Eldorado High School - El Aguila Yearbook (Albuquerque, NM)

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-The White Mouse- The chair grew unbearably hard. and an itch that just had to be scratched cropped up in every limb. seemingly in every square inch of hot. moist flesh. Vinny looked around ber at the innumerable faces all bearing the same hypnotized expression. Pens and pencils scribbling fiercely over snowdrift white and butterfly pink. they all stared as though in a trance. With mimi dulled as though by novocaine. she squirmed and wriggled to pacify the tiny demons that were tickling her with their microscopic lances. As the teacher's voice droned on and on endlessly about Euglenas. Amoebae and Cilliates. she became increasingly aware of a minute. scratching. tearing noise. Thankful for any excuse to break the mono- tony. she turned her head. almost involuntarily to- wards the source of the faintly audible. but irritat- ing noise. Scanning the lab tables to one side of her against the wall. she quickly noticed. registered. and dismissed several animals in cages. because they were. or so it appeared. asleep. Obviously, she thought. they can't take Stragel's lectures either. Continuing her search for the irritant. her eyes fell upon a tiny cage in the corner. behind a collection of short. overweight beakers. and thin graduated cylinders which. as any fool could see. obviously had a thyroid problem. This tiny wire prison was small: indeed. it was so tiny as to have gone unno- ticed by her for the four listless and extremely bor- ing months that she had sat in that hard plastic chair. leaning on a hard plastic table. listening to Mrs. Gladys Stragel lecture to a class of blank. mindless faces on the intricacies of Microbiology from behind hard plastic glasses perched pre- cariously on a huge. oily beak ofa nose that always persisted in dripping incessantly. This malady kept Mrs. Stragel persistently pulling her tiny. hot fist out of the front of a dirty white lab jacket. to dab at the monstrosity on the front of her face with a tissue The trees standing like witches on golden sand tossing tangled manes of twigs and leaves stirring the sea and dropping the sun now a pearl into the flaming cauldron. Lori Gehrman Snowflake gently drifts Onto my warm waiting Lies in a wet grave. Debbie Hutchins Old age, A time when yeuth is radiated Instead of illustrated. Debbie Bryant that looked at least four years old. As Vinny watched. the tiny animal inside scratched furiously at the metal floor of the cage. but to no avail. its small claws couldn't even scratch the shiny bare surface. Mrs. Stragel's voice droned on. and as it did. Vinny saw a part of herself in that tiny cage. She watched as the small white mouse slowly grew long. slender legs. human hands. a trail- ing abundance of dark brown hair. and an enviably clear complexion with large. doe-like eyes. The tiny human figure pounded her delicate little fists on the hard wires of the cage. and screamed at the top of her lungs. but it was little more than a squeak. Vinny looked on with growing concern. until fi- nally. she could no longer control herself. She pushed her chair back with such violence that it tipped over and skittered across the floor. Oblivious to Mrs. Stragel's hysterical voice screaming at her what on earth had gotten into her. and completely ignoring the faces which stared at her blankly. their mouths dropped open. not knowing what to do about the interruption in their blank existence, she ran to the lab table. Shoving beakers and cylinders tumbling to the floor with a crash. she fumbled with the latch on the cage. She reached inside. and tenderly picked up the tiny little doll-like figure. Holding it to her cheek, she answered Mrs. Stragel's What ARE you doing? with the simple. blank statement that she had to let herself out. At that moment. the blank faces turned their gaze towards the door, where the school nurse and prin- cipal had suddenly appeared. and watched as they led her out of the room, holding a white mouse to her cheek. Mrs. Stragel walked back to her lecture podium. adjusted her glasses. dabbed at her nose, and re- sumed her discourse to the blank faces. Iudy Barnum underneath The world is falling down, hand and l am underneath. The ground is crumbling beneath my cold. uncovered feet. The day will never end. and I may never sleep. The world is falling down and l am underneath. Lorraine Mantei 33

