Ramona and the Magic Shoes - 7

Inside the studio, pandemonium had ensued.

Sam ran towards Adrien with a look of desperation.

"Now what, Adrien?! That air-headed twit has gone and done it! She poked herself in the eye with her mascara brush and now she's being rushed to the emergency room. We haven't got a Julia! She'll be wearing an eye-patch for weeks! If I ever get my hands on Ted in casting, I swear I'll ..."

Sam made various violent gestures that boded ill for Ted in casting.

Sam stopped short when he saw Ramona.

"Well hello there." he said. "Friend of Adrien's?"

"It appears that way." said Ramona.

"Friend of mine, then, if I may make so bold."

"I'm growing used to boldness today."

"Sam, this is Ramona." said Adrien.

"It's a real pleasure." said Sam. "But Adrien, what are we going to do? We've got exactly 6 weeks to shoot this picture, and we haven't got a leading lady. Granted, Maureen was a tarty little trollup without a lick of acting experience, but still! She was better than nobody!"

"I've got the girl for you Sam. She's standing right here. She makes Katherine Hepburn look like a dime-store hussy. She's got a soul, Sam. And she's got moxy."

Sam stroked his chin reflectively.

"Huh ... can you tap dance, missy?"

"Of course."

"Then you're hired. Pam! Get this lady in a costume, pronto!"

Ramona and the Red Shoes - 6

"I have a poster of him in my room." thought Ramona. "No .... I have 7 posters of him in my room. What a coincidence."

"A girl like you doesn't have to pay for her own ice cream." said Adrien Grody. He turned to the ice cream man. "Make it two."

The crowds were now in a state of hysteria and were snapping pictures.

"It's Ramona of the Red Shoes and Adrien Grody!" they tittered. "Get an autograph! Get a picture! Get something!"

"Let's get out of here." said Adrien. "Paparazzi give me the fidgets."

"Me too." said Ramona. "The flashes drive me absolutely bonkers. Thanks for the ice cream, by the way."

"Don't mention it." said Adrien. "From the moment I saw you I knew you were the kind of girl I wanted to buy ice cream for for the rest of my life. Damn! That ice cream man didn't put nearly enough sprinkles on yours."

"You're very bold, aren't you?"

"I'd have to be, wouldn't I, to get the attention of a girl like you? I'm sorry, I'm smoking, aren't I? Do you mind?"

"I revile it."

Adrien flung the cigarette stub down and extinguished it with his shoe.

"Step into my office." he said with a flourish, as he opened the studio door.

Ramona and the Red Shoes - 5

Note: Please be advised that at this point, the story gets kind of gushy. I can't help that, it's just how things went.

The first thing that Ramona did when she left the department store was to head for the nearest ice cream stand.

"On a day like this -" said Ramona, with deep conviction, "The only food one needs is ice cream."

There was a line about a block long for the ice cream stand, but at the appearance of Ramona with her Red Shoes, the customers, awe-struck, stood back.

"Who is this Amazonian beauty who visits mine humble ice cream stand?" said the little ice cream man.

"I am Ramona of the Red Shoes!" said Ramona. "The click of my heels is as the thunder of the gods!"

The crowd murmured with admiration.

"She must be from The Movies ..." they said.

"What will you have, Oh Red-Shoe'd Ramona?" asked the ice cream man, his scoop poised expertly over the buckets.

"A triple-decker! Moose-tracks on the bottom! Strawberry in the middle! And hot tin roof on the top!"

The ice-cream man set to scooping with great vigor.

Ramona reached for her purse to pay.

"Allow me." said a voice behind her.

Ramona turned and found herself looking up at an incredibly tall and famous man. Parenthetically, he was also severely attractive, with kind and slightly tortured brown eyes, and a drooping, extensive nose. One hand was in his pocket, and one hand held a smoldering cigarette stub.

It was Adrien Grody.

Ramona and the Red Shoes - 4

"I don't know how you do it, Grody." said the director to "Hank".

"Do what, Sam?"

"Look these little hussies in the eye and pretend to take them seriously. Look at 'er! Off to the make-up dresser again. If I wanted a painted mannequin, I would have hired a department store dummy and an Avon lady."

"Aw, giver a break. It's her first big thing. You don't exactly learn to be Katherine Hepburn doing SoftSpread commercials."

