Surprises According to Humphrey Read online

  Suddenly, the door swung open and in walked Mrs. Wright, pulling Garth along with her. He looked very unhappy.

  “Mrs. Brisbane, you’ll have to do something about this boy!” the P.E. teacher announced.

  Mrs. Brisbane was truly surprised. “Garth? What happened?”

  “You know our students are required to get a certain amount of physical activity at recess every day,” said Mrs. Wright. “But I found this young man hiding behind the building when he was supposed to be playing ball. Strictly against the rules.”

  “Were you hiding, Garth?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

  “Sort of,” he mumbled.

  Mrs. Brisbane told Mrs. Wright that she’d take care of the situation.

  “What will you do?” the P.E. teacher asked, fingering her whistle.

  “That’s between Garth and me.” There was ice in Mrs. Brisbane’s voice. “Thank you, Mrs. Wright.”

  Mrs. Wright left, thank goodness, and Mrs. Brisbane asked Garth to sit down. She sat down next to him.

  “Why weren’t you playing ball with your friends?” she asked.

  “Don’t have any,” said Garth. His face was squinched up like he was going to cry.

  “Of course you do, Garth,” Mrs. Brisbane insisted. “You have lots of friends.”

  Garth shook his head. “Not anymore.”

  Mrs. Brisbane spoke very softly. “Please tell me what happened.”

  “I’m lousy at softball, and when they choose up teams, I always get picked last.” Garth’s voice quavered. “Yesterday, A.J. was the team captain and got to pick his players and he picked me last, even though I’m his best friend. I mean, I was his best friend. He even picked Sayeh before me, and she’s not very good either. Then Tabitha told Seth they lost because of me. So I decided not to play anymore.”

  He sniffled, and Mrs. Brisbane handed him a tissue.

  “I’m sure that hurt a lot. It always hurt me when I got picked last. I wasn’t very good at sports,” she confided.

  “But you’re a girl,” Garth told her. “Girls don’t have to be good.”

  Mrs. Brisbane smiled a little. “I understand that Tabitha is the best player in the class, and she’s a girl.”

  “Yeah, but still, it’s different being a boy.” Garth sighed. “A.J. would probably pick Humphrey ahead of me.”

  Well, yes, he might. I’m very popular with my friends. I don’t know how to play softball, but I have to admit, I am good at hamster ball.

  Garth and Mrs. Brisbane sat in silence for a while until I just couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “I think A.J. was MEAN-MEAN-MEAN not to pick Garth,” I blurted out.

  “It sounds like Humphrey has something to say on the subject,” said the teacher.

  Garth didn’t even smile.

  “Tell you what,” she continued. “You and A.J. bring your lunches in here today and we’ll talk.”

  “He’ll think I told on him!” Garth protested.

  “I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” Mrs. Brisbane assured him. “But I can’t make him choose you first.”

  “Even if he’d picked me third or fourth it would have been okay,” said Garth. “Just not last.”

  Mrs. Brisbane glanced at the clock and said that recess was almost over. She asked him to feed Og some of his yucky crickets, something Garth likes to do.

  I headed for my sleeping hut to think about what I’d just heard. I didn’t know a thing about softball. I’d never been chosen for a team, either. But I knew one thing: I wouldn’t want to be picked last, especially by my best friend.

  Lunchtime rolled around, and Mrs. Brisbane told Garth and A.J. to bring their lunches to the classroom. This was a surprising thing that had never happened before, like being in a hamster ball or having Aldo captured by aliens.

  A.J. brought his lunch from home in a bright blue bag. Garth carried his in on a tray, and it smelled yummy. Mrs. Brisbane took a container of yogurt and a spoon out of her bag.

  But no one, not even Mrs. Brisbane, ate a bite.

  “A.J., Mrs. Wright said that you picked a very good softball team yesterday,” she began.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said A.J. loudly.

  “But she was surprised that you didn’t pick Garth until last.”

  A.J. stared down at the untouched sandwich in front of him.

