By Newman
As you all know, there is more to Tosa East than just two floors. There's all sorts of secret stuff around, including the 3rd floor and the basement. Of course, most students don't get a chance to see these areas. That's why they're secret. Well, last week M. F. Luder, Ms. Clinton and myself visited these forbidden locales. I can't tell you the details of how we got in there, but suffice it to say that it involved a crowbar, some WD-40, and a well-placed ferret.

This is definately not Newman, who is definitely not sitting on a toilet in the Secret Toilet Room.

Once we found ourselves on the 3rd floor, the first thing we sought out was the legendary Secret Toilet Room. Maybe that's a metaphor for our writing or something... I don't know. Suddenly there it was; toilets as far as the eye could see. Definitely an awe-inspiring sight. There was also, for some reason, some toilet paper on a little shelf in there too. It actually came in pretty useful though because Mr. Luder really had to go to the bathroom.

There is, of course, more to the third floor than just the Secret Toilet Room. Strewn about the hallways are things like sewing machines, saddles, treadmills, typewriters, and old desks. It was sort of like a Walmart, you could find anything up there. A short flight of stairs led to a big room filled with desks and chairs that appeared to be an old study hall. The view from the windows up there was nothing like from the rest of the school, with a view of the medical complex and all the houses past Lincoln. However, right next to the study hall room was another flight of stairs leading up. These stairs led to a couple of classrooms and some more stairs which led, finally, to the roof. There wasn't much up there except some gravel, alien bodies, and a view of the horizon, so we went back down.

The Underground's M. F. Luder, next to his newfound friend.

On the rest of the third floor there were a couple rooms, including the old band room and chemistry labs, that had skylights. Many rooms, especially the chemistry lab, had graffiti from previous visitors, including some Cardinal Newsies from last year. In order to keep The Underground underground however, our names were not inscribed on the walls or chalkboards. The most disturbing sight of the third floor came in a perfectly normal classroom. The rooms was completely empty except for some weird sculpture of an animal's head with a little guy on top of it. It's that little thing that M. F. Luder's posing next to in that picture.

Maybe some people would be satisfied after seeing the third floor, but not us, we just had to see the basement also. The only thing of interest down there, as we took The Underground truly underground, was the blocked off tunnel leading to Lincoln Elementary School.

It looked like a tunnel. With a wall at one end.

The third floor has been unused since around the early 70's, so therefore I have a suggestion to the administration: let The Underground have its headquarters on the third floor. It's not like we'd be in anyone's way or anything. Just like the Cardinal News has its newsroom, we could have our Secret Toilet Room. It would probably inspire our writing too.

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