Did anyone else read "Yellowed Leaves" in grade school? - Part 1
A weird tale seemingly scrubbed from the internet
For October’s short story, I decided to stick with the general “internet horror” theme I’ve been going with this month and try my hand at a creepypasta or r/NoSleep style of story. “Did anyone else read Yellowed Leaves in grade school?” is formatted like an archived internet forum thread where the discussion revolves around a book the participants are straining to recall having read in school. As they delve deeper into the mystery and remember their own lives at the time, they realize there are some things from childhood better left forgotten.
This story is going to be told in two parts, with the second being released on Halloween night!
[Archived from a deleted forum thread]
9/11/23 – oldkenkenobi (original poster): Did anyone else read Yellowed Leaves in grade school? It was some collection of short stories that my fourth grade teacher assigned us (I think in 2008). I remember her bringing them into the classroom in some old cardboard box about a week after school started. My school was in this tiny, old wooden building and didn’t really get a lot of funding so the teachers either ended up recycling whatever books there were enough copies of that had been stashed away in the cellar or attic decades before, or buying newer books in bulk. Like I said, the school didn’t get a lot of funding so it was mostly the former. The box and books definitely smelt like they had been pulled from either of those places. The books were so old, they reminded me of the first Time Machine movie where the main character finds the library and all the books crumbled to dust when he touched them. I thought that would happen when I opened my copy. I distinctly remember a little girl who sat a few desks to my right screaming after being handed her copy; she had grabbed right onto a crusty patch of mold and spent at least half an hour in the bathroom likely washing her hands while the rest of the class started reading.
My teacher kept up her normal peppy, “are you ready, kids?” attitude despite the outburst. The book didn’t have a summary on the back or any of those review blurbs. I forget if it even had an author byline (since it was an anthology, it could have had multiple contributors, but I don’t think I remember any of them either). As with most assigned reading in our class, our teacher wanted us to take turns reading aloud—she started us off with the title of the first story and its first paragraph. I think it was called “A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road.” I don’t remember much after that, other than my teacher’s expression slowly changing to one of concern as we took turns reading—I can’t be sure, though.
Did anyone else read this book or, probably even less likely, does anyone happen to have a copy of it? Not sure why, but it probably just came back to me now that it’s “back to school” time.
9/27/23 – gracie77 replied to oldkenkenobi: OMG I didn’t think anyone else read that book! We also were assigned that in fourth or fifth grade ELA iirc. Did you ever finish it? I remember there was a huge PTA meeting that happened a few weeks after we’d started it and a bunch of books got banned from the school library and classrooms. That one also just vanished and we started reading Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe instead. Idk if I remember any of the stories in it or the plots, just that there were a few words that repeated a few times in each one.
I’m also really curious now! If anyone does remember more, help us out! And if someone does have a copy they’d be willing to scan, that’d be great!
9/28/23 – oldkenkenobi replied to gracie77: Hi! Wow, I forgot I’d posted that; I honestly figured it could’ve just been a weird dream or Mandela Effect, but there are details that are just too clear for it to have been one. I do remember a few kids complaining that the book started to scare them, even my classmates who were really into the Goosebumps series but nobody’s parents ever intervened. I can’t even remember if we ever finished the book in our class. Any idea if you’d be able to get the minutes from that PTA meeting? It might have some indication of where those banned books went.
9/28/23 – gracie77 replied to oldkenkenobi: It was a big fiasco! I remember one kid’s mom even stormed into the classroom a minute after class started and just laid into my teacher about the book being “unholy” and “devil worship.” She even took the teacher’s copy and ripped out some of the pages. It was bad. Security had to be called to get the lady out and escorted off-campus. My parents were kinda so-so about it, thankfully, but I think they handed in my copy along with the others. I called them the other day about it and they can barely remember the whole thing; we got it pretty bad during the Recession and they had bigger fish to fry than “scary books.”
Unfortunately my school burned down in 2012 and this was before they’d started digitizing everything, putting it into the cloud, and all that. I tried googling it a few times but nothing that matched what we’d read came up.
9/29/23 – chippiechamp replied to oldkenkenobi: Hello, I think I remember the book you (and gracie) are talking about. Even now, I find it very odd our teacher used it for class in the first place, considering since my older brother hadn’t read it when he was in Year 4. Just to clarify, I live in the UK and it was very rare for English Literature curricula to deviate from the classics. We went to a fairly upper-middle class primary school that prided itself on preparing students for university and such an early age. My teacher was this older chap who loved to tell M.R. James’s ghost stories around Christmastime before we let out for the holidays. He never assigned those stories, however, so it came as a surprise when he showed us that book. I remember walking into class on the first day of school, sweating under my uniform since it was so hot outside, and seeing a copy of it on each of the desks. They were old, worn paperbacks with black lettering set against this yellow that turned my stomach looking at it. I remember my copy in particular had this great big crease running from the top left to bottom right. We began by reading the first story aloud, each student taking a turn coming to the front of the class and reading a paragraph. I remember “A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road”, as well as one story that took place somewhere around a bog and the narrator was describing all the dead things in the muck, the stink in the air, and vultures on the naked tree branches.
