t snap. Then my mother appears, begging the doctor to not put me under. I blink and I’m outside the room, the walls flying by as the gurney rushes back to the parking garage. The car door swings open and a woman, whose name I still don’t know, stretches her Montana Dickerson

arms out for me. I blink again and the car races backwards. My mother is driving while the woman dabs my face with a napkin. With my one good eye, I watch the trees and the sun through the window as we race back to the park. My tiny body feels hot and cold at the same time, and I taste a mix of blood and artiﬁcial cherry in my mouth. I blink and I’m back at the game. I’m standing there, the sun beating down on the sweltering August day. The blood engulﬁng my face quickly congeals to the size of a pinprick, then disappears. The canines viciously sinking into my face, retreat. My tiny toddler arms unwrap themselves from around the neck of the dog, who resumes its slumber. My feet walk backwards to the concession stand, and I return the cherry slushie, getting my quarters back. I hear the footsteps sprinting around the bases in reverse, the loud crack of the baseball. The dog’s owner walks the dog out of the stands,

Katie Maier 60

back in the car. My feet race up the tree I was climbing, and the red clay stains disappear from my dress. I climb back down and my feet traipse backwards towards my brother, lugging his bat bag behind him. Together, along with my parents, we lumber back to the car, get in, and roll back home. I blink and I’m waking up in my bed. It's 10:00 am, and my brother has a baseball game today. I blink again, thirteen years later. “Oh, it’s just a scar.”

Wasswa Robbins

Raquel Walkins

Henry Haden

Kendall Greene

Bradley Williams

Bradley WIlliams

Marshall Smith

Eleanor Weyman

Myers Green

John Goodsell

Piper Bradford

Olivia Sidman

Sadie Burge

Rankin Mori

Montana Dickerson 75

Ava VInci

Eleanor Weyman

Alec Cauwenberghs

Charlie Coker

SJ Ellis

Peyton Kanaly

Megan Kahrs

Megan Kahrs 79

Reeves Bradford

Marshall Smith

DolphEnd of the World By Towner Schunk

I once believed that we, the highly-evolved race of beings who inhabited and dominated the Earth, who created tools to bend nature to our will, who stepped on the moon and sent satellites hurtling into the void, who created medicine and technology, war and peace, love and hate were the masters of our universe. To put it plainly: I was wrong. â&#x20AC;&#x201D; DOLPHINS ENTER THE STONE AGE â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Agriculture Soon to Follow Experts Say

Lawson Leebern

That was the day everything changed. I laughed at my television. “Dolphins? What has the fake news media come to? …Dolphins!” Oh, how naive I was. How naive we all were. In a matter of hours, my internet feed was inundated with memes about dolphins and their new ability to use tools. But as was common in the 2020’s, as soon as people lost interest and the views went down, the information on dolphins was dropped just as quickly as it had arrived. Silently, the dolphins learned. Due to an influx in nuclear waste entering the ocean through illegal disposal, genetic mutations were occurring at an unprecedented rate in marine life. With the addition of a new set of bones in their flippers, dolphins could effectively hold small tools. At first, marine biologists and oceanographers observed these newly-thumbed-dolphins displaying an almost child-like sense of enjoyment from smashing rocks at the bottom of the ocean, and deemed them harmless. One YouTuber by the name of Chad Maverick gained a sizable following from his video series on the dolphins. He viewed them as his friends, even naming one Casanova due to his success with a multitude of females. One day, while Chad was on a routine dive, Casanova smashed a rock to pieces, splintering it to shards. Casanova paused and stared blankly at the sharp object he had created, almost like he was debating something. Without warning, he grabbed the shard and rushed Chad, slitting his throat swiftly and painfully. The video went silent, and so did the world’s leadership. The US military thought it best to put Casanova down so he wouldn’t kill again, but the dolphins had a different plan… They organized themselves supernaturally fast, immediately coming together to strengthen their numbers. The other dolphins seemed to view Casanova as their leader—he was the one with the dagger after all. As the military closed in on the pod, the dolphins went 82

