Author: Desiree Cocola

It’s something of a tradition that at the end of every October Ingla’s orange and green colours turn to orange and black for our legendary, yearly Halloween party. For one night only we put away the books, rulers and board markers and bring out the fake blood and cobwebs to entice the goblins, ghosts and witches out of their hiding places.

There were zombies, medieval knights, the couple from Corpse Bride (the Tim Burton film), and even two Jigsaws haunting the Ingla halls – not mention more than a few devils and even death himself. The evening started with pumpkin carving in our back room where students turned these innocent looking gourds into fiendish Jack O’Lanterns which were placed around the school, giving everything an eerie Halloween glow.

The winner, of course, was death, draped in black robes and wearing and old-fashioned ice hockey goalie mask – a bit like Jason from the Friday the 13^th films, but creepier.

We turn our otherwise sleepy little school into a den of horrors which no one dare enter – except with a valid ticket – and from which there is no escape. This year was no different as a few dozen of our students and staff packed our classrooms for a spooky evening of music, dance, and fancy dress.

To celebrate the great variety of fancy dress, and impressive effort that our students put into their costumes we also had a competition to judge who had the best garb, bloody makeup, and mask. The competition was stiff, as there were so many great entries into the competition. Frida Kahlo and the medieval knight, impressive though they were, didn’t even place or show.

The evening ended with ecstatic dancing on the dancefloor. Even the undead, after all, need to unwind after a long week at work. As Inglans danced late into the night a howl could be heard in the distance, and we knew that another of our Halloween parties had been a huge success…