  “I was surprised, too,” the teacher continued. “Since you’re such good friends.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said A.J. “It’s just, Garth’s not the best player. And I think when you’re choosing a team, you’ve got to pick the best players. Don’t you?”

  “I suppose so,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “How do you feel about that, Garth?”

  Garth squirmed in his chair. “It wouldn’t have hurt him to pick me. I ended up on the team anyway.”

  “So it made you feel bad to be picked last?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

  “Yes.” Garth looked miserable. So did A.J.

  “Somebody’s got to be picked last,” said A.J. “The rest of the team would have been mad if I picked you before somebody like Richie or Kirk.”

  “I never thought of that,” said Mrs. Brisbane, stirring the yogurt with her spoon.

  “Well, now I’m mad, because it feels really awful to be picked last,” said Garth. His cheeks were flaming red.

  “I guess it does,” Mrs. Brisbane agreed.

  As far as I could see, the conversation was going nowhere. Back and forth, back and forth. Mrs. Brisbane agreed with both of them, but neither boy changed his mind. Not one bit.

  “I imagine A.J. is sorry you felt bad,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “Right?”

  “Well…sure.” A.J. didn’t sound totally convinced, but at least he agreed.

  “And I’ll bet Garth realizes what a hard decision it was for you, A.J.,” she added. “Right, Garth?”

  “Yeah…”

  Garth sounded like he had more to say, but Mrs. Brisbane didn’t let him. “Good. Then you two can play ball together and be friends as well. After all, softball is only a game. It shouldn’t be important enough to break up a friendship. Agreed?”

  The boys nodded. They didn’t have much choice.

  Mrs. Brisbane wasn’t quite finished. “Then at the next recess, you’ll play ball, won’t you, Garth?”

  Garth groaned. “I’ll just strike out and then everybody will be mad at me.”

  “You don’t keep your eye on the ball,” A.J. blurted out.

  “I do, too,” Garth snapped back. “I keep my eye on it as it sails past my bat.”

  Mrs. Brisbane glanced at the clock. “Eat your lunches now. You’ve got to keep your strength up for the next game.”

  She sounded very cheery, but Garth and A.J. looked about as un-cheery as two people could be. They ate their lunches in silence until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “For goodness’ sake, make up!” I squeaked.

  Mrs. Brisbane craned her neck to look at me. “I didn’t know you were so interested in sports, Humphrey,” she said. The boys finally smiled a little.

  I don’t know much about sports, but I do know about Garth and A.J. And if Mrs. Brisbane couldn’t get them to be friends again, I guess I’d have to.

  It’s just that I didn’t have a single idea of how I’d do it.

  ALIEN: Somebody—or something—from another land or even another planet. Aliens can be any shape, size, color…but they usually want to take you to their leader.

  Humphrey’s Dictionary of Wonderful Words

  The Space Alien Squeaks

  Later that afternoon, when it was time for recess again, Mrs. Brisbane asked Garth to stay inside.

  He looked pretty miserable, I guess because he thought he was in trouble again. But once the other students had left, Mrs. Brisbane told Garth he could read or erase the chalkboard for her or work on his homework.

  “You’re not in trouble, Garth,” she explained. “I thought you’d like a break from recess, just for today.”

  He clearly did, because that was the
cleanest chalkboard I’ve ever seen.

  Once school was out, I didn’t have much time to worry about Garth and A.J. I had creatures from outer space on my mind.

  “Og, I’ve been thinking about that alien movie I saw at Seth’s house,” I told my neighbor. “They talked a funny language. Like they said roka mata instead of hello. And oobo trill instead of good-bye. They could understand each other, but no humans could understand them.”

  “BOING!” Og sounded truly alarmed.

  “I was thinking, that night Aldo talked so strangely, maybe he’d already been taken over by space aliens.”

  “BOING-BOING!” Og replied.

  “But the alien—or whoever she was—didn’t say a word last night. Maybe she will, if she comes back tonight.”

  I was feeling shivery and quivery just thinking that a creature from another planet might return to Room 26.

  The clock loudly ticked off the minutes as the room grew darker.

  “It won’t be long now, Oggy,” I squeaked.

