Balmoral Hall School - Optima Anni Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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16 Where am I? Marianne cried indignantly. What is this place? You're in a hospital, was the gentle reply. You've had a nasty experience. My legs, Marianne demanded, why won't they move? I'll get Doctor Harrison, the nurse said sympathetically. Why won't anyone tell me? Marianne wondered as the nurse left. She could hear the sure voice of the doctor outside her door. Jamie is fine, he explained, nothing to worry about. But, Marianne, he hesitated, won't be able to walk again without an operation. Won't walk again! She choked unbelievingly. How will I ever face my friends? Why, o why did this have to happen to me? Well, hello, young lady, and how are you feeling today? Feeling! Feeling! How can you ask me how I feel when you know? 'Never walk again,' you said. No need to feel sorry for yourself, he said firmly. There are lots of girls who will never be able to have an operation to walk. Think of them, and consider yourself lucky. Luckyl huh! she mumbled. It will be a long, hard fight but you can get to that wheelchair in no time. These thoughts reeled through her mind. Wheelchair! Lucky! Never walk again! and she fought back the tears. For three months no one could budge Mari- anne from her bed. Friends and family alike had an icy reception. One day, a fifteen-year-old girl with the tiniest limbs and warmest face ever seen was wheeled in. I don't want any visitors! Marianne snapped. Oh, I think you'll want this one, the nurse twinkled back. Marianne snatched one quick look and in- stantly every sympathetic instinct in her arose. Just the sight of this merry-eyed girl made her lose all interest in herself. From that moment Joy and Marianne were fast friends. Joy came every day and Marianne drew quickly out of her shell It was six months before she had her first trip in the wheelchair. This no longer meant confinement, but just the opposite. She was out of her room for the first time in nearly a year, and this was the final step before the operation which would enable her to walk once more. Her parents had saved every cent and the whole family had given all that was possible towards the operation. How will I ever pay them back?', she said one day to Joy, who would never walk again. Just the look on your face at your first step will be all the reward they'll want, was Joy's reply. Marianne pondered. My Hrst step! Just another month and my first step. I.eft with this comforting thought, she was alarmed when Jamie walked into the room, looking haggard. Jamie, what is it? Her heart leaped with the question. Slowly he poured out the story of their fatherls serious attack during the night. She could picture the pain on her father's face as he was carried out to the ambulance, and the look of shock on her mother's face as she suffered with her husband. He was in the operating room now and Marianne knew that all the money would go for her father's operation. Of course he will have the money, she said, proud to be able to give it to save her father- After all, if I've waited for one year, I can certainly wait a little longer. She reassured Jamie and when he left, she lay back and thought of the struggles of the past year with a calmness and tranquility which she had never known. She was glad to make the sacrifice, and would have done it a thousand times over to save a life. NANCY SMITH-Grade X The Best Place To Live Bah! not even running water in the place, grumbled city-bred Alan Barker as, cold and sleepy, he stamped through the only room of the ranger station in the Kootenays. He had been perfectly happy in his job at the Forest Con- servation Office, but he had been chosen to replace old Jim Walker who had been the ranger for twenty years. He had been told that if he did not like this new job, he could return as soon as they found another man. Since they were so short-handed, this might take some time. For Alan that could not be soon enough for he was obviously already bored with his new job al- though he had been there only twenty-four hours. And so it was that Alan was not in the sunniest of tempers as he stalked down the path to the spring in the grey light of a cool September dawn. The birds were up before him and two jays announced his coming with loud screeches. Noisy pests, muttered Alan.

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15 The Art Gallery A light blue carpet on the stairs, And serious young folk everywhere, Searching with eager childish faces, Standing rigidly in their places, Rows and rows of beautiful work, Explained in detail by a tiresome clerk. I went up the stairs between them all, Strange and frightened and shy and small, But as I entered the gallery door, I saw something I had never seen before, The sun streaming through the window in the hall, Proving God's art, the most beautiful of all. CATHERINE HAMILTON-Grade VII The Hour Glass There are millions of them all confined to one large space. Each one is uniquely different in its similarity to all the others. Each one is only con- cerned with itself. Each is oblivious ofthe others, yet its position and activities depend on the others. The same force acts on all of them. It pulls them until it can pull them no longer. The ones in front block the paths of the others. Yet if they fall, so do the ones behind them. They are drawn to their inevitable fate. They are sucked into nothingness. They must fall. Yet others run to this same fate. One draws the others, and the others draw each one. When they dissolve into the darkness of the narrow path, they are gone. They appear again on the other side but which are the ones that were seen to disappear? They are there, but where are they? They are engulfed, surrounded and buried by the others. What difference does it make? What is one from another? What does it matter? Those may have been beautiful, interesting, different, but they were just a few in a million. Some may have entered the chasms in shadow and come out of it in all glory to reflect a ray of light in an eye and please the indolent brain that commands the eye. But these did not please the brain when they were in darkness. Each one lands on the bottom surrounded by different ones, or in the middle or on top. What does it matter? It is just one in a million. Its fate is in the hands of something greater than itself. With one movement, all of these may be dis- turbedg they are forced to rush, teem, pull, and break the stillness of the others. They must go because there is no end until they all lie in stillness at the bottom again. They lie only to be dis- turbed. Then they come alive again. When each one passed, it took with it the moment it needed in the passing. But what does this matter? There are endless moments to pass. Endless moments unless someone should smash the container. Then what becomes of them? What becomes of the millions? What becomes of each grain of sand, or life? Bu'r'rY NIC'HCJL-fil'2lfl9 XII Q1 C33 23 C33 'S' 'S' JA in tiff? ig c..is.1aefl., .ig ,io ig BEFOR5 -rm: G-FMS fi? IL Ijillf. tif? A f 7258 QQ fry Gi I' ,f ' iihggii. ii gwfx? ivi L' i 'ifj I X-lb f 'N .20 S9 Jffiieqg 9 Q ,gs- FIFTER D B. Nichol The Sacrifice A large tear rolled down Marianne's taut face when she discovered that she could not move. Vividly the accident came back to her mind. Marianne and her brother Jamie had been driving down Campion Avenue when the truck struck them broadsideg the steering wheel crushed her legs, paralysing them. Having lost con- sciousness, she remembered nothing but the im- pact of the truck against their Volkswagen. With her straggly blond hair spread over the pillow, and her eyes wandering vaguely around the room, she wondered frantically where she was and what had happened to Jamie. Angry with the thought of being in bed, the normally energetic sixteen-year-old struggled to pull herself upright. Finding herself surprisingly weak, she fell back. Why, she thought, feeling annoyed, isn't anyone here? Almost as if someone had heard her, a crisp white figure came softly into the room.

