Pack of Band-Aids: $3.29. Bottle of hydrogen peroxide: $0.89. Tube of Neosporin: $4.99. Telling the story of how you fought off 15 street ninjas on the streets of Tokyo only to receive an awesome scar: priceless. There is one thing that makes a scar more than just an injury: the story behind it. Although we do not live in Tokyo and there are no street ninjas, the students at this school still have quite a few captivating scar stories to tell.

Alfredo Marin
At the age of 12, junior Alfredo Marin faced a life-threatening situation that started with a seemingly random bump on his head. Although such bumps are often caused by a hard hit to the head, Alfredo does not recall any such contact.
After he started getting extreme headaches, his parents took him to the doctor, who found that a tumor had developed in Alfredo’s brain.
“When they first told me, I was scared, but as the time for the surgery came I started losing the fear,” Alfredo said.
Alfredo recovered well from the surgery, but a U-shaped scar remains from where the doctors cut his head for surgery.
“Now I have this scar that a lot of people think is a design that I do to my hair,” Alfredo said.

Alycia Ellington
Junior Alycia Ellington’s scar, which is shaped like an orange slice, is proof that little kids can get more than just mental scars from leafy greens; Alycia was physically scarred while standing in the salad line at Fresh Choice.
As she excitedly piled more food onto her plate, Alycia’s tray suddenly flipped over. Forks and spoons clattered harmlessly on the floor, but one of the plates went right into her ankle.
“It cut in hecka deep,” Alycia said. “You could see a little of my bone, and the people at Fresh Choice didn’t even give me a Band-Aid.”
Since then, Alycia has not set foot in that same Fresh Choice.

Julien Salah
Sophomore Julien Salah’s ring-shaped scar on his finger brings him back the memory of literally losing his finger.
When Julien was 14 years old, he noticed his bike wasn’t running well, and so he decided to try and fix it.
As he flipped his bike over and spun the wheel, he turned around to get something from his tool box.
Before he knew it his finger was gone. The spinning wheel had chopped it and thrown it 20 feet away.
“I started hecka shaking and panicking, but it didn’t hurt because I was in so much shock,” Julien said. “I started walking around in circles.”
When his parents took him to the hospital, Julien’s doctors found nothing to do other than remove skin from his elbow to stick back his finger. His finger is now where it is supposed to be, but the scar can be easily noticed from a great distance.

Andrea Ayala
Every time junior Andrea Ayala looks at herself in the mirror and sees the egg-shaped scar by her left eye, she is reminded of her stuntwoman attempts at the age of six. Unfortunately, her plans didn’t go as well as she had hoped.
Andrea was perched on a running pickup truck and was trying to calculate how to jump in order to land on her feet.
“I had seen it in cartoons, so I thought it would be easy to do,” Andrea said.
When the truck started moving, she ran for the edge and spread her wings. Unfortunately her wings didn’t carry her very high.
“I didn’t land how people in cartoons landed,” Andrea said. “Instead I fell flat on my face.”

John Hersey
Sophomore John Hersey also had a perilous incident involving the roof of an automobile, though his car was plastic and the incident occurred in the kitchen.
Like many other little children, John enjoyed playing with the family’s little toy car. John was perched on the roof and his sister was pushing when John suddenly decided to stop. When he applied his feet as brakes, he toppled from the automobile’s roof and gouged his forehead on the counter.
“There was blood running down my face,” John said. “I wish I was old enough to remember it, even though it probably hurt a lot.”
The scar traces the contour below his left eyebrow and serves as a reminder of his childhood exploits.
“I wasn’t a very bright kid—‘was’ being a key word,” John said.