Mysteries According to Humphrey

by Betty G. Birney

  He stuffed the binder into his large sack. Then he came over to the table where Og and I live.

  “You have it easy,” he said. “You’re just classroom pets. Everybody loves you and you don’t have to worry about tests.”

  Then he stared out the window, his shoulders slumped. He sighed once or twice.

  After a while I couldn’t stand it. “You can do a better job!” I squeaked. “TRY-TRY-TRY!”

  Mr. E. looked down at me and almost smiled.

  “Would you like to switch jobs with me, Humphrey?” he asked.

  I think it was the first time he used my name.

  “I could sit in your cage and take naps and you’d teach the class,” he said.

  I was sorry to hear that he thought all that I did was sit in my cage and take naps. But then, he didn’t know about the lock-that-doesn’t-lock.

  “I really like my job,” I squeaked. I was too polite to say that I didn’t think Mr. E. would be a very good classroom pet.

  “I really like my job,” Mr. E. said. “And I want to make this work.”

  “I want this to work, too!” I replied.

  Just then Ms. Mac walked in. Why do good things always happen when Ms. Mac walks in?

  “Hi, Ed,” she said. “How’s it going?”

  Mr. E. sighed. “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

  “What happened?” Ms. Mac asked.

  “Mr. Morales just told me there have been a lot of complaints about my teaching. Too much noise, not enough homework . . . and Mrs. Brisbane doesn’t think I’m following her lesson plans,” he explained.

  “Are you?” Ms. Mac asked in the friendliest way possible.

  Mr. E. shook his head. “Yes, and, uh, no.”

  Ms. Mac said, “Oh.” She came a little closer to my cage and leaned down. “Hi, Humphrey,” she said with a wink.

  “I really want to be a teacher,” Mr. E. said. “There were no job openings, so I signed up to be a substitute.”

  “That’s how I got started,” Ms. Mac said.

  Yes, and if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have my wonderful job!

  “I’ve never told anybody what happened,” Mr. E. said.

  Ms. Mac smiled. “I’m a good listener.”

  Mr. E. nodded. “Okay.”

  “Listen up, Og,” I squeaked to my neighbor. “Maybe we’ll solve the mystery of Mr. E.”

  “BOING-BOING!” Og agreed.

  “My first day as a substitute was a nightmare,” he said. “I tried to teach the kids, but they wouldn’t be quiet, wouldn’t sit down, wouldn’t listen to a word I said. When I tried to give them homework, they threw paper wads at me.”

  “What?” I squeaked. “That was RUDE-RUDE-RUDE!”

  “BOING-BOING-BOING!” Og was as shocked as I was.

  Ms. Mac was surprised, too. “Was that at Longfellow School?” she asked.

  “No,” Mr. E. said. “I tell you, I was ready to give up teaching forever. And I decided that the next time I got an assignment, I’d make everything fun. If the kids liked me, maybe they’d behave better.”

  “I understand,” Ms. Mac said. “But you can have fun and learning at the same time. Students can have respect for you and like you at the same time. Look at Mrs. Brisbane!”

  “Yes, look!” I squeaked.

  “I wish I knew her,” Mr. E. said. “This is such a great class, and I don’t think I’ve lived up to her standards. But it was so awful to know that the students in that first class didn’t like me.”

  You’d think I’d have learned it by now, but sometimes I forget: teachers are humans!

  “I have an idea,” Ms. Mac said. “I’m going to visit a friend tonight, and I’d like you to come along. Are you free?”

  “Yes,” Mr. E. said. “But I have to prepare for tomorrow.”

  Ms. Mac smiled mysteriously. “I think you can do both.”

  Before long, they were gone.

  “Og, I’m sorry to say I thought Mr. E. just didn’t care,” I told my friend when we were alone. “I’m glad I was wrong. But I wonder if Mrs. Brisbane still cares.”

  “BOING?” Og sounded confused.

  “She’s abandoned her students to go off and become a ballerina,” I explained. “That doesn’t seem right!”

