George

  (george)

  For Sherry Berks and Harriett Rosenberg with love from the middle sib

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1970 by E. L. Konigsburg

  Copyright renewed © 1998 by E. L. Konigsburg

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Designed by Mike Rosamilia

  The text of this book was set in Bembo

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition September 2007

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  The Library of Congress has cataloged

  the hardcover edition as follows:

  Konigsburg, E. L.

  (George) / written and illustrated by E. L. Konigsburg—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When twelve-year-old Benjamin refuses

  to see what is going on

  in his chemistry lab, the little man who lives inside of him

  must finally speak out in public for the safety of all concerned.

  PZ7.K8352 Ge [Fic]

  78115072

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4169-4957-2 (pbk.)

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4424-3965-8

  Contents

  Before

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  After

  before

  Only two people knew that George was probably the funniest little man in the whole world and that he used foul language. Howard Carr knew, and so did Howard’s older brother, Benjamin Dickinson Carr. Benjamin knew because the funniest little man in the whole world lived inside of him, and Howard knew because, except for Ben, he was the only other person that George had ever spoken out loud to. For a long time. For all the years until the year of Benjamin’s sixth grade when the events to be written here happened. Until then, even their mother had not known that when she gave birth to Benjamin, she had given birth to concentric twins.

  But Benjamin had always known about George. He had once talked to his mother about him and told her the things that George said. Up to a certain point, Mrs. Carr had accepted George. “Most creative children have imaginary playmates,” she had explained to her lady friends and to Ben’s father in the years ago before he left home. “I guess that when the new baby comes, Ben will forget all about George.”

  Ben had watched his mother; she had told him that the new baby was inside of her and that he would come out and that that was called being born. It was perfectly logical for Ben to expect that George who lived inside of him would get born, too. But after Mother’s new baby had come out as Howard and was nothing but red and screaming and couldn’t talk or say any of the clever things that George did, Ben had never regretted that George didn’t get born then or ever. Or ever afterwards. But Ben never mentioned George to his mother anymore. Charlotte Carr had expected George to disappear after the new baby came, and Ben allowed him to. Altogether inside.

  When the new baby, Howard, was still an infant, he had cried a lot and his problem was called colic. As he got older, it was hard to know what to call it; but whatever it was, it couldn’t be called an improvement. He didn’t cry anymore; he grouched. George explained that Howard never really learned to talk; he just learned to talk back. Sometimes Ben wondered if Howard was the reason their father had left home, but Dad had gone when Howard was only two and didn’t talk very much yet.

  There needs to be recorded only two sets of incidents from those years before Benjamin’s sixth grade. One begins at the time of Benjamin’s kindergarten when Ben’s special talents were discovered, and the other comes from the time of Howard’s kindergarten, which reveals how Howard came to be the only other person to know about George.

  When Benjamin was in kindergarten and Howard was still a cranky crawler, Mrs. Carr read to Ben an alphabet book one day. Alphabet books come in as many varieties as breakfast cereals. This one was called Nature’s Own Alphabet. Mrs. Carr had been only the fourth person in two and a half years to check it out of the library. The pictures had come from a biology textbook. They were accurate but not pretty. This alphabet book began with A (they always, always do!), and so Mrs. Carr read:

  A is for Asterias,

  The starfish of our beaches

  It has five arms with which to hug

  Everything it reaches.

  Ben asked his mother, “How can a starfish hold on to everything in the water where everything gets slippery and wet? Must have lots of teeth on its arms.”

  George spoke silently, “Starfish aren’t really fish. They don’t have teeth.”

  “No, it doesn’t have teeth on its arms,” Mrs. Carr said.

  Ben insisted, “Fishes have teeth.”

  George said, “What did I tell you? Everything isn’t what it is called. Starfish aren’t fish.”

  “Starfish aren’t really fish,” Mrs. Carr said. “They have tiny suction cups,” she added. Then she realized that she would have to explain what suction cups were and where they were and how they worked. So, using the picture in the book to show and tell, she explained it all to Ben. Partly because doing so was more fun than washing the breakfast dishes, which were lying under the luncheon dishes, which were also unwashed and lying in the kitchen sink.

  Ben quietly listened. Ben had always been quiet; Mrs. Carr had always had the feeling that Ben had special talents and understood everything that she told him. She also knew that most mothers had that feeling about most firstborn sons. When they went to the beach the following weekend, Mrs. Carr found out that her thinking about Ben may have been fond, but it was also correct.

  Little Howard was sitting at the water’s edge, frowning first at the sand and then at the sea when Ben picked up a starfish that had been washed ashore. It happened: He recited the poem to his mother with George silently prompting him only about the name Asterias. Mrs. Carr smiled, and George urged Ben to tell his mother about how the starfish used suction to walk and to open clams. George knew that it would cheer her up. Ben did, making only one error; he said something for tentacles that made Mrs. Carr laugh out loud.

