The end of the 2025-2026 school year marks a significant change for all of us, as we part from the old and encounter the new. For our grade nines, tens, and elevens, it means saying goodbye to the hallowed halls of Bishop Allen Academy. For our grade twelves, it means leaving not only the physical building, but the Bishop Allen community, an even more emotional parting (unless of course, you are one of those architectually minded people who are more sentimental about buildings than their inhabitants). This issue explores the nostalgia and love we have for BA, but also the excitement that awaits us in the near future. Thank you to all the creative students who contributed their work and our wonderful teacher moderator, Ms. Conroy for bringing this edition to life. The Summer 2026 Cardinal is a reminder that we will always carry a piece of BA with us, whether in memories, lessons learned, or bits of rubble collected after its demolition. Stay classy and happy reading!
All the best wishes,
The Excecutive Editorial Team
Charlize Stanley-Archibald, David Di Giovanni, Gwyneth Salisny, and Victoria Gribe
Table of Contents Table of Contents
Artwork
Oleksandra Trokhliuk - Cover Art
Emily Gizzarelli - page 2
Sofia Costa - page 8
Liam Carbone - page 14
Maya Castro - page 14
David Di Giovanni - page 15
Charles Campbell, Stella Smiechowski, Jack DeMaria, and Claudia Kaszowski - page 19
Veronika Poltoradnia, Sophia Martins-Broderick, and Cassandra Alvarez - page 20
Margot Carey - page 22
Prose
“Age Five” by Bohdana Dzyuba - page 1
“The True Meaning of Magic” by Nora Thompson - page 3
“Four Years Ago” by Laura Trivisani - page 13
“The Man in The Mirror” by Rafael Canabrava - page 9
Poetry
“ABCDarius” by Meredith Buchanan - page 7
“My BA” by David Di Giovanni - page 8
“If BA Walls Could Talk” by Natalie Koenig - page 16
“Goodbye” by Charlize Stanley-Archibald - page 17
“Ghosts of Bishop Allen” by Liam Carbone - page 18
“Mom, guess w ng a vial of shimmering dust. “I saw the fairies yesterday! Mine’s named Sprinkles and she’s yellow and her favourite activity is free swim, just like me!”
That was my initial reunion with my parents, my first time seeing them after two weeks away at Camp Oconto the most magical place on earth---and of course, I had to talk about the fairies.
Now, after laying on the forest floor with a blue t-shirt wrapped over my flashlight, I think of how much those fairies meant to little eight-year-old me. When I was inconsolably homesick but didn’t know how to write a letter home, the fairies were my daily penpals, comforting me during my first time away from home. When the lake resembled a dark, endless abyss, my imagined bravery of the fairies pushed me to jump in. Now, a few years later, as I debated returning to this magical place, the “fairies” whispered that I should stay another summer.
Ever since I was a young camper, fairies have been a part of the Camp Oconto experience. We celebrate Fairy Fest, where everyone wears fairy wings and braids each other’s hair; we read fairy stories on Sunday mornings during chapel; we write letters to the fairies during camp events. It’s entertaining at any age, but as campers matured the wonder that once felt so real begins to fade.
Although I always love camp traditions, as I got older I began to question them. Why were we so intent on keeping the idea of fairies?
I found my answer in the summer of 2023. Nearing the halfway point of the month, right before the two-weeker campers started to pack up, the senior campers were called to a meeting. What we were told next broke my heart, and is now filling a space I hadn’t realized was empty. We were now the fairies. What this meant was at first unclear. (I thought it indicated we would dress up and dance around camp). Then we talked to a few counsellors. They would not explain the process, keeping everything quiet as though they were sworn to secrecy, but they did let loose that it was their favourite memory of their last year as campers.
So, without fully knowing what we were stepping into, the senior campers met at ten o’clock that night, silently trekked through the forest, chose our hidden spots among the trees, and now sit in waiting. Multicoloured shirts cover the flashlights in our hands, and I can feel the excitement building. I am sure I am not the only one thinking of the past, as many of us experienced the same reunion with our parents back in 2017, filled with pure joy over the magic of camp, already begging our parents to sign us up for next year. When the campers walk out of their cabins, some are confused, some tired, some annoyed to be awoken at what feels like the middle of the night. However, when they are coaxed to say “Good morning fairies” and our colourful lights fill the forest, everyone is beaming brighter than the lanterns we hold. The giggles of the kids, realizing their camp dreams are coming true, mingle with the quiet laughter the “fairies” emit.
