Kids Say the Darndest (and Creepiest) Things

Photograph: Barbara Fisher

How many of you heard scary stories and superstitions as soon as you went to school that confused your parents?

For me, it started innocuously. “Step on a crack, break your mommas’ back.” I learned that phrase in kindergarten, and like many kids, sort of believed it!.

So did most of us, and we spent a good long time avoiding cracks in the sidewalk. A version of it also held that a BEAR would come out of the crack and follow you home.

There is a separate mythos and culture among school aged kids, passed down from kid to kid, that evolves as you grow up. They are told by peers, and older kids, whispered at sleepovers and recess.

I’m not sure where they came from, or when they started. But we all learned them, and I’m sure that there are region specific ones, and more universal ones. The one’s I’m writing about today are the ones I heard personally.

I suspect that they arise because school is a separate culture formed of children, and all cultures need and create myths. Kids are also somewhat bloodthirsty, judging by some of the skipping rhymes and other bits of mythology that I picked up over the years, told to me by other kids, and later, teenagers. I’m breaking them up into jump rope rhymes, scary stories, superstitions, and games. 

So let’s look at some of them.

In elementary school, all us girls jumped rope while the boys played basketball and ran around. We jumped rope with the big jump ropes held by two people. Some of the rhymes are probably familiar to you, but a favorite for us was “Cinderella”. “Cinderella dressed in yella went upstairs to kiss a fella, by mistake, she kissed a snake how many doctors did it take? One, two, three”, and then you jumped as many times as you could as the rope went faster and faster-however many times you could jump determined how many doctors it took to save her from death.

We also had Five Little Monkeys-you would start out with 5 people on the rope, and as the song went one one by one you jumped out. “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and hit his head, momma called the doctor and the doctor said, NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!” 

So, we have poisoning and head injuries already here, in elementary school.

Oh, and who could forget Lizzie Borden? “Lizzie Bordon took an ax, and gave her father 40 whacks, when she saw what she had done, she gave her mother 41!” If you couldn’t jump to 40 or 41 the cops caught you.

There were less macabre rhymes too-”Teddy bear, teddy bear turn around, teddy bear ,teddy bear touch the ground, teddy bear, teddy bear tie your shoes, teddy bear, teddy bear read the news, teddy bear, teddy bear hit your head, teddy bear, teddy bear go to bed.” where you mimicked the motions of the teddy bear while jumping. (Note, the teddy bear still hits his head at one point—kids are still a little bit bloodthirsty.)

The funny thing is, with the exception of Five Little Monkeys which was in a children's book, none of these were taught to us by adults as far as I can remember. A kid just knew them and taught them to the rest of us. The teachers much preferred us to jump to Teddy Bear, or “Lemonade” or something NICE, but we LOVED “Cinderella”, “5 Little Monkeys” and “Lizzie Borden” and would start those up as soon as the teacher was out of earshot. I think we loved them because they were slightly forbidden, and also kids are just...bloodthirsty. They also touch on lessons-don’t do risky things, you will get hurt, if you jump on the bed, you’ll hit your head, don’t kiss boys, you’ll get bit by a snake. Don’t chop up your parents, the cops will get you. (Lizzie Borden let us express frustration with parents.)

So onto scary stories-”urban legends” that were shared by kids. The two I remember vividly were “The Babysitter Killer” and “The Murderer Under The Bed”. The story of the Babysitter Killer is pretty simple-and was actually picked up as a horror trope in the movie “Scream” so I assume it was a widespread story.

A teen girl is babysitting some kids, and the phone keeps ringing, with a creepy guy on the other line, saying he is coming to kill her. She assumes it’s just a prank at first, but as he keeps calling her she gets scared, and calls the police, who trace the call, only to find it’s coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE, upstairs with the kids who are in bed!

