School Days According to Humphrey Read online

  “Let’s see. Why don’t you take him, Kelsey?” she said.

  Kelsey looked surprised.

  I’m sure I did, too. Kelsey looked like a nice girl, but it did seem as if she could be more careful.

  “Hold him in your hand, like this.” Mrs. Brisbane transferred me to Kelsey’s outstretched hand. “Make him feel very safe. Cup your other hand over his head, like a little roof. I think he likes that.”

  I do like that, as a matter of fact.

  Kelsey was so excited to be holding me, her hand actually shook a little. I suddenly remembered about her broken arm and her broken leg and I hoped I wouldn’t end up being a broken hamster.

  “Don’t worry, Humphrey. I’ll be careful with you,” she whispered.

  I relaxed and so did she. The shaking stopped.

  “Can I pet him?” Simon asked.

  “Gently,” Mrs. Brisbane told him.

  He stroked my back with his fingers. It felt unsqueakably nice.

  Then Mrs. Brisbane got busy cleaning my cage. She took everything out—even my water bottle—and put it all in a big bucket of soapy water. Luckily, my mirror is firmly attached to my cage and it stayed (as well as my notebook hiding behind it).

  Next, she took a brush and BRUSHED-BRUSHED-BRUSHED everything clean.

  After that, she took all the soft, papery bedding out of my cage.

  “What’s that?” Holly asked, pointing to a corner.

  “That’s Humphrey’s bathroom area,” Mrs. Brisbane replied. “Those are his droppings.”

  “His poo?” Thomas’s eyes opened wide with surprise.

  Mrs. Brisbane nodded.

  “Ewww—poo!” Thomas said.

  Somebody giggled. Then all of the kids started chanting, “Ewww-poo! Ewww-poo!” in a very rude way.

  Mrs. Brisbane shushed them. “Come on. It’s perfectly natural.”

  “Perfectly natural!” I repeated. “Besides, where else am I supposed to go?”

  “May I hold Humphrey?” Rosie asked. “I already know how to hold a guinea pig.”

  Mrs. Brisbane carefully moved me from Kelsey’s palm to Rosie’s. Her hand didn’t shake one bit.

  Next, the teacher scrubbed the bottom and sides of my cage until they were unsqueakably clean.

  She let Helpful-Holly and Just-Joey put new bedding in my cage, while Phoebe filled my water bottle and Paul F. put fresh Nutri-Nibbles in my feeder. Yum.

  Paul G. put my wheel back in and made sure it was spinning properly while Harry and Thomas put everything else back in place.

  “It looks and smells a lot better now, Humphrey,” Mrs. Brisbane said as she gently carried me from Rosie’s hand back to the cage. “Check it out.”

  I hopped on that shiny clean wheel and gave it all I had.

  “Look at Humphrey go!” Thomas T. True cried out. “He must be going a million miles an hour!”

  “He couldn’t be going a million miles an hour. He’d break the sound barrier at 768 miles, and I don’t hear a sonic boom,” Small-Paul said.

  I was impressed. But I have to admit, I felt as if I was going a million miles an hour.

  “I guess Thomas was just exaggerating a little,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

  “Thomas exaggerates a lot,” Small-Paul said.

  “Now, students, no bickering,” Mrs. Brisbane told them. “Let’s go back to our places.”

  I hopped off my wheel and settled down in that lovely fresh bedding.

  Phoebe raised her hand and Mrs. Brisbane called on her. “Did you say we all get to take Humphrey home?”

  “At one time or another, yes,” was the answer. Phoebe’s face lit up.

  “If you don’t get a turn right away, don’t worry,” the teacher continued. “You’ll get him eventually, as long as your parents sign a permission form. After all, families don’t always have time for a hamster on the weekend.”

  Phoebe’s smile faded away, but I think I was the only one who noticed.

  I was the one smiling when Mrs. Brisbane asked the students who’d like to take me home and every single hand went up.

  Maybe these new humans weren’t quite as strange as I thought.

  Later, Mrs. Brisbane rearranged the seating in the classroom. First, she had everyone take their belongings to the sides of the room. Then she told each student where to sit. There were a few groans, but mostly, the kids settled down without complaint, until Mrs. Brisbane went back to teaching and made some notes on the board.

