The Ballad of Thomas May

I wonder what happens in the school at night
When there’s nobody there and it’s locked up tight

And they’ve all gone home and turned out the last light
Tell me, what goes on in the school at night?

I wonder what happens when they’ve all gone home
And there’s just the caretaker all alone

Walking up and down in the empty halls
With his footsteps echoing off the walls

When it’s freezing cold because the heating’s off
But nobody moans that they’ll sneeze and cough

For they’ve all gone away to their comfy houses
And there’s no living things except the spiders and mouses

To hear the building groan and creak
In the way that old places like to speak

And to tell the tales of the things they saw
About all the kids coming through their door

All the generations, bad and good,
Who attended here from the neighbourhood

The crumbling school has seen them all
As they walked – “Don’t run” – through their crumbling halls

Silence in class or break-time noise
They’d all been here, all the girls and the boys

And they’d all gone home when the day was done
Yes, they’d all gone home. Well, except for one.

A twelve year old called Thomas May
Whose parents thought had run away

From home. They said they’d had a fight
About what time he should turn out his light

So he’d gone to school like he always did
But he never went back, this poor little kid

Who nobody liked and who sulked all the time.
When he hadn’t got home by eight or nine

They called the police and they searched the town
But no sign of Thomas was ever found

He’d stayed behind when school was done
Rather than face his angry Mum

And hidden away till silence fell
Long after the final lesson’s bell

He’d crept through the gym to the changing room
And there he’d hidden in the gathering gloom

'til they’d all locked up and no-one was aware
That a foolish boy was hiding there

But in the silent darkness out he came
Yet the empty school didn’t feel the same

Was there something there just out of sight
In an unoccupied school in the dead of night?

He thought he glimpsed, from the corner of his eye,
A shape, a figure, something flash by

He was caught on film about one forty-five
And that’s the last time anyone saw him alive

The security shots that the camera caught
Shows him running away, looking scared and fraught

Though it never showed what he was running from
Or what happened when the thing caught up with Tom

But we know that nothing good occurred
In the silent school where nothing stirred

For young Thomas May is still around
And his ghostly form can be sometimes found

You can see right through him like he’s made of glass
As he wanders around from class to class

Like he’s searching for an exit door
But poor Tommy May won’t go home any more

He’s the old school house’s resident spirit.
Every ancient building has at least one in it.

There he’ll stay to the end of days
Paying the price for running away

So don’t stay alone in a dark, dark school
Our you might end up like that young fool

Find another safe place to hide and play
So tell me children, what do you say?

© Shaun Finnie 2013