Small furry creatures seem to have overrun McCallum. No, I do not mean the freshmen. In all areas of the building and in the theater many different small animals live in the roof and in some pipes. Where these animals are getting in is somewhat a mystery. Obviously, this is an old school, but it is scary to imagine that animals can easily get into the building and appear in classrooms or in water fountains.

Although not confirmed, last year a teacher warned her students against drinking out of the water fountain in the language hallway. Apparently, a dead rat drowned in the fountain. The thought was that the rat climbed into the pipe system through an outside opening and then just crawled up into the fountain. The water fountain is completely safe to drink from, but always look before sipping. 

Aside from the many dead rats that Mr. Whisennand uses for dissection, a squirrel visits his classroom. On one side of his wall, in the wood, a squirrel broke through the wall and occasionally pop its head through the opening. Let’s just hope that Mr. Whiz never gets hold of the squirrel because there might be one more addition to the dead rats that students dissect.

In the upper reaches of the theater lives a raccoon. One-day students were up on the catwalk attempting to discover why one of the large speakers was not working and they found an enormous raccoon. The raccoon is a major problem because not only did it rip the speaker, but also it may carry diseases or attack someone if threatened.

In addition, something died above the boy’s dressing room. For several months the dressing room smelled so horrid that people could hardly go in there. For quite a while no one could figure out exactly why the dressing room smelled so bad. Gradually the scent has reduced, but still traces of the putrid smell remain.

McCallum may be a school that has many original aspects about it, but having live and dead animals roaming or creating offensive odors in the building probably is not the claim to fame that McCallum desires.

This story was originally published in The Shield on Dec. 12, 1997.