Adrien Grody (for it was in fact, the dashing actor himself), removed his stage hat and lit a cigarette.

"I guess so." said Sam. "Say, is it true about you and Tammy Hunt? I saw it all over the tabloids last week. You two together?"

"Nah." said Adrien. "You oughtta know better than to read those things."

"Yeah yeah. I just kinda hoped ... you're a nice guy, Grody. You should get a girl. Might do you good. Nancy did me good."

"Thanks Sam. But I'm waiting for a girl with a soul, that's all."

"Ain't that the truth. Hey, when you find her, give me a holler, ok? I could use her for this picture. Maureen's giving me ulcers."

"Sure, Boss."

"And get that thing out of the studio! You know what the rules are with the fancy new get-ups."

"What, this?" Adrien held up the cigarette innocently. "All right all right, I'll go outside. Be back in 10."

Ramona and the Red Shoes - 3

...............................
Not far away in the busy metropolis, in a swanky film studio warehouse, a tragic scene was unfolding.

"No Julia," said the tall, handsome, brooding man, his fascinating eyebrows quivering sadly. "I don't love you. I never have."

"Oh Hank!" said Julia. "How can you say such things!"

"I thought I loved you. But that was before I realized that you were an undercover agent tracking me for government secrets. I can't be with someone who bugs my hotel room, darling."

"But why not!" sobbed Julia into her handkerchief.

"CUT for cryin' out loud!" said the director. "You're makin' ME cry."

"Really?" said Julia, who really wasn't Julia at all, but an up-and-coming young starlet named Maureen.

"Yeah," said the director. "I'm crying when I think how much this contract cost. Where'd you say you went to acting school again?"

"Why, I -"

"Never mind, sweetheart, it doesn't matter. Take a break. I know I need one."

"I don't know how you do it, Grody." said the director to "Hank".

"Do what, Sam?"

"Look these little hussies in the eye and pretend to take them seriously. Look at 'er! Off to the make-up dresser again. If I wanted a painted mannequin, I would have hired a department store dummy and an Avon lady."

"Aw, giver a break. It's her first big thing. You don't exactly learn to be Katherine Hepburn doing SoftSpread commercials."

Ramona and the Red Shoes - 2

The Magic Man lifted his hands and shook his long beard to try to curb her enthusiasm.

"Not so fast, my little snap-crackle-and-pop." he said. "These shoes will give you self-confidence, yes. They will give you confidence to do things you've never done before. But they will only work for the next 12 hours. At the end of that time, the heels will shrink and they will become boring, little, un-chic, un-fabulous flats. So you must make sure that at the end of the 12 hours, you are ready to sprout your own wings of self-confidence."

"Can do!" said Ramona, strutting around in front of the department-store mirror.

The Magic Man shook his head forlornly.

"Oy vey. This will never work."

Ramona tripped away on clouds of velvet red.

"No elevators for me today!" she said, and quick as a wink, she hiked up her pin-stripe skirt, hopped onto the banister of the escalator, and slid down all 11 floors.

"What a strikingly confident young woman!" said the pretzel vendor.

"What a self-possessed female!" cried the Rolex watch-seller.

"What a riveting pair of red shoes!" shrieked the saleslady at Saks.

Ramona and the Red Shoes - 1

Note: This story was inspired by a rather remarkable pair of bright red, 5-inch heels that I bought for my brother's wedding, in which I was a bridesmaid. They are the sort of shoes that I would never buy for myself, except that they exactly matched my dress and were 75% off. The latter was enough to at least get me to give them a chance. Anyways, once I did buy them, I found them to be a deeply inspiring springboard for the following tale, which I hope you will find at least moderately riveting/entertaining.

RAMONA and the RED SHOES

Once very long ago there was a girl who was short of stature and had but lacking self-assurance. She was neither particularly hideous-looking nor wholly without wits, but she was convinced that she was really quite a woofer and weak in the head. Her friends all told her she was fine, she just needed a Boost of Confidence.

So she went to the Magic Man and asked him what she should do. The Magic Man lived on the very highest floor of the very tallest department store in the whole city. He was very wise, and some said he even had the ability to wear any size shoe with a flawless fit, no matter how large or small.

"Mr. Magic Man," said Ramona (her name was, in fact, Ramona) "I haven't got a lick of self-confidence. Not one lick. What I must I do?"

