Birney Imagination According to Humphrey

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-28252-4
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 176 Seiten

Reihe: Humphrey the Hamster

Everyone's favourite hamster has another adventure in Room 26 and beyond! In this eleventh book in the bestselling 'According to Humphrey' series, Humphrey and his friends in Room 26 let their imaginations loose! Ahead of a big author visit to Longfellow Elementary School, they try writing their own stories, but Humphrey worries that hamsters don't have any imagination; he's finding creative writing just too hard. While he helps out his friends in Room 26, and the new school pet Gigi, a guinea pig, Humphrey encounters real, live parrots, dragons and even ghosts . . . and finally manages to let his imagination soar.

Betty G. Birney worked at Disneyland and the Disney Studios, has written many children's television shows and is the author of over forty books, including the bestselling The World According to Humphrey, which won the Richard and Judy Children's Book Club Award, as well as a further nine books in the According to Humphrey series, and eight books in the Humphrey's Tiny Tales series. Her work has won many awards, including an Emmy and three Humanitas Prizes. She lives in America with her husband.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Birney, Betty G.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Chapman, Jason

Leseproben

It was after lunch and our teacher, Mrs Brisbane, was reading a book to everyone in Room 26 of Longfellow School, where I live.

She continued:

Someone in the back of the room gasped.

Mrs Brisbane kept on reading.

He was perfectly fine? My whiskers wiggled at the thought of flying over fiery treetops.

You see, Gil’s village had really terrible weather. It snowed in the summer and it flooded in the winter and they had BIG-BIG-BIG storms all the time. It was miserable, but no one knew how to make it better.

‘Yes, WHY-WHY-WHY?’ I squeaked.

Mrs Brisbane looked up at all of my classmates.

My tail twitched as I imagined riding a dragon. Dogs are smaller than dragons but they’re still pretty scary and have bad breath. At least they don’t breathe fire!

‘Don’t stop!’ Slow-Down-Simon shouted.

Mrs Brisbane closed the book. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to keep you in suspense until tomorrow.’

Calm-Down-Cassie shivered. ‘The dragon seems nice, but I hope I never meet a real one!’

‘I agree!’ I said.

Of course, since I’m a small classroom hamster, all that my human friends heard was ‘Squeak.’

‘BOING-BOING!’ My neighbour Og jumped up and down in his tank. He’s the classroom frog. Maybe he’s afraid of dragons, too.

‘Dragons aren’t real,’ Tell-the-Truth-Thomas said. ‘They’re only in books. You shouldn’t believe everything you read in a story.’

‘There real dragons,’ Not-Now-Nicole said.

‘Eeek!’ I squeaked.

Thomas laughed. ‘You have a really good imagination!’

‘But there were dragons a long time ago,’ Cassie said. ‘Right, Mrs Brisbane?’

Mrs Brisbane smiled. ‘Some stories are true. They’re called non-fiction. But other stories come out of the imagination. Those books are called fiction, like this book.’

‘There are dragons that aren’t imaginary,’ Nicole said. ‘My brother has one.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Brisbane asked.

‘Really!’ Nicole said.

Stop-Talking-Sophie raised her hand. ‘I don’t see any dragons walking around today – but that doesn’t mean they never did. Why did so many people write stories about them?’

‘That’s a good question,’ Mrs Brisbane said. ‘Any ideas on why people might have imagined there were dragons?’

The room was quiet for a moment.

I had no ideas at all. I would NEVER-NEVER-NEVER want to imagine there were real scary dragons!

Just-Joey raised his hand. ‘Maybe people saw some big old bones – like dinosaur bones – and thought they were from something like a dragon. And maybe there was a forest fire and people thought the beast breathed flames that started the fire.’

‘Yes!’ Thomas said. ‘And then they started to imagine all kinds of things the dragon did.’

Mrs Brisbane nodded. ‘I think it might have happened like that.’

I still wasn’t sure.

The room was quiet until Not-Now-Nicole giggled. ‘Maybe we should get a dragon for a classroom pet. One like my brother’s.’

It had been hard enough to get used to a frog as the other pet in Room 26. Especially a frog like Og, who makes a weird sound and has some odd habits. But a fire-breathing dragon?

‘NO-NO-NO!’ I squeaked.

The students sitting close to our table heard me and laughed.

