Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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GUMMING HOUSE Front Row: Isabelle Best, Laura Bollen, Barbara Mariash, Gina Schnabel, Debbie Perry, April Kape, Ruth Simons. 2nd: Louise Pigot, Nina Jezek, Vivien Law, Marie Anne Laforest, (House Head), Mrs. Ritson (House Mistress), Nancy Wall (House Head), Estelle Limoges, Madeleine Roellinghoff, Annemette Jorgensen..3rt : Lynette Lombardi, Marianne Stoffregen, Lee Sullivan, Karen Merrithew, Audrey Wise, Wendy Verrier, Lynn Morgan, Sarah Kolas- iewicz, Debby Worrell, Kathy Feig. Back Row: Karin Little, Elizabeth Pigot, Elizabeth Har- court, Kathy Fletcher, Janet McCuaig, Christina Stephen, Lonny Wall, Gail Goodfellow, Maureen Burns, Jeannie Saros. Absent: Nabiha Atallah (Form V Rep). SILENCE (With apologies to Longfellow) The moon was shining in the treetops. Shining through the silver treetops. Shining in the trees and thickets Where the mighty buck, he slept Where the timid doe, she slept Where the tiny fawn, he slept. All was calm, was peaceful, tranquil. And the Indian lodge was silent, Silent as a sleeping beaver, As a beaver in his lodge. As an owl is in the daytime, Silent was the Indian lodge. Ruth Simons, Form II LIFE Life is like a railway train With tracks that come and go To places I only heard about And people I don ' t know. Life is like a ferris-wheel Round and round and round, For once you hit the top There is nothing left but down. Life is like autumn leaves That wither away and die. And no one even sees their lives Slowly passing by. Lynn Morgan, Form III B

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MINA We had come to Mina this very day in April seven years before. It had been a fresh spring day, and I was looking forward to the new and very different life in Southern Nevada. I had heard people say Mina was a friendly place, a small town where everybody knew everybody else; it was in August, several months after our arrival, that I learned the truth about Mina. It was a Saturday morning and I was in Sam ' s hardware looking for a new tackle. A voice croaked from behind me: Hello there, Sandy! Oh! Mrs. Martin! Laryngitis worse today? Yep, but can ' t let that interfere with my activities, now, can I? She gave a miserable little chuckle. Goin ' fishin ' today? Just as soon as 1 can get a tackle. D ' you know a good spot? Do I know a good spot! Why, honey, everybody knows Old Man Con— She stopped suddenly. Old man who? I inquired. Nobody, she squawked abruptly. Nobody at all. At that she hurried out of the store. I went down to the creek bordering Mina and settled down on a grassy hummock under a shady weeping willow. It was a beautiful spot with water that couldn ' t have been deeper than four feet. I was so puzzled over Mrs. Martin ' s reaction to her own words that I was unaware of the pre- sence behind me. I don ' t appreciate no trespassers sittin ' on my hummock under my tree and fishin ' outa my creek. An old man stood behind me, leaning on a crooked home-made cane. He appeared inimical, and his face suf- fered lines of grief and pain. There isn ' t any sign on this land saying I can ' t fish here! Nobody comes to Old Man Connor fer nothin ' unless it ' s by my invitation only, which is never. So now git goin ' before I lose my temper! Old Man Connor, I whispered to myself. He looked at me slyly, as if he had never heard anyone else say his name. Why do you call this your land? I never heard people speak of any one person owning part of Mina. Folks say there ' s a curse on my land. His eyes follow- ed a water-spider skimming the surface of the creek. No one never sets foot on it no more. Not for the past thirty years. They say my daughter drowned here. He turned to me slowly. But I never had no daughter, he murmured. The old man didn ' t seem to want any sympathy and limped back into the bush where he had come from. The day had clouded over and a wind had started up. I left his land and returned to Mina. The rest of August passed quickly, and school started again. It was not until the end of September, though, that I heard any more said about Old Man Connor. I was in the hardware when Mrs. Martin waddled up to Sam, smihng. The Old Man ' s dead, she whispered. Outside, a storm was brewing. Veronica Pimenoff Form VI B FLOCON DE NEIGE Flocon de neige, natif des cieux, N ' es-tu pas toi aussi infectieux En accord avec les autres elements contagieux Pour repandre cette vile corruption Qui etrangle forets, animaux, poissons. Si iimoccnt de parure, tu es coupable De camoufler cet horrible poison Qui sous la protection de tes dentelles, Deguise son rayonnement energique et penetrant Et sur les langues des petits enfants, S ' infiltre peu a peu dans ces chers insouciants. Pourquoi persistes-tu, Fameux Flocon, A persecuter la terre, contaminant ma maison? Ta vengeance est mal dirigee, Puisque ce sont les gens arrieres Qui, gouvernant les pays de la terre, Ont deterre la hache de guerre. Le blame tombe aussi sur nos patries, Qui n ' ont pas avec rapidite agi. Malgre I ' holocoste qui t ' a affecte, Tu reviens toujours comme avant; Aussi blanc et ponctuel tons les ans. Mais maintenant, tu n ' es plus innocent Et les meres te regardent en pleurant Se rappelant que leurs enfants Ne seront plus jamais comme auparavant. C ' est pourquoi, mon petit, tu es deforme. Tire la langue pour t ' amuser, Et attrape une bonne dose de radioactivite. Marie Gauthier, Form VI A 24