  Og splashed around in the water. How I wish he could really talk so I could understand him!

  Then I heard it: the SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAKING of the cleaning cart. My heart skipped a beat. Maybe Aldo would be back! I’d be so happy to see him, I wouldn’t care what came out of his mouth.

  The lights came on and the cart rolled into the room. It took my eyes a few seconds to get used to the bright light. When they did, I saw who was pushing the cart. It was the creature from the night before, only this time she had a hood over her head. I couldn’t see if the device was attached to her ear or not.

  As she went about her work, I wondered why space aliens would come to Earth to clean Room 26. And I wondered what this creature had done to Aldo. What was her evil plan? Just thinking about my missing friend made me angry. Suddenly, I wasn’t scared anymore.

  “PLEASE-PLEASE-PLEASE tell us what you did with Aldo!” I demanded.

  Either the aliens on the mother ship told her to ignore me or she didn’t hear me. She just kept on sweeping.

  Suddenly, there was a loud noise—not exactly music, but not exactly a ringing either. It sounded like the music of another planet.

  The mother ship was calling!

  The alien cleaner tapped her ear. The music stopped.

  “Hi. Yeah, it’s me. I’m cleaning.”

  WHAT-WHAT-WHAT was going on? First she makes Aldo say things I don’t understand and now she speaks English.

  “I’m finished with the program. Yeah, I don’t take off for Spurling till summer.” She hesitated, then laughed. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a while before I’m performing surgery on people. Listen, I’ll call you later. Bye.”

  She touched her ear again. Then she pulled a tiny piece of cauliflower out of her pocket. She walked to my cage and dropped the cauliflower between the bars.

  “Here,” she said.

  Without another word, she pushed the cart through the door, turned out the lights and was gone.

  It took me a few seconds before I could squeak at all. “Og?” I said. “Did you see that? She can talk to the mother ship through her ear. And she’s taking off for Spurling. Ever hear of that planet?”

  “BOING!” he answered, but it wasn’t much help.

  Spurling had not been one of the planets on our bulletin board, but I remembered that Mrs. Brisbane had said there were other solar systems. Maybe this strange creature was from one that was FAR-FAR-FAR away.

  But that wasn’t what made me feel shivery and quivery. “Did you hear her say she’ll be performing surgery on people?”

  “BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING!” Og was clearly alarmed. So was I.

  “Maybe that’s why she captured Aldo,” I said. My heart was pounding. “Some kind of experiment. Thank goodness she said it won’t be for a while.”

  Og responded with a huge splash as he dove into his water.

  I stared at the piece of cauliflower. It’s usually one of my favorite crunchy vegetables, but just to be on the safe side, I hid it down in the corner of my bedding, along with the alien carrot.

  I was relieved to see that they didn’t glow in the dark.

  It was unusually dark in the room that night, since the creature didn’t open the blinds the way Aldo always did. Surprisingly, I dozed off. But I didn’t have a very restful night because of my dream.

  I’m sure most humans would be surprised to learn that I dream when I sleep. Humans seem surprised at everything I do. “Look, he’s spinning that wheel,” they’ll say. Or, “Ooh, he’s washing his face!” (That isn’t even accurate as I don’t exactly use soap and water.)

  They’d be even more surprised at the things they don’t see me doing, like escaping from my cage and helping my friends solve their problems. Or writing in my notebook, which is something most hamsters don’t do.

  But they’d be flabbergasted (now that’s a word for my dictionary) by my dreams.

  Especially the one I had that night.

  There I was, standing next to a spaceship that looked a lot like Aldo’s cleaning cart. It was parked in front of Longfellow School, and I was surrounded by creatures that looked exactly like green, glowing carrots!

  “Take us to your leader,” one of them commanded me.

  I was very confused because I couldn’t decide whether to take them to Mrs. Brisbane, who is certainly my leader in Room 26, or Principal Morales, who is the leader of all of Longfellow School.

  The alien carrots moved in closer.

  “Take us to your leader,” they began to chant. “Leader, leader, leader!”

