I Haunted My School

Clanging and boisterous yelling reaches my pale ears. Thumping and booming makes the tiny locker vibrate like an earthquake, and the sounds reverberate back, their echoes as shrill as nails on a chalkboard. The students should be switching classes any minute now. I remember what it was like as a Selbyville Middle School Student. I used to bang my head against rusty lockers like this one all the time. Lucky for me, students haven’t used my locker since last year, because everyone thinks its haunted. I really don’t blame them either for thinking this absurdly small locker is haunted. They have every right to believe it, in fact, because it’s true. When I was in 7th grade, my mom was driving me home from a track meet when a drunk driver ran a red light and hit our van. I haven’t been the same since. Ok, fine, I haven’t been alive since either. Since last year, I’ve been roaming around a lot thinking about where to go. I haven’t seen any angels yet, or my man God. Since the shock wore off that I turned into a ghost…yea a ghost! What’s with that? I don’t have any unfinished business besides the fact I didn’t do my homework on my last day. I really felt bad about my friends, so I decided to stay here at SMS for their 8th grade year. I live in one of those old lockers that some kid screwed up, so I guess you could call it my bachelor pad. 1

I stretch my ghostly self and I peek out the vents. Just as I imagined, students crammed the hallway getting ready for their next class. Yeah, sure, more like spending as much time as they can out of class. Soon, the last of the students scurry away, or are shooed into the classrooms by over-worked and under-paid teachers.  Making sure the coast is clear, I glide out of my little nook and proceed to drift down the hallway. The hallway is wallpapered with bright green lockers. They’re so tiny that a 6th grader can’t even fit in it. I know, I tried escaping from English one time in 6th. 2

Even though the feelings the school used to give me are long dead, no pun intended, I still feel I need to roam these halls. As I drift noiselessly along the long corridor I see the new hall monitor doing…erm…hall monitor stuff. They’ve got cameras everywhere Sometimes I think on their breaks teachers have fun watching the cameras, sorta like a reality TV show.   The halls otherwise are completely bare, the long tiled floor way winding its way along the halls like a patchwork snake. A really dirty snake that is. The walls are a weird grayish colour, like some cheap paint you’d find gracing the walls of a penitentiary. It’s funny how when people think there is someone watching them, they never look close enough. I guess those eyes on the back of the Hall Nazi’s head weren’t quick enough to catch me. I drift right through her, which sends her shivering as she prowls along the hall. 3

I browse along the desolate halls, finally coming to my old 6th grade hallway. After two more years of abuse by rampant 11 year olds, its still in the same shape it was in when I was there. Still the same old musty smell of textbooks being eaten away by some old mutant fungus. Broken pencils litter the floor. (And they wonder where all these pencils go) The lockers look as if they’ve just eaten Thanksgiving dinner. I gaze longingly inside the glass window of the classroom. That same old teacher sitting in the same old spot in the same room with the same expression, kinda like someone stepped in some nasty stuff.  The students all had the same expressions: robotic and stupefied. Some had red markings on face from trying to prop up their head so that they wouldn’t drift off. Drool escaped a couple of the students’ mouths, wishing someone would just shoot them already.4

I browse down the halls once more before doubling back to the cafeteria. As soon as I walk down the hall towards the cafeteria, I see a poster of myself plastered to the wall. It’s got my name and the day I died on it. It reads, “When you drink and drive you’re not the only person it effects.” Leave it to the nurse to make my death into a huge drama. A familiar smell greets me…not a good one mind you. Cafeteria food: the other white meat. It not only looks funny but it tastes, smells, and feels funny. We used to have contests to see whom’s hot dog could jump the farthest when dropped. Salty, tangy smells reached my nose. The health inspector must’ve just visited. I glanced at the kids eating. One that was laughing was my best friend. I felt a twinge. This was the first time I’d seen him laugh since the accident. Suddenly, I wished I was there for him right then. In these stupid boring halls with everybody else.5

I start drifting back, to my lonely locker. I feel satisfied yet somehow sad. Maybe he didn’t need me anymore. I pass the band room where I hear squeaky clarinets squawk like the dying wail of a goose. I sigh to myself. Past the art, music, and health room, all particularly quiet. Some kid is wailing behind the sound of a saw in the SHOP room. Past the FACS room, I hear the busy whir of sewing machines, then an “Ouch” and finally a “Lucas don’t floor the foot petal!” 6

I laughed to myself all along the way back the dusty corridors. I pass the Nurse’s office, the home of the magical peppermints that cure all ailments from Hepatitis B to broken collarbones. Then past the guidance office. I can almost see the fuzzy sunshine flowers and rainbows beckoning kids inside to brainwash them into becoming an effective member of society. I sigh and make my way to the end of the corridor where my locker sits. I try to turn into my hallway, when suddenly something stops me. I look ahead where the double metal doors are, or are supposed to be. Instead there is a strange white light that really hurts my eyes. Ok that’s freaky, ‘cause I’ve never seen that before. Maybe a custodian is bringing lights in from storage. (The always look like they have more fun anyway) I step closer until the white light is so close I feel like E.T.  Golden beams beckon me in the light as I finally step off, out of my world.                                                                 7