  That evening Mrs. Carr had a long talk with Mr. Carr. It was the first time in months that they had discussed something with each other instead of scolding each other about it. The result of that discussion was that Ben was sent for special tests and then to Astra, a special, experimental, public school. Children came to Astra from all parts of the county, for there each student was allowed to advance at his own rate. Or rates.

  There Ben was able to take English and social studies with other kids his own age at the same time he took science courses with students much older.

  Ben and George had taken biology when Ben was in the fourth grade and both chemistry and physics in the fifth. George had enjoyed biology enormously, and he had helped Benjamin throughout. Joyfully he had helped. He had memorized the names of all the bones for Ben and the names of all the plant phyla like Spermatophyta and Bryophyta. He had learned the names of all
the blood vessels, and he had helped Ben to spell everything correctly. In the year of Benjamin’s sixth grade, two years after he had taken biology, if you asked Ben the names of the bones of the body, he would get the answers from George and tell you. There was always a pause between question and response like radio messages being beamed to the moon and bounced off so they can be returned to earth.

  It was in biology that Ben had first become William’s lab partner. Benjamin’s reputation had preceded him into the room. He entered, and a voice called out, “Hey, Carr, come sit here.” The voice had belonged to William Hazlitt, one of the most famous students at Astra. Ben had been flattered to be singled out by someone who was not only glamorous but also much older, for William was in tenth grade when Ben was in fourth. And the following year when William and Ben took two science courses, physics and general chemistry, in one year, they again were partners. Again because William saved space for Ben. Ben felt flattered but not overwhelmed.

  Ben never avoided other students; he just didn’t make time for them. And until the year of his sixth grade, he never seemed to need to. He was busy with school and with responsibilities at home. No one in his neighborhood went to Astra, and vacations were often spent in Norfolk, Virginia, with his father and his father’s new family. Ben wandered from social studies to science and from school to bus alone. But not really. He had always George within him to amuse him and to disturb his quiet when he needed company.

  It was in biology that Ben and George had learned a word that was special to them. Special and significant. Symbiosis: a relationship in which two things live together for the benefit of both. They had learned that lichens growing on a tree trunk are symbiotic, and bacteria growing in the roots of clover are symbiotic. Symbiotic is what Ben and George were. A secret symbiotic society. They wished that they didn’t have to share that word with lichens and bacteria.

  Whenever Ben was working out a problem, George would ask him if there was anything he wanted him to remember, any special number or other information that might clutter up Benjamin’s brain. In fifth grade George had remembered all the atomic weights and all the atomic numbers of the elements and had saved Ben a lot of time and trouble during examinations. Ben could spend more time and thought on difficult problems since he always had information stored up inside of him. But George was best at solving problems that required a new way of looking at things. Sometimes it would be a zany word that George would say or sometimes just a wild point of view. Ben and George reached for answers together. And loved it.

  Ben was a happy boy. Most people who knew him didn’t realize that he was until his happiness collapsed. They confused happiness with gaiety, but happiness isn’t always loud and bright and crowded. Happiness ripens like a watermelon, sweet and rosy on the inside with only a thin top layer altogether free of small black pits. And, like a watermelon, the whole can be covered with a plain dark rind. Though Benjamin was wrapped in quiet, though Benjamin was shy, he was happy. George inside of him was loudmouthed enough for Ben. Ben and George got along splendidly, symbiotically, for all the years until the year of Benjamin’s sixth grade when Ben’s need to be accepted by others became greater than his need to be acceptable to George.

  It remains to be told how Howard came to know of George.

  Even when Howard was merely an infantile civil disorder, George was discovering nice things about him and telling Ben about them. “Look,” he would say to make certain that Ben noticed that Howard had shared the last four Hershey kisses with him, even though the two that he gave Ben were unwrapped and wore a thin coat of lint. “Look,” he would say to make certain that Ben noticed that Howard had told his best friend, Raymond, that yellow was the best color because his big brother Ben had said so. Howard began to eat ketchup on soft boiled eggs; Ben always had. Howie waved hi with the same snap to his wrist that Ben used. Ben had seen him practicing in front of a mirror. Howard would run up to Ben whenever he saw him and give him a firm poke in the gut and then snuggle under Ben’s chin. Ben got to like the way Howard’s hair smelled. Actually, Ben learned to love him. Impossible Howard. Impossible him.

