Friendship According to Humphrey

by Betty G. Birney

  Amphibian! That’s nothing like a mammal. The very word made my warm blood run cold! I hoped that she would never, ever put that word on a spelling test.

  Mrs. Brisbane looked through the book. “Aha,” she said. “It says that the common green frog is a medium-sized frog with a calm nature. It makes a distinctive twanging sound.”

  “BOING!”

  I almost fell off my ladder. What on earth could that noise be?

  Then I heard another sound: the laughter of my classmates.

  “That certainly is a distinctive twanging sound,” said Mrs. Brisbane, looking puzzled.

  “BOING!” This time, the noise was clearly coming from the frog. What kind of way is that to talk? Aren’t frogs supposed to say “Ribbit”?

  Mrs. Brisbane turned toward Og’s glass box. “Thank you for the demonstration, Og.”

  Then I heard: “Boing-boing-boing!” It didn’t come from the frog this time.

  “I-Heard-That-Kirk Chen,” said the teacher. She continued to talk on and on about amphibians and their life cycle.

  “What does he eat?” Heidi called out.

  “Hands, please, Heidi,” said Mrs. Brisbane wearily. “Mostly insects. Miss Loomis gave me a container of crickets.”

  “Cool!” said Kirk.

  Everybody else in the class groaned. “Ewwwww!”

  When I finished gagging, I squeaked, “LIVE insects?” Not that anyone was listening to me. Especially not Og, who calmly sat there doing absolutely nothing.

  At the end of the day, as the students gathered up their books and coats and filed past our table, at least half of them said, “Bye, Og,” or “Catch you later, Oggy.”

  Not one of my classmates said good-bye to me. I guess they all forgot.

  Mandy stayed for a minute after class. “Mrs. Brisbane, you told me to be friendly to that new girl, but she isn’t very friendly back.”

  “Don’t-Complain-Mandy,” said the teacher. “It’s not easy to be the new kid in the classroom. Put yourself in her shoes. Give her some time. After all, we’ve got the whole semester ahead of us.”

  A whole semester ahead of us—and I had to spend it with a frog?

  Mrs. Brisbane had shaken things up all right. And I felt queasy all over again.

  “The better part of one’s life consists of his friendships.”

  Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth president of the United States

  2

  Upset Pet

  I’d had bad days before. The worst day was when Ms. Mac left. She was the substitute teacher who found me at Pet-O-Rama and brought me to Room 26. She almost broke my heart by moving to Brazil, which is so far away.

  I’d also overcome problems before. Like getting Mrs. Brisbane and her husband, Bert, to go from not liking me to liking me a WHOLE-WHOLE-WHOLE lot.

  But I’d never had a problem like this: how to make friends with a frog. Back in my early days at Pet-O-Rama, I’d met guinea pigs, mice, rats, gerbils and chinchillas in the Small Pet Department. If there were frogs around, they must have been over with the fish and less interesting pets.

  After school was over, Mrs. Brisbane gathered up her coat, gloves and books, walked over to Og and me and said, “Well, fellows, you’re on your own tonight. Have fun!”

  And with that, she left.

  I recalled the first night I was alone in Room 26. As it slowly got dark outside, I slowly got scared inside. I would have liked a friend to talk to that night. Maybe Og felt the same way. Like Tabitha, Og was new to the class, and I thought I should try and make friends with him. Mrs. Brisbane had said it’s not easy to be new. You should always listen to your teacher.

  “Don’t worry, Og,” I squeaked to him. “They’ll all be back tomorrow. And Aldo will be here later.”

  I waited for an answer. All I heard was silence. I knew he probably couldn’t understand me. Still, I’d learned to understand what humans said, and for the most part, they seemed to understand me when I chose to squeak up. Surely I could do as well with a frog. I decided to try again.

  “CAN YOU HEAR ME?” I squeaked as loudly as possible.

