Friendship According to Humphrey

by Betty G. Birney

  Thursday was the gloomiest day I’d ever seen outside. But inside Room 26, the students were far from gloomy. Heidi and Gail were best friends again. Tabitha was friendly with Seth, Sayeh, Miranda—everybody! The poems were coming along as well.

  No one, except me, seemed to notice that it was GRAY-GRAY-GRAY outside. In the afternoon, it began to snow. I hopped on my wheel and watched giant circles of lace float to the ground.

  That sounded so good, I wrote it in my notebook. “Giant circles of lace.” Those words might turn into a poem someday.

  The snow continued falling after school let out. It was pretty with all those lacy circles tumbling down from the sky. After a while, the lacy circles turned into a thick blanket of white.

  It was so quiet, you could have heard a frog burp. Not that Og ever did. He was as silent as the snowflakes.

  I knew something was terribly wrong when Aldo didn’t show up to clean that night. There were no cars in the parking lot and just one parked car on the street. It looked more like a giant snowball than a car.

  I counted the hours until morning would arrive. The snow continued falling until it reached the top of the wheels on the parked car. The carpet of snow was beautiful, but the silence made my fur stand up on end. I missed A.J.’s loud voice, Mandy’s complaints and Gail’s giggles.

  When the bell rang for the start of school on Friday, a funny thing happened: Nobody showed up. Not Mrs. Brisbane, not Garth, not Miranda, nobody. There were no cars in the parking lot, no buses pulling in.

  The snow showed no sign of stopping. I was snowed in with Og the Frog!

  “A life without a friend is a life without sun.”

  French proverb

  14

  Oh No, More Snow!

  It was eerie to hear the bell ring for morning recess, lunch, and afternoon recess when there was no one at school except Og and me.

  Staring out at all that snow gave me a chill. The temperature was dropping inside as well. What was it that Aldo had said about turning down the heat at night to save money? I felt even chillier as I realized there was no one around to turn the heat up again.

  Luckily, I had my fur coat, my sleeping house and a nice pile of wood shavings I could crawl into to keep warm. I wondered how Og was doing with nothing more than four glass walls, some greenery and an unheated swimming pool.

  I dozed for much of the day and nibbled on the stash of food I keep hidden in my sleeping nest. We hamsters are smart about saving up food in case of emergency. But my food dish was empty and my water was getting low.

  Between naps, I gazed out the window. There were still no cars on the street. In fact, I couldn’t tell where the street ended and the sidewalk began. Everything was a solid sheet of white.

  Og was quiet most of the time and the crickets were silent, too. I was BORED-BORED-BORED all alone in the classroom. I even missed math class! Finally, I hopped on my wheel for some lively exercise. That warmed me up, but it also made me hungry. When I checked my stash of food, the only thing left was a limp tomato stem!

  The bell signaling the end of school finally rang. I wondered what my classmates were doing. A.J. was probably watching TV with his family. Garth and Andy would be playing video games. I figured Miranda was cuddling up with Clem. (Didn’t his bad breath bother her?) Sayeh was no doubt helping her mom care for her younger brother. And Mrs. Brisbane was probably bustling around her warm, toasty kitchen while Mr. Brisbane built a birdhouse.

  They were all warm, all cozy, and all well-fed! They were definitely not worrying about me. Or Og.

  I wasn’t helping myself by thinking of these things. I decided to work on my poem. What rhymes with “gloom”? Doom!

  I slipped my notebook and pencil out of their hiding place behind my mirror and burrowed down in my pile of wood shavings to keep warm.

  I promptly fell asleep. It was nighttime when I woke up.

  “Hey, Og, do you think Aldo will come tonight?” I asked my neighbor.

  Og didn’t answer. Aldo didn’t come. The snow kept falling.

  Around midnight, I heard a funny whirring sound and looked out the window. A huge machine, way bigger than a car, crept down the street like a giant yellow snail with an orange light spinning around on top. It rolled along slowly, then disappeared.

  Three hours later, it returned from the opposite direction and disappeared again.

  “Did you see that, Og?” I squeaked loudly.

