Friendship According to Humphrey (8 page)

It was snowing by afternoon recess, so Mrs. Brisbane divided the class into four teams. Each team had questions to answer. They had to decide as a group what the answer should be. Mrs. Brisbane kept score.

She wisely put Heidi and Gail on different teams so they wouldn’t argue or make faces. Both their teams lost.

The winning team had Miranda, Kirk, Seth and Tabitha on it. And, to my surprise, the reason they won was Tabitha!

Mrs. Brisbane asked each team questions about all kinds of things: flowers, books, poetry, sports, animals (but not hamsters, I’m sorry to say) and countries. Nobody knew much about flowers. Everybody knew a lot about animals. Sayeh was the best at answering questions about countries. (Would you believe there’s a country with a capital called Tegucigalpa? I had to write that one down.)

But Tabitha was the best at answering questions about sports. She knew soccer teams, volleyball rules and golf champions. The boys all seemed amazed. As the quiz went on, there seemed to be more and more questions about sports. Maybe that was an accident, but when Mrs. Brisbane is involved, things don’t usually happen by chance.

By the end of the recess period, Tabitha’s team had scored forty points. They would have scored even higher if Kirk hadn’t said that the Gettysburg Address was the number on the Gettysburg family home. (Even I know it was a speech written by a very famous president.) He got a laugh and lost two points, but it didn’t matter. The next closest team only had twenty-eight points.

“We won!” yelled Seth, the team captain. “Way to go!” He high-fived Tabitha, Miranda and Kirk.

“Three cheers for Tabitha!” said Miranda.

“Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray!” I squeaked, jumping up and down for joy.

Nobody called her a baby. Even Tabitha looked happy.

Unfortunately, Heidi and Gail didn’t seem cheered up at all. In fact, while all the attention was focused on Tabitha, I saw Gail mouth “cheater” to Heidi.

Heidi stuck her tongue out at Gail.

It was enough to make a grown hamster cry. A less sensible hamster than me, of course.

 

“Og, you may not understand me, but if you could, you’d want Heidi and Gail to be friends again. Right?” I asked my neighbor once everyone had gone home for the day. I didn’t expect him to understand me. I was just thinking out loud.

I was amazed to get an answer: “BOING!”

Og jumped straight up and down, up and down, over and over again. I didn’t know if he had sat on a tack or eaten something that didn’t agree with him.

“Og! Are you all right?”

“BOING-BOING!” he said. “BOING!”

I jumped up and looked over at him. I was pretty sure he was agreeing with me!

“So what are we going to do?” I asked him. “How can we help them?”

As abruptly as he began, Og stopped bouncing and boinging and sat as still as a rock, as usual. I was discouraged and puzzled, too. Either he didn’t have any ideas or he’d given up on trying to get me to understand him. I felt we both had failed.

Finally, I spoke again. “They sure were good friends.”

Og stayed silent the rest of the night.

 

Hours later, when Aldo arrived, I was still trying to figure out what google-eyes had been trying to tell me. This was a most peculiar frog.

“Good evening, gentlemen. Mind if I join the party?” said Aldo as he flicked on the lights and rolled his cleaning cart into Room 26.

“Without you, there is no party,” I told him.

“Speaking of parties, Richie is having a big party for his birthday soon.” Repeat-It-Please-Richie Rinaldi happened to be Aldo’s nephew. “It’s going to be a very big deal.”

Since I had never been to one, any birthday party sounded special to me.

“They’re having entertainment, like a show or something. Hey, you guys want to see my latest trick?” asked Aldo, grabbing his broom.

The custodian had already proved his talents to me by balancing his broom on the tip of one finger for a LONG-LONG-LONG time. Once, he balanced it on top of his head.

This time, he threw his head back and balanced the tip end of the broom on his chin for an equally long period of time. When the broom finally wobbled too far, Aldo caught it and took a deep bow.

“Bravo, Aldo!” I squeaked as loudly as I could.

“Thank you, Humph.” He glanced at Og. “What’s the matter, Froggy? You don’t like tricks?”

“It’s not you,” I said softly. “It’s him.”

Aldo grabbed his lunch and pulled a chair close to my cage. “Aw, it’s just a silly trick. I’m not good at anything useful.”

