“Can we take anyone we want?” asked Lucinda.
“You may take anyone who is old enough to go to the movies and behave.” Boy, Seth’s mom really meant business.
I’d been so caught up in this whole fascinating discussion, I didn’t realize I was spinning on my wheel. June twirled around and pointed an accusing finger at me.
“You have to sit still, too, Humphrey.”
I stopped cold and tumbled off my wheel. There’s a trick to getting off a spinning object, which I temporarily forgot.
“Is Humphrey in the contest?” asked Seth.
“I guess he can’t go to the movies. But if Humphrey stays still longer than anyone, he gets a nice big chunk of whatever he likes.”
“Apples!” I squeaked.
Seth looked thoughtful. “He likes fruit,” he said. Smart guy!
June sounded a bit calmer. “Let’s all relax for a minute and take a few deep breaths.”
“Mom, can we move Humphrey’s cage closer? I’m going to concentrate on him. As long as I stare at him, I think I can do it,” said Seth.
“Any objections?” asked June.
“I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to touch it,” said Lucinda. “Besides, hamsters never stop moving. Look at it.”
I realized that she was right. We hamsters do tend to be as jumpy as Seth. Even if we’re standing still, our whiskers are wiggling or our noses are twitching. However, if my keeping still could help Seth … well, he was a classmate, and in Room 26 we stick together.
Seth’s mom pushed my table closer to the couch and checked her watch. “I have a second hand on my watch. In thirty seconds I’ll say ‘freeze.’ At that point you must stop all movement. You’ll be eliminated as soon as you move.”
“Who gets to be the judge?” asked Grandma.
“I do,” said June in a voice that no one would want to argue with. No one did, least of all—me!
“Can we blink?” asked Lucinda.
“Yes, you can blink and you can breathe. That’s it.”
June’s watch was very quiet but I could almost feel it TICK-TICK-TICK-ing away the seconds, the way the clock in Room 26 does when everyone goes home and it’s awfully quiet.
I was pretty worried because I was looking straight ahead at Seth and he was tapping his fingers on the table. Lucinda seemed quite determined with her arms folded tightly against her body. Grandma sat up very straight. (I bet people in “her day” always did.)
“Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two—freeze!” said June.
I froze. The Sitting-Still Contest had begun!
Oh, dear, oh, dear. If you don’t have whiskers, you have no idea how difficult it is to keep them from moving. I stared straight ahead at Seth, who was as motionless as Og is when he sits on his rock. In fact, I tried to pretend I was a frog, which is not an easy thing for a hamster to do.
“You can do it … you can do it ….” I sent out my thoughts to Seth. Even though he probably couldn’t hear my thoughts, I figured as long as I could stay still, maybe he could, too. My tail felt like twitching and my nose was itching and I’d never gone so long without moving. Seth stared at me and I stared back.
After a while, Grandma’s chin dropped and her head bobbed up and down. Grandma had moved and she didn’t even know it because she was asleep! She began to snore softly.
“One down,” said June, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on Lucinda, Seth and me.
No one else had made a move yet and neither did I, although seeing Grandma asleep like that made me not only want to wiggle, it made me want to giggle.
Seth was as frozen as a statue and I was proud of him. However, Lucinda looked like she was made of solid steel.
TICK-TICK-TICK. That imaginary clock sounded loud in my brain. Amazingly, Seth still hadn’t moved a muscle. I tried to keep my gaze firmly on him, though once in a while I glanced at Lucinda. I was beginning to believe the girl had turned to stone. Suddenly, I saw her blink. Okay, blinking was okay, but this was like a double blink. Like a wink. Followed by another and another. Pretty soon she was blinking both eyes, hard.
Aha, I thought. She’s trying to throw me off. Because she thinks that if she throws me off, I’ll throw Seth off. Which would be a shame because even if Seth lost, he had already sat still longer than ever before.
Then it happened. Lucinda’s head twitched and the blinking got even faster until she jumped up off the couch, holding her eye with one hand. “My contact! I’ve got something in my eye!” she wailed, and raced out of the room.
