Imagination According to Humphrey Read online

  For more Humphrey adventures, look for

  1 • The World According to Humphrey

  2 • Friendship According to Humphrey

  3 • Trouble According to Humphrey

  4 • Surprises According to Humphrey

  5 • Adventure According to Humphrey

  6 • Summer According to Humphrey

  7 • School Days According to Humphrey

  8 • Mysteries According to Humphrey

  9 • Winter According to Humphrey

  10 • Secrets According to Humphrey

  11 • Imagination According to Humphrey

  Fun Humphrey nonfiction

  Humphrey’s Book of FUN-FUN-FUN

  Humphrey’s World of Pets

  For younger readers

  Humphrey’s Really Wheely Racing Day

  Humphrey’s Playful Puppy Problem

  To my parents and teachers, who encouraged my imagination to soar—and to all the teachers and parents who are doing the same thing today!

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

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  Copyright © 2015 by Betty G. Birney.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Birney, Betty G.

  Imagination according to Humphrey / Betty G. Birney.

  pages cm

  Summary: “During a creative writing unit at Longfellow School, the students in Mrs. Brisbane’s class practice using their imagination with their very own writing journals—and Humphrey finds out that writing from his imagination is harder than it looks”—Provided by publisher.

  [1. Hamsters—Fiction. 2. Creative writing—Fiction. 3. Authorship—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.B5229Im 2015

  [Fic]—dc23

  2014008871

  ISBN 978-0-698-17348-4

  Version_1

  Contents

  More Humphrey Adventures

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  1. Imagine This!

  2. Imagine That!

  3. Ideas Fly

  4. Bear? Where?

  5. Beginner’s Brainstorm

  6. Little House in Sophie’s Room

  7. House Hunting

  8. Pearl

  9. Rosie’s Casa

  10. Special Guest

  Humphrey’s Top Ten Tips for Writers

  About the Author

  Imagine This!

  The golden dragon bent his head low and Gil Goodfriend crawled up his neck. When the dragon lifted his head, Gil was higher than Tower Peak, which was the tallest mountain in the kingdom.

  It was after lunch and our teacher, Mrs. Brisbane, was reading a book to everyone in Room 26 of Longfellow School, where I live.

  She continued:

  “Hold on,” the dragon said. “We’re going up.”

  Suddenly, Gil and the dragon rose high above his village. Wind whipped through his hair. It was thrilling until the dragon suddenly veered to the right and swooped down low, grazing ten treetops with his majestic fire-tipped wings. One treetop caught on fire, but luckily, the wind blew the fire out.

  Someone in the back of the room gasped.

  Mrs. Brisbane kept on reading.

  “Are you all right?” the dragon called to Gil. Surprisingly, he was perfectly fine.

  He was perfectly fine? My whiskers wiggled at the thought of flying over fiery treetops.

  Gil peered down as they soared above his house. It looked no bigger than a toy. In seconds, the whole village of Bumpshire looked like tiny dots on a white background, even though it was July.

  You see, Gil’s village had really terrible weather. It snowed in the summer and it flooded in the winter and they had BIG-BIG-BIG storms all the time. It was miserable, but no one knew how to make it better.

  “Only you can change the weather back to normal,” the dragon said.

  “I’m just a boy,” Gil said. “Why me?”

  “Yes, WHY-WHY-WHY?” I squeaked.

  The dragon didn’t answer.

  After a few moments, Gil shouted, “Am I ever coming back?”

  The dragon’s voice boomed, “That depends on you and you alone!”

  Mrs. Brisbane looked up at all of my classmates.

  My tail twitched as I imagined riding a dragon. The biggest animal I’ve been near is a dog. They are pretty scary and have bad breath, but at least they don’t breathe fire!

  “Don’t stop!” Slow-Down-Simon shouted.

  Mrs. Brisbane closed the book. “I’m sorry, but I have to keep you in suspense until tomorrow.”

  Calm-Down-Cassie shivered. “The dragon seems nice, but I hope I never meet a real one!”

  “I agree!” I said.

  Of course, since I’m a small classroom hamster, all that my human friends heard was “Squeak.”

  “BOING-BOING!” My neighbor Og jumped up and down in his tank. He’s the classroom frog. Maybe he’s afraid of dragons, too.

  “Dragons aren’t real,” Tell-the-Truth-Thomas said. “They’re only in books. You shouldn’t believe everything you read in a story.”

  “There are real dragons,” Not-Now-Nicole said.

  “Eeek!” I squeaked.

  Thomas laughed. “You have a good imagination!”

  “But there were dragons a long time ago,” Cassie said. “Right, Mrs. Brisbane?”

  Mrs. Brisbane smiled. “Some stories are true. They’re called nonfiction. But other stories come out of the imagination. Those books are called fiction, like this book.”

  “There are dragons that aren’t imaginary,” Nicole said. “My brother has one.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

  “Really!” Nicole said.

