Miss Eberly and the Case of the Horrible Smell

I just remembered today that I never blogged about the mysterious and horrible smell in my classroom a couple of weeks back. I will tell it now.... and I will try not to be over dramatic as I retell it. It was quite the day.

I walked into my classroom bright and early. It was 6:30 am on a Monday morning, and I was greeted by a slightly off smell. I couldn't place it, and figured it was just some weekend must or a weird plant outside. I assumed the smell would fade away as the day went on.

My students started coming in, turning in homework and folders as usual. Two or three came up to me and mentioned that it smelled a little weird. I told them the smell would go away soon.

When my students left for Spanish a little while later I noticed the smell was getting worse and that I could now smell it from my desk. I was getting a little nervous and started walking around my room, looking and smelling for anything suspicious. I hadn't found anything by the time my students came back.

As I was teaching Bible, I was walking around the room explaining a Bible story. By now, the smell was a LOT stronger and I noticed it a lot more as I got to the back of the room. My stomach was starting to turn and I realized I was getting a little queasy. I didn't know how my students were dealing with it. I decided then that something must have died in my room. I was in the middle of class and couldn't really go find assistance without making a huge scene and my students freaking out, so I decided to ignore it a little while longer.

As the morning went on, the smell got worse. When the bell rang for recess, I ran next door and asked the 5th grade teacher to come have a smell. The second she walked in, she declared that something must be dead.

I went and found the maid and told her that something was dead in my classroom. She came in, gagged, and immediately went to find help.

One of maintenance guys came in and started looking around. I was sitting at my desk looking horrified. He looked around, didn't see anything, and then looked up. There were some flies buzzing around one particular part of the ceiling. He got a ladder, climbed up, and lo and behold, he found a very large, dead, and rotten rat. The smell that filled the room made all three of us run out. The guy came back in with a handkerchief tied around his mouth and nose and took the critter far, far away.

We had class outside for the next hour or so while my room aired out. When lunch rolled around, my stomach was still so upset I couldn't eat. I told the tale to my friends. The sixth grade teacher told me that the week before they had put rat poison in her classroom closet..... looks like the rat found it!

And so the case of the terrible and mysterious smell came to an end. We all lived happily every after (except the rat).