By Kevin Baxter, ’10, Lighter Fare Columnist

The number of missing children in Cincinnati has risen dramatically in the past few weeks.  The focal point of these numerous disappearances seems to be CCDS in Indian Hill, and particularly, the Upper School.  Upwards of 20 students have been reported as missing or kidnapped from this small independent school and the Indian Hill Rangers cannot seem to figure out why this is happening.

This all started when a freshman got lost in the lower level of the school, somewhere between the Middle and Upper Schools.

“We were trying to get to lunch from our Art 1 class,” a friend of the missing person recalled, “She claimed she knew a shortcut through the theater, but nobody followed her.”  Unfortunately, no one has seen her since and investigators believe a phantom may have been involved.

The next disappearance occurred in the senior pit when a student mistakenly sat down between cushions of the couch and simply fell right through.  The phenomenon was dubbed the “Mary Poppins effect.” Many have since reached between the cushions and claimed they could not feel the bottom.  Attempts at yelling the student’s name into the black leather have proven fruitless.

Within the next week, the Elementary School noticed that the numbers of third graders dropped sharply.  After thorough interrogation of the entire student body, several AP Biology students have admitted to kidnapping them and forcing them to do arithmetic.

A day later, during a routine math class, Mr. Bob Plummer reported that he lost a student in the middle of a test.

“I had given the class a quiz, and about halfway through, I witnessed one of my students vanish into thin air as if an omniscient 4-D hypercube plucked him out of the third dimension.  After reviewing his test, I realized that he had attempted to divide by zero and everything made sense.”

To top it off, many Honors English students have reportedly “gotten lost in their books,” but luckily, they have all found their way back and at least one senior is confident that it should not happen again anytime soon, or at least not until they finish Hamlet.

The Rangers are all baffled by this series of unfortunate events, but several anonymous students claim that an evil count must be behind the attacks.  Thankfully, the occurrences seem to have died down a bit since last week and the school year will continue as scheduled.