  Suddenly, a hand began waving. “Teacher?”

  Mrs. Brisbane looked up. “Please call me Mrs. Brisbane,” she said. “What is it, Kelsey?”

  “I can’t see with him there.” She pointed to Tall-Paul, who was seated directly in front of her.

  I could imagine it would be hard to see with Paul G. blocking her view.

  “My mistake,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “I must have gotten the Pauls mixed up. Paul Green, could you switch places with Paul Fletcher?”

  “Okay.” Tall-Paul gathered his belongings and moved toward the side of the room.

  Small-Paul picked up his notebook and backpack and moved toward the front of the room. He wouldn’t block anyone’s view.

  Somewhere in the middle, they almost walked right into each other.

  “Watch out!” I squeaked.

  Everybody laughed, except the two Pauls. They carefully avoided walking into each other, and I noticed that they also avoided looking at each other.

  “Now can you see, Kelsey?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

  “I can see fine,” Kelsey answered.

  Mrs. Brisbane continued with the lesson, but I couldn’t concentrate.

  I was watching the two Pauls, staring down at their desks.

  I was GLAD-GLAD-GLAD when the school bell rang at the end of the day and only Mrs. Brisbane, Og and I were left in the room. Whew! It had been a tiring day. Like most hamsters, I sleep more during the day than at night, but with so much going on, I hadn’t gotten much napping done. But there was no time to sleep now. I needed time to myself to try and figure things out.

  I was deep in thought when I heard a familiar, friendly voice.

  “I survived!” the voice said.

  “Congratulations,” Mrs. Brisbane replied.

  I scampered up to a tree branch near the top of my cage as one of my favorite humans, Ms. Mac, entered the room.

  Ms. Mac was beautiful. Ms. Mac was sweet. Ms. Mac was amazing. If it hadn’t been for Ms. Mac, I would probably still be living at boring old Pet-O-Rama, hoping that someone would give me a real home. Ms. Mac found me there and brought me to Room 26. Then she went to Brazil for a while, and I had to learn to live with Mrs. Brisbane. I wasn’t too sure about her at first, but she turned out to be a great teacher.

  Now Ms. Mac was back. But where had she been all day?

  She sank into a chair next to Mrs. Brisbane’s desk. “I have a lot to learn,” she said.

  “You’ll be fine,” Mrs. Brisbane assured her. “But first grade isn’t easy.”

  So that’s where Ms. Mac was. She was teaching first grade at Longfellow School!

  “It’s exciting, but there’s so much to teach them,” Ms. Mac continued. “I wish I had Humphrey and Og to help.”

  She glanced over our way and waved. “Hi, guys,” she said.

  “Hi, Ms. Mac! You’ll be great at first grade—mark my words!” I squeaked in encouragement while Og splashed loudly in his tank.

  “How did your day go?” Ms. Mac asked Mrs. Brisbane.

  “I think it will be a good year,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Want to grab a cup of coffee?”

  “Would I!” Ms. Mac answered.

  While Mrs. Brisbane gathered up her things, Ms. Mac came over to see Og and me. She leaned down close to my cage and I saw her big, happy smile and her sparkling eyes. She smelled of apples.

  “Maybe I can borrow you once in a while,” she whispered.

  “I hope so,” I whispered back. But unfortunately, I know all she heard was a very soft squeak.<
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  Then Og and I were alone, left to think over the strange happenings of the first day of school.

  “Thomas does exaggerate,” I said to my neighbor. “I think that fish story was a tall tale.”

  “BOING!” he answered.

  “Phoebe is very forgetful, but Holly is VERY-VERY-VERY helpful,” I added.

  “BOING!” he agreed again.

  “I wonder why Harry can’t hurry up,” I said after a little more thinking.

  “BOING-BOING!” my friend replied.

  “But I don’t have time to worry about these strange students,” I continued. “Because I’m busy worrying about what happened to my real friends from Room Twenty-six—the ones from last year.”

  I was silent for a few seconds, and then I squeaked what was really on my mind. “Am I ever going to see them again?”

  HUMPHREY’S RULES OF SCHOOL: Treat hamsters the way you’d like to be treated, which includes telling them where their friends have gone!

