Mysteries According to Humphrey

by Betty G. Birney

  Morning light streamed in through the window and I was worn out.

  “Good night, Og,” I said as I crawled into my sleeping hut. “I mean, good morning.”

  I guess he was tired, too, because he didn’t answer. Not even one “BOING.”

  Or if he did answer, I couldn’t hear him because I was sound asleep.

  HUMPHREY’S DETECTIONARY: Finding clues can make you unsqueakably tired!

  9

  The Case of the Problem Pupils

  I lost my watch,” I heard Phoebe whisper to Kelsey before class began the next morning. They were standing right next to my cage and Phoebe looked worried. In fact, I’m pretty sure she had tears in her eyes.

  I REALLY-REALLY-REALLY hate to see a human cry.

  “Oh, no! Your daisy watch? Where did you lose it?” Kelsey asked.

  “If I knew where I lost it, I could find it!” Phoebe answered.

  That made sense to me.

  “Maybe it’s in the lost and found,” Kelsey suggested. “You should check it out.”

  Phoebe rolled her eyes. “No way. You heard what Thomas said about the lost and found!”

  “It sounds like a creepy place,” Kelsey agreed.

  Phoebe nodded. “Besides, I don’t want to go to Mrs. Wright’s office. She doesn’t like me. Anyway, the last place I saw it was in the bathroom, but when I went back there, it was gone. I just feel terrible,” she said. “My parents gave me that watch, and Grandma would be disappointed if I lost it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kelsey said.

  “Okay, class. Take out your homework from last night,” Mr. E. announced.

  I was spinning on my wheel at the time and I was so amazed to hear him say “homework” that I almost fell off!

  Mr. E. gave homework? When did that happen?

  I guess I must have dozed off during class yesterday.

  “Who got the answer?” he asked.

  I was surprised again when none of my friends raised a hand.

  “Let me write that paragraph on the board so we can all look at it together,” Mr. E. said.

  I raced to the front of my cage so I could watch as he wrote and wrote and wrote some more. This is what he wrote:

  This is an unusual paragraph. I’m curious how quickly you can find out what is so unusual about it. It looks so plain you would think nothing was wrong with it! In fact, nothing is wrong with it! It is not normal, though. Study it, and think about it, but you still may not find anything odd. But if you work at it a bit, you might find out! Try to do so without any coaching!

  The paragraph didn’t look unusual to me. Just sentences strung together with no mystery words like piewhack or pizzazz.

  “Did anyone figure it out?” Mr. E. asked.

  A few hands went up. Mr. E. called on Rosie.

  “I think it’s unusual because it has so many exclamation points,” she said.

  “Good answer,” the substitute said. “But there’s something even more unusual.”

  Next, he called on Thomas.

  “I think it’s unusual because it’s so long,” he said.

  Mr. E. nodded. “It’s long. But I’ve seen paragraphs that are a lot longer.”

  While all of this was going on, I read that paragraph over and over again.

  “I’ll give you a hint,” Mr. E. said. “Something is missing.”

  “Eeek!” I squeaked as my friends all stared up at the sentence.

  Finally, Small-Paul raised his hand. “There’s no letter e in it,” he said.

  “E!” I squeaked. He was right!

  “That’s correct. Did you know that e is the letter that shows up more than any other letter in the English language?”

  Mr. E. would know that. I’m sure he liked the letter e a lot. But I didn’t know it. I think it was the first time I’d actually learned something since he arrived in Room 26!

  “So now, why don’t you try to write a paragraph without using the letter e?” Mr. E. said. “While you do that, I’ll get these cards ready to send to Mrs. Brisbane.”

  My friends all went to work, but I didn’t. I was too busy watching Mr. E. stack up the cards. I wanted to make sure that my tiny card was still with the others. Whew! It was!

  Then Mr. E. looked at some of the cards. “Joey? Would you like to work on this card a little more?” he asked. “It doesn’t have much pizzazz.”

