Twas the night before Halloween and all through school, the GO was setting up so the campus would look cool. Unfortunately, no one appreciated the crepe paper wrapped around stairwells because it was promptly torn down by 8th graders running through the halls. The fake spider webs too only lasted a few periods before they were broken by firefighters who ran through center campus for the third fire drill of the day, and the 15th fire drill of the year.
“It’s exciting every year when you spot the one seventh grader who hasn’t realized no one celebrates Halloween at school and wears an entire costume straight from the Party City Rainbow section."
Edgemont has notoriously little school spirit, but this year, the GO was hopeful that people might show a little excitement for our first in-school Halloween after a year of hybrid learning. Sadly, their hard work was all for naught because hardly anyone noticed the decorations.
Anya, class of ‘22 explained her disappointment. “It’s exciting every year when you spot the one seventh grader who hasn’t realized no one celebrates Halloween at school and wears an entire costume straight from the Party City Rainbow section. As a member of the GO, I even had to come to school at 7:00 to decorate the campus, and it feels like it was barely appreciated.” The only silver lining to this waste of time was that she got the best parking spot in the slot.
Although few dressed up for Halloween, it was comforting to see that some things never change, such as students’ hunger for candy. As soon as the first freshmen saw fellow students carrying around buckets of candy, the hallways became a bloodbath as students fought each other for measly Airheads.
I spoke to one of the students who was passing out candy and survived the incident. “It was a terrifying experience. I was just trying to be friendly on Halloween by giving out my leftover trick or treating candy from last year, but as soon as people saw what was happening, I got mobbed. One student from the modified football team tried to tackle me. They obviously didn’t have the upper body strength for that, but then a 7th grader climbed a door to jump onto me and get my candy from above. I tried to escape, but all I could do was try to defend myself from the crowd.” The student has chosen to remain anonymous in case anyone approaches him for more candy, and he or she has not yet gone on a strict no-candy diet, as most of us have, because the sight of Twix wrappers gives them severe PTSD. This was a real-life nightmare of Halloween.
In order to satiate the masses, the GO had to resort to passing out candy in between classes to avoid another battle like this. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, there was no candy available to be passed out, until the ghost of Halloween Past revealed a box of expired Halloween candy in the D building annex. This seemed to be an adequate solution, until someone on the PTA sued the students for passing out expired candy.
After an eventful morning of court battles and real battles over candy, the students seemed to settle into their classes. Unfortunately, the peace didn’t last long because as usual, 5th period was interrupted by another fire drill caused by a burnt panini. Luckily, the Greenburgh Fire Department has learned to anticipate the daily fire drills we have, so there is now a firetruck permanently installed on Artillery Lane.
Just when the day seemed to calm down, there was another turn of events. The ghost of Halloween Past returned for one more fun surprise. It turned out that Mr. Fleck had taken Halloween too far this year and had spent the past month trying to become invisible. Finally, he achieved his goal on Halloween but wasn’t able to turn back to normal. Mr. Hosier summoned the ghosts of Halloween Present and Future to reverse the spell, but nothing is strong enough to combat the dark magic of the guidance suite. Luckily, these spells only last 3.14 dog years, so Mr. Fleck should be back before February break to send our senior class off to college.
Before the day could get any weirder, the final bell rang at 3:02 to the tune of “Monster Mash.” Life seemed to return to normal with the usual gridlock in the slot as everyone rushed to get home and enjoy a calm, quiet, and uneventful halloweekend.