  He was definitely ignoring me, and I didn’t blame him. I’d said terrible things to him, things he probably understood. Guilt made me feel even colder.

  “Og, I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t care if you were my friend,” I called out from my cage. “I’ll forgive you for splashing me if you’ll forgive me for saying those things. Okay?”

  “Boing?” I think he meant “Okay,” but there was something odd about the way Og sounded. Maybe he was hungry, like me. Then I recalled that he didn’t need to eat as often as I do. Frogs have all the luck.

  The next morning, the snow stopped falling. But the ground was covered and there were still no cars or people to be seen, except for that parked snowball—I mean car.

  Even if it hadn’t snowed, nobody would have come to school, because it was Saturday. One week ago today, I was starring in Magic Mitch’s show. Now, I was alone (almost), COLD-COLD-COLD, hungry and forgotten.

  All my life, some human had brought me food and water and cleaned my cage. I’d been well cared for. I’d never had to fend for myself. But I was a smart and capable hamster. It was time for me to take care of myself like my wild hamster ancestors, the ones who lived in the forests with piles of leaves and pinecones. And all the fruits and nuts they could collect.

  Hunger must have clouded my brain because it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that all my hamster food was right on the table. Yummy things like hay, mealworms, grains and vitamin drops. All I had to do was help myself!

  I opened the lock-that-doesn’t-lock and stumbled out of my cage.

  “Og, are you okay?” I called out.

  “Boing,” he replied weakly. It had been a while since he’d eaten, too. And I remembered Mrs. Brisbane talking about how important it was for frogs to have fresh water.

  “I’m going to get some food,” I explained. “Maybe I can find some mealworms for you. I don’t think I can get in the cricket cabinet.” Lucky for the crickets.

  “Boing.” Og sounded even weaker this time. And he didn’t look as green as usual. For a frog, that’s not good.

  I rushed across the top of the table, slightly faint from hunger. And there they were: a great big bag of Nutri-Nibbles, a taller bag of Hamster Hay and a giant jar of Mighty Mealworms. Yum! Of course, getting from the table to the top of those containers was a big problem for a small hamster. If I climbed up the bag of Nutri-Nibbles, for example, I would be in serious danger of falling into the bag and getting trapped there. Even though I love Nutri-Nibbles, I didn’t want to spend my last minutes on earth being crushed by them.

  No, the only sensible approach was brute force. I decided to take a run at the bag and knock it over. The treats would tumble out and I could eat to my heart’s content.

  I took a deep breath and ran at the bag, yelling, “Charge!”

  It didn’t quite work according to my plan. I hit the bag with all my might and the bag tipped a little. Unfortunately, then it tipped back the other way and crashed down on top of me!

  I wasn’t crushed, but I was trapped underneath the bag of treats. There was a little air space around me and I could see a glimmer of light. I could breathe, too. I just couldn’t get out.

  What I could do was yell. “Help! I’m trapped!” I squeaked, although the bag muffled the sound.

  I’m not sure why I was yelling. “Help me, please!” probably sounded like “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK!”

  I squeaked anyway, and waited.

  What was that I heard? “Boing, boing, boing! BOING, BOING, BOING!! BOING, BOING, BOING!!!” Followed by a
large crash!

  I couldn’t imagine how Og thought all that noise would help me. Then I heard a new sound: bop-bop-bop. Soon, Og was grinning at me through the slit of light.

  That crazy old lump of a frog had managed to hop all the way out of his house, and he’d come to save me! He started leaping at the bag, each time hitting it harder and harder. The bag shifted and the space around me started to open up as I crawled toward him.

  Og kept bashing the bag, screaming, “Screee! Screee!” This was a whole new Og and a whole new sound.

  The space got bigger and bigger and I crawled along until I could reach out and grab Og. Although I was weak from hunger and all that effort, I managed to grab onto Og’s back just as the bag shifted again, flattening out. I was GLAD-GLAD-GLAD I wasn’t underneath it anymore.

  “Screee!” Og repeated. I pulled myself up on Og’s back and he hopped away from the bag.