“Not true!” I argued.

Aldo took a sandwich out of his bag and began chewing on it.

“No, Humph, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Because of this.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket.

“This is the application for City College. If I want to go there, I have to fill it out. So I wrote my name, address, all that. When I got to the part that asked what I want to study, I got stuck,” he explained. “I’m practically middle-aged and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.” Aldo put down his sandwich and stared at the application.

“I’m not sure what I’m good at. I thought of being a teacher, but I don’t know. Would the kids like me? Am I smart enough to be a really good teacher?”

“Yes! Be a teacher! Please!” I insisted. For once, Aldo didn’t seem to hear me.

“Besides, they want a letter of recommendation from somebody important. Somebody who believes I can succeed,” said Aldo.

“I’ll do it!” I assured him, but he wasn’t paying attention.

“I’m just not sure.” He tossed his lunch bag back onto the cart. “Don’t think I forgot you, pal,” he told me as he dropped a small piece of carrot in my cage.

“Thanks a heap!” I squeaked.

“You’re welcome,” Aldo replied.

At least
he
understood most of what I said. One thing I understood: It was time for me to take action!

9

A
fter the custodian left, I noticed something odd beside my cage. Aldo was usually good at picking up things that didn’t belong in the classroom. However, this night, he had left something behind: his City College application. I opened the good old lock-that-doesn’t-lock and slipped out of my cage.

“Don’t worry, Oggy old boy. I won’t bother you if you won’t bother me,” I assured him. Maybe I was reassuring myself he wouldn’t leap at me again.

The application was a big piece of paper that folded up. Half of it was stuck under my cage, and it was hard to read what Aldo had written. If you’re a small hamster, human handwriting looks HUGE-HUGE-HUGE. The only light I had to read by was from the streetlamp outside the window. I squinted my eyes and I could read: AREA OF STUDY. On the line next to it, Aldo had written “Teaching” and scratched it out.

On the line marked RECOMMENDATION, he hadn’t written anything.

I was tempted to get out my little pencil and write a nice recommendation myself. But a big college probably wouldn’t care about the opinion of a small hamster, even a classroom hamster who could read and write. No, Aldo needed help from someone a lot bigger and more important than me.

I knew who that person was. I just hoped she would help.

I pulled the application out farther and neatly left it right between my cage and Og’s.

“No splashing over here, Og,” I warned my neighbor. “We want to keep this application in good shape.”

He didn’t splash all night long. Who knows—maybe Og understood me after all, even without ears.

 

I could hardly wait for Mrs. Brisbane to arrive the following morning. When she finally showed up, it took her a long time to take off her coat and gloves and arrange her desk. At last, she strolled—slowly—over to my cage.

“Morning, Humphrey,” she said with a smile. “You’re lucky you don’t have to go out in this freezing-cold weather. You can stay right here in your cozy cage.”

Stay in my cage? If she only knew!

She turned to Og. “Morning, Og. As you’ve heard in class, amphibians are cold-blooded, which means we’ve got to keep you warm.”

She smiled at Og and turned away.

“Wait! Stop!” I shouted, jumping up and down. “Look at the paper!”

She turned back and laughed. “What’s the matter, Humphrey? Are you jealous of Og?” She leaned closer. “You know you’re my favorite hamster. And you mustn’t let jealousy, that old green-eyed monster, get the best of you.”

Eeek—a monster? I was about to dive into my sleeping house for protection, but then I remembered that jealousy is when you envy somebody else. Jealousy wasn’t a real monster, just a giant bad feeling. Was that why I felt bad when everybody else paid attention to Og? I wasn’t sure. After all, my eyes are brown, not green. I was trying to sort it all out when Mrs. Brisbane turned to walk away.

I’d forgotten something REALLY-REALLY-REALLY important!

“The application!” I shouted. I knew all she’d hear was squeaking, but I had to try.

Mrs. Brisbane came back to the cage. “For goodness’ sake, calm down, Humphrey.”

I didn’t calm down. I started squeaking and jumping, jumping and squeaking, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do . . . except open the cage door and hand her the application.