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THE DECISION C hristopher walked slowly up the elm-lined drive. Never, he reflected, never in all his eighteen years had he seen light of such quality. Clear, untainted by artificial vapours, it filtered through the leaves above him to illumine the grass on either side of the gravel path, letting only the solid tree- trunks remain dark, to emphasize the better the intricate interplay of shades of light among the leaves. A yellow- throated warbler hopped, with a delicate flutter between trees, from one half-hidden branch to another. Christopher stopped to watch it. On a day such as this, had he been God, he thought, he would have created this bird, this twittering embodiment of Light. What, he wondered, was it like to speak to Light? He would find out. He whistled softly. The bird stopped, turned its head toward him, flew down to the grass opposite. 0 bird, Christopher began, 0 light-bird — I don ' t know your own name — Hey, Chris, shouted a shrill voice coming up the path. The bird flew off. Hey, Chris, d ' ya always talk to yourself? Anyways, your old man wants you at ten in his building. Hey, what ' s the matter with you? Been sulking? Had anoth- er fight with your brother? Christopher had completely forgotten his pestiferous twelve-year-old brother, his usual excuse for over-pensive- ness to Lee. Now, he merely said grumpily, Sun ' s gone in. Well, don ' t look at me. I didn ' t put the clouds up there. Chris had other ideas about that. Ya know, Chris, your dad was nearly in a good mood when I saw him. Hope he stays like that. Yes, thank you. Lee, could you please try not to call me ' Chris ' any more? Whadja want to be called? Christopheros Edmundo, -onis, masc? No, I ' m serious. I mean ' Christopher ' , not ' Chris ' . What ' s wrong with ' Chris ' ? It ' s a lot faster, and snappier, and in-er. Audit ' s sloppy, and inconsequential-sounding, and care- lessly casual. Christopher had added a mental exclamation mark after ' in-er ' , although, or perhaps because, Lee had said it completely unconsciously. Thanks for the message, Lee. I ' ll see you in — let ' s see, English 150. ' Bye. ' He strode rather hurriedly up the path. Hey Chris, just a minute, Chris — 1 mean Chrisiop ier. What ' s the hurry, want to get rid of me, I suppose. Nice way for a guy to treat his girl friend. Girl friend! Christopher gasped. Since when had he shown any special liking for this coarse girl from the run- down area where the City Council builders were tearing up the very foundations of the shabby Edwardian apartments, as if to leave no trace of anything unplanned by the new generation of eager young architects fresh from Dalhousie. In that place, taboo to all decent Haligonians, was the probably already-doomed building which this girl called ' home ' . Christopher had seen the address, had idly watched her writing it during the chaos of freshman registration, on a torn fragment of pink paper with a crude border of hearts and arrow-lancing cupids. It was then, as he was turning away with a bored disgust, that she had glanced up brightly, and said, with her voice, harsh though it was, dripping with confident expectation of immediate acceptance, Hey, you, yes, you, are you takin ' English 150? Maths 101? Sociology 100? Only the English? Well, anyways, you wanna be my friend an ' show me round the place? I don ' t know where anything is. You gotta start right from the very beginning. Meet you tomorrow at nine fifteen, corner of South and Oxford. ' Bye bye for now , and she had vanished. Christopher, overwhelmed, had sat heavily on an already crowded bench against the panelled wall. Now what, he wondered. Should he turn up tomorrow morning, at nine fifteen, on the corner of South and Oxford streets, and wait? His whole being rebelled. Suppose his father should drive by? He would undoubtedly stop, disregarding traffic lights and indignant buses and the policeman who regularly lurked in ambush on his motorcycle on the other side of the street, and would demand to know what his well- brought-up son thought he was doing dawdling on the corn- er, like any common long-haired youth. Then, for the fifti- eth time, he would expand on his favourite theme, the diff- erence between his sons and the sons of the common herd, in the middle of which diatribe against the type of person of which she was a perfect example, Lee would appear. 26