The World According to Humphrey Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - The Return of Mrs. Brisbane

  Chapter 2 - Night Life

  Chapter 3 - The Two Faces of Mrs. Brisbane

  Chapter 4 - The Most Important Man in the World

  Chapter 5 - Plans Are Hatched

  Chapter 6 - Moonlight Madness

  Chapter 7 - Sayeh Speaks Up

  Chapter 8 - Tricks and Treats

  Chapter 9 - The Art of Self-Defense

  Chapter 10 - Garth Versus A.J.

  Chapter 11 - TV or Not TV

  Chapter 12 - Peace Breaks Out

  Chapter 13 - Thanks but No Thanks

  Chapter 14 - Hide-and-Go-Squeak

  Chapter 15 - Happy Hamsterday

  Humphrey’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans

  To my husband,

  Frank

  who has been to Brazil, knows all

  the state capitals and can

  balance a broom on one finger.

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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

  First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005

  Copyright © Betty G. Birney, 2004

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Birney, Betty G. The world according to Humphrey / Betty G. Birney.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Humphrey, pet hamster at Longfellow School, learns that

  he has an important role to play in helping his classmates and teacher.

  [1. Hamsters—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction.]

  I. Title. PZ7.B5229Wo 2004 [Fic]—dc21 2003005974

  eISBN : 978-1-101-10010-3

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  1

  The Return of Mrs. Brisbane

  Today was the worst day of my life. Ms. Mac left

  Room 26 of Longfellow School. For good. And that’s bad.

  Worse yet, Mrs. Brisbane came back. Until today, I didn’t even know there was a Mrs. Brisbane. Lucky me.

  Now I want to know: What was Ms. Mac thinking? She must have known that soon she’d be leaving without me. And that Mrs. Brisbane would come back to Room 26 and I’d be stuck with her.

  I still like—okay, love—Ms. Mac more than any human or hamster on earth, but what was she thinking?

  “You can learn a lot about yourself by taking care of another species,” she told me on the way home the day she got me. “You’ll teach those kids a thing or two.”

  That’s what she was thinking. I don’t think she was thinking very clearly.

  I’m never going to squeak to her again. Of course, I’ll probably never see her again because she’s GONE-GONE-GONE—but if she comes back, I’m not even going to look at her.

  (I know that last sentence doesn’t make sense. It’s hard to make sense when your heart is broken.)

  On the other hand, until Ms. Mac arrived, I was going nowhere down at Pet-O-Rama. My days were spent sitting around, looking at a bunch of furry things in cages just like mine. We were treated all right: regular meals, clean cages, music piped in all day.

  Over the music, Carl, the store clerk, would answer the phone: “Open nine to nine, seven days a week. Corner of Fifth and Alder, next to the Dairy Maid.”

  Back then, I feared I’d never see Fifth and Alder, much less the Dairy Maid. Sometimes I’d see human eyes and noses (not always as clean as they should be) poking up against the glass. Nothing ever came of it. The children were excited to see me, but the parents usually had other ideas.

  “Oh, come see the fishes, Cornelia. So colorful and so much easier to take care of than a hamster,” Mama might say.

  Or “No, no, Norbert. They have the cutest little puppies over here. After all, a dog is a boy’s best friend.”

  So there we were: hamsters, gerbils, mice and guinea pigs—not nearly as popular as the fish, cats or dogs. I suspected that I’d be spinning my wheel at Pet-O-Rama forever.

  But once Ms. Mac carried me out the door a short six weeks ago, my life changed FAST-FAST-FAST. I saw Fifth! I saw Alder! I saw the Dairy Maid with the statue of a cow in an apron outside!

  I was dozing when she first came to Pet-O-Rama, as I do during the day because hamsters are more active at night.

  “Hello.” A warm voice awakened me. When I opened my eyes, I saw a mass of bouncy black curls. A big, happy smile. Huge dark eyes. She smelled of apples. It was love at first sight.

  “Aren’t you the bright-eyed one?” she asked.

  “And might I return the compliment?” I replied. Of course, it came out “Squeak-squeak-squeak,” as usual.

  Ms. Mac opened up her purse with the big pink and blue flowers on it.

  “I’ll take him,” she told Carl. “He’s obviously the most intelligent and handsome hamster you have.”

  Carl grunted. Then Ms. Mac picked out a respectable cage—okay, not the three-story pagoda I’d had my eye on—but a nice cage.

  And soon, amid squeals of encouragement from my friends in the Small Pet Department, from the teeniest white mouse to the lumbering chinchilla, I left Pet-O-Rama with high hopes.

  We sped down the street in Ms. Mac’s bright yellow car! (She called it a Bug, but I could see it was really a car.) She carried my cage up the stairs to her apartment! We ate apples! We watched TV! She let me run around outside my cage! She gave me my very own name: Humphrey. And she told me all about Room 26, where we’d be going the next morning.

  “And since you are an intelligent hamster who is going to school, I have a present for you, Humphrey,” she said.