“Two down,” said June, sounding less edgy than before. “I guess you’re the winner, Seth.”
Even then, Seth didn’t blink an eye. He stared straight at me. At me! Now I got it—Seth was determined to stay still longer than I did.
I wanted to squeak with joy because Seth had done so well. But there was the matter of this little itch right next to my nose. It was a little itch that grew into a bigger, more irritating itch that grew into an UNBEARABLE TICKLING ITCH. At last, I reached up to scratch it.
“Three down,” said June. “Seth, you are the winner!”
Seth leaped up from the couch and jumped up and down, making V’s with his fingers. “I won! Tell Lucinda! I won!”
Grandma’s head jerked up as she awoke with a start. “Whazzit?” she asked groggily. “Did I win?”
“No, Mother. You moved first when you fell asleep.”
“Perfectly ridiculous. I was just resting my eyes.”
“Seth won!” June gave her son a hug. “Now we know you can control yourself if you put your mind to it.”
“I guess,” said Seth. He looked worried. I bet he was wondering if was going to have to sit like a statue forever.
“Not all the time, of course,” said June. I do believe parents can sometimes read their children’s minds. “Just when you need to, like during a test.”
Seth sighed. “I’ll try harder, I promise. Mom, can I call Tabitha and ask if she can come see that football movie tomorrow?” asked Seth.
“I’ll call her mother after dinner,” said June.
Lucinda wandered in, rubbing her eye. “Stupid contact lens. I don’t suppose we can have a rematch.”
“Anytime you want,” said Seth confidently.
“I’ll have a rematch,” said Grandma.
“No rematches,” June stated firmly. “Now, what do you say we order some pizza to go with that salad?”
“They didn’t have pizza in your day, Grandma, did they?” Lucinda asked.
“Pizza! In my day, we invented pizza! Pepperoni and onions for me, hold the peppers.”
I was glad they weren’t arguing anymore, but I hoped I wouldn’t have to hold the peppers. (They’re way too spicy for me.)
The next day, as promised, June took Seth and Tabitha to see the football movie at the mall (a place I’ve never been) and took Lucinda shopping. Grandma stayed home. That made me a teensy bit nervous, because I had a feeling that in her day, people didn’t have hamsters. Or if they did, they did something worse with them than put them in a cage!
For a while, she ignored me and watched a couple of programs on television where grown-ups sat around and argued with each other. Whew! I’m glad Mrs. Brisbane doesn’t let the kids in Room 26 argue all the time. I guess even Grandma got tired of those shows, because she turned the TV off and came over to my cage.
“Let’s get a good look at you, young man.” She pulled her glasses out of her pocket and leaned in to examine me. “Well, you’re just a little bit of a fellow, aren’t you? Not good for much, I guess.”
Me—Humphrey the Hamster—not good for much! I decided to show Grandma a thing or two. I scurried up my ladder, leaped onto a tree branch and hung there from one paw. It was a trick that had never failed to please humans. So far, Grandma wasn’t anything like the other humans I’d met. I swung myself up to my bridge ladder, dashed across it and dove onto my wheel. WHOA-WHOA-WHOA—I almost lost my balance, but I managed to get the
wheel going without falling over.
“Why, aren’t you Mr. Show-off?” said Grandma. “Quite the daredevil.”
Then she did something surprising. She chuckled.
Since I was on a roll, I hopped off my wheel, grabbed onto my ladder and hung on with both paws, swinging my body back and forth.
“Ha-ha! Reminds me of a song we sang as kids.” Amazingly, Grandma began to sing.
He floats through the air with the greatest of ease,
The daring young man on the flying trapeze….
His actions are da-da,
Da-da-da-da-dee,
And my heart he has stolen away!
It was an excellent song. She had a pretty good voice, too, even if she couldn’t remember all the words. I liked being the daring young hamster on the flying trapeze.
“I’d almost forgotten that old song. I’ll tell you, Humphrey—that’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Of course!” I squeaked.
