E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten
Birney Mysteries According to Humphrey
Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-25544-3
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 208 Seiten
ISBN: 978-0-571-25544-3
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
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.
Weitere Infos & Material
Outside the sun was shining, but inside Room 26 of Longfellow School, it was a dark and stormy night.
Mrs Brisbane, our teacher, was reading us a fur-raising mystery story from a big red book.
A mystery is like a puzzle. It can be something unsqueakably scary like a thing that goes THUMP in the night.
Or a mystery can be something ordinary, like what happened to Mrs Brisbane’s glasses. Sometimes our teacher can’t find her glasses when they’re right on her head.
Even though my classmates and I can read by ourselves, we love having Mrs Brisbane read to us. (It is surprising that I can read, because I am the classroom hamster, but I am also SMART-SMART-SMART, if I do say so myself.)
As I listened, I climbed up to the tippy top of my cage and looked out at my classmates. When school started in September, they were all mysteries to me. I didn’t realize that at the beginning of the school year, a new class comes in. A class of total strangers.
It’s taken me a while to work out why Hurry-Up-Harry is late so often and why Slow-Down-Simon moves so fast. I learned that Rolling-Rosie’s wheelchair doesn’t slow her down a bit. And I learned that Helpful-Holly is sometimes Too-Helpful-Holly.
Now it’s October. I’m still getting to know some of the students who sit on the opposite side of the room from my cage. I haven’t worked out why Do-It-Now-Daniel Dee always puts things off and why Stop-Talking-Sophie Kaminski has so much trouble being quiet.
In time, I hope I’ll solve those mysteries, too. I guess being a classroom hamster is a lot like being a detective.
A detective is someone who solves mysteries. The story Mrs Brisbane was reading was about a detective named Sherlock Holmes, who was one smart human. In his picture on the cover of the red book, he wore a strange-looking hat. Mrs Brisbane said it was called a deerstalker hat. She also said he sometimes played the violin to help him think. (Which made me wish I had a violin of my own.)
There were a lot of stories in the book. This puzzling mystery had to do with a man with flaming-red hair, named Mr Jabez Wilson. He came to Sherlock Holmes and explained something strange that happened to him. It started when he saw an ad in the newspaper for a job that was only for a person with flaming-red hair. I guess that’s why the name of the story was ‘The Red-Headed League’.
Mrs Brisbane asked us, ‘Why would they only want someone with red hair?’
Kelsey Kirkpatrick’s hand shot up so fast, she almost hit Just-Joey, who sat next to her.
‘Please Be-Careful-Kelsey,’ Mrs Brisbane said. ‘So what do you think?’
Kelsey said, ‘They must be looking for somebody smart! Everybody knows that redheads are the cleverest people!’
My classmates all laughed, because Kelsey has red hair. Naturally, she would think red-haired people are the cleverest.
Mrs Brisbane laughed, too. ‘Yes, Kelsey. Some red-haired people are very smart. But I don’t think that was the reason.’
She asked if we had any other ideas.
I thought and thought. If the job needed someone smart, I think they might look for a clever hamster, like me.
Paul Fletcher, whom I think of as Small-Paul, had another idea. ‘Maybe they needed someone who looked like someone else … a different person with red hair?’ he suggested.
‘That’s an interesting idea, Paul. You’d make a good detective,’ Mrs Brisbane said.
Paul Green, whom I think of as Tall-Paul, raised his hand. ‘Maybe the person has to wear a costume,’ he suggested. ‘And they need red hair to go with the costume.’
‘Excellent idea,’ Mrs Brisbane said.
Thomas T. True looked puzzled and he raised his hand. ‘Is this a true story?’ he asked. ‘I mean, is Sherlock Holmes a real person?’
Mrs Brisbane smiled. ‘No, it’s a made-up story. But Sherlock Holmes almost seems like a real person, and he’s been popular for many years. When he solves a mystery, he looks for clues.’
She explained that a clue is information that helps you solve a mystery. And Sherlock Holmes was always looking for clues, because a good detective always has to be sharp-eyed.
Mrs Brisbane read some more. The red-haired man got hired, but it turned out that the job was nothing more than copying out the encyclopedia every evening.
What a strange job! Why would anyone need someone to copy the encyclopedia? And why would the person have to have red hair?
