The Hedgehog of Oz

by Cory Leonardo

  Ingot couldn’t help himself, and he addressed the contradictory Scamp. “I thought you said Wickedwing must’ve left for better hunting ground.”

  Scamp looked up from her cape. “I was speculating,” she answered. “It’s getting dark. We should probably make camp for the night.”

  Tuffy tugged a third time, and Marcel looked up to find Tuffy, eyes wide as quarters, staring off into a shadowy thicket of gnarled grapevine.

  Two enormous yellow eyes stared out from the thicket.

  “I think,” Marcel said, as softly as he could as he watched those two eyes narrow. He gulped.

  “I think it might be too late.”

  CHAPTER 17 To Sidestep a Snatcher

  INGOT QUIETLY STEPPED IN FRONT of the other three without taking his gaze off the eyes burning into them. “On the count of four, you will run. Toward the popcorn scent if you can. Don’t stop. If she gets too close, I’ll lead her away. You just run. Run and don’t look back.”

  “The count of four?” whispered Scamp. “Not like three?”

  “One for each of us,” Ingot said slowly.

  “But you forgot Toto. He’s five,” Scamp whispered back.

  “One.”

  Marcel, Tuffy, and Scamp each took a step into the popcorny breeze. The eyes narrowed again. The thicket crackled.

  “Two.”

  Scamp’s voice was trembling now. “Are we gonna make it?”

  “There’s no other outcome in my mind,” Ingot said firmly.

  The vines cracked. The eyes didn’t blink, didn’t falter.

  Ingot gritted his teeth and braced himself. “Ready?”

  Marcel wasn’t sure they were. Ingot didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Three, four—go!”

  As though they’d been shot from a cannon, they fled toward the popcorn smell. Behind them, a barrage of splintering vines cracked the air. The sound was terrifying.

  But not as terrifying as the owl’s cry. “SCREEEE!”

  “Faster!” Ingot shouted.

  They bobbed and weaved through the trees, the bramble. The clouds parted and a little light opened up in the distance.

  “To the light, to the light!” Ingot called from behind them.

  Tuffy ran in front of Marcel, at Scamp’s heels, and the pounding of their feet was a terrible drumbeat. “Don’t stop!” Scamp yelled back to the raccoon.

  Whoosh.

  Inches above his head, Marcel caught a glimpse of feathers, feet, and flashing claws.

  Wickedwing flew right over them.

  “Keep going!” shouted Ingot. “She’ll circle back!”

  “What’s she doing?” panted Scamp.

  “She’s playing with us!” said Ingot.

  They scrambled over an enormous rock, and Tuffy lost his footing. Marcel heard him yelp as he tumbled away out of sight.

  “Keep going!” Ingot shouted. “I’ll get the raccoon. Keep for the sunset! Keep going until—don’t even stop when you think you must! Leap!”

  Marcel ran after Scamp, a cry caught in his throat.

  Fear drummed into every inch of him. He took one look over his shoulder to see Ingot’s tail disappear off the rock.

  Ahead, Scamp was shouting. “It’s opening up! I see light on the horizon! The forest is ending!”

  “What then?” Marcel called to her. The trees thinned out. The light was growing.

  “Ingot said go—even when—” Scamp raced beyond the last tree and came to an abrupt halt.

  Marcel caught up, and his heart sank.

  They stood on the edge of a high, windy precipice. Beneath them burned a field of crimson grass.

  The sun slipped away and disappeared. In the distance, the lights on a cluster of tall greenish towers blinked on.

  “The city,” whispered Scamp.

  Marcel looked down. “The fall.”

  They quickly turned to face the forest.

  At the edge of the woods, a shadowy pair of giant wings folded in on themselves on the branch of an old tree. She was covered in darkness; all they could see were the lights of her eyes.

  Click. Click.

  The sound of her beak stole what was left of Marcel’s courage.

  Scamp whispered to Marcel out the corner of her mouth, “Where are they? Where’s Ingot and Tuffy?”

  “I—I don’t know,” answered Marcel. He tried to see past the trees.