“My name is Dot Larrabee. Humphrey, when I was young, we used to sing all the time. Now kids just listen to music. In my day, we made our own.”
I dropped down from my “trapeze” and listened.
“And for fun we’d go to the roller rink.” Dot’s eyes lit up as she talked. “There used to be a roller skating rink where the mall is now. Next door was an amusement park with a Ferris wheel and a merry-go-round. You could go on a couple of rides, maybe have some cotton candy or a snow cone. Once I saw a dancing bear there. A man would play the accordion and the bear would really dance! Now all there is to do is spend money on clothes. Who cares about clothes?”
“I don’t!” I was squeaking the truth. I was perfectly happy with my fur coat.
“I’ve seen a lot of changes in my day,” said Dot. “But nobody wants to hear about my life.”
“I do!” I squeaked, and I meant it.
She smiled again. “You’re a chipper fellow. I like you, kiddo. I really do.”
And I REALLY-REALLY-REALLY liked Dot.
“We lived in a yellow house with white trim, down on Alder Street. It was a small house with a nice big yard with trees to climb and places to play hide-and-seek. It was near the Dairy Maid, only back then, it was a little corner store.”
Alder Street! Dairy Maid! That was right where I came from, next door to Pet-O-Rama!
“They tore all that down, that block of pretty houses. Put in a pet store and a music store or something. Right where I used to play when I was a girl.”
They tore down her house to build Pet-O-Rama! I was learning a lot, because I’d imagined Pet-O-Rama had always been there at the corner of Fifth and Alder. My mind was a million miles away when I heard a door slam, followed by the stomping and clomping of feet.
“Mother?” June called out.
“I’m in here with Humphrey,” said Dot.
June, Seth and Lucinda came into the den, all bundled up in coats, hats and scarves.
“You were probably smart to stay home,” said June. “It’s started to sleet!”
I wasn’t exactly sure what sleet was, but it sounded COLD-COLD-COLD.
“Of course it has,” said Dot. “Anybody with a lick of sense would expect it. Today’s March first. And you know what they always say: March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Hardly ever fails. Why, in my day, we had three feet of snow on March first one year. I must have been ten. Or maybe eleven.”
Seth and Lucinda rolled their eyes, as if to say, “There she goes again.”
But when I looked at Dot, I saw a young girl gazing out of the window of a yellow house with white trim, watching the snowflakes fluttering down, thinking about a dancing bear.
Later that night, I was feeling especially nocturnal, so I decided to perform my daring-young-hamster-on-the-flying-trapeze routine for Seth. I leaped up, grabbed onto my bridge ladder and swung across it.
“If you were a human, you could be on the Olympic gymnastics team,” said Seth, and it sounded like a very good thing.
“I wish Dad could see you,” he continued. “He lives in Arizona where it’s warm all the time. He coaches high school basketball. I spend the whole summer there and boy, it’s hot. I guess Mrs. Brisbane wouldn’t let you stay for the whole summer.” He seemed disappointed and I guess I was, too. I knew that the capital of Arizona is Phoenix—whew, that’s not easy to spell—but I wanted to know what it would be like to live in a place where it was warm all the time.
I glanced out the window and, not only was it not warm, tiny pieces of ice were falling outside. Sleet!
On Sunday, I saw an amazing sight: The trees outside the window were covered in ice, which glittered like diamonds when the sun came out in the afternoon. Dot stood at the window, admiring the display. “Yessir, March came in like a lion, so you know she’ll go out like a lamb. Days like this when I was a kid, we’d go ice skating over on Dobbs’ Pond. Don’t kids do that anymore, June?”
June joined her mother at the window. “They paved that over and built houses there years ago, Mother.”
“Fools! What do you bet they get water in the basements when it rains? You can’t stop nature.”
June called to Seth. “Did you see these trees? They’re really beautiful.”
Seth was watching a basketball game on TV. “I saw them,” he said, but I knew he hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen for the whole game.
June went into the kitchen, but Grandma stayed at the window, watching the sun shine though the icy branches.
“Skating on Dobbs Pond …” Dot sounded wistful.
