If you were to visit the Brunswick County Early College High School, you would find something odd. In our parking lot is a decent-sized orange pumpkin. Questions have been flying and whispers of conspiracies have been going around the campus. Here are some people’s thoughts about what they think about the pumpkin.

Assistant Principal Anthony Tantillo had a lot to say. He first noticed the pumpkin on the way to the buses one afternoon about two weeks ago. Tantillo decided to give the pumpkin a foot tap when he noticed it, to see if it was rotten. To his surprise, it was SOLID! He wanted to take the parking lot pumpkin home to roast the seeds. 

Tanillo said, “I want to eat those seeds, they ARE DELICIOUS.” After he talked to a science teacher who mentioned that it was fishy to eat a random pumpkin, he decided to leave it alone. He thought that someone from BCECHS might have brought the pumpkin. Tantillo has hopes that the pumpkin will stay for the remainder of the year because it is a funny thing that got people talking. The more he thinks about it, the weirder it seems. The parking lot pumpkin came from nowhere and has no rhyme or reason to be at our parking lot. In conclusion, Anthony Tantillo thinks the parking lot pumpkin is from another dimension. 

When this reporter first noticed the pumpkin, I did not think much about it other than that it was funny. I decided I was going to take a picture when a peer came up to me and told me, “You are going to have bad luck or die because you found that pumpkin. All you are doing now is taking evidence.” I have even asked my sibling about her pumpkin. She told me that she got it from Walmart two weeks before Halloween. Pumpkins are only meant to last two to three months if kept out of the hot sun and freezing weather. How have these pumpkins lasted for five months? They have been out in the sun and cold. I decided to ask a science teacher.

The science teacher in question was Lorry Henry. After asking her why this might be occurring, she said it might be because the pumpkins stayed dry before being relocated and we had a mild winter. Henry is surprised that no one has taken the parking lot pumpkin or smashed it. She predicts that it will stay until it rots away. Henry estimates that it showed up around a month ago and she wants to take the pumpkin home and make it into a pie. She did leave me, however, by saying that the pumpkin is perfectly shaped and might be an alien pumpkin.

Another teacher who has a conspiracy theory about the pumpkin is Laura Askue, the head of our English department. She noticed the parking lot pumpkin on a Friday after clubs on February 9th.  Askue found the pumpkin disturbing. Her thoughts are that a time traveler came and placed it there to make us aware that time travel exists and that it is a message from the past. After asking Askue how long she thinks it will stay, she said, “Only time will tell how long it will last.” 

Another whisper that spread in the school was that it was a senior prank or a new symbol of our school. All in all, why did someone choose a pumpkin? Why our parking lot? Who put it there? How long will it stay? How long until it rots? Most importantly will it be there after summer break? To find out, keep reading to learn about the parking lot pumpkin!

Photo by Rheann M.