on the oﬀense, ravaging their ships and brutalizing everyone in their path. Bullets and missiles slid oﬀ them like water. It became apparent that, along with the addition of thumbs, the dolphins had also gained a sense of telepathic communication. It has been seven years since that fated day. Me and some others pleaded with the dolphins for mercy, while they murdered billions. They allowed us our lives and even a job too! We perform for them, giving them rides, doing tricks… In turn they give us food and even a place to stay. It’s somewhat humiliating, but we aren’t dead yet… are we?

Peyton Kanaly

Lawson Leebern

The Pebble

By Kamryn Washington Down at the bottom of the sea, resting atop a patch of sand, sat a pebble. The pebble was ordinary: it was round and grey, small enough for a young child to choke on. Having been in the same vicinity for years, it was beginning to become accustomed to the dull area. Until one day Piper came along. She was five and was on her first trip to the beach that she would actually remember. As she waded out, only knee deep like she was told, she treasured the feeling as the sand ran through her toes. “Look what I found mom,” she yelled to her parents up on the beach who were hiding from the sun under the umbrella they rented for thirty dollars. Out of all the other shells she found, Piper gravitated toward the pebble she found first. Her parents thought it was cute that she brought the rock to dinner that night as she placed it on the table next to her overly greased fries. Years later as Piper grew to be a third grader, many things had changed. Her clothes, her favorite books, even the stuffed animal she always held onto now sat collecting dust. Everything was shifting except for one thing: the pebble. 85

Piper squeezed the pebble when her mom told her gently, “Honey, I’ve got to tell you something. I lost my job so we will be living paycheck to paycheck.” The summer before high school year, Piper found herself at the same beach she first located her pebble. Instead of encountering another sea treasure she spent her days with something new: William, the first boy whom her heart skipped a beat for. That night, William and Piper snuck their sur oards to the water as the beach neighborhood was fast asleep from the draining sun. As they sat together covered by the stars with only the light from the moon shining enough to see their gleaming faces, Piper could feel the pebble’s warmth in her hand. She held onto it as she went through her first breakup with William a few months later. As she went on to pursue her love of education and her parents now became grandparents, the only constant thing was that one stone becoming duller and duller. When the day came that she said “I do” to William, Piper still had that pebble stashed away under her dress. Decades went by. Friends came and went. Jobs were worked and lost. Wrinkles now dressed her face the same way makeup used to. But when the day came for Piper to move onto another world, she went with the single pebble clasped in her hand too tightly - the same way she first held onto it seventy-eight years ago. 86

Katie Maier

Megan Kahrs

Jenny Chen 88

Luke Graham 89

The Strawberry By Hunter Fankhauser

Sylvie Heiner Mary Firlus’s mom says that her daughter’s strawberry addiction is due to her rich, scarlet hair. Mary’s ﬁngers were practically stained with a vermillion tint from how many times the fruit’s juices had dripped down her hand. She went through at least two boxes of Driscoll’s a week (and that’s an understatement). Everyone at school had always made fun of Mary’s red hair, especially Dorothy West (something about gingers being “soulless”). Dorothy’s hair was so blonde that it could have belonged to a polar bear. Mary used to be good friends with Dorothy before she decided that popularity was more important than a real friendship. How could anyone like someone this mean on the inside? But at the end of the day, Mary just tried to stay in her own lane with her and her strawberries. One week, Mrs. Firlus returned from her Publix run with Mary’s weekly supply of strawberries. She set them in the fridge, and Mary came down a couple hours later for her afternoon snack. She pulled out the carton, snapped it open, and suddenly, the most striking image hit her: a golden strawberry. This wasn’t just a strawberry. It was the strawberry. Its sexy, brilliant skin shined and winked at her, almost seductively. It was as if God himself had taken form as a strawberry. 90

