Friendship According to Humphrey (12 page)

“I forgot to say the magic words!” he exclaimed. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you will see the money grow!” This time, when he opened his hand, the dollar bill was back, all in one piece again.

Thank goodness, or I think Richie would have been pretty angry!

Magic Mitch asked Sayeh and Mandy to help him with a trick where he cut up a rope, did some hocus-pocus and returned it in one piece.

And Art helped him make a glass of water disappear under a handkerchief. I mean a whole glass of water!

I would not invite this man to my house for dinner, I can tell you.

Everybody seemed to like the show, though. They gasped and clapped at everything he did.

Finally, he announced the Big Moment! “Ladies and gentlemen, at this point in the show, I usually make a rabbit appear out of my hat. But today, my rabbit is on strike. So I’m going to borrow your class hamster for this amazing trick.”

It took me a few seconds to realize that the class hamster was—gulp—me! Richie came over to my cage and gently picked me up, cupping me in his hands.

“Don’t be scared, Humphrey. It’s only a trick,” he whispered.

I knew that, but I didn’t want to be cut up in pieces or disappear into thin air. No wonder the rabbit went on strike.

“Since Humphrey is already here, I can’t pull him out of my hat. So instead, I will make him disappear
into
my hat!”

Magic Mitch first held his hat upside down and let anyone who wanted to come up and inspect it. Everybody agreed it appeared to be an ordinary hat.

Mitch took me from Richie and put me in the hat. It was DARK-DARK-DARK inside and I have to admit, I don’t like dark places.

As he dropped me down, he pulled something with his finger and I dropped into a secret compartment at the top of the hat. A false bottom came down over my head. I was trapped in a dark, scary place.

I could hear Magic Mitch’s muffled voice saying, “Abracadabra, Humphrey dear. I will make you disappear!”

Whoa! The magician turned the hat all the way over. Now I was laying on my back, feeling a little seasick.

“Humphrey! Where are you?” Magic Mitch called out.

He shook the hat to show that it was empty. Except it wasn’t.

“Oooh,” I squeaked weakly as I bounced up and down, trapped in this stuffy cave.

I guess nobody heard me, not even Magic Mitch.

I could hear the sounds of kids gasping and shuffling around in their seats.

“Where’s Humphrey?” I heard A.J. ask.

“Beats me,” said Magic Mitch. He turned the hat around and put it on his head. “Want to see another trick?”

“Bring back Humphrey!” Richie said, in a voice as loud as A.J.’s.

“Humphrey who?” asked the magician. He started to do another trick. I couldn’t see what he was doing, since I was completely in the dark.

Well, if Magic Mitch wasn’t going to do anything about getting me out of that hat, I was going to do something for myself.

When I squinted my eyes, I could see a pinpoint of light above me. If I could see light, there must be an opening there. I crouched in the little space and reached up with my paws. I pushed. And I scratched. And I pushed some more. I may be small, but I’m strong for a hamster.

I could hear Magic Mitch repeating, “Now you see it, now you don’t. Which shell has the pea under it?”

“Bring back Humphrey!” more voices shouted, but Mitch ignored them.

Now I could see a lot more light. The top of the hat was opening from all my pushing. There was a space barely big enough for me to squeeze through. I pushed myself up with all my might and popped right out of the top of the hat! I could see my friends from Room 26, Richie’s relatives, and also Marty Bean all staring up at me!

Magic Mitch kept going even though nobody paid attention to him.

There was giggling, pointing, nudging and nodding. The giggling turned to chuckling, chortling, laughing and howling!

“Now you see it . . . now you don’t.” Mitch sounded confused. “Folks? Are you paying attention?”

I could hear my name being whispered around.

I stood up very tall as everyone stared at me. “Greetings, one and all!” I squeaked as loudly as I could.

This produced shrieks of laughter. I took a bow.

The audience members began to shout my name. They stamped their feet and clapped their hands as they chanted, “Hum-phrey! Hum-phrey! Hum-phrey!”

“Okay.” The magician sounded quite annoyed. “I’ll bring him back!”

