When I was in primary school, every Friday, the teacher from room 11 would come into our classroom to talk to our teacher. She’d approach my teacher’s desk, whisper something in “Irish” to her, then our teacher would clap her hands and say
“Nap time children”
We’d all fold our arms and fall asleep until the teacher clapped her hands again and said
“Wake up children”
and we’d all wake.
One Friday though, the room 11 teacher entered our classroom as usual, whispered something in “Irish” in my teacher’s ear, my teacher clapped her hands, said “Naptime children” and we all fell asleep, except, I woke before my teacher clapped her hands again
I sat up and noticed all the other kids were asleep and my teacher and the room 11 teacher weren’t in the classroom. I approached the kid next to me to wake him up to see if he knew where the teacher went but he didn’t wake, and neither did the other students. I was 9 at the time and didn’t think much about it. I just thought they were all heavy sleepers.
I badly needed to pee because I drank a full carton of orange juice at lunchtime and since there was no teacher to ask if I could run to the toilets, I decided to just go.
“Surely muinteoir will understand” I thought
I quickly ran to the toilets to pee and after washing my hands, I was making my way back to the classroom and heard weird noises coming from the staff room up the hall so I walked in the direction of the staff room to investigate.
On the short walk there, I passed 2 classrooms, one of them was room 11, the other room 12. Both classrooms were quiet. I looked in both and all the kids in those classrooms were asleep too.
When I reached the staff room, the weird noise coming from there was more clear. All the teachers chanted in Irish. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I quietly opened the door to peek in. All the teachers were on their knees in a circle. Standing in the centre of the circle was the principal of the school, holding a chalice raised above his head while red liquid dropped from above him into the chalice. I peeked my head in more to get a better look. Floating above the principal was the young substitute. The red liquid, which I quickly identified as blood was coming from her cut open throat.
When the chalice was full, the substitute’s lifeless body dropped to the floor. The principal then drank some of the blood from the chalice and handed it to the room 11 teacher. She took a sip, then handed it to my teacher beside her. She took a sip and handed it to the teacher beside her. The chalice was passed around to all the teachers who each took a sip from it. When the chalice was empty, the principal raised it above his head again and spoke something in Irish. He took a red cloth and wiped the chalice clean with it and then put it into a chest in a cupboard.
All the teachers stood up and principal finally spoke English
“Everyone, back to your classes”
I quickly ran back to my classroom, sat at my desk and pretended to be asleep until my teacher entered the classroom, clapped her hands again said
“Wake up, children”
And class continued as normal.
When I got home that evening, I asked my parents if I could change schools because the teachers were mean and I didn’t like them.
How those teachers got away with it I’ll never know. I went to college to become a teacher and I’m thinking of applying for a job as a substitute in that school to finally figure out what they were doing, their reason for doing it and how they’ve gotten away with it all these years.