Friendship According to Humphrey (2 page)

“Come on, Tabitha, let’s get our coats,” Mandy said. Tabitha slipped the stuffed bear into her pocket and followed Mandy to the cloakroom.

As soon as the students were gone, Miss Loomis bustled into the room. Two pink dots of excitement colored her cheeks and her curls bounced in all directions.

“Are you ready? Should we do it?” she asked Mrs. Brisbane excitedly.

“Why not?” my teacher answered. “I’ll make room for him now.”

They walked over to the table in front of the window where my cage sits.

“Sure, he’ll fit right here,” said Miss Loomis, pointing to a spot near my house.

Mrs. Brisbane slid some of my supplies down to the end of the table. “Now, you’re sure he’s not a lot of trouble?”

“Oh, no. Not nearly as much trouble as a hamster,” Miss Loomis answered.

WHAT-WHAT-WHAT? Not nearly as much trouble as a hamster! Since when have I caused any trouble in Room 26? Since when did I not totally dedicate myself to helping my classmates and teacher? Surprisingly, Mrs. Brisbane didn’t correct her. I was about to squeak up for myself when the bell rang again and Miss Loomis scurried out of the room.

I wondered
who
wasn’t as much trouble as I am. “He,” Miss Loomis had said.

He who? Curiosity made my whiskers twitch and my paws tingle.

My fur was practically standing on end as the tables filled up. I saw Tabitha slip her bear out of her pocket. Heidi saw it, too, and rolled her eyes at Gail, who almost giggled but managed to stop herself.

“Now, class, I told you there were some changes in our room this year,” Mrs. Brisbane announced. “Another of the changes is a brand-new classroom pet. I think he’ll add a lot to Room Twenty-six.”

New classroom pet? Why did she want a new classroom pet when she already had a wonderful, terrific—okay, perfect—classroom pet, namely me? Was I being replaced?

Miss Loomis entered, carrying a large glass tank. I couldn’t see what it was because my classmates were standing up, craning their necks,
ooh
-ing and
ahh
-ing, and chattering away.

“It’s a frog!” shouted Heidi.

Miss Loomis set the glass box right next to my cage. Now I could see some water, rocks, and something green and REALLY-REALLY-REALLY lumpy.

“Meet our new frog,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “Miss Loomis will tell you about him.”

“Well, boys and girls, as you may know, we have a frog in our classroom. His name is George and he’s a bullfrog. Right before the holidays, one of our students brought in this frog to keep George company. We named him Og the Frog. Unfortunately, George didn’t like Og. And being a bullfrog, George let us know he didn’t like Og by making a
lot
of noise. That upset Og, I guess, because he would leap and splash all day long while George was croaking.”

My classmates laughed, but I didn’t. On the one paw, I could see why George didn’t want another frog to compete with. On the other paw, croaking at Og wasn’t a very friendly way to act.

“With all the noise, we were having trouble getting any work done at all,” Miss Loomis continued. “So I asked Mrs. Brisbane if your class would like to have Og, and she said yes. He’s a very quiet frog. Do you like him?”

My friends all yelled, “YES!” Everyone except Tabitha, who was secretly petting her little bear.

Somebody went “Ribbit-ribbit” in a funny croaking voice. It wasn’t the frog.

“I-Heard-That-Kirk. That’s quite enough. Og can provide the sound effects from now on. I think he’ll make a nice friend for Humphrey,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

A friend for me? At least he wasn’t my replacement—whew! But I was already friends with every single person in Room 26, so she didn’t really need to find me another one. Still, I didn’t want to act unfriendly, the way George had.

After Miss Loomis left, Mrs. Brisbane let the students have a closer look at Og.

Seth tapped at the glass.

“Don’t do that, Seth,” the teacher warned him. “You’ll frighten him.”

“He doesn’t seem frightened of anything,” Miranda observed.

“I think he’s smiling,” added Kirk. “That must mean he’s
hoppy
.”

For once, Gail didn’t giggle, which seemed to bother Kirk. “Get it? Hoppy? Happy?” he tried to explain.

Gail rolled her eyes and groaned, which didn’t make Kirk hoppy at all.

Mrs. Brisbane called to the new girl. “Come see Og, Tabitha.”

Tabitha stared down at her table and shook her head no.

“Come on, Tabitha!” Mandy sounded impatient.

Again, Tabitha shook her head.

“She hasn’t wanted to do anything all day!” Mandy grumbled.

“Mandy . . . ,” Mrs. Brisbane warned her.

“Is he really a frog?” Richie stared hard at Og, who stared right back. “Don’t frogs live in water?”

“Some do,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “And some frogs live in trees. Og is a common green frog. He likes to live near the water, but not in it. That’s why he has a tank that’s half land and half water.”

A common green frog didn’t sound very interesting, but Og had certainly attracted the attention of my classmates.

“Can I take care of Og?” A.J. asked loudly.

“Lower-Your-Voice-A.J.,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “We will all take care of him.”

Once the students returned to their seats, Mrs. Brisbane held up a book on the care of frogs. “We’ll have to study this,” she explained. “Taking care of Og will be quite different from caring for Humphrey. After all, Humphrey is a warm-blooded mammal. Og is a cold-blooded amphibian.”

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.

2

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.”