What started as a gift created a scary situation last Monday at Mount Si High School.

The device that prompted an evacuation of the school on Monday, June 16, turned out to be a homemade telephone. It was misidentified as a bomb after it was opened upside-down, exposing the green phone cord protruding from the back.

School was evacuated and students spent part of the afternoon at the stadium.

On the positive side, the scare provided the district with a chance to try out its emergency phone system and spurred potential revisions to the way deliveries are accepted at the high school office.