Tell A Tale of Cockroaches

In the morning, during centers, Angelie came to me and said, "Miss Sells! I saw a cockroach as big as a dog."

"Where was it?" I said calmly. She pointed to the corner where she sits. I went over and searched for it, but found no cockroach. "Let me know if you see it again."

A few minutes later, Vanessa comes to me and says, "Miss Sells, I swear while I was sitting doing my work, I heard a noise under my desk that sounded like a big bug!" I assumed that Vanessa overheard Angelie's conversation and dramatized a cockroach sound.

"It's okay, Vanessa. It's probably just your imagination."

A few moments later, as I was on the floor with a small group, I see a HUGE COCKROACH scuttling across the floor toward my desk, about two feet from us. "Watch out!" I scream and throw the students aside (as if they were going to be attacked by this cockroach? I don't know). The cockroach runs under my desk. I get up and try to find it to trap it, but it's gone! Poof! I'm a little worried because Mitch told me once that cockroaches can climb walls, so I'm imagining the cockroach in my purse or hanging out in my drawers.

Toward the end of the day, while I was teaching Calendar Math, Angelie begins screaming. "Miss Sells! The cockroach!" I run over there, trying to keep some kind of order (and actually continuing to teach my lesson: "That's right. And why is 65 odd?), and call, "I need a cup!" Well, my students are more interested in seeing the stupid thing than helping me trap it, so I'm calling Daniel out from under his desk, telling Alex that, no, we can't have this cockroach as our class pet, and trying to rein the kids in, while dumping out my cup of dice to use. I put the cup over the cockroach, then, put a cup of beans (I have the strangest thing in my classroom- I know) over it so it couldn't knock the cup over. I was just going to leave it there, but Angelie was obviously a little concerned about having a cockroach so close, so I got a piece of paper and scraped the cup onto it, from underneath. I was going to just pick up the whole thing, but that mutant cockroach was too big, so I ended up having to push it across the floor to the door, on my hands and knees.

I put it right beside the door, where it was pretty hot. A little later, Ebelyn asked where the cockroach was. "Outside, baking" was my answer.

"You mean like muffins?"

Yes, Ebelyn, our cockroach is a muffin baker.

P.S. Rest in peace, giant cockroach. He died under the cup.