It was October, and as a third grade teacher
I was determined to have a successful year in my
new assignment. It wasn't uncommon for me to stay
in my classroom to check papers and prepare for the next day. Maybe it was all the time I spent after hours, but it didn't take long for me to figure out there was something very strange going on in the old school.
The building was built in 1932 and the pipes often made clanking sounds. The floors and the stairs creaked. But, there was comfort in my solace and eventually I grew use to the late hours and the strange sounds of the school. Sometimes Angela the custodian would come by to check on me. She'd finish cleaning all the classrooms in her wing, and peek her head to say hello. She was a welcome sight and her visit gave me a nice break.
One Friday evening, Angela came in a little earlier in her shift. She said hello as she entered my classroom. But I noticed something was wrong. She looked a little pale and was unusually quiet. "Are you O.K.?" I asked. She smiled and asked,"Miss, are you going to stay a little longer? I'm thinking of closing up a little earlier tonight." I glanced out the window. It was dark outside and I knew it was pretty late. "Well, I'm almost finished, is there something wrong?"
She looked at me for a few moments, not sure whether to divulge her secret. She whispered,
"I.....think...I......saw a ghost."
I stared at her and realized she was not joking. "Wha...Where did you see this ghost?" I followed her to the second floor. My mind raced wildly. What if an intruder had broken into the school? Angela explained she was in one of the classrooms on the first floor when she heard footsteps going up the stairs. She followed the sound all the way to the old wing. Then she noticed the footsteps stopped outside room 205. As she entered the classroom, she heard the rufffling of papers. She didn't see anything out of place. She was about to leave, when all of a sudden she noticed a woman sitting in the corner at the teacher's desk. Angela stopped what she was doing and stared. "The woman looked transparent and seemed to be sorting papers. She didn't look at me at all," Angela blurted. " It was the strangest thing. Then she just stood up and walked across the room. She disappeared in the wall!"
I looked around the empty classroom. This was the oldest part of the school. The room had several windows. "Are you sure it wasn't a reflection?" I asked trying to convince myself of a logical explanation. I knew that the classroom faced the playground. If the room had faced the teacher's parking lot, I could dismiss it to the head lights of a passing car. But there weren't vehicles or anything with lights coming from the playground.
"Oh no, Miss it was a woman.....a teacher, I think....She never looked at me. She just got up from that desk over there and walked through the wall. I could see right through her." I remained quiet and tried not to let it scare me. As we walked down the stairs, we passed the first floor hallway. "Look Miss, that's the woman!" I froze, expecting to see an apparition. But Angela was pointing to a portrait hanging on the wall. The photograph had a small brass plate underneath.
"It read Elizabeth Graham, Principal 1936" I stared at her picture for several seconds. "Angela, this woman was the Principal of the school. But it couldn't be her. Elizabeth Graham died a long time ago." Angela didn't waver, "that's the same woman I saw in the classroom."
Now go and write some amazing Short Scary Stories
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