L. Frank Baum - Oz 40

by Merry Go Round In Oz

  Chapter 11

  S0-IN a muddle of misunderstanding-the parties from Halidom and from the Emerald City came face to face. For of course Dorothy’s “bat” was none other than the Flittermouse, who had become separated from his companions a few moments before, during the tumble off the fire-escape. And the lioncel that had so terrified Fred was merely the Cowardly Lion, who now roared again, indignantly, at what he was sure must be a deadly insult.

  “A lion sell! he growled to Dorothy, glaring at the Steed. “That big black bag of hones there called me a lion sell!”

  This was enough to make Fred pull himself together and return the glare. “Bag of bones!” he whinnied furiously. “Who’s a bag of bones, you great mop-head!”

  “What do you mean, mop-head?” snarled the Lion. “Take that back, you big ink-blot, or I’ll-”

  “Ink-blot indeed! Why, I’ll have you know-”

  “Oh, please be quiet, Federigo’.” begged Fess, who, being more sensible than Fred, still felt extremely wary of the Cowardly Lion, whether he was a lioncel or not.

  “I won’t be quiet! My honor is at stake! I unconditionally

  refuse to

  At this point the Flittermouse landed on Fess’s shoulder and began to cry bitterly.

  “A bat! Fess, dear, she called me a bat!”

  “But aren’t you a bat?” quavered Dorothy, who still had both hands clamped to her head to prevent the bat’s getting tangled in her hair.

  “No, he’s not, he’s a Flittermouse,” Fess explained, trying to shout above the din. “Fred, do be quiet!”

  “Everyone be quiet!” Prince Gules’s voice suddenly rang out with such authority that even the Lion was surprised into obeying. In the silence the Prince stepped up to Dorothy, bowed in his graceful, courtly manner, and added, “I apologize for the had manners of my Steed. May I introduce myself?”

  “Oh. I wish you would,” Dorothy said gratefully. By this time she had noticed the Unicorn, and the Prince’s crown, and had taken a closer look at the Flittermouse, and her curiosity was growing every second. “Is that a Unicorn?” she burst out.

  “The Unicorn,” said that unusual creature, stepping daintily over to her. “And you’re a maiden, aren’t you? It’s lovely to see a maiden again, after all these males. Would you care to weave a daisy chain for my neck sometime-at your convenience, of course? It would make me awfully happy.”

  “Why, I’d love to, Dorothy told her. Smiling at the Prince, she said, “I’m sure we were bad-mannered too. It was only because we were startled-and the Cowardly Lion thought he was being insulted by your horse.”

  “Steed,” Fred corrected her sulkily. Under his breath he mumbled, “Admits he’s a coward, does he?”

  “Certainly he does-and it makes him a terrific fighter,” Dorothy retorted. “It seems to me,” she added severely, “that it’s much better to admit you’re a coward-and then act brave-than to pretend you’re brave, and then just yell ‘Help! Help! the way you and I did.”

  This left Fred with eyes and mouth both open and not a word to say. Fess could not help grinning at his stupefied expression. But then the Unicorn murmured confidingly to Dorothy, “No one expects maidens to be brave. After all, we femies are much more sensitive than these crude males.” And even the Flittermouse, who was still sobbing disconsolately at being called a bat, raised his head long enough to peer at Fred and quaver,

  “Males who rage and roar are rude. Males who crowd are crude.”

  At this point, Less decided his old friend was getting a bit too much the worst of it. “I think Fred was just startled, too,” he explained. “We were all pretty shaken up right that minute-we’d just fallen off a fire-escape.”

  ‘“And we’d just climbed out of a rabbit-hole,” the Cowardly Lion admitted gruffly. “Still, that’s no reason to go calling a fellow a lion sell, is it? I wish somebody’d tell me what it means.”

  A good many explanations were in order, and several more apologies-including a remorseful one from Dorothy to the Flittermouse, who was still feeling quite crushed. He had to be coaxed for some time before he would consent to crawl out of Fess’s collar and sit for a moment on Dorothy’s hand, still hiccupping a bit but smiling tentatively at her through his tears. At last, after everybody was placated and the Cowardly Lion was made to understand that “lioncel” was merely the Halidom term for his species, the two parties got around to formal introductions. These aroused much interest and astonishment on both sides.

