Surprises According to Humphrey

by Betty G. Birney

  “I’m so glad,” Mrs. Brisbane answered.

  “However, two of your students came out to recess without jackets or sweaters on. It’s exactly sixty-five degrees outside, and the rules say students must wear jackets or sweaters when the temperature is below seventy. I’m sure you’ll remember that rule from now on.”

  “I don’t think it’s a very good rule,” Mrs. Brisbane answered. “If the children play hard, they’ll get overheated, which is just as bad as being cold.”

  Mrs. Wright did something funny with her eyebrows and they came down low over her eyes. I think that’s called a scowl. “If you don’t like the rules, then why don’t you make a proposal to change them? That’s why the principal has a suggestion box outside his office.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “I think I will!”

  The bell rang and Mrs. Wright left, thank goodness.

  “Ooh!” Mrs. Brisbane made a fist and pretended to pound her forehead with it. “Maybe I wouldn’t miss this place so much after all!” she said. I think she was talking to herself, but I heard her say it.

  “But we’d miss you!” I squeaked. “You have to stay!”

  Mrs. Brisbane swung around to face my side of the room. “Humphrey, I hope you’re not agreeing with that woman.”

  “NO-NO-NO!” I assured her.

  All day long, I kept my eye on Heidi. Once she started to blurt out an answer, but I shouted, “Hands, please!” and even if she didn’t understand my squeaking, she got the message and raised her hand.

  When the day was almost over, Mrs. Brisbane asked my friends to clean up their tables and the area around them. “We’ll be gone for a week for spring break,” she said. “We want to come back to a nice room.”

  Spring break? Was something going to be broken? And where were we going for a whole week?

  “Eek!” I squeaked.

  Heidi’s hand shot up. My, I was proud. When Mrs. Brisbane called on her, she asked, “Where will Humphrey and Og spend vacation?”

  “Humphrey and Og will be at my house,” the teacher answered. A few kids groaned, and she asked what was wrong.

  “I wish I could have Humphrey for a whole week,” said Garth.

  “Me, too,” Miranda agreed.

  Knowing that Sweetums could get in Garth’s backyard and knowing that Miranda has a dangerous dog, Clem, living at her house made me VERY-VERY-VERY glad I was going home with Mrs. Brisbane.

  I knew I’d be safe there and maybe—just maybe—a small hamster with a Plan could convince her to sign that contract and come back to Room 26.

  All I needed was that Plan.

  “Bert? Are you here?” Mrs. Brisbane opened the front door of the house. Bert didn’t seem to be around.

  “I’ll bet he’s in the garage,” she said. She put my cage on the living room table. “I’d better bring Og in.”

  It was nice to be back at the Brisbanes’ house. Next to my cage was a vase of pink and white flowers. Mrs. Brisbane always had flowers in her house—real ones. Soon, Og’s tank was next to me on the table.

  “Nice to be back, hey, Oggy?” I asked my companion.

  “BOING!” he twanged.

  I do like visiting the Brisbanes, I really do. But the thought of never seeing my friends in Room 26 was still a worry. If Mrs. Brisbane didn’t sign that contract.

  Mrs. Brisbane left again, and when she returned, her husband came in his wheelchair behind her. A smile now replaced the grumpy old frown he had the first time I saw him.

  “My two favorite buddies!” he exclaimed when he saw us. “I’ve missed you.”

  “You spend so much time in the garage, you wouldn’t know if they were here or not,” Mrs. Brisbane said in a teasing way.

  “I used to spend my time cooped up in an office. I love having that whole garage all to myself,” he said. “I’ll have to show you my latest creation: a three-story birdhouse.”

  Mr. Brisbane liked to make things. The best thing he’d made was my large cage extension with all kinds of wonderful places to hide, swing and climb.

  “I guess you’re happy to have a break,” he said to Mrs. Brisbane.

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “Especially after today. Ruth Wright complained that I let some children go out without sweaters when it was sixty-five degrees instead of seventy. Is that all school has become: rules about sweaters and fire drills instead of teaching children to learn and grow?”

  “It never will be with you around, honey,” he answered.

