Not Clickbait! Stuyvesant High School's Faculty Halloween Cooking Contest, Now Live!

A teenager comes into focus in a dimly lit hallway. They have a handheld mini microphone and a clipboard. They stare directly at the camera.

Host: Is it recording? 

Camera shakes up and down

Host: Okay! Hello, my wonderful 33 Instagram followers, it's ya boy @Real_Gordon_Ramsey_Jr, and today’s cooking nightmare—did I say nightmare? I meant dreamy disaster. Today’s the annual Stuyvesant faculty Halloween Not-So-British-Bake-Off!

Turns around, walking down the hall

Just like last year, I’ve been entrusted with the sacred duty of sharing this competition with the masses. And between me and you, dear viewer? I heard my vote is going to matter a lot more this year! Trust me. Blatantly winks at the camera.

A scoff can be heard faintly, along with a mumbled phrase that sounds along the lines of “as if anyone would ever let you with that non-functional tongue of yours.” The camera follows the host into the cafeteria. Upon entering the room, a large background rumble starts up.

Host: Looks like our contestants are finishing up their preparations. Let’s start checking out what they've got set up already, you know, to get their pre-show comments so I can catch them off guard… I mean, get their insight on the competition!

The host walks up to the closest table, which has been decorated with a fake satin tablecloth and old candelabras. In the center of the table is a large clear bowl of Jello, with many objects suspended in it. 

Host: And this is—the host pauses to check the clipboard in their hand—the English table! So, tell me, what is this…. bowl?

The camera pans to a middle aged woman aggressively highlighting a worn novel. She looks up, momentarily surprised at the microphone in her face.

English Teacher: Oh, this? Well, it’s a bowl, for sure. 

Host: A bowl? Could you please elaborate?
English Teacher: Well, of course! For the contest, we had to make something Halloween-themed, right? So every year, we always end up deciding on something Poe—I wanted something Lovecraftian, but apparently a chocolate Cthulhu is too complicated—and after a long debate, we decided to do The Tell-Tale Heart and put a chocolate heart we got off the internet in a big bowl of red jello!

Host: The big lump in the center? Well, I guess I can see how it could be a heart… But what about all the other things floating in the jello?
English Teacher: We only barely agreed on which story to do. I think some of my colleagues went rogue and put in stuff related to the stories they wanted to do. So there’s a brick for The Cask of Amontillado, a face mask for The Mask of the Red Death, and, oh dear, is that an actual raven?
Host, looking slightly green: Well… that’s a wonderful treat you’ve got there.

English Teacher: I know, right? We even provided the necessary citations for each of our picks, if you’d like to see—

Host: I’m good! I think we can leave those in class discussion time. Let’s look at the next group, shall we?
The host snatches the camera away from the previously excited—now disappointed—teacher and to the next table. The table is decorated like a diorama, with cardboard buildings and plastic mini-people in period clothing surrounding various displays. One is a guillotine execution, with a mini guillotine over a cookie of Marie Antoinette’s head. Another is of a group of people surrounding a vaguely chicken-like cookie. The final one is a cookie of Genghis Khan, surrounded by mismatched horse figurines. 

Host: Next up, the Social Studies table. It seems like they have a variety of… interesting cookies here. Hey you, what’s up with the split table?
The camera pans to a man holding a tiny bottle of glue up to a model building, using tweezers to subtly add detailing to the window panes. He drops the bottle with a clatter, and he picks it up to continue working without looking at the camera.

Social Studies Teacher: We couldn’t decide on what we wanted to do. Unfortunately, too many alliances were made and we didn’t want the argument to evolve into another department wide war, so we decided to do all of them.

Host: So, can you explain what you’ve got here?
History Teacher: Sure. This here is a diorama of the 1793 execution of Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI of France and—

Host: Not in that much detail! But that’s, uh, a cookie of her severed head?
History Teacher: Yeah. We thought it’d be very informational to show how guillotines worked. That won’t be on the test of course but it’s good to know!

Host: …Alright. What about the rest of the table?
History Teacher: Well, the APUSH teachers wanted something American, so they settled on tar and feathers. I don’t think they actually used tar for the cookies, but they do love their historical accuracy, so you can’t not think they did.