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Fleebus Come Home There exists a subject that has been a pet peeve of mine for as long as I can recall. That subject is word finding-namely word finding through that hopeless conglomeration of terms upon one an- other, Roget's Thesaurus. The name itself brings many questions to mind. Who ever had a name like Roget? tThere is strong evidence that the man's parents did.J I-low does one go about pro- nouncing it? Row-get? Rah-jet? Both seem logical, and yet neither is correct. The man insists on being called Row-jhay! Row-jhay! In my list of all the impossible pronunciations contained within this ridiculous language of ours, I would rate Row-jhay third, right behind bough, which should be spelled baow, and trough, which should be spelled troff. To me, Hough is an un- necessary letter combination, for it causes us all confusion with our basic phonics. Also, without it people could just coff, and not worry about having to cough. The word Thesaurus deserves recognition in its own right, The first time I saw the word, I thought it had to be an 80-ton, web-footed, pre- historic creature that hasn't existed for 200 mil- lion years or so. I then figured the book to be one of those day-by-day accounts of an anthropologi- cal expedition, which are as boring as lists of hard -to-pronounce words, therefore, I didn't bother reading it. My second guess was that The- saurus was some ancient Roman, but I could in no way associate a Roman with Mr, Rowjhay, sol let it go at that. The organization of the volume is worthy of Plato. It has thus far been wholly interpreted by only one man, a Mr. Fleebus Thatcher, who was a genius in my eyes, for he had single-handedly fig- ured out which groups of words fall under the ab- . ' ff , 71. 1. Ji -SW as 'I mt' , nj' .f 1 ,N rgk 4 - .41 A -,.- ,X , xl- 'N , ff' 1 - .11 i' .tv '-A1 ,f I 'f U - , . A X! I ' 1 ai 5 fr? ff -xx-V ,ftif I V .. X, stract headings used throughout the book to give the impression that there is indeed a place for ev- erything. These headings include Ideas and Emotions and Feelings , not to mention Forms and Figurationsf' Unfortunately, Mr. Thatcher died last May and took all of his theories with him, leaving the rest of us in the cold. We are now totally incapable of comprehending the rea- soning behind the arrangement of the actual globs of words to be looked up. Why would Mr. Row-jhay put lascivious, lecherous, and carnal under gross? Why not gross, carnal, lecherous and lascivious come under licentious? This is all beyond me. Wherefore art thou, Mr. Thatcher? We are in need. Fortunately for all of us. Noah Webster, the dictionary great, never knew Mr. Row- jhay, and never read his thesaurus. I-lad he seen what Row- jhay has done to his lifelong efforts of organizing English into a sane man's reference book, Web- ster would have surely committed a grotesque murder jjustifiable in my opinionj and would never have gone on to contribute to our literacy as a nation. Mr. Row-jhay wholeheartedly mocks Mr. Webster with his own aid to literature: now instead of using concrete Webster words like merge and gap , young writers refer to the coming together of two things as amalgamation and to a space as a hiatus . I-Iave you ever had the opportunity to amalgamate onto a highway? I-Iave you ever known anyone with a two-inch hiatus between their front teeth? Alas, I'm afraid that Mr. Row-jhay did, and for that reason gave up a promising speaking career and turned to writing reference books, which will be the even- tual end of any remaining bits we possess of a civilized language. Mike Nixon

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336 I A -.xl A moanftain aaftlsefs In endiefsfs chant Genatkg fswellllcng Faom the Aighing baeeze The nwsxtcflng mean The ancient gfzannlte Faom evehg Alone, plianft and CJLQGXIUJLQ The cadence continaefs a gneysh new vafcietg 05 vefzfsen And the eafuth givezs to man A moanffainfsong. Artists Marilee Marshall tcover designl Chuck Manak ffirst prizej Dianne Phelan Lisa Petterson M. Wagner The staff Mike Nixon Debbie Hutchins Brenda Fox Kim Niper Graham Underwood Katherine johnson Ann Roberts Mrs. Sleeter Kym Weddle Mrs. Church Dianne Phelan Art Iacohs Lynn Roach Leslea Pike Chris Garcia OTISOTS The staff of Mountainsong wishes to express appreciation to the students who contributed their material and to the faculty members who read and selected the prize winning works.