George’s Drawer

https://herschelsterling.com/#cat-kids Everyone knew George had all the best toys. Every day he’d bring a new toy to school and play with it at his desk. Every day the teacher would take his toy and put it in her desk. The next day he would bring another one. After many days, the teacher would have a drawer full of toys, but there was never any exhaustion of new ones brought by George. Sometimes when the teacher would go out of the room for something, kids would sneak up to her desk and look into the drawer full of toys. So many little cars and planes, robots and spacemen, boats and figurines. Whatever one could imagine, the drawer was practically overflowing. One day, George was sitting at his desk, and as usual he was playing with some small item. This day, things got unusually heated between George and the teacher. George fought for his toy. The teacher told him to give her the toy and he would not. Then she tried to take it from him, and he gripped it and attempted to stave her off. She succeeded in taking the toy and George began to scream. His screaming did not stop until the teacher showed him his drawer of toys. She told him if he would stop screaming, and settle down, and stay quiet and polite for the rest of the day, she would put all of his toys in a box and give them to him before he went home in the afternoon. George immediately behaved. He sat at his desk, with good posture, hands folded, smiling, with his chin in the air for the entire day. As the school day came to a close, the teacher went into her closet and found a box that would hold George’s toys. At the end of the day the teacher fulfilled her promise and she gave George his box of toys. George quickly went into the box, and he found what was presumably his favorite toy and stuffed it into his pocket. Then George used both hands and began scooping out the toys and showering the toys all over the room to the other kids. The kids scrambled for the toys, laughing and shouting. There were easily enough toys for all the kids to have at least one toy each. The next day, George’s desk was vacant. The kids were all whispering about it, and they were wondering where he was, and what could have happened. When the teacher came into the room she addressed the students and told them that George was going to be going to a new school. A kind of school where he could be happy. She invited the kids to say goodbye to George as he came into the room with his smiling, teary-eyed mom. George waved to the kids and said goodbye, and they all reciprocated the nice gesture. It was not a very long time until the kids mostly forgot about George, but he would come up in conversation once in a while. 510 Words https://herschelsterling.com/#cat-kids 31 stories written and podcasted in 31 days This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit commercialherschel.substack.com/subscribe