After a grueling return from break, The Echo needed a boost in morale. So on Friday, February 28, Ms. Hesseltine freed its contributors from the dungeon for a thrilling game of Sardines in a Can: a variation on hide-and-seek in which someone hides, people join as they find the original hider, and the last person to find everyone loses.

She began by instructing students to partner up and drawing a whiteboard diagram of the CCNY campus boundaries (between 135th and 140th Streets and Amsterdam and St. Nicholas Avenues). Then, she power-strutted out the door so eagerly that she left her jacket behind, exclaiming, “Come find me in five minutes!”

Pairs of journalists were seen chasing each other and skipping through campus with glee as they searched for Ms. Hesseltine. Eventually, a group huddled with her beside the Howard E. Wille Administration Building. They waited in anticipation to see who would lose the game—only for CCNY President Dr. Boudreau to discover them. 

“Is The Echo staging a sit-in?” the distinguished figure asked to everyone’s surprise. “No, we’re just playing hide-and-seek!” Ms. Hesseltine insisted. Dr. Boudreau made a shushing motion and walked away immediately so as not to draw attention to the hiders. He seemed happy to see them all together, basking in the sunshine and briefly forgetting the toil of school.

All too soon, the elective period was about to end; Astrid and Julian wriggled away for the final round. Even with Astrid’s helpful hints about their location (“We can see the flag pole easily” and “One might say we have a view from above”) on the group chat, it took seven minutes for the first group—Phoebe and Emily—to find them. Ms. Hesseltine recalls even “asking random strangers if they [had] seen anyone hiding.” 

Jayden ended up saving the day for Ms. Hesseltine and the other unsuccessful seekers: As he stood on the base of the flagpole, he spotted Phoebe and Jason’s hair popping up over one of the quad’s stone walls. “I found them!” he proclaimed, leading everyone to the hiding spot. They finally stumbled upon the gaggle of students laying against the top wall of the quad, obscured behind some parked vehicles. 

As the journalists returned to Baskerville Hall, they were overwhelmed by artificial light and the crushing weight of their workload. They immediately knew they had to play again.