Spring According to Humphrey (2 page)

2 The Waiting Game

After Aldo’s car had left the car park, I decided to go and see Gigi. She’s the guinea pig in Ms Mac’s first-year class.

‘Og, I’m going to check on Gigi,’ I said. ‘But I won’t be gone long because she has to get to sleep.’

I’m HAPPY-HAPPY-HAPPY that hamsters don’t sleep all through the night, because that’s the time I have my biggest adventures! I’m only sorry that Og worries about me when I’m gone.

I jiggled my lock-that-doesn’t-lock and scurried across the table. I took a deep breath and slid down the table leg to the floor.

I scrambled across the room and crawled
under the door, then raced down the darkened hallway to Room 12. Once I was inside, I hurried to the table by the window.

I wasn’t sure if Gigi was awake or not, so I quietly squeaked, ‘Gigi? Hi, it’s me, Humphrey.’

‘Hi, Humphrey,’ she replied in her soft voice. I’m pawsitively thrilled that I can understand Gigi. I can understand humans, but they can’t understand me the way Gigi does. And I
still
haven’t figured out frog language.

‘I was hoping you’d visit,’ she said. ‘Can you come up here?’

Getting up to the table top is always dangerous, but I grabbed on to the blinds cord, which hung almost on the floor, and slowly swung higher and higher until I could let go and leap on to the table near Gigi.

‘Did you see the ice this morning?’ I asked. ‘We’re in March and we had an ice storm! All my friends in Room Twenty-six can’t wait for spring to come.’

‘What’s spring?’ Gigi asked.

She’s a little younger than I am and hasn’t been in school very long.

‘It’s what comes after winter,’ I explained. ‘It gets warmer and greener and things start to grow again.’

‘Oh,’ Gigi said. ‘I don’t know about those things.’

‘You will,’ I assured her. ‘Just pay attention in class. Ms Mac is a great teacher.’

‘I know,’ Gigi said. ‘I love Ms Mac.’

I love Ms Mac, too, even though she broke my heart once when she moved away. Luckily, she came back. She’s not my teacher any more, but she still visits me sometimes.

Gigi suddenly yawned.

‘Sorry, Humphrey,’ she said. ‘You know I go to bed early.’

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘And I like to stay up late.’

‘It’s not easy to sleep with the blinds open,’ she said. ‘The street light shines in my cage and wakes me up.’

Mrs Brisbane used to close the blinds at night, but Aldo started opening them so I could see outside. I guess Aldo opens them for Gigi, too.

‘Maybe I can close them,’ I said.

I examined the blinds. Up until that moment, I’d only used the cord in order to make my way up to the tables in Room 26 and Room 12. I usually gently swing myself up to table level. I don’t weigh very much and I’ve never had a problem.

But in order to make the blinds come down, I gave the cord a hard yank. Nothing happened, so I pulled it to the left. Suddenly the blinds crashed down and the cord lifted me up off the table. I was hanging in mid-air!

‘Humphrey! What are you doing up there?’ Gigi asked.

‘I’m stuck,’ I said. I was feeling SCARED-SCARED-SCARED.

If I let go, I’d fall down on the table and I might hurt myself.

If I pulled harder, the cord might lift me up even higher!

I knew I couldn’t hang on forever. I needed a Plan and I needed it quickly!

I looked around to see if there was something soft on the table. There were stacks of papers and a few books, as well as Gigi’s guinea pig food.

Then I saw it: a box of nice, soft-looking tissues. Unfortunately, they were too far away for me to jump on.

‘Gigi, have you ever tried jiggling your lock open?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Why?’

‘If you have a lock-that-doesn’t-lock, like mine, then you could help me,’ I said.

‘Oh, I want to help! What should I do?’ Gigi asked.

I told her to push up, push down and JIGGLE-JIGGLE-JIGGLE the lock. Nothing happened.

‘Try leaning against the door with all your weight,’ I suggested. ‘Then jiggle the door.’

Gigi put her body against the door and then she wiggled and jiggled and – oh, my! The door swung wide open!

Gigi gasped. ‘Now what?’

I asked her to push the tissue box until it was directly under me.

She didn’t waste any time. She slid the box towards me until it was right under my legs.

‘That’s it,’ I said.

I closed my eyes and let go, dropping down
on to a very soft bed of tissues.

‘Are you okay?’ Gigi asked.

I sneezed because a little tissue fluff got in my nose.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Thanks for saving me.’ I climbed out of the box and hopped on to the table.

‘I was scared,’ Gigi whispered. ‘But you’re very brave.’

‘I was a little bit scared, too,’ I said. ‘Thanks for helping me. I promise I’ll never make that mistake again!’

Then I realized that we had another problem. The top tissue where I landed wouldn’t be clean. (Even though I’m a very clean hamster.) I wouldn’t want one of my human friends to use it.

Luckily, I had another Plan. Gigi and I pushed the tissue box on its side and I gently removed the top tissue.

‘Won’t Ms Mac notice that the box is on its side?’ Gigi asked.

‘Yes, but she won’t know that we did it,’ I explained.

I was going to push the used tissue on to 
the floor, but I didn’t want Aldo to get in trouble. I pushed it under the bag of food instead.

‘So now that you’re out of your cage, would you like to go on an adventure?’ I asked. ‘We can just slide down the table leg.’