9/30/23 – oldkenkenobi replied to chippiechamp: Glad we’ve found someone else! I’ve considered trying to track down my classmates on Facebook but my family never kept any of my yearbooks, so this will have to do, but I think we might finally be onto something.
I think I remember that story with the bog too. That girl in my class who got the moldy copy started crying when the narrator mentioned the skeleton of some little animal floating to the surface, I think a rabbit or a cat. We had to pause from reading aloud so the teacher could calm her down, but I remember reading ahead by myself. There was something else in that story that creeped me out a lot—it described something that the narrator thought was a tree across the bog with a thick coat of yellow leaves. What I thought was really spooky was when the narrator saw it move, then he realized it was a tall person dressed in yellow.
That part really got under my skin because my family’s trailer was near a swamp and my room faced it. I remember keeping my blinds closed until all the leaves fell off the trees that fall. It was pretty coincidental since we got to that story around the first week of October when all the leaves changed.
10/2/23 – gracie77 replied to oldkenkenobi: Ditto with the bog story, now that you mention it. And the color yellow! I feel like that popped up a lot in the book, but ig that’s on theme with something that literally has it in the title.
Like I said in my first reply, we never actually finished the book. I did feel really depressed reading through it, but I think that might have also been due to the absolute state of the economy affecting my home life—my parents really had a hard time keeping the arguments down when it was bedtime.
10/2/23 – gracie77 replied to chippiechamp: Welcome to our little investigation! Your teacher sounds like he was really cool! Do you think you’d be able to reach out to him and ask where he got the book or if he still has a copy? Did your school do anything about him using it for his class instead of one of the “classics?”
10/4/23 – chippiechamp replied to gracie77: Hello, apologies for the wait, but my work and the time difference across the pond makes it so that I don’t see these until late.
My teacher passed away, unfortunately and unexpectedly. It was right in the middle of October too, not long after we covered the bog story. We received the announcement the morning after and proceeded with classes as usual. However, all the copies of The Yellowed Leaves were gone when I got back to my classroom and our new literature teacher started us on something else. Someone mentioned the book but the teacher just dismissed it, saying something like, “We’ll have none of that ghoulish drivel in my class.”
Now that I think about it, my literature teacher (the first one), didn’t seem quite well at the start of that semester. He was sitting at his desk all the time, having us read the book aloud instead of him, and when he did stand up, he was all shaky. I ought to reach out to his family; they don’t live all that far from my parents, at least they didn’t last I checked.
Other than the replacement teacher’s comment, the school itself didn’t stop him. He was a favorite among the students and faculty, so he could pretty much get away with teaching anything as long as it was age appropriate.
10/5/23 – chippiechamp replied to themselves: Another thought just came to me. It hit me right as I was falling asleep and I need to get it down before I forget, even though I have classes early in the morning. The book, for all intents and purposes, was age appropriate. I remember the language was fairly easy for a Year 4 student to read, of course with some new vocabulary in there for us to learn the meanings of. While there were some more creepy parts, no creepier than a folktale imo, it wasn’t anything that we couldn’t handle. I do remember some parts of it that were just strange like words that kept coming up which we couldn’t find the definitions of and references to nature spirits like fauns and such (I had read the Narnia books before, so those stuck out to me). I think that latter part is what might have rankled the one zealous parent at your school, gracie77.
I’m not sure why I felt like I needed to get this down, other than maybe to bring some clarity as to why our teachers would give us these books if they were so upsetting or “ghoulish.”
When I’ve had some sleep and my tea, I’ll drop my teacher’s family a line and see if I can pop in for a visit. Honestly, I’m quite thrilled to be part of this little mystery. Do let me know if either of you find anything.
Cheers!
10/5/23 – oldkenkenobi replied to chippiechamp: I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but makes sense! Otherwise, why would that book be in a school in the first place? Even though it was technically “age appropriate,” my teacher switched us to another book before Halloween since a lot of my classmates were in fact getting upset from the stories. I thought it was a little bit of a bummer that we didn’t read more in time for Halloween since I had started liking the book and the activities she planned around it.