In some versions, the kids are fine, and the cops catch the killer, in others, the kids have been murdered and the killer is caught, in another the kids are murdered, the killer escapes, and she is haunted for the rest of her life, waiting for him to come back and kill her too. The saddest version is that the cops don’t believe her about the phone calls, search the house, and find the kids dead-she is blamed for it and spends the rest of her life in a mental institution. 

“The Murderer Under The Bed” is about an escaped killer who preyed on teen girls. The girl in the story hears about his escape on the radio or TV, gets scared and worried. Her parents tell her not to worry, but she is really nervous and shuts her windows that were open. When she goes to bed and is falling asleep her hand falls off the edge of the bed. Throughout the night, she feels something lick her hand, and she assumes it’s her dog and scolds the dog while half asleep. When she wakes up she finds her sister who was asleep in the same room dead and covered in blood, screams and wakes her parents and the police come. They find the escaped killer hiding under her bed, and when they take him away he smiles at her and says “I was going to kill you too, but your hand tasted so good I kept tasting it and you woke up before I could get you!”

This one has a few versions too-in some of them he kills her parents, or doesn’t kill anyone, and she sees a knife peeking out under her bed, and rouses the house. In that one he says “I couldn’t get out, you locked the windows!” in addition to the hand licking. In another version of this story, her dog is the one murdered on the floor and he doesn’t say anything when he is taken away, instead simply smiling and licking his lips. 

Both of these stories contain a common view in America-that women will be targets of bad men. That you will not be believed by the authorities-in one, the police blame the girl, in another, the parents refuse to acknowledge their daughters rational fears. In the second story there is even a direct line drawn between the girls actions of locking the windows to her sister being murdered and her being victimized.

There is a thread of victim blaming, there is a thread of fear of men and being victimized. How did us kids even KNOW about that sort of thing? Well, we saw it. We were steeped in it. It is possible these stories were both cautionary tales, indoctrination, and simply making use of tropes that existed in our world. We had all been told by teachers after boys had pushed, hit, or kicked us, made fun of us, or stole our stuff that “boys would be boys” and that “they liked us” and that was why boys did those things.

In our imaginations these small assaults translated into bloody murders, with authority figures ignoring our concerns. 

Superstitions were things that would bring you luck, or doom you in some way, or would protect you from harm, supernatural things, or just silly stuff.

The aforementioned “Step on a crack, break your mommas’ back.” is a very common one.

Others were to hold your breath walking past a graveyard to keep ghosts from possessing you. Never walk on a grave to keep from angering the spirits inside. Hold your breath in a tunnel until you pass through it for good luck (this I heard from a cartoon AFTER I had been told it by another kid.) A bird in the house meant death. Say “Rabbit Rabbit, or I hate White rabbits” to keep campfire smoke from blowing towards you. (Although there was another saying, that “Smoke follows beauty.)

If there was a school pool? Someone drowned in it. The folding bleachers? If you were under them they would close on you and cut you into pieces-IT HAPPENED BEFORE ONE TIME! And of course, the inevitable, pervasive belief that monsters lived under the bed and in your closet.

If you were caught smoking a cigarette, the principle would burn you with it. Cover mirrors that face your bed or something would get you! If you whistled at night in a certain stairwell at school, you would hear a whistle back. These little bits of superstition seem to be for fun, for shivers, and to give some kind of control in a world where adults ruled. 

Games that I learned in elementary school ran the gamut from “cooties” where girls had them, and boys shunned us-not letting us touch them, so we chased them, (they could be inoculated with a “cootie shot” to be immune to girls’ cooties) to “cootie catchers” which lasted well into high school. (What are cooties? Some sort of bug or germ, though generally, they are thought of as head lice—and it would make sense that girls would have them, having longer, cleaner hair than boys—lice like long, thick, clean hair.)

