Free Adventure According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney

Rita! Late in the afternoon, they all ended up in the bathroom—with me!
    I was in my hamster ball, which Richie carefully set on top of a tissue box so I wouldn’t roll off.
    At first, I was happy that Richie brought me along.
    A little later, I wasn’t so sure.
    “Watch this,” said Richie as he turned on the faucets and the tub began to fill with water.
    “What’s going on?” asked Rita.
    George backed away. “I don’t want to take a bath! I had one yesterday!”
    “I doubt that. Maybe the day before,” his sister, Josie, snapped. “Maybe.”
    “We’re not here to take a bath,” said Richie. “We’re here to see what floats!”
    Aha! I realized that Richie was going to show his cousins what Mr. Fitch and Mrs. Brisbane had showed us in the library.
    Richie started things off by holding up a penny.
    “Float or won’t float?” he asked.
    “Won’t!” his cousins shouted in unison.
    The penny sank to the bottom of the tub.
    Next, George took a pencil out of his pocket. “Float or won’t float?”
    “Will!” Rita, Serena and Sarah agreed.
    “Won’t!” Alex, Anthony and Josie agreed.
    The pencil floated beautifully. All it needed was a sail to look just like a sailboat.
    The cousins soon scattered all over the house and returned with more things to test. They tried a peppermint stick (sank), a flip-flop (floated), a leaf (floated until it got soggy and sank) and a seashell (sank). A plastic cup did something very surprising. It floated on its side until it was three-quarters full of water, then it tipped up and floated upright.
    Finally, a teddy bear floated on his back with a big happy smile on his face. I guess it’s okay for furry teddy bears to get wet, unlike furry hamsters.
    Then George and Anthony got into a splashing fight. George’s dad looked in to see what was going on.
    “It’s a science experiment,” Richie told him.
    “Anything that can get George to the bathtub is fine with me,” he said. “Just clean up the mess when you’re finished.”
    It was fun to watch all the splashing until Alex grabbed the hamster ball and said, “What about this? Will it float?”
    “NO-NO-NO!” I squeaked. I didn’t know if the ball would float or not, but I knew that I didn’t want to get wet! And even though the plastic would protect me from the water, those air holes were sure to let water in. When I’d wished for an adventure on the water, this wasn’t what I had in mind!
    Alex was carrying me toward the tub as I shrieked, “Stop him! I shouldn’t get wet!”
    I wasn’t sure if anyone could hear me with all that plastic around me.
    He held the ball over the water. I took a deep breath and squeaked, “Eeeeeeek!”
    At that point, my friend Richie grabbed the ball out of Alex’s hand. “Not with Humphrey in it, you dodo.”
    Richie opened the ball, took me out and handed the ball back to his cousin. “Here,” he said.
    Alex dropped my hamster ball into the tub, where it bobbed up and down on the water, floating along.
    My heart was pounding, but I was GLAD-GLAD-GLAD I wasn’t inside.
    Richie put me back in my cage, where I burrowed into my sleeping hut for a long, dry nap.
    On Sunday afternoon, Richie cleaned my cage. He did an excellent job. While he was changing my water, his mom brought in the phone and said he had a call.
    “Hello?” Richie said. “Oh . . . Kirk.”
    He sure didn’t seem happy to hear from his partner.
    “Okay. Okay. Okay.” That’s all I heard. I couldn’t hear what Kirk said, but Richie told me after he said good-bye.
    “Dumb old Kirk. He took the boat home again and wanted to tell me it sailed really great,” Richie explained. “What a jerk. Kirk the jerk.”
    Then he unexpectedly slipped me in his pocket. It was dark in there, but I could make out a couple of dried-up raisins and half a stick of gum stuck to the cloth. Luckily, I was only there for a few seconds.
    Richie went into the bathroom, locked the door, took me out of his pocket and set