  Nothing moved. Just a few stubborn leaves twisting in the wind.

  “What’s she doing?” Scamp asked quietly.

  Marcel swallowed hard. “Waiting.”

  The wind snapped at their backs. Scamp slowly raised her sling-shooter.

  “I’m—I’m not sure you should do that,” cautioned Marcel.

  “Why?”

  “This wind—what if you miss?”

  Scamp gulped. “I miss and we’re owl pellets.” She lowered her sling.

  Suddenly, from inside the forest, a volley of pebbles clattered against the base of the owl’s tree. Wickedwing looked down just as Ingot and Tuffy came barreling out. “Go! Go!” yelled Ingot.

  “Go where?” screeched Scamp. “We’re trapped!”

  Before she knew it, Ingot flew past, holding Tuffy’s paw and yanking hers as he went by. Tuffy grabbed Marcel’s.

  And the four went sailing over the edge.

  They did not die as fast as Marcel would’ve expected.

  “Spread eagle, spread eagle!” shouted Ingot. He and Tuffy had leaves clasped at their necks and around their middles, making something of a parachute, and Marcel was surprised to see both Scamp’s and his packs doing almost the same. Scamp’s cape whipped behind her. The wind screamed in their ears.

  “The wind,” hollered Ingot. “It’ll hold you if you trust it! Arms and legs out!”

  Marcel looked over at Tuffy. His eyes were as wide as lollipops and his mouth was open in a silent scream.

  Scamp hollered. “What about Wickedwing?”

  “Don’t worry about her!” Ingot shouted into the wind. “Nothing we can do! Focus on what you can do something about!”

  Unfortunately, the only other thing to focus on was the ground.

  And it began to get very close.

  “Everyone!” shouted Ingot. “Lean to the right! We’re gonna aim for that bush!”

  Four bodies tilted, and they sailed toward the giant prickly pillow of an evergreen bush.

  “Straighten! Straighten! Tuck and roll when you hit!”

  The bush grew bigger, wider. They braced for impact, and before they knew it…

  They were welcomed into its waiting arms.

  Which was an awfully nice way of putting it.

  “Oof!”

  “OUCH!”

  “I think I swallowed a beetle!”

  Marcel felt a branch snap, and he was deposited onto the ground in a heap. Luckily, he’d managed to land on his side. He checked to see if Toto was hurt and was relieved to see the cocoon wriggling with surprise but not pain, from what he could tell.

  “Everyone okay?” Ingot tried to stand. His leg was bleeding, and he faltered over to where Tuffy was still clinging to a branch. Ingot’s limp was much deeper now.

  Scamp jumped from the bush, her walnut-shell shield dangling, her face full of scratches. She spat three pine needles into the dirt. “Where is she? Where’s the owl?”

  Ingot looked to the sky.

  Wickedwing circled overhead and cried. She didn’t appear to be making a descent, instead, the owl hovered near the top of the bluff.

  Ingot breathed a sigh of relief. “Thought so. The cliff’s the boundary. Though why she ever agreed to this whole boundary idea, I have no idea.”

  “Whose territory are we in now, do you think?” asked Marcel. He remembered the seagull’s words. “The Whizzer’s?” He gazed out at the field of little bluestem before them, red as embers in its fall color and the way the low sun touched every blade of grass and set it ablaze. He looked to the greenish hue of the towers in the distance.

&nb
sp; The field of red poppies. The towers of the Emerald City. It was Oz at every turn.

  “Whizzer?” replied Ingot. “Could be. Only option left.”

  Dark was creeping over the meadow, and Marcel suddenly felt too tired to wonder further. He noticed something was wrong with the remaining lens of his glasses and he took them off for a cleaning. Another crack.

  “Come,” said Ingot. “There’s a knoll over there in the field. We’ll get settled on the lee side. Out of the wind.”

  In less than an hour, Tuffy was curled up and asleep and Ingot had positioned himself next to a rock, wrapping long blades of grass around the wound on his leg.