‘Don’t worry, Humphrey,’ Thomas said. ‘We’re not getting a dragon … because they’re imaginary.’

By that time, I wasn’t even interested in an dragon.

‘Tell us about this dragon your brother has, Nicole,’ Mrs Brisbane said.

‘Her name is Pearl and she’s really beautiful,’ Nicole said.

My classmates burst out laughing.

I didn’t think what Nicole said was funny at all. She looked REALLY-REALLY-REALLY upset.

‘She is real! I’ll prove it to you,’ she said. ‘I’ll call my mum right now. She’ll tell you.’

‘Not-Now-Nicole,’ Mrs Brisbane said. ‘It’s time for us to get out our maths books. You can explain later.’

I usually try to learn along with my fellow classmates, even though I don’t have a maths book. But my eyelids got heavy and I slipped into my sleeping hut for a short nap.

When I woke up, I crawled back out and glanced across the table by the window where my cage sits.

Og was in his tank next to my cage. I think he was dozing, too, but it’s hard to tell. Sometimes he closes his eyes but he’s not sleeping.

(I told you, he’s a little odd.)

I glanced out of the other side of my cage and was unsqueakably happy to see that there was no pet dragon blowing hot smoke at me. Whew!

Then I looked towards the front of the room.

I don’t know how long I’d slept, but instead of writing numbers on the board, Mrs Brisbane was talking about writing.

‘This is my favourite time in the school year,’ she said. ‘Today, we start being writers. I know you all brought your writing notebooks today. Will you hold them up?’

The other students all held up notebooks and each one was different.

Helpful-Holly’s had big yellow sunflowers on it.

Tall-Paul’s had a motorcycle on the cover, while Small-Paul’s had a photo of the space shuttle.

I climbed up to the tippy-top of my cage so I could see better. I saw smiley faces, princesses, polka dots and stars.

My friends in Room 26 have a lot of interests!

‘Once you start writing your ideas in your notebooks, you’re on your way to being a writer,’ Mrs Brisbane explained.

‘What if we don’t have any ideas?’ Hurry-Up-Harry asked.

Some of my classmates giggled.

‘I mean, what if we don’t have any ideas about what to write?’ Harry said.

‘We all have ideas,’ Mrs Brisbane said. ‘The notebook is a tool to help you.’

‘Like a hammer?’ Fix-It-Felipe asked. I know he likes hammers, because he can fix just about anything.

More of my friends giggled.

Mrs Brisbane laughed, too. ‘In a way, yes. It’s a tool to help you learn how to find ideas and develop them.’

Helpful-Holly laughed. ‘I think Felipe would rather have a hammer.’

‘All right, enough joking, class,’ our teacher said. ‘To get you started, I’m going to give you an assignment.’ She paused to write on the board.

‘And then fill in the blank however you like,’ she explained. ‘You can start now, but the bell will ring soon, so bring in your completed work tomorrow.’

‘Fly? Without a plane?’ Cassie asked.

‘You get to decide if it’s a plane or a bird or anything you can imagine,’ Mrs Brisbane said. ‘Then I want you to write a sentence saying where you would go. This is the beginning of your assignment and eventually you will end up with a real story.’

She pointed to her head. ‘Use your imaginations. And spend some time thinking about your idea before you start writing.’

I heard some sighs and dropped pencils as my friends opened their notebooks.

Hurry-Up-Harry looked confused.

Slow-Down-Simon looked grumpy.

Calm-Down-Cassie looked anything but calm.

After they wrote down the beginning that Mrs Brisbane assigned, they stopped writing. They just stared at the blank pages.

‘Do we have to decide now?’ Do-It-Now-Daniel asked.

‘Start thinking now,’ Mrs Brisbane said. ‘You’ll share your ideas tomorrow.’

Just-Joey shook his head. ‘I never know how to start.’

Mrs Brisbane said, ‘It sometimes helps if you brainstorm.’

Eeek! Brainstorm? My ears wiggled at the word. Imagine having rain and lightning and thunder in your brain!

‘Take five minutes and write down any idea that comes into your head,’ our teacher explained. ‘Even if the idea seems silly or impossible, or if you don’t even like it, write it down anyway. When the five minutes is up, look at your list of ideas and you’ll probably find at least one that you would like to write about. Then you can start. The assignment is only two sentences.’

‘How...