I couldn’t do that because she’d find out about the lock-that-doesn’t-lock.

“What’s this?” Mrs. Brisbane picked up the application—whew! —and started to read! “Aldo must have left this here by mistake. I’ll put it in his mailbox.”

She folded it up without finishing it.

“Tell her, Og! Help me . . . help Aldo!” I was shrieking more than squeaking now, and to my amazement, Og let out a rather large “BOING!” which I really appreciated.

“What’s the matter with you two? It’s an application. It’s private.”

“BOING! BOING!”

“SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK!”

Working together, we kept up the noisemaking and Mrs. Brisbane looked confused. She opened the application and started reading, thank goodness, because I was getting quite hoarse.

“Well, well. Aldo is applying to go back to college. That’s a good idea. And he wants to study . . .” She stopped and stared a bit longer. “He wrote in ‘Teaching,’ but he crossed it out again. I wonder why?”

“Ask him!” I shouted with the last bit of my voice.

“I’d better give Aldo a call,” said Mrs. Brisbane.

“Hi, Mrs. Brisbane!” a loud voice yelled. It was Lower-Your-Voice-A.J.

Mrs. Brisbane greeted him and folded up the application. She took it to her desk and didn’t look at it again all day.

There was nothing to do now but keep my paws firmly crossed, which I did.

 

Sometime in the afternoon, I must have dozed off, but I was awakened by a now-familiar noise. “Chirrup!” That was the sound of a cricket. This time, it was coming from the middle of the room.

“Mrs. Brisbane?” a voice called out.

“Chirrup!”

Our teacher turned away from the board, where she was writing out a math problem. “Yes, Kirk?”

“I think a cricket got loose.” Kirk pointed to the floor near his table.

“Well, pick it up, please,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

“Chirrup! Chirrup!”

Kirk bent down and cupped his hands, touching the floor. “I’ve got it!”

“Good. Now please put it back where it belongs.”

Kirk lifted his hands and sat upright in his chair. “I don’t know, Mrs. Brisbane. I think it might get away.”

Everyone was watching as Kirk stood up and started walking toward the cabinet where the crickets were kept. As he passed by Heidi, he suddenly opened his hands up right over her head. “Oops! Dropped it. Sorry, Heidi.”

Heidi leaped up and started jumping around the room, shaking her head and running her hands through her hair. “Help! Get it off me. Get it off!” she screamed.

Everyone was laughing. Everyone except Mrs. Brisbane.

“Kirk Chen, you find that cricket,” she said in a very stern tone of voice. “Now!”

Kirk grinned. “Aw, there was no cricket. I was making that noise.”

Heidi stopped jumping around and glared at him.

“Hear it? Chirrup. Chirrup.” Kirk really sounded like a cricket. “Boy, that Heidi Hopper sure can hop!” he added.

Gail giggled until Heidi shot her a very angry look, then quickly covered her mouth to stop herself.

Mrs. Brisbane slowly walked toward Kirk. “You, my friend, are in trouble. Big trouble,” she said. “You will stay in during recess and we’ll have a little talk.”

As Kirk returned to his seat, the room was very quiet. Except for a loud “Chirrup!”

Without even turning to look at him, Mrs. Brisbane said, “I-Heard-That-Kirk Chen.”

 

I wouldn’t have wanted to be Kirk when it was time for recess. Once the other students had cleared out, Mrs. Brisbane marched over to him. Boy, was he in trouble! So I was surprised at the first thing she said.

“I have a confession to make. I think you’re a funny guy, Kirk. You make me laugh a lot. Someday, you might star in a funny movie, and I promise you, I’ll be the first one in line to buy a ticket.”

Kirk looked as confused as I felt.

“But . . .” Uh-oh, here came the clincher. “There’s a time to be funny and a way to be funny that’s appropriate. And there’s a time to be funny and a way to be funny that is not. It’s time for you to learn the difference.”

I waited for a “Chirrup,” or at least an argument, but Kirk remained silent.

“Why did you pretend to drop a cricket on Heidi’s head?” Mrs. Brisbane asked.

Kirk shrugged his shoulders. “Because it was funny?”

“Do you think Heidi thought it was funny?”

Kirk shook his head.