This school is more than a hundred years old. My grandpa went to elementary school there. The school is entirely made out of bricks, and on the top level (there's three levels) is this big glass dome. Mr. Beairsto was a principal at the school for almost 50 years, including when my grandpa went there, back in the day when it was called Vernon Central School.
He told me that Mr. Beairsto was known for being extremely strict and violent, and basically everyone in the school at the time was scared shitless of him. He used to walk around the school with a strap, just flicking it around just enough for you to know it was there. He wouldn't use it when he found you breaking whatever rule you might have though. He would take you to the Blue Bench, right outside his office, up in the top level, the only room up there, and make you wait. By the time he actually got to you, you were so nervous from having to sit there thinking about what he was going to do to you, it didn't matter what he did, you would NEVER do it again.
Fast forward 50 years. The top level hadn't been used for years, and was basically falling apart. No body ever went up there, and it was empty. They needed space for the new library they were building, so they decided to renovate the top level. While they were doing that, they found....yes, you guessed it, his strap and the blue bench. The princial that was there at the time started using it again (the bench, not the strap) but no one can remember what happened to the strap. They finished building the library, right underneath the glass dome, right where his office used to be. And of course, they had to but his portrait in the library of all places.
The rumor is that while you're in the library, the eyes on the picture watch you. If Mr. Beairsto sees you doing something he doesn't like, he follows you back to your class. It's happened to me before. While in the library, I can feel his eyes burning into my back, and then on the way down the 3 sets of stairs, something seems to be behind me, I can feel it. If I turn around, no one's there, but its happened to so many people without having heard the story before...If you do something he REALLY doesn't like, books start falling suddenly. No body will be near them, then suddenly they'll fall HARD, making a huge bang.
Mrs. Beairsto lives in the girls change room off of the gym. The changerooms are really just a big room with benches in them, with a wall between the girls and the guys. For the 8 years I was there, there was a door in the back that was never opened once. It was always locked and no one had a key. We always wondered what was behind the door. One day, after basketball practice in grade 4, we were getting changed, and we heard something from behind the door. There was a little crack under it, and when we looked under it, we could see some clothes moving....but no body was actually there. We booked it like hell out of there.
And that's the story of the ghost of Beairsto.
I miss elementary school.
