Demise of baby rock

My mother was a ninth grade English teacher and year in and year out she would deplete an assortment of items at her school to be used in her classroom as the "student hall pass." If I have to explain what a hall pass is, think about the times you've gone to certain gas stations where the bathroom doors were outside the building and locked. Those inconvenient times, where you were required to first ask the clerk inside for the key to the men's or women's bathroom. The key(s) is kept at the cashier and it is frequently found wired to a large item so that it doesn't walk off or easily fit in one's pocket. Examples I've seen in my past include a toilet plunger, a wisk detergent bottle and a hammer. Well a "student hall pass" at my mom's classroom was a singular item of sufficient size to not be easily lost nor pocketed. I think past items have included a 2 foot section of 2x4 lumber that I had made her in ninth grade shopclass which I'd burnt, varnished and routed the name "RUSSELL" in. Did I mention that there was depletion? From time to time the "student hall pass" would grow legs and walk off and therefore occasionally needed to be replaced. One item that lasted and grew into a legend in it's own right was this Chertstone we call "Baby rock." So from it's humble beginnings in a streambed with thousands of sister stones, cobbles and pebbles, Baby rock found himself thrust into a place of daily usage on the front right corner of my mother's teacher desk in her classroom. Mrs. Russell's hall pass version 19.0.

THE PERPETUITY OF PRANKSTERISM and THE SCENE OF THE CRIME

Students of a certain age can kindly be described as "prankstery." Ninth graders are of that certain age. So the inevitable kidnapping of Mrs. Russell's hall pass, and rekidnapping of it eventually, was a crime foisted on my Mother and the "student hall pass" habitually. The scene of the crime never changed even as the names of the perps changed from one period of the day to the next and even from one school year to the next. So for example fourth period you might have a redheaded solo miscreant singlehandedly responsible for the crimes, in second period it might be a team of two or even three intertwined accompli. Younger siblings even, have been known to have the same teachers and to perform the same legacy pranks even years after the original perp(s) had matriculated. And that's just how it is when you're a ninth grade teacher. Oh yeah, the scene of the crime was always the same, the front right corner of the teacher's desk. Sometimes there would be a ransom note, and sometimes there wouldn't.