If every word you read has meaning, then every word that I write that you read has meaning.  Maybe it’s because you’ve read it that it has meaning. Or maybe it’s that I wrote it for you, for...

There’s a boy, about three feet tall, in a dusty, green shirt a size too big, and gray shorts a size too small. His light-up shoes bling with each step as he scampers away from his mother, busy chatting...

I stare awake at the ceiling. The crinkled paint seems to shift in the dark, and I think I hear them crawling, too. It sounds like a swarm of bees alive with a furor unmatched by any.  I lay catatonically...

Send me a handwritten note, please.  It matters not how you wrote, but just that you did. Write out each looping letter with your own coarse and fumbling fingers. Let the words bend into each other....

After listening to and loving “Pancakes for Dinner” by Lizzy McAlpine, I’ve been on the lookout for more music from her.  With her popularity growing since her debut album in 2020, Lizzy McAlpine...

I will tell you the truth, the simple and undeceiving truth.  For once I won’t hide behind the persona of the sapling or tangle myself too deep in a mess of convoluted, pretty words. This time I’ll...

Having recently gotten into Noah Kahan because of Stick Season, I found Kacey Musgraves through the collaboration on “She Calls Me Back.” As a new lover of folk, I decided to give her her newest album,...

When did the sapling lose its colors? When did it stop growing so fast, in so many directions, braving the sky and the whole world around it? When did it start to fold in on itself and hide away? Did...

Growing up, senior Elouise Nuo danced for none other than the Abby Lee Dance Company (ALDC) while the company’s second team performed on the well-known show, Dance Moms.  Elouise had watched the...

Recently, there have been new advances to support those with a relatively common disease—sickle cell disease.  According to the CDC, “[sickle cell disease (SCD)] occurs among about 1 out of every...

Meet me where the River bends. Let’s walk along its winding path and not talk or think about anything. There is just the River and us, and we go as the River goes. The River can do the talking and...

For his Science Olympiad event, junior Aiden Platt was tasked with building a catapult that could launch a ball eight meters. Instead, his design could only launch the ball a few inches.  Suddenly,...

If you’re like me, you also found Declan McKenna from “Brazil.” The bouncy guitar hook reeled me in, and I was caught in the catchy melody, playing it on repeat as the perfect summer hit. Naturally,...

Don’t tell the sapling.  The sapling cannot know.  We may whisper it in the dead of night when the poor thing sleeps. We may pass it on in hushed breaths in the loud life of daybreak. We may...

When senior Alex Moeller was volunteering in the Blodgett Hospital’s neuroscience sector, he met a family receiving news that the patient wasn’t going to be discharged for a while. There was football...

Social media and modern slang and ponytails and braids and pretty much everything now has all been taken over by a small accessory—the bow.  Specifically, these bows are a major symbol of the new...

It was a good thing when it rained, wasn’t it?  The flowers would drink in the replenishing, sweet taste of the long sought-after, falling drops. The clouds would relieve themselves of the budding...

Buzzing around the halls of FHC are small mutant fruit flies bred by the AP Biology class.  This is the product of a genetics lab the students are running. They started with purebred flies with various...

To redefine 2024 as a year entirely different from the last, I decided to go for a chop—losing six inches of my hair.  Now, I have hair that comes just short of my shoulders. With this drastic change...

The sapling wept. The trees that stood around it grew with it as it grew with them, started to inch away. What once seemed to be centuries-deep roots unearthed themselves  and crawled before the sapling’s...

Last year, senior Zachary Reiffer found himself partially paralyzed.  It happened after some weight lifting and crew training took a toll on his spine and pinched his nerves, leaving him unable to...

If I were to trace some words onto paper to curl up into a wrinkly taquito to tuck into the plastic water bottle decked out in a mosaic of colored tissue paper that I have called my personal time capsule...

Senior Molly O’Meara has always wanted to be able to communicate with her nonverbal younger cousin Louis. And so, she took American Sign Language (ASL) classes in high school to do just that. Molly...

My Top Spotify Wrapped song is “Romantic Homicide” by d4vd. So yes, my favorite songs tend to be the slower, sadder, and more emotional songs.  Naturally, I’m biased toward those types of songs,...

The chair tips slowly, with a wailing creak, as it leans backward, scraping the dull wood floor, bruised and buried by the noises from above, browned and blackened from the rusting of what was, torn and...

From sending out public service announcements through FX to giving consequences to those seen speeding on camera, principal Steve Passinault has tried several methods to deter students from speeding through...

For the summer after seventh grade, the only music I listened to was The Click by AJR. The album, which is AJR’s sophomore album, is still on my top 10 favorites list, and for years, the trio of New...

Sixth hour couch neighbors - Addy, Eva H., Sof You guys are absolutely crazy sometimes, but really, really funny and fun. I always crack up when you guys call Eva a peanut allergy witch and present...

I’m in a curious relationship with one color, the one of nature, not of her raw truth, barren and cold. Instead, I’m speaking of the deep, mystic beauty.  It’s deceiving. It appears enticing...

For six straight Halloweens, junior Zach Ruffer dressed as Superman.  Zach grew up watching the Superman movies often. While he did find the hero and plot entertaining, another element stuck with him—the...

After playing hundreds of shows in Hamburg, West Germany and the release of their first hit single “I Want To Hold Your Hand,” the Beatles became a phenomenon. Arguably, they are the biggest boy...

Her neck cracks—well, I’d say it rather crunches.  Crinkles, almost. She side-stepped with a bit too much gusto and her bones locked, crooked, and off. She is a strange creature, one that...

When history teacher Brad Anderson started teaching world history about 15 years ago, a student asked what it would be like to fight in a phalanx.  The next day, Anderson brought cardboard to school,...