  “Why, I’ve heard of Halidom,” Dorothy exclaimed. “And Troth too. I’ve a friend-Sir Hokus of Pokes-who always orders his armor from there.”

  “And I’ve read about you two in the Oztory books!” Fess said diffidently. He felt very much impressed to be talking to such famous celebrities, and was delighted to find them so modest. “Why, they’re just like anybody’.” he thought.

  As for Fred, he was so overcome by the magnitude of his faux pas in quarreling with such personages that he could only stare miserably into space and conclude that his career was wrecked.

  The Prince remained imperturbable, courtly, and as impractical as ever. “I am delighted to meet you both,” he announced with a winning smile. “I regret only that I cannot at this moment offer you the hospitality of my father’s palace, and arrange a tourney in your honor. However, I hope you will do me the honor of being my guests at luncheon.”

  “But Your Highness, we haven’t any luncheon!” Fess whispered in a panic.

  “When we locate some, that is,” Prince Gules added graciously.

  “We’ll help you locate it,” Dorothy said at once. “I’m hungry too.

  “I’m starved,” said the Cowardly Lion. “But no carrot tea, if you please! I want some lion food for a change.”

  Flitter, hoping very much that “lion food” didn’t include Flittermice and things, made himself inconspicuous behind the popinjay feather on Fess’s cap, but Dorothy merely remarked that they’d be lucky to find people-food, and that what she wanted was a place to sit down comfortably and talk. ” ‘Cause I’m just plain curious about why you left Halidom, and where you’re going, and how you happened to be on that fire-escapeand you’re probably wondering what we were doing in a rabbit-

  hole-”

  “And why a Royal Princess of Oz is wearing such a dirty dress,” the Cowardly Lion chuckled, trying with a few self-conscious swipes at his mane to improve his own appearance.

  Fred, who had been musing bitterly on this very point, seized the chance to climb back into grace. “That was rather confusing, you know,” he said rapidly. “If we’d had the least idea we were talking to Important Personages …I come of quite an aristocratic family, myself. I have a cousin who’s a Destrier. As a matter of fact-” Catching Fess’s disapproving frown, he broke off, merely adding in an awed tone, “Are you really a close friend of Princess Ozma?”

  “Yes, but I’ll bet she’d hardly know me,” Dorothy sighed as she examined her once-white dress. Suddenly she cried, “Ozma! The Egg’. Oh, my goodness, I’ve dropped the Egg somewhere!”

  “An egg?” Prince Gules said hopefully. “Something for lunch, perhaps?”

  “No, it’s not that kind of an egg, it’s a present for Ozma. Oh, there it is!” Dorothy ran quickly to where the Egg lay beside the overturned basket. Fortunately it had fallen in the soft grass and was undamaged. “You must all see it-it’s so interesting.”

  “Later,” the Cowardly Lion rumbled. “Stuff it in the basket

  now, and bring it along. I intend to find some lunch before I do another thing.”

  This suited everybody. Within a few minutes they had pushed their way through the high grass surrounding the wall, and found beyond it a sunny meadow which supplied all their needs. Dorothy, Fess and the Prince sat down under a big bread-and-butter tree to lunch off its fruit, and the Cowardly Lion, after a few dissatisfied remarks about proper lion food, joined them. Fred began at once on the velvety grass, while the Flittermouse skimmed over it, catching ins
ects and nibbling the centers out of honey-flowers. The Unicorn browsed in a daisy patch as close as she could get to Dorothy, for whom she seemed to have formed a strong attachment. As they ate, they talked, and before long had exchanged the complete stories of their various adventures.

  Dorothy was greatly concerned about the theft of the Golden Circlet of Halidom and the sad state of the kingdom. “Why, that’s dreadful!” she exclaimed. “Ozma must be told right away. After all, she’s the ruler of all Oz, and Halidom’s a part of Oz. I think you’d all better come straight to the Emerald City with the Cowardly Lion and me. Then Prince Gules can tell her about everything, and she and the Wizard can figure out what to do.”