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17 The sun was just peeping over the mountains as he ascended the little hill to where a spring gushed out of the ground and started a streamlet which cascaded down the side of the mountain. Here he knelt to wash, but a noise made him look up. There were three deer, wading into the rippling water, lowering their graceful heads to drink as the water bubbled between moss- covered rocks. He rose and moved closer, but the deer, hearing his approach, lifted their heads and, sighting him, bounded away into the tall pines. The words, Good riddancef' were on the tip of his tongue but before he knew it, Alan found himself saying, What a. beautiful sight! An- noyed with himself for this change of heart over any part of this Godforsaken place, he picked up a rock and threw it in the direction of the deer, whose white flags were still visible, bobbing through the trees. Then he continued his wash- ing with more vigour than before. When he looked up again, he found a rabbit watching him with great curiosity. The rabbit stared for a moment and then hopped around a clump of violets, pausing to scratch his ear. He came back to sniff at Alan's boot, hopped away again and, as if unable to understand his presence, came back to sniff once more. As he sat watching the rabbit hop away, Alan suddenly realized how truly beautiful the snow-capped mountains were. The longer he stared at them the more they seemed to take the shape of elegant ladies, wearing hats of orange, white, or lavender, according to what time of day it was. The loud honks of wild geese flying south for the winter shattered the morning stillness and brought Alan out of his reverie, reminding him that he had many things to do. He started to walk back up the trail, past the little waterfall that looked like a cascade of topazes and by the beaver pond that shone like a sapphire in the sunlight. He thought of his ofhce job in the city, and how he had had to take a crowded bus to and from work. He thought of the sooty air and the dirty streets. Then his thoughts turned to the wild animals, timid yet curious, that he had seen that day, and of the beautiful scenery. He glanced up at the great trees where two squirrels were playing tag. They stopped and peered at him through the branches, chattering contentedly. You don't have to tell me, he called to them. Now I know this is the best place to live! KATHRYN NPIILSON-Ci1'3,Cl6 VIII The Count of Monte Cristo by ALEXANDRE DUMAS This story took place in 1815 in Paris. At the time, there were two major political factions in France, the Royalists and the Bonapartists. However, since Bonaparte had been Cl6f63.t6Cl and exiled to the island of Elba, it was a political be a Bonapartist. If a person was crime to found on or going to Elba, he would be sent to the dungeons. One day on the ship, the Pharon , there was a captain who was dying of brain fever. He gave a young boy, Edmond Dantes, an errand to do. It was to go to Elba and pick up a letter. Edmond did this, and later three men. Villeporte, Ferdenand, and Danglars, told the Royalists of his deed, and Dantes was put in the dungeons. While in prison, Dantes met the Abbe Faria who chopped his way into Dantes' cell, while trying to escape. After being with Dantes for fourteen years the Abbe died, but before dying he gave Edmond a map to treasure. Edmond escaped as the Abbe's dead body. He found the treasure: jewels, gold and coins, became rich, and called himself the Count of Monte Cristo. He finally had his revenge on the three men, Villeporte, Ferden- and and Danglars. I enjoyed this book because it showed that if you want to get ahead in life, you cannot do it by someone else's unhappiness. When Edmond found the treasure and ran it through his hands, the scene seemed very real. Edmond may have destroyed three people, but he also saved two others who lived happily ever after. I liked the book because it was exciting, romantic, sad and happy, and also because it was very realistic. CATHERINE HAMILTON-Grade VII An Impression The rays of the sun slant on my paper, Casting a curious shadowg The nib of my pen writes on, Followed by its double. A curious sight to see my pen With a shadow so long and thin, The lines so dark and definite, Fast begin to dim. For now a saucy cloud appears To cover up the sung The shadow fades and fades away, Until completely gone. DORA DEMPSTERA-G rade XI