  Stop-Talking-Sophie raised her hand. “I don’t see any dragons walking around today—but that doesn’t mean they never did. Why did so many people write stories about them?”

  “That’s a good question,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Any ideas on why people might have thought dragons lived nearby?”

  The room was quiet for a moment.

  I had no ideas at all. I would NEVER-NEVER-NEVER want to imagine there were real scary dragons!

  Just-Joey raised his hand. “Maybe people saw some big old bones—like dinosaur bones—and thought they were from something like a dragon. And maybe there was a forest fire and people thought the beast breathed flames that started the fire.”

  “Yes!” Thomas said. “And then they started to imagine all kinds of things the dragon did.”

  Mrs. Brisbane nodded. “I think it might have happened like that.”

  I still wasn’t sure.

  The room was quiet until Not-Now-Nicole giggled. “Maybe we should get a dragon for a classroom pet. One like my brother’s.”
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  It had been hard enough to get used to a frog as the other pet in Room 26. Especially a frog like Og, who makes a weird sound and has some odd habits. But a fire-breathing dragon?

  “NO-NO-NO!” I squeaked.

  The students sitting close to our table heard me and laughed.

  “Don’t worry, Humphrey,” Thomas said. “We’re not getting a dragon . . . because they’re imaginary.”

  By that time, I wasn’t even interested in an imaginary dragon.

  “Tell us about this dragon your brother has, Nicole,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

  “Her name is Pearl and she’s really beautiful,” Nicole said.

  My classmates burst out laughing.

  I didn’t think what Nicole said was funny at all. She looked REALLY-REALLY-REALLY upset.

  “She is too real! I’ll prove it to you,” she said. “I’ll call my mom right now. She’ll tell you.”

  “Not-Now-Nicole,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “It’s time for us to get out our math books. You can explain later.”

  I usually try to learn along with my fellow classmates, even though I don’t have a math book. But my eyelids got heavy and I slipped into my sleeping hut for a short nap.

  When I woke up, I crawled back out and glanced across the table by the window where my cage sits.

  Og was in his tank next to my cage. I think he was dozing, too, but it’s hard to tell. Sometimes he closes his eyes but he’s not even sleeping.

  (I told you, he’s a little odd.)

  I glanced out of the other side of my cage and was unsqueakably happy to see that there was no pet dragon blowing hot smoke at me. Whew!

  Then I looked toward the front of the room.

  I don’t know how long I’d slept, but instead of writing numbers on the board, Mrs. Brisbane was talking about writing.

  “This is my favorite time in the school year,” she said. “Today, we start being writers. I know you all brought your writing notebooks today. Will you hold them up?”

  The students all held up notebooks, and each one was different.

  Helpful-Holly’s had big yellow sunflowers on it.

  Tall-Paul’s had a motorcycle on the cover, while Small-Paul’s had a photo of the space shuttle.

  I climbed up to the tippy top of my cage so I could see better. I saw smiley faces, princesses, polka dots and stars.

  My friends in Room 26 have a lot of interests!

  “Once you start writing your ideas in your notebooks, you’re on your way to being a writer,” Mrs. Brisbane explained.

  “What if we don’t have any ideas?” Hurry-Up-Harry asked.

  Some of my classmates giggled.

  “I mean, what if we don’t have any ideas about what to write?” Harry said.

  “We all have ideas,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “The notebook is a tool to help you.”

  “Like a hammer?” Fix-It-Felipe asked. I know he likes hammers, because he can fix about anything.

  More of my friends giggled.

  Mrs. Brisbane laughed, too. “In a way, yes. It’s a tool to help you learn how to find ideas and develop them.”

  Helpful-Holly laughed. “I think Felipe would rather have a hammer.”

  “All right, enough joking, class,” our teacher said. “To get you started, I’m going to give you an assignment. Start by writing . . .”

  She paused to write on the board.

  If I could fly, I would fly like a

  “And then fill in the blank however you like,” she explained. “You can start now, but the bell will ring soon, so bring in your completed work tomorrow.”

  “Fly? Without a plane?” Cassie asked.

  “You get to decide if it’s a plane or a bird or anything you can imagine,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Then I want you to write a sentence saying where you would go. This is the beginning of your assignment and eventually you will end up with a real story.”

  She pointed to her head. “Use your imaginations. And spend some time thinking about your idea before you start writing.”

  I heard some sighs and dropped pencils as my friends opened their notebooks.

  Hurry-Up-Harry looked confused.

  Slow-Down-Simon looked grumpy.

  Calm-Down-Cassie looked anything but calm.

  After they wrote down the beginning that Mrs. Brisbane assigned, they stopped writing. They just stared at the blank pages.

  “Do we have to decide now?” Do-It-Now-Daniel asked.

  “Start thinking now,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “You’ll share your ideas tomorrow.”

  Just-Joey shook his head. “I never know how to start.”

