Friendship According to Humphrey (3 page)

“You don’t want to know that, either!” I assured him.

Aldo grabbed a paper bag and pulled a chair up close to me. “May I join you for dinner?” he asked.

He didn’t need to ask. We’d shared many happy evenings while he took his dinner break. I took a deep breath. Aldo gave off a pleasant smell of chalk dust and pine spray. He smelled the way I imagined a forest smells. Somewhere, WAY-WAY-WAY back in time, wild hamsters must have lived in forests, down in sweet earthy piles of rotting leaves and fallen pinecones. Yep, Aldo smelled like home!

“Mind if we have a little talk?” he asked.

Of course I didn’t. I’d been trying to get old lumpy to talk all evening.

“I got something to tell you, Humph. Remember how I gave my girlfriend, Maria, an engagement ring for Christmas? Well, I’ve got bigger news. On New Year’s Day, she and I ran off and got married!” He held up his left hand. A gold band glittered on one finger.

“I hope you’ll be HAPPY-HAPPY-HAPPY!” I squeaked with delight.

“Thanks, pal. I know I told you that you’d be at my wedding, but we decided to get hitched quietly. You understand?” he asked.

Naturally I squeaked, “Yes.” After all, I’d helped them get together in the first place. And when I met Maria, she was as nice as Aldo.

“Yep, I’m an old married man now. Real happy. But I’ve started thinking, Humphrey. I like this job, but it doesn’t pay a whole lot.” Aldo paused to chew a bite of his sandwich. “I’d like to have kids and a house and maybe raise a couple of hamsters of my own.”

Fine with me, as long as he didn’t raise any frogs.

“I sure would love to have my evenings free to spend with my family. Pal, I’ve got to find a way to get a better job,” Aldo continued.

“You can do it!” I squeaked.

Aldo was quieter than usual as he finished his dinner. I spun on my wheel to entertain him, but he was lost in thought. Finally, he folded up his bag.

“Guess I’m not good company tonight, Humphrey. I bet that frog makes better conversation than I do.”

“Fat chance,” I squeaked.

 

After Aldo cleaned the room and left, I did some thinking. Personally, I believed Aldo was already as fine a human as I’ve ever seen. I’d miss him if he worked somewhere else. But he was my friend, so if he wanted a better job, I wanted to help him.

I started jotting down ideas in my notebook and lost track of time. Later, I heard splashing. I’d almost forgotten about you-know-who next door.

“Hey, what’s shaking, Og?” I called out to him. Maybe he’d thought over his bad behavior and wanted to apologize for his bad manners.

There was no reply, just splish-splash-splish. Personally, the idea of being covered in water is disgusting to me. I prefer to groom myself the time-honored way: using the tongue, teeth, paws and toenails. I thoroughly clean myself every day. The students in Room 26 love to watch me. At least they did before google-eyes came along.

Still, if I had to share a table with him, I figured I might TRY-TRY-TRY again to be friendly. “Having a nice bath?” I asked.

There was no answer. Not even another splash. But there was another sound: the crickets. So they were alive after all!

Og
would
have to eat noisy food. My Nutri-Nibbles and Mighty Mealworms didn’t make a sound until I crunched down on them. But the crickets—whom I actually felt sorry for—made a funny singing song: “Chirrup, chirrup!” Apparently, they were nocturnal, like me.

It was going to be a long night with noisy crickets and a silent frog. I hopped on my wheel and tried to spin my irritation away.

It didn’t work.

3

I
’ll tell you how the whole week went: TERRIBLE-TERRIBLE-TERRIBLE! It must have been National Frog Appreciation Week, because frogs were all we talked about in Room 26.

First, Mrs. Brisbane taught everybody how to take care of Og. The students gathered around as she put on rubber gloves, picked up the insect container and sprinkled a few into Og’s tank. She didn’t seem too happy about the crickets, which turned out to be quite large and ugly. The way they leaped around the tank, no wonder Og went “Boing!”

“Did you see his tongue?” A.J. bellowed. “It must be a foot long!”

“Oooh, he ate one!” Heidi squealed.

“Gross!” said Seth as Og’s tongue grabbed the rest of the crickets.

“I want to pet him,” said Mandy. Before anyone could stop her, she slid the top off the tank, reached down and picked up the big lump of frog.