He took his hat off and there I was, eyeball to eyeball with Magic Mitch. He looked very pale. “What are you doing? You’ve ruined my whole show!”

“It’s my show now,” I squeaked to him.

“Next time, I’m bringing the rabbit,” he said glumly.

Nobody else heard him because all my friends continued to clap, stomp and cheer.

Aldo quickly entered the ring and said, “Let’s have a big round of applause for the Amazing Magic Mitch!”

Mitch waved his magic hat—which now had a hole in the top—and hurried away from Richie’s basement as fast as he could.

The crowd kept applauding and cheering. I knew they were cheering for me.

13

M
y classmates were still talking about the party on Monday. Even Mrs. Brisbane chuckled when Richie told the whole story of my triumphant appearance.

But there was something else to talk about: Og’s surprise.

Bert Brisbane had built Og a genuine swimming pool! Instead of a large bowl of water, a whole section of the glass box was water, while the rest of it was built up all around with lush green plants.

It was a terrific surprise and I felt just a tiny pang of green-eyed jealousy. Then I noticed that Og’s grin looked more like a real smile this time. I guess we’d both had good weekends after all.

After everyone admired the swimming pool, Mrs. Brisbane got down to business. “The Poetry Festival is less than two weeks away. We’ve got to finalize our selections, memorize the poems, finish the artwork and make our Valentine’s Day mailboxes.”

From that moment on, there was a mad flurry of activity. Some students retreated to the cloakroom to memorize their poems. Others drew pictures for the bulletin board while another group made valentine mailboxes using glue, glitter, paint, crayons, buttons, lace and stickers.

Don’t worry. Mrs. Brisbane didn’t forget to teach us math, science, geography, social studies and spelling. (Believe me, she’d never do that.) But in between, my classmates worked like crazy on poetry and valentines. Our room mothers, Mrs. Hopper and Mrs. Patel, came in to help for two days.

At night, it was just Og and me in Room 26. I wondered what he had done at the Brisbanes’ house over the weekend as I watched him swimming and diving in his new pool. He could make a lot more noise splashing around in it. Each night, I got a little more annoyed, until one night I realized why. Here we were, side by side, but I still felt lonely. We had communicated a little and he’d helped me once, but I still wasn’t sure if we were friends.

It was time to find out. I opened the lock-that-doesn’t-lock. Gathering up my courage, I walked over to his glass house and said, “Hello, Og.”

Abruptly, Og turned toward me. I must admit, my hamster heart skipped a beat. Was he going to leap at me again?

“Look, maybe I haven’t been much of a pal to you, Og. Maybe I was even a little jealous. But I’d like to try again.”

This time, instead of leaping, he dove into the water with a gigantic SPLASH! The water splashed up to the top of the box, through the screen, onto my nice, dry fur! And if there’s one thing hamsters hate, it’s wet fur. My usually fluffy golden coat was drippy, droopy and dull. If Og was looking for attention, he was about to get it.

“Thanks for nothing, Og,” I squeaked. “I just want you to know that I have a million friends, so I don’t really care if you’re my friend or not. So, if you’re thinking you should be my pal, just forget it!”

Og just stared at me with that same old smile.

“And remember that time you leaped at me?” I continued. “You didn’t even scare me.”

Not wanting to press my luck, I scampered back into my cage. I’d finally told him off, but I didn’t feel better. Not one bit.

 

Thursday was the gloomiest day I’d ever seen outside. But inside Room 26, the students were far from gloomy. Heidi and Gail were best friends again. Tabitha was friendly with Seth, Sayeh, Miranda—everybody! The poems were coming along as well.

No one, except me, seemed to notice that it was GRAY-GRAY-GRAY outside. In the afternoon, it began to snow. I hopped on my wheel and watched giant circles of lace float to the ground.

That sounded so good, I wrote it in my notebook. “Giant circles of lace.” Those words might turn into a poem someday.

The snow continued falling after school let out. It was pretty with all those lacy circles tumbling down from the sky. After a while, the lacy circles turned into a thick blanket of white.