If I had a choice, I’d be out there skating with her.
FREEZING RAIN AND SNOW
KEEP STUDENTS INSIDE
OVER THE WEEKEND!
Humphrey stays warm at Seth Stevenson’s house.
The Humphreyville Herald
The Great Cage Catastrophe
The sun melted all the ice that Sunday afternoon. On Monday, it was cold and windy. “March comes in like a lion,” Dot had said, and she sure was right. I shivered in my cage despite the heavy blanket that Seth put over it before he and his mom took me out to the car. Being chilly is one thing, but a lion can be big trouble. Was trouble blowing its way toward Room 26? (The answer is YES-YES-YES. I just didn’t know it yet.)
It was warm and cozy back in the classroom. I tried to tell Og about my weekend at Seth’s house, but Mrs. Brisbane had to “shush” me. During the spelling test, I was so busy watching Seth that I didn’t concentrate as hard as I should have. Seth did a lot less fidgeting than usual, and I noticed when he started jiggling in his seat, he’d glance over at me for a second and settle down. Good job!
I graded my test and was shocked to see that I’d only gotten 79%. Sayeh, as usual, got 100%. I’m not sure what grade Seth got, but he was smiling. Whatever grade Art got, it must not have been good because a) he wasn’t smiling and b) the teacher asked him to stay in during recess. Everybody knew what that meant.
Then, we had a surprise visit from Principal Morales. He’s the Most Important Person at Longfellow School and a personal friend of mine ever since I spent a weekend at his house. Mr. Morales always wears a special tie. Today his tie had colorful little houses all over it.
“I hope you don’t mind me dropping in on Humphreyville,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about it, I had to see it for myself.” He strolled past the tables, admiring the houses and the street signs, and ended up near my cage. “I can’t think of a better name than the one you’ve picked.”
“THANKS-THANKS-THANKS!” I squeaked. As usual it came out “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK,” and everybody laughed.
“You’re just in time for the next phase of our town-building,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “Today, we’re all going to get jobs.”
I heard gasps and murmurs around the room and my mind was whirling. Mrs. Brisbane already had a job—being our teacher. I had a job—being the classroom pet to help students learn about other species. As Ms. Mac said when she first brought me to Room 26, “You can lea
rn a lot about yourself by taking care of another species,” and it was true. Now I shared the job with Og. But I sometimes wondered whether there was anything new for my friends to learn now that I’d been in class for a while.
My mind was spinning a bit too fast and I missed some of what Mrs. Brisbane was saying. Something about people in a community contributing by doing specific jobs. She’d already started writing names of jobs on the chalkboard as students called them out:
Teacher
Police Officer
Fire Fighter
“That’s what I want to do,” Garth said, aiming an imaginary fire hose at A.J. and making loud squirting sounds.
“Garth …” Mrs. Brisbane used her warning voice and kept on writing.
Doctor
Nurse
Dentist
“Who needs a dentist?” joked Kirk, folding his lips over his teeth so he looked completely toothless. Gail giggled but Mrs. Brisbane ignored them both and kept going.
Shopkeeper
Farmer
Builder
“You left out one job,” said Mr. Morales. “School principal. And I’d better get back to my job before Mrs. Brisbane gives me a new one!”
Everyone laughed as he left and the list-making continued.
When things quieted down, the teacher made her own suggestions. “I think we’re forgetting a few other important jobs in a town. People to keep the electricity going and run grocery stores and gas stations.”
“Car washes,” said Seth.
“Car lots!” added A.J. “You can’t wash your car until you buy one.”
All these interesting jobs had my head whirling. I dashed into my sleeping hut and quickly wrote the list down in my secret notebook. I’m grateful that Ms. Mac gave me the little notebook and pencil when she first brought me to Room 26, before I met Mrs. Brisbane. After Ms. Mac moved to Brazil, she came back to visit and brought me a brand-new notebook. (Although I worry about what I’ll do when I fill this one up, so I write extra-extra-small.)
Trouble According to Humphrey Page 3
