One night, vandals terrorized a cluster of homes on our street in a small Midwestern town.

The vandals splattered houses with eggs, smashed flood lights, destroyed lawn decorations and defaced driveways with silver spray paint.

But the Satanic-flavored graffiti really jarred the neighbors: A few driveways sported a large silver goat head framed within a pentagram, with upside-down crosses in the goat’s eyes and other devilish imagery intertwined. The detailed drawings still stick in my mind, as they surely required a bit of practice.

Police interviewed residents on the street, telling parents that the crime could have come from a cult. The next night, it was hard to fall asleep as visions of devil worshippers danced in my then-teenaged head. All our neighbors were nervous, keeping one eye open on not only their properties, but peace of mind.

The fear sparked by those vandals eventually faded as the days went by. One day in science class, the incident came up in conversation with my lab partner, a socially-awkward kid in the next grade level. Students taunted him mercilessly with nicknames like Cyclops and Lefty because, as the story went, his younger sister hit him between the legs with a sledgehammer, leaving him with one testicle.

As I described this so-called cult’s act of vandalism that shook our street a few weeks before, Lefty began to laugh. He ripped a blank sheet of paper from a notebook and drafted a replica of that goat head, pentagram and all, right in front my eyes. He reminisced about that night of mischief with an odd fondness, and even named his accomplices — the brother and two sisters who lived across the street.

I felt like a fool for being spooked by a silly adolescent prank. Oddly enough, I didn’t need to tattle because someone else at our school already did, according to Lefty, who talked about restitution orders. Needless to say, we never saw vandalism like that on our street again.

I recalled this incident following a string of fires, along with a bomb threat, the week of Dec. 8-12 at Todd Beamer High School in Federal Way. Fires were set in the school’s bathrooms three days in a row, leading to evacuations and disruptions in learning. Four students were arrested.

The admirable part is that the Todd Beamer student body stood up to those troublemakers — and demanded more appropriate behavior in their school. After all, school is supposed to feel like a safe environment. Once that haven was threatened, students quickly banded together to make a statement that dangerous pranks would not be tolerated. Students marked a wall at the school, along with all bathroom doors, with messages of frustration and anger.

Although it is impossible to prevent such mischief from occurring again, the lesson here is that peer pressure can be a positive thing. A scolding carries more weight to a teen when it comes from a peer, as opposed to an adult in charge.

Kudos to Todd Beamer students for taking charge to ensure that their high school remains a safe place to learn.