Of Koi and Confessions
Welcome back, everyone! And thank you for reading the Law Weekly’s finest, the Head Intern’s first piece of the 2026–2027 school year. It’s been too long, and despite my pleas to the Co-Editors-in-Chief that the Law Weekly should continue to publish issues over the summer—because a Law Weekly issue delayed is a Law Weekly issue denied—the rest of the team and I were furloughed without pay. But we’re back! And still without pay!
If you’re a new reader, you should know that I joined the Law Weekly last year and attained numerous awards and record-breaking readership. For anyone eager to fact-check me, please see the article “The Law Weekly Wrapped 2025–2026,” where the top three placements for the year consisted entirely of first-rate journalism by yours truly.
Before my reign, it used to be said that “The best place to hide a dead body is page two of the Law Weekly,” but now it is said, “The worst place to hide a dead body is page two of the Law Weekly.” If you’re wondering why page two is the newfound pride and joy of the Law Weekly, it’s because the aforementioned Co-Editors-in-Chief consistently deny my birthright of front-page placement and often put my articles on page two. Oh well, you know what they say, first is the worst, and second is the best!
Nevertheless, heavy is the crown of the king of the Law Weekly, and with great power comes great responsibility. And as an honorable journalist, I have a confession to make. The missing koi that was the subject of my February 2026 article, “Of Koi and Consequences” (which topped the podium of the aforementioned “The Law Weekly Wrapped 2025–2026”), was never really missing at all. But in my defense, I really thought it was.
In “Of Koi and Consequences,” I wrote about a large koi fish I visited every so often in the pond by the Riparian Garden behind the Forum Hotel (I also talked about my swimming workouts with my friends, but that was just to be an overachiever and exceed the recommended word count for Law Weekly articles). Long story short, at some point not too far into the Fall 2025 semester, the koi disappeared, and I was perplexed, so I wrote the article.
Then, in the middle of April, the Law Weekly received highly credible intelligence that the koi had returned. My article had reached the masses (as they tend to do), and a search team was deployed for the missing koi. It turns out, when the water temperatures drop, koi fish enter a hibernation-like state called torpor and move to the bottom of the body of water they are in. I didn’t think the pond behind the Forum was deep enough for the koi to hide like that, given the size of the fish and its bright orange blaze, and I also thought that it had disappeared long before the temperature got cold enough that it needed to enter a dormant state. But, sure enough, that must be what happened, as when the Law Weekly’s informant shared the news of the koi’s presence with a verified picture, I went to the pond with my own search party and locked eyes with none other than the no-longer-missing koi. So, if the informant is reading this, thank you very much for your assistance (and for reading my article), and you are welcome to claim the promised prize of a Domino’s pizza any Monday at 5:30 pm in SL279.
And as I’m sure inquiring minds would like to know: yes, in fact, the koi survived the summer (somewhat shockingly given the small pond it is in, the fact that it sticks out like a sore thumb, and the number of hawks seen around North Grounds). Please see the picture accompanying this article for proof. I would still like to know the origins of this koi, so if anyone knows how it got into this pond and if it has any caretakers, please reach out to the Law Weekly.
So, there it is. The koi lives and so does honorable journalism. I hope you are all relieved to learn this information, and I will be back with any further updates. After all, in her departing Hot Bench, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Nicky Demitry ’26 gave me a call-to-action: “I hope that Adam and others continue to update our readers on such happenings around North Grounds. So by the news, I mean important things like the fish . . . . It's important.” It is important, Nicky, and I hope you read this article wherever you may be and are proud that “the news” is still being reported here at North Grounds.
Well, that’s all for now, folks, or at least until I think of another article to write. Or, in a much more likely scenario, another one of my articles gets fact-checked, and I have to write a confession.
Author: Adam Slocum ’27