Authors: Danielle Paige
But it had been
such
a long day, and my aunt and uncle were being
so
troublesome. Here they were, eating the greatest meal they’d ever dared to dream of, and all they could think of was how to go back to our sad little farmhouse and our dusty pigpens.
I
must
try to control my temper,
I chided myself. If I wanted my aunt and uncle to see things my way, it wouldn’t do to make them angry.
The Scarecrow shot me a curious sidelong glance but otherwise ignored my outburst. “It’s true that I’ve been blessed with an excess of the finest brains known to man or beast, Munchkin, witch, or wizard,” he said, tapping his head with a stuffed glove. “But I’m sad to say that traveling between Oz and the outside world is no simple feat.”
“I see,” Henry said.
“Dorothy thinks a lady by the name of Glinda might be able to help,” Aunt Em said. “Do you have any idea of where we might find her?”
Again, the Scarecrow gave me a meaningful look that said,
We’ll discuss this later.
“I do not,” he said. “Glinda’s whereabouts have been unknown for quite some time now.”
“For how long?” I asked, putting my fork down, suddenly interested again in the conversation.
“Oh, it’s hard to say,” the Scarecrow replied. He fiddled with a piece of straw that was poking out of his head. “You know we’re not much for time here in Oz. No one gets older here, and we celebrate the holidays whenever we’re of a mood for it. But it was some time after Ozma took the crown. Glinda let it be known that she had important magical business beyond the Deadly Desert, and that we shouldn’t worry about her—that she would return when the time was right. That must have been, oh, at least ten years ago, if I venture a guess.”
“Ten years!” I exclaimed. “But, how long have I been gone?”
The Scarecrow turned in his seat and fixed his eyes on me seriously. “I don’t know, but I daresay there are many people here in Oz who won’t remember you at all. I, myself, had almost forgotten what you looked like.”
My last adventure here had lasted for what felt like almost a month, but when I’d returned home, only a few days had passed. Still, the idea that I had been gone so long that I’d been forgotten was unimaginable. All of my memories were still so fresh in my head.
I had so much to ask the Scarecrow. Why wasn’t he king anymore? Who
was
this Ozma person? Did he have any suspicions about where Glinda had
really
gone? But I had the impression that he didn’t want to talk about any of it in front of my aunt and uncle, and so I finished my meal in silence.
But there was so much on my mind that I hardly touched my food. Uncle Henry was a different story. I hadn’t even made a dent in my Waldorf salad, and he had already scarfed down a goblet full of maraschino cherries, a small mincemeat pie, several hunks of lamb slathered with green mint jelly, and—despite the fact that I was unsure where exactly shellfish came from in Oz, where there were no oceans that I knew of—a giant portion of shrimp cocktail served in a crystal goblet brimming with crushed ice.
And then they brought out the ice cream.
“Oh dear,” Aunt Em said when she saw it. “I’m afraid I can’t possibly eat any more. The meal was just perfect, Mr. Scarecrow, but I’m afraid it’s been
quite
a day. Would it be terribly rude of me to excuse myself?”
“Of course not,” the Scarecrow said. He clapped his hands and another Munchkin, this one dressed all in yellow, appeared. “This is BonBon. He’ll show you to your rooms.”
“Thank you, sir,” Uncle Henry said, standing along with Em. “Dorothy, don’t you stay up too late. Tomorrow we’ll need to be up at the crack of dawn to find Miss Glinda so that we can head on home.”
BonBon bowed and led them away.
As soon as they were gone, I pulled Toto into my lap and turned my chair to face the Scarecrow.
“Now tell me what is going on here,” I said. “I know there must be more to the story than you were telling me.”
He sighed. “You first,” he said. “I don’t for a moment believe that you wished your way here. It doesn’t work that way.”
So I told him the story: of my terrible birthday party, of the shoes, and the note that had come with them.
“They
must
have come from Glinda,” I finished. “Who else could have sent them?”
“It certainly sounds like her doing,” the Scarecrow mused. “But until now, I believed that Glinda was dead—or gone for good.”
“No,” I said, so emphatically that it came out as something approaching a shout. “No. Someone’s done something to her. She’s still in Oz, and she’s in trouble. That’s why she brought me here. To save her.”
