Surprises According to Humphrey

by Betty G. Birney

  “If I had argued with them, it would have slowed us down,” Mrs. Brisbane explained. “That’s not good in a fire.”

  “BOING!” Goodness, I was surprised to hear Og squeak up, but I was glad he was on our side.

  Then I heard a brand-new voice. “That went well,” a man’s voice said.

  Mrs. Wright shook her head. “Not entirely. We’ll have to try again before the end of the year.”

  The person behind the new voice came into view. He was wearing a big shiny yellow jacket and big yellow pants. And on his head was a COOL-COOL-COOL black hat with a big brim and a red 29 on it.

  “Hi, folks,” he said, smiling. “I’m Jeff Herman from Engine Company Twenty-nine.”

  “Did you bring the fire truck?” Garth asked.

  “It’s out front. You guys did a good job with the fire drill today.”

  Mrs. Wright shook her head. “I’m afraid these children did not. They took the time to bring this rat and this frog outside. Strictly against the rules.”

  A rat! I would think that a person who teaches school could tell the difference between an ordinary rat and a handsome golden hamster, like me!

  Firefighter Jeff pushed his hat back on his head. “If there’s a real fire, you shouldn’t stop to get your pets. Your job is to get out safely. Don’t go back in for anything. But tell the firefighters your pet is inside. We rescue pets from fires all the time.”

  He bent down and looked me right in the eyes. “Especially nice little hamsters like this guy.”

  At least one smart person could tell a hamster from a rat!

  “But the best thing to learn is how to prevent a fire from happening,” he continued. “I’ll tell you about that when I visit your class later.”

  WOW-WOW-WOW! A real, live firefighter was coming to Room 26! Now, that’s the kind of surprise I like.

  DICTIONARY: A book giving the meanings of very cool words, how to say them and where those words came from. (Question: Is the word dictionary in the dictionary?)

  Humphrey’s Dictionary of Wonderful Words

  Stop, Drop and More Surprises

  Kirk had to stay in during afternoon recess and write a letter of apology on the chalkboard.

  Even though she acted angry, I don’t think Mrs. Brisbane thought his prank was that bad. After all, it was very clever of him to think of recording the bell.

  True to his word, Jeff Herman stopped by our classroom late in the day. He showed us pictures of very cool fire engines with noisy sirens, and he told us not to play with matches (which I’ve never done). He said that if you are in a building that’s on fire, you should “stay low and go.” That means you should stay low to the ground and get out of the building. Then he told us something very important: if your clothes ever catch on fire, you should remember three things.

  “Who knows what those three things are?” he asked.

  Seth and Garth raised their hands right away, but before anyone called on them, Heidi blurted out, “Stop, drop and roll!”

  “Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi Hopper. Please!” Mrs. Brisbane sounded really annoyed. “Sorry, Mr. Herman,” she told the firefighter.

  He just smiled and explained that if you or a friend ever have your clothes catch on fire, you should stop, drop to the floor and roll. That will put out the fire. Then came the fun part. He made us all practice. My friends stood by their desks (and I stood in my cage) and shouted, “Stop! Drop! Roll!” Then we’d drop to the ground and roll on the floor. I was luckier than my friends because I have such soft bedding on the bottom of my cage. I think even Og must have practiced because I heard splashing coming from his cage.

  Jeff Herman gave the students stickers that said Stop-Drop-Roll, and suddenly, school was over for the day. Everybody was smiling and happy except for Mrs. Brisbane. She frowned as she stopped Heidi on her way out of class.

  “Heidi, it’s bad enough when you won’t raise your hand in class, but when we have a guest and you speak out like that, it’s rude and embarrassing.”

  Heidi looked up at Mrs. Brisbane with big sad eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I forgot.”

  “You remember to come to school and you remember to do your homework, I’m happy to say. Why can’t you remember to raise your hand?”

  “I guess it’s a bad habit,” Heidi explained.

  Mrs. Brisbane sighed loudly. “I’d better call your parents in. Again.”

  The Hoppers had already been in twice this school year, and both times they said Heidi was well behaved at home. They promised to talk to her about her disruptive behavior. Each time, Heidi was quiet for a day or two after the meeting, but she’d always gone back to blurting things out.

