Berry Sees Series of Strange Disappearances

This week has seen a string of strange disappearances from the study areas of Berry Library. As students descended on the library for reading period, they were met with only empty tables and vacant study carrels. Although these study areas were filled with books, backpacks and various empty Vitamin Water bottles, the owners of these belongings were nowhere to be found.

S&S and HPo are working together to apprehend this “Berry Snatcher” but thus far their efforts have been hampered by the victims’ nonchalance about their disappearances. They have been tracking the snatcher for years and, judging by past years, they are expecting him to become very active as exams approach.

Mark Lemke ’12 became alarmed when his friend, Stephen Trotter ’12, vanished shortly after his arrival on fourth floor Berry, “We both sat down in study carrels and the next thing I knew, he was gone. He left all of his stuff there but just disappeared. I was really worried until he came back eight hours later to grab a notebook and ask if I wanted anything from Novack, at least he wasn’t kidnapped.”

Although unconfirmed, sources claimed to have seen Trotter at the Hop, Alumni Gymnasium and the Wal-Mart in West Leb during the time of his disappearance.

Some students were more unfortunate and had multiple friends fall victim to the snatcher. Jet Black ’13 feared that three of the Libby McMillen’s ’13 friends on third floor Berry had become the latest victims, “I saw Libby sit down at one of those four person tables and the next thing I knew, none of her friends were sitting with her. I knew that they were there to begin with because they left a backpack, some books and a laptop case at their seats. When some guy asked her if they were coming back and she told him that they were, I started to get worried. This happened around 10 and the first one didn’t come back until 4:30 that afternoon. I almost called S&S.”

Sebastian Coolidge ’11 was appalled when his friend offered him a seat, despite the fact that it was filled with a girl’s belongings because “he hadn’t seen her for a few hours.” Coolidge bemoaned this lack of compassion, “Are we so self-absorbed that we don’t even notice another student going missing? He should’ve been launching a missing person investigation but instead he was willing to forget all about her and give me the seat.”

Although the second, third and fourth floors of Berry were plagued with these disappearances, both first floor Berry and Novack Café seemed to be immune. In fact, observers noted that not only were these study areas filled with students, they were actually overfilled, with many students standing around socializing. HPo detective Eric DeBot hypothesized that “It’s probably a safety in numbers thing.”