Halloween, a holiday of rather dubious practice, sparks a great deal of festivous cheer throughout the corridors of The Barstow School. Though typically involving the bespizzling of various ghastly icons throughout one’s land and marching up and demanding candy from innocuous enough home-dwellers, who, evilly enough, partake in such customs as well, Halloween flourishes the imagination and peppers the distraught with joy. As people generally do not don costumes on a quotidian basis, the approach of the holiday is, to most, a time to look forward to. Barstow, a place that tends to frown upon inflicting conscious nightmares on its faculty and student body, observes such a holiday with a bout of fervent door decorating.
At the dawn of a fresh new year, the students of Middle and Upper School are rendered into small, advisable coteries called Advisories, and each advisory, along with the teacher that heads them, decorates the door of the classroom in which they meet. Given a sheet of paper with the hope of pupils making things or bringing things from home, the decorating of such a door requires a good deal of daydreaming and fantasizing. The bedazzled doors of this year, judged by parading battalions of kindergarteners, did not disappoint.
With “Standards High” (Barstow’s sagely song) marching through the air, Dr. Markely’s advisory trounced their neighbors with a splendiferous door display (Wrachel Jacobs ’26)
The Dembinski Druzzlypop, intended to resemble a minion from the third Depicable Me movie (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
“The Average Human Bondy contains enough bones to make an entire human skeleton.” (Wrachel Jacobs ’26)
With soaring bats and congenial ghosts, the Spicer Advisory spiced their door with the utmost of enthusiasm (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Mr. Gaffney’s Advisory door, somewhat illustrious in the history of doors, sprouted many a trifling rumor. For instance, frolicing about the school were the facts that the Gaffney Advisory erected a three-hundred dollar light display, and that they snagged the flamboyant yellow and black tape from a nearby construction gathering (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Mrs. Culver’s advisory, whimsical and quite the Halloween-esque array, piqued the interest of many the melancholy passerby (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Mr. Downs’ Advisory aspired to frighten the studious out of their jumpers, although did not particularly target their door toward innocuous kindergarten judges (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Mrs. Garrels’ Advisory tinkered away with the imposing idea that the more mutilated corpses, the merrier (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).Bloody and all the merry drear, this door is more likely to inspire nightmares than that of triumph (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Mrs. Kramschuster’s advisory door showcases amiable two-eyed Mike Wazowskies (a certain character from a Pixar Motion picture) and grim-faced pumkineers. It has been said that the Kramschuster Underlings were blungeoned into their door decorating with only a pigeony smidgen of time (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” -Leonardo DeVinci. Mr. Thurman’s advisory hoped to charm kindergarters with finely polished wood (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
An attempt at a candy graveyard, as was divulged by a member of Mrs. Guldin’s advisory, provides an interesting spectacle (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
It has been remarked that the Ketchell Advisory executed their idea with perhaps the utmost of promptness and swiftness, taking no more than twenty minutes to complete the entirety of their door. Whether haste begets taste is a question one must ask oneself upon seeing such a door, the Joker being, though, rather frightening (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
The Gantor Grumbleton (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Ms. Wood’s henchpeople bedazzle hallway maunderers with pumpkins and grumpkins and handy withered hands (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).Mrs. Tillema‘s Advisory has quite blatantly advised passerbys to remain as far away as possible (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).Madame Valluet’s Advisory Door was said to have been made to resemble a clock from the television show “Stanger Things”. Whether kindergarten students know of it or not is a fine query indeed (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).Perhaps the cleverest of them all, Mr. Kohler’s advisory exploited kindergarteners’ interests into making a Paw Patrol (a strikingly popular children’s television show) themed door (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Mrs. Lackey’s advisory, located in one of Barstow’s many dungeons, drew a rather smile-evoking collection of friends (Wrachel Jacobs ’26).
Through trials, though failures, through yelps and through all on a manner of catoptromanical doings, the judges judged while all else paused in their twiddling, clenched their hands to their breasts, and wished all of their adversaries eternally soggy socks. As the kindergarteners trooped through the corridors, the collective Middle and Upper School wrung their hands, agog, gravely awaiting the trounce of the trouncer, presumably their own.
In a due course of time, The Paw-Busters Door of the Kohler’s Advisory (let it be noted, dear reader, that the BTVN episode trumpeting to the school the culmination of such a contest spelled Mr. Kohler’s title quite wrongly, with the ‘h’ stooped and alone and beside itself with thistly feelings) in the third place.
Rather than conforming to conventionality, as one tends to do, Barstow toppled second place from its snug bearings and supplanted it with a two-edged victory. The slot of first place was granted to Mr. Gaffney’s Advisory (as was to be expected), and Mrs. Thornborough’s Advisory, which sat with a want of all trite and true.
All-in-all, doors and doors and doors galore evinced splendor, and all the more, for now and for forevermore.
Rachel I. Jacobs resides as the official scumdiddling troucher of Kansas City. She is a solemn professional who is so well-known that she doesn’t even have to wear a name tag. Rachel’s favourite letter combinations are either WR, SN, or GR, and she loves them so much that she finds herself routinely cramming them into sentences (she also likes the letter M). Charle Scabjo (as she anagramically named herself)’s noblest aspiration in life is to empty out the Costco warehouse and slide about the building in her socks. She enjoys sliding about warehouses in her socks (not that she’s ever done so), although she is rather prone to toppling over and wounding the floor (sorry, mate). She hopes to one day become a space pirate (her vicious gurgling-noises are steadily improving) for the insurance-benefits and inclusive work environment, and takes delight in eating egg salad. Rachel’s cats, Agent Sparkles and Edward Zamboni, have, depressingly, never eaten egg salad.
