School Days According to Humphrey Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - The Worst First Day Begins

  Chapter 2 - The Worst First Day Gets Worse

  Chapter 3 - Rules-Rules-Rules

  Chapter 4 - Night School

  Chapter 5 - A Friendly Face

  Chapter 6 - Shake, Wiggle and Spin

  Chapter 7 - A Visitor and a Visit

  Chapter 8 - The Worst Class in the World

  Chapter 9 - The Worst Class Doesn’t Get Better

  Chapter 10 - The Very Worst Day

  Chapter 11 - Brisbane’s Buddies

  Chapter 12 - Hickory Dickory Dock

  Chapter 13 - Brisbane Versus Becker

  Chapter 14 - Working Together

  Chapter 15 - The Best Class in the World

  Humphrey’s Top 10 Rules for Classroom Pets

  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

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group.

  Published by The Penguin Group.

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,

  Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.).

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  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa.

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England.

  Copyright © 2011 by Betty G. Birney.

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Young

  Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.

  G. P. Putnam’s Sons, Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Published simultaneously in Canada.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Birney, Betty G. School days according to Humphrey / Betty G. Birney. p. cm. Summary: Humphrey the hamster is puzzled when unfamiliar students fill Mrs. Brisbane’s classroom at summer’s end, but he soon learns that his friends from last year are fine and that the new class needs his special help. [1. Schools—Fiction. 2. Hamsters—Fiction. 3. Frogs—

  Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.B52285Fr 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010014792

  ISBN : 978-1-101-51624-9

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Humphrey’s unsqueakably

  faithful fans everywhere.

  And special thanks to Rita de Leeuw for her

  invaluable assistance with this book.

  1

  The Worst First Day Begins

  It was a quiet morning in Room 26, so quiet that all I could hear was the SCRATCH-SCRATCH-SCRATCH-ing of my pencil as I wrote in my little notebook.

  “I’m writing a poem about the end of summer, Og,” I squeaked to my neighbor, the classroom frog. (I am Humphrey, the classroom hamster.) “I’ll read you what I have so far.”

  Summer, oh, summer,

  I hate to say good-bye.

  Summer, oh, summer,

  Must you end . . . and why?

  Og splashed gently in his tank as I continued.

  I loved summer days

  At Camp Happy Hollow.

  And now that they’re over . . .

  I stopped because there was nothing more to read.

  “BOING?” Og twanged. Green frogs like him don’t say “ribbit.” They make a sound like a broken guitar string. “BOING-BOING!”

  “I haven’t finished it yet, Og,” I explained. “I have to find a word that rhymes with hollow. Wallow? Or swallow?”

  I stared down at the page again.

  I loved summer days

  At Camp Happy Hollow.

  And now that they’re over,

  I can hardly swallow!

  Og dived down deeply in his tank, splashing noisily.

  “I don’t think much of that line, either,” I replied. “I’ll try again.”

  Just then, our teacher, Mrs. Brisbane, came bustling into the room, carrying a stack of papers. As usual, I quickly hid my notebook behind the mirror in my cage. As much as I love humans, some things are better kept private.

  “After all my years of teaching, I should have known by now that on the first day of school, the line for the copy machine would be out the door,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

  She stacked the papers on her desk and stared up at the chalkboard and the bulletin boards, which were bare, except for a list of rules in Mrs. Brisbane’s neat printing.

  I’d copied those rules in my notebook while Mrs. Brisbane was down at the office and I intended to memorize them as soon as possible.

  Mrs. Brisbane glanced up at the clock. “School will start soon,” she said, turning toward the table by the window where Og and I spend most of our time. “In case you two are interested.”

  “I am!” I said, and I meant it.

  Even though I was sorry that summer was ending, I was GLAD-GLAD-GLAD to be back in good old Room 26 again. After the last camp session was over, my friend Ms. Mac brought me back to the house where Mrs. Brisbane and her husband, Bert, live. Og and I spent a few weeks with them.

  I love to go to the Brisbanes’ house, but it was so quiet there, I was looking forward to seeing my classmates again. Some of them had been at camp, like A.J., Garth, Miranda and Sayeh. But I hadn’t seen some of the others for an unsqueakably long time!

  The door swung open and in walked the Most Important Person at Longfellow School, Principal Morales. Mrs. Brisbane is in charge of a whole class of students, but Mr. Morales is in charge of the whole school.

  As usual, he was wearing an interesting tie. This one had little books in many different colors.

  “Morning, Sue,” he said to Mrs. Brisbane. “Ready to go?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.