Some might call her reaction dramatic, but Mary simply examined the berry from all angles in awe. It’s symmetry was enticing, its shape alluring. No other strawberry could compare. “Holy cow,” thought Mary. “This belongs in a museum.” A specimen so mystical that Mary felt guilty for wanting to eat it. Was it so beautiful that it couldn’t be eaten? Or was it so beautiful that it just had to be eaten? Mary took one last look at the strawberry. Something about its hypnotic gaze put Mary in a trance. Her mouth watered up, as did her eyes. Before she knew it, she couldn’t help herself. She opened wide and her teeth sunk into the strawberry like a vampire. An explosion of the fruit’s blood gushed into her mouth and she prepared herself for heaven. Except, it didn’t come. Mary’s eyes widened in disbelief: frankly, the strawberry sucked. She quickly spit it out. “This is hands-down the most foul ﬂavor to ever hit my tongue,” she cried in disgust. The closest comparison she could draw was the pink alginate that orthodontists use to take retainer impressions. “How could this happen?” thought Mary. She hadn’t felt this level of betrayal since Dorothy didn’t invite Mary to her birthday party back in the third grade. With this thought about Dorothy, she paused, and looked back at what was left of the strawberry. Sure, it was pretty. But with a taste like that, it simply didn’t matter. She saw everything clearly. She laughed, tossed the half-eaten golden strawberry in the trash, and poured herself a bowl of classic, beautiful, scarlet strawberries. Gold is pretty, but some things are just meant to be red. 91

Katie Maier

Makayla Moran

Margaret Lindsay

The Innocent Dancer By Stewart Hammond

Her feet stepped across her spectacular stage The spirit translated through her could not be caged Her dress floated on ocean currents as thin as air While the cool draft carried each one of her hairs The symphony’s rhythm was recorded in her young eyes Though a melancholy existed that could not be denied Her audience smiled with an inspired hope As she interpreted every note with every stroke Moonlight caressed and enlightened her innocent skin Permeated through her did the sweet melody of the violins But the reality of the spectacle could not be forgotten. The rain suffocating the concrete had already fallen From affluent heights they could never achieve, A dream, a dance, only of wicked deceit. The older sat against the decrepit brick wall As her sister danced across the alleyway halls. She knew the passionate innocence and will Would soon be smothered by vicious kills. At her side: the dumpster full of discarded objects, A graveyard of potential, a lack of benevolent prospect. Yet something could be said of the little one’s dance The puddles she stepped through redeemed the chance That hope might still be the overwhelming force Needed to overcome her dismal and fragmented course.

Katie Maier

Penny King

Maxine Lewis

Katie Maier

Montana Dickerson

Hannah Dunlap

Parker Vedell

100

Wasswa Robbins

101

Wasswa Robbins

Kamryn Washington

102

Addie Vohs

103

Drew Schipper

Kamryn Washington

104

Henry Haden 105

The Ocean By Georgia Izard

For my Grandmother

Once I lay in bed reminiscing about my preschool years. I pulled my sleeping quilt to my chin and suddenly saw the same one with younger eyes. While my parents talked in another room, I mischievously ignored their previous orders and unbuttoned the fasteners on the edge of my bed’s quilt, revealing a welcoming cavern. The struggle on my four-year-old fingers was rewarded by a vast adventure awaiting inside the quilt. I entered and held a makeshift roof of cotton-filled, quilted pockets over my head. Some clusters sagged from roof to floor, creating an enchanting space that changed shape with every movement. with arms up, in jumping jack position, I could make the blanket feel as large as a palace. As soon as I dropped my arms and straightened my legs, the buoyant quilted pockets of cotton slowly descended onto my head. And all around me, I’m covered. The blanket warms me, secures me, and provides the sensation of a hug from mom and dad. I lay down, but now the pockets cake every inch of my body, heavy as a metal blanket. Comfort distorts into claustrophobia; I yearn for the cozy feeling I just experienced. With my left hand, I grab the far, upper end up the blanket and pull it to my right. I clasp a pocket of a wadded blanket between my legs and pull it to the ceiling. I toss, turn, spin and crumple the blanket until up is down and left is right and nothing is anything and everything is one—soft cotton-quilted compartments, blanket and me. I’m drenched in sweat and completely knotted in heavy, quilted pockets of 106