10/5/23 – gracie77 replied to chippiechamp: Let us know what you find out from them! My school wasn’t a Catholic school or any other religion but a lot of the families who lived in the area were religious and they wanted a hand in what the school taught us and had us read. A lot of what they considered “age appropriate” was pretty laughable in hindsight and just downright demeaning at worst.
10/6/23 – resplendor replied to chippiechamp: First off, that story with the bog was called “H-’s Teardrop” (the H is hyphenated because I can’t remember the full name other than that it started with an H). Second, hate to break it to you, but I think your teacher (as well as mine, ken’s, and gracie’s) were part of some secret society hellbent on indoctrinating students to follow some sick ideology that emphasizes decadence and drug-use. I went to a pretty small school and every single person in my fourth-grade class who read The Yellowed Leaves, except for me, has wound up a junkie, starving artist, a used-up teen parent chronically posting on Facebook about every little “positive” thing that’s happened in their miserable lives, or dead. They tried to set us up to fail and it’s only by luck that each of us escaped what they were trying to do to us.
10/7/23 – oldkenkenobi replied to resplendor: Umm, I don’t think my teacher had any ulterior motives showing us that book. Like I said in my original post, I genuinely think neither she nor the school had enough money to buy us new books so she just picked out whatever she could scrounge from storage. Also, do you have anything to contribute to this conversation? If you did read the book yourself, it’d actually be helpful if you remember any of the stories or details surrounding your class reading it. You pointed out the title of the bog story, which is a start, so are there any others you remember?
10/7/23 – resplendor replied to oldkenkenobi: If she wasn’t one of their agents, then whoever brought that book into your school in the first place is the likely culprit. She was smart not to have you all keep reading. Have you checked on your old classmates to see how they’re doing? Actually, you probably shouldn’t; wherever they ended up after reading that book probably will just make you want to end it all.
I actually do remember two other stories besides “A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road” and “H-’s Teardrop.” There was one called “Silence and Flame” about this guy called “the Knave” walking through a forest while it burned around him, and another I can’t remember the title of but had something to do with a play.
I think there were 10 stories in total. I remember that detail because I hated reading as a kid and just kept counting down until we were finished with the book.
10/7/23 – gracie77 replied to resplendor: If you don’t mind me asking, what made you avoid spiraling like your classmates as you claimed? I checked in with mine (the ones that are on social media at least) and they all seem to be doing okay! I did find one obituary about one classmate who passed away in 2012, however, but I had already been going to a different school by then.
10 stories sounds about right. I remember our teacher wrote an agenda on the board for how long it would take us to read each one and follow them up with chapter summaries and other assignments. The last story was the one with the play, or really it was subtitled “a play.”
I’ll just go ahead and make a list of the stories we do remember and which order they were in. Maybe they might have been reprinted elsewhere and we can try and track down their authors (if any of them are alive) or find some kind of publication history.
“A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road”
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
???
??? (the play)
(Unnumbered: “H-’s Teardrop”, “Silence and Flame”)
10/8/23 – resplendor replied to gracie77: My life is far from a paradise, but that’s mostly because of the hand the universe dealt me, nothing to do with that cursed book. The reason I’m still relatively okay is because I never actually finished The Yellowed Leaves. My parents couldn’t hold jobs very well so we moved around a lot—I was in three different schools in fourth grade. I got through a good chunk of the book before we were on the road; I left it in my desk at school, though.
I’d check in more on that one classmate of yours who bought it. Your school burns down and that kid dies in the same year? Seems like there’s something going on there.
If I had to hazard a guess, based on ken’s comment about the season and general pacing our teachers had us read the stories, “H-’s Teardrop” would go somewhere around the 4 or 5 slot on your list. I remember “Silence and Flame” was number 8. I remember it because I was counting down the stories until we were done with the book and that one stood out since it was the second to last one in the order and the last one I read before I moved.
10/8/23 – gracie77 replied to resplendor: I’m really not sure if this book had anything to do with ruining kids’ lives, sometimes people are just not lucky.
I’m also not sure if there’s any kind of conspiracy with that. The school burnt down overnight so no one was supposed to be inside if that’s what you’re implying. My former classmate’s death was likely an unrelated incident, but I will try and verify the details.
Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll update the list.
“A Stroll Down Old Cemetery Road”
???
???
“H-’s Teardrop” (?)
“H-’s Teardrop” (?)
???
???
“Silence and Flame”
???
??? (the play)
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Check out part 2!
Did anyone else read "Yellowed Leaves" in grade school? - Part 2
“Did anyone else read Yellowed Leaves in grade school?” © Ethan Sabatella 2024 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.
The tension is building … 😬