Squeak!

So today, while the kids are quietly pounding away at their keyboards, I'm standing at my computer verifying that projects are, indeed, being dropped into my drop box on the server (I'm having the kids turn in their projects electronically) and I see something out of the corner of my eye.

I pause. I glance to my right. Nothing. Maybe I was imagining things.

A minute or two later one of my kids lets out a "Arghghg!" and everyone freezes. "Oh my gosh, there's a mouse!" he yells.

Chaos.

Kids squeal. Girls pull their feet up off the floor. Three of my severe ADHD kids are, of course, out of their seats sprinting across the room to see the mouse up close. (At this point I'm feeling sorry for the mouse.)

"Get back to your seats and get back to work!" I bellow, giving my three sprinters The Look. "It's just a mouse. It's not going to hurt you." As I say this I'm hoping they haven't discussed the Black Plague in social studies recently. I send a note up to The Secretary and she dispatches a janitor with glue traps to set for our critter.

However.

Before the janitor arrives our mouse was playing a game of hide and seek with us. He was basically running along one wall, running behind the crates the workbooks are stored on and the worktable that holds homework basket, scissors, supplies, and all sorts of goodies. Under the table are plastic boxes of vocabulary cards, and tubs with other supplies, but nothing containing food or anything that would attract a mouse. This little guy would run out and pop out by the door (which I opened in the hopes he'd see the light and flee out to the hallway), something would move and spook him, he'd run back to the other side of the table, pop out there, then head back the other direction. I lost count of how many times he popped out where I could see him. It was actually getting to be quite entertaining.

The Janitor arrived, set down two glue traps, and left. I figured by the end of the day our friend would be trapped. However, when I checked before I headed out for the weekend, nothing was there. I'm guessing that when The Janitor walked in, and started moving the tubs around he saw his chance and took off out the door.

He is, however, not alone. We are having a huge mouse problem in the building, the likes of which we've never seen before. Mrs. Eagle has caught families of mice in her room, many of them in the cupboards under the sinks in her room. The front office has spotted mice and the Large Group Instruction room, used by the PTO for a lot of things, has quite a few of them. Mr. Social Studies suspects that the new duct work they did over the summer for the new heating/AC unit that was installed may not have been properly sealed so they're coming in the building now that it's getting cold out.

I need a class cat.