And again, I think back to the first summer I can remember. My first summer being a camper. My first summer before I started elementary school. My first summer of conscious childhood. I almost feel like a version of myself is behind the wall of trees---like I am watching and providing the magic at the same time. I laugh, a dainty fairy-like sound, and feel the part of myself on the other side of the magic laughing, full blown and wonder-filled.
The elation from everyone involved is evident: the younger campers, we older campers, and counsellors, all caught up in the magic of the moment. As we hiked back to our cabins later that night, I made a promise to carry this feeling with me for the rest of the summer. This feeling of genuine delight in shaping someone else's childhood while rediscovering my own. Because magic, I realized, isn't something you outgrow—sometimes it just waits for you to recreate it.
Later in the summer, when I helped a pair of campers get their level at canoeing arguably the hardest challenge at camp and heard the whole bay erupt in cheers of support, something strange happened. The kids in the boat morphed into younger versions of myself. I recognize the pride they feel for finishing, the same pride I felt for finishing many years prior. The triumph that filled me, this time at nine-years-old, after completing my first canoe level, and hearing people cheer, was something I knew I wouldn’t forget. And I didn’t. But now the memory has a companion, one of me cheering along as I guide someone to completing their first canoe level.
It reoccurs, this association of a favourite childhood memory with a similar one, just now from an opposite perspective. When a younger camper asks to jump off the diving board together, smiling, I say yes. I remember the guts it took to talk to the older campers. I remember the excitement and relief I felt when they were kind.
My emotions constantly shifted through the summer. I felt joy in seeing camp in a new perspective. I felt nostalgia in remembering my own experiences. Beneath it all, however, there was a quiet but profound sense of wistfulness in returning to my childhood innocence. I felt sadness in knowing this was my last summer being a camper. My last summer before high school. My last summer of childhood. These summer memories are a means to hold onto the dream of my youth that is floating away. But with each way I help or encourage or provide for the younger campers, I am regaining that dream in a new way. I am passing that dream onto someone else.
That is the real magic in growing older. The fairies were not just about providing imagination to the younger generations, but reminding all of camp about the magic in the small moments. The fairies need to stay, not just for the younger campers, but for the older ones too. Because sometimes, lying on a prickly underbrush in the middle of the night with a flashlight beneath a t-shirt, waiting to surprise junior campers, is what it takes to realize magic doesn't go away as you age. It just waits for the right moment for you to believe in it all over again.
ABCDARIUS
By Meredith Buchanan
Attendance office where we sign in and out,
Bishop Allen grad plaques from past years,
Crutches I use to get around,
Drama classroom that holds so many good memories,
Exit signs above every door,
Front foyer where everyone passes through,
Garbage bins that hold our trash,
High ceilings protecting us from the weather,
iPhone I use to communicate with my friends,
Junk on the ground from lunch,
Kids talking about who knows what,
Lockers used by the football players,
Multi-coloured floor tiles of the cafeteria,
Not a lot of people around,
Overhead classrooms looking down on the cafeteria,
Painted walls with colourful murals,
Quiet people doing their work,
Rafters that are decorated with paint,
School uniform worn by the students,
Tech equipment used for the stage,
Unclear tables after lunch,
Vending machine that nobody uses,
Windows allowing light into the school,
X-axis on my math homework,
Yawning students at the end of the day,
Zippers on backpacks keeping everything inside.
by David Di Giovanni
Loud screaming lunchgoers, running gags with friends, thick homemade sandwiches. A crowd of bodies, quiet or loud, like a school of fish.
The smell of September new pencils, and the frantic erasing of a question on a test, a pencil used to form fascinating complex words.
Notebooks and binders and laptops, all useless without a teacher who truly tries, and cares enough to cleverly explain.
A rolled back navy sleeve fitting tightly onto my arm, a sweater to protect my warmth in winter. We’re not very uniform when we all wear it differently.
Long winter walks through the snow, to our cramped and cold classrooms.
Thursday night lights filled with empty seats and gossip under the bright lights, games played in a corner at lunch by those with passion.