  Stars spiraled into the licorice-black sky, and the puffs of their breath made small cotton-candy clouds against the night.

  Marcel followed Scamp as she crawled to the top of the knoll and lay on her belly, chin resting on her paws. She stared at the green glow of the buildings springing up in the distance.

  “I did it,” she said as Marcel settled into the spot next to her. “I got you to your city.”

  Marcel’s eyes drifted to Scamp’s glowing city, and he felt a pang of sadness—for her, for him, for Tuffy.

  They were not looking at his city. Not Shirley River.

  The cluster of buildings and smoking stacks appeared to be a factory of sorts, and from the smell of it, it had something to do with popcorn. They hadn’t been following the scent of the Emerald City Theater.

  They’d been chasing a popcorn factory.

  Could be they were farther from the city than ever.

  Marcel felt the realization that he’d never get back to the hens and the theater sink in.

  “I knew I could do it,” Scamp said. “I knew I’d shoot straight.” She rolled onto her back and looked up at the stars. “See that one?” She pointed to the brightest star. “See how it hangs there on the end of my sling-shooter? That’s my special star. My papa gave it to me. That’s how I know I’ll always shoot straight.”

  Marcel recognized it. It was the North Star. The star that guides you home.

  If only.

  Scamp pointed to the bigger of the two sling-shooters in the sky. “The big one’s my papa’s. He taught me to shoot. Now he barely helps me aim.” She sighed heavily and turned on her side to look at Marcel. “You like stars?”

  Did he like stars?

  Marcel imagined himself back in Dorothy’s room, staring up at the fluorescent stars on the ceiling. Pick one. Pick a star.

  There were oh so many stars.

  If only every star had a wish and every wish came true.

  Marcel had only ever wanted to be near her. And look at him now.

  But when he felt Dorothy pulling away, there was only one thing to do, wasn’t there?

  “The past is the past. What’s done is done. All there is, is now,” the basset hound had said.

  Marcel gave Scamp’s special star one last look. And then he turned away.

  Some things are too precious to hope for. And hope—he knew this well—can be disappointed.

  “You like stars?” Scamp asked again.

  For a long time, Marcel didn’t answer. Instead, he began to hum. And then, with words he could only hear in his head, he found himself singing.

  A song about wishing on stars.

  A song about troubles melting away like candy.

  Their song. His and Dorothy’s.

  But as the lyrics tumbled over themselves in his mind, his thoughts snagged on two words.

  He stopped humming.

  “What was that?” asked Scamp. “It was kinda nice. Sad too.”

  She waited a minute or two for him to answer, but when he didn’t, the mouse gave up. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” She stood to leave. “Good night, bristle-butt,” Scamp said as she walked away, her tail dragging in the grass behind her.

  He could still hear it. The tune he and his Dorothy sang to each other as Dorothy Gale crooned from the television.

  Their “Over the Rainbow” song.

  Marcel fell asleep that night to that one line, those two words, playing over and over in his head and dreamed of Dorothy.

  Dreamed of baths in the kitchen sink where Dorothy never forgot to add his favorite rose-scented bubble bath and a rubber duck…

  Karaoke under the twinkle lights in her bedroom with Marcel as the judge. He always awarded Dorothy first place….

  The high-tops Dorothy sewed for him, made out of red felt to match hers…

  The Halloween she dressed up as a movie star and made a cardboard limousine to fit around her with a little driver’s seat just for Marcel. He wore a bow tie….

  Gingersnap trails and giant bowls of popcorn.

  The two words that warbled on repeat in the background were:

  Find me, find me, find me….

  * * *

  Wake up, Marcel. Wake up.

  Marcel felt something cold kiss his cheek.

  He turned over and buried his face under a leaf.

  Marcel, wake up.

  A gust of wind picked up the corner of his leaf and carried it away. Marcel’s eyes were heavy, and his body was stiff and bruised from the day before. Somewhere between sleep and waking, he pinched his eyes shut tighter, hoping for a few more minutes of rest.

  The whispery fingertips of snowflakes brushed against his face, his fur, his spines.

