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The Biology students got to bring baby ducklings home for the weekend. Most of my freshman are in Biology.

Last week, I heard nothing but giddy conversations about what to name the duck. I'm naming mine Finny! I'm naming mine Mr. O! I'm naming mine George Tunces Hofflemeyer the fourth, Jr.!

The ducklings were cute. They sat in the indoor greenhouse all week under heat lamps, and students squished their greasy faces to the glass doors to point at the ones they wanted. The ducklings were fuzzy and yellow-gray, tiny, tiny beaks. They smelled like diapers.

The ducks smell like diapers, I said last week. The students protested that it didn't matter, and then they exploded into their own conversational cheeps at the mention of the ducks. It's like dropping a tear of blood into a pool of sharks. Like baking soda and vinegar.

I said, You know, this week you're going to have your ducks, and then next week they're going to be serving Orange Duck with duck sauce in the cafeteria and you'll wonder where the ducks went. Protests and gasps, and then: I'm naming mine Piggy! I'm naming mine Ugly! I don't know what to name mine!

I'm certain that all of the ducks have an identity crisis, now, having gone through about 16 name changes over the three day weekend.

They picked up the ducks on Friday. Mr. O said they used to get them for the whole day, used to carry them through the halls in their little containers and set them in the back of the classroom while they were learning. I can think of about 3000 things wrong with that sitation. Ducks in the hallways, ducks in the lockers, ducks outside during lunch, ducks in pockets, ducks using their cell phones when they're not supposed to, texting other ducks. There was no duck day care. Mr. O said, instead, there was cheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheep! the entire hour.

This year, they got them after school. My 8th hour freshman had their giant plastic tubs with them during class, and they begged me to let them go early--minutes before the bell rang, so they could rush down to the greenhouse and get the best duck. The plastic tubs were covered in carefully organized newspaper--very homey. Instead of letting my students go before the bell, I stole a particularly spastic girl's duck house and ran with it, pretending not to give it back so she'd get the worst duck. Then she screamed at me, and I gave it back and let them go two minutes early to retrieve their ducks. They ran down the hallway, practically choo-chooing like trains: duck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck-duck.

After school, Mr. O's daughter and her partner brought their ducks to his office while he and I were talking. A giant purple bin, lined, and two tiny ducks inside looked scared out of their ducking minds. Look! She told me. When they're together, they don't cheep at all, but when you take them apart, they cheep. It's sooo cute!

Show me, I said. She took one duck in her hand and her friend took the other. Cheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheepcheep! they bleated, their beaks open wide in horror. Then they plopped them back in their bin, and they sat on their legs, huddled close, and stopped cheeping. Later, when we were in the classroom and the bin was closed, you could hear them cheeping through the plastic. She'd open one corner of the lid, put her lips to the container and scream shut up, ducks! at them. Then she'd close it, and they'd cheep again.

Today, the kids are still talking about ducks. Two girls whipped out a digital camera and said our babies! as they scrolled through the photos. They were an old married couple with an empty nest. I overheard one student ask another--hey, did your duck really die this weekend! And the student turned red and nodded. Oh man, no way! And the student told the story about how someone stepped on his poor duck. I didn't hear who or what killed the poor thing. Mr. O pretended to cry. I said, well, I guess you could change his name to Squishy.