The halls are still. The 8:50 bell rings, but no student is in their seat, no teacher at the whiteboard. They’re all waiting. Waiting for the fight to commence.

“War is hell,” Peabody Sherman ‘26 said as he spat his chewing gum onto the carpeted floor of the Commons.

In the late months of 2022, the Queen of the Upper School conceived a bastardly brilliant plan to devastate the way of life of the average FWCD student: a new schedule featuring a 12-hour school day, a 5-minute snack break in lieu of a lunch period, daily fire drills, and four levels of a required course entitled “Study Skills.” Upon hearing the potentially disastrous news, the student body erupted in anger.

“Give me my schedule or give me death,” Pat Henry ‘24 said.

Other students were less melodramatic.

“I don’t really care what happens,” Senior Swit Zerland ‘23 said. “Unless, of course, it turns out that the new schedule is easier than the one before. Then I care.”

As the days went on, rumors of a schedule change only amplified. It doesn’t take much to inspire private school students to unite against work, so the Upper School students formed an organization with the purpose of fighting against the installment of a new schedule, christened Falcons Emphatically Criticize Every (New) Schedule. FECES, as they were affectionately named, was really a who’s who of private school politicians and protesters. Some of the notable members were Sheena Gandhi ‘24, who led a hunger strike against SAGE, Karly Marx ‘24, who made herself an enemy of the private school system by spreading socialist ideals to Kindergarteners, and the Bench Breakers: the infamous student section anarchy group.

The Queen was not about to let a few insubordinate students deter her from her diabolic plot, so she assembled a committee of faculty and staff to decide the fate of the Upper School.

 “No schedule changes without representation,” soon became the rallying cry for the band of adolescent miscreants.

French student and frontline fighter for students rights Max Robespierre ‘23 said on the matter, “Ce programme proposé est un affront à tous les étudiants de FWCD. Si c’est la guerre qu’ils recherchent, alors c’est la guerre qu’ils obtiendront.” (Translation: This proposed schedule is an affront to all students of FWCD. If it is war they seek, then it is war they will get.)

The FWCD revolutionaries responded to the formation of the committee swiftly and with great puissance. On a gloomy Monday morning, Upper School Administrative Assistant Mel Hurst discovered the office’s glass door shattered, accompanied by a nail, a hammer, and an essay entitled “Ninety-five Theses” sitting atop the shards. This protest paper was immediately recognized as the work of Martina Luther ‘24, who earlier in the school year had submitted an essay of 95 reasons why more than 45 minutes of homework qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.

Since the holiday of defiance, both the Queen’s Committee and FECES have been preparing for war. The infantry of freshmen ready their spitballs while the librarians distribute sharp edged paper to the teachers. The Queen holds her pen over the dotted line, considering whether she should sign the schedule change into law, effectively inducing a civil war, or cap the utensil so that students can go back to learning with the schedule that they know and love. For now, all we can do is wait.