When he was 12, king started attending a one-room school in Maine, that only had 4 other students. It was these kids that gave him the idea for his short story “The Body,” which became Stand By Me.

All the grades were in one room, in a decrepit old building, with a dirty outhouse behind the school. There was no library in town, but every week a big green van came from the State, filled with books.

He’d borrow books, and avoid the building as much as he could.