Friendship According to Humphrey Read Online Free

that old bear. She’s a big baby.”
    Sayeh murmured, “Maybe she’s shy.” I was pleased that Sayeh had learned to speak up. But the other girls decided Tabitha was just unfriendly.
    Like someone else who was new to Room 26.
     
    After so much frog talk, Mrs. Brisbane moved on to the subject of poetry.
    First, we read a scary poem about a tiger. We also read a poem about a bee, followed by a silly poem about a purple cow. Some poems rhyme and some don’t. But there are a lot of rhyming words, like “moon” and “June,” and “cat” and “rat.” (Funny that those last two words rhyme, isn’t it?)
    At night, while Og stared into space, I made lists of rhyming words in my notebook. Better than trying to talk to him, as he continued to give me the silent treatment.
    Jumpy, bumpy, grumpy, lumpy. Funny that those words rhyme, too!
    After a few days spent reading poems, Mrs. Brisbane said it was time for us to write our own poems. There were louder groans than the first time she mentioned poetry. Mrs. Brisbane held up her hand, which meant everybody had to be quiet.
    “All of this is in preparation for Valentine’s Day, when our class will present a Poetry Festival for all the parents. Each of you will recite a poem you wrote or one you like.” There were no groans now. In fact, some of the students looked excited. Even Pay-Attention-Art Patel was paying attention.
    Mrs. Brisbane explained that our assignment was to write a poem about an animal, at least six lines long, with words that rhymed.
    Mandy raised her hand and the teacher called on her. “My name rhymes with ‘candy cane,’ ” she proudly announced.
    Mrs. Brisbane smiled. “That’s right. ‘Mandy Payne’ rhymes with ‘candy cane.’ Does anyone else have a rhyming name?”
    “ ‘Richie’ rhymes with ‘itchy’!” A.J. blurted out.
    “What?” asked Repeat-It-Please-Richie.
    Words were flying through my brain. Humphrey-pumphrey-dumphrey-lumphrey.
    “ ‘Gail’ rhymes with ‘hail’!” Heidi forgot to raise her hand again.
    “And ‘fail,’ ” Kirk muttered.
    “I-Heard-That-Kirk Chen,” said Mrs. Brisbane.
    “Well, ‘Kirk’ rhymes with ‘jerk,’ ” said Heidi, who was always ready to defend her best friend, Gail.
    “Please, no more,” Mrs. Brisbane said firmly. “ ‘Kirk’ also rhymes with ‘work.’ So let’s get back to work.”
    I never saw my classmates work so hard before. Richie chewed on his pencil, Seth jiggled his leg, Heidi erased more than she wrote, Kirk scratched his head and Miranda wrote and wrote and wrote. Then she stopped writing and raised her hand.
    “Mrs. Brisbane, can you think of anything that rhymes with ‘hamster’?” she asked.
    “Let’s throw that one out to the class,” said the teacher. “Anyone?”
    Leave it to Golden-Miranda to ask such a good question. It got everybody thinking, because it was so quiet, you could have heard a pencil drop. Two pencils did drop, in fact.
    “How about ‘gangster’?” a voice called out.
    “Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi.” Mrs. Brisbane walked to the board. “How about that, class? Does ‘HAMster’ rhyme with ‘GANGster’?”
    She wrote the words on the board and repeated them. “Hear that? They don’t have quite the same sound, do they?”
    Well, I would hope not! Gangsters are bad guys and I am definitely a good guy.
    “Maybe you’d better find another word to rhyme,” the teacher instructed.
    “Try ‘Humphrey’!” I squeaked in encouragement. There had to be something that rhymed.
    “Try ‘frog’!” shouted A.J.
    “Lower-Your-Voice-A.J.,” Mrs. Brisbane reminded him.
    “And raise your hand,” added Heidi.
    Mrs. Brisbane shook her head, then began to write words on the board as my classmates shouted them out. Dog, fog, log, slog, clog and more.
    Nothing rhymed with “hamster,” but everything rhymed with “frog.” How depressing! I wondered how many words rhyme with “sad”? Like “mad” and “bad.”
     
    After recess, it