By Sarah Parmet On the first day, the time of the month struck everyone. Including the boys. A mass panic ensued, and school was quickly shut down within the first eight minutes and thirty-six seconds of class.
On the second day, a flurry of wasps were released upon the Quad. Anyone eating chicken or wearing anything other than monogram colors was violently harassed. As one of the unlucky few who was eating a Chinese chicken salad and wearing light purple, I was mistaken for a flower and had to hide in a garbage can.
On the third day, mosquitos swarmed in every classroom. Everyone failed the calculus quiz, as they were too busy scratching to actually write. The only thing I managed to derive was blood from the bites on my legs. Just like the students, the teachers were overwhelmed with itchiness and failed to get first-quarter grades into the portal.
On the fourth day, a pack of hungry wolverines went on a violent rampage, scratching all the trophy cases, and pooping over the dean’s desks. They also ate all the math teachers, except for the ex-military Calc BC teacher, who managed to fend them off with a ruler. They then camped out in the English office and peed on all the 11th-grade Honors English essays.
On the fifth day, the campus was covered in dead wolverines. Unfortunately, it was supposed to be Orange Chicken Day. The cafeteria team made a quick decision. Orange Chicken Day became Orange Wolverine Day. Chicken is too expensive anyway. The next day, a record number of students and teachers called in sick for food poisoning, and the orange chicken was blacklisted from the cafeteria menu.
On the sixth day, students woke up with various formulas written all over them. For instance, I found my Honors Physics kinematics equations on my left thigh and the principles of Jacksonian democracy on my right armpit. Everyone subsequently took their tests wearing green morph suits (we were going to wear Ski masks, but this one sophomore had the Pythagorean theorem on their eyelids).
On the seventh day, one of the school buildings suddenly caught on fire. The entire school evacuated on the field and made bets about which building was burning down. Most students were vying to see the math building go down in flames, but it turned out to actually be the old gym with no air conditioning. Suddenly, a shower of rain started pouring down and put out the fire. However, there was also lightning, which struck the history building.
On the eighth day, locusts swarmed the school and devoured anything they saw as food. This was actually quite good for the cafeteria, which was struggling to get rid of their wolverine pot pie, wolverine burgers, and Kung Pao wolverine. For some reason, they mistook the sophomores for food as well, and kidnapped the entire class of 2026 within five hours. The campus was never more peaceful.
On the ninth day, pure darkness settled over our sunny California campus. Unfortunately, this happened when I was stunting during cheer practice. The JV soccer team, which was practicing across from us, accidentally kicked the ball into one of my bases, instead of the goal. She dropped me, and I hit something hard on the way down (which I later found out was the soccer goal).
I knew as de facto cheer captain (my coach only makes seniors captain), it was my job to rally the troops and be a leader. I ordered us all to huddle together to keep warm. To raise our spirits, I forced us to do the “Macarena”, “Cha Cha Slide,” and “Cupid Shuffle”. I also made everyone practice their cheers.
In the original story, the tenth day is the killing of the firstborn male of each family. But due to something called “wokeness”, the administration decided this would be politically incorrect (also, a lot of boys could escape this fate by identifying as a girl/non-binary/non-male entity in general).
Other options proposed were: death of the top 10% of the grade in terms of GPA. This was highly unpopular (how else is the school going to keep up its Ivy League matriculation?), death of the faculty kids (unanimously voted down by the administration), and death of the nepo babies (the person who proposed it died in an “accident”).
They finally settled on killing the captains of every sports team on campus. Being the de facto captain of the cheer team, I decided to go to the now (restocked, de-Wolverined) cafeteria to get myself a bottle of kombucha. Unfortunately, on the way out, I was cornered by the SWAT team. The entire cheer team stood behind them.
SWAT Team Guy: Is this the cheer captain?
Cheerleader: She calls herself The General since she’s not the official captain.
Me: Yeah, what she said! I’m not really the captain….that was a joke! I’m just a junior!
The SWAT Team dragged me to the field. A few feet away from me were the football captains getting decapitated. At least we didn’t make it to playoffs this year?
At this point, I was right by the soccer goal we usually practiced next to. And that’s where I saw it: the spot of blood on the side of the goal! I remembered zoning out when my mother told me some story about a symbol on a door that protected people…and that sparked an idea.
“W-wait! Look!” I yelled, pointing at the stain.
“That’s not a door,” the SWAT team member said.
“No shit!” I replied. “We don’t have doors! We practice outside! That is our door!”
“Uh…ok,” the SWAT team member said. “Show us the ritual.”
The ritual? “Oh, yeah, we totally have one of those,” I said, gesturing to the cheer team. “So, first we step into the goal —”
One of my teammates was too busy staring at #17 getting decapitated.
“Katie, the goal is this way!”
All of us stepped inside the goal.
“That’s it?” The SWAT team member asked.
“What more do you want from us? A whole cheer routine? I bet the basketball team missed their free throw, and you called it a day!”
“Actually, that did happen. You know what? You’re free to go. Good luck dealing with the trauma. Use the funeral money for therapy.”
Well, there you have it. The 10 plagues of my high school. You know, it was a rough few days. But lemme just say, it’ll make for a killer college essay.
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