find expression with awk in only one column, and if it fits, print whole column

Hi. How do I find an expression with awk in only one column, and if it fits, then print that whole column.

1 apple oranges
2 bannanas pears
3 cats dogs
4 hesaid shesaid

echo "which number:"
read NUMBER  (user inputs number 2 for this example)
awk " /$NUMBER/  {field to search is field one, the numbers} {print out bannanas pears}"

$ cat input_file
1 apple oranges
2 bannanas pears
3 cats dogs
4 hesaid shesaid

$ read NUMBER

$ awk '$1 == N' N=$NUMBER input_file

sed -n "/^$NUMBER / s/[^ ] *//p"

Or:

sed -n "s/^$NUMBER *//p" infile