Fears and Urban Ledgends Dealing with School...

[Grave Boy 13]

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could help me out with something.  I had decided that I needed to do a few more Little Fears stories that take place at school (after all, school takes up a pretty good hunk of a kids life and should not be ignored).  However, I am suffering from a slight creative block and having some trouble coming up with a few good concepts for school based stories.  So, I was wondering if anyone out there could let me know about some common (or not so common, depending) fears or urban legends surrounding school.  

I need to go beyond such things as that weird custodian with the freaky eyes who eats / abducts / kills / hides / steels away / or otherwise does bad things to kids... I could just hear my players... "oh... Fready Krugger... how original..."  That and I have already used weird janitors in the past.  Beyond freaky custodians, the only other thing I can come up with is "what's really in the 'mystery meat' in the cafeteria."  Any weird fears, urban legends, ghost stories, etc that any one can come up with would be most appreciated.  Just a few words or a germ of an idea is all I need.

Thanks in advance.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

The kid who drowned in the school swimming pool...

The favorite teacher who doesn't come in one day and is replaced by a sinister substitute ("Miss Taylor won't be coming in today...")...

That "new" kid...

The class field trip to ______ where something weird happens...

Snow day!

[Bob McNamee]

....sadistic gym teachers?

....playground bully
... monkeybar prison...

... that third bathroom stall where the "pipes" scream?

Bob McNamee

[Unsane]

My high school is really old and dungeon-like (just fits right in).  Anyway, there are large grates scattered throughout the halls that lead into a reasonably complex maze in and underneath the school.  I'm pretty sure you can see what this could lead to.

[Comte]

You know I have to admit my favorite story about the schools has to be the ones involveing the caffeteria food.  They are always the best and something everyone can relate to.  

There are a buntch of ways this can go as well.  I mean there could be the simple horror that you just ate the school bully the other day for lunch, but it can go further with Baba Yaga's influence speading into the other children forceing them all to crave human flesh.  The players could be Vile bag lunchers.  

Then there is the janitors.  I dunno why but thouse janitors always freaked me out when I was little, heck they still do sometimes.  I've met homeless people with a better sence of hygene.  Anyway...I am way to tired to type this.  I'll finnish tomarrow.

[JimmyB]

Sounds stupid but I remember at primary school we had various things.

The monster in the toilet (I started this one, I wasn't a nice kid), there's some sort of monster in the toilet. It comes up and you can hear it sometimes in the cubicles.

Under the hut (we used to have some classrooms in portacabins, which were on stilts about a foot off the ground) there's something under the hut. The wire netting they put up is broken and torn, and you can hear thuds from down there in your classroom.

The big tree on the playing field has a face, and it moves around. Lots of kids have been hurt trying to climb it, and its been declared off-limits, but that just makes people want to go there more.

The boiler, boilers are always useful, particularly those furnace-style ones.

Important things are dissappearing from your drawer. The teacher's keeping everyone behind until they get found, but no one admits to having taken them. Is there something strange about the drawers?

[MK Snyder]

Getting locked in overnight
Any walled off areas that Used To Be The Pool...
Dissecting *anything* in Science class

[Slant]

You are forgetting the scariest part of the school (at least from an eight-year-old's perspective): THE TEACHER'S LOUNGE!

Didn't we all wonder what was actually going on in the room where the teachers could socialize with their own kind?  Can you imagine teachers comparing notes on who the troublemakers were and discussing ways to make them disappear?  Or how about the student who accidentally went into the lounge and was forever changed; a mere shadow of his former self.

[Comte]

Wow that is a good one I would of never of thought to list the teachers lounge.  Of course teachers seem to have this bizzarre affinity twords me so that might be why.  That is a good one you have caused rusty gears to start turning.

[szilard]

In elementary school, we had these stern older women who acted as hall monitors and, umm, recess overseers. They were scary and nasty and bad.

Recess can be scary - rusty old playground equipment and things like that.

Oh! The school nurse.


Stuart

[Slant]

How about that seething PE teacher who always treated an innocent game of schoolyard kickball like it ought to be a bloodsport?

Or the nightmare of accidentally walking into the wrong gendered bathroom.  You always KNEW something terrible would happen if you did, you just didn't know WHAT.

Speaking of nightmares, there's the old chestnut of dreaming that you are in school naked.  What if for once it ISN'T a dream?

Or the pet hamster in it's cage so common in many classrooms.  What happens if lil' Fluffy is something far deadlier than he appears (this one might be pushing the borders of comedy, so it might not be really appropriate).

There is always the legend of the kid who died on school property and his body was hidden somewhere on the grounds to avoid a lawsuit.

And of course, what about the kid who looks under his desk to see a message carved into the wood especially to him, but the date is from fifty years back!

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Or the nightmare of accidentally walking into the wrong gendered bathroom. You always KNEW something terrible would happen if you did, you just didn't know WHAT.

Damn good call.

Best,
Ron

[magistrate]

In my home town there were two elementary schools, the Public school which was very old and had all the usual stories associated with it but there was also the new school. It was the school where you went if you had "discipline" problems or needed "special attention".  As a result of this during the beggining of one school year several of the public schools bullys and poor kids and special needs kids were transefered. Of course we had our own stories as to why this happened.  
 The bullys were the worst of the lot during this because everyone knew they were troublemakers and being put in their own school only made them worse after school which was the cause of great terror for us "normal kids".  The new school was just across the street and we shared a playground and auditorium as well as a library.
 Long after I grew to adulthood I discovered the two schools were connected by a small underground tunnel that served as a hiding spot for valuables for several of the local plantations  during the civil war.
 Ive not used that in a game myself but I have always wanted to do something with it! If anyone uses it please let me know how it went...

[Little_Rat]

We had "Room 59" in our school.

No one was sure what it was for. There were rooms 57 and 58 and those were regular size but "room 59" ran along 57 and 58, to a sort of long rectangle. The door was locked and you could look in the window to just darkness. No one ever went in or out of it and it was in the downstairs part of school, where you had to go through room 57 to get to 58.  Rumor has it was a firing range "from when the school taught arms" to "an old detention hall" to a "fallout shelter" ....well, when you're 12 years old and in junior high, you'll beleive anything anyone tells you.

most likely it was a fallout shelter. There was a sign for that on our schools wall. It was taken down a year or two ago. Guess because the cafe with its huge windows didn't count any more.

The Room "fill in the number" has always been kids mythology. In the show Recess, there was room 52, where no one went. But when a kid was sent there because he broke his arm and wasn't allowed to play outside, he realized it was a haven for the nerds, and they all played d&d down there.

Maybe that what was in room 59. A group of subterranian nerds and no one told me. Would have made junior high a lot easier...