Recently, the United States almost faced a government shutdown. The issue of determining a budget for the upcoming fiscal year remained without resolution close to the nearing deadline, which would...

The stars’ thin glow stales with the waning reflection of the weary moon, retreating without shame nor honor, simply as part of a passing of time she had no will against.  In the hesitant light leaking...

Breaking news: Band Director Joel Burns is adopting another cat.  Currently, he has three others, one of whom is named Sweetie, whom he’s had for eighteen years since he was in kindergarten. He prides...

The media continues to be responsible for sparking excessively polarizing opinions, and rightfully so.  Because the media gets a majority of their profit from the clickbait they create, leading to...

I am in love with the color of a dark wine. The passionate hue—it’s elegant and reformed with an edge of cruelty and cunning malevolence that swims in circles, like eagles around a helpless prey....

Recently, Apple announced a huge switch. Their new products will no longer use the Lightning charger and instead use the popular USB-C. In October 2022, the European Union released a mandate for...

Vivek Ramaswamy went into the Republican debate with a bold presence. Nevertheless, he failed to win many more votes.  The most striking thing he said that night was calling out the “climate change...

The flowers hate me. I have drunk every riverbed dry.  I have skinned every tree of her leaves.  I have whispered the wind’s secrets to the open fields, and now, the crickets are rabid with...

10 Things I Hate About You is junior Kayla Quach’s favorite rom-com. To her, it encapsulates the high school relationship experience in a sweet way. In her free time, Kayla can be found watching rom-coms...

Every morning, I wake up to jazzy ‘50s love songs of the likes of “It’s Been a Long, Long Time” by Kitty Kallen. It started when I watched the musical Birdie featuring songs reminiscent of Frank...

She has drowned in the thunder. Not the rain. The thunder. The power of a thousand steel platforms clapped down on the bare, unexpecting terrain of her fragile resolve. It has beat her will, booming...

It’s supposed to be about the journey, not the destination. Yet, it feels like I’ve reached the end. This is my finale. The last season has just begun, but I can already see the credits rolling. It’s...

This is the last one. I can’t find original words to describe this experience.  Nor can I find original words to describe my inability to describe this experience. Both experiences remain un-unique...

Chemistry teachers David VonEhr and Russell Chudy are proud survivors of the Swine Flu epidemic. They endured a time when the halls were emptier than they are now without the seniors. It was a time...

I met a little weed on the side of the road yesterday.  I was walking home from the bus stop, and there it stood like a lighthouse in the immaculate sea of green on my neighbor’s lawn. A rebellious...

For some inexplicable reason, the music of our friendship is a bland monotone bleeding of silence to the surrounding, ever-crescendoing crash of sounds. We sit upon the bare afternoon as the hours roll...

With the seniors gone, freshman Frey Wu is missing a key part of his usual AP Physics C: Mechanics class: his friend senior Sammy Yin, who is his pillow. “I very much miss the seniors,” Frey said....

Could I not merely drink up the sky as it burns into a dusty amber? A sure luminous expanse remains. Nothing to be seen beyond all that I have taken. Perhaps I had consumed far more than the stability...

One of the first stories that senior Lauren Brace wrote featured the adventure of a block of cheese. From there, her love for writing—and words in general—grew.  Currently, senior Lauren Brace...

It was the laziest Nothing I had ever seen. It had sat at its wood stool so long that the poor thing wilted under the grand weight of the Nothing’s sedentary resolve. It shriveled before my eyes—its...

A bridge that I stood on for several moments before deciding to venture on

The sun only sings for a few. She'll whisper gently in their ears, and even the most vacant hearts will warm. For them, bliss cascades upon them faster than the rain, and childish abandon quickstarts...

I am detached, in the in-between. Floating so ever carelessly. I have no tangible obligations, for there isn’t anything tangible in this vastness space of the in-between, full of everything and nothing....

After seeing rock videos online when he was younger, junior Will Hoffmann knew he wanted to learn the guitar. Soon after, he started lessons at the Academy of Music, which he did for four years, starting...

From voice recognition to self-driving cars to chatbots, artificial intelligence has grown at an exponential rate. And now, the concern is that it’s overstepping in the field of art, too. Many point...

There’s a new moon coming, and she’s terrified of its light. She wants to stay in the shadows, the warmth of the night. It’s soft and calming, tired yet endearing. Its lethargic sways, steady and...

My 10-year-old cousin is very talkative, and she loves singing and acting. She’s a very happy kid, and she’s very young. A couple of weeks ago, at the middle school she will go to next year, a student...

In senior Jenan Hammad’s mixed media art, there’s a scene depicting her and her friends, some crafted traditionally and some printed from digital drawings, signifying their now-online relationship. It’s...

She is the glimpse of apricity, the awakening into a world alight with every bliss imaginable. She chases each shimmering notion through the fields. Her little braided pigtails rebelliously stray into...

Senior John Horky watched a two-hour video on the ranking of Disney movies, fascinated by the analysis. In the video, the YouTuber broke down the aspects of the characters, delving into the details...

After enjoying a few sips of my strawberry banana smoothie, all I could taste was the unpleasant flakey paper of the straw. It had not only bent but had also folded in on itself, blocking any drink...

Across four ceiling tiles, seniors Grant Griffioen, Julian Hayes, Liam Manders, and Michael Boughton painted a guy holding a massive orange, peeling it, and looking pleased as if ready to eat it.  Michael...

Time didn’t listen to me.  Despite all that it had seen, it watched my plans fall to ruin. The magnificent towers of happenings that I wanted to live in. Scattered to dust, my hopes are hushed...