The music blares loudly, lights are flashing in patterns on the ceiling, everyone is singing along to the music or talking to their friends. This is the Middle School Halloween Dance Party. It is silent outside, until you open the door to the Commons and walk in to the deafening music and the crowd of people in costumes. Everyone was packed into such a tight space, it was hard to move from one end to the other. It makes it even harder that everyone else is dancing. But everyone is having a great time.

After entering through the check-in desk in front of the high school entrance, party goers made their way to the Commons.  Members of the Dobbs Ferry Student Government manned the food station, which was at one section of the food line. They didn’t use the cashiers though, they had their own box of money. They sold brownies, cookies, popcorn, gatorade, and water, even though there was a perfectly functional water fountain ten feet away. There was no candy, sadly, but the food that was there was still good. The Commons were split in half by a line of chairs that you can sit and eat in, but you weren’t allowed to go behind them. The DJ was set up right next to the doors that go to the courtyard.

There were these two people in inflatable costumes that appeared to be getting tortured. One of those people, who was in the dinosaur costume, was being tortured by little kids who must have been siblings of someone else. The other person in an inflatable costume was also getting poked, but that person had two personal bodyguards who were standing around him and ushering people away. One of them, ironically, was dressed up as a police officer, and he was yelling at everyone, like a police officer.

There was a large variety of costumes at the party. There were like nine Naruto’s, five people who were wearing their football uniforms, tons of unrecognizable costumes that were just mainly black, some people dressed up as someone from a fairy tail, and of course those inflatable costumes. But then there are those unique ones, like a rocket-man, some person wearing a Tampa Bay Lightning jersey, the Mandalorian, and (Why not?) the Coronavirus.

The costume contest started at around 7:30. The judges, who were standing by the DJ, asked for anyone who wanted to participate to come to them in front of the dance floor. Naturally, a ton of people came up, so there was a huge clump of people. 

After about five minutes of looking around at the contestants and talking amongst themselves, they had their verdict. Spoiler alert, the author didn’t win. Third place was three eighth graders named Rohan Garten, Riley Caffentzis-Horn, and Evan Ommen, who were called the Barbershop Quartet. Second place was the costume called the Day of the Dead, by 6th grader Olivia DiLallo. And finally, first place was… (drumroll please) the Coronavirus, worn by sixth grader Anika Johnston. Sixth grader Max Montgomery, the one in the Tampa Bay Lightning jersey, later said, “The judges were biased. If I had been wearing a New York Rangers costume, the results would have been different.”