“No, Mandy!” said Mrs. Brisbane. But it was too late.

“He peed on me!” Mandy shrieked, dropping Og back into his tank. Not that I blamed her. What unsqueakably bad manners! Is that any way for a classroom pet to act?

Seth jumped back, shaking his hands. “Oooh!”

Gail giggled, of course, as did everyone else.

“Wash your hands with plenty of soap and hot water,” Mrs. Brisbane told Mandy. To the rest of the class, she said, “That’s what frogs do when they’re frightened. We must all be gentle with poor Og. If you have to touch him, you must wear gloves. Pick him up by the shoulder blades and never squeeze his stomach or you’ll hurt him.”

She ordered my classmates back to their seats (not including Mandy, who was washing her hands). Then we had to learn more frog facts. They don’t start out as cute, furry little babies like hamsters. NO-NO-NO! They start out as funny little tadpoles, then grow into ugly-looking pollywogs and end up as big, lumpy frogs with bulgy eyes.

For some strange reason, everyone was fascinated with frogs, except Tabitha and me. She paid more attention to her stuffed bear than to anything else in class.

I overheard Mandy complain to the other girls that Tabitha wasn’t very friendly. “I tried to get her to play at recess, but she wasn’t interested in anything besides that old bear. She’s a big baby.”

Sayeh murmured, “Maybe she’s shy.” I was pleased that Sayeh had learned to speak up. But the other girls decided Tabitha was just unfriendly.

Like someone else who was new to Room 26.

 

After so much frog talk, Mrs. Brisbane moved on to the subject of poetry.

First, we read a scary poem about a tiger. We also read a poem about a bee, followed by a silly poem about a purple cow. Some poems rhyme and some don’t. But there are a lot of rhyming words, like “moon” and “June,” and “cat” and “rat.” (Funny that those last two words rhyme, isn’t it?)

At night, while Og stared into space, I made lists of rhyming words in my notebook. Better than trying to talk to him, as he continued to give me the silent treatment.

Jumpy, bumpy, grumpy, lumpy. Funny that those words rhyme, too!

After a few days spent reading poems, Mrs. Brisbane said it was time for us to write our own poems. There were louder groans than the first time she mentioned poetry. Mrs. Brisbane held up her hand, which meant everybody had to be quiet.

“All of this is in preparation for Valentine’s Day, when our class will present a Poetry Festival for all the parents. Each of you will recite a poem you wrote or one you like.” There were no groans now. In fact, some of the students looked excited. Even Pay-Attention-Art Patel was paying attention.

Mrs. Brisbane explained that our assignment was to write a poem about an animal, at least six lines long, with words that rhymed.

Mandy raised her hand and the teacher called on her. “My name rhymes with ‘candy cane,’ ” she proudly announced.

Mrs. Brisbane smiled. “That’s right. ‘Mandy Payne’ rhymes with ‘candy cane.’ Does anyone else have a rhyming name?”

“ ‘Richie’ rhymes with ‘itchy’!” A.J. blurted out.

“What?” asked Repeat-It-Please-Richie.

Words were flying through my brain. Humphrey-pumphrey-dumphrey-lumphrey.

“ ‘Gail’ rhymes with ‘hail’!” Heidi forgot to raise her hand again.

“And ‘fail,’ ” Kirk muttered.

“I-Heard-That-Kirk Chen,” said Mrs. Brisbane.

“Well, ‘Kirk’ rhymes with ‘jerk,’ ” said Heidi, who was always ready to defend her best friend, Gail.

“Please, no more,” Mrs. Brisbane said firmly. “ ‘Kirk’ also rhymes with ‘work.’ So let’s get back to work.”

I never saw my classmates work so hard before. Richie chewed on his pencil, Seth jiggled his leg, Heidi erased more than she wrote, Kirk scratched his head and Miranda wrote and wrote and wrote. Then she stopped writing and raised her hand.

“Mrs. Brisbane, can you think of anything that rhymes with ‘hamster’?” she asked.

“Let’s throw that one out to the class,” said the teacher. “Anyone?”

Leave it to Golden-Miranda to ask such a good question. It got everybody thinking, because it was so quiet, you could have heard a pencil drop. Two pencils did drop, in fact.