  “She said I should put my suggestions in the suggestion box. Well, I have a suggestion for her!” Mrs. Brisbane was getting pretty heated.

  “I suggest you come out and see my birdhouse,” he said. “And that afterward, we order some Chinese food and watch a movie.”

  Mrs. Brisbane gave his cheek a little pinch. “You’re the smartest man I know,” she said.

  Maybe Bert could figure out a way to get her to sign the contract.

  The next morning, Mrs. Brisbane went shopping for new spring clothes. As soon as she left, Bert came to talk to me.

  “Humphrey, I’ve got to go somewhere, and it just occurred to me that it would be a very good idea for you to come along.”

  Since I am a hamster in a cage, people hardly ever take me with them when they go out. I’ve never been to a restaurant, a movie or a mall. I’ve never been bowling, skating or camping. Wherever Mr. Brisbane was going, I wanted to be with him.

  “Let’s GO-GO-GO!” I said.

  I didn’t know where we were GO-GO-GOING, but it was fun to be heading out with Mr. Brisbane. It took a while for him to get me, his wheelchair and himself in the car, but it was a beautiful day and I was excited to go somewhere new.

  As he was driving, Mr. Brisbane said, “I didn’t ask for permission to bring you along today, but I’m counting on you to win them over.”

  Win them over? When didn’t I win humans over? I just didn’t know which humans he meant. Because if one of them happened to be Mrs. Wright, I’d have to work pretty hard.

  Suddenly, the car made a sharp right turn. “Welcome to Maycrest Manor,” Mr. Brisbane said. “Today we’re having a surprise party. And you, Humphrey, are the surprise!”

  No one was more surprised than I was.

  BREAK: Another good/bad thing. If you break your arm or a vase, it’s a bad thing. But a break in school is like a vacation, and vacations are definitely good things.

  Humphrey’s Dictionary of Wonderful Words

  A Day at Maycrest Manor

  Before we went inside, Mr. Brisbane covered my cage with a cloth. “Just for a few minutes, buddy,” he told me.

  Still, I could peek out just enough to see that Maycrest Manor was a huge building with lots of tall windows, plants and trees. Inside, I saw people with canes and walkers and wheelchairs, and there were other people in colorful uniforms helping them out.

  “Hi, Bert,” a friendly voice called out. “What have you got there?”

  He lifted a corner of the cloth and said, “Joyce, meet Humphrey. He’s today’s entertainment.”

  “Great! You can go right to the recreation room. We’ll bring in the folks in about five minutes.”

  We took an elevator, which always makes my tummy feel queasy and uneasy, and then entered a great big room with chairs and tables all around. Mr. Brisbane wheeled us over to a table in the center.

  “The people here are all trying to recover from illnesses and injuries so they can go back home again. I was here for a while last year, and they helped me a lot,” Mr. Brisbane explained. “Now I want to help them back. All you have to do is be yourself, Humphrey.” As if I could be anybody else!

  Soon, the people in uniforms helped the people with canes and walkers and wheelchairs come in the room. I peeked out as they all gathered around the table. I was used to having giggly, wiggly children around me, but these were tired and serious faces.

  “Okay, Bert. They’re all here,” the woman called Joyce said.

  “Good
morning,” said Bert in a cheerier-than-usual voice. “I brought you a visitor today. His name is Humphrey. I know how hard you all work at your exercises every day, so I thought maybe you’d like to watch Humphrey work out.” He pulled the cloth off my cage.

  There was no reaction, just unsmiling faces staring at me from all sides of the table.

  Bert had said I was the entertainment, so I decided to be entertaining. I jumped on my wheel, just to get things rolling. Then I leaped up onto my tree branch and began to climb. I didn’t dare look at the faces around me, but I heard a little commotion. Next, I dropped down onto my bridge ladder and hung from one of the rungs.

  Surprise, surprise, I heard chuckles.

  “Look at that little fellow!” someone said.

  Then I let go and slid down to the floor of my cage. I burrowed into my bedding and temporarily dropped out of sight.

  “Where’d he go?” I heard a voice ask.