  He walked over to our table by the window. “Guys, I hope you’re all set to go back to work.”

  “YES-YES-YES,” I answered, wishing that he could hear more than just the usual “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK”
humans hear.

  “BOING!” Og agreed.

  “Good,” the principal said, glancing up at the clock. “I’d better be outside to meet the buses. Have a great one, Sue.”

  “You too,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

  She hurried back to her desk and studied a piece of paper, then began muttering strange words like “feebeeharrykelsey.”

  Goodness, were we going to be learning a new language this year?

  “Thomasrosiepaul.”

  Did she say Paul? I knew that word. It was the name of a boy who had come into our class for math last year.

  I was about to point this out to Og when the bell rang as loud as ever. No matter how long I’m a student in Room 26, I’ll never get used to that noisy bell.

  Mrs. Brisbane opened the classroom door and soon, students started to come in.

  I realized right away that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  Mrs. Brisbane smiled as the students entered.

  “Take a seat,” she said. “Any seat.”

  I climbed up high in my cage to get a better look.

  “Who are these kids, Og?” I asked my neighbor. “I’ve never seen any of them before!”

  “BOING!” he answered, splashing noisily.

  More unfamiliar students came into the room. One of them was a girl who whizzed by in her wheelchair. Another was a boy who was really tall. He was as tall as our teacher—maybe taller!

  “Just take a seat, children.” How could Mrs. Brisbane sound so cheery, knowing these students didn’t belong in Room 26?

  As the classroom hamster, I felt I had to squeak up.

  “You’re in the wrong room!” I squeaked. “This is not your room, go back!”

  “Welcome,” Mrs. Brisbane told the students. “Take a seat.”

  “Wrong room!” I scrambled to the tippy top of my cage. “This is Room Twenty-six!”

  Unfortunately, my voice is small and squeaky and I guess nobody heard me, because the students went ahead and sat down.

  Mrs. Brisbane kept on smiling and nobody budged. Oh, how I wished I had a loud voice like my old friend Lower-Your-Voice-A.J.

  When the bell rang again, my heart sank. Mrs. Brisbane is a GREAT-GREAT-GREAT teacher and pretty smart for a human. Why didn’t she notice that her class was full of the wrong students?

  “Og? What should we do?” I asked my froggy friend.

  This time he didn’t answer. I guess he was as confused as I was.

  “Hey, Humphrey! It’s me! Hi!” a familiar voice shouted.

  Slow-Down-Simon raced up to my cage. He was the younger brother of Stop-Giggling-Gail Morgenstern, who did belong in Room 26. But she was nowhere in sight.

  “Now I’ll get to take you home some weekend,” Simon announced.

  “Go back to your own room or you’ll be late!” I warned him.

  Mrs. Brisbane told him to take a seat. Simon twirled around and rushed away, bumping right into a girl with bright red hair whose chair was sticking out in the aisle.

  “You should be more careful, Kelsey,” he said.

  “You ran into me!” The girl rubbed her arm. She probably got a big bruise. Ouch!

  “What’s happening just doesn’t make sense!” I told Og. I don’t think I was making a lot of sense, either. It was as if the world had just been turned all upside down and Og and I were the only ones who noticed.

  “Hi, Humphrey,” a soft voice said.

  I looked up and there was Paul Fletcher, whom I thought of as Small-Paul. He was the boy who came in for math class every day last year because he was unsqueakably good with numbers.

  Paul was smart. I knew he’d understand.

  “Why are these students in the wrong room?” I asked him.

  He pushed up his glasses, which had slid down his nose. “This year I get to take you home,” he said. “I can’t wait!”

  What was he talking about? Only students in Room 26 got to take me home for the weekend.

  “Settle down, class,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Please take your seats.”

  Class? What was she talking about? This wasn’t my class. Where were A.J. and Garth, Heidi and Mandy? Where were Gail and her giggles? Where were Richie, Art, Tabitha and Seth? Where were Kirk and his jokes? And where in the world was the almost perfect Golden-Miranda?

  “Mrs. Brisbane?” I squeaked. “In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t our class!”

  Mrs. Brisbane was too busy counting the students to hear me.

  “We’re short one student,” she said. “But while we’re waiting, let me welcome you all to Room Twenty-six!”

  Crushed, I scrambled back down to the floor of my cage and scurried into my sleeping hut, where I could be alone and think.

  I remembered that poem I’d just written about summer. Now I had an idea for a new verse:Summer, oh, summer,

  With days long and lazy.

  Now that you’re over,

  Things are going crazy!

