Surprises According to Humphrey (2 page)

My neighbor, Og, was startled, too, I guess, because he let out a large “BOING,” which is the strange twanging sound that green frogs, like him, usually make.

“What’s going on over here?” Mrs. Brisbane walked toward the table by the window where Og and I live.

“Humphrey fell! I saw him!” a voice called out. Even
though I couldn’t see who was talking from underneath all that bedding, I knew it was Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi Hopper, because no matter how many times she’d been told, Heidi never remembered to raise her hand.

“Hands, please, Heidi,” Mrs. Brisbane reminded her.

I poked my head out of the bedding and saw her looking down at me. “Are you all right, Humphrey?”

“I’m not hurt,” I explained. “But I am a little shaken up.”

As usual, all that came out was, “SQUEAK-SQUEAK-SQUEAK.”

“He certainly sounds fine,” said Mrs. Brisbane. “Now, back to our surprise.”

I stood up to give her my full attention.

“I’ve been working you pretty hard on our pre-test drills,” she continued.

That was certainly true. We had tests from time to time in Room 26. But there were
bigger
tests coming, and Mrs. Brisbane wanted to make sure her students did well. There were math drills and reading drills and her favorite: the dictionary drill. Every day, she had a list of words for us to look up in the dictionary. Then we were supposed to write sentences using the words correctly.

There was just one problem: everyone in class had a dictionary except me! This was very annoying, because I try to keep up with my friends. Finally, I came up with a solution and made my own dictionary by writing words and definitions in the tiny notebook I keep hidden in my cage. Ms. Mac, the wonderful substitute
teacher who brought me to Room 26, gave it to me. (She also gave me a broken heart when she left to teach in faraway Brazil. I still think about Ms. Mac a lot.)

Now Mrs. Brisbane was smiling broadly. “This morning, we’re taking a break from drills to decorate the room.”

My classmates cheered.

“What did she say?” Pay-Attention-Art Patel asked Lower-Your-Voice-A.J.

“No test drills!” A.J. bellowed loudly.

That got Stop-Giggling-Gail Morgenstern chuckling and her best friend, Heidi, joined in.

Mrs. Brisbane shushed everyone. “Settle down. The theme of the day is Spring into Numbers. Now, let’s get to work!”

None of us knew what she was talking about, but soon, all my friends were busy with paper, paint, markers, fluffy cotton, string and wire. How I wished I could get my paws on some of those things!

While Mrs. Brisbane explained that the students were supposed to hide math problems in their flower, tree and kite projects, I scurried to my wheel for a little exercise. Spring made me feel frisky and full of life! I spun faster and faster until the whole room was a blur. And then the recess bell rang.

My classmates dropped their markers and construction paper and raced toward the door. Wait-for-the-Bell-Garth Tugwell was the first one out, as usual.

For some reason, the bell surprised me, maybe
because it sounded a little softer than normal. I guess it surprised Mrs. Brisbane, too, because she glanced at the clock and shouted, “Children! Come back here!” She raced to the door and called the students back. “It’s not recess yet.”

I could hear them objecting.

“It was the bell!” A.J. bellowed.

“We’ll miss recess!” Mandy protested.

But Mrs. Brisbane was firm. Once my friends were back in the room, she pointed to the clock. “See? It’s not time yet.” She checked her watch. “Not for another half an hour.”

“But the bell rang!” Heidi argued.

“Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi,” Mrs. Brisbane said, just as she’s said hundreds of times before. “Would someone like to tell me what just happened?” Mrs. Brisbane’s eagle eyes stared out at the classroom.

“April fool!” a voice called out.

“I-Heard-That-Kirk Chen,” the teacher said. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

Kirk was the class comic, but he’d been better lately about pulling practical jokes during school hours.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brisbane,” Kirk answered. “But it’s April first. April Fools’ Day! You’re supposed to play jokes on people.”

Mrs. Brisbane asked him to explain what he did.

“Last week, I made a recording of the recess bell.” He held up a TINY-TINY-TINY tape recorder. “I just played it a little ahead of time.”

Mrs. Brisbane shook her head. “Kirk, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

“I didn’t hurt anybody,” Kirk protested.

“No, but—”

Mrs. Brisbane didn’t finish because all of a sudden the loudest sound I’ve ever heard rattled my furry little ears. It was much louder than the buzzers and bells that sound at morning, recess, lunchtime or at the end of the day. It was louder than the loudest voice A.J. ever used. It wasn’t a ringing or a buzzing—it was an earsplitting BEEP-BEEP-BEEP without stopping.

“Help!” I squeaked, plummeting off my wheel and somersaulting through my bedding. It’s never a good idea to stop spinning too quickly.

“Fire drill!” Heidi called out. She didn’t raise her hand, but this time, Mrs. Brisbane didn’t scold her.

The beeps kept blaring. Couldn’t someone turn them off?

“Boys and girls, it
is
the fire alarm,” Mrs. Brisbane shouted. “Leave everything on your desks. Line up row by row and we’ll calmly walk out to the playground.”

“BOING-BOING!” Og sounded worried.

We hadn’t had a fire drill since Og came to our classroom. No wonder he was alarmed. I quickly explained that a fire drill is a time for students to practice how to act if there’s a fire. My friends knew just what to do. They put down their pencils, scissors and papers, stood up and began to form lines.

“Stay calm,” Mrs. Brisbane said. I don’t know how
anyone
could stay calm with that noise. “They didn’t tell me about a fire drill, so this one could be a real alarm.”

I was impressed with how orderly the students were, except for Miranda Golden, who was usually one of the best-behaved students in class. She left the line and hurried to my cage. “Come on, Humphrey. I’ll look out for you.”