The Magic Man pulled out a box. Inside the box was a pair of Red Shoes. Ramona was dazzled. They were very Red. Fire-engine red. Geranium red. Licorice-whip red. Christmas-paper red! Not only that, but they had glorious, sky-scraper-high heels, the kind where you can see France without even standing on tip-toes.

"There," said the Magic Man gravely. "Poke your tootsies in those babies."

Ramona put the Red Shoes on and immediately felt a jolt of electricity travel from her toes all through her arteries and blood cells.

"It's a miracle!" said Ramona. "I don't feel dull. I don't feel drab. I don't feel dim! I'm over the moon, Mr. Magic Man! This is the best thing that's ever happened to me!"

Doonard

Note: This is I guess not so much a story as an anecdote. It was inspired by a particularly unpleasant day at work, and how I was feelig about the coffee at the time. Next real story coming up: "Ramona and the Red Shoes"

DOONARD
A Tragedy

Once upon a time, a nefarious fiend named Doonard snuck into the LandMarc office and poured sediment, loosely ground gravel, dirt, and sewage into the coffee maker. Then he turned the switch on. THE END

George and the Amazing Boomerang - 15 - THE END!

In the end, George sold the Boomerang to the museum, with a written stipulation that it would never be sold to any private collector. He got a nice sum for it, more than his father usually made in a year. He didn't really feel like he had earned it, so with his parents' help, he put some of it away for college, and the rest he sent to an orphanage in Guam.

He never went to see the Boomerang at the museum. Mr. and Mrs. Howard went on the first day the exhibit opened, at the express invitation of the museum, but George decided to stay home. He reckoned he had seen more than enough of the thing to last him a lifetime.

Mr. Mack recovered fully from his accident, except that he had a pretty severe case of amnesia. He was still able to go back to his old job of driving the school-bus, and all the students decided that amnesia must agree with him, because he was a much happier, kinder and more caring individual from that time forth. George always remembered to smile and wave at him whenever he took the bus.

George returned to school again, as scrawny a little twerp as ever he had been, and once again faced the poundings Porky and his gang. He didn't face it for too much longer, though, due to the fact that not long afterwards, Porky Pete was discovered to have a deathly peanut allergy which made it necessary for him to eat at a separate table and carry around an emergency case so that if he did have a reaction, someone could stick him before it got fatal. George was left much more in peace after this point, and he found that if he ever did see Porky Pete coming at him with a swirly in his eyes, he could evade the situation by yelling "peanuts!" which would send Pete flying down the hall.

"Nurse Velma", or the Marvelous Man, as he know him, was never seen nor heard from again by George, but my sources lead me to believe that he is now residing in a drugstore basement in New Jersey, working on an invention that he calls "The Astounding Bald-Away", which promises to "banish baldness in the blink of an eye" and "guarantees increased attractiveness to the opposite sex."

THE END.

George and the Amazing Boomerang - 14

"Oh! Hello, George. What've you got your suit-case for?" Mr. Howard stood blinkingly in the doorway, his hand poised to knock.

George shrugged. "I dunno."

"George, there's somebody in the kitchen I'd for you to meet."

George followed his father into the kitchen. A paunchy, cheerful man with a brief-case was sitting at the table. His face was red and cheeky like a baby's and his hair curled up in the back like Donald Duck.

"George!" he said. He spoke in a big, booming voice, like he was officiating at a town hall meeting. "I've been hearing all about you!"

"This is Dr. Wendall. He works at the Museum.'

Mrs. Howard came in with warm ginger-snaps and cold sodas.

"He's the curator of the Museum." she specified severely.

"Really?' said George politely.

"Really really George!" said Dr. Wendall. He thought that George must be very impressed to meet a museum curator in the flesh.

"I'm the big man in charge of the museum. Jillian, these are without a doubt the most inspiring and edifying ginger-snaps that I have ever known. But George, I want you to know that I'm not here to talk to you about ginger-snaps. I'm here to talk to you about the deal of a lifetime. I'm here to talk to you about your Boomerang."

"Oh no, Dr. Wendall! - don't buy it! It will kill you; it's magical and very evil!"

