School bathrooms are notorious for their unpleasant atmosphere and gross environment. Mills is (unfortunately) no exception. But to add to the list of stinky situations, Mills has a special surprise lurking around the toilets: a ghost.
The story of the ghost dates back to 1967, where a seagull by the name of Gulliver reportedly dropped headfirst into a Mills toilet and drowned. Having lived at Mills all his life, the seagull found it natural to remain here as a permanent resident, even past death.
“I could have moved on to the great pile of garbage in the sky, but I loved Mills too much,” Gulliver said in an interview with the Thunderbolt. “So I stayed.”
Once it was discovered that there was a ghost in a Mills bathroom, rumors and stories sparked, expanding and mutating as they spread like wildfire throughout the school’s population. Most students were keen to avoid using the single-user bathroom in the science hall, but a few sought out the ghost, returning with even more stories of their encounters and creating a chain of cons-pee-racy theories to explain the uncanny events happening in the bathroom.
At first, the ghost was confined to the science hall bathroom, but once hand dryers were installed, he was able to travel through the pipes to all bathrooms, causing even more chaos.
“All of a sudden I had all this newfound freedom,” said Gulliver. “It felt like I could go anywhere and do anything.”
Since then, the number of ghost encounters at Mills rose exponentially. Many students reported odd sightings and eerie feelings in the bathrooms: trash and food left in the sinks, sudden chills and weird slime-like substances on the floor.
“I was trying to film a TikTok dance in the bathroom once, and then all of a sudden my skin felt, like, really cold and clammy,” freshman TikToker Alyssa Chu mentioned. “I thought I was imagining things or something. It was really weird.”
“I went in to wash my hands and one of the sinks was just filled with water and toilet paper,” said Bella Liang (9). “I remember looking at it thinking, ‘Who the heck would make a mess like this?’ Then I remembered the rumors going around about a seagull ghost in the bathrooms, and I was like, ‘I guess that’s what happened here. Maybe the seagull was making a nest or something.’”
This problem has obviously caused quite a struggle for Mills faculty, especially because the ghost is not intending to leave anytime soon.
“We tried a lot of things over the years to get rid of the ghost, but none of them have succeeded,” said a Mills custodian. “We even hired the Ghostbusters. But they couldn’t believe we’d called them over a seagull, so they left.”
Although unsuccessful, these methods are costly, and admin has had to use up the school’s whole budget for bathroom maintenance. As a result, Mills bathrooms remain dirty, neglected and of course, haunted.
“It’s definitely not an ideal situation, but we are doing everything we can to preserve our students’ well-being and keep the ghost under control,” the custodian emphasized.
The ghost in question, however, has a different opinion.
“I can’t believe I’ve been here for longer than anyone else has been at this school and yet they’re trying to get rid of me!” Gulliver exclaimed. “This is not the Viking way!”
