So The Rumors Were True

This is yet another story from my childhood. Sorry in advance for the length!

My sister and I used to go to a small Chinese private school in Malabon before moving to Canada. It is a very long rectangular building with a mezzanine where the science labs, school clinic and library are located. The end of the mezzanine houses an expansive stairwell that leads from the upstairs classrooms down to where the washrooms are. Kids could hold full games of cops & robbers in these stairwells. To lessen confusion about this stairwell, there would be the classroom-level stairs, then you'd have to walk through an expansive landing to get to the last set of stairs to the washrooms. Whoever the architect was wasted a lot of space here as there are storage rooms located off to the side of the landing for extra desks and chairs. The mezzanine is usually quiet while classes are ongoing, as all four rooms were only ever unlocked when needed.

The end of the mezzanine and stairwell were rumored to be haunted for a few reasons: 1) the lack of constant human activity in this space, 2) some of our more sensitive classmates would swear they could feel things walking through there, 3) we'd always find random, unexplainably squashed kittens. I say unexplainable because the kittens' bodies would be the only things completely flattened; their heads would be fine, and there was never any blood/innards surrounding the poor things to suggest they've been stepped on.

I had two personal experiences with the mezzanine.

Stay Away

Wanting confirm the rumors, I somehow roped our class president into coming with me to investigate. I'd forgotten why we had to stay later that day. It must have been because of one of the after-school AP programs just because the class prez was there, too. Even most of the cleaning staff had all gone home. It was dusk (around 5:30PM). We'd asked the last cleaner if we could pop up into the mezzanine because "I'd lost my watch earlier and would like to look for it." Heh heh heh.

I mentioned the end stairwells, but there is a more normal-sized staircase at the front end of the mezzanine that comes up from the main quadrangle. We went up those steps and crept past the first science lab. So far so good. The class prez was squeezing the life out of my arm as we crept halfway past the second science lab when a loud bang that sounded like a chair being slammed down came from the end of the hallway. Class prez and I froze, and then she took off running back down to the quadrangle! I stayed for a bit to see if whoever it was might come out, or even cuss for dropping a chair. Nothing else happened to I took it as my cue to leave.

I realize this could be attributed to gravity, but that would have meant the chair fell pretty darn perfectly to not cause any other falling noises.

The Black Lady

Our mom was the head science teacher which sometimes meant my sister and I had to stay later at school with her.

One afternoon we were with our mom in one of the science labs when my sister needed to go to the washroom. She's about 9 or 10 in this story. We were hanging out and doing homework while mom did inventory on the equipment for her class the next day. She takes the stairway towards the back end of the mezzanine. A few minutes later she comes back to the science lab.

"There was a lady who came out of the storage room on the bottom floor as I was coming down the stairs."

"Oh? Was it Ate Beth?" I asked. Ate Beth was usually in charge of grabbing chairs and desks out of the storage rooms. I thought it was weird that she'd just say "lady"; everyone knew the cleaning staff by name.

"No, she was taller and skinnier. She had a black dress on." My sister's telling me this in the matter-of-fact, oblivious way kids do sometimes. I'm not even sure she properly processed what she saw.

"A black dress," I gaped at her. "Did she see you?" I'm trying to keep a level head because I'm familiar with the Philippine superstitions surrounding black ladies. Making eye contact with them usually meant you'd die in a matter of days.

"No. She moved very fast from the storage room and out towards the washrooms. I didn't even see her by the time I got there." She thought for a bit. "Hey, I don't think I even heard the storage door open. She was just already there."

The storage room door and its hinges are cast-iron.

At this point I decided to distract her with the displays around the lab before she starts thinking too hard about her black lady.

Thanks for reading!