It’s October of 2016 and Halloween spirit is in full swing, especially in the fourth grade classroom of current junior Garrett Xu at Rocklin Elementary school. One day his teacher announced a new opportunity: a classroom Halloween costume contest. The winner received the wonderful prize of two free homework passes.

“As a small, little studious kid, I was naturally up for the challenge,” Xu said.

In order to make plans for his costume, Xu asked the teacher when the competition was. She told him it would be the next day.

Xu decided that he wanted to dress up as an angler fish. He prepared his costume after school. To complete the look, he bought a lightbulb from Pottery Barn to wear as an angler fish’s luminescent fin ray. At 6 a.m. the next day, he got dressed and walked out the door, ready to win the competition.

When Xu got to school, no one else was wearing a Halloween costume. He turned to his teacher. “Sorry, I told you the wrong date by accident,” she said. To Xu, not only was that the worst Halloween ever, that was the worst day of elementary school ever.

To celebrate Halloween in their sophomore year, senior Pax Graham decided to do a partner costume with their cousin.

After buying all the materials, Graham’s cousin canceled their plans for the costume. On top of that, Graham’s cousin invited another girl to come spend Halloween with them the day before Halloween.

The girl had been saying curse words all around their house, even near their parents, Graham said.

Graham felt excluded in their own house with their own cousin and was left to babysit the little kids around the house.

Later, Graham found out that their cousin had been dating this girl and that they broke up a week after going to Graham’s house.

This was an absolute horror story of a Halloween for Graham.

On the night of Oct. 31, 2021, senior Lilya Jafari and her family were sound asleep.

At 3 a.m., the Jafari family was awoken by a sudden loud noise coming from outside.

What did they see?

Looking out the window, they discovered that the noise was made by a teenage boy who had jumped the fence.

The stranger was retrieving a ball that the kids at a party next door were playing with.

Jafari’s parents were so upset about being awoken in the middle of the night that they
grabbed baseball bats and ran to the neighboring house where the party was being held.

The cops were called to the party, and Jafari’s parents finally went back to bed to get a good night’s sleep.

— By Anika Nadgauda