11. Furious George

CHAPTER 11 FURIOUS GEORGE There is not a whole lot you can do when you are a little kid who encounters injustice. Your natural desire is to set things right, but that can often backfire, resulting in even greater injustices. The sad truth is, big people usually have all of the power. You can't force anybody to be kind or fair or honorable, especially if you're only forty-three inches tall and weigh only fifty pounds. That's why it's important to be smart.

George Beard had just witnessed the most hostile and unfair thing he had ever seen. The bad guys outnumbered him by five to one and outweighed him by probably 700 pounds. But George was smarter than all of them put together, and he knew it. As the bullies dragged Harold across the street, George looked around him for the best way to make things right. He focused in on the display sign next to him. The sign read FREE BRAKE INSPECTION. This was a busy intersection, and George knew that a tiny change on this sign could create a great deal of pandemonium, so he reached over to the sign and removed the letters k and e from the word brake.

"HEY!" screamed Billy Bill. "YOU GIT AWAY FROM THAT SIGN RIGHT NOW, Y'HEAR?!!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU KIDS THESE DAYS?!!?" Billy Bill marched over to George, yelling and waving his hands in the air frantically. He reached out to grab George by the shirt collar, but he never got the chance.

At that very moment, a violet Volkswagen jumped the curb and screeched up next to Billy Bill. Two old ladies flew out of the car, screaming at the top of their lungs! "Free BRA inspection?!!?" shouted the driver, as she smacked Billy Bill over the head with her purse. "That's OFFENSIVE!!!" "HOW DARE YOU?!!?" yelled the other lady, hitting Billy Bill with her cane. "Women are human beings, not toys for you to play with!"

"You're a MALE CHAUVINIST PIG!" screamed a third lady, who had run over from the coffee shop across the street with a group of her angry female friends. They each took turns kicking Billy Bill repeatedly in the knees, as other women drivers slammed on their brakes and rushed forward to join in the ferocious female fight for equality. "You gotta learn to stick up for yourself,"

George said to Billy Bill, smiling, "or people are gonna bully you your whole life!" George walked past the giant traffic jam that was forming and ignored Billy Bill's tear-filled cries for mercy as the kicking and whacking and hair-pulling and foot-stomping continued. George was looking for that yellow-haired kid.