My class is back from spring break (yes, already...it was strangely early this year) and got to meet their new pets, as promised. I decided on rats for their intelligence, cleanliness, and low cost, since the budget for classroom mammals is sadly low ($0). Also, did you know guinea pigs cheep? A lot? Some of the kids have short enough attention spans as it is.

They're both female, since I didn't feel up to having discussions about male rat anatomy (read: they are extremely endowed). The kids voted to name them Beezus and Ramona.

I'm still terrified this is going to end in a lot of tears.

Previous Name: Henry "Hank" McCoy
Myth: X-Men (comics)
Past Life Information: Hank grew up the small-town golden boy—a certified genius AND the star of the football team—despite having enormous hands and feet that set him apart from the rest of the town. Turned out he was a mutant with superhuman speed, strength, and agility, much aided by those huge paws. He was recruited by Professor Xavier as a member for an early incarnation of the X-Men/School for Gifted Youngsters, and despite many, many hiccups along the road (becoming a blue simian-looking guy due to his own hubris; defecting to the Avengers; evolving into a cat for a while; having to deal with sharing his world with a time-displaced younger version of himself AND an evil mad scientist one), he's mostly been true to his school.

Current Name: Zachariah "Zach" Hofstadler
Age: 28
Occupation: Third grade teacher
Personality: Zach is equal parts introvert and extrovert—he can talk with nearly everyone at a party, but also spend the whole weekend cuddled up with a great book at home. But he can be instinctively protective of his independence, and while friendly with everyone, has never had a lot of close friends. He’s naturally pretty athletic, though by no means a phenom, mostly because he never had the inclination to pursue it. He loves a game of touch football or a good hike, though, and can probably tell you the scientific names for a lot of the plants he sees. (But if you ask him, he’ll try not to.) He is extremely allergic to cats.
Background: Zach was the fifth child of the Oregon-based Hofstadler family and very much a surprise—his mother assumed she was starting menopause when she discovered, oops, nope. The sibling closest to him in age is about a decade older than him, but they all were surprisingly delighted with their new little brother. In fact, Zach sort of felt like he had six parents growing up, and every single one was a bit of a mother hen. (Even though his siblings mostly have kids of their own now—some nearly Zach’s age!)

Zach’s slowly, slowly moved farther and farther away from the fam as he’s gotten older. It’s not like they’re not still all up in his business thanks to social media, so the physical miles give him some much-needed breathing room. As he made his way east, he applied for New Orleans jobs mostly on a lark, but he’s turned out to really love his job here and has no plans to leave the city in the foreseeable future. (Even though living in a popular tourist destination means every member of his family has come to visit over the three years he’s been here. But he loves them, he swears!)

Zach teaches elementary school, favoring the middle grades because that’s when the fun learning starts, in his opinion—science experiments, chapter books, and hands-on field trips, oh my! He’s been teaching third grade for his entire NOLA-based career so far. He reads Charlotte's Web to his students every year, and still cries at the end every time

Current Status: Unaware