Riney Loves You

On a warm July night in the summer of 2024, a group of middle school nerds attending a WashU math camp heard something strange on the way back to their dorm from a pizza party in the Women’s Building. “Waaaaahhhhhh, waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!” A strange crying noise rang clear through the trees. They walked towards it slowly through the grass, taking the hypotenuse, of course. In the middle of the grass, they discovered her: a small ball of clay, nearly unidentifiable in the grass, but certainly alive. For the first moment in their high-achieving pick-me lives, they didn’t speak a word. Out of the crying came a name much like a mediocre slice of bread thrown on an even worse body part, “Rye Knee,” she squealed. Her name was Riney, she was a living ball of dirt, and these six little nerds would go on a life changing adventure to save her.
As they couldn’t quite take her back to the dorm, they decided to leave her by Wrighton Hall and go sleep for the night. They would hatch a plan in the morning. But poor Riney wouldn’t have another day to wait. Just when the young mathematicians scuttled back to the 40, an ominous figure emerged from the shadows. He had a shiny bald head, round glasses, and a newly straightened set of teeth. He marched over to Riney: “Well, well, well, what do we have here…” Supreme Leader Martin foamed at the mouth at the sounds of Riney. He knew he would finally have a brand new species to silence. But first he had to figure out what Riney was and why she was here. He picked up Riney but she let out a deafening roar and bit him on the head. Chancellor Martin quickly devised a plan with his board of trustees to keep anyone else away from his newest pet. Over night, they put up fences—his signature move. They placed an Amazon overnight shipping order for fake bulldozers and hard hats to stage construction on a new building, which he fittingly named Riney Hall.
When the young mathletes returned to find Riney in the morning, she was trapped deep behind layers of fences. They all feared for what was happening to their new friend. They imagined horrible scenarios of Riney being bulldozed, or worse, rained on. Sadly, their young minds couldn’t conceive of the evil experimentation being unleashed onto poor Riney’s body. Throughout the day, evil henchmen dressed as construction workers poked and prodded at Riney, digging at her insides and squishing her to bits. Riney’s wails were not enough to save her over the deafening sound of the excavator.
In hopes of letting Riney know they were there, the math nerds returned at night with a Dirt Cup from Cherry Tree. Throwing it over the many fences separating them from Riney with a perfectly calculated parabolic trajectory, of course. Riney received the gift and happily slurped up the gummy worms, amassing more dirt. The kids cheered when they realized she got the gift, but they were still anxious about the fate of Riney.
Every day this summer they repeated the process: they spent the day doing long division, and the night feeding Riney her dirt cup and praying for her safety behind the fences. All the while, Riney was getting large. It was the last day of camp, and the students realized they could see Riney peeking out from the innermost fence. She had grown so much from all the dirt cups they had been feeding her. They realized they couldn’t go home. Riney was too close to freedom. So they bought two trenchcoats, stacking three middle schoolers in each and enrolling the resulting two adults into WashU as math majors, of course.
As the school year continued, Riney kept growing at unprecedented rates. Boy, was Chancellor Martin thrilled. He knew discovering a new species could be a legacy so large it would surpass arresting his own students. But he never would have expected what happened next. When the day for Riney’s escape came, the students in trenchcoats could hardly do simple addition. But they commenced their plan. They connected a firehose from that one fire hydrant on Mudd field, and flooded the construction site. Riney was able to swim up and out of every last fence. Now free on the other side, they had to run from WUPD, who was alerted to the commotion from their late night DUC and Donuts.
But the students were fast, surfing atop the mud(d) slide created by Riney’s escape down Brookings Hill and off the East end of campus. They surfed Riney through Forest Park, getting cheers from the night swimmers in the Art Hill basin. They continued east, splashing El Burro Loco margs with mud on the way through the Central West End and taking the world’s largest chess piece with them. Word of their journey began to spread as they tore through SLU’s campus. People hopped in and out of the wave and these six middle schoolers were soon the heroes of St. Louis. The journey seemed to be coming to an end as they neared the Mississippi River. But Riney was not stopping there. Something was calling her home across the river. She longed for the Cahokia Mounds.
The students were able to put two and two together, of course. And they all booked one way tickets on the Mississippi Riverboat Gambling Casino. The math nerds salivated at the opportunity to use knowledge of probability to take money from drunk gamblers, but the staff on the Mississippi Riverboat Gambling Casino wouldn’t let minors gamble. They were gracious enough to ferry Riney and the kids across to East St. Louis, where they finished the journey at Cahokia Mounds.
At the mounds was a family of dirt piles just like Riney. They all welcomed her with warm moss. The kids were proud of what they had accomplished, and knew they could finally go home. But they were sad to no longer be a part of Riney’s life. As they turned to head home, they heard a familiar sound: “Waaaaahhhhhhhh, wahhhhhhhhhhhhh.” While she might be a massive hill now, deep inside, she was still baby Riney. They all ran back and jumped into her gooey fudgy core. Riney let out one final goodbye: “Riney loves youuuuuuuuuuu.”
Those middle schoolers were later arrested by WUPD and suspended from campus.