“You may be right,” he said. “We’ll go to see Ozma tomorrow. She needs to be apprised of the situation.”
Every time anyone said the name
Ozma
, a terrible feeling came over me. I’d never met her and I barely knew who she was, but I didn’t like the sound of her. “Who
is
this Ozma?” I finally was able to ask. “And why aren’t you the king anymore?”
A look of something like regret passed across the Scarecrow’s face. He glanced down at his plate.
“Ozma is Oz’s true monarch,” he said. “She’s a direct descendant of Oz’s founder, the fairy Lurline. She was just a baby when the Wizard rose to power, and unable to inherit her throne. Still, the Wizard worried about the power she would eventually be able to wield. It’s hard to seize control of a kingdom when you have the True Princess swanning about in her prime. So he sent her to the North—to Gillikin Country. What happened to her there is a mystery. Only a few people are privy to all the details, and I am not one of them. What I do know is that she eventually managed to grow up, and made her way back to the Emerald City to reclaim her crown. Unfortunately for me, that was just a few months after I’d been made king. I ceded the crown to her immediately, of course.” He sighed and shrugged. “It was nice while it lasted.”
It sounded like a bunch of hooey to me. “So this Ozma can just march in and kick you out on your rear end? That’s not fair!”
“I had no choice. It is the way of Oz that Lurline’s heirs should rule. The people were happy with me as their king, but I must admit that Ozma has been a good ruler, too. The kingdom has never been more peaceful, or more prosperous.” He sounded cheerful, but it was obvious he was putting on a brave face.
I scowled. “I don’t care,” I said, outraged by the injustice. “You would have been better. You deserved that crown! What did
she
do to earn it, except show up when it was convenient for her?”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I like it here amidst my corncobs. There’s plenty of time to think, here. And Ozma made me one of her top advisers—she always calls me into the palace when she needs someone with real brains.”
“What about the Tin Woodman? What’d she do with him? Send him off to be sold for scrap?”
The Scarecrow chuckled. “Now, now, Dorothy. There’s no need for that. The Tin Woodman is still where you last saw him. He still lives in the Wicked Witch’s old castle, if you can believe it. He’s spruced it up quite nicely; it’s nothing like it was before.”
“And the Lion?”
“Still ruling over the beasts, just as ever. He lives deep in the Forbidden Forest, in Gillikin Country.” The Scarecrow sighed. “He’s become a bit of a recluse, though. The three of us haven’t been in the same room since I left the castle.”
It broke my heart to think about. Glinda missing; the Scarecrow deposed; my friends scattered across Oz. I had expected to come back to Oz to find it just as I’d left it. But nothing was the same.
“Now let’s take a look at these shoes of yours,” he said, after BonBon had served me an after-dinner root beer float.
I stood, extending my foot proudly, and the Scarecrow studied the mysterious shoes.
“Have you tried removing them?” he asked after examining them for a bit.
“Why no,” I said, surprised that it hadn’t even occurred to me. But as hard as I tugged at the heels, they wouldn’t so much as budge.
“Just as I suspected,” he mused.
“How strange,” I said. “How will I bathe?”
The Scarecrow chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll find a way. At any rate, they’re magical, that much is evident. And they seem to have fused themselves to you. The
red
is certainly Glinda’s signature. But she . . .”
“It has to have been Glinda,” I said. “I’ve never been so certain of anything. Especially after she appeared to me and asked for help earlier today. We
have
to help her.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he said. “Tomorrow, we will travel to the palace. Ozma will have heard of your arrival and will be expecting you. She’s very interested in you, you know. The princess is an avid student of history, and she’s always been fascinated by your story.”
“I’m not so sure I care to see
her
,” I sniffed. “She doesn’t sound very pleasant in my opinion.”
The truth was that I didn’t trust the sound of her. Was it just coincidence that Glinda had disappeared just after this new princess had seized the palace?
The Scarecrow brushed aside my protests. “Oh, she’s nothing if not pleasant. I think you two will be great friends. She’s about your age, after all.”
“But . . .” I hesitated, not sure whether to voice my concerns, and then decided that if I couldn’t trust the Scarecrow, my oldest friend, all was lost anyway. “What if Ozma’s the one who did something to Glinda?”