  “Oobo trill,” I said, remembering that those words meant “good-bye” in the movie I’d seen.

  Then I took off running across the parking lot with the alien carrots following close on my heels.

  “Og, help me!” I called out. “Oggy!”

  Suddenly, I saw my green, googly-eyed friend gliding toward me, riding the top of his tank (the top-that-pops) like a skateboard.

  “SCREEE!” he shouted.

  I hopped on the back of the speeding top and we zipped across the parking lot, leaving the space beings far behind.

  When I woke up, I sleepily squeaked, “Thanks, Og,” before I dozed off again, and that time, I didn’t dream at all.

  The next day, I was busy worrying about how it feels to be picked last for a team and about space aliens whisking Aldo off to the mother ship (wherever that was).

  Somehow, I had to let people know what had happened to Aldo. His wife, Maria, would be worried, as well as his nephew, Richie, who was a student in Room 26. I watched Richie carefully in class, but he seemed just the same as ever. Maybe he didn’t know his uncle was missing yet. Still, on Thursday morning, I woke up with a Plan.

  It’s very important to have a Plan when you want to accomplish something important, like saving a friend from beings from outer space.

  I got my idea while watching my fellow classmates finish up the bulletin board. Mrs. Brisbane brought out a big pile of shiny cutout letters. She used them to spell out S-P-R-I-N-G. There were a lot of extra letters left over, neatly stacked on the floor right under the bulletin board.

  When Mrs. Brisbane and the students left for lunch, I made my move.

  “Og, I have an idea, but I don’t have time to explain it. Will you watch the clock for me?”

  “BOING-BOING!” Og twanged.

  If there was one thing that frog was good for, it was for keeping watch when I was out of my cage. More than once, he had warned me when I was running out of time.

  I flung open the cage door (thank goodness for that lock-that-doesn’t-lock), glided across the table and slid down the leg.

  Once I was on the floor, I had a clear shot between the desks and wasted no time in getting to the letters.

  But once I was up close, I realized that they were MUCH-MUCH-MUCH bigger than I had expected. Probably five times bigger than I am, maybe more.

  Still, when I have a Plan, I don’t let anything stand in my way.

  �
��Watch the time, Oggy!” I called out.

  Og assured me with a giant “BOING!”

  I stared up at the tall stack of letters. This was going to be a test of strength…and a test of my spelling!

  When I first had the idea, I’d thought of spelling out something like: Help! Aldo has been captured by space aliens!

  But with such big letters and so little time, I quickly changed my plan of attack. First, I had to get the letters on the ground, so I backed up, then ran forward at top speed.

  “Hee-yah!” I closed my eyes as I hit the stack of letters, sending them scattering in all directions.

  “BOING!” warned Og.

  I glanced up at the big clock. Og was right. I didn’t have a lot of time left, so I quickly went to work. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to read those tall letters when you’re a small hamster and they’re lying flat on the ground. I stood on my tippy toes so I could get a better look.

  Luckily, there were several A’s to choose from. I picked a red one and pulled it out onto the floor. The L was a little more difficult. It was upside down, which means it looked like a 7. I turned it around and dragged it to the spot next to the A. The I and E were easy.

  “BOING-BOING!” Og twanged loudly.

  Uh-oh. A glance at the clock told me time was passing a little faster than I expected. I turned back and searched for the next letter.

  There were plenty of Z’s but no N’s in sight. I’m afraid it took me a while to realize that a Z turned on its side looks like an N. And vice versa.

  A-L-I-E-N. Not quite right yet, I decided.

  “BOING-BOING-BOING!” Og warned.

  “Okay, Og. I’m almost finished!” I assured him.

  One more letter to go. I didn’t want a B. A-L-I-E-N-B would be confusing. I didn’t want a C or a V or a W.

  “BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING!”

  I didn’t dare look at the clock.

  “Where are you?” I asked. Just then I saw it.

  “Good old S,” I said, pulling the letter into place.

  A-L-I-E-N-S.

  It wasn’t a full explanation, but it was the best I could do.

  “I’m coming back, Og!” I alerted my friend.