20
A Minor Yuletide Disaster
Abigail Ekstrom
Elise sat in the empty, windowless classroom, reading poems by spoiled high school students about sports they played, their lake houses, iPhones, and what they wanted for their
birthday. She sighed. All of the poems had numerous spelling errors, and were rarely about
anything besides sports, lake houses, and electronic gadgets.
Elise, of course, was the main editor of Equinox, a magazine filled with poems, short stories, and artwork by her fellow students at Maine South High School. The magazine came out
once per semester. Usually, people sent in more interesting things, like short stories and poems that were actually about deep and meaningful topics. This year, however, she had not received any so far.
The sponsors for Equinox weren’t there. That was only somewhat unusual; occasionally
they forgot that there was a meeting. But none of her fellow judges and editors were there, either, which was very strange. Elise had checked and double-checked beforehand to make sure
that she sent an e-mail to everyone telling them to come, and then checked and doublechecked to make sure the e-mail said the proper date and time. Still, no one had shown up.
Elise decided to just go back to reading some more poems. She was skimming yet another poem about basketball when she was startled by the bell suddenly ringing. Normally, after the bell rang (and usually a little bit before), the hallway was filled with the drumming
noise of hundreds of footsteps, accompanied by laughter, voices, and the metallic sound of
lockers being slammed shut. But everything was silent, except for the noise of a vacuum
cleaner off in the distance.
Elise ran out of the classroom to investigate. No one was there except for a janitor vacuuming the floor down the hall . Elise walked up to the janitor.
“Where is everyone?” she asked.
“It’s winter break! There’s no school!” the janitor replied.
Elise suddenly realized that she was so excited about the Equinox meeting; she had forgotten that it was the day after Christmas!