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Authors: Betty G. Birney

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Later, I worked on my poem for a while.

Autumn, oh, autumn,
When everybody's busy,
There are so many problems,
I'm feeling kind of dizzy!

HUMPHREY'S RULES OF SCHOOL:
Keep your body busy, but don't be a busybody.

The Worst Class Doesn't Get Better

T
ardy.

It's not a word I'd heard very often. But I've figured out what it means: late.

If you're tardy, you have to go to the office and get a piece of paper that lets you back into class.

This year, I've heard the word
tardy
more often than I did all of last year. A few of my old friends were tardy from time to time, usually when the buses got in late.

But Hurry-Up-Harry was tardy a
lot.

He got to school on time (barely) the first two days of the week, but on Wednesday, he was so late, Mrs. Brisbane had counted him as absent. When he finally arrived, he gave his slip of paper to Mrs. Brisbane.

“Very well, Harry. Hurry up and get to your seat,” she said.

“It wasn't my fault,” he said. “Here's a note from my mom. She tells you there that the alarm didn't go off.”

He pulled a letter out of his backpack and handed it to her. She read it quickly, thanked him and sent him to his seat.

He didn't go right away. “We used to live almost next door to the school,” he said. “Then I could walk. But now she has to drive me here and it takes longer.”

Mrs. Brisbane looked at Harry as if she didn't know what to say. Which is pretty unusual for Mrs. Brisbane.

“Does this mean I can't have Humphrey this weekend?” Harry asked.

“We'll talk about it later, Harry,” Mrs. Brisbane said.

“It wasn't really his fault, was it, Og?” I asked my neighbor while my friends worked on math problems. I should have been working on them, too, but I was thinking more about Harry's problem than about number problems.

Og didn't answer. He just splashed lazily in the water. I wasn't sure what he thought about Hurry-Up-Harry.

That night, when Aldo came, he went right to work, sweeping the room with long, graceful strokes of the broom.

“We're still learning more about you guys in biology,” he said. “Amphibians and mammals.”

“What did you learn, Aldo?” I squeaked.

“Mammals are born from their mamas and amphibians hatch out of eggs,” he said.

I almost fell off my tree branch. “Eek!” I squeaked.

Og came out of an
egg
? Like a
chicken
?

“Of course, after they hatch out of eggs, frogs are cute little tadpoles,” Aldo continued.

I wasn't sure what a tadpole was, but it was hard to picture Og being cute.

Aldo chuckled. “Birds come out of eggs, and so do some reptiles,” he said. “But of course, birds have feathers. And fish have scales and gills.”

Suddenly, my tummy felt a little funny. Gills and feathers, scales and eggs. I thought we were all just
animals.

“In the end, we're all a lot alike,” Aldo said. He was finished sweeping and started straightening out the tables and chairs.

“Are we?” I asked.

My head was spinning. Og came out of an egg. He was cold-blooded and he didn't have any ears (that I could see). It seemed as if we had nothing in common.

“That's the great thing about biology,” Aldo said as he pulled a chair close to our table and took out his supper. “We're all living things.”

He took a great, big, deep breath. “And it's great to be alive, isn't it, Humphrey?”

“Squeak!” I answered. I couldn't argue with that.

Aldo pushed a little piece of lettuce through the bars of my cage, but I wasn't particularly hungry.

“And great to have friends of all species,” Aldo added.

Suddenly, I remembered what Ms. Mac had said when she first brought me to Room 26: “You can learn a lot about yourself by taking care of another species.”

I guess that meant amphibians, too.

“It's great!” I squeaked in agreement.

Tardy. Again.

That's what Harry was on Thursday. He got to school on time in the morning, but he came back from lunch after the bell had rung. He wasn't alone, though. Principal Morales brought him back.

“I found Harry staring at the trophy case,” he said. “He said he didn't notice all the other kids going back to class.”

“I told him he'd be late,” Holly said. (She forgot to raise her hand first, which made me miss my old friend Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi Hopper.)

“Quiet, Holly,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Harry, can you explain why you didn't come back on time?”

“Did you know Longfellow School won the All-District Basketball Championship five times?” he said. “But they haven't won for six whole years.”

“No, Harry, I didn't,” she said. “It's very interesting, but you promised me you'd get back to class on time after recess and lunch.”

“I know,” said Harry, staring down at his feet.

Mr. Morales told Mrs. Brisbane he'd let her handle the problem. I thought Harry was LUCKY-LUCKY-LUCKY that he didn't have to sit in the principal's office and hear how disappointed Mr. Morales was.

I
was a little disappointed in Harry. Why couldn't he learn to hurry up?

“Harry, can you tell time?” Mrs. Brisbane asked Hurry-Up-Harry when she kept him in during afternoon recess.

Harry nodded. She asked him to tell her what time it was right then and he was correct.

“Have you had your hearing tested?” Mrs. Brisbane said.

Harry nodded. “I can hear just fine.”

“Then why are all the other students able to hear the bell and get back to class on time and you aren't?” she asked.

It was the same question I would have asked if I had the chance.

“Just when the bell rang, I happened to be standing next to that trophy case. I'd never noticed it before,” he said. “I'll be on time tomorrow.”

“It seems as if you have two problems,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “One problem is that your parents have a little trouble getting you here on time.”

“I know,” Harry said. “They lose track of time.”

Mrs. Brisbane nodded. “Yes. But
you
have a problem remembering to get in line and come back to class on time. You can't blame your parents for that.”

“I guess I lose track of time, too,” Harry said.

“I have an idea,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Why don't you watch the clock in the morning and remind your parents when it's time to leave? It may not be your fault that you're late, but maybe you could try to help them.”

“Okay,” Harry said.

“Second, when you see your friends lining up, you line up, too. No matter how interesting the trophy case is or what size anthill you see. You need to take responsibility.”

I agreed with that!

“You won't have Humphrey this weekend, but if you can get back to class on time all of next week, you can take him home,” she said.

“Really?” Harry smiled from ear to ear. “I can do it!”

Mrs. Brisbane let him go out to recess, but after he left, she kept on talking. I'm not sure if she was talking to me or just to herself, but I listened. (I'm pretty sure Og did, too.)

“I've had problems with dawdlers before,” she said. “But never quite like Harry.”

The next day, I waited anxiously for Mrs. Brisbane to make a very important announcement. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long.

“Paul Fletcher will be taking Humphrey home for the weekend,” she said. “I have the permission slip. Who is picking you up?” she asked.

“My dad,” Paul said.

I was happy to be going home with Small-Paul. He seemed happy, too. In fact, he looked a little taller for the rest of the afternoon as he sat up very straight and glanced over at my cage a lot.

“It won't be long now, Humphrey,” he told me after recess.

Not everybody was happy, though. Harry looked embarrassed because he hadn't been on time all week as he'd promised.

Tall-Paul seemed especially grumpy.

I know Helpful-Holly was hoping to have me for the weekend, too.

But in the end, I thought Mrs. Brisbane made a very good choice.