  “That’s okay,” Joey answered. “I don’t have much pizzazz either. I like things simple.”

  “Some buttons? Some yarn? A little glitter and glitz?” Mr. E. asked.

  Joey shrugged. “No, I like it the way it is.”

  This time Mr. E. didn’t argue.

  But I was excited because now I had some clues to figure out what pizzazz really meant!

  “Og, pizzazz isn’t like pizza at all!” I squeaked to my friend. “It’s glitter and glitz. It’s zing and bling! It’s that little something extra,” I explained.

  “BOING?” Og sounded a little piewhacked.

  “It’s fancy instead of plain,” I said. “If you had a very fancy pizza, then I think you’d have a pizza with pizzazz!”

  Og leaped into the water side of his tank for a swim. I’m not sure he understood what I said, but at least I’d figured out that mystery word.

  Now if only I could figure out what had happened to Mrs. Brisbane.

  And why Mr. E. was a teacher who didn’t really teach.

  And where-oh-where Phoebe’s watch had gone?

  After lunch, Mr. E. gave the class free time. He gave them a lot of free time!

  Some students read. Some drew pictures. Some of them wrote. Some of them walked around the classroom. Some of them even talked. (Something Mrs. Brisbane would not have allowed. For her, free time meant quiet time.)

  Only one of them talked to me: that was Phoebe.

  “Humphrey, I brought you a piece of apple,” she said. “This time I remembered.”

  “That’s unsqueakably nice of you,” I replied. I was very honored that Forgetful-Phoebe had remembered me.

  Phoebe leaned down close to my cage so I was almost nose to nose with her.

  “But I can’t remember what I did with my daisy watch,” she said. She looked around to see if anyone was listening. No one was . . . not even Og, who was swimming in the water side of his tank.

  “My parents gave it to me before they deployed,” she said. “They’re both in the military, and I miss them a lot. They weren’t supposed to be gone at the same time, but then they had to be.”

  So that’s why Phoebe was living with her grandmother.

  “I just have to find it. I wouldn’t want my mom and dad to know I lost it,” she said.

  “YES-YES-YES!” I told her. “You have to try very hard!”

  I hoped that, somehow, Phoebe understood me.

  Phoebe sighed. “I think about Mom and Dad all the time. I guess that’s why I don’t remember things very well. Mrs. Brisbane was sending reminders home with me every night and calling my grandma when something important was coming up,” she explained. “Mr. E. doesn’t do that.”

  Then she grinned. “Of course, he doesn’t give us real homework and tests!”

  “I noticed,” I told her.

  “Would it be okay if I looked in your cage?” Phoebe asked. “I was thinking maybe it fell off while I was cleaning it.”

  “Of course! Please look,” I replied. To squeak the truth, I was sure it wasn’t in my cage because I know every hiding place there is. But I thought it was a good idea to look, and it was awfully nice of her to ask first. After all, my cage is my home, and as much as I like humans, I don’t want them sticking their hands inside all the time.

  Phoebe opened the cage door and poked all around.
She was doing such a good job of looking, I was afraid she’d find my notebook hidden behind my mirror.

  Luckily, she didn’t!

  “I guess it’s not there,” she said at last. “I was wishing that you had found it and saved it for me, Humphrey.”

  I wished her wish had come true!

  After free time, Mr. E. said something that curled my toes and wiggled my whiskers. “Folks, it’s almost Halloween. While we have the art supplies out, why don’t we decorate the room?”

  “Eeek!” I squeaked. All I could think of was the leering orange pumpkin someone put close to my cage last year.

  “BOING-BOING! BOING-BOING!” Og sounded as alarmed as I was.

  But my friends were happy and excited about Halloween.

  “Let’s give our decorations some pizzazz! We want the ghastliest ghosts! The goriest goblins! The creepiest creeps! And the weirdest witches!” Mr. E.’s red hair seemed to shine a little brighter.

  I felt a shiver . . . and a quiver.

