BREAKING: BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ TOP EIGHT DEVOURED BY LAMPREY

EXETER, N.H. -- At 5:45 Monday morning, students living in Main Street, Merrill, Wheelwright, and Ewald awoke to the sound of screams and a giant splash.

“At first I thought my roommate’s alarm had gone off early,” an Ewald senior said, “but then I remembered that I have a single.” Surviving members of the crew teams reported that the commotion had in fact been caused by the consumption of the first two boats of the boys’ and girls’ crew teams by a 40 foot lamprey, a parasite native to the Exeter river.

“It’s too bad this happened,” one of the boys said. “I don’t know how we’re going to be able to beat St. Paul’s this Saturday.”

When asked how a lamprey could grow large enough to devour 16 students and two 12-foot boats, a biology instructor explained:

“In an environment like the Exeter river, where the water has been known to disintegrate swimmers and is constantly being polluted with napkins from Stillwells, rotting eel corpses, and Exonian tears, it is not surprising that Hyperoartia will mutate and grow beyond their natural size.”

Academy officials say that the now-digested racing shells cost tens of thousands of dollars apiece. An anonymous administrator bemoaned, “Students can be replaced, but that money could have paid for an entire new fieldhouse or half the fee of next year’s MLK speaker or even an extra day in Florida for the lacrosse team.”

One upper, upon hearing the costs, simply remarked, “I bet  I could buy a lot of grill cookies with that.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” a lower in Merrill who heard the grisly assault said. “This is a tragedy and all, but now my essay for Columbia is going to write itself.”