What happens during Holling's reenactment of Julius Caesar's death scene?

The Wednesday Wars has a lot of great moments in it.  But the sequence in question is one of my favorites, because Mrs. Baker is put in an incredibly tight spot, which of course she handles flawlessly.  

The month is March, and Holling has been assigned to read Julius Caesar.  He likes the play a lot, because it has a lot of violence and action.  No "mushy" love stuff like Romeo and Juliet.During...

The Wednesday Wars has a lot of great moments in it.  But the sequence in question is one of my favorites, because Mrs. Baker is put in an incredibly tight spot, which of course she handles flawlessly.  

The month is March, and Holling has been assigned to read Julius Caesar.  He likes the play a lot, because it has a lot of violence and action.  No "mushy" love stuff like Romeo and Juliet. During class one day, Holling decided to act out Caesar's death to Danny, sound effects included.  Mrs. Baker was on edge, because she knew that she would be observed sometime that week by the school board, so she wasn't happy with Holling showing everybody how violent Shakespeare was.  

"I have not taught you the plays of William Shakespeare for the last five months for you to demean them by acting as though they were all about people stabbing each other."  

Mrs. Baker then takes away his Shakespeare book.  It is at that moment when Mr. Bradbrook from the school board walks into the room.  He immediately asks what book Mrs. Baker is giving to Holling.  Mr. Bradbrook is surprised that a 7th grader would be reading Shakespeare, and he challenges Holling to memorize some lines.  Holling then astonishes Mr. Bradbrook by reciting, from memory, Antony's closing remarks about Brutus from Julius Caesar.  

An hour or two later, during Mrs. Baker's observation, she let Holling and some of the students officially act out the stabbing scene.  Right when Holling yelled out "Then fall, Caesar!" an asbestos tile fell down from the ceiling.  Sycorax and Caliban fell down with the ceiling and landed right in Mrs. Sidman's lap.  Everybody panicked except Mrs. Sidman.  She grabbed the rats by the back of the neck and walked them to a cage in the basement.