  “Let’s make it the most haunted Halloween ever,” he added.

  I just couldn’t look. I dashed into my sleeping house. But I didn’t sleep a wink.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Phoebe. Finally, I understood why she was so forgetful. But I didn’t have a clue about how to help her.

  Also, there were some eerie sounds going on in the classroom.

  I heard a ghostly “Oooooo.” Then a ghastly laugh . . . like a witch. And a fur-raising howl. Halloween was turning into Howl-a-ween!

  I finally had to take a peek outside. Luckily, I didn’t see any ghosts or goblins—just my friends drawing, coloring, cutting paper.

  So I went back into my sleeping house again. And this time, I took a nap.

  Later in the afternoon, Mr. E. announced that he had a letter from Mrs. Brisbane! I dashed out of my sleeping hut and climbed up high in my cage so I could see and hear everything.

  “Pay attention now, Og,” I told my froggy friend. “There may be clues.”

  Og hopped up on a rock and was very quiet.

  “Dear class, I hope you are all doing well,” Mr. E. read. “I miss you all, but everyone here is very nice and they’ve got me on my feet. My days are a whirl and they say I’m performing very well. Please be kind to your substitute teacher and to one another. Fondly, Mrs. Brisbane.”

  My friends all applauded when Mr. E. was finished.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked Og. “She must be learning to dance. She said she’s performing and she’s up on her feet.”

  Og didn’t know anything about ballet, and it was hard to explain to him.

  After school, when the classroom was empty except for Og and me, I took out my notebook and looked at my list of clues. I took my little pencil and added two more:

  Clue 6: Mrs. Brisbane is on her feet and in a whirl.

  Clue 7: She is performing very well. Mrs. Brisbane definitely must be at ballet school!

  I had plenty of clues, but they didn’t help me understand why Mrs. Brisbane would leave the class to learn ballet, especially with all the problems my friends were having.

  And I didn’t know how one small hamster—me—could solve their problems all by myself.

  I had helped Kelsey. She hadn’t bumped into anyone all week, and I’d heard her telling her friends about ballet class.

  On the other paw, Hurry-Up-Harry seemed to have forgotten everything Mrs. Brisbane had taught him about getting back to class on time. Tell-the-Truth-Thomas was stretching the truth farther and farther every day and losing friends. And even though I knew why Forgetful-Phoebe was so forgetful, I couldn’t think of what to do about it.

  It was still a mystery to me why Mr. E. didn’t do a little more teaching. After all, he was a teacher. He needed help, too.

  It was quiet in the room now—so quiet, I could hear the big clock on the wall tick away the seconds.

  TICK-TICK-TICK. TICK-TICK-TICK. I wished that clock would STOP-STOP-STOP because it reminded me of Phoebe’s watch.

  “Og, I sure wish I could find Phoebe’s watch,” I squeaked to my friend.

  Suddenly, Og wasn’t quiet anymore.

  “BOING-BOING-BOING!” he twanged.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I should find it.”

  “BOING!”

  “I must find it.”

  “BOING-BOING!”

  “I will find it!” I stomped my paw.

  “BOING-BOING-TWANG!” Og splashed around in his water.

  Now I just had to figure out how to do it.

  HUMPHREY’S DETECTIONARY: One mystery, like what happened to your teacher, can lead to another mystery, like why the substitute teacher isn’t really teaching.

  10

  The Case of the Wandering Watch

  When Aldo looked around the room that night, he shook his head—again.

  “What a wreck,” he said. “Room Twenty-six was always the neatest classroom in the whole school. Now it’s the messiest.”

  Once again, Mr. E. had not bothered to ask the students to clean up. In fact, when Helpful-Holly started to collect all the art supplies, he’d stopped her. “We have to use them tomorrow,” he’d said. “Just leave them out.”

  Of course, they didn’t have to leave paper scraps and glops of glue and piles of shiny glitter everywhere.