  The day after Howard was expelled from kindergarten was the day that Ben told him about George. Howard didn’t start out being expelled; he started out being sent home. But by then Howard was the product of a broken home; his mother worked and would not be home if they sent him there; so Mrs. Hutchinson decided that even though she could not send him home, she would not keep him in the classroom any longer that day. Not for another minute. So he was banished to the playground. The Volkswagen minibus that the school used for transportation was parked on a bed of oyster shells just outside the playground fence.

  Next to loudness, Howard loved cars best. Howard’s bad reputation had made the driver sit him up front right by her. All the time. To and from school. Everyday. Right up front under the watchful eye of Mrs. C. Prendergast who drove the bus. Howard, too, had a watchful eye. He watched everything that Mrs. C. Prendergast did to make the bus go. Every little thing.

  Unfortunately, Howard’s legs, which were long enough to allow him to climb the school playground fence, were too short for him to get the clutch all the way down. Right after he turned on the ignition, he stripped the gears. The noise was interesting and loud, so Howard did it several times again. The fourth-going-on-fifth time brought Mrs. Hutchinson out of the classroom. She found Howard sitting in the driver’s seat saying Vroom, Vroom, calm and happy. That was when the kindergarten expelled Howard. Howard had lifted the keys from a peg in the office on his way out. They got him for the keys, but they were really mad about the clutch.

  Mrs. Carr demanded a refund of the tuition, and the school did not even suggest that they send her a check in the mail. They opened their drawer of petty cash and withdrew fifteen dollars worth of milk money, all in ones, and Mrs. Carr signed a receipt not only for her money but also for Howard. They wiped him off their books.

  Mrs. Carr had to take a day off work to register Howard at the next kindergarten. The new school asked that she bring him along for the interview, and you couldn’t blame them.

  As she filled out the registration form, the director addressed her questions to Howard instead of to Mrs. Carr. “And how old are we now, Howie?” the lady asked.

  “The big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on the two,” Howie answered.

  The lady smiled and said, “No, no. No, no. We didn’t ask Howie what time it is.”

  And Howard replied, “And Howie didn’t exactly tell you neither.”

  The school took Howard anyway; they specialized in kindergarten dropouts. It was very expensive and called itself “The Wee House in the Woods.” Howard, however, was not certain that he wanted to continue a career in kindergarten, at least not that kindergarten. Mrs. Carr was worried that no other school would take him at such a late date and with such a reputation. She asked Ben to help her convince his brother. When they were alone, Ben began.

  He opened with, “I’m sure you’ll love the Wee House in the Woods …”

  George interrupted. George doubled up just one word in the school’s name and made it sound ridiculous. Ben told Howard, Howard laughed.

  Howard said, “O.K., Ben, I’ll go. But it’s a good thing that you thought of a good name for that dumb sissy lace.”

  Ben told him that it was George who thought of it.

  “Like George who?”

  Ben told him who George was.

  Howard asked, “Does he have a moustache?”

  Ben answered that he didn’t know because George never talked about himself, and, of course, Ben had never seen him.

  Howard requested that Ben ask him now, but before Ben could, George answered all by himself, “Why would I want a moustache? They’re for showing, and I never show myself.”

  Howard realized that the special deep voice that appeared to come from his brother Ben really came from George. He asked Ben, “Did you swallow something special to get George inside of you?”
/>
  Ben smiled. “No, I was born special.”

  Howard voted to finish kindergarten on a month to month basis, and it was all understood among them after that. For years Howard, Ben, and George faced the world as Howard and Ben. Howard got along well with George; George had wanted a friend, and he found Howard a comfortable one. They looked at the world in the same way, except that Howard could see it.

  After kindergarten Howard started public school. There were no special schools in Lawton Beach for his particular talents—common sense and bad manners.

  Lawton Beach, washed and bleached, is the town in southeastern Florida where they all lived two years ago when these things happened. If you think of the Florida peninsula as a swollen thumb being soaked in salt water, Lawton Beach is where you’d get a hangnail on the outside edge. The beach there is popular because it is public and because it is beautiful. Public beaches are rare in that part of Florida where tall apartment houses and hotels bead the coast and block the view. Lawton Beach has a five mile strip of public sand that butts against Highway A1A on one side and plays watch-me/wash-me with the ocean on the other.

  Every spring a mighty crowd of college students storms that free beach. The whole town for Easter week becomes a carnival: loud music, swift rides on land or sea, popcorn, beer, and little sleep. It is a challenge to the local government to keep a balance between being friendly and being firm. Lawton Beach normally makes news during Easter week. It makes national back page news because youth has become a celebrity, but in that part of Florida, the college crowd creates front page news because it creates business. The Lawton Beach Daily Sun issues an ANNUAL SPRING INVASION issue.

  If it were not for George, the events to be here recorded would have made headlines, front-page headlines, everywhere. And then some lives would have been changed forever. And for worse.

  one