I’m walking down the language hallway with a mission.  It’s 8:57 pm and all I hear is the echo of my footsteps—compensation for the otherwise pervasive silence. There’s minimal lighting- just enough to navigate my way around.  I look into the window of each classroom (all obscured by darkness and only revealing my own reflection) just to confirm that I’m alone.  I’ve never seen the school so dead.  As I arrive at my locker, I have the shameful urge to grab my textbook and sprint back out to my car, but I stop myself.

After 4 years of not driving myself to school, I’ve had my fair share of days loafing around the main entrance waiting for rides after make-up tests, club meetings, backpack tutoring, track, etc.  From those countless days I’ve spent waiting, finding ways to entertain myself, observing afterschool life at Minnetonka.  This school literally does not sleep.  MHS is alive.  Think about it—have you ever seen the parking lots completely empty?  I dare you to come to school at an hour when every person is gone, every switch turned off, and every door locked.  At least from my experience, it’s not possible.

When students begin to filter out of school and the last of the usual hallway chaos dies down, there is still activity.  It’s uncanny how little you realize you know until you’ve seen the school about an hour past the final bell.  Rarely is any corner of the building vacant.  On top of stragglers without rides like yours truly, there are plenty of other events happening on any given day.  Theater rehearsals in the arts center, ACT prep classes upstairs, banquets in the cafeteria, information sessions in the forum, basketball games in the west gym, parties in the CCC, track and baseball down the hill, editing in the breezes office, jazz rehearsals in the band room.  And then there’s the backbone of the school—teachers finishing grading papers, secretaries sending their last emails, counselors meeting with their last students, and custodians reviving the halls and classrooms. Students, faculty—all here for hours after the day has ended, keeps the school animate.  Stripped to its core, this is when you begin to see and appreciate the intricacies of the school’s inner-workings, all things manifested in its familiar complexity and grandiosity.

So with my locker open and textbook in hand I stop myself, thinking I’ve stumbled across a rare moment of stillness.  The contrast between the hall at 7:50 am and now makes it seem unrecognizable.  Of course, beneath the surface I’m not alone—mere hours ago the hall was overflowing with students and chatter.  Even after those layers of activity dwindle down, I can feel the traces and afterthoughts of an eventful day at the high school.  And at the end of my senior year, when I say goodbye to MHS for the final time, it will most likely be empty.  But I guarantee the school itself and all of the memories I’ve accrued from it will remain very much alive.