cotton. Feeling anxious, tense, and trapped, I thrash, pant, and scream for escape, but my voice cannot penetrate the layered, thick, quilted pockets of cotton. This memory feels too vivid. I try to wake up, only in this bed where I lay remembering, I’ve fashioned the same predicament with my very own sleeping quilt. Past and present become indistinguishable. When is now? Where are my memories? Am I alive? I’m trapped, physically and mentally, fixed between two instances that happen simultaneously. I’m a boy, a young man, a parent, a grandparent, then a nobody all in a split second. Time stops moving, rather, it doesn’t exist. My memories twist, contort and mesh until they all shrivel away and leave me, stroking my quilt. “Mr. Izard,” pounds a soft but demanding voice. I look at her. “Sorry, Mr. Izard but when you stare off into space like that for so long, I worry you’ve died.” The caretakers at this old folk’s home were so blunt. No, they are so blunt. I can never tell. The word dementia echoes in my mind, pulsating, the waves of each letter crashing into all corners of my brain. Eventually, my mind will fall into its ocean. Until then, I caress my quilt with wrinkled fingers and search for another memory.

107

Drew Schipper

108

Luke Wooddall

Mackenzie Boden

109

The Silence of Burning By Penny King

My feet dragged as I walked through the road of burning houses and broken glass, heavy from all the screaming. Day and night the screaming was inescapable. As inescapable as the thoughts of women being raped, teenagers and children being beaten and slaughtered, babies being thrown into fires. And it had all happened before. It may have been a different group of people, but it was the same place. A more brutal persecution– but who hadn’t been persecuted before? And what of the world? Their silence was just as loud as the screaming that followed my every step, a haunting melody. I continued down the street. In the distance, there was the sound of wood cracking, then a thud– a door being kicked down, a house being broken into. Where, like all the others of their race, the women inside will be raped and the men will be killed, if not hauled away and forced into labor. Perhaps the children, too, will be taken. Perhaps they will be killed, forced to embrace the sweet darkness of death as they would their own mother. And there were no cattle cars to take them far away. To whisk them away from the eyes of civilians– because such atrocities were also being committed by the civilians, alongside their government. No, there was no escaping this purge, no denying its existence when the streets of the capital were covered in blood. Another crash, and a house up ahead was engulfed in flames. I strolled by it, and as the fire consumed the one-story building, it consumed me, too. The smoke filled the air, invading my lungs, my head, 110

Jenny Chen

my heart. My eyes stung, forcing me to raise an elbow to my mouth and hack out a few rattling coughs. The smoke lingered for the next few blocks, but by the time I reached my house, it was gone. The sky was clear, returning to a bright blue that was filled with blindingly white clouds, rather than hazy gray smoke. One glance to the neighboring house confirmed that it had been vacated. An unfamiliar car was already parked out front, and the new owners would be moving in soon enough. A sigh of relief escaped my lips. I didn’t care much for the old neighbors. That night, my dreams were peaceful. No fires burned, no babies cried, no screaming could be heard. But most importantly, only my people faced me in this country, those of the race fit to rule.

111

Gray light ďŹ lled the room as the sun rose the following morning. And I awoke with a smile, a grin, on my face. Perhaps it would take a couple more weeks, perhaps a couple more months. Maybe even years. But after such a dream, I knew my country would soon return to its rightful order. A place without cockroaches, those like my old neighbors. Because after all, their people are vermin meant to be exterminated, and the silence of the world seems to agree.

