George and the Amazing Boomerang - 9

Just then, George heard the sound of heavy shoes - not the soft-soled, quiet sneakers like the doctors and nurses wore, but a utilitarian, clomping tread. He listened closer and could also hear the click and scrabble of canine feet, and the jangle of a chain leash.

"It's the police, and they've brought their rabid, child-eating attack dogs!" whispered the Marvelous Man. He turned his mad, twinkling eyes on George.

"Grab your clothes, boy - you'll have to go out the window."

George did as he was told. The Marvelous man put the curly wig back on again and straightened the skirt of his smock so that it (mostly) covered up his hairy legs, and once again he was the mild-mannered Nurse Velma. He cranked open the window and stepped aside to make room for George.

"Gadzooks!" said George. "We must be 10 stories up!"

"Watch your language." chided "Nurse Velma" primly. "Hook the Boomerang on to the telephone cable, then you can slide down it like a zip line - stupid."

George sat tenuously on the window sill. The microcosmic world below him made his head spin.

"You never told me what to do about the Boomerang." he said.

"There's only on thing you can do. As long as the Boomerang belongs to you, it will return to you as its rightful master. In order to get rid of it, you will have to transfer the ownership to someone else."

"But that's cruel!" objected George.

"Eh." said the Marvelous Man. "I'm not in the business of value judgment. But listen, there's more: you can't just give the Amazing Boomerang away. Someone has to buy it from you - it doesn't matter how little or how much - as long as they pay for it. If you can sell it, kid, you can be rid of it."

George wanted to ask more, but the police were just around the corner. Without looking down, he hooked the Boomerang over the cable, grasped it in both hands, and held on tight. He heard the window snap closed behind him, and he looked back in time to see Nurse Velma give him a little wave and a hideous, orange-lipped smile that was perhaps meant to be encouraging.