  “Just watch,” Bert said.

  Keeping low to the ground, I tunneled through the bedding and suddenly popped up on the other side of my cage.

  “SURPRISE-SURPRISE-SURPRISE!” I squeaked.

  This time people laughed. When I looked at the faces again, many of them were smiling and all of them were leaning in to watch me more closely.

  “Of course, Humphrey doesn’t always stay in his cage,” Mr. Brisbane said. He opened the cage door and put me in my yellow hamster ball. I hadn’t even seen him bring it along. “Sometimes, he likes to go for a walk.”

  He gently set me and the ball on the floor. “Go for it, Humphrey.”

  I could see a lot of feet making way for me, so I started walking to propel the ball forward. Since I’d learned how to control my right and left turns, I decided to zigzag across the room. After a while, I looked back and saw that many of the patients were following me. Some of them were helped by the people in uniform. Some of them were on their own.

  “He’s over in the corner!” a man in a wheelchair announced.

  Another man waved his cane at me. “Look out, here he comes again.”

  “If I had one of those contraptions, I could go anywhere,” a woman with a walker said with a laugh.

  It became a fun game of Follow the Leader, and I got to be the leader. It was a lovely afternoon, and we all got a good workout. Those serious faces looked a little less serious as my new friends told me good-bye.

  When it was time to leave, Joyce was very pleased. “Bert, can you stop by my office on the way out?” she asked.

  That’s how I ended up on Joyce’s desk while she talked to Mr. Brisbane.

  “Boy, did that work well! Humphrey got them moving like nobody else,” she said.

  “He did the same for me,” Mr. Brisbane said.

  Then something amazing happened. Joyce offered Mr. Brisbane a job as recreation manager. He’d work for Joyce, who was too busy to come up with new and interesting projects for the patients. And they’d even pay him!

  Bert accepted, saying he’d have to talk it over with his wife, but he was sure she’d be pleased. So was I.

  That evening, I was back on the living room table when Mr. Brisbane told Mrs. Brisbane the good news. “I’d sure like to go to work every day,” he said. “And I’d enjoy that work more than I ever liked my old job. What do you think, Sue?”

  Mrs. Brisbane looked surprised—no, stunned. Then she burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Mr. Brisbane asked.

  “Oh, Bert, I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you about this. I still haven’t signed my contract for next year.”

  Mr. Brisbane looked surprised. “Why not?”

  “This is my thirtieth year,” his wife replied. “I can retire now.”

  “Sue! I’m so sorry I didn’t realize,” he said. “Thirty years! We should have a party or something. Do you want to retire?”

  Mrs. Brisbane sighed. “I’d miss Room Twenty-six terribly. I’d miss all the wonderful students, especially Humphrey and Og. On the other hand, maybe it’s time for someone else to have a chance. Am I really making a difference anymore?”

  I had to squeak up. “YES-YES-YES!” I shouted. “You make a difference every day!”

  “Humphrey seems to think so,” Mr. Brisbane said. “And so do I.”

  “If I retired now, I’d be the one home alone all day.” Mrs. Brisbane stood up. “I’m going to think about it a little longer.”

  What was there to think about? Sometimes Mrs. Brisbane could be quite frustrating. Sometimes Mrs. Brisbane even made me a little bit mad. But always, Mrs. Brisbane was a really great teacher.

  Bert spent the rest of the week making plans for his new job. He asked his wife if he could borrow me on the weekends once in a while.

  “My students won’t like it,” she said. “But if you tell them it’s for a good cause, they might not complain too much.”

  They didn’t talk about the contract again for the rest of the week, so I spent many a long night spinning on my wheel and wondering what Mrs. Brisbane would decide.

  On our first day back at school, Principal Morales dropped by during recess. Mrs. Brisbane handed him the contract.

  “I signed it,” she said.

  The principal smiled. “That’s a great relief. What did Bert think?”

  “Bert took a job and he can’t wait to get out of the house,” she said with a laugh. “It looks like neither of us are going to retire, at least this year.”