  There. I’d said it. I love Mrs. Brisbane with all the heart a small hamster has to offer. But I had to admit, I was piewhacked by her behavior. And a little disappointed, too.

  I guess Og was disappointed, too, because he dived into the water and splashed wildly.

  I’m not one for splashing, so I hopped on my wheel for a good, long spin.

  HUMPHREY’S DETECTIONARY: When you solve a mystery, you might learn some shocking information (involving badly behaved students).

  12

  The Case of the New Mr. E.

  As the light in the room grew darker that evening, the pumpkins on the wall grew brighter. For some reason, those jack-o’-lanterns really bothered me.

  Aldo liked them, though. When he came in to clean that night, he said, “Whoa! I almost thought I was in the wrong room.” He stopped and admired all the decorations. “They did a real good job. Speaking of Halloween, I have a present for you, Humphrey.”

  I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE presents!

  He wheeled his cart to the middle of the room. Then he reached into his lunch sack and pulled something out. “Maria helped me with this,” Aldo explained as he walked toward my cage.

  He opened the door and put something orange in my cage. “A little Halloween treat,” he said.

  In front of me was a tiny little jack-o’-lantern. It was actually a piece of pumpkin, with carrots and seeds that made a little face.

  It looked perfectly hamster-licious!

  “Thank you, thank you—a million times,” I squeaked excitedly.

  “It’s my pleasure,” Aldo replied.

  I started to nibble on the pumpkin right away while Aldo gave Og his nightly Froggy Food Sticks.

  Poor Og. I guess he’ll never know how tasty pumpkin is, especially the seeds.

  When Aldo was ready to leave, he said, “I’ve got a joke for you two. What do ghosts eat on their cereal?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  Og didn’t say a thing. Not even BOING.

  “Booberries!” Then Aldo burst out laughing and kept on chuckling as he rolled his cart out the door.

  After he’d gone, when I looked up at the row of pumpkins on the wall, they didn’t look scary.

  They just looked yummy!

  “Class, it’s time to begin,” Mr. E. announced the next morning. “We have a lot to do today.”

  “Can we play Mathketball?” Simon asked.

  “Not right now,” Mr. E. answered.

  “Word War?” Rosie asked.

  “Not today,” Mr. E. said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  There were a few groans, but not many.

  “We’re going to start with Mrs. Brisbane’s mystery words,” he said. “Take out a sheet of paper.”

  Mr. E. still had small round glasses and red hair. But this was a different Mr. E. than I’d seen before. This was a real teacher.

  Besides, I was HAPPY-HAPPY-HAPPY that we were going back to mystery words.

  I knew what piewhack meant. And pizzazz.

  But today, Mr. E. gave us a new word to figure out: pursizzle.

  I wondered if it meant a hot handbag.

  He wrote this sentence on the board:

  When you go to the store, please get some pursizzle for tomorrow’s lunches.

  Gosh, pursizzle had to be some kind of food. But it could be anything: carrots, apples, celery or other crunchy things.

  Then he wrote another sentence
:

  My grandmother spent the afternoon teaching me how to bake pursizzle.

  I don’t think a grandmother would spend a whole afternoon teaching somebody how to bake a carrot or an apple. (I like them raw.)

  The third sentence was:

  My favorite breakfast is pursizzle with jam.

  Jam. It’s a sweet, fruity spread. I know that. And as far as I knew, humans usually ate jam on—bread!

  Pursizzle was bread!

  I got 100 percent on my assignment. My friends were all shouting out “bread,” so they got 100 percent, too.

  I was most excited because Mr. E. was following Mrs. Brisbane’s lesson plan, and as far as I could tell, everybody still liked him.

  Personally, I liked him a little more than I had the day before.

  I didn’t have much time to think about pursizzle with jam because Mr. E. then went into a math lesson that didn’t involved basketballs or running or shouting. My friends worked hard and didn’t talk unless they were called on.

