Summer According to Humphrey (9 page)

Gail looked up. “Oh, I’m finishing a letter to Heidi. I write her and my parents every day so they know everything that’s going on at camp.”

Ms. Mac looked kind of serious. Then she said, “Why not put away the pen and paper for a little while? Since it’s raining, arts and crafts would be a good choice for your next session—you like that, don’t you?”

Gail hesitated before folding up her paper. “Yes,” she said.

“Come on,” Ms. Mac said. “I’ll walk you there.”

Is it any wonder I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE Ms. Mac?

Then I saw Brad standing and staring at Lovey. Katie came over to him.

“Would you like to help with her release?” she asked Brad.

The boy shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like such a big deal,” he said. “At my other camp, we had a ropes course. Now
that
was cool.”

Katie gave him a curious look. “It sounds great. But this is something different. We could use your help. What was the name of that other camp you went to?”

“White Pines,” Brad said in a husky voice. “It was a lot bigger than this.”

“Why did you come here?” Katie asked, which was exactly what I was wondering.

“My folks thought this would be a good change,” Brad muttered.

Katie kept on smiling. “Sometimes at a smaller camp you can make more friends. I’ll be sure to let you know when we’re going to release Lovey,” she said.

Brad didn’t say anything for a while. He just stared at Lovey.

“Whatever,” he said.

W
hatever! He said
whatever
!” I screeched to Og when all of the campers and counselors had left the Nature Center and gone to lunch. I had to talk extra loud because of the rain.

“BOING-BOING,” Og responded.

“What’s so great about a ropes course?” I added, though I wouldn’t mind some ropes to climb on in my cage.

Og splashed briskly, agreeing with me, I think.

I hopped on my wheel to calm myself down.

“He’s always bragging about that other camp,” I complained out loud. “His name should be Bragging Brad. And bragging is
bad.
”

“BOING!” Og twanged, so I knew he was listening. Maybe Lovey was listening, too, because she made a little noise in her throat, “Woo-oo-oo-oo.” Jake stuck his tongue out, which is what I wanted to do to Bragging Brad. However, I am a very polite hamster.

I was still trying to cool off when the next group of campers began to gather. They were dripping wet, but they didn’t seem to mind.

While Gail and Brad and Sayeh weren’t having as much fun as they should have been, most of the other campers were. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Garth so happy before. While the campers from the other cabins worked hard on their camping skills and athletic contests, Garth and his fellow Bobwhites seemed to have no worries at all.

Later that evening, Aldo brought Og and me into the dining hall. It was still raining, but the showers were gentler now and Aldo threw a sweatshirt over my cage to keep me dry.

“The kids are pretty unhappy about the rain,” he told us. “They hate to miss the evening campfire. But they’re in for a big surprise.”

“WHAT-WHAT-WHAT?” I asked, hoping it was the good kind of surprise.

“Welcome to the Happy Hollow Comedy Club,” he said, gesturing toward the tables. It looked like the regular dining room to me, without the food. He set my cage and Og’s tank on a table near the stage. “I know you like to be in the middle of the action, so enjoy yourself.”

It was noisy inside while the campers roamed around, laughing, joking, dancing and talking in unsqueakably loud voices. A.J. stopped to say hello to me. At least his voice was loud enough to hear over the commotion.

“How’s it going, Humphrey Dumpty?” he asked.

“FINE!” I squeaked at the top of my lungs.

Suddenly, Garth appeared with A.J.’s brother, Ty, at his side.

“Hey, Humphrey!” Garth said, leaning in close to see me.

“I saw you canoeing today,” A.J. told Ty. “You’re going to have to work a lot harder if you want to beat the Blue Jays.”

Ty shrugged but Garth turned to face his best friend from Room 26.

“Whoa,” Garth said. “We’ve
already
beaten the Blue Jays. You just don’t know it yet.”

A.J. looked puzzled. “You’re crazy!”

“Not.” Garth smiled mysteriously. “In fact, we can’t lose. Can we, Ty?”

Ty grinned. “No way can you beat us.”

Just then Super-Sam strolled by.

“Yo, Garth. Yo, Ty. Bobwhites rule!” He high-fived Garth and Ty and moved on.

A.J. shook his head. “Sam’s good, but he’s not perfect,” he said.

“Okay,” Garth replied. “Just remember that when you’re in your bunk and
we’re
sleeping out at Haunted Hollow.”

Garth and Ty turned to each other and let out a huge “owoooo,” which truthfully set my fur on edge a little.

And then it happened. Without warning, Mrs. Wright gave an earsplitting blast on her whistle. I’d be unsqueakably happy if she’d lose that thing, but I have to admit it worked. Soon the campers were sitting down and were even fairly quiet as everyone’s attention was directed to the stage.

“Welcome to the Happy Hollow Comedy Club,” Hap announced. “Let the skits begin!”

As I said, I had a good view of the stage, and what I saw was quite unexpected. All of the counselors, from Ms. Mac and Katie to Aldo and even Maria, put on a series of little plays—they called them “skits”—that were extremely silly and VERY-VERY-VERY funny! One was about chasing a bear in the woods and one was about putting up a tent.

I especially remember the point where they all put on rabbit ears and sang “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” I’m not sure whether it was the song or the sight of Aldo with his big mustache and floppy bunny ears that made me laugh, but I almost fell off my tree branch!

