George took the package up to his room. He didn’t know what else to do with it.
“I’ll have to re-send it, of course.” He thought.
Gingerly, He un-bound the bedraggled box and opened the lid. Inside laid the Amazing Boomerang, as bright and resplendent as of old, undiminished by the ardors of its twisted voyage.
In spite of himself, a warm rush of memory came over George as he recalled the day he had thrown it for the first time. Revenge had been brief, but oh, so intoxicatingly sweet. Shaking his head to clear it, he turned to look for a suitable box to re-package the dubious gadget. A sturdy shoe-box eventually presented itself under the bed.
“This ought to do the trick.” said George.
He went back to the open package. The box was empty.
The packing peanuts still showed the faint, curved outline of the vanished boomerang, but this was the only trace of the box’s former contents. George had no time to panic before he heard his mother’s voice again, hollering grimly from downstairs:
“George Winston Howard, you get down here right now or you’ll miss the bus, and if I have to drive you to school, young man, you’ll be sorrier than a …”
George didn’t bother to listen to the conclusion of the impassioned monologue, but performed one feverish search for the missing boomerang. It was no good. The cursed thing was gone; it was simply nowhere.
“Maybe… maybe it really is gone. Maybe everything will be all right now.” George thought.
There was no time to consider any other possibility. He zipped his back-pack and ran down the stairs and out the door.
The bus driver was an ornery, grimace-eyed, be-jowled gentleman named “Mr. Mack” who, on principle, never looked at any student except through his enormous rear-view mirror.
“ ‘S matter, kid – “ he growled sarcastically, “Think your were goin’ to night school? Go sit in the back.”
George stared down the countless rows of benches. He could see that the very back seat was empty. But in the second-to-last row, the grisly spectacle of none other than Porky Pete and his churlish cohorts loomed before his horrified eyes.
“They can’t hurt me when there’s a grown-up.” He reminded himself. Glancing behind, he saw the menacing eyes of Mr. Mack the bus driver.
“Scoot, kid.” said Mr. Mack. George scooted.
George saw the gleam of unholy delight as he passed Porky Pete, but he did not see the lumpish foot that shot out from behind the bench just before he reached his seat. Down went George and George’s books, in a mushroom cloud of lined paper and sharpened pencils.
“Ooof.” Said George, and picked himself up off the floor. He looked back. He could see Mr. Mack’s surly, hooded eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Heh” grunted Mr. Mack.
Something inside George snapped. Suddenly he knew that he hated Mr. Mack. He hated him more than Porky Pete and the whole gang combined. Then George looked and saw a most surprising thing: there, entangled in the mess of books and papers, falling half-way out of his back-pack, was his boomerang.
A strange madness took him, and his hand seemed to move without being told what to do. He was holding the boomerang – his arm was cranking back now – a snap of the wrist – the boomerang leapt into glorious flight on wings made of fury.
The moment seemed to happen in slow motion to George, but in reality, it all happened so quickly that Mr. Mack never knew, and still does not know, what hit him. He had just time to turn his head before the boomerang met with his skull. Mr. Mack’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slumped over the big steering wheel. The boomerang adjusted its direction neatly, and barreled home with a horrifying intensity. George tried to duck, but the faithful boomerang slavishly altered its course just as he did so, like a miniature heat-seeking missile, and poor George found no escape. Fireworks erupted in his head like it was the 4th of July, then everything was black.
No comments:
Post a Comment