The Man in the Mirror
by Rafael Canabrava
I often find myself remarking to my friends about my apparent and obvious greatness. I have made a habit of reminding them that I am not a basic student going on about my day-to-day life. On the contrary, I have been blessed. When I was born, the stars were aligned, and I was given a powerful inheritance. Among my many feats, among which are that I have acquired an army of friends, visited 52 countries, read all of Ulysses and David Copperfield in a single day, learned five languages, discovered eight new species of butterflies; yet one stands leagues above them all. Why? Just because it is actually true. Yes, when I was conceived, I was blessed to fill my face with a billowing, regal, glorious moustache.
My moustache is not a mere reflection of my personal vanity. It symbolizes the ideals I follow. It started with my love of history, more specifically, Victorian England. Oh, how I longed to be a noble British officer, leading my squadron of soldiers bravely to spread the ideal of civilization. I wanted nothing less than to be of help, no matter how many we needed to oppress or kill; all while keeping my perfect whiskers welloiled and groomed.
My moustache is more than a tedious-to-groom part of my face. It is a symbol of the man I long to be: a bold, daring, and honourable leader that people look up to. I have seen myself in this way for as long as I can remember—which, due to my horrible memory, only goes back to about Grade Eight. Nevertheless, I have kept this facade up for so long that I would hardly call it a facade anymore. This wall I have built around myself has outlasted what it once protected, until it is all that remains. It was not always so; the facade was once merely that – a facade. I wanted to be a popular kid, yet I was not. My picture captures this rather well. In it, I attempt (quite successfully, if I do say so myself) to look regal and composed, grandiose and noble, educated and admired. I exude superiority. Anyone who looked upon me would fall into a fit of jealousy at this 14-year-old with mediocre grades, a few friends, and no life outside of video games. How could they not? I had a moustache and a bowtie, after all.
Despite what I told myself, I embodied very few of these qualities. I was not well liked, or highly intelligent, or a strong leader, and I definitely had nothing more than an overgrown “pubestache.”
I remember once, during recess in Grade Six, the boys were playing soccer as usual. It was the year school restarted after COVID, and classes were still not allowed to intermingle, so each class could only stay in one sector. Our class was placed near the portables. I went out to do what I usually did during recess: I stood on the portable platform and gave commentary on the game, just like TV. In my eyes, I was the perfect candidate – I was afterall, Brazilian. I cannot imagine how irritating it must have been to the students trying to play soccer to have a kid who knew nothing about soccer, nor anyone ’ s names, screaming about what was going on. It was not long until one of them got fed up and screamed at me: I was annoying and nobody liked me or my commentary. I did not comment much after that.
In Grade Nine, I was elected as the grade representative. I was not surprised; I was the greatest, after all. I vowed to myself and my friends that I would “change things around here.” This school would forever bear my imprint. I believe I must have said fewer than 100 words in all the STUGO meetings all year. I did not have the backbone to speak without being spoken to. I did not dare propose a contrary opinion. I did not ever have a good grasp of what was going on. I was finally where I dreamed of being, where I told myself I was destined to be, and I was doing nothing.
Throughout all of this, however, I continued to tell myself – and continued to believe – I was the greatest.
All through my school years, I remember looking in the mirror and not seeing myself: “I am not the man in the mirror,” I would say, for in my mind I was grandiose. I, at least, had a well-curled moustache, not this pencil shave that looks scribbled on. I could not be the man in the mirror. This exchange was not a one-time occurrence.
In Grade Ten, however, something changed. I noticed one day that my moustache had curls. All the while before, it was too small to curl. It seemed I had finally reached another growth stage, and my moustache bloomed because of it. Suddenly, my wildest dreams became possible: a perfect handlebar with elegant curls, sideburns, a Franz Joseph beard, and, if you will forgive me the tautology, even an ugly goatee.
At this time, another important development arrived. I moved into all AP classes, and although any statistician would argue that correlation does not imply causation, the evidence seems to speak for itself. I finally began to become the person I had always believed myself to be. Though never truly introverted, I started to come into my own during this time. I stopped being afraid to approach people I had never spoken to. I started to excel in my classes. I even practiced my French a great deal and started to take half-hour walks to school.
I started doing all of this not because there was external pressure from my parents or others. I did it because, after my Grade Nine year, I finally saw that I could not reject reality: I was the man in the mirror, and if I wanted to enjoy my reflection as much as Narcissus, I would have to change. Most importantly, I did it because I believed I could. That was the determining factor that allowed me to succeed: my delusion.