  Just before recess, Mr. E. talked about Egypt. He had me on the edge of my seat—er, cage—talking about pyramids, mummies and the Nile River. I tell you, I was shivering and quivering during that lesson.

  And when my friends went out to play, Mr. E. sat at Mrs. Brisbane’s desk and studied lesson plans in her binder.

  We got so much done that day, I’m not sure Mrs. Brisbane could have kept up . . . but my classmates and I did.

  Mr. E. even gave out homework assignments. Real homework. No one complained because he explained why it was important.

  Late in the afternoon, Helpful-Holly reminded Mr. E. that he needed to choose who would take me home for the weekend.

  Mr. E. asked my friends to raise their hands if they hadn’t taken me home yet and thought their parents would give permission.

  A lot of hands went up. How was Mr. E. going to choose?

  He looked at the clock. “I think we have time for a quick spelling bee to decide.”

  He asked Rosie, Joey, Tall-Paul, Thomas and Sophie to spell different words.

  They all got through the first round. On the second round, Rosie missed on the word symbol. (I was surprised there was a y in it, too.)

  On the third round, Tall-Paul missed on the word misery. I completely understood, because the s does sound like a z.

  Sophie went down on the word mystify. I would have, too!

  It was down to Joey and Thomas. And for the next two rounds, neither of them missed a word. They were difficult words, too: disease, fierce, schedule!

  The spelling bee was suddenly very exciting, and it was almost time for the bell to ring.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Mr. E. said. “You’ve done such a great job, would you agree to share Humphrey?”

  The boys both looked puzzled. I was a little concerned, too. I hoped they weren’t planning to split me in half!

  “Thomas could have him Friday night. Then Joey could pick him up at Thomas’s house on Saturday and have Humphrey Saturday night,” Mr. E. explained. “Would your families agree to that?”

  Neither boy looked happy. But they both nodded.

  “Bring back notes from your parents tomorrow,” Mr. E. told them just as the bell rang.

  “How did it go?” Ms. Mac asked after school.

  “Not bad.” Mr. E. smiled. “We got a lot done and nobody threw anything at me. Thanks for taking me along last night. I think I’m on the right track now.”

  “Great,” Ms. Mac said. “And the Halloween surprise is really going to be something. We just need to make sure no one finds out our secret.”

  “Finds out what?” I squeaked.

  “BOING-BOING!” Og twanged.

  Ms. Mac must have heard us, because she laughed.

  “No one must find out . . . even Humphrey and Og!” she said.

  When Mr. E. and Ms. Mac left for the day, I was annoyed.

  “It’s not nice to keep secrets,” I told Og. “And it’s especially not nice to keep secrets from classroom pets!”

  “BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING,” Og agreed.

  But I had something else on my mind besides the Halloween surprise. I could tell that Joey didn’t want to be around Thomas. I wasn’t sure why, but I think it had to do with the way Thomas exaggerated.

  They should have been friends, but they weren’t. And I was piewhacked about how to help them.

  I had another problem to think about: my costume. I’d felt so proud to win the prize for Best Costume last Halloween. And I hoped I’d win it again.

  Friday was a busy day . . . and a day that made me HAPPY-HAPPY-HAPPY.

  We learned more about Egypt and a new kind of math problem and we got a new vocabulary list. The day went by in a hurry because we were so busy.

  At the very end of the day, Mr. E. made a special announcement. If the class all did well on our math test on Monday, he’d finish reading “The Red-Headed-League.”

  Everybody cheered at that news! No one cheered louder than me.

  I was really looking forward to meeting Thomas’s dad. After all, according to his son, Mr. True was a juggler-airplane-pilot-ship’s-captain-detective!

  When he came to pick us up from school, he just looked like a regular nice dad.

  “Do you mind sharing Humphrey this weekend?” he asked as he drove us home from school.

  “Not really,” Thomas said. “Maybe when Joey comes over tomorrow, we can shoot some hoops.”

  “Sure,” Mr. True said. “I’ll take you to the park.”