  I was so unsqueakably delighted, my heart went THUMP-THUMP-THUMP. Og was splashing so much, he practically created a tsunami in his tank, so I knew he was as happy as I was.

  When my friends returned to the classroom, I watched them take their seats. I thought of how I’d seen Mrs. Brisbane help Sayeh, Garth, Gail and Heidi, Seth, Tabitha and Mandy—everyone in the class. Did they realize what she’d done for them?

  I was afraid they didn’t. I was GLAD-GLAD-GLAD Mrs. Brisbane was coming back. And I felt SAD-SAD-SAD that none of us appreciated her as much as we should.

  REHABILITATION CENTER: A place where people who have been sick or injured go to rest and exercise so they can get strong again. This process works best when it involves a handsome, creative hamster.

  Humphrey’s Dictionary of Wonderful Words

  Suggestions and Surprises

  That’s what she said, Og,” I told my froggy friend later that evening. “She wondered if she really made a difference.”

  “BOING-BOING!” He sounded truly alarmed.

  “I know!” I answered. “No matter how much I try to tell her that everyone appreciates her, she doesn’t understand.”

  “BOING-BOING-BOING!” At least Og seemed to get it.

  “If there was just a way to get all her students together to thank her for all she’s done! Boy, would she be surprised.”

  Og took a huge dive into his tank and splashed noisily.

  I remembered what Mr. Brisbane told me on the way to Maycrest Manor. He said they were having a surprise party and I was the surprise.

  “Og, we should give her a surprise party,” I squeaked excitedly. I could just see it!

  Og splashed like crazy. He wouldn’t have any water left if he kept that up.

  But how could a tiny hamster and a small frog manage to throw a party?

  “We wouldn’t have to give the party,” I continued. “If we could just suggest it to somebody like Aldo, or a parent, or Principal Morales.”

  Og was silent. Maybe he was thinking. I was thinking, too. I was thinking that Mrs. Wright said that the principal had a suggestion box outside his office. If I could just put a suggestion in that box, maybe he would give a surprise party for Mrs. Brisbane.

  I quickly told Og my idea. His response was quick. “BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING-BOING!”

  “Great!” I answered. “All I have to do is write the suggestion and take it down to the office.”

  The fact that my tiny writing was hard for humans to read and the fact that I had no idea where the principal’s
office was did not discourage me one little bit.

  Now I had a Plan.

  I waited until Aldo had cleaned Room 26 before starting on the note. I neatly chewed a piece of paper from my notebook and took my small pencil. Then, in letters as big I could make them, I carefully wrote

  Suggest: MRS. B.

  30 YEARS

  SURPRISE PARTY

  Then I put the note in my mouth and opened the lock-that-doesn’t-lock.

  “Wish me luck, Oggy. I’m on my way!” I announced.

  “BOING-BOING!” I knew that meant “good luck.”

  I then began the longest and most dangerous journey of my lifetime.

  Of course, the door to Room 26 was shut. Aldo always closes and locks it when he leaves. How stupid of me not to think about it. I’m not one to give up easily, so I examined the bottom of the door and saw that there was a narrow opening. It wasn’t much, but hamsters are able to flatten themselves and slip through some very small spaces, so it was worth a try.

  Grasping the paper in my teeth, I hunkered down close to the floor and slid into the gap. I could feel the bottom of the door scraping my back, but I didn’t mind because I’d made it!

  It was dark out in the hallway and eerily quiet.

  Now I faced another obstacle: which way was the principal’s office? I figured it was near the front door, where I’d been carried in so many times. But the cage was always so thumpy and bumpy, it was hard to see where I was going.

  I rushed past the side door to the playground—I certainly didn’t want to go there at night—to the end of the corridor. There was some low light in the hall, which made it seem even creepier than if it had been completely dark. The doors here looked like other classrooms, except for a small door that had a sign reading Custodian over it. Aldo has his own room at Longfellow School? You learn something new every day!

  I noticed something else: a sound was following me. Crinkle-crinkle. Crinkle-crinkle.

  I stopped for a second and the sound stopped, too. I crept forward. Crinkle-crinkle. Crinkle-crinkle. The sound was back.