Surprises According to Humphrey (15 page)

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.

B
efore 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.