Cootie catchers are those folded paper toys, made up of numbered or lettered flaps with writing on the insides. To play, one person operates the catcher, and asks you to pick a number. They then open and close the catcher, then lift the numbered flap you picked to reveal the writing inside. They are used as a kind of divination, or just as a silly game. You can use them to answer questions, or just to mess around. As we aged, the writing went from silly insults and bad words, to names of boys who would like us, the age at which we would have sex, what sexual position we would do first, etc.

These were explorations of sexuality, games to make fun of people, answers to questions in a format that was “silly” and thus safe, or to simply cross social norms. After all, girls aren’t supposed to say “fuck” or “blowjob”, so it was a semi-secret way to do that, out of the prying eyes of teachers. Girls played this game MUCH more than boys, and would even approach boys with specially made catchers filled out with girls names, offering to have them play so we could find out who they liked or who liked them. These were sort of make believe, but also sort of not. You learned fast not to play this game with a rival-because they could use the catcher to create an opening for teasing. 

We also learned-and played-the game/legend of Bloody Mary, and Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. 

As for Bloody Mary?

Well, buckle in, because this ones a doozy-and I played this in first grade! There are so many stories about Bloody Mary-that she was a pretty girl who got pregnant by her father and he killed her before she could tell, she was a witch who was murdered by townsfolk and jumped in the mirror to escape at the last second, she was a normal girl who was killed by a jealous boyfriend, she was a girl who got pregnant, wanted to keep the baby, and was killed for it since it was out of wedlock.

The most important part is she was murdered, bloodily, with a knife, in a bathroom with a mirror. She haunts mirrors to this day, and you can summon her like this: Shut the bathroom door, light a candle, turn off the lights. Run the tap juuuuust a little bit. Then chant “Bloody Mary” 3 to 5 times (I heard both) and on the last chant, blow out the candle, shut your eyes, and when you open them SHE WILL BE THERE IN THE MIRROR. Alternatively, you turn your back to the mirror and when you turn around she will be there. 

So, I did play this game once or twice, with my hand on the doorknob, ready to bolt and leave the other girls at the mercy of her bloody hands, because I was a jerk. The reality is that NO ONE that I ever did this with had the courage to stay in the dark and see if she was there.

If you DID see her, you would die-either pulled into the mirror with her, or she would come out and knife you. So you generally ran like hell as soon as you finished summoning her. This didn’t stop us all swapping stories of what happened if you were brave enough to stay in the bathroom with your eyes shut, or didn’t turn around. 

The sink would run with blood, or there would be bloody hand prints on the mirror. There would be a bloody knife on the sink, or you would hear her whisper your name. She would scratch your face trying to make you open your eyes so she could kill you, or she would pull your hair or grab your shoulder to try and make you turn around.

Now-one time we did brave it out with eyes shut and backs turned. But nothing happened except a bunch of scared crapless little girls got messed with by the older girl who talked us into doing it-with tapping sounds, and hair pulling, etc, until the light flicked on. Lord have mercy parents must have been tired of all the screaming little girls tearing ass out of bathrooms throughout the school district after we learned about this! 

Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board was a game where you put one person on a chair, or flat on their back, and had everyone else form a circle around them and place the first two fingers of each hand under them. Then, while chanting “light as a feather, stiff as a board” over and over you lifted them up and BOOM, magically they would rise into the air.

I do remember this working in 6th grade with a friend in a school chair. We got them up to eye level before we all got freaked out and stopped doing it. Now-bear in mind, about 12 kids were doing this, and it is possible that we only lifted the chair since we did it with our eyes shut. But I have a distinct memory of this working, and I want to try it as an adult some day.

These two games in particular seem to be kid versions of magical rituals that we greatly enjoyed. We liked to feel like we had power, and also that there were creepy things in the world, and that these were things that were just for US, and not grown ups. I honestly wonder if they would ever work now that I am an adult-though….I dunno if I really want to try Bloody Mary now that I know some basic magical theory. 

So-what did you hear as kids? What were the stories, superstitions, schoolyard chants, and games from your childhood?