Coleslaw Locker

September 29th, Monday.

It's end of school, one last period until I'm free. We are given an assignment to do, a poster for the book we're reading. Once we pair off into groups, I'm overwhelmed by the sensory stimulus of nearly 20 kids talking all at once. Me and my friend Nora leave to work out into the quiet calm hallway of the school.

When we get settled, I mention that it smells of coleslaw. Me and Nora joke around and I tell her what coleslaw is and how I've always hated it. We don't know which locker its coming from so we leave it be.

September 30th, Tuesday.

I do not go out into the hall on the last period.

October 1st, Wednesday.

The day has been hard work but fun. Homecoming is ever approaching and the school is buzzing with life. But something else is buzzing too.

I go upstairs, second floor, and walk into the classroom with Nora by my side. I am flushed from gym but content and excited to work on the project. We gather our things, and move to the hallway. I don't pick the same seat.

The coleslaw smell is worse.

Pungent, nearly rotting, I feel as if I need to vomit. It's overpowering, right next to me and Nora. The sick scent of spoiled cream and rotting cabbage. I hate coleslaw, I never thought it could smell worse than it did fresh, but I was proven wrong.

Nora looks up from her paper. "...There's a fly."

I look over, flies, flying in and out in a constant buzz out of locker 524. The smell is worse the closer we get. It's coleslaw Locker. How long has the food been in there? 3 days? 6? Even more? How long has this pungent, cabbage dish been stuck in an enclosed hot locker? If it was not dropped off Monday morning, that means...

They didn't run the AC on the weekends...

I'm horrified, disgusted, and utterly baffled. 

Rushing to my English teacher we tell her of the smell and the rot and the bugs. She's just as disgusted and confused as we are. Calling administration staff...

Coleslaw Locker will be no more.