One day, we decided to put old Marilyn, or whoever she was, to the test. After procuring the highly coveted shrimp fork-shaped tool that the janitors used to operate the “child-proof” light switches, my friends and I gathered up our courage and made a plan to meet in the haunted head after school. Standing in total darkness next to the circular concrete sink in the center of the room, we tried to stir the specter out of her ghostly sleep by excitedly repeating every name that vaguely resembled the ones we had heard our classmates discuss over Twinkies and cartons of orange drink at lunch. To our utter disappointment, the only thing that entered the bathroom that day was our principal, Mr. Stoorman, who asked us what the hell we were doing standing around there in the dark like that mumbling like idiots...
In 1973, a rumor started circulating around the halls of Francis Scott Key Elementary school that the place was definitely probably haunted. Depending on whom you talked to, a ghost who was either named Marilyn Carolyn, or Merrill McCarrol, had taken up residence inside the mirror of the boy’s bathroom next to the media center. The legend stated that anybody who went into the bathroom, turned out the lights, and repeated the ghost’s name five times (assuming of course that you could figure out which name to say), would face the immediate and unrelenting wrath of this most unholy spirit.