  What a thrill! I was rocking and rolling on his back, like a cowboy riding a bucking bronco! “Yee-haw!” I yelled. “Go, Og! Go, Frog!”

  “Screee!” he yelled.

  All of a sudden, the lights came on and I heard footsteps.

  “Oh, no! Look at that, they’re out of their cages.” It was Mrs. Brisbane. “They knocked the food over. They must be starving, poor things!”

  “Smart little critters,” said Principal Morales, chuckling. “Muy inteligente.”

  I hardly recognized those two, bundled up in heavy coats and woolly hats with huge scarves almost covering their faces.

  “How on earth did they get out?” Mrs. Brisbane wondered.

  “Maybe somebody didn’t lock Humphrey’s cage tightly,” said the principal. “And I guess the frog hopped out of his tank. Look, he pushed the lid off.”

  So, I have a lock-that-doesn’t-lock and Og has a top-that-he-can-pop!

  “Never fear, Aldo’s here!” another voice yelled out.

  A bundled-up Aldo hurried into the room. “Are they okay? The snowplow didn’t clean our street until half an hour ago. I was going to walk over here, but the radio said it was too dangerous to go out.”

  “I know,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “Bert and I have been worried sick. If I’d known the storm was coming, I would have taken them home with me. And everybody’s called me. All the parents, Angie Loomis—everybody.”

  Mrs. Brisbane put me back in my cage and gave me a handful of Nutri-Nibbles. Principal Morales put Og back in his cage and fed him some icky crickets (gag!). Aldo went to get us both fresh water.

  “It’s too cold in here for Og,” Mr. Morales said. “He pulled through all right, but I’m going to buy him a heater.”

  More footsteps clomped across the floor. “We came as soon as we got shoveled out!” said Miranda as she, Amy and Abby arrived.

  “The girls have been worried all day,” said Amy.

  We hadn’t been forgotten after all. Heidi’s mom, Garth’s dad and Sayeh and her dad showed up, too, every one of them worried about Og and me.

  I wanted to thank them, but it’s not polite to talk with your mouth full.

  They all asked to take us home for the rest of the weekend, but Mrs. Brisbane was quite firm. “I’m going to be selfish this time. I’m taking them home with me. My husband would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

  Mr. Morales told everyone to be VERY-VERY-VERY careful on the drive back home. He and Aldo helped Mrs. Brisbane prepare our houses for the trip.

  Finally, my tummy felt full. “Og?” I squeaked. “Thank you, my friend! Does this mean you forgive me?”

  “Boing!” he answered. Which was an extremely nice thing for a frog to say.

  “Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends.”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and essayist

  15

  Poetry Festivity

  B ert Brisbane was waiting at the door for us. “Hurry on in. It’s freezing!” he said.

  Mr. Morales helped Mrs. Brisbane carry in our houses and all the bags of food and bedding. “Who knows how long they’ll have to stay?” he said.

  Mrs. Brisbane went to make a pot of tea, and soon Mr. Brisbane was cleaning Og’s tank. Mr. Morales may be the Most Important Person at Longfellow School, but the principal rolled up his sleeves and cleaned out my cage. He didn’t even complain about what was in my potty corner. (He did wear gloves and washed his hands afterward.)

  “This is a good lesson for all of us,” said Mrs. Brisbane as she brought in a tray of steaming cups of tea, a plate of cookies and some yummy pieces of broccoli and lettuce for me. “If you decide to have a pet, you have to take total responsibility.”

  Mr. Morales munched on a cookie. “I think they took responsibility for themselves. How on earth did such small creatures knock down that big bag?”

  “I was wondering about that, too,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “I think it was teamwork.”

  “A frog and a hamster? Never heard of such a thing,” said Bert. “I sure wish I’d seen those two.” He smiled and shook his head. “I always knew that Humphrey was sharp as a tack, but now we know there’s a lot going on in Og’s head, too.”

  “Boing!” Og croaked, and he lunged at the side of his glass box.

  Mrs. Brisbane chuckled. “He’s feeling better. Looks like he wants to play a game of leapfrog.”

  Leapfrog is a game? Had I been wrong about Og since that very first night? Instead of trying to scare me, he wanted to play?

