based on the Academy Award-winning motion picture by GERW based on the Academy Award-winning motion picture by Pr. Seuss pictures adapted by MEL CRAWFORD RANDOM HOUSE £h NEW YORK Based on the movie GERALD MCBOING BOING, copyright © 1950, renewed 1978 by Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. www.randomhouse.com/seussville Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-067111 ISBN: 0-679-89140-4 (trade) ; 0-679-99140-9 (lib. bdg.) February 2000 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. Wk This is the story of Gerald McCloy And the strange thing that happened to that little boy. 5nrP They say it all started when Gerald was two— That's the age kids start talkingleast, most of them do. Well, when he started talking, you know what he said? mm He didn't talk wordshe went instead! "What's that?" cried his father, his face turning gray, "That's a very odd thing for a young boy to say!" And poor Gerald's father rushed to the phone And quick dialed the number of Doctor Malone. "Come over fast!" the poor father pled. "Our boy can't speak words— he goes instead!" "1 see," said the doctor, "it's just as you said. He doesn't speak wordshe goes
[email protected][email protected](T i n s 1 : e a d ! "I've no cure for this. 1 can't handle the case." And he packed up his pills and walked out of the place. Then months passed, and Gerald got louder and louder Till one day he went
[email protected]! like a big keg of powder! It was then that his father said, "This is enough! He'll drive us both mad with this terrible stuff! A boy of his age shouldn't sound like a fool. He's got to learn words. We must send him to school. H So Gerald marched off, an obedient creature, I But he soon was back home with a note from the teacher. "From Public School Seven to Mrs. A/lcCloy: Your little son Gerald's a most hopeless boy. We cannot accept him, for we have a rule That pupils must not go in our school. Your boy will go all his life, I'm afraid. Sincerely yours, Fanny Schultz, Teacher, First Grade." And as little Gerald grew older, he found When a fellow goes B A f l / f l no one wants him around. When a fellow goes StltttAt he won't have any friends. For once he says, "CLANG Ci^S all the fun ends. v» ^ I *,.*• _ C M#ff/" "Nyah nyah!" they all shouted, "Your name's not McCloy! You're Gerald lVlcBoing Boing, the noise-making boy!" Poor Gerald decided that he had no place At home, in the school— in the whole human race! And so he concluded that, drear and forlorn, He would just disappear in the thick of a storm. But as he was boarding a siow-moving freight, A voice from the darkness called out, "Stop, boy! Wait! "Aren't you Gerald IVIcBoing Boin