  HUMPHREY’S RULES OF SCHOOL: Before you take your seat in a classroom, it’s always a good idea to make sure you’re in the right room. This is important!

  2

  The Worst First Day Gets Worse

  The final bell rang and everybody had taken a seat except the girl in a wheelchair, who was already sitting. There was still one empty chair left.

  Mrs. Brisbane went to the door and looked out into the hall.

  “Oh, there you are,” she said.

  She opened the door wider and a boy walked in.

  “You must be the missing student,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

  “I’m not missing,” the boy answered. “I’m right here.”

  I thought he’d be in big trouble, so I was surprised when Mrs. Brisbane smiled and directed him to the empty chair. Then she stood in the front of the class.

  “Good morning, class,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Last year, I had one of the best classes ever. But I think this class will be even better!”

  “Better?” I squeaked. “That was the BEST-BEST-BEST class in the whole wide world!”

  “BOING-BOING!” Og agreed.

  I wasn’t sure what I said was true. On the one paw, I couldn’t imagine a better class than the one we’d had last year. On the other paw, it was the only class I’d ever been in. But where had my classmates gone?

  “I’m going to rearrange the seating later in the day,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “But for now, I’ll take attendance.”

  “Are you listening, Og?” I asked my neighbor. I can never be sure, because he doesn’t have any ears that I’ve ever seen. But he seems to understand me most of the time.

  “Are we dreaming?” I wondered. So far, the morning felt like one of those dreams where everything seems almost the same as in real life but a lot weirder. For instance, I once had a dream where all of my human friends were rolling around in giant hamster balls. That was a very funny dream.

  Once I dreamed that the class was being taught by Mrs. Wright, the P.E. teacher. That wasn’t a funny dream because she was always blowing on her very loud whistle, which is painful to the small, sensitive ears of a hamster.

  Again, Og didn’t answer me. Maybe frogs don’t dream.

  Then Mrs. Brisbane began to call out the strange words she had been saying before. It turns out they were names.

  “Kelsey Kirkpatrick?”

  “Here,” the red-haired girl said, still rubbing her arm.

  “Harry Ito?” Mrs. Brisbane called out.

  Harry was the boy who had been late to class.

  She called on Simon, who answered, “Present!”

  Present? I didn’t see any presents. Was it somebody’s birthday?

  “Rosie Rodriguez?” Mrs. Brisbane said.

  The girl in the wheelchair waved her hand and shouted out, “Here!”

  A boy named Thomas answered next, followed by a couple of girls, Phoebe and Holly.

  “Are you paying attention, Og?” I asked my friend.

  Og splashed a little but didn’t answer.


  And then something really odd happened.

  “Paul?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

  Right away, not one but two voices replied, “Here.”

  One of them was Small-Paul from last year. The other Paul was the tall boy.

  Mrs. Brisbane smiled. “I forgot. This year we have two Pauls in our class. Paul Fletcher and Paul Green. Now, how will we tell you apart?”

  That was an easy question. One of them was SMALL-SMALL-SMALL and one of them was TALL-TALL-TALL.

  Small-Paul and Tall-Paul eyed each other. Neither of them looked happy to have another Paul in the class.

  “What did your teacher do last year?” she asked.

  “He wasn’t in my class,” Small-Paul said.

  “I went to another school,” Tall-Paul added.

  Mrs. Brisbane nodded. “I see. Do either of you have a nickname?”

  Both boys shook their heads.

  “Well, for now, let’s say Paul F. and Paul G. Is that all right with you?” she asked.

  Both boys nodded.

  Then Mrs. Brisbane called out one more name. “Joseph?”

  A boy with curly brown hair shifted in his chair a little but didn’t answer.

  Mrs. Brisbane looked around at the class. “Is Joseph here?”

  The boy with curly brown hair nodded. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But it’s not Joseph. It’s Joey. Just Joey Jones.”

  Mrs. Brisbane smiled. “All right, then. Just-Joey it is. Now, class, I’m very excited to get to know you and for you to get to know me. In case you don’t know, I’m Mrs. Brisbane.”

  The teacher wrote her name on the board.

  “There are two other members of the class you need to know,” she said.

  Then she wrote my name on the board. “Humphrey is our classroom hamster,” she said.

  Everybody—and I mean everybody—turned to look at me.

  Next, she wrote Og’s name on the board. “Og is our classroom frog. You’ll get to know them both very well this year. You’ll also have a chance to take Humphrey home for the weekend. I’ll tell you more about that this afternoon,” she said.