  But Aldo went to work and soon the floor was clean, the art supplies were stacked and the student tables were straightened.

  When Aldo sat down to eat dinner with us, he said, “Guys, I sure hope Mrs. Brisbane is back soon. I’ll bet you do, too.”

  “Do you think she’ll be back, Aldo?” I squeaked. “Or will she become a famous ballet dancer?”

  “I know you think she’s not coming back, Humphrey, but she is,” Aldo assured me.

  I was happy to hear that!

  “But this messy room, that’s nothing,” Aldo said. “You should see all the stuff kids leave lying around. I take it all to the lost and found. Coats, socks, even shoes. Wouldn’t you notice you were missing one shoe? Jewelry and toys. Lots of notebooks and pencils. Why, once I even found a tuba! That’s a huge musical instrument.” Aldo chuckled. “I can’t imagine losing a tuba, but there it was. No name on it, either. I took it to the lost and found. I take everything to the lost and found.”

  “Really? That gives me a GREAT-GREAT-GREAT idea!” I squeaked.

  Personally, I keep a close eye on my property: my wheel, sleeping hut, hamster ball, water bottle, food dish, climbing tree and ladder. I know where everything in my cage belongs, including my poo—which is only in my special poo corner—and the food I hide in my bedding. And of course, I always make sure my notebook and pencil are in their place.

  Aldo pushed a lovely bit of cauliflower through the bars of my cage. “Time to move on,” he said.

  I watched out the window after he left, waiting for his car to leave the parking lot.

  There was a big orange moon that looked a lot like a Halloween pumpkin. And the man in the moon looked like a jack-o’-lantern.

  In the moonlight, I could see that the trees had lost most of their leaves. It was almost time for Halloween, all right.

  Once Aldo was gone, I raced out of my cage.

  “Og, Phoebe’s watch must be in the lost and found,” I squeaked. “I’d like to go get it, but Thomas said there were claws and hands and snakes in there.”

  “BOING-BOING!” Og replied.

  “I know. Thomas does exaggerate sometimes. And Aldo didn’t mention any of those things,” I said.

  “BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING!”

  I don’t really understand frog language, but I could tell what Og was trying to say.

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “I think I have to go.”

  “BO
ING!”

  “But first, I have to find Mrs. Wright’s office, because that’s where the lost and found is,” I explained.

  Og dived down into his water with an impressive splash.

  I scurried down the leg of the table and headed toward the door. “Wish me luck!” I squeaked.

  “BOING-BOING,” Og said.

  I slid through the narrow space under the door and there I was, out in the hallway of Longfellow School.

  It’s dark in the hallway at night, of course, but there are little lights along the way, so I could see where I was going.

  I remembered that Mrs. Wright had said that the lost and found was in her office, inside the gym.

  I’ve been to the library, the playground, the principal’s office. But I’ve never, ever seen the gym.

  I hurried past the other classrooms, took the turn down another hallway, past Principal Morales’s office, and past the cafeteria. That was as far as I’d ever gone in my nighttime adventures at Longfellow School. But that night, I saw that the hallway took another turn past the cafeteria.

  I was in uncharted territory when I saw two gigantic doors. I stopped and looked up.

  The sign on one door read Gymnasium.

  Gym was in the word, so this must be it.

  The doors were tall and looked heavy, but there was a narrow space below them. It was a little tight, but I squeezed through.

  Even in the dim lighting, I could see that the gym was enormous! Of course, everything looks large to a small hamster, but this was the biggest room I’d ever seen. Ever!

  It was TALL-TALL-TALL and WIDE-WIDE-WIDE. I’m not sure what they did in the gym, but there were hoops with nets on poles at either end and a shiny wooden floor. There was a big clock. And a huge sign with numbers on it.

  As large as the gym was . . . and as little as I am, I was determined to find Phoebe’s watch. There was a smaller door to the right of the main doors. I looked up and saw a sign that said Mrs. Wright.