  4

  Night School

  When the room got dark, my thoughts got darker. Not only was I curious about where my old friends had gone, but I was also unsqueakably worried about what they would do without a helpful hamster to help them with their problems. I don’t mean to brag, but I had lent a helping paw to all my classmates last year, even if they didn’t always know it.

  “No use sitting around and worrying,” I suddenly squeaked out loud. “We need to do something!”

  “BOING!” Og agreed.

  Just then, the room was filled with bright light.

  “Never fear, ’cause Aldo’s here!” a friendly voice boomed out.

  “Aldo!” I shouted, happy to see Aldo Amato pull his cleaning cart into the room. Aldo is the night custodian, and he’s also a wonderful friend. I’d seen him at camp over the summer, but I hadn’t seen him for the last few weeks.

  He came up to the table and gazed down at me.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Humphrey,” he said, reaching in his pocket. “Here, have some sunflower seeds.”

  Yum! I’m always happy to get my favorite treat.

  Aldo found a jar of Froggy Food Sticks for Og and sprinkled some in his tank. “Here you go, Og. Enjoy them in good health!”

  Og swam around, gathering the little sticks in his huge mouth. I’m sorry he doesn’t get tasty sunflower seeds like I do, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

  “So it’s back to school for all of us,” he said. “Back to work at night and back to college in the daytime for me.”

  Aldo was going to college so he could be a teacher someday.

  “I have some good courses this year,” Aldo continued. “Including biology. That’s where I’ll learn about critters like you.”

  I chomped away on a sunflower seed, thinking that biology must be an interesting course.

  “Say, I saw Richie after school. I think he’s a little worried about his new teacher, Miss Becker.” I stopped mid-chomp. Repeat-It-Please-Richie Rinaldi was Aldo’s nephew and a former classmate in Room 26.

  “Miss Becker? Where is she? How can I find Richie?” I squeaked. “Why is he worried?”

  I guess Aldo didn’t understand. “I’ll tell him you said hello,” he answered.

  Suddenly, the sunflower seed didn’t taste so good, because Richie was worried. Even if he wasn’t in Room 26 anymore, he was still my friend.

  Then Aldo got to work cleaning Room 26. He was wonderful at his job. I thought he’d be an unsqueakably good teacher someday, but I knew that once he was teaching, Room 26 would never be quite as clean again.

  Watching Aldo got my mind off my worries until he saw that red hamster ball sitting on Mrs. Brisbane’s desk.

  “Hey, who’s this? Are they replacing you, Humphrey?” Aldo laughed, but I didn’t think that was funny.

  He turned the switch on and roared as the ball twirled and looped and flashed and the music blasted. “Rockin’ Aki! Rock ’n’ roll rules!”

  As Aldo watched, he did a little dance just like Aki.

  After a while, he switched Aki off.

  “That’s funny,” he said. “But don’t worry. Nothing could replace you, Humphrey.”

  “Thank you,” I squeaked.

  “Richie would like one of those,” Aldo said.

  I wished he hadn’t reminded me of Richie. I didn’t like to think about my old friend being worried.

  After Aldo left and I saw his car pull out of the parking lot outside my window, I decided to investigate the school and find out where Richie and my other old friends had gone.

  “Don’t you think I should find out where this Miss Becker’s classroom is, Og?” I asked.

  “BOING-BOING!” Og is always encouraging, at least most of the time.

  Of course, Longfellow School is a BIG-BIG-BIG place, so I probably couldn’t cover it all in one night. But I was at least going to try.

  I pushed on my cage door. Thanks to my lock-thatdoesn’t-lock, the door swung wide open. To humans, that lock always looks tightly fastened. But I know that a little gentle pressure opens the door and I’m free to come and go as I please.

  I climbed out, grabbed hold of the leg of our table and slid down. After I landed, I shook myself and scampered to the door.

  “I’ll be back to give you a full report, Og!” I told my friend. “Wish me luck!”

  “BOING-BOING!” he answered.

  I crouched down and slid through the narrow space between the bottom of the door and the floor.

  It was dark in the hallway except for some very faint lights, which cast ghostly shadows on the walls. I shivered a little, but nothing was going to keep me from my mission.

