The Complete Adventures of Curious George (5 page)

WHERE WAS GEORGE?
They looked for him everywhere.

But they could not find him.

George was hiding in the hay of his friend, the elephant. Finally the keepers gave up looking for him.

George found a nice cozy spot to sleep under the elephant's right ear, and the next morning, before the Zoo opened, he got away safely.

Once in the street George felt a little scared. What should he do in the big city? Maybe he could find his friend, the man with the yellow hat, who had brought him over from Africa a long time ago. Only George did not know where he lived.

There was a bus stopping at the corner. George had never ridden on one. Quickly he climbed a lamp post, jumped on top of the bus and off they went.

Now they were right in the center
of the town. There was so much to see
that George did not know where to look first.
If only he could go on riding like this forever!

But after a while George got tired and a little dizzy.

When the bus slowed down to turn into a side street, George jumped off.

There was a restaurant right in front of him. Mmmm—something smelled good! Suddenly George felt very hungry.

The kitchen door stood open and George walked in.

On the table was a big pot. Of course George was curious. He had to find out what was in it...

When the cook came back he had a big surprise. Spaghetti was all over the place and in the middle of it was a little monkey!

George had been eating yards and yards and had wound himself all up in it.

The cook was a kind man and did not scold much. But George had to clean up the kitchen and then do all the dishes. My, what a lot of them there were! The cook was watching George. "You are lucky to have four hands," he said. "You can do things twice as quickly.

"I have a friend who could use a handy little fellow like you to wash windows. If you would like to, I will take you over to him."

So they went down into the subway and took an uptown train to the cook's friend, who was an elevator man in a skyscraper.