It’s been a hectic week in the back room connected to psychology teacher Sheryl Freedman’s classroom, home of lab rats “Big Momma” and the “Notorious R.A.T.”. Returning to school from homecoming weekend, lab intern Jack McPherson checked on the two rats, studied as part of the Whitman Psych Journal, only to find them both missing.

McPherson found Notorious wandering under the air conditioning unit in the classroom and put her back immediately. While it took longer to find Big Momma, lab intern Sara Schlesinger is confident of her location and the two interns are working on a plan to catch her, she said.

The lab rats have gotten out of their cage before, but Schlesinger recalls catching them quickly in the past. A plastic wall around their cage is meant to keep the rats in, but Notorious has been known to jump it before.

“Jack called me and told me they were missing. My initial reaction was that we were probably going to need to get new rats,” Schlesinger said. “I thought we got lucky the first time we caught Notorious.”

The scene on Monday appeared as though someone else had been in the rat lab, McPherson said. Aside from the rats not being where they should, things were out of place.

During their spree, the rats also chewed through food dye in the room that the interns use to conduct psychology experiments, McPherson said.
“Notorious did chew the dye and is still kind of green,” he said. “But she’s got a bath coming her way.”

The rats are used to conduct psychology experiments for the publication, and their escapade should not infringe on any current experiments despite the dye incident, Schlesinger said.

Schlesinger and McPherson are now waiting for Big Momma to come out into the open from where she is hiding until they finally get her back to the cage. While neither rat was harmed in its escape, the interns plan to start locking the door to the room to make sure the rats don’t get out again, McPherson said.

Junior Allison Oh, a psychology student in Freedman’s room, hopes the lab rats return to safety as soon as possible, and stay out of the classroom.

“I had no idea there were lab rats,” she said. “That scares me a lot because I hate small insects or rodents.”