BIRTHDAYS-BIRTHDAYS-BIRTHDAYS
Lots of exciting things happen in Room 26 of Longfellow School.
I see them all because I live there. I am the classroom hamster.
But I think the best part of the day is when my friends come bursting through the door in the morning. They always have cheerful hellos, and they tell me about their news.
One morning, Kirk came into our classroom and said, “Happy birthday to me!”
Mandy looked puzzled. She stared at the row of cupcakes above the chalkboard and frowned.
Sometimes when I look at those cupcakes, my tail twitches and my whiskers wiggle. They look so YUMMY-YUMMY-YUMMY!
The problem is, they’re not real cupcakes. They’re just pictures of cupcakes with candles on top. Each one has a name and a date.
The cupcakes help us remember when a classmate has a birthday.
One thing I’ve learned from humans—birthdays are very important!
“It’s not your birthday, Kirk,” Mandy said.
Mandy Payne is a nice girl, but she does like to complain. I call her Don’t-Complain-Mandy-Payne.
“It’s almost my birthday,” Kirk said. “It will be on Friday.”
Mandy started shaking her head. “No, it won’t!” she insisted loudly.
Our teacher, Mrs. Brisbane, asked, “What’s the problem?”
“Kirk says it’s his birthday on Friday, but it’s not.” Mandy pointed to the cupcakes. “See? His birthday is on Saturday.”
Mrs. Brisbane nodded. “Yes. But since we don’t have school on Saturday, we’re celebrating Kirk’s birthday on Friday.”
“Fine,” Mandy said. “But he shouldn’t say it’s his birthday when it’s not.”
“Please Don’t-Complain-Mandy-Payne,” Mrs. Brisbane said.
“Hey, Mandy, I’ve got a joke for you,” Kirk said.
He loves to tell jokes, and I think he wanted to make Mandy smile.
“What do you give a nine-hundred-pound gorilla for his birthday?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Mandy answered.
“Anything he wants!” Kirk said, howling with laughter.
Some of my other friends laughed, too, like Stop-Giggling-Gail. She is almost always laughing.
“Anything he wants!” Repeat-It-Please-Richie said.
Richie, A.J. and Garth beat their chests and made grunting sounds. I think they were pretending to be gorillas.
Just then, the bell rang. School was starting, so my friends all sat down.
After Mrs. Brisbane took attendance, Kirk raised his hand.
“Mrs. Brisbane, am I going to be able to take Humphrey home for the weekend, like you said?” he asked.
I live in Room 26, but I’m LUCKY-LUCKY-LUCKY that I get to go home with my friends on weekends.
Our teacher nodded. “Yes, Kirk.”
“Good,” Kirk said. “He’ll be there for my birthday hsab. Everyone in class is invited.”
Hsab? What was that strange word?
The way he said it sounded like “huh-sab.”
Mrs. Brisbane gave him a funny look. “I’m glad everyone is invited,” she said. “But I’ve never heard of a hsab before. What does it mean?”
“I can’t tell you!” Kirk grinned broadly. “H-S-A-B. You have to work it out for yourselves. That’s part of the fun.”
“Maybe if we look at the word, it will help,” Mrs. Brisbane said. She wrote the strange word on the board in big letters: HSAB.
We all looked at it for a few seconds, but I don’t think it helped.
Then Mrs. Brisbane began teaching the class about numbers.
She said something about Jonny having twelve apples and Suzy taking away eight. I don’t know Suzy, but I hope she asked Jonny before she took away his apples!
I tried to pay attention to what Mrs. Brisbane was saying, but my mind kept wandering to the word on the board.
Hsab. What on earth could it mean?
Later that night, I turned to my neighbor, Og the Frog. He is the other classroom pet. His tank sits next to my cage.
“Do you know what hsab means?” I asked.
“BOING!” he replied.
He makes a funny sound, but he’s really very nice for a frog.
“Me neither,” I said.
I took out the little notebook and pencil that I keep hidden behind the mirror in my cage. I wrote down the word so I could take a closer look.
H S A B
I turned the page sideways. I turned it so the word was upside down. It still didn’t make sense. Then I flipped the notebook over so I couldn’t see the word anymore.
But I could see the mirror. In the mirror, everything looks backwards, including words.
This word looked STRANGE-STRANGE-STRANGE.
I saw a backwards B, an A, a backwards S and an H. In that order, the word would be B-A-S-H.
A bash! A bash is a great, big, wonderful party.
So Kirk was having a birthday bash!
But why did he write the word backwards? Humans are nice, but sometimes they do very strange things.
I wasn’t the only one in Room 26 who had worked out that hsab was bash spelled backwards.
As Lower-Your-Voice-A.J. came into class the next morning, he shouted, “It’s a birthday bash! I got the invitation, and my mom held it up to the mirror. Some of the letters were backwards, but she worked it out.”
A.J.’s mom must be SMART-SMART-SMART (like me).
Mrs. Brisbane asked Kirk to explain why he had written the words that way.
“It’s a backwards party,” he said. “Everything will be backwards. Hands down if you’re coming.”
Some of my friends raised up their hands.
“Down,” Kirk said. “Everything is backwards.”
There were some giggles and then every one of them waved a hand down at the floor. My paw went down, too.
“It sounds like a very interesting party,” Mrs. Brisbane said.
“Mrs. Brisbane?” Mandy said. “I’ve been looking at the birthday cupcakes, and some names are missing.”
Our teacher looked up at the row of cupcakes.
“Yours isn’t there,” Mandy continued. “Or Humphrey’s.”
I scrambled to the tippy top of my cage to see if she was right. Sure enough, Mrs. Brisbane’s name wasn’t there, and neither was mine.
Another name was also missing.
“What about Og?” I squeaked at the top of my tiny lungs.
“Oooh, Og’s birthday is missing, too,” Raise-Your-Hand-Heidi said. As usual, she forgot to raise her hand.
I was glad that Heidi had also noticed that Og’s name was missing. When I squeak, humans can’t understand me.
“I don’t need everyone to remember my birthday,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Every day I’m here in Room Twenty-six is a special day for me.”
My friends still wanted to know about Og and me.
“The problem is, I don’t know when they were born,” Mrs. Brisbane said.
I suddenly felt SAD-SAD-SAD. If no one knew when I was born, I could never have a birthday!
Heidi said, “Frogs aren’t born. They’re hatched!”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Brisbane said. “Frogs start out as eggs.”
Og splashed around a little in his tank.
I felt SAD-SAD-SAD for him, too. He could never have a birthday. He could have a hatchday, but nobody knew when it was.