  I took a left turn and skittered along until I reached the next doorway. I looked UP-UP-UP and saw Room 28 on the door. I wasn’t sure what had happened to Room 27, but I didn’t want to waste time thinking about that.

  After taking a deep breath, I slid under the door into Room 28. When I stood up, I was surprised to see that Room 28 looked almost exactly like Room 26—except that everything was backward! Well, not exactly everything. The chalkboards and windows were on the same side as in Room 26, but the cloakroom, the teacher’s desk and the clock were all in the wrong place.

  “Eek!” I squeaked.

  I scurried between the desks, but since Aldo had just cleaned, there weren’t many clues around to tell me who was in the room. I stopped to glance up at the chalkboard. Luckily, the moonbeams coming through the windows hit at just the right angle and I saw Mr. Michaels written on the board.

  This wasn’t Miss Becker’s room after all.

  I didn’t want to waste time in the wrong room, so I slid back under the door and continued up the dimly lit hallway to the next classroom on the left, Room 30.

  Here goes nothing, I thought as I pushed under the door.

  Oddly enough, Room 30 looked more like Room 26 than Room 28. The cloakroom, the teacher’s desk and the clock were in the same place as in Room 26.

  But there were some differences. For one thing, the tables were placed in a great big circle. Mrs. Brisbane had her tables lined up in rows.

  Along one of the walls was a huge tree going all the way up to the ceiling. It was made of paper, and each of the brightly colored paper leaves had a name on it.

  It was hard to read the names in the darkened room, but I saw an Emma and a Margaret, a Christopher and a Ben. I didn’t know any of those names, so this was probably the wrong room.

  I escaped under the door and hurried to the room across the hall—Room 29.

  It was unsqueakably dark in this room because the blinds were shut tightly. I could hardly even make out the shadowy shapes of tables and chairs. When I looked up, I let out an extra-loud “SQUEAK!” because there were large round objects hanging from the ceiling, giving off an eerie glow. I felt shivery and quivery until I figured out that they were models of the planets in our solar system. Thank goodness Mrs. Brisbane taught us about them last year, so I knew what they were.

 
; I began to look for clues to find out if my friends had moved into this room. I darted to the front of the class near the teacher’s desk. When I looked UP-UP-UP, I saw a sign sitting on top of the desk. Mrs. Murch, the sign read.

  Wrong room again!

  I hurried back out of Room 29 toward the next room. There was Room 27!

  I took a deep breath and slipped under the door.

  It was a little brighter in this room because the blinds had been left open and moonlight streamed through the windows. But a quick glance at the board told me I was in the wrong room again.

  Miss Loomis was written out in large letters.

  But next to the teacher’s name was a list of students, and some of them were very familiar.

  Miranda, Garth, Seth, Sayeh, Art, Mandy. They’d all been in Room 26 last year. So some of the students had gone to Miss Becker’s class and some of them had moved to Miss Loomis’s class.

  Then I remembered something.

  “This is where Og came from!” I squeaked out loud.

  It was true. Og had once lived in Miss Loomis’s class. The day she brought him to Room 26 to stay was quite a shock to me, I can tell you that! But over time, I’ve gotten used to my funny green friend.

  I was thinking about those early days with Og when suddenly a strange sound boomed out of the darkness.

  “RUM-RUM. RUM-RUM.”

  It was very loud and very deep—so deep, it made my ears twitch.

  “RUM-RUM. RUM-RUM.”

  The sound came from the corner, and I could make out the shape of a tank sitting on a table.

  “RUM-RUM! RUM-RUM!” the voice bellowed.

  I cautiously edged my way toward the table. Yes, it was a tank, all right, and sitting in that tank was a huge frog, way bigger than Og! Instead of a pleasant smile, like Og’s, he was leering. Or was he sneering?

  “Hello, George!” I squeaked. “I’m a friend of Og’s. Remember him?”

  “RUM-RUM! RUM-RUM!” George answered. He certainly didn’t sound friendly. I recalled that Miss Loomis had gotten Og to keep George company, but George didn’t like Og, so she’d brought him to Mrs. Brisbane’s class.