Looking for Ms. Pips

It was the smell.

In the movies, in campfire stories, the sort of tales you hear in the dark with a flashlight held beneath the teller’s face, someone always senses something is wrong with sight or sound. A cracking branch. A creaking door. A quick glance and a “did you guys see that?”

But no. It was that horrible smell. It was the first thing that made me realize something was terribly wrong with this place.

I didn’t remember it ever being this hot as a kid. It was only the second week of May and I felt my skin lightly sizzling in the sun’s oppressive rays. I had only exited my car a moment ago, sat causally on the hood as I awaited the arrival of my friends, and I was already starting to perspire uncontrollably. I was very conscious of my appearance. I had not seen these friends in some time, at least not in person. Sierra was my best friend since kindergarten, my childhood next door neighbor with whom I had remained close with despite moving to different states in adulthood. My other friend, Unity, I had also known through school but became much closer with as a tween when we she was my “girlfriend,” such that a kid can have one. Our communication had been inconsistent over the years but nevertheless I was excited to see both of them in person for the first time in several years.

But this was no random get together. The building I was currently sitting in front of was one of great personal importance.

After twenty years we were returning to Garden Hill, to our elementary school. From five to around fourteen the world just seemed better. Brighter. More beautiful. The cafeteria, the library, the gym, every room at Garden Hill felt warm and welcoming. None more than room 67-17. My classroom for three straight years. Its bright green chalkboard helmed a room full of attentive and excitable kids eager to learn and share. my favorite place was the indigo carpet in the back of the room where we would sit and read as a group and share stories full of childhood whimsy.

It was good to see my friends. It was good to see the school itself. But I was there for one person: Ms. Shena Pips.

She was the picture of an ideal elementary school teacher. She was sweet, unfailingly kind understanding, accommodating and patient. Ms. Pips encouraged each of her students to pursue passions and have new experiences, helping us paint brilliant images of their futures.

Beyond her character, I would be remiss not to mention her beauty. At the time of my schooling she was likely a woman of about forty, but seemed ageless with an immaculate sun-kissed visage, accentuated by her dazzling honey colored eyes, cherry red lips and diamond-sparkled blonde hair.

After almost three decades of teaching she was retiring and my two friends and I wanted to see her, tell her how much we appreciated her and the impact she had on our lives.

Once Sierra and Unity arrived we hugged tenderly and exchanged words expressing how much we missed one another and how happy it made us to be together once more. After doing so for a short period of time we walked into the large brick building that had so wonderfully shaped our young minds. I expected to be refreshed by cool air conditioning but the building’s air hung heavy with dank musk. I shrugged it off to a malfunctioning AC system and walked around the building. School had been out for about a week so there were no children, but when we called the school we were assured that it would be open and there would be a handful of staff to present Ms. Pips with some sort of ceremonial award and offer congratulations on her retirement.

Our trio did not expect the school to be quite

this empty however. I assumed our laughter and chatter would attract the attention of someone. Anyone. But we had not seen a soul. All we heard were our own echoes as we passed a series of empty rooms. We stopped at the library and began looking around. It was most beautiful room in the building: tall windows, thick burgundy curtains and dark mahogany shelves. However upon further inspection I was somewhat dismayed that it had not been cared for over the years. The books seemed worn and mistreated, some of the shelves were half empty with ripped pages scattered on the floor. The lovely tall windows were filthy and stained. I didn’t mention it to my friends and convinced myself that the library was still beautiful. The three of us sat down and discussed favorite books and authors from our childhood. My favorite when I was little had been a story called Strength of Rainbows a simple tale of perseverance through a storm, and finding the proverbial rainbow at the end of one’s turmoil. I rose from my seat and began to search for it. After about ten minutes of searching I recognized its colorful spine on a high shelf and pulled it down triumphantly. I looked at the cover. It had been split down the center seemingly with the intention of cruelly destroying it. I opened it and flipped the pages. Some had crude drawings. Others, foul language scribbled across the illustrations. I frowned and put the book back. I returned to my friends and told them I was going to find a restroom.

I walked out of the library and stood in the middle of the corridor. I took a deep a breath and closed my eyes for a moment in an attempt to conjure memories simple and pleasant. Instead, what stung my nostrils was an odor so foul it nearly triggered my gag reflex. This was no burst pipe or ammonia spill, within it was a sickening smell of sweltering moistened decay, more than offensive it felt as if it was polluting my lungs. I opened my eyes and peered down each side of the hall. Initially nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I squinted at a shape to my left for a moment.

