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The Monthly Journal of Stephannie Kingston (Chp4)

April 20XX

The school bazaar has finally arrived and we were really hyped about the plans of how to create the greatest bazaar ever. Our class decided to create a haunted house, but was met with utmost objection by our headmistress, along with other classes who had plans on creating game booths. She, of all people to become our headmistress, was born and raised in a Catholic family and taught in a Catholic school, was very conservative. She said something about game booths promoting gambling and haunted houses is bad for karma or something, like inviting 'unwanted guests'.

Needless to say, we were furious. We thought that her assumptions were crazy. What would a bazaar be without games and attractions? It's not all about selling food and drinks, you know. We were all out protesting, literally going out in front of the Headmistress's office and holding protest banners and all. I guess our teachers were so impressed by our passion to build our game booths and haunted house that they managed to persuade and convince their superior that a little fun and game wouldn't hurt. All in all, the majority always wins. Our protest was a success and our plans were on the way.

We spent days to prepare for this. Everyone was assigned to a job in either being a ghost or a tour guide. Even friends from other classes who had nothing to do offered their help on creating our haunted house. We selected the old one-storey school building behind our new one as our haunted house destination. We were a little apprehensive about choosing that place because there were rumours saying that that old building itself is haunted due to neglect and misuse (it’s been standing there waiting to be demolished for goodness knows how long), but we were too enthusiastic about the bazaar to consider such petty nonsense. We got the dry grass and coconut leaves for the musty cemetery smell; cardboards and dark curtains from the science lab to darken the rooms and the tables and chairs propped up to make a maze out of it. We even designed posters and banners to be stuck all over school, drawn by yours truly, and made costumes for those playing the role of the ghosts. I had my own attire; I played the mad killer from 'I Know What You Did Last Summer' and all I need to wear was a windbreaker with a hood and fashion a hook out of a clothes hanger.

I can’t help it; I hate make-up.

Finally the day arrived. During the bazaar, our haunted house was a blast. There was a long line from the science lab all the way to our booth even before we had a chance to get started. My first shift was being the tour guide and as I led the petrified guests through the dark, eerie haunted house, I had to admit that I was rather scared myself. I kept warning that the tour guide is in front and not to scare the wrong person. I came across someone who was dressed in green with her wet-dog look and green slime all over her body and was rather impressed at how good the make-up she did on herself. She must've put a lot of effort to make it so realistic. I greeted her and continued my shift. When my shift came to be the ghost, I had my share of being yelled at, being slapped, bonked on the head, kicked, stepped on and goodness knows what sort of pain people can inflict on you when they're scared. Again, I saw the green girl occasionally appearing at the first and second room scaring the wits out of everyone. I waved and greeted her anytime I see her and wondered which class was she from, because she definitely wasn't one of my classmates or any other friend I know from other classes.

We had a great 2-day bazaar weekend. Our haunted house was a big hit. We were the best selling booth throughout the entire school and we really didn't want it to end. But all good things must come to an end somehow. On Monday, we started discussing excitedly about our best bazaar ever when one of my customers, who is also my friend, approached me and said, "Man, your haunted house was the bomb! You so gotta do this next year!"

"Thanks," I replied. "So, was I scary or what? You were screaming your head off when I approached you."

"Oh, I wasn't frightened by you. Your character was old school. I was scared by someone else behind you. You know, very tall and all black until I can't see the face. Oh, and who's the girl in green? Man, she's the hit of your haunted house! I must congratulate her in person!"

My skin crawled at the mention of something tall and dark behind my back. Everyone swore no one played the role of the girl in green. No one from other classes either played that role. They claimed to have seen her but no one knew who she really was. That's when we all realized how true our Headmistress said about inviting 'unwanted guests'. Turned out that by creating such a life-like haunted house, we actually created an atmosphere for the 'unwanted guests' to live in and wander around being seen. The reason we weren't harmed was because 'they' thought we were one of 'them'. Many have seen other out-worldly stuff from our haunted house before and after the bazaar. Even people living in hostels of our neighbouring school claimed to have seen something white floating around inside our haunted house during the two day bazaar and the last person who saw it caught an almost fatal fever a few hours later. We realized that the girl in green could probably be one of the ‘others’ residing inside the old school building.

We were scared for a while and were glad we weren't harmed by any of those 'unwanted guests', and we learnt a valuable lesson on tampering with the spirit world. Although I am curious as to what the real identity of the girl in green really is.
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