  I wasn’t sure if Joey would like that, but I crossed my paws and hoped that he’d say yes.

  When we got to the house, I was suddenly a little nervous. So far this school year, Thomas had told a lot of stories about his shark teeth collection, the gigantic fish he’d caught and huge spiders and colossal snakes. And all those tall tales about his dad.

  Luckily, I didn’t see any spiders, snakes, or fish—with or without teeth—at his house.

  Thomas’s dad helped get me set up. His little sister, Theresa, came in to watch me. I spun on my wheel for her, which made her laugh.

  Then Thomas’s mom brought me a celery treat.

  Later that night, they all watched me roll around in my hamster ball. While I rolled, I wished I could help the boys become friends. All that rolling helped me think, and before long, I had a Plan that would force them to spend time together, at least for a little while.

  I crossed my paws and hoped it would work.

  If they got to know each other better, maybe Joey would find out what I knew: Thomas was a nice, normal boy. And Thomas would find out that if he wanted friends, he needed to stop exaggerating and tell the truth. Otherwise, how could anyone trust what he said?

  HUMPHREY’S DETECTIONARY: If you don’t have a violin like Sherlock Holmes, rolling in a hamster ball can also help you think.

  13

  The Case of the Battling Boys

  On Saturday afternoon, I was rolling around the living room in my hamster ball when the doorbell rang.

  Thomas ran to open the door and said, “Hi, Joey.”

  It was time for my Plan. I started running like crazy in my ball so it rolled and rolled and rolled way, way under the couch, where it was dark and a little dusty. Perfect!

  Thomas and Joey were talking, but their voices were hard to hear because there was a piece of cloth around the bottom of the couch that reached to the floor.

  “Hey, Joey. My dad said he’d drive us to the park. We could shoot some hoops there,” Thomas said.

  “No,” Joey said. “My mom’s waiting in the car.”

  “My dad would take you back later,” Thomas said. “He could talk to your mom.”

  I thought I heard Joey say “no” again. Then he asked
, “Where’s Humphrey?”

  Thomas said something I couldn’t understand and then Joey said, “Well, he must be around here somewhere.”

  They said something about searching for me. Then all I heard were footsteps clomping all over the room.

  “I used to have a hamster named Giggles,” Joey said. “He loved his hamster ball. Humphrey reminds me of him.”

  Then Thomas said, “I used to have a pet ostrich! He giggled, too.”

  “No way,” Joey said.

  “I did!” Thomas insisted. “His name was Ozzie.”

  Joey sighed. “Let’s just find Humphrey.”

  The boys were quiet again except for their footsteps.

  “He must be under something,” Joey said.

  More footsteps. Then Thomas said, “Not under the chair.”

  Even more footsteps. Then Joey said, “What about the couch?”

  Before I knew it, a hand lifted up the cloth. Thomas and Joey were staring right at me.

  “Humphrey!” Thomas said. “What are you doing there?”

  I didn’t dare squeak the truth, so I stayed silent.

  Joey reached way, way back and grabbed the hamster ball. “Where’s his cage?”

  “In my room,” Thomas said.

  Joey carried me to Thomas’s room and put me back in my cage. “Okay, Humphrey. We’re ready to go,” he told me.

  “Wait,” Thomas said. “Don’t you want to come shoot some hoops with my dad and me? He used to be in the NBA.”

  “NBA? Look, I just don’t want to, okay?” Joey said.

  I was surprised to hear Joey talk like that. Just-Joey usually got along with everyone.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Thomas asked.

  “Why are you always telling lies?” Joey asked. “Your dad wasn’t in the NBA and he’s not a detective or an airline pilot or any of that stuff, right?”

  Thomas hesitated. “No,” he admitted. “But he’s in the transportation business. He sells cars!”

  “You don’t have to make up all that stuff. You’re lucky to have a dad around. Not everybody does,” Joey said. “My dad lives far away and I don’t get to see him much. But I don’t lie about him.”