A Critter in my Classroom

About two weeks ago, while working late one night, I heard a scurrying sound in the ceiling of my classroom.  It was thankfully across the room from where I was sitting but it was enough to freak me out a little but not to really think about it too much.  It was definitely not a bird as it was like scurrying feet and not so small of a sound that a mouse might make but I couldn't be sure.  My imagination and Canadian background prompted me to think it was a raccoon.  I did not do anything about it.

I happened to mention it a few days later to my Grade Two teaching partner as just a kind of light-hearted story telling, but she turned serious right away.  She told me a shortened version of a story that had happened at Dalat a few years ago.  There was a fire that destroyed one of the classrooms at the school; it was a big deal.  It turned out the cause of the fire was an animal chewing through some wiring in the ceiling of a classroom.

I immediately put a request to have maintenance check out what was happening in my classroom and they put a metal trap up there.  A couple of days later I heard the same scurrying sound and knew the little animal was still up there and hadn't been caught in the trap yet.  About a week after that the maintenance men came back one morning before school; I happened to be there at the time and was very excited to see if anything had been caught.  Sure enough, inside the metal trap was a rat (see picture).  No more exciting sounds since then.