Ms. Angela Branco called it the dragon tunnel. As elementary students, we would get a peek into the darkness when she went to get extra colored paper. We peered down the long tunnel and questioned what could be inside.
Maybe a monster? Perhaps a secret world? Maybe just rats. Maybe even the home of our old art teacher, Jean Cendali. We shuddered at all the possibilities. It seemed small, cold, and dark. But was it?
What secrets hide in that tunnel full of old props and extra materials? As a restricted area in an old school, it holds many mysteries. How many stories have been written about a tunnel like this? Only a few people know its secrets.
The theater kids who lurk around at school past hours have seen things they will never share. They say they must get a prop but then they disappear. Where do they go? Do they get swallowed up by a hole of time? Or are they drained from rehearsing and simply going to nap? Rehearsals from 6 to 9 p.m. take a toll.
The tunnel can’t just go on forever. So what’s at the end? Is that where they store the expensive computers, or maybe the delicious food? It could just be a cold cement wall, but there’s no fun in that. There at least has to be one French toast stick.
Maybe teachers will go there during their break. In a single-file line, with the first teacher leading, red folder in hand, they wind down the twists and turns until they meet the end, where a huge lounge room awaits, full of all the bean bag chairs that we only dreamed of as elementary students. To think that the teachers may have all of that and are hiding it from us!
Maybe nobody has truly traveled through all the tunnels yet. Maybe there is an explorer among us that we can crown king of the tunnels— or maybe just king of the rats. They can film a Haldane version of Indiana Jones instead of having the tops of our heads filmed for the new “Knives Out” movie.
Haldane Monsters Inc. would be a movie any student could see. A big, fluffy blue monster walks through a door and ends up in a school’s secret, restricted tunnels. No Haldane student has seen any signs, but there is still hope. Maybe a kid picked up some blue fur from the ground and thought it was a middle schooler just dying their hair blue again. Everyone had a dyed hair phase. Maybe we should go deeper. It’s really deep. Into depths no Haldane student has ventured before.
Do the tunnels wind, or do they curve slowly? Is it all darkness, or is there light? Maybe even those LED lights. What color do you think they would be? Red?
How long ago were they built? In 6th grade, maybe we should have traveled through the tunnels instead of going to the MET. We might have found some artwork or a huge garden with butterflies.
We will keep wondering. Maybe it’s about time the Haldane Administration told us the truth. What is going on in the tunnels under Haldane?