Free School Days According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney Page A

neighbor and I were alone again.
    â€œBOING!” Og replied.
    Then I hopped on my wheel to keep my body busy while I thought about wheelies and dares and the strange students in the class.
    Maybe this was the worst class in the world after all.

    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.

9
    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.
    â€œVery well, Harry. Hurry up and get to your seat,” she said.
    â€œIt 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.
    â€œDoes this mean I can’t have Humphrey this weekend?” Harry asked.
    â€œWe’ll talk about it later, Harry,” Mrs. Brisbane said.
    â€œIt 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.
    â€œWe’re still learning more about you guys in biology,” he said. “Amphibians and mammals.”
    â€œWhat did you learn, Aldo?” I squeaked.
    â€œMammals 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 ?
    â€œOf 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.
    â€œIn the end, we’re all a lot alike,” Aldo said. He was finished sweeping and started straightening out the tables and chairs.
    â€œAre 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.
    â€œThat’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?”
    â€œSqueak!” I answered. I couldn’t argue with that.
    Aldo pushed a little piece of lettuce through the bars of my