  Mrs. Brisbane dismissed Heidi so she could catch her bus. Then she slowly walked over to the table where Og and I live.

  “Fellows,” she said, “if there’s one thing I want to accomplish by the end of the school year, it’s getting Heidi Hopper to raise her hand.”

  “If anyone can do it, you can!” I shouted, but of course, all she heard was “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK.” That’s the problem with being a classroom hamster. I can read, I can write and I can help my friends. But it’s hard for me to make myself understood.

  “Sometimes I wish I had a magic wand to wave all my students’ problems away,” she said. Then she stared right at me. “Come to think of it, Humphrey, you’re not too good about raising your paw, either. See you boys tomorrow.”

  After she left, I thought about what Mrs. Brisbane had said. “You know, Og, I understand Heidi’s problem,” I told my neighbor. “I do forget to raise my paw before squeaking up in class. Of course, I wouldn’t get called on anyway. But Heidi could, and she’s a smart girl. She should be able to learn.”

  “BOING!”

  I’d finally decided that the odd sound Og made was his way of agreeing with me. “And Mrs. Brisbane knows so many things, like how to get Speak-Up-Sayeh to speak up and how to get Pay-Attention-Art to pay more attention. Surely she can find a way to help Heidi.”

  Og apparently didn’t have any opinion on the subject, so I crawled into my sleeping hut to think things over.

  SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK. The sound woke me from my doze, and this time I wasn’t the one squeaking. It was Aldo Amato, coming in to clean the room. His cart needed a little bit of oil to stop that noise.

  I peeked out from my sleeping hut. The lights came on, temporarily blinding me, but I heard Aldo’s familiar voice.

  “¡Buenas noches, señores! ¿Cómo estás?”

  The voice sounded like Aldo’s, but for the first time ever, I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. It reminded me of the weekend I spent at Sayeh’s house, when I couldn’t understand her family. It took me a while to realize that they were speaking another language. But Aldo had always spoken English until tonight.

  “Aldo? Is that you?” I squeaked.

  My eyes got used to the light, and I could see that the person in the room actually was Aldo. He stopped and looked up at the clock. “Son las siete y medio.”

  “Huh?” I squeaked.

  Og let out an alarmed “BOING!” I guess he was surprised to hear Aldo’s strange new way of speaking, too.

  Aldo looked puzzled. “Or is it media? I always forget.” He set to work, moving the desks, sweeping the floor, dusting the desks, all the while muttering strange words, like, “Me llama Aldo. ¿C´omo está usted? ¿Dónde está el…? ¿Dónde está la—oh, mamma mia, those els and las. ¿Dónde está la escuela?”

  He swept more and more furiously.

  “Tengo un lápiz. Él tiene un lápiz. Tienen…tienen…lápices.”

  “Og, can you understand what he’s saying?” I called over to my green, googly-eyed friend.

  “BOING-BOING!” he twanged back.

  Yep, he was just as puzzled as I was.

  Aldo put the desks back in place, then pulled up a chair close to my cage and took out his lunch bag. He tore a little piece of lettuce from his sandwich and poked it through the bars of my cage
. “Here, muchacho.”

  “Thanks!” I squeaked.

  “I don’t know the word for lettuce.” Aldo sounded discouraged.

  What on earth was my friend talking about? The word for lettuce is lettuce, isn’t it?

  Aldo ate in silence, then suddenly stood up. “Well, gotta go, amigos,” he said, opening the blinds.

  Sometimes Principal Morales calls me amigo, so it must be something good.

  “¡Hasta luego!”

  I never heard that before. “Whatever,” I squeaked back in total confusion.

  Soon, Aldo was gone, the lights were out and the room was bathed in the silvery glow of the streetlight. I could hear Og swimming in his tank, but I didn’t pay much attention.

  I was too busy thinking about Aldo and wondering what was wrong with him. He and I had always understood each other pretty well…until tonight.

  Night is a funny time. It’s the time when most of us hamsters are usually active. And it’s the time when most humans are sleepy. It’s a good time for thinking, but sometimes thinking can turn to worrying, at least for me.

  I wasn’t just worried because I couldn’t understand Aldo. I was also worried about what would happen if the fire alarm started beeping at night. Who would carry Og and me outside? At least I knew how to STOP-DROP-ROLL, thanks to that nice firefighter, Jeff.