  Either he couldn’t hear me or he was just plain rude. I couldn’t see him all that well from my cage, what with my wheel, my ladders, tree branches, sleeping house and mirror. Since I knew Aldo wouldn’t come in to clean the room for hours, I decided to introduce myself. As an experienced (and well-loved) classroom pet, I could share my wealth of knowledge about the schedule, the students and the studies in Room 26. Og could come to me for advice whenever he wanted.

  After all, you can learn a lot by taking care of another species, as Ms. Mac told me. Surely that included frogs.

  I easily opened the door to my cage. It has a lock-that-doesn’t-lock. However, I’m the only one who knows about it. To humans, it looks like it’s tightly latched, but trust me, it’s not.

  “I’m coming over, Og,” I announced.

  Again, there was no response. I scampered over to meet my new roommate anyway.

  The glass tank had a big dish of water on one side and pebbles and plants on the other. There was a screen over the top. Sitting under a large green plant was a large green lump.

  I tiptoed over close to the glass and peered in.

  The lump was even uglier than I first thought. At least compared to me. After all, I am a Golden Hamster with soft fur, dark, inquisitive eyes and a little pink nose. Intelligent humans such as Miranda Golden and Sayeh Nasiri have told me I am cute.

  This Og-thing, on the other hand, was a sickening shade of green with bulging eyes and not a bit of fur on him. Even worse, he had a huge mouth—as wide as his whole body—that curved up at the ends as if he were grinning. He didn’t look happy, just creepy. I tried not to shudder.

  “Allow me to introduce myself. I am your neighbor, Humphrey,” I squeaked as politely as possible.

  No answer. Maybe he couldn’t hear me. After all, he didn’t have cute rounded ears like me. He didn’t seem to have ears at all. But at least he could see I was acting in a friendly manner.

  “OG?” Stepping closer, I squeaked a bit louder this time. “Even though we don’t know each other, I’m happy to extend the paw of friendship—”

  Then, with no warning at all, Og lunged right at me and let out a very loud “Boing!”

  I must have leaped a foot backward! Og couldn’t get through the glass, but goodness, he startled me!

  “I was only trying to be friendly,” I told him, backing up toward my cage.

  “Boing!” He sounded like a broken guitar string.

  I sneaked a peek at him. Was that grin a leer? Or a sneer?

  My heart was still pounding as I darted back into my cage and slammed the door behind me. Some friend Og was, scaring me like that!

  I tried to put myself in his shoes, like Mrs. Brisbane said, but he didn’t wear any. Neither did I, for that matter.

  I grabbed the tiny notebook and pencil from behind my mirror. Ms. Mac gave them to me. No one in Room 26 knew about them. No one knew I could read and write. Writing helps me sort out my thoughts. And I had a lot of thoughts rolling around my brain that night—not all of them nice.

  I scribbled away for several hours and Og was pretty quiet, except for some annoying splashing. Goodness, I can manage to groom myself and get a drink of water without making that much noise!

  Suddenly, the room filled with blazing light and I heard a familiar CLANG-CLANG-CLANG. It was the Longfellow School custodian, Aldo Amato.

  “Be of good cheer ’cause Aldo’s here!” a voice announced.

  “Aldo! My friend!” I squeaked as I jumped on my wheel and began spinning happily.

  Aldo parked his cleaning cart near the door and clumped over to my cage.

  “Happy New Year, Humphrey! You’re looking handsome and healthy,” he told me.

  Aldo is a true friend!

  “And you, the same,” I squeaked back.

  “Who’s your buddy?” Aldo glanced at Og. “Hey, I know you. The frog from down the hall
. What are you doing here?”

  “You don’t want to know!” I squeaked.

  Aldo turned back to me. “Calm down, pal, I brought you something.” He reached into his pocket and unwrapped the most beautiful tiny tomato I’ve ever seen. I could have cried.

  “Thanks, Aldo,” I squeaked as I tucked the treat in my cheek pouch.

  “You’re welcome, Humphrey.” Aldo looked over at Og again. “Sorry, I don’t know what frogs eat.”

  “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.

  “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet and essayist

  3

  Sad-Mad-Bad

  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 t
he 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.