  “But I don’t want her to do anything,” the Prince objected. “I want to find the Circlets myself, and win fame and glory.”

  “It’s going to be pretty hard, if you don’t even know where to look,” Dorothy pointed out.

  “No matter. I insist on saving my own kingdom, and I want

  no help.”

  “But that’s just-” Dorothy had been going to say “plain stupid,” but broke off, remembering that through no fault of his own the Prince was stupid. “That’s-very understandable,” she finished rather lamely.

  A few moments later, Fess drew her away from the others, on the pretext of picking honey-flowers for dessert.

  “Prince Gules just doesn’t realize what we’re up against,” he said apologetically. “I think you’re right about asking Princess Ozma to help us. Why, we could wander around for months without finding even one Circlet!”

  “Yes, and no telling what might become of Halidom in the meantime,” Dorothy said. “It’s too bad-but if the Prince won’t listen he won’t, that’s all. Are you sure those Oracle verses are no good?”

  “Well, we couldn’t make any sense out of them, but maybe you can. Here, take a look.”

  Less dug the page from the register-book out of his pocket and Dorothy studied the verses eagerly, but finally had to confess that she was baffled too.

  “Of course, there are some clues here,” she mused, frowning at the paper. ” ‘In the hands of a future king’-Prince Gules is a future king, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but Circlet Three isn’t in his hands. If it were, the

  people in Halidom could draw and weave as well as ever. And the Unicorn thinks Flitter is ‘the humblest of our number’, but how can Flitter find a Circlet? He’s not even very bright.”

  Dorothy sighed and handed the paper back to him. “Seems to me we’ll just have to get the Wizard to help. Do you s’pose we could sort of steer the Prince toward the Emerald City without his knowing it?”

  Fess had been thinking this very thing. Arguing away an uncomfortable feeling of disloyalty by telling himself that it was for the Prince’s own good, he nodded. “It’d be easy, and we’d better do it. Which way is the Emerald City from here?”

  “To tell the truth, I don’t exactly know,” Dorothy confessed with a puzzled glance around the meadow. “I got awfly turned around in all those twisty underground passages.”

  Fess couldn’t help laughing, and he felt a little better. “We’re in the same boat, then. You don’t know where to find the Emerald City, and we don’t know where to find the Circlets. Why don’t we just travel together, and see which turns up first?”

  The others readily agreed to the idea of the two parties joining forces-and Dorothy and Fess diplomatically avoided any further mention of the Wizard. The Cowardly Lion, whose good nature was entirely restored by several hundred slices of bread and butter, merely reminded Dorothy that they had promised to he home in time for the party.

  “But if you want to do a little sight-seeing first, it’s quite all right with me. This is our vacation, you know. I like travelingwhen I don’t have to do it by Magic Belt. Climb on, let’s go.”

  Fess and the Prince mounted too, and they started across the meadow. Dorothy carefully balanced the basket holding the Egg; Fess’s lunchbasket-now comfortably stuffed with bread-and-butter sandwiches-dangled from Fred’s saddle. The meadow merged gradually into an attractive wood, in which they passed several more bread-and-butter trees, and a few bread-and-jam trees as well. Fess could not resist sliding off the Unicorn to add a few jam sandwiches to their provisions; soon Dorothy joined him, and they both filled their pockets and the crannies of the Egg basket with peanut-butter-and-crackers from a tree farther on. Before long they were passing doughnut trees twined with marshmallow vines, and lollipop shrubs edging little brooks of lemonade; and they had learned to make cautious detours around the numerous cocoa bushes, which had a disconcerting way of spilling hot chocolate down one’s neck whenever one brushed against them.

  “I wish I hadn’t eaten so much plain bread and butter!” Dorothy exclaimed. “What sort of place is this, anyhow? Look, there’s a peppermint-drop fern. And a cookie tree!”

  “And there’s the end of the path, unless I’m badly mistaken,” the Cowardly Lion observed.

