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.
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