After School Special
One story not enough? Still not convinced, Okay fair enough. Here we go again.
I guess I should start this by saying I have quite a few hobbies too many to name. For the sake of saving time Ill just say that baking is one of many. I liked it from an early age, my mom and grandma taught me all they knew about the subject. I thought it was fun so I started small with cookies, cup cakes, cakes and went from there. The saying practice makes perfect really never applied to me. Instead I practiced so much it just became second nature to me but I was far from perfect. I began baking regularly for most things that called for a celebratory dessert. I enjoyed it so much so I would end up taking it well into my teens and “adult” life.
After mentioning all that it brings me to this story. I had just finished 8th grade, at the time graduating middle school was such a big deal. The summer months came and went quicker than I remember. So began the new fall semester and I entered into my first year of high school. As I was picking my classes for the year besides the mandatory ones. The school had things they called “electives.” In the list they gave us I saw something I thought would catch my interest...something called food science.
Now again I don't want to bore you so I’ll get to the point as quickly as possible.What the class mainly about food if you couldn't guess that already. What about food well cooking it, what its made of, the difference between cooking/baking and the different kind of tools needed. So far I had liked the class it was fun and a decent amount of work. The first half of the school year had gone by and was coming to a close when our teacher had told the class about a baking contest anyone could enter. I thought about it I mean it sounded interesting, after a week before the starting date I decided to join.
At this time people had been joining and dropping out so quickly to the point the teacher decided to hold baking practice after school. If you were committed to coming to practice twice a week then you were less likely to quit. (Remember they had been doing this routine for awhile I was a late comer.) Here we are a week and a half before the actual competition. A few days earlier I had made a recipe I felt pretty good about something I called “pb kiss cups.” Essentially it was a peanut butter cookie I put thumbprint size hole and stuck a Hershey Kiss into the middle. The teacher thought I would do well and so I decided to try to enter them to see how they did.
Before the competition we were told we had been officially put on the list to compete, there's was only one problem. I had just found out in the morning during school it was an out of town competition. Being underage I needed my parents consent. Knowing this would not be enough time to get things ready I was about to back out all together until the home education/family teacher found out you can still enter without being there physically. (as long as someone could go on your behalf, such as a teacher.)
I had stayed a couple times after school with no problems but then one day before the competition I had to stay after it just felt different. I don't know if it was being under pressure or worried about failing there was something. One of my “friends” decided to stay after and help me. While we were almost finishing with the cookies she remembered she had forgotten something in her locker. I thought nothing of it and we left the building to go to the opposite side of the school to where the freshmen lockers were.
To our misfortune the doors we usually enter from were locked and needed a special key to unlock like all doors in this school. We had no choice but to walk around to another door this time it was unlocked and so we entered the building. I must say if you have never been in a school after everyone has gone home the empty, dim-lit hallways are lifeless and just give you the creeps. I don’t know about her but I tried to walk as fast as I could to get to the end where you had to enter through another hallway and a heavy set of double doors.
You have to realize something I’m fourteen not strong, not tall and definitely not brave. When I say these double doors were heavy I mean it took us both to open them. We tried to open the first set of doors but they wouldn't move not even a little. Finally deciding it was hopeless we made our way to the second set of doors which did open and we went through no problem. She found her locker got what she needed and we made our way out of there. As we walked out the double doors we had entered there was a sudden gust of wind and it opened the first set of doors which we had stated were locked. We watched in shock not believing what we had seen. “There was just no way, we tried everything to open them and they didn’t move,” I thought. Standing in silence for what felt like forever, a women appeared behind us. Scaring us practically to almost fainting she asked us how we got in and we asked her the same thing in response. She had told us she was left cleaning the building and had made sure to lock up everything. We told her how we got in then what had happened and she had a look on her face that she didn’t believe us.
Clearly seeing how scared we were she escorted us out of the building making sure to lock the door behind us. We went back to the cooking class finished/cleaned up and tried to get out of there as fast as possible. I later found out that I won 2nd place and that this weird stuff happened to other people. It was possible that the school could have been haunted but who really knows.....guess its just another after school special....