“How about ‘gangster’?” a voice called out.

“Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi.” Mrs. Brisbane walked to the board. “How about that, class? Does ‘HAMster’ rhyme with ‘GANGster’?”

She wrote the words on the board and repeated them. “Hear that? They don’t have quite the same sound, do they?”

Well, I would hope not! Gangsters are bad guys and I am definitely a good guy.

“Maybe you’d better find another word to rhyme,” the teacher instructed.

“Try ‘Humphrey’!” I squeaked in encouragement. There had to be something that rhymed.

“Try ‘frog’!” shouted A.J.

“Lower-Your-Voice-A.J.,” Mrs. Brisbane reminded him.

“And raise your hand,” added Heidi.

Mrs. Brisbane shook her head, then began to write words on the board as my classmates shouted them out. Dog, fog, log, slog, clog and more.

Nothing rhymed with “hamster,” but everything rhymed with “frog.” How depressing! I wondered how many words rhyme with “sad”? Like “mad” and “bad.”

 

After recess, it was Miranda’s turn to clean my cage. She always does an extra-good job of cleaning my potty corner and changing my water and bedding. And she always has a special treat for me, like a piece of cauliflower. Yum.

“Sorry, Humphrey. I tried to write a poem about you,” she told me. “I think I’m going to have to write about Clem instead.”

Clem was Miranda’s dog, the one who tried to eat me when I stayed at her house. How Golden-Miranda could put up with Clem was beyond me.

That night, I wrote my very first poem ever. I asked Og if he wanted to hear it. His silence wasn’t too encouraging, but I decided to read it anyway.

 

 

I waited to hear Og applaud or at least give me a grudging “Boing.” I heard only silence. When I glanced over at my neighbor, he was grinning from ear to ear. Or he would have been if he had ears. Somehow, his smile didn’t cheer me up at all.

I felt better the following day, though, because it was Friday. That meant I would get a little break from Room 26 and the green and grumpy lump. Every weekend, a different student took me home, and I’d had many wonderful adventures with my classmates and their families. I’d even gone home with Principal Morales!

This week, I was going home with Wait-For-The-Bell-Garth Tugwell. He’d wanted to take me home for a long time.

“Can I take Og home, too?” asked Garth.

“I think Og can stay here,” Mrs. Brisbane answered. “Frogs don’t need to eat every day, except when they’re young.”

Funny, I didn’t feel quite so sad-mad-bad anymore.

 

“Can’t your mom pick us up?” A.J. asked Garth after school.

I couldn’t see him, but I could hear him as we waited outside for the bus. I had a blanket over my cage because it was cold outside. I didn’t mind, though, as long as I was FAR-FAR-FAR away from Og. (Who hadn’t even tried to say “good-bye” to me.)

“My dad said not to bother her. She’s been sick,” said Garth. “Couldn’t your mom pick us up?”

“I wish.” A.J. sighed. “She has to pick up my sister from kindergarten and put the baby down for a nap.”

“Did you tell your folks about Bean?” asked Garth.

At least I thought he said “Bean.” Things sounded a little muffled under the blanket.

“Naw,” said A.J. “Last time I said somebody was picking on me, my dad signed me up for boxing lessons. I hated people punching me. It was worse than being picked on.”

I tried to sort out what A.J. meant about getting picked on. By a bean? By a boxing bean? I didn’t have time to figure it out before the bus arrived.

“Here goes,” said Garth, lifting my cage. “Let’s stick together, no matter what.”

“Okay. Be sure to sit in front by Miss Victoria,” whispered A.J. “That’s the safest.”

By the shuffling and scuffling sounds, I could tell that we were on the bus. Luckily, a corner of the blanket slipped down and I could see Miss Victoria, the bus driver, glancing over her shoulder.

“Keep moving, guys,” she said in a firm voice. “Whoa, ladies, one of you has to go. Can’t have three in a seat.” Three first-grade girls were huddled together in the seat right behind the bus driver. “We’re not moving until one of you goes. You move, Beth.”

The girl on the end timidly got up and started down the aisle, nervously looking back at her friends.

“Keep going, folks,” Miss Victoria snapped.

Suddenly—BOOM! The girl named Beth fell down flat on the floor right in front of us. Her books slid around the floor in all directions.