  Like Mr. Brisbane, I wasn’t sure what went on in Og’s head, but he had some good ideas, like rescuing me. He even had another sound he could make. Nobody knew it but me, and that made me feel kind of special. Like a friend.

  The sun came out that afternoon and so did the snow-plows. While the yards were still covered with snow, the streets were clear and cars traveled freely again.

  Across the street from the Brisbanes, two children built a snowman. Inside the Brisbane house, I was more than happy to run mazes and play hide-and-squeak with Bert for old-time’s sake. Og watched from his glass house, but said very little.

  By Monday, the roads had improved enough to go back to school. Thank goodness, because the Poetry Festival was coming up on Friday and there was still a lot of work to do.

  Some of the students had worked on memorizing their poems or writing them out at home over the long weekend. Most had not.

  Garth Tugwell had changed poems three times. On Monday, he changed again. Mrs. Brisbane sent him to the cloakroom to memorize his new selection.

  Mrs. Brisbane surprised Kirk by asking for his help. “You’ve been a lot better lately about knowing when to be funny and when to be quiet,” she said. “Now I need your help. We don’t want this Poetry Festival to be too serious. We want it to be fun. Would you introduce the poems for us?”

  Kirk’s whole face lit up. “Sure!”

  “Be sure to make it funny,” she told him.

  By the end of the day on Tuesday, the bulletin board was covered with illustrated poems the students had copied out. Along the edge of the board were cutout pictures of famous poets, from Longfellow to a guy named Shakespeare and a lady named Emily Dickinson.

  Late in the day on Wednesday, my classmates finished their valentine mailboxes. What they did with ordinary cardboard boxes was excellent! Some of them were covered with red hearts, glitter and pieces of lace. Others were covered with buttons and lots of paint. Garth’s had a big dinosaur on the side. Miranda’s mailbox had cutout pictures of her family pasted on: her mom, dad, Abby, Amy, baby Ben and (yes) Clem. Tabitha’s mailbox had pictures of basketballs, footballs and soccer balls glued across the outside.

  Then—SURPRISE—Mandy presented Og with a green box with pictures of frogs and insects all over it. And A.J. gave me a box covered in golden, furry-looking material. (It wasn’t real fur. I checked.)

  As nice as that was, I felt SAD-SAD-SAD because no matter how many valentines I received, there was no way I could make valentines for everyone in the class. How could I let them know how much
I valued their friendship?

  I was still feeling low when Aldo arrived Wednesday night. He was in an unusually good mood.

  “It’s a beautiful evening, gentlemen. And I have good news to share with you!” he announced as he wheeled in his cart.

  “I could use some good news, Aldo!” I squeaked back.

  “Boing!” added Og.

  Aldo pulled a chair up next to my cage. Instead of pulling out his lunch (or a treat for me), he pulled out a piece of paper.

  “Behold my first grade from college. A test in psychology.” (I wondered if he was in class with Natalie the babysitter.)

  “My grade, as you can plainly see . . .” Aldo held the paper up to my cage. “Is an A! Can you believe it, buddies?”

  “Three cheers for Aldo!” I squeaked as I hopped on my wheel for a joyful spin.

  “I haven’t shown this to Maria yet. I’m saving it for her Valentine’s present. Along with some flowers and candy, of course. I think this grade will be her favorite gift.” Aldo leaned back and smiled with satisfaction.

  Og dove into his pool with a huge splash. I think a little water got on Aldo, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Splash away, Og my friend,” Aldo said. “It makes a happy sound.”

  Og splashed because he was happy? All I’d thought about the splashing was that it was irritating!

  Aldo was grinning from ear to ear, almost like a frog. “You see before you a happy man. There’s nothing better in the world than to have someone to share good news—and even bad news—with. You see, Maria is my wife, but she’s also my best friend.”

  I stopped spinning because I felt a little dizzy. I’d learned a bit about friendship this year by watching my classmates in Room 26. There were friends who got really mad but made up afterward. There were friends who stuck together through thick and thin. There were friends who reached out to you even when you didn’t think you needed a friend.