  Then I remembered my lock-that-doesn’t-lock. While it appeared to be locked to humans, I could open it and come and go as I pleased. So, in case of a fire, I could escape if I had to. That was a relief. But what about Og? Then I remembered that he had popped the top off his tank a few times before. Somehow, I knew that Og and I would scurry, hurry and hop our way to safety.

  Once I figured that out, I felt a LOT-LOT-LOT better, and the next thing I knew, the morning bell was ringing and another day of school was about to begin.

  SURPRISE: Something totally unexpected and unplanned for. A surprise can be good, like a postcard from Ms. Mac. Or a surprise can be bad, like Ms. Mac moving to Brazil. A surprise can also be both good and bad, like a shiny balloon (a good thing) that suddenly pops and scares you (a bad thing).

  Humphrey’s Dictionary of Wonderful Words

  Hamster on a Roll

  I learned a lot about human behavior during my first seven months in Room 26. Humans can be funny, sad, happy and mad…all in one day! But the one person I can’t quite understand is Mrs. Brisbane. Just when I think I have her figured out, she does something she’s never ever done before.

  For instance, every single morning, she comes into the classroom, puts her books on her desk and her purse in the desk drawer, checks her hair in the mirror, then walks toward the window and says, “Good morning, fellows. Here’s hoping for another great day!”

  I always tell her that I’m sure it will be unsqueakably great, and Og sometimes answers with his goofy “BOING!”

  But on Tuesday, for the first time all year, she came into the room, dumped her books on the desk, put her purse in the drawer and slammed it shut. Then she walked over to the bulletin board and stared at the cutouts of the planets that were up there. “I wonder how many bulletin boards I’ve put up and taken down over the years?” she asked.

  I hoped she wasn’t asking me because I didn’t have an exact answer. I did know that Mrs. Brisbane had been teaching for many years, so the answer would be LOTS-LOTS-LOTS.

  She shook her head and began taking down the cutout pictures of planets with interesting names like Neptune, Jupiter and Saturn.

  Then there was Mars, which is an angry-looking red color, with spots on it that look like big scary eyes, especially at night. I wasn’t sorry to see that picture go.

  The bulletin board was empty by the time the students started streaming in. For months, they’d come in bundled up in coats and boots, hats and gloves. Now they had on light jackets and sweaters, and it didn’t take long for them to hang their things in the cloakroom and hurry to their seats.

  I-Heard-That-Kirk came bounding into the room with a big smile on his face.

  “Mrs. Brisbane, I’m sorry about yesterday. To make up for it, I have a surprise for Humphrey. Can I give it to him now?” he asked.

  A surprise for me? That got my whiskers wiggling.

  And it started Gail giggling. “What is it?” she said. “Let me see!”

  Soon, the other students were gathered around Kirk, begging him to let them see the surprise.

  “Okay, Kirk. What is it?” asked Mrs. Brisbane. Her arms were folded, and she had a suspicious look on her face. After all, Kirk had done a few things that would make any teacher unhappy. Once, he put a cushion on Repeat-It-Please-Richie’s chair that made a VERY-VERY-VERY rude noise when Richie sat on it. He called it a “whoopee” cushion. My friends laughed so hard (including Richie), they all wanted a chance to sit on it, but Mrs. Brisbane took it away and made Kirk sit in the cloakroom for a while.

  This time, Mrs. Brisbane held out her hand. “Let me see it, Kirk,” she said. Boy, she sure didn’t trust him.

  Kirk reached in his backpack and pulled out something I couldn’t see. All of my friends went “ooh” and “aah,” which made my heart thump faster and faster.

  “Can you see it, Og?” I squeaked to my tablemate.

  There was no answer.

  “It’s a hamster ball. We can put Humphrey inside, and he can roll around the classroom. See, there are air holes in it. It’s good exercise,” Kirk explained. “Can we try it?”

  The thought of rolling around the classroom during the day was so exciting, I climbed up on my ladder to get a closer look.

  Mrs. Brisbane held the clear yellow ball in her hand. “Well,” she said. “I suppose it would be nice for Humphrey. But we have to be careful that we don’t step on him or that he doesn’t roll someplace dangerous.”