I was of half a mind that the Scarecrow would dismiss the notion as ridiculous. But he didn’t.
“The princess is very powerful,” he said, lowering his voice. “She is very shrewd. But she is also very lonely, and in need of companionship. I urge you, go to the palace and befriend her. She will never be defeated by force, but I’ve always found force to be overrated anyway. If Ozma knows
anything
about Glinda’s whereabouts, you will be the one who can learn about it. Become close with her. Give her no reason to doubt your intentions.”
I nodded. I understood. I didn’t like it, but I understood.
At that, the Scarecrow summoned for BonBon, who appeared out of nowhere as if he’d squeezed himself up out of a gap in the floorboards.
“Follow me to your quarters, Miss Gale,” he said, extending a gentlemanly hand.
“One more thing,” the Scarecrow said as I scooped a now-dozing Toto into my arms. “For now, I think it’s better that you don’t tell the princess that you’ve seen Glinda at all.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“And Dorothy: don’t mention the shoes.”
The next morning, the Scarecrow and I stepped out of his mansion into a bright and breezy day. Every ear of corn and every wildflower glistened and sparkled in the sun, and I took a deep breath, inhaling dewy morning air. It smelled like just-baked cookies.
When I looked closely, I saw that the air was filled with thousands of specks floating on the breeze like dandelion fuzz. The difference was that these specks were silvery and slippery, flying through the air like tiny beads of mercury from a broken thermometer.
One of them landed gently on my face. When I crossed my eyes to get a look at it, I was shocked to see a dainty little person with butterfly wings and a wild tuft of silver hair sitting right on the tip of my nose. And without so much as a hello.
“Oh, don’t mind them,” the Scarecrow said. “It’s Pixie season. They can be quite irritating, but they’re harmless.”
Just as he said it, the creature sank its sharp little teeth into my nose. I was more surprised than actually hurt, but I screamed, swatting at it and spinning around in a circle trying to get it off me.
The Pixie jumped from my face and buzzed around my head, letting out a high-pitched staccato squeal. She was laughing at me.
“Er,
mostly
harmless,” the Scarecrow said.
“I don’t remember
those
things from last time,” I said, rubbing at my injury to check for blood.
“They stayed in their hives back in those days,” he explained. “They were afraid of the witches. But Ozma believes in letting them run wild, and they’ve been getting bolder and bolder. You should see what they do to my cornfields.”
“I’m all for Pixies having their freedom,” I sniffed. “I’m an American, after all. But they might be a little more grateful to the girl who
gave
it to them, don’t you suppose?”
“All the magic in the world couldn’t give a Pixie manners,” the Scarecrow said ruefully. “If I were king, I’d do away with all of them. But Ozma is of the opinion that even Oz’s lowest creatures deserve their freedom. Pixies, Screaming Trees, even Nomes, for heaven’s sake—they’ve all flourished under the princess’s rule.”
They might have been rude, but I couldn’t help being charmed as I watched the little things flitting through the air. “I hope they at least do pretty little spells or something,” I said. “To make up for the nastiness and biting.”
“They certainly do. If you catch one, they’ll grant you exactly one wish,” the Scarecrow said.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Then what are we waiting for?” I was about to go chasing after the Pixie who had bit me—it would serve her right!—but the Scarecrow caught me by the elbow.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “You can only wish for three things and none of them are very interesting. A dried cod, a hunk of coal, or a darning kit.”
“Aunt Em might like a darning kit,” I said, but I quickly dropped my chase.
That’s when I saw our carriage sitting by the Road of Yellow Brick—a vehicle that would put Henry Ford’s finest automobile to shame. It was a jeweled green sphere of glass etched with delicate swirling patterns, about as big as Uncle Henry’s toolshed, and rather than having wheels it was hovering in the air a few feet off the ground. It was hitched to a crude wooden horse composed of a log sitting on top of four sturdy sticks. It had two knots for eyes, a notch for a mouth, and a twig for a tail.
“Hello there,” the log said.
By now I knew not to be surprised by anything around here, especially not a talking log in the shape of a horse. “Well, hello there,” I greeted him—if you could call a log a
him.
“I’m Dorothy Gale. Pleased to meet you.”