Gigi looked horrified. ‘Guinea pigs don’t slide or climb. It’s too scary.’

That seemed strange, because hamsters like me LOVE-LOVE-LOVE adventures.

My friend yawned. ‘Sorry, Humphrey, but it’s my bedtime. Nighty-night.’

She crawled into her cage and I pushed the door shut.

Yep, the lock looked locked, just like mine.

When I got back to Room 26, Og greeted me with a series of BOINGs. I was used to the strange sound he makes, but he was unusually loud.

‘Sorry I was gone so long. I was just, um, hanging around,’ I said.

I tried to make a joke, but dangling in mid-air hadn’t been funny at all.

I’d never look at a blinds cord the same way again!

Later, I got out my little notebook to write about my fur-raising experience. I loved writing by the warm glow of the street light. Hamsters and guinea pigs may understand one another, but we’re different in so many ways.

My classmates and I spent a lot of time looking for signs of spring, but we didn’t come up with much.

‘My mum ordered seeds for her garden,’ Felipe said one day. ‘But she can’t plant them yet.’

‘I’d still say that was a sign of spring,’ Mrs Brisbane said.

March was a funny month. We’d have sunshine and warmer weather for a few days. Then suddenly, it would rain and turn cold and gloomy.

‘Og, have you seen one single sign of spring yet?’ I asked after two weeks of feeling frustrated.

He replied with a very bored-sounding ‘BOING.’

‘Me neither,’ I said.

My friends were as frustrated as I was.

‘You’d think the leaves would be budding,’ Holly complained.

Not-Now-Nicole sighed. ‘You’d think the flowers would be blooming.’

‘Where are the robins?’ Rosie wondered.

Mrs Brisbane smiled. ‘They’ll be here soon. The first day of spring is coming up.’

Small-Paul raised his hand. ‘I was reading about the average temperatures for March here, and this is completely normal.’

There were several loud groans.

‘It’s not my fault,’ Paul said. ‘It’s a scientific fact.’

‘We don’t blame you, Paul,’ Rolling-Rosie said. ‘But why does science have to be so …
scientific?
’

At least she made everybody laugh.

A few days before the first day of spring, it snowed … again.

‘This is not fair!’ Harry groaned.

Daniel agreed. ‘At least it could have snowed
enough for them to call off school!’

Mrs Brisbane went on to talk about maths problems and I gazed out at the snow. It wasn’t very deep and there were patches of brown showing through.

White and brown. Brown and white. White and …
purple
?

‘Look!’ I squeaked. ‘LOOK-LOOK-LOOK!’

I knew that the purple thing could be a wrapper from somebody’s lunch. Or anything someone might have dropped. I climbed to the tippy top of my cage for a better look.

‘Humphrey seems excited,’ Mrs Brisbane said, hurrying to the table. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘NO-NO-NO!’ I squeaked. ‘It’s a sign!’

She didn’t understand me, of course, but Og joined in with a ‘BOING-BOING!’

‘They’re looking outside,’ our teacher said. ‘But what are they looking at?’

The students rushed to the window to look.

Og and I continued to make a lot of noise.

‘It’s purple! It’s spring!’ I squeaked.

‘BOING-BOING-BOING!’ Og added.

Rosie leaned forward in her wheelchair and
pressed her nose against the window. ‘Look!’ She pointed. ‘It’s a purple flower coming through the snow!’

The classroom buzzed with excitement.

‘Where?’ Thomas asked.

‘Yeah, where?’ Sophie said.

‘I see it.’ Mrs Brisbane pointed, too. ‘Over there, near the base of the tall tree.’

I heard lots of
oohs
and
aahs.

‘I think we should go out and see for ourselves,’ Mrs Brisbane said.

‘Yes, we should!’ I squeaked.

It seemed to take them forever to put on coats and hats, boots and gloves, and then tramp outside to see the flower.

My friends were excited and so was I – until I realized that Og and I weren’t going outside with them.

The cold isn’t good for either one of us. I knew that, but I couldn’t help but wish that I could put on a coat and hat and boots and gloves and join them!

Og and I silently stared out the window until we saw Mrs Brisbane lead my friends to the little spot of purple.

Everyone crouched down to stare at the purple bloom. Mrs Brisbane snapped a photo.

And then she did something wonderful. She looked right up at our window and waved.

I don’t think she could see me, but I waved back.

‘BOING!’ Og twanged. ‘BOING-BOING!’

I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE Mrs Brisbane. And at that moment, I knew that she LOVED-LOVED-LOVED me.

And Og, too, of course.

When my friends returned to Room 26, their cheeks were rosy and their eyes sparkled with excitement.

‘What did you call that flower, Mrs Brisbane?’ Tell-the-Truth-Thomas asked.

‘I believe it was a crocus,’ she said. ‘Let’s look it up.’

Once the gloves and hats and boots and scarves were off, Mrs Brisbane opened a big book and turned page after page.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

My friends all leaned in around her desk, where she had opened the book.

‘I wish I could see it,’ I told Og.

‘BOING-BOING!’ he replied.

‘It’s definitely a crocus,’ Helpful-Holly said. ‘And to think, it poked its little head up through the snow.’

The door to Room 26 swung open and in walked the Most Important Person at Longfellow School, our headmaster, Mr Morales!