Private school anecdotes

First of these for a while.

I was teaching a poem, The Cockroach, an interesting sonnet about a man recognising his own worthlessness in a cockroach exploring his flat. Setting the tone of the poem, I lazily asked a couple of kids how they reacted when they saw a cockroach... if they'd ever killed a cockroach? A couple of half-hearted responses.

I picked on Arianna, a magnificently haughty teen in the middle row.

- What about you Arianna - ever killed a cockroach?
Meeting my gaze, she replied, with some dignity - We have, like, people... to do that sort of thing.