Do you know what a waterfall sounds like?

I didn’t. I mean, I’d seen videos with waterfalls and that kind of thing, and I guess it’s not all that hard to imagine (it’s just a big, loud “shhhhhhhh,” right?), but I didn’t really know what it was like. I’d never heard one first-hand.

I didn’t exactly think I would be hearing one as I walked down the 1300 hallway last Thursday, either.

Sure, our resident weather fanatic Evan Walton knew a supercell was on its way. We were all giddily gathered around the window as the band members scrambled away from the football field and flinched with each crack of thunder, scrambling to get the props onto their carts and inside. Our teacher hollered over the obnoxious rushing of rain outside. But even then, I never anticipated hearing a waterfall in a high school just 12 years old in an area of Texas not exactly famous for its plentiful rain. I also hadn’t expected waterfalls to have chunks of ceiling tile in them or to be coming through a newly-repaired roof.

Unfortunately, nobody was aware this waterfall would plant itself in the journalism classroom, one with 17 new computers and loads of camera equipment, where it steadily dribbled with increasing confidence from the ceiling. It started as a trickle in the closet where the cameras and yearbook photo supplies are kept, perhaps the most important and expensive room to the entire journalism department. It bloomed into a series of leaks occupying a fourth of the classroom.

My classmates agreed that waterfalls do not belong in classrooms, so trash cans were gathered to collect the water, which threatened to deep fry every electronic the journalism department had saved over the years. Someone opened the door and informed us of even stronger, louder leaks upstairs, describing it as being “like a shower head in the roof.”

Of course, being a journalist who knew we would need some sort of record for this, Jaren Tankersley threw a camera at me and hollered, “Take photos!”

Immediately I turned from Erin Sheffield, the girl with frizzy hair and a t-rex sweater who obsesses just a little too much over Dr. Pepper, to Erin Sheffield, investigative journalist, dedicated to exploring indoor waterfalls. The yarn in my sweater soaked with the sweat of a reporter in pursuit of a story, and my eyes ached from the strain of peeking through the viewfinder. My canvas flats squeaked with water.

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Marching to the beat of her own drum

I roamed the school for 15 minutes, photographing every oddity – some of the water pools drifting down the stairs, some of the principals and custodians vacuuming up said pools (apparently, waterfalls can be vacuumed), some of the traffic cones blocking off the blooming hallway pond.

I wasn’t present for the next day’s events, when the 1100 and 2100 hallways filled with smoke pushed into the building from the roof. While it would have been interesting to cover as a reporter, it’s more important that all students present were safe. Still, as the bell to end first period rang and I settled down at my desk for world history, I knew two things.

I knew what a waterfall sounds like, and I knew I loved being a journalist.