  My friends all cheered, and I joined in. Og started splashing, so I knew he approved.

  “And, we can’t let this interfere with our schoolwork. Testing is coming up, you know,” Mrs. Brisbane said with a frown.

  Kirk had already opened my cage.

  “Don’t hurt him,” said Golden-Miranda, who’s always looking out for me.

  Kirk placed me in the ball, then snapped the top shut.

  “Make sure it’s closed tightly, please,” Speak-Up-Sayeh said softly. She was shy, but she always looked out for me, too.

  It was kind of weird being enclosed in a round object. Since it was yellow plastic, the world looked yellow to me, and Miranda was more golden than ever. I checked to see that there were holes in the plastic. YES-YES-YES! I wouldn’t have trouble breathing.

  “Careful now,” warned Mrs. Brisbane as Kirk set the ball on the floor at the front of the classroom.

  My fellow students crouched down to watch.

  “Go on, Humphrey Dumpty,” said A.J. “Make the ball go.”

  Let me tell you, it’s very strange to be inside a ball. For one thing, there’s nothing flat to stand on, like a floor. So even standing still, the ball felt wobbly.

  “Run, Humphrey,” said Seth. “Get it moving!”

  I hesitated for a little bit, but when I heard Og go “BOING!” I knew I had to move.

  I went slowly at first, just taking tiny steps. My friends moved back to give me room to roll down the center aisle.

  “Go, Humphrey, go!” said Kirk.

  I jogged a little faster.

  “Go, Humphrey, go!” the other students chanted. “Go, go, go!”

  I liked the encouragement and I liked the feeling of going fast, so I began to run. It was like spinning my wheel, only this time, I was actually going somewhere!

  Many times before, I’d scurried across the floor of the classroom, but never when the other students were there. As I zoomed down the aisle between the tables and chairs, my friends followed me.

  The bell rang, which meant school had begun, but once I got rolling, I didn’t know how to stop. As much fun as the hamster ball was, it was SCARY-SCARY-SCARY, too, because I couldn’t control where
I was going.

  I heard Mrs. Brisbane say, “Class, we need to begin our work!” But I was on a roll, heading right for—eek!—the wall!

  Someone gasped. I think it was Miranda. “He’ll crash!” she said. “Stop him!”

  I tried to slow down, but it was too late. The ball bounced off the wall and shot back toward the aisle. I was now upside down, and before I could get back on my feet, I came to a stop that was so sudden, I did a double flip inside the ball. I looked up and saw a large foot in a sensible black shoe.

  It was Mrs. Brisbane’s foot.

  “Class, I want you all in your seats. Take out a sheet of paper for the dictionary drill. I’ll take attendance while you get started.”

  I was catching my breath when she leaned down over me. “And you, young man, will settle down.”

  When Mrs. Brisbane talks like that, nobody argues with her, especially not a small golden hamster enclosed in a ball. Once she removed her foot, I cautiously headed back down the center aisle between the desks.

  Mrs. Brisbane kept a close eye on me while my friends took the test. Usually, I took the test along with them, writing the answers in my notebook. But I was enjoying my freedom a little too much for that. I kept on jogging up and down the center aisle, but now, I was careful to slow to a stop before hitting a wall. That way, I just tapped it, rolled backward, then turned my body inside the ball and jogged toward the opposite wall again.

  My friends wrote quietly while Mrs. Brisbane gave out the words. I tried not to make too much noise as I sailed past Mandy’s shiny red shoes, Art’s black high-tops and Garth’s scuffed white sneakers. Sit-Still-Seth’s feet TAP-TAP-TAPPED as he wrote.

  I don’t know how many times I went back and forth, but it was getting a little boring. If only I could turn the thing! After the test papers were collected, Mrs. Brisbane said it was time to finish the Spring into Numbers project. I think my friends forgot about me while they cut and pasted, colored and stapled their papers.

  By recess time, Room 26 looked completely different. The bulletin board was covered with cutouts of flowers, rabbits and robins—but they all had math problems on them. Plus and minus numbers, multiplying and dividing problems peeked out from the leaves of the blossoms and ran up and down the rabbit ears and robin wings.