  Then she gave me a tiny little notebook and a tiny little pencil. “I got these for you at the doll shop,” she explained. She tucked them behind my mirror where no one could see them except me.

  “Of course, it might be a while before you learn to read and write,” she continued. “But you’re smart and I know you’ll catch on fast.”

  Little did she know I could already make out some words from my long, boring days at Pet-O-Rama.

  Words like Chew Toys. Kibble. Pooper-Scoopers.

  Remember, a hamster is grown up at about five weeks old. So if I could learn all the skills I need for life in five weeks, how long could it possibly take to learn to read?

  I’ll tell you: a week. Yep, in a week I could read and even write a little with the tiny pencil.

  In addition to schoolwork, I learned quite a bit about the
other students in Room 26. Like Lower-Your-Voice-A. J. and Speak-Up-Sayeh and Wait-for-the-Bell-Garth and Golden-Miranda. (Even after I found out her name is really Miranda Golden, I thought of her as Golden-Miranda because of her long blonde hair. After all, I am a Golden Hamster.)

  Yes, life in Room 26 suited me well during the day. My cage had all the comforts a hamster could ask for. I had bars on the window to protect me from my enemies. I had a little sleeping house in one corner where no one could see me or bother me. There was my wheel to spin on, of course, and a lovely pile of nesting material. My mirror came in handy to check my grooming (and to hide my notebook). In one corner, I kept my food. The opposite corner was my bathroom area because hamsters like to keep their poo away from their food. (Who doesn’t?) All my needs were taken care of in one convenient cage.

  At night, I went home from school with Ms. Mac and we watched TV or listened to music. Sometimes Ms. Mac played her bongo drums. She made a tunnel on the floor so I could race and wiggle to my hamster heart’s content.

  Oh, the memories of those six weeks with Morgan McNamara. That’s her real name, but she told her students to call her Ms. Mac. That’s how nice she is. Or was.

  On the weekends, Ms. Mac and I had all kinds of adventures. She put me in her shirt pocket (right over her heart!) and took me with her to the laundry room. She had friends over and they laughed and made a fuss over me. She even took me for a bike ride once. I can still feel the wind in my fur!

  I didn’t have an inkling—until this morning—of the unsqueakable thing she was about to do to me. On the way to work she said, “Humphrey, I hate to tell you, but this is my last day in Room 26 and I’m going to miss you more than you’ll ever know.”

  What was she saying? I hung on to my wheel for dear life!

  “You see, it’s really Mrs. Brisbane’s class. But just before school started, her husband was in an accident, so I took over the class. Today, she’s coming back for good.”

  Good? I could see nothing good in what Ms. Mac was saying.

  “Besides, I want to see the world, Humphrey,” she told me.

  Fine with me. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all the world I’ve seen so far and would go to the ends of the earth with Ms. Mac. But she wasn’t finished yet.

  “But I can’t take you with me.”

  All hopes dashed. Completely.

  “Besides, the kids need you to teach them responsibility. Mrs. Brisbane needs you, too.”

  Unfortunately, she didn’t tell Mrs. Brisbane that.

  Mrs. Brisbane was already in Room 26 when we arrived. She smiled at Ms. Mac and shook her hand.

  Then she frowned at me and said, “Is that some kind of . . . rodent ?”

  Ms. Mac gave her the speech about how much kids can learn from taking care of another species.

  Mrs. Brisbane looked horrified and said, “I can’t stand rodents! Take it back!”

  The it she was talking about was me.

  Ms. Mac didn’t bat an eyelash. She put my cage in its usual place next to the window and said the kids were already very attached to me. She attached Dr. Harvey H. Hammer’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of Hamsters to the cage, along with a chart to make sure I was fed and my cage was cleaned on time.

  “The children know what to do. You won’t have to do a thing,” Ms. Mac said as Mrs. Brisbane glared at me.

  Just then, my fellow students came streaming into the room and within half an hour Ms. Mac had said good-bye to everyone, including me.

  “I’ll never forget you, Humphrey,” she whispered. “Don’t you forget me, either.”

  “Not likely. But I don’t know if I can ever forgive you,” I squeaked.

  And then she was gone. Without me.

  Mrs. Brisbane didn’t even come close to my cage until recess. Then she walked over and said, “Mister, you’ve got to go.”

  But she doesn’t know my secret: The latch on my cage door doesn’t work. It never has. It’s the lock-that-doesn’t-lock.

  So I’ve got news for Mrs. Brisbane: If I’ve got to go, it will be when and where I decide to go. Not her.

  Meanwhile, I’m not turning my back on this woman. Not for a second. If I ever disappear and someone finds this notebook, just check out Mrs. Brisbane. Please!

  TIP ONE: Choose your new hamster’s home very carefully and make sure it is secure. Hamsters are skillful “escape artists” and once out of their cages they are very difficult to find.

  Guide to the Care and Feeding of Hamsters, Dr. Harvey H. Hammer

  2

  Night Life

  For the rest of the day, I felt SAD-SAD-SAD. “You look sad, Humphrey,” Golden-Miranda said when she was cleaning my cage right before lunch.