Og splashed around, which almost always means he’s having a good time.

At the end of the show, Mrs. Wright took the stage. I braced myself for the whistle, but instead she led us all in singing that song about finding a peanut, which made me wish I had a yummy peanut hidden in my bedding. But I didn’t.

When it was all over, Ms. Mac said that next time, all of
us
(she pointed to us campers in the audience) would put on the show, so we’d better get thinking!

Goodness, I couldn’t think of any funny songs or skits, but I was going to try.

I spent that night in the Robins’ Nest again. It was pretty quiet, even before lights-out. Gail was busily trying to finish a long letter to Heidi. Miranda and the other girls were sharing a magazine and talking about hairstyles.

“Come on, Gail. Let’s try this hairstyle on you,” Miranda said in a very encouraging voice.

“In a minute,” Gail said, still writing. “I made this friendship bracelet in arts and crafts and I want to send it to Heidi.” I saw the other Robins roll their eyes and I didn’t blame them.

The rain had finally stopped, and once the lights were out for the night, I had a lot to think about. For one thing, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with Brad. Camp Happy Hollow seemed like a wonderful place to me, but to him, the pool was too small, the dining room was too big and the cabins were too far. He spent so much time thinking about his old camp, I’m not sure he even noticed what was going on at his new camp.

Of course, this was my first time at camp, so I didn’t have anything to compare it with.

Then there was Gail. Her friends were getting a little tired of hearing that “I’ll bet Heidi would love archery” or “I’m going to show Heidi how to tie a lanyard.” She must have had a sore paw from writing letters all the time. If she’d stop writing for a day, she’d see what a fun place camp could be.

I must admit, every time she mentioned Heidi, I had a kind of flip-flop feeling inside because it made me think of all the kids in Room 26 that I missed, as well as Mrs. Brisbane, Mr. Brisbane and Principal Morales! I missed the library, the recess bell and even vocabulary quizzes.

But there were so many new things to see and do at Camp Happy Hollow, I tried to think about them instead. I wished Brad and Gail could, too.

It was clear I wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep that night. Besides trying to come up with a plan to help Brad and Gail, there was that noise again.

SKITTER-SKITTER-SKITTER.

SCRITCH-SCRITCH-SCRITCH.

In the past, those scratching noises had been somewhere in the background. But that night, they were much louder, which meant that whoever or whatever was making them was CLOSE-CLOSE-CLOSE.

They sounded like they were coming from directly under my cage!

In a way, I was glad the girls didn’t hear them. They were deep in sleep.

At least the sounds were coming from
under
the cabin and not
inside
the cabin. I paced back and forth in my cage until my curiosity got the best of me. I reminded myself that I’d gone on dangerous explorations before. So, taking a deep breath, I carefully opened the lock-that-doesn’t-lock, tiptoed out to the edge of the table and looked down. Like most creatures, especially nocturnal ones like me, I can see quite well in the darkness and what I saw were wide gaps in between the wooden floorboards.

SKITTER-SKITTER-SKITTER.

SCRITCH-SCRITCH-SCRITCH.

The sounds continued. Since none of the girls stirred when I got out of the cage, I took the plunge. I slid down the leg of the table to the floor. Then I found the widest possible gap and bent down to see what was under the cabin.

There was dirt down there—nice dry dirt. There was a little beam of light from the outdoor lights that helped me see the skitterer: a small furry creature digging in the dirt. It was a hamster! No, its ears were bigger than mine and its fur was not nearly as golden and fluffy. It wasn’t a hamster, but something very hamsterish. Something that reminded me of my days at Pet-O-Rama, where I lived until the day Ms. Mac found me.

It was a mouse! A brown mouse, digging furiously in the dirt.

I was afraid of waking the Robins up, but I managed to venture the tiniest possible “squeak!” to get the mouse’s attention.

Its head jerked upward so we were looking eye to eye. It froze for a moment and then answered with an “eeek!”

“Quiet, Humphrey,” Kayla mumbled sleepily.

Startled, the mouse skittered away and was quickly out of sight.

I was sorry. It looked like a friendly mouse, and a lot livelier than some of my former neighbors at Pet-O-Rama. They mostly napped in their cages and didn’t even bother to skitter or scritch.

I was even sorrier when I was ready to get back to my cage and I realized that there was no way to get back to the top of the table!

Here, there were no blinds. There was no cord.

I was stuck.

It was like standing in a canyon, looking up at a mountaintop with no way to get there.

I thought and thought and thought some more, but there was nothing around that would help me climb that mountain.

In desperation, I crawled into Miranda’s baseball cap, which she’d left on the floor near her bunk.

It was a LONG-LONG-LONG wait until morning. There was nothing to do but WORRY-WORRY-WORRY.

In the past, whenever I was found outside of my cage, some human got in trouble for leaving my door open. That bothered me, because the only creature responsible for my being out of my cage was—well—me.

The next morning, when the deafening wake-up music blared away, I braced myself.

Somebody was going to be in trouble, and I only wished it would be me.

So no one was more surprised than I was when the girls rolled out of their beds and Lindsey scooped up the hat I was in. “Miranda, you’d better be more careful about leaving things around,” she cautioned.