Spring According to Humphrey Read Online Free PDF Page B

whiskers wiggle.
    I may be friends with a frog, but I don’t think I could ever be friends with a leopard.
    ‘Does the book mention if leopard frogs have teeth?’ I squeaked. How I wish Joey could understand me.
    Og may have an enormous mouth, but at least he doesn’t have teeth!
    ‘It takes a while to turn into a frog, but it will sure be something to see,’ Joey said.
    Then he leaped up. As he ran out of the room, he said, ‘I’ve got to call Dad to say thank you!’
    I’m used to sitting in my cage next to a tank containing a frog.
    I’m not used to sitting in my cage next to a tank containing specks.
    I turned to stare at them, but they didn’t say anything.
    ‘Hello,’ I finally squeaked. ‘I’m Humphrey. I’m a hamster.’
    They didn’t even say ‘BOING!’ How rude.

    I wanted – I needed – to get a better look at the specks, but I waited until that night when Joey was in bed.
    I hardly ever open my lock-that-doesn’t-lock when a human is in the room, but I could see by the glow of Joey’s night-light that he was sound asleep.
    I jiggled my lock open without making any noise. Then I slowly walked over to the aquarium, which was lit by the night-light as well.
    There they were: two specks in a clear jelly-like goo.
    I stared at them, but they didn’t move. They didn’t do anything.
    They looked like two eyeballs staring back.
    They certainly looked more like eyeballs than like frogs.
    I watched for a while, but to squeak the truth, the specks were pretty boring, so I scurried back to my cage and quietly pulled the cage door shut.
    It was hard to understand why Joey was so excited about the tadpoles.
    But then, humans are always hard to understand.

    When Joey jumped up out of bed the next morning, he raced to the aquarium to look at the specks.
    ‘Good morning, Joey,’ I squeaked.
    ‘Hi, Humphrey,’ he said without even looking at me. ‘Just checking out the tadpoles.’
    He leaned in close and stared at them. I’m pretty sure they didn’t do anything.
    When he finally straightened up and looked at me, he said, ‘Nothing yet.’ Then he perked up. ‘Oh! I need to draw a picture of them for the bulletin board.’
    I didn’t think it would take a long time to draw two specks. Seconds, maybe.
    But Joey leaned over a piece of paper with his coloured pencils and drew and drew and drew. He used several pencils, even though there wasn’t much to draw.
    At one point, Joey’s mum said, ‘Hey, Joey – how about breakfast?’
    ‘Coming soon,’ he called back. ‘I’ve got to get this right.’
    When he was finished, he inspected it and then nodded his head. ‘Not too bad.’ Then he jumped up and ran out of the room. ‘See you later, Humphrey!’
    I was pretty sure that eating breakfast took a while, so once the coast was clear, I jiggled my lock-that-doesn’t-lock and scurried over to look at Joey’s drawing.
    It’s not easy for a small hamster to look at a large piece of paper, but I studied what Joey had drawn and it was … beautiful! Where I’dseen two specks in clear jelly, Joey had seen so much more!
    The specks were black, but the jelly was yellow and light green and really beautiful.
    When I glanced at the aquarium, I saw that the jelly really was yellow and green and shimmering.
    I couldn’t risk being caught outside of my cage, so I raced back and closed the door behind me.
    When Joey returned from breakfast, he took some photos of the specks.
    ‘I want to show Dad what they look like,’ he said.
    Then he took a picture of me. I stood still and smiled. I’m not sure he could tell I was smiling, but Joey said, ‘Great!’
    He raced out of the room again.
    ‘I haven’t seen him so excited in a long time,’ I squeaked out loud.
    The specks had nothing to say.

6 SWIM-SWIM-SWIM
    On Monday, Joey’s mum threw a small blanket over the aquarium and another one over my cage and I began my dark journey back to school.
    ‘Mrs Brisbane was excited about having the