Good old Miranda. I think of her as Golden-Miranda, because she is an almost perfect person. And her hair is as golden as my fur.

Then Garth and A.J. broke ranks and raced over to Og. Each of them took one end of his tank to carry him.

“Children! Stop!” Mrs. Brisbane shouted. “Leave Og and Humphrey here. You must leave everything in the classroom!”

“But if it’s a real fire, we can’t leave them here!” Miranda protested. I do love that girl.

“Yeah, that would be awful!” A.J. agreed.

Mrs. Brisbane bit her lip and looked out into the hallway. “It’s probably a surprise drill, but all right. Hurry along. And keep that tank level, please!”

I didn’t know if there was a fire or not, but it felt like we were having an earthquake, because as Miranda carried my cage, I was slipping and sliding. Thank goodness for that nice, soft bedding!

As my cage lurched down the hall, I saw us head toward a side door. This was a surprise because I’d only been in and out of the school through the front door before. Suddenly, I felt fresh spring air on my fur and there
was BRIGHT-BRIGHT-BRIGHT light in my eyes. I couldn’t smell any smoke, and best of all, the awful beeping stopped.

“It’s okay, Humphrey,” Miranda told me. “We’re out on the playground.”

The playground? The playground! The place where my classmates went every day but where I had never been before. I took a chance and stood up to look around. I saw swings, a slide, a tall something-or-other with rings hanging down from it. It was almost as cool as my cage with its wheel, ladders and tree branches.

And there were students and teachers from other classes standing around. There was Small-Paul Fletcher, who was in Mrs. Loomis’s class but came into Room 26 for math every morning. He didn’t look so small compared to the other students in his class.

Wow, I’d never seen that tall teacher with the bright red hair. Or the teacher who looked a little bit like Santa Claus. They were all talking and laughing, so I knew it was just a practice fire after all. I was still taking it all in when—SCREECH!—the loudest whistle on earth blasted very near my cage.

“Mrs. Brisbane!” a voice bellowed.

A shadow fell over my cage. I looked up and saw that the large object casting the shadow was actually a woman. A woman holding a whistle.

“You should know by now that nothing should be taken from the classroom. Nothing!” Her voice was almost as loud as her whistle, but a lot deeper.

“I know, Mrs. Wright, but the children had a point. If this was a real fire, they would want to save their pets.”

“Unacceptable!” the woman called Mrs. Wright declared. I braced myself in case she blew her whistle again.

“He’s a living creature! A living thing!” said Miranda. Did I mention how much I love that girl?

Then I heard a familiar voice. “What’s going on here?”

“A serious breach of the rules,” Mrs. Wright roared. “Nothing must leave the classrooms except the students. Nothing!”

“And the teacher!” I added. I was a little afraid of this woman, but still, someone had to squeak up for Mrs. Brisbane.

I saw Mr. Morales’s face smiling down at me. He’s the principal and also the Most Important Person at Longfellow School. As usual, he was wearing an interesting tie. This one had fluffy white clouds on a blue background.

“You mean Humphrey? And Og?” he asked.

“They’re not things, Mr. Morales. They’re living creatures,” Miranda protested.

“And they’re part of our class,” added Garth.

“Yeah!” A.J. bellowed, and this time Mrs. Brisbane didn’t tell him to lower his voice.

Mrs. Wright waved a paper in Mr. Morales’s face, which was RUDE-RUDE-RUDE!

“There are rules, and as Supervisor of Emergency Services, I must strongly protest,” she said. “I’m sorry, but Mrs. Brisbane has chosen to ignore the rules!”

Those were fighting words. Because nobody I knew followed the rules better than Mrs. Brisbane. At least if they were good rules.

“Look, the children have a point,” she said, in a nice, soft voice (unlike Mrs. Wright’s loud, unpleasant voice). “You can’t expect them to leave behind their beloved pets.”

“It’s up to us to enforce the rules.” Mrs. Wright fingered her whistle, but thank goodness, she didn’t blow on it.

“Well…,” said Mr. Morales.

“If I had argued with them, it would have slowed us down,” Mrs. Brisbane explained. “That’s not good in a fire.”

“BOING!” Goodness, I was surprised to hear Og squeak up, but I was glad he was on our side.

Then I heard a brand-new voice. “That went well,” a man’s voice said.

Mrs. Wright shook her head. “Not entirely. We’ll have to try again before the end of the year.”

The person behind the new voice came into view. He was wearing a big shiny yellow jacket and big yellow pants. And on his head was a COOL-COOL-COOL black hat with a big brim and a red 29 on it.

“Hi, folks,” he said, smiling. “I’m Jeff Herman from Engine Company Twenty-nine.”

“Did you bring the fire truck?” Garth asked.

“It’s out front. You guys did a good job with the fire drill today.”

Mrs. Wright shook her head. “I’m afraid these children did not. They took the time to bring this rat and this frog outside. Strictly against the rules.”

A rat! I would think that a person who teaches school could tell the difference between an ordinary rat and a handsome golden hamster, like me!

Firefighter Jeff pushed his hat back on his head. “If there’s a real fire, you shouldn’t stop to get your pets. Your job is to get out safely. Don’t go back in for anything. But tell the firefighters your pet is inside. We rescue pets from fires all the time.”

He bent down and looked me right in the eyes. “Especially nice little hamsters like this guy.”

At least one smart person could tell a hamster from a rat!

“But the best thing to learn is how to prevent a fire from happening,” he continued. “I’ll tell you about that when I visit your class later.”

WOW-WOW-WOW! A real, live firefighter was coming to Room 26! Now,
that’s
the kind of surprise I like.