This was a mystery, indeed!
Suddenly, Mrs Brisbane stopped reading and closed the book.
‘Eeek!’ I squeaked. My classmates all groaned and begged her to read more, but it was almost time for afternoon break.
‘When you come back, I’ll have a different kind of mystery for you,’ she said, which got us all excited again.
Soon, the classroom was empty, except for Og the frog and me. (Classroom pets like us don’t get to go outside at break.)
Once we were alone, I squeaked to my neighbour, who lives in a tank next to my cage. ‘Og, why do you think that ad asked for someone with red hair?’ I asked.
Og splashed around a little in the water side of his tank and then leaped up and said, ‘BOING-BOING!’
He sounds like a broken guitar string, but he can’t help it. It’s just the sound he makes.
I guess he doesn’t know much about red hair. He doesn’t have any hair or fur at all. And he’s VERY-VERY-VERY green.
‘I don’t have any ideas, either,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure going to think about it.’
When my friends came back, they were anxious to hear about the other mystery.
‘You know, class, when we read, we’re all detectives,’ the teacher said.
We all looked puzzled.
‘Sometimes we come across a word we don’t know, right?’ she asked.
Everyone nodded, including me.
‘So to work out what the word means, we look for a clue,’ Mrs Brisbane continued. ‘Just like Sherlock Holmes. Try this sentence.’
Then Mrs Brisbane wrote something very mysterious on the board.
The twins looked so much alike, I was piewhacked when I tried to tell them apart.
Piewhacked? That word had never been on our vocabulary list.
Lots of my friends giggled when they saw the word.
‘Who knows what piewhacked means?’ Mrs Brisbane asked.
Thomas raised his hand. ‘I think it means “hit someone in the face with a pie”.’
Everybody laughed, including me. But that didn’t make much sense in the sentence about the twins.
‘Let’s try again,’ Mrs Brisbane said. She wrote another sentence.
The rules of football can be very piewhacking if you’ve never seen a match before.
This time, more students giggled.
Piewhacked? Piewhacking? What was she trying to say? Were the pies flying at the football match?
‘Look at how the word is used in the sentences to get some clues,’ she told us.
Mrs Brisbane wrote one more sentence on the board.
When the teacher put the wrong answers on the board, there was a lot of piewhacksion in the classroom.
Piewhacksion? Was there a pie fight in the classroom? Or had my teacher lost her mind?
‘I’m confused!’ I blurted out, even though all that my human friends heard was ‘SQUEAK!’
‘Confusion!’ Slow-Down-Simon shouted.
I’m sorry to say he forgot to raise his hand before speaking.
‘Confused!’ Too-Helpful-Holly said. She raised her hand, but she didn’t wait for the teacher to call on her before speaking.
‘Let’s see if that word works,’ Mrs Brisbane said with a smile. ‘“The twins looked so much alike, I was confused when I tried to tell them apart.”’
That worked for me.
‘How about “The rules of football can be very confusing if you’ve never seen a match before”,’ she continued. ‘And finally, “When the teacher put the wrong answers on the board, there was a lot of confusion in the classroom.”’
Now I was pawsitive that piewhack meant confuse.
‘For your homework tonight, here are five more mystery words to work out,’ she said as she handed Rolling-Rosie homework sheets to pass out.
Unfortunately, Rosie didn’t give me one, so I couldn’t see what the mystery words were.
I tried making up my own mystery words, like flapple and scarrot, but they just made me hungry!
At the end of the day, just before the bell rang, the door to Room 26 swung open and in walked Mrs Wright, the physical education teacher. She was clutching a pink jacket and, as usual, wore a shiny silver whistle on a cord around her neck.
Mrs Wright likes to blow that whistle and when she does, it makes my ears wiggle and the fur on my neck stand up. It’s LOUD-LOUD-LOUD. Way too loud for the small, sensitive ears of a hamster.
Mrs Wright also likes rules. Okay, she loves rules.
I can understand why someone who teaches children to play games would love rules, because rules are very important to games. But to squeak the truth, I think she loves rules just a tiny bit too much, and I think Mrs Brisbane agrees with me.
‘Yes, Mrs Wright?’ our teacher asked.
Mrs Wright raised the pink jacket...
