Trojan Times 2011 December Edition Holiday Magic As usual, our music department has defined ex- cellence! The orchestra and choir started the week off w/ a fantastic performance that pleased everyone in attendance. Poinsettias were sold in advance, and used as part of the holiday decora- tions. Proceeds will go towards the music depart- ment. The deer that were made by the art stu- dents of CMS were auctioned off, and their pro- Contents: ceeds will go to our CMS art department. The students did a beautiful job creating such lovely • Holiday Magic art pieces. The Grinch was a huge crowd pleaser • Winter Poem for the night. The band concert followed on • Mealworm Experi- ments Tuesday evening, and as Katrina Balon put it, • Mrs. Craven “We were amazing!” One of the favorite songs of • Quotes of the Month the night was The Christmas Clock, and who can • Trapped - Dunnett forget Alvin & the Chipmunks? The bell choir • Movie Reviews ended this festive week with a harmonious mel- • Game Reviews ody of holiday favorites. I must say, our bell • Arts & Crafts choir is as good as Purdue University’s bell choir • Music Review that I recently observed at their holiday perform- • Miscellaneous ance. A job well done to all of you! • Recipes • Comic Winter Kendall Balch Happy Dreary, dark, it’s so cold. Holidays from Icy winds brush over the snow. our CMS Family Kids are playing all around, to yours! We’ll Some making snow angels on the ground. see you in 2012. Parents call out, “Time to come in.” CMS NEWS 2011 Mealworm Experiments Noelle Friel Recently, in the 7th grade science classes we did an experiment with…..mealworms! Which, in case you didn’t know, are actu- ally larvae of beetles?! The point of the experiment was to test the worms’ different reactions to things. First, you had a plastic shoe- box and you covered the bottom in white paper. Next, you cov- ered half of the top with tinfoil. Then, you were given 10 baby mealworms and you put them in the box and counted which ones went into the light and which ones went into the dark. Then, you removed the mealworms and placed them into 4 different piles; one containing paper, one with raisin bran, one with uncooked rice, and one with corn flakes. Then, you put each worm, one at a time, and put a tally for the pile it went into. Each group’s results were different but in my group, the most popular was the Raisin Bran. Everyone had different opinions of the ex- periment. As you can imagine, there was lots of screaming. A mealworm is actu- ally not like a normal worm at all. It has legs, and eyes, and it is much faster. Mrs. Craven Quotes of the month Saira Nelson Rachael Bushue As we all know, Winter Mrs. Craven has done so much for Break is just around the corner. everybody in the school. She also has an SRT Here are some memorable quotes class, and makes copies for teachers, too. She to enjoy on your days off, wher- keeps everybody in line in the lunch line and ever relaxation or vacation may in the cafeteria. People have come to me per- take you. sonally and told me they love Mrs. Craven and • No man needs a vacation so what she does for them. She is the most beau- much as the man who has just tiful being in this school!!! [brownie points] J had one. ~ Elbert Hubbard J I LOVE YOU, Mrs. Craven!! ♥ • A vacation is what you take However, there are other lunch aides too!! when you can no longer take They all do so much! I mean think about it; what you've been taking. ~ Earl they have to watch at least 300 people at lunch Wilson and sometimes more! I WOULD NOT want • Vacation: a period of travel this job because it would be very frustrating! I and relaxation when you take give it to the aides that do this everyday! twice the clothes and half the money you need. ~ Unknown Trapped: Escape of the Mansion Author, Kaylin Dunnett LUCAS So, what exactly had been going on down here, anyways? Who would leave a table with a huge stain on it down in a basement? Or perhaps I was just over thinking things at the time. Either way, I was feeling curi- ous. Yeah, I knew my priorities weren’t exactly in order, and that staying down here like a guy Nancy Drew, wasn’t what I should be doing. But hey, I was down in an old basement in a place I don’t know, with thoughts that I couldn’t recall. I couldn’t hear Lauren’s footsteps anymore… that staircase must have taken her up to a really high floor. It made me wonder just how tall the building was, anyways. Without Lauren down here, I could poke around for a little bit; actually look around. I guessed that I might as well make the most of my unexpected stay. I paced around in the dark, just barely, barely, barely making out objects in the dark. There was the table of course, and the door propped open partially from when Lauren had gone up that long staircase. The propped open door let in just the faintest amount of light, but it proved to be…somewhat adequate. So there was a table down here… what other junk is collecting dust? I hold my hands out in front of me blindly to make sure I don’t run into anything. I touch cool, cold stone wall, and with that I make my way around the room, clinging to it. My pinky finger runs over something raised and bumpy. As I peer very hard at it, I can see a faint square in the dark…a picture frame. I take both sides of it in my hands and gently lift it off of the wall. I’m extra careful with the old artifact-I don’t need anything more to drop and trip over later. Walking over to the light by the door, I’m able to sort of see the picture. It’s this little girl with this very curly hair, and she’s got a smile on her face. She’s seated at a table-no, it was a piano. I was sure of that. The piano was an off-white ivory color, and had little dents in the sides. There was a creepy guy standing right behind her. He was dressed like he was about to go to a business meeting, or something similar: a smart looking shirt and pants, with a tie that was adjusted up onto his neck. He had the oiliest looking hair that I had ever seen… combed to one side like he didn’t care. The man was standing several feet behind the girl, and he looked…distant. Trapped...continued That’s all there is to say about what I saw. He was staring off into a different di- rection, and his eyes were drawn far away, to an object that I couldn’t see. It was all too strange. I set the painting down, and I felt like there wasn’t much else that I should do. I started my ascent up the stairs. LAUREN I was able to pop the cork off of the wine bottle easily. The seal had already been torn. The label was hard to read-it was wrinkled and peeling in some places- but I could make out the words Pinot Noir easily. I’m not very wine-smart, or what- ever you’d say… but I know that Pinot Noir is a red wine. I carefully sniffed it, and it smelled pretty foul. There was the sickeningly sweet wine smell, but it clashed with this horrid bitterness. I quickly set the wine bottle down and clamped a hand over my nose. Smells like that are hard to forget. And I know defiantly that I had smelled it before. Was that bitter smell the same solution that was in that vial downstairs? That was around the time Lucas swung the staircase door open. “Lauren, are you...” He stopped mid-sentence, taken by surprise. “Wow…” His eyes roved all around the huge room. “Exactly what I said.” I paced over and looked out the window with him. “Did those stairs kill your legs or what?” He shrugs. “A good thigh workout is how I’ll think of it.” His eyes are aimed over my shoulder at the wine on the table. “What’s that doing over there?” He walks over, pops the cork, and smells it. The same dis- pleased expression passes over his face. “Whatever you do, don’t breathe in too much,” I joke. “You might get poi- soned by fumes.” Setting down the bottle, he digs in his pocket to find the vial in his pocket and pulls it out. “This vial has the same stuff in this wine bottle.” He holds it up for me to see. “I found a wine glass downstairs… there was a red wine stain on a table down there, and the glass smelled foul.” I chew my lip pensively. “So what’s in the vial?” He stares down the wine intently. “Not sure, but I feel like I’ve heard of this kind of thing before. Maybe… a wine poisoning?” Trapped... He shoves his hands in his pockets after putting away the vial. “Well, we’re high off the ground so we can’t jump from a window without getting killed.” The sting above my eye pulses up again, hot and angry.