The Mysterious Door

I was walking absentmindedly to my ELA class with my friend, Michael. We were very late, since Michael’s Case-it had practically exploded at the end of last period (Social Studies). I’m not quite sure how it happened, but I’d figured that his Case-It had been hanging off his desk when he opened the rings to add another handout, and then the Case-It had slid off the table. All of the eight dividers, looseleaf notes, and handouts from six different subjects fell all over the place (not to mention all his doodles and extra looseleaf) – on the floor, the table, and some had even slid across the table and fallen onto the chair opposite his seat. Naturally, I waited for him. We figured that we could just sprint down the hallway and get to ELA before we were way too late. Turns out, you can’t just sprint down a hallway when it’s full of middle school giants and you’re the youngest ones, waiting to get squashed by some huge eighth grader. It usually took around a minute to get from the science room to the math room, and they were merely a few feet away from each other.

“Evelyn, we’ve gone too far.” Michael’s voice jerked me back to life. I looked around in a panic; it was true. My locker, #153, was right next to the ELA classroom, and by my side was locker #186.

“Oh God, we’re going to be so late. Ms. Rosental’s gonna explode,” I panicked.

“Hurry up,” Michael, who was now way ahead of me, said matter-of-factly, squeezing between some middle schoolers (sixth or seventh grade by the looks of it) who were so deep in conversation they didn’t even see him.

But I didn’t follow him. I had just spotted something. It was a bright yellow door that had no labels on it. A typical door in the middle school hallway was red and had several red labels on it, which told you which teachers taught in the room, what subject they taught for which grade, and which class’s homeroom it was.

A war played in my mind. Half of me wanted to tear off towards the ELA classroom, since by now I must’ve missed at least half the class. The other half of me was screaming, “You don’t even like ELA!!!!!!!!” and wanted to burst into the room behind that door and see what was in it. I must’ve stood there for at least five minutes. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I had my hand on the cold metal handle, ready to open it, when Michael came and shook me hard.

“Evelyn, what are you doing? You missed half of ELA-” Michael froze, seeing the bright yellow door. Timidly, he asked me, “What is that?”

I shrugged. “Let’s find out.” And with that, I opened the door.

“Whoa.” Michael gasped, looking down at the room that a blue staircase led down to. It was beautiful, with colorful rainbow walls and a purple and black sign that read: “Students’ Lounge”. Without thinking, I rushed down the staircase, and I heard Michael scrambling down after me. The two kids we had seen in the hallway earlier stopped talking and looked at us. In a scared voice, one of them said, “What gave it away?”