For those who are in the honors or AP English track, you know about the persistent friendship and warfare between Ms. Barclay ’94 and Mr. Bevins ’05. If you are fortunate enough to be unaware of the relationship, here’s the watered-down version: it causes all of the struggle and stress that English students at Rosary Academy come to know and love.
Due to their intense competition over the English language, we, as their students, needed to disclose the real truth about their friendship through an extensive interview process. First, Mr. Bevins:
Q: How would you describe your relationship with Ms. Barclay?
A: She is the inspiration behind every great thing I have ever done, which also constantly motivates me to try to defeat and destroy her.
Q: Is Ms. Barclay your number one bestie or enemy at Rosary?
A: That’s a good question. I think that my best course of action is to not respond because if I’ve learned anything from Ms. Barclay, it’s to hide the true motivations of my actions.
Q: How scared are you of Ms. Barclay on a scale from 1-10?
A: Physically: 1
Emotionally: 8.5
Q: How did you guys meet?
A: The first time I met Ms. Barclay, she gave me sincere and non-threatening advice on how to navigate my time at Rosary.
Q: Do you plan your mental torture for students together?
A: At this point, it’s become more of a competition to see who can effectively torture their students more. So now it’s just a process of us trying to outdo the other and to implement the most effective torture techniques possible to turn our students into writing weapons.
Thanks, Mr. Bevins—we love the honesty. Next up is Ms. Barclay, who is pretty legendary at Rosary, so were excited to hear her thoughts about her friendship with Mr. Bevins:
Q: How would you describe your relationship?
A: I would say very tense and fraught with suspicion.
Q: How scared are you of Mr. Bevins 1-10?
A: Physically: 0
Emotionally: 8.7
Q: Are you guys besties or enemies?
A: Will he be seeing my answers? [Ms. Barclay looks at Emma, Emma looks at Ms. Barclay, and we remind Ms. Barclay this is an article for The Royal Reporter] Hmm, let’s leave it at frenemies.
Q: Has there ever been beef?
A: Oh yeah, Grade A, grass fed, wagyu beef
Q: How do you feel about Mr. Bevins bragging about his 100% pass rate the past two years?
Basically, their friendship is as confusing as Mr. Bevins’ poetry analysis. Mr. Bevins thinks there’s no beef, but Ms. Barclay does? What’s the real truth here? We may never know. Their strange relationship will leave Royals questioning their lives for many more years to come; however, these questions definitely cleared up a few things. We can gather that Ms. Barclay and Mr. Bevins love torturing each other and their students, but out of love – of course.