  Sure enough, directly ahead of them was a tall wrought-iron fence, with a gate firmly closed across their path. On the gate was a neat brass plate. Prince Gules now dismounted too, and

  led the way over to it.

  It read, simply, “HOME.”

  Chapter 12

  WELL,” said Robin, “that’s the end of the woods. And there’s plenty of roads down yonder, but I don’t see anything of that yellow brick one Howzatagin told us about, do you?”

  Merry shook her head as they both examined the scene before them. “No. Those roads are all kind of blue.”

  “Everything’s kind of blue,” Robin agreed in a puzzled tone.

  They were standing on a hillside overlooking a curiously empty stretch of land which rose everywhere into barren, rolling hills dotted with clumps of prickly pears. They could not see over the hills, but they could see, winding in and out among them, numerous tracks and paths, which looked well-traveled though they were empty at the moment. The whole landscape did, indeed, have a distinctly blueish cast.

  “Even the dirt’s sort of blue,” said Merry.

  “And those prickly-pear bushes-and the pines at the edge of the woods. Look, Merry, isn’t that queer?” Robin said as they both glanced back toward the last scrubby fringe of trees. “I thought those pine woods had a sort of red look when we started through them, back by Howzatagin’s cabin. And remember how red the rocks in the Red Gorge were? And all

  that red clay in FoxHunter land? Now everything’s changed color.”

  “You’ve changed countries, that’s all,” said a squeaky voice, and a squirrel with bushy blue-gray fur scampered along a pine branch to peer down at them.

  “Changed countries? You mean we’re not in Oz any more?” exclaimed Robin.

  “Of course you’re in Oz. But you’ve left the Quadling Country-it’s the red one. You’re in the Munchkin country now. The border runs through these woods.”

  “Oh. Then where’s the Yellow Brick Road?” Robin asked. “I don’t know. Squirrels aren’t concerned with roads. Excuse me, please, I have an important engagement with a hazelnut bush. Ta-ta!” With a flirt of his tail, the squirrel vanished into the trees.

  “Well,” Robin said, “Maybe one of those blue roads will lead us to the yellow one. Come on, let’s try it.”

  The blue road was little more than a well-trodden footpath, but for some time they followed it around the base of one hill after another, seeing nothing but prickly-pear bushes, blue rocks, and more barren hills ahead. Then they rounded the curve of one last hill and were confronted by a very strange sight.

  Before them, in a bowl-shaped hollow among the dusty hills, was a huge sphere made of some glistening, transparent stuff that looked like pale blue glass. Inside it were many smaller spheres

  the size of small houses, with an occasional larger dome thrusting up above them, and Robin and Merry could see people moving here and there along what appeared to be curving streets. Strangest of all, around the outside of the Great Sphere ran a b
road road paved with little round glass stones; and this road was really running-circling frantically around and around the Sphere at great speed, flashing blindingly in the sun.

  One bridge spanned the road, stretching from the foot of the hill on which Robin and Merry stood blinking to a large round opening in the Sphere. This entrance had elaborately worked gates of wrought-iron-standing wide open at the moment-and a round gatehouse at one side. A ramp led down to the level of the bridge, across which short chubby people trudged occasionally on their way to or from the Sphere.

  “It’s a city,” Robin said finally in a dazed voice. “It must be. But it’s absolutely the queerest one I ever saw!”

  “Maybe it’s the Emerald City,” Merry said hopefully.

  “Well-I don’t see any emeralds. Of course, maybe they keep ‘em in a safe or something. Did you ever see anything like that glass road, Merry! Let’s go down and look around.”

  Merry was just as curious as he was, and in a very few minutes they had cantered to the bottom of the hill and wandered, gaping around them, onto the bridge, which happened to be empty when they reached it. Halfway across, Merry stopped to peer over the railing at the dazzling, circling road below.

  “Come away, Merry!” Robin exclaimed, shuddering and

  tugging at the gilded reins. “It looks dangerous!”

  “Dangerous?” Merry gave her little whicker of laughter and danced even closer to the rail. “But it’s just like the merry-go-round, Robin! Oh, dear, it almost makes me homesick. Round -and round-and round-Make some calliope noises, Robin!”