"That's all right, George, that's all right. Just calm yourself down a minute. You see, I've heard tell of your Boomerang, and I know of its mystical powers. I've heard rumors of a Boomerang that seems to have a mind of its own, that brings vengeance to the vengeful, but gives back the same punishment in full measure. I've heard about a Boomerang that follows its master all the way across the world. It seem that only 6 were made, then production was suddenly stopped. Because my museum is of course interested in curiosities, I had a mind to find one for our collection.

"I was beginning to lose hope that I could track one down, but then today your father called me up and mentioned about what you have here. It seems to me, George, that what you have is a pretty Amazing Boomerang. And I am hoping that you will consider selling it."

George shook his head. "I'm sorry Dr. Wendall, but I just can't sell it to you."

"But you see George - you wouldn't be selling it to me - you'd be selling it to the museum."

"Don't you see how it would be, George?" said Mr. Howard. "A museum can't throw a boomerang. It hasn't got any arms or hands."

"There's logic!" said Mr. Wendall. "I couldn't have said it better."

He took out a shiny black check-book, and wrote an amount which is not important on it.

"Take a look at that, George, and see what you think of it."

George took a look, but he didn't even see the numbers. He didn't care, not one bit.

"So ... "he heard Dr. Wendall say, "... do we have a deal?"

George and the Amazing Boomerang - 13

"Your mother's right, you know, George." added Mr. Howard helpfully.

Climbing into the back of the family station wagon, George was not so sure. He was not sure at all that things were going to be all right. All the solutions he had been able to come up with had ranged from "horrific" at best, to "cataclysmic" at worst. Even now, his head buzzed and ached and he felt the Boomerang burning in his pocket, chaffing like a rabid dog on a short leash. He knew it was only waiting for the slightest provocation to turn the full force of its persuasive powers on him.

"You're certainly in no condition to go to school." said Mrs. Howard. "Besides, you'd be late anyway. I'll phone the school and explain. Turn down the shades and go straight to bed; you look like death with double-pneumonia."

George did turn down the shades, and did change into his PJ's and did climb into bed, but he did not sleep.

A dreadful choice lay before him. He knew that if he could convince someone to buy his Boomerang, he would be selling them their death. If he kept the Boomerang, it would only be a matter of time before he would use it again. The first time he had used it, it had given him a headache. The second time, it might be fatal ... both to him and to his victim. The gruesome truth was only too clear to him. He resolved upon the least horrific of his options.

"I've got to go very far away." he thought. "Somewhere far away from everything and everybody. I'll go to Antarctica. I'll build an igloo and ice-fish for my food. Then my Boomerang and I won't ever bother anyone anymore. I'll wait until dark, and then sneak away."

With this sober conclusion, George turned over and glumly waited for night-fall

............................
When the clock had finally ticked its last day-lit tock, George made in his final preparations. Knowing that the authorities would eventually declare him dead, he drafted a will bequeathing all his earthly possessions to his parents (since he didn't have any friends) and packed a suit-case of his warmest clothes.

Panic had long ago deserted him and had been displaced by a calm melancholy. The choice to live a life of shame or choose to be buried alive in a frozen tundra away from all human contact, he reflected, was something that should never be presented to a 4-grader. And yet, who ever said that life played fair? After all, he had brought this upon himself. He remembered the boy that he had been just a few short weeks ago - a scrawny, runty, cowardly whipping boy, seduced by Lady Vengeance. It seemed a long, long time ago. He had changed. In fact, he had grown up. That would have to be comfort enough.

"Good-bye." he whispered softly to his bedroom ... to his home ... to his world. He opened the door quietly.

George and the Amazing Boomerang - 12

When George first heard the words "George Winston Howard", he thought he must still be dreaming.

"George Winston Howard!" came the voice a second time, "You get up out of that dumpster this instant or I'll come up there and drag you out myself, and you won't like it."

"Mama?" groaned George. He lifted his head from the cardboard boxes he had slept on the night before.

"Of course Mama! Don't ask me such a stupid question when I've been up all night. Your father and I have been worried sick. We've both agreed that next time you run away from home you'll be grounded for a week, with no television or desserts."

Mrs. Howard was in a ragged day-dress and her hair was still in rollers, but George thought she looked beautiful.

"Winston! Winston! I've found him."

Mr. Howard came blinking around the corner, his pants un-ironed and his sweater-vest askew.