  Mrs. Brisbane said, “It sometimes helps if you brainstorm.”

  Eeek! Brainstorm? My ears wiggled at the word. Imagine having rain and lightning and thunder in your brain!

  “Take five minutes and write down any idea that comes into your head,” our teacher explained. “Don’t worry if the idea seems silly or impossible, or if you don’t even like it—write it down anyway. No erasing. When the five minutes is up, look at your list of ideas and you’ll probably find at least one that you would like to write about. Then you can start. The assignment is only two sentences.”

  “How long do the sentences have to be?” Sophie asked. “Because sometimes a sentence is long and sometimes a sentence is short and sometimes—”

  Sophie didn’t get to finish because the bell rang and the notebooks were quickly closed.

  Most of my friends dashed for their backpacks and coats, but Sophie headed straight for Mrs. Brisbane.

  “I dream about flying all the time,” she said. “Once I dreamed I flew to this island and all my friends there were parrots, but they could talk and I could understand them because parrots can talk. Oh, and you know what? Once . . .”

  Mrs. Brisbane glanced at the clock. “Why don’t you write about it, Sophie? I don’t want you to miss your ride.”

  Sophie looked disappointed. “I’d rather talk about it than write about it.”

  “I know,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “But you’ll learn.”

  She pointed Sophie in the direction of the cloakroom.

  While my friends dashed out of Room 26, Mrs. Brisbane cleaned the board and neatly stacked the papers on her desk.

  When she had her coat on and was ready to leave, she came over to the table. “Good night, Humphrey and Og. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  After she left, I watched out the window and waited until all the cars and buses were gone for the day.

  Then I turned toward Og’s tank. “Do you think dragons are real? Because, to squeak the truth, I’m not sure.”

  Og was silent.

  It’s HARD-HARD-HARD to know what a frog thinks about. For one thing, Og always has a goofy grin on his face. And if he does talk, he sounds more like a broken guitar string than a sensible animal like a hamster.

  This time, he didn’t even say “BOING!” He just dived into the water side of his tank and began splashing.

  I looked out the window again. It was getting dark.

  I had something important to do, but I had to wait.

  The big clock on the wall doesn’t make any noise during the day, but it makes a lot of noise at night. TICK-TICK-TICK. Even an odd frog is better company than that. I waited for the other sound and finally it came.

  RATTLE-RATTLE-RATTLE.

  Then the turn of the doorknob and the click of the switch. The room filled with light.

  Aldo had arrived!

  Aldo came every night during the week to clean Room 26 and all the rooms in Longfellow School.

  “Hello, my friends,” he said cheerily. “I hope you’re both well.”

  “I am, Aldo. How are you?” I squeaked as I rushed to the front of my cage to greet him.

  “BOING-BOING!” Og said.

>   “I am well,” Aldo said with a smile. “Thank you for asking.”

  He went right to work, sweeping, dusting, mopping, and emptying the wastebasket.

  On most nights, Aldo first stops to talk or even do a trick, like balancing his broom on one finger. But tonight, he didn’t stop at all.

  “I need to get home to study,” Aldo said. “The quicker I get out of here, the sooner I can study. And the quicker I get out of college, the sooner I can start teaching. After all, I’m about to be a dad.”

  I already knew Aldo went back to college to learn to be a teacher, and I knew he and his wife, Maria, were going to be parents. Of twins!

  Aldo worked so fast, he was almost a blur.

  I was unsqueakably happy when he sat down to eat dinner with us.

  I was even happier when he pulled out a small piece of carrot for me. And Og seemed pleased when he threw some Froggy Fish Sticks in his tank.

  Aldo ate his sandwich almost as fast as he’d swept the floors.

  “Wish me luck, fellows,” he said as he got up to leave. “I have a really big test tomorrow.”

  “Good luck, Aldo!” I called out to him as he turned off the lights.

  “BOING!” Og said.

  The light from streetlamps streamed through the window and gave my cage a nice glow.

  Once I saw Aldo’s car pull out of the parking lot, I quickly went to work.

  I’d been waiting hours for this moment.

  My friends weren’t the only students with notebooks. I have one, too. I keep it hidden behind the little mirror in my cage.

  It’s a hamster-sized notebook that was a present from Ms. Mac, a teacher I love as much as I love Mrs. Brisbane. There’s a tiny pencil, too.

  My notebook doesn’t have flowers or soccer balls on the cover. In fact, it’s pretty plain.

  But it’s VERY-VERY-VERY special to me, because I write all my secret thoughts in it.

  My notebook is like an old friend, and I couldn’t wait to get to work.

  I opened it and began to think. If I could fly whenever I wanted, where would I go?

  There are a lot of places where hamsters like me can’t go. We can’t go on airplanes or field trips or to soccer games or restaurants.

  But there are some places we can go that humans can’t—tiny places like between the cracks in the floorboards or inside a little hamster ball.