It was so quiet, you could have heard a frog burp. Not that Og ever did. He was as silent as the snowflakes.

I knew something was terribly wrong when Aldo didn’t show up to clean that night. There were no cars in the parking lot and just one parked car on the street. It looked more like a giant snowball than a car.

I counted the hours until morning would arrive. The snow continued falling until it reached the top of the wheels on the parked car. The carpet of snow was beautiful, but the silence made my fur stand up on end. I missed A.J.’s loud voice, Mandy’s complaints and Gail’s giggles.

When the bell rang for the start of school on Friday, a funny thing happened: Nobody showed up. Not Mrs. Brisbane, not Garth, not Miranda, nobody. There were no cars in the parking lot, no buses pulling in.

The snow showed no sign of stopping. I was snowed in with Og the Frog!

14

I
t was eerie to hear the bell ring for morning recess, lunch, and afternoon recess when there was no one at school except Og and me.

Staring out at all that snow gave me a chill. The temperature was dropping inside as well. What was it that Aldo had said about turning down the heat at night to save money? I felt even chillier as I realized there was no one around to turn the heat up again.

Luckily, I had my fur coat, my sleeping house and a nice pile of wood shavings I could crawl into to keep warm. I wondered how Og was doing with nothing more than four glass walls, some greenery and an unheated swimming pool.

I dozed for much of the day and nibbled on the stash of food I keep hidden in my sleeping nest. We hamsters are smart about saving up food in case of emergency. But my food dish was empty and my water was getting low.

Between naps, I gazed out the window. There were still no cars on the street. In fact, I couldn’t tell where the street ended and the sidewalk began. Everything was a solid sheet of white.

Og was quiet most of the time and the crickets were silent, too. I was BORED-BORED-BORED all alone in the classroom. I even missed math class! Finally, I hopped on my wheel for some lively exercise. That warmed me up, but it also made me hungry. When I checked my stash of food, the only thing left was a limp tomato stem!

The bell signaling the end of school finally rang. I wondered what my classmates were doing. A.J. was probably watching TV with his family. Garth and Andy would be playing video games. I figured Miranda was cuddling up with Clem. (Didn’t his bad breath bother her?) Sayeh was no doubt helping her mom care for her younger brother. And Mrs. Brisbane was probably bustling around her warm, toasty kitchen while Mr. Brisbane built a birdhouse.

They were all warm, all cozy, and all well-fed! They were definitely not worrying about me. Or Og.

I wasn’t helping myself by thinking of these things. I decided to work on my poem. What rhymes with “gloom”? Doom!

I slipped my notebook and pencil out of their hiding place behind my mirror and burrowed down in my pile of wood shavings to keep warm.

I promptly fell asleep. It was nighttime when I woke up.

“Hey, Og, do you think Aldo will come tonight?” I asked my neighbor.

Og didn’t answer. Aldo didn’t come. The snow kept falling.

Around midnight, I heard a funny whirring sound and looked out the window. A huge machine, way bigger than a car, crept down the street like a giant yellow snail with an orange light spinning around on top. It rolled along slowly, then disappeared.

Three hours later, it returned from the opposite direction and disappeared again.

“Did you see that, Og?” I squeaked loudly.

He was definitely ignoring me, and I didn’t blame him. I’d said terrible things to him, things he probably understood. Guilt made me feel even colder.

“Og, I didn’t mean it when I said I didn’t care if you were my friend,” I called out from my cage. “I’ll forgive you for splashing me if you’ll forgive me for saying those things. Okay?”

“Boing?” I think he meant “Okay,” but there was something odd about the way Og sounded. Maybe he was hungry, like me. Then I recalled that he didn’t need to eat as often as I do. Frogs have all the luck.

 

The next morning, the snow stopped falling. But the ground was covered and there were still no cars or people to be seen, except for that parked snowball—I mean car.

Even if it hadn’t snowed, nobody would have come to school, because it was Saturday. One week ago today, I was starring in Magic Mitch’s show. Now, I was alone (almost), COLD-COLD-COLD, hungry and forgotten.