  Get up, Marcel!

  Marcel cracked open an eye.

  Had he heard Oona’s voice just now, or was it part of the dream?

  A wintery wonderland broke out before him, fat snowflakes settling on the red and brown field all around. They covered Ingot and Tuffy in a thin white blanket.

  Marcel sat up and blinked. He settled his glasses on his nose. “Oona?”

  She was nowhere to be found.

  But his eyes fixed on something else.

  Something impossibly else.

  A swarm of seagulls flew silently overhead.

  Scamp was being carried off beneath them.

  CHAPTER 18 Ozymandius Pott’s Popcorn Emporium

  IN SECONDS, MARCEL HAD TOTO strapped to his chest, and he, Ingot, and Tuffy were racing across the snowy field in pursuit of the gulls and the mouse-napped Scamp.

  “Did you hear anything? Did they say where they were taking her?” Ingot shouted to Marcel. But Marcel had shared all that he knew, which was nothing. Ahead, the tall jade stacks of the factory chuffed white clouds into the sky.

  Silos, great steel cylinders, squat with peaked tops, silvery and gleaming, stood like a row of soldiers beneath the smokestacks. As they grew close, a maze of steel ladders, bridges, pipes, and spouts connecting silo to silo came into view.

  “They’re landing! Over there!” Marcel shouted.

  Like a settling fog, the seagulls descended, giving the three animals just enough time to cross the frozen fields. Just as the last bird touched the ground, the travelers reached the farthermost building. The hedgehog, the squirrel, and the raccoon crouched in the shadows.

  The head seagull tapped his beak against a round hatch the size of a dinner plate a few inches off the ground.

  An air shaft, Marcel thought to himself. Or perhaps a popcorn hatch?

  The door opened with a screech, and to Marcel’s surprise, the long nose of a rat popped out.

  “What is it?” the rat squawked.

  “Today’s quota,” answered the gull.

  The rat looked Scamp over with a sneer. “It’s a bit small, don’t you think?”

  “There was never a stipulation about size.” Monk narrowed his eyes at the rat, who waited a moment to see if there was anything more the bird might offer.

  “Fine!” said the rat. “Give ’er here.”

  Marcel, Ingot, and Tuffy watched as the seagull dangling Scamp by her belt moved toward the door. They could see the little mouse struggling to get free, a kernel of corn stuffed in her mouth to silence her.

  “Come on, come on,” ordered the rat. “Whizzer’ll throw me in the popper if I don’t
get ’er up to the bridge soon.”

  “Whizzer!” whispered Ingot.

  “Payment first,” said Monk. “Push the button.”

  The rat sneered at the gull. His mouth curled back to reveal two long yellow teeth. “I hates doing business with birds.”

  Poking his nose out farther, the rat jabbed two fingers in his mouth and made a sharp, biting whistle. “Patsy! Nicky! Open the spout!” he shouted to two rats standing on a sort of large metal box beneath the silos.

  “Aye-aye, boss!” they answered, and immediately they began to argue.

  “It’s my turn to press the button,” said one to the other.

  “You always press it, Nicky. It’s your turn to press ‘Off,’ ” the other argued back.

  “I like ‘On.’ ”

  “You press ‘Off!’ ”

  “JUST PRESS THE BUTTON!” screeched the rat from the hatch.

  Everyone watched as at the exact same moment, the two rats hit a large green button on the metal box.

  With the sound of a freight train, an avalanche of corn kernels poured from a hinged spout on the metal pipes above and piled onto the ground below. The flock of gulls flapped to the edges and began to eat greedily.

  Not a minute later, “Turn ’er off! Turn ’er off,” the rat in the hatch called out.

  At the press of a second button, the cascade of corn became a trickle, and the seagull carrying Scamp passed her through the round door and out of sight.

  A growl rumbled up from deep inside Ingot’s throat.

  “No!” Marcel yelled, but the wind caught it and swept it away.

  Tuffy threw his paws over his eyes and whimpered.

  “Nice doing business with yeh,” said the rat. He slammed