"Oh! So you have! What are you doing in the dumpster, son?"

George decided it would be best to tell them the truth, and hope that, since they were his parents, they would be understanding enough not to report his whereabouts to the police.

"I'm on the lam." he said, "Running from the cops."

"Well, that is the silliest thing I've ever heard of." said Mrs. Howard. "Why don't you come on down and we can go to the diner for breakfast, then you can tell us all about this police business."

Mr. and Mrs. Howard led George into the diner. They ordered him flap-jacks with chocolate chips in the shape of a smiley-face and orange juice. George thought this was a little beneath the dignity of a desperate fugitive, but he ate it all anyway.

After he was finished with his pancakes, he told them all about ordering the Amazing Boomerang, about Porky Pete, and Mr. Mack the bus driver, and meeting "Nurse Velma", escaping from the hospital, and the little girl in the park.

"Well, it certainly sounds like you've gotten yourself into quite a pickle. I never held much with those mail-order gim-cracks, they always seem to turn out disappointing in some way or another. But George, the police aren't chasing you to put you in jail - they were trying to help us find you. When you didn't come home after school, I called the police. One of the officers had heard about a boy and bus driver knocked out by a flying object that morning, and he had a hunch it was you. When he described what the boy was wearing, I knew it was. They went to the hospital to pick you up and bring you home. Of course, thanks to your little window stunt, they never found you."

"Oh." said George. He began to wonder if all the things that the Marvelous Man had said about what the police would do to him (a tender 4th-grader) might not be slightly exaggerated as well.

But there was still the Boomerang. That, he knew, was no exaggeration. He had felt its awesome powers for himself. He could not reasonably doubt its capability to lure him into future acts of rash revenge, nor the velocity which would eventually kill him. He had already tried to sell it to someone else, but he simply couldn't make himself do it. His mother seemed to read his mind.

"Don't worry about it too much, Georgy." she said. "Between the three of us, I'm sure we'll think of something ... something that will make everything all right.

George and the Amazing Boomerang - 11

Then a dreadful thing happened. The little girl smiled. When she smiled, George saw that she had just lost her first tooth. His courage failed him. She had so much to live for, so much to discover in life: tooth-fairy visits, the state fair, candy-corn, Halloween parties, and Saturday morning cartoons! He couldn't do it.

"You can't have it." he said. He pushed away her nickel and put the Boomerang in his back pocket. "It's mine."

"No MINE!" Shrieked the little girl.

"What a rude boy!" said an old lady sitting on a bench nearby, and rattled her dentures at him scoldingly.

George's temper started to flare and he heard the ominous siren song of the Boomerang in his back pocket. He ran away, more miserable than ever.

George and the Amazing Boomerang - 10

The first thought that came to George after he had reached the ground was: "I'm 10 years old and I'm a fugitive from the law!" The second was: "Where on earth can I find someone gullible enough to buy his Boomerang?"

The answer to this question presented itself much sooner than George had expected. A nearby park featured a convenient screen of foliage in which George took hasty refuge to exchange his skimpy, polka-dotted hospital gown for more decent attire.

"Ah." said George to himself. "That's better."

"Shiny." said a voice behind him. George jumped and turned around.

In front of him was a little girl with black, braided pig-tails in a pink and white jumper. She was perhaps 4, maybe 5.

"Aw, get out of here, I hate kids." said George crossly. Besides being annoyed at the distinct possibility that this little girl may have seen that he was wearing "Batman" underoos, George knew from his experiences with his little girl-cousin, that this was exactly the age and type of child that does nothing but put their fingers in their nose and say "mine" to everything they see.

"Mine." said the little girl. George followed her finger. She was pointing at the Boomerang, laying innocently in the grass, posturing itself as a safe and delightful play-thing for small children.

"Oh, I see." he said slowly. "You like the shiny?"

"Mine shiny." elaborated the little girl. She reached for it, but George picked it up first.

"No, no, it's my shiny. But maybe we could trade."

The little girl creased her eyebrows, thinking this over, but at last she seemed to understand. She reached into her jumper pocket, and presented a grubby nickel for George's consideration.

George knew it was wrong to sell the deadly, magical gadget even to an annoying 4-year-old, but the opportunity was too perfect, and it might never come again. He reached out to take the nickel and set himself free from the infernal horror of the plastic menace.