What was it? A trashcan? Something the custodian had left out? No, it appeared to have hair on it. I took a step toward it.

It moved slightly and I froze.

Slowly it unfurled upwards, limbs relaxing and head lifting. It was a person, curled into a ball, now standing up at a unnervingly methodical pace.

When this figure was finally upright, it stood motionless staring in a perpendicular direction. The figure’s hair was a toxic yellow color, and its face I could not quite see.

I took one step forward and its head jerked toward me. I reflexively touched my nose from the overwhelming stench. The figure did not so much speak as it emitted a noise that I did not understand.

Transfixed, I continued to gaze upon this shape unable to speak when my attention snapped toward the library’s double doors suddenly opening.

Unity poked her head out with an expression of mild concern.

I looked back down the corridor expecting the figure to have vanished. It had not. It had backed itself against the wall and splayed out its arms. Its wingspan was unnaturally long and grossly disproportionate to its body.

I managed to weakly force some words out of my mouth in Unity’s direction and hastily reentered the library.

Immediately we noticed that Sierra was missing. We searched the stacks, behind bookcases and furniture. The doors, other than one we’d entered from, were all locked. We began calling her name with increasing alarm to no avail. The feelings I’d hoped for, the renewed sense of hope and heart warming nostalgia had become replaced with panic and dread. I was trying to force myself to ignore what I’d seen in the hall. I did not intend to tell my friends either. I wanted them to remain ignorant and wanted to convince my brain to do the same. This was not the place I knew, yet within me remained the hope I could still see Ms. Pips.

Carefully, I exited the library with Unity. The stench had dissipated and I suggested we go find our old classroom, perhaps we would find Sierra there (in the opposite direction of the abnormality I had seen.) We walked about one hundred feet before that disgusting smell began to waft through the air once more. I turned to see if Unity had noticed the scent, waiting for her to comment on it, but instead I discovered she had stopped a few feet behind me and was staring into the art room. I paused and looked at her. Upon her face was a look of both awe and bewilderment. I asked her what it was she was looking at but she did not respond and instead entered the room with speed and purpose. I hurried after her but that putrid smell struck me once more and I stopped as I choked for a moment. I proceeded and turned into the art room. I looked around. No Unity. No Sierra. No one.

I needed to leave. But I needed to see Ms. Pips.

Room 67-71 I remembered it well. Only a few steps away I heard a rustling from behind the door and a shadow move across the door’s narrow vertical window. Shena Pips must be inside. That hopefulness, that joy, began to well up inside me once more. I stepped in front of the door and confidently placed my hand on the knob. I turned it cautiously and was met with an aromatic assault that bludgeoned me with its rancidity.

My eyes watered. My mouth filled with thin saliva as my stomach lurched in preparation to vomit. I entered the classroom anyway.

Rubbing my eyes and swallowing the bile in my throat, I blindly walked forward into the center of the room. As I moved my knuckles away from my eye sockets I surveyed the room, facing the back wall. The contents of the room seemed familiar but misplaced. The small desks were facing different directions. The indigo carpet in the back of the room was tattered and withered with a reddish-brown stain in the center.

A muffled sound from the opposite end of the room startled me and I spun around. There, in front of a once bright green chalkboard now corroded and tarnished was the creature I had seen in the hallway.

Closer now I saw this shape perfectly. There was the implication of a person yet I could scarcely identify it as one I would ever recognize as such.

Synthetic, stringy yellow hair sat upon a face which had a disturbing nature finally made clear. There was a skin pulled tightly over another layer of skin, It looked as if an expertly crafted plastic mask of a woman was placed over this “person’s” face. The outer layer was leathery and a sickly orange yellow with features, lips and nose that did not move. The nature of the noise being made I finally understood: the mouth beneath this mask was moving but its outer layer was muffling and stifling the voice. Holes around the eyes revealed what semblance of the person lay underneath. There, in those sockets I saw and finally understood. I finally saw a truth I had been afraid of. Deep behind this horrifying mask in those deep pale sockets I saw two honey colored eyes. At this moment I said the only thing I could; “Hi Ms. Pips,” as my eyes welled up with tears.