Eek

A student raised his hand when I was in the middle of instruction this morning. "I just saw a mouse," he reported.

I was neither alarmed nor surprised. After the last bus has departed for the day, I have seen a critter run with stealth along the baseboard as I work at my desk in the quiet of the afternoon. Long ago, I learned to store any food in the metal cabinets and drawers of my desk, because they are inaccessible and impossible to chew through. Because there is nothing to encourage a mouse to stay for long, I don't worry about seeing one passing through. 

I know I'm in the minority, though, and the custodians routinely answer calls to catch and kill mice in classrooms. It's as it should be, I suppose, because in addition to being vermin and all, mice can be a huge distraction in a classroom. 

This morning, though, I was very surprised at how calm my class remained. Maybe it was my attitude that set the tone, but although one student did tuck her feet up onto her chair, where they stayed for the rest of the class, there was no screaming or running either away or toward the creature. 

There was a lot of conversation though. 

"Can we name him?"
"Let's call him Mickey!"
"No! Let's call him Jerry."
"Yeah! Jerry! Who votes for Jerry?"

And so Jerry it was.

Unfortunately, Jerry's reputation preceded him the rest of the day. "Is it true there's a mouse in here?" someone asked at the beginning of every class. 

"Maybe," I would shrug, trying to keep things business as usual. "He won't bother us, though."

That approach had more success in some groups than others.

"I heard his name was Jerry. Where's Tom?" quipped one student.

Where indeed?