12 George the Joker

George the Joker written by Pam Holden illustrated by Michael Cashmore-Hingley

George was a practical joker. He loved to play tricks on his family and friends. Sometimes he played scary tricks. He thought of ways to surprise children and make them frightened. He hid around corners and jumped out yelling "Boo!" "It's only a joke," he laughed. George used scary noises for some of his jokes. He liked to hide outside the window and make strange noises that sounded like wild animals growling. He jumped up and laughed when people got frightened and whispered to each other, "What was that?"

At school, he glued a coin onto the step, then he counted how many people stopped to try to pick it up. They felt very silly when they learned it was a trick. One day he stuck a sign onto the back of his sister's jacket. It said "It's my birthday", so all day her friends kept saying "Happy birthday!" She had to tell them that it wasn't really her birthday that day. When she took off her jacket, she found the sign on the back. "I can guess who put that there," she said. "I am tired of George's practical jokes."

At home, George opened his brother's bedroom door and put a pillow on the top. When the young boy pushed the door to go inside, the pillow fell down on his head George laughed and laughed, but it didn't seem funny to his brother. None of the children liked George's mean tricks, but they didn't know how to stop him. They decided to do something kind to please him, so they let him be the captain of their soccer team. But that didn't make him stop playing tricks. He thought it was funny to tie the players' shoelaces together, and he laughed when they could hardly walk. "It's only a joke," George told them.

But at last, Matthew felt tired of George's tricks, so he told his Grandfather about the practical jokes. "I have an idea to help you," said Grandpa. "Jokers like to play tricks, but they don't like to have tricks played on them. Watch him carefully until you notice something that frightens him. Then you'll be able to teach him a lesson." So Matthew and his friends watched George carefully. One day, they noticed that he was very quiet when the class was having a lesson about different kinds of spiders. He stayed at the back of the classroom and he would not touch the spiders. "Ooooh!" he said. "I hate creepy, crawly creatures."

Matthew and the other children made a clever plan. Each person found a huge, hairy spider to take to school. They waited until it was time for the sports captains to go up onto the stage to get the teams' prizes. As George proudly walked up the steps to get the soccer prize, the children carefully dropped the enormous spiders into the hood of his jacket.