Host, nodding: And the horses?
History Teacher: Wait for it—the teacher sets down his glue and tweezers to look directly at the camera—the Mongols. They loved their horses. And their bows. And their saddles—

Host: And for the sake of time, we’re going to move on to our next competitors! Quick, let’s get moving—

The host speedwalks over to the neighboring table, decorated in various traditional decor. The table’s colors clash, but the largest influences are from Dia De Los Muertos and the Mid-Autumn festival. Smaller influences of Oktoberfest and tsukimi festivals can also be seen. In the center of the table is something that looks only vaguely familiar. It’s bready and seems to be a chimera of various kinds of fall foods.

Host: Is this the World Languages table?
A gathering of teachers from various languages nod their heads. They look proud of their creation. 

Host: So what is that… fusion food? 

All the teachers start speaking at once. The camera focuses on the loudest voice, a stern looking woman at the center of the group.

Foreign Language Teacher: Well, we didn’t want to favor any one culture, so we combined them. Can you tell? It’s a pretzel stuffed with dango and mooncake filling, fried like a churro, and topped with chocolate truffles. Latin wanted to contribute, but they couldn’t provide anything appropriate for school hours, so we decided to keep that particular contribution to the staff-only afterparty. 

Host, quietly: You guys have an afterparty? Why can’t I be invited?
Foreign Language Teacher: Now, come have a taste of our Mexican-French-Chinese-German-Japanese [undecipherable combination of the names of all the combined foods] and feel the culture seep into your body!

Host, shivering: Uh, no thank you? I’m not really judging, just showing off the stuff you made to my adoring fans.
Foreign Language Teacher, deflating: Darn. Still, have a bite—

Host: And that’s our cue to move on! Onto the next!
The host slips past the teacher to move on to the next department’s table. This table has a cauldron at the center, surrounded by beakers and pipettes of suspiciously colored liquids. The liquid in the cauldron is a shade of highlighter-Gatorade-glowstick yellow. 

Host: I take it that this is the Chemistry table?
The camera pans to the teachers still mixing in various liquids, with precision and technique. One pauses in setting up a burette for titration. 

Chemistry Teacher: What do you want? You aren’t dressed appropriately for lab.

Host, looking down at their open toed sandals: Well, I’m not participating in this one. I just want to ask some questions.

Chemistry Teacher: Are they already answered on the prelab?

Host: No? Should I have gotten a prelab?
Chemistry Teacher: Fine then, ask.

Host: What is that punch made of?
Chemistry Teacher: A classified secret. Last time the principal asked, we told him and then our entry immediately got disqualified. We want to win this whole thing, so we can’t tell anyone what magic we put in our Spooky Drink.

The camera focuses on the bubbling liquid in the cauldron, despite having no heat source anywhere near it. It turns to look at the host for a moment, before turning back to the drink, which is now green.

Host: And it’s edible, right? No, uh, let me rephrase that. Is it not going to be painful on the way out? It’s not going to, like, precipitate in my digestive system and make it terrible to excrete?
Chemistry Teacher: What kind of professionals do you think we are? Of course it’s edible. But you’re right, the precipitation may be a concern… Hey, guys, what was the concentration of the pentahydroxyhexanal?

Host: So how does it taste? Hello? I’m still speaking? Alright then. Let’s move on.

The camera follows the host to the next table, which is covered in ominous black tissue paper and various sculptures of gravestones, skeletons, and zombies. At the center of the table are two human skulls.

Host: What department is this? Uh…

A teacher suddenly appears behind the host.

Unidentified Teacher: Boo!

Host: Holy sweet-idiot-sandwiches-on-a-beef-wellington! What was that for?

Unidentified Teacher: For fun. Ha!

Host: I take it that this is your table, then? 

Unidentified Teacher: Yep, the Art department’s!

Host: Okay, so what’s with the skulls?
Art Teacher: It’s a fun game you kids should be familiar with. I believe it’s called… real or cake?
Host, suddenly blanching: Real or cake… you say? So that’s…

Art Teacher: One of them is a cake made by our department’s expert sculptors and painters—I do say, using fondant and food dye is so much harder than just oil paints—and the other is, well, do I need to say it? A human skull.

Host: A real skull? A real human skull from a dead human person? Or is it fake? Please be fake and really realistic, please…

Art Teacher, shrugging: Who knows? We found it in a storage room somewhere. It was quite useful as a reference, we didn’t have to do much—ha—grave digging!

The host stares slack jawed at the teacher and the skulls. 

The camera feed cuts to black. A message on screen reads:

This livestream has been terminated for graphic content.