Trouble According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney Read Free Book Online Page B

turned off the lights.

    They didn’t come on again until Aldo arrived that night. “Give a cheer, ‘cause Aldo’s here!” he said, but I wasn’t feeling too cheery. I was a tiny bit mad at him for writing that note to Mrs. Brisbane, although I knew he meant well.
    “Glad to see you back in your cage,” Aldo told me. “It’s a dangerous world out here, you know.”
    After all my fur-raising adventures, I didn’t need anyone to tell me that!
    Aldo jiggled my cage door the way humans always do. “Nice and snug tonight,” he said. “I guess Mrs. Brisbane got my note.”
    She got his note, all right.
    I just hoped Miranda wasn’t still crying.

    The next morning, Miranda came bustling into the room with Sayeh and not only was she not crying, she was smiling! I guess I still have a lot to learn about human behavior. Seeing Miranda laugh made me feel a lot better. Later, though, when she passed by my cage, she looked serious again and stared at me for a few seconds.
    “I’m SORRY-SORRY-SORRY!” I squeaked.
    She blinked hard and turned away. For the rest of the day, she didn’t cry, but she was a quieter Miranda than usual.
    However, my other friends were anything but quiet.They were so caught up in their jobs, it was hard for them to concentrate on anything else. In the middle of science, Heidi leaped up, grabbed a pencil out of Richie’s hand and ran off to sharpen it. Mandy spent more time writing up “Messy Table” notices than she did labeling the planets. Mrs. Brisbane did her best to try to keep things under control.
    When it was time for math, Paul slipped into class as quietly as ever. Mrs. Brisbane handed out homework papers and when he saw his grade, Art rolled his eyes and suddenly looked smaller than Paul. When Mrs. Brisbane asked if there were any questions, Miranda’s hand shot up.
    “It’s pretty sunny outside. I was thinking that we could probably turn off the lights for a while and save some energy.”
    Usually, when somebody asks a question that’s completely off the subject, Mrs. Brisbane isn’t too happy about it. This time she smiled. “Well, I suppose we could do without lights for a little while. Thank you, Miranda. I’ll add some extra points to your job evaluation for thinking of it.”
    Miranda acted more like her old golden self. That was good. But there was something else that was bad. At the end of the day, Art forgot to shut the door when he left. Mrs. Brisbane called him back and told him she had to deduct two points off his job score. Art was pretty upset. “Does this mean I don’t get to take Humphrey home this weekend?”
    Ah, so that’s whose house I would be visiting on Friday night!
    Mrs. Brisbane sighed and thought it over. “No, you can take Humphrey home
if
you remember to close the door every single time tomorrow.”
    “Gee, thanks!” Art said, carefully closing the door behind him as he left.
    That night, I tried to figure out how I could fix things for Miranda. I was usually good at fixing things. I needed a Plan.
    “Og, I have a brilliant idea!” I squeaked out loudly. “I’ll get out of my cage tonight so Mrs. Brisbane will know that Miranda didn’t make a mistake!”
    “BOING!” said Og, then slid into the water and splashed wildly. I don’t think he liked that idea. I thought it over some more.
    “My gosh, you’re right, Og! Kirk will get in trouble and I don’t want that to happen. There’ve been enough kids in trouble this week.”
    I stayed in my cage the whole night. Aldo came and went, cleaning, reading and eating. Everything looked completely normal. Too bad it didn’t feel that way.
    HUMPHREYVILLE CITIZENS ARE
REMINDED TO OBEY THE RULES
    Consequences for not doing a job
are highlighted.
    The Humphreyville Herald

The Difficulty with Art

    O n Friday, Mrs. Brisbane added up the points everyone had earned in their jobs during the first week. On the whole, my friends did well. Miranda had made up some of the points she’d lost. Heidi