  According to the chart Ms. Mac had left, it was her turn to take care of me, thank goodness. Miranda was the best cage-cleaner and never said “Yuck!”

  She put on throwaway gloves, then cleaned my potty corner, changed my bedding, gave me fresh water and finally—oh, joy!—gave me fresh grain, some lettuce and mealworms.

  “This will make you happy,” she said as she slipped me the special treat she’d brought from home: cauliflower. Naturally, Miranda had good taste. I promptly saved it in my cheek pouch until I could store it in my sleeping house. Hamsters like to stash food for the future.

  After my cage was taken care of, I felt well enough to observe Mrs. Brisbane more carefully.

  Now, Ms. Mac was tall, wore bright blouses, short skirts and high shoes. She wore bracelets that jingled-jangled. She spoke in a loud voice and waved her arms and walked all around the room when she taught.

  Mrs. Brisbane, on the other hand, was short with short gray hair. She wore dark clothes and flat shoes and she didn’t jingle-jangle at all. She spoke in a voice just loud enough to hear and sat at her desk or stood at the chalkboard when she taught.

  No wonder I was feeling drowsy after lunch. All that nice food and all that soft talking.

  “Is that all this hamster does—sleep?” she asked at one point when she glanced over at my cage.

  “Well, he’s ’turnal,” replied Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi Hopper.

  “Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “What’s ’turnal?”

  “You know. ’Turnal. He sleeps during the day,” said Heidi.

  I was wide-awake now. “Nocturnal,” I squeaked. “Hamsters are nocturnal.”

  “Oh, you mean nocturnal,” said Mrs. Brisbane, almost as if she had understood me. She turned and wrote the word on the board. “Can anyone else name an animal that’s nocturnal?”

  “Owl,” said Heidi.

  “Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “But that is correct. An owl is nocturnal. Anyone else?”

  A voice shouted out, “My dad!”

  Mrs. Brisbane looked around. “Who said that?”

  “He did. A.J.” Garth Tugwell pointed at A.J.

  Both boys sat at the table nearest to my cage.

  “What about your dad?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

  A.J. squirmed in his seat. “Well, my mom always says my dad is nocturnal ’cause he stays up so late watching TV.”

  Stop-Giggling-Gail and a few other students snickered. Mrs. Brisbane didn’t crack a smile.

  “Her use of the word is correct,” she said. “Though, technically, humans are not nocturnal. Any others?”

  Eventually, the class came up with more names of nocturnal animals, like bats and coyotes and opossums, and Mrs. Brisbane said that the class would be learning more about animal habits later in the year.

  If she’d just look at me, she could learn a lot. But I noticed for the rest of the day that Mrs. Brisbane stayed far away from my cage, as if I had a disease or something.

  She read a mighty fine story to us in the afternoon, though. In fact, I couldn’t get back to my nap afterward. It was about a scary house and these scratching noises and . . . a ghost! THUMP-THUMP-THUMP, the ghost came down the hall! Oh, I had shivers and quivers.

  I have to say, Mrs. Brisbane knows
how to read a story. Her voice changed and her eyes got wide and I forgot about her gray hair and her dark suit. To squeak the truth, my fur was on end! The story had a funny ending because it turned out the ghost wasn’t a ghost at all. It was an owl!

  At the end of the story, everybody laughed. Even Mrs. Brisbane.

  I was beginning to think that life with this new teacher wouldn’t be so bad. But I changed my mind when the bell rang at the end of the day and all my classmates raced out of the room, leaving me alone with her.

  She erased the chalkboard and gathered up her papers. I could tell that we’d be going home soon. Suddenly, I began to worry. What if Mrs. Brisbane lived in a scary house with spooky noises and a thumping ghost?

  Or, even worse, what if Mrs. Brisbane had a scary pet, like a dog?

  My mind was racing as fast as I was spinning my wheel when she finally approached and looked down at me, frowning.

  “Well, you’re on your own now,” she said.

  With that, she closed the blinds and walked away. But I heard her mutter “rodent” under her breath.

  She left the classroom and closed the door.

  She left me alone. All alone in Room 26.

  I had never ever been alone before.

  As the room slowly grew darker and quieter, I thought back to the happy times at Ms. Mac’s apartment. There were always cheery lights on and music and telephone-talking and . . . oh, dear, during the day I never noticed how the clock on the wall ticked off the seconds one by one very loudly.

  TICK-TICK-TICK. I was feeling SICK-SICK-SICK.

  I wondered if there were any owls around Room 26. Or ghosts.

  I tried to pass the time by writing in my notebook about Pet-O-Rama and my days at Ms. Mac’s apartment. Writing took my mind off my jittery nerves. But eventually, my writing paw began to ache and I had to stop my scratchings. If only I could roam free, as I had at Ms. Mac’s apartment!

  Then I remembered the lock-that-doesn’t-lock.

  It only took a few seconds to jiggle the door open. I skittered across the table. Then, grasping the top of the table leg tightly, I closed my eyes and slid to the ground.