Mackenzie Boden

112

113

Wesley Caldwell

Clayton Cross

114

Bishop Lusink 115

Lawson Leebern

Ethan Patel

116

Mackenzie Boden

117

Kendall Greene 118

Hannah Crenshaw 119

Dear Class of 2020 By Anonymous

born in the shadow of death, 9/11 was our birthmark, we lived through our first war, starting when some of us were one or less. but our childhood was amazing yet, we grew up on Disney, Nick, and Cartoon Network, we had american girl dolls, pokemon cards, and nerf guns, the scooby doo gummies were still good and gritz were a go to. We survived our first challenge. then the recession hit, we didn’t know it then but that’s why friends had to move away and why you couldn’t get that toy, but life kept on. we survived again. things were good for awhile, we graduated 8th grade, and left behind gender divided classes, we started high school what seems like yesterday, we beat the seniors at powderpuff when we were freshmen, yikes, we cheered on our sports teams with fire in our hearts, we survived Amstud, quite possibly the hardest challenge. until this, our senior year halted by a virus, senior things may get cancelled, traditions missed, and opportunities lost. yet we’ve already survived enough in our 17-18 years, this too, we shall overcome

120

Index B

Boden, Mackenzie- 21, 22, 61, 62, 63, 111, 114, 117 Bogard, Paige- 38 Bradford, Piper- 72 Bradford, Reeves- 81 Burch, Katie- 42 Burge, Sadie- 29, 75

Caldwell, Wesley- 1, 39, 40, 115 Cauwenberghs, Alec- 79 Cauwenberghs Ryan- 2, 4, 5 Chang, Nathan- 10 Chen, Jenny- 90, 113 Coker, Charlie- 79 Coy, Parker- 18 Crenshaw, Hannah- 39, 119 Cross, Clayton- 116

Derebail, Baran- 19 Dickerson, Montana- 61, 77, 100

Dunlap, Hannah- 101

Ellis, SJ- 80

Fankhauser, Hunter- 92, 93

Graham, Luke- 91 Green, Myers- 71 Greene, Kendall- 20, 51, 66, 118 Goodsell, John- 71

Haden, Henry- 6, 9, 24, 28, 45, 65, 107 Haley, Nichelle- 21 Hammond, Stewart- 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 48, 97 Heiner, Sylvie- 56, 92 Hunt, Julia- 41

Izard, George- 108, 109 Kahrs, Megan- 81, 89 Kanaly, Peyton- 80, 85 Key, Stewart- 15, 16, 59 King, Palmer- 52, 53 King, Penny- 99, 112, 113, 114

Leebern, Lawson- 17, 23, 54, 83, 86, 118 Lewis, Camille- 50 Lewis, Maxine- 99 Lindsay, Margaret- 35, 41, 46, 96 Lusink, Bishop- 117

Maier, Katie- 27, 48, 49, 50, 62, 89, 94, 98, 99 Marshall, Ashley- 25, 26 Moran, Makayla- 7, 95 Moog, Dailey- 60 Mori, Rankin- 76

Norton, Georgia- 48 Patel, Ethan- 118 PitďŹ eld, Kate- 36 Pollard, Charlotte- 11, 44

Reeves, Walter- 43 Robbins, Wasswa- 13, 63, 103, 104

Schipper, Drew- 8, 14, 105, 110 Schunk, Towner- 34, 83, 84, 85 Sidman, Olivia- 3, 12, 73, 74 Smith, Marshall- 69, 82 Stibbs, Ansley- 46

Vedell, Parker- 25, 102 Vinci, Ava- 55, 78 Vohs, Addie- 105

Wade, Casey- 44 Walkins, Raquel- 64 Wallace, Claire- 56 Washington, Kamryn- 4, 87, 88, 104, 106 Weyman, Eleanor- 70, 78 Williams, Bradley- 67, 68 Wooddall, Luke- 111