Though my delusion has done many things for me, I do not believe it has ever held me back. It was because of my delusional nature that I started a club called “The Student Assembly” this year. It was because of my delusional nature that I stuck by my club when we were almost shut down for “being set up to directly rival STUGO” and rebranded to InterClub Committee (ICC). And I believe that it is because of my delusional nature that the ICC has doubled its member count to a grand total of six members. My delusional nature has steered me in many ways, but it has never steered me wrong.
Not too long ago, I was walking home with a friend, and we were discussing my chances in a STUGO election. Naturally, I believed that my chances were far above optimal, and to my surprise, my highly pessimistic friend agreed with me, adding that “most people knew who I was. ” He quickly rephrased his statement once I (as I often do) delved into an impromptu speech about my greatness. I am sure he regretted coming anywhere close to stroking my ego, but the damage had already been done. By validating one of my fantasies, he might as well have confirmed them all. I no longer believed in a fantasy; I was becoming aware of a truth.
I still have a mirror, believe it or not, and when I look into it now, I see a tall, well-liked man: a man with plenty of close friends, a man who achieved 90s in his grades last semester, a man who is more than happy with the way he looks. However, most of all, I see a man with a big, wellcurled, bushy, grandiose, and imperial moustache.
by Laura Trivisani
September 28th, 2022. It was a cold school morning. I felt the adrenaline rush through me as I was excited to meet new people and make memories. My dad had dropped me off at school that morning and I rushed to the cafeteria to meet my friend, Sophia. I heard the cafeteria chairs squeaking, the music, excited voices around me it felt like a high school dream to me. My friend and I walked around the cafeteria to say ‘hi’ to some people and wasted some time as we waited for everyone to arrive at school and for the buses to show up outside the main entrance. The grade 11 and 12 camp leaders started handing out t-shirts to everyone, asking what size everyone was. I read the shirt “Grade 9 Orientation Trip 2022.” I remember everyone putting their shirts on excitedly, and everyone arguing about which colour would win the 2022 Colour Wars. It felt like an eternity before we finally got on the bus, heading to Muskoka Woods. The bus ride was fun, taking silly pictures with everyone, listening to music and looking outside the window. When we arrived at the camp, they gave us our luggage and told us to follow the group leaders. I was wearing my vintage free book zip-up with jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt, still feeling the cold air of northern Ontario.
Liam Carbone
Maya Castro
ART
PHOTOGRAPHS
by Natalie Koenig
Bishop Allen Academy.
Welcome to our school, please begin your visit at the office. The journey of a lifetime starts with the turning of a page.
Welcome to our school, every ending is just a new beginning. The journey of a lifetime starts with the turning of a page. You got this!
Every ending is just a new beginning. Nurturing our Catholic community. You got this!
Be kind to everyone.
Nurturing our Catholic community.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Be kind to everyone. Deficiency fuels passion.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. Be ready to learn. Deficiency fuels passion. The beginning of the grad legacy.
Dear oak trees, will you miss us, when we ’ re on our merry way?
The throngs that scurry from the bus, over whom your branches sway?
Tired field, where thick grass grows, whom our stomps dishevel, won’t you crave sports’ kicks and throws, when the ground they level?
Ants concealed in pavement cracks and wasps that pester classes, will you notice what life lacks, when a still September passes?
And stream, rushing to and fro, splashing through this corner, when your window watchers go, will you play the mourner?
Dear oak trees, will you miss us? If not, we’ll go away, but should you fret and fight and fuss, we promise you we’ll stay.
Top left: Charles Campbell; Top right: Stella Smiechowski;
Bottom left: Jack DeMaria; Bottom right: Claudia Kaszowski
Top left: Veronika Poltoradnia; Top right: Sophia MartinsBroderick; Bottom middle: Cassandra Alvarez
SENIOR YEAR
Last first day of school, last picture day, grad polos, last Thursday night lights senior sunrise, last hometown street festivals, last Halloween houseparty. University applications, grad hoodies, semester one exams. One semester left. Grad composite photos, senior superlatives, grad quotes, prom dress shopping, university acceptance letters. Senior assassin, prom!
Last time skipping class, senior signout, senior skip day, senior sunset.
By Sofia Ricci
Last lap around the halls during class, last day of school, last high school exams. Wasaga beach. Goodbyes to friends from childhood, and teachers who have made an impact. It’s graduation day. “The Bishop Allen Class of 2026!”
