The Mystery of the Gym Closet: Parts 5-8 (Original Story by Julius Alfaro)

~Part 5: Not Alone, Part 6: Curiosity, Part 7: A Sighting, Part 8: In the Window~
This story is dedicated to the 2019-2020 Zion 3rd grade and 5th grade students, who all listened to the beginnings of this story during lunch day after day when I started writing it. They encouraged me (and demanded me haha) to finish this project, so here it is! The students featured in this story were some of my 3rd graders from that year! A BIG thank you to one of those past 3rd graders, Sophia Wiegel, who DREW the picture in this thumbnail and gave it to me as a special gift (: Mr. Alfaro sends his love and greetings to you students; this is for ALL of you!
BEHIND THE STORY: It was the winter of 2020 and I was working as a PE teacher. One day, the third grade was helping me take equipment out of the gym closet. I started to make up some silly story about how we needed to hurry or else we’d get trapped in the closet, forever searching for our polyspots, haha. Maggie, one of my students, said that I should actually write a story. Beyond teaching PE, I was also responsible for monitoring the students’ lunch periods. And sure enough, Maggie reminded me at lunch one day, “Mr. Alfaro, when are you going to write your story??!” And it was during that lunch period that I made up Part 1 of “The Mystery of the Gym Closet” on the spot for the 3rd graders at that table. Part 1 ended, and I got in trouble by my kids because of the cliffhanger. (Them: “What happens next, Mr. Alfaro?!?!??!” Me: “Um, yo I have no idea, since I JUST WROTE THAT RIGHT NOW?!?!...aha lunch is done, bye!”) So, I started writing each of the next parts of the story during the last few minutes of my planning periods before their lunch time. I even began reading the story to my lovely 5th graders! Who also gave me the “...SO WHAT”S NEXT?... WHY CLIFFHANGERS? Asdkfhakjsdhfpiuwe" treatment. Our story telling and time together was cut short by COVID-19, as the school year ended far too soon. But I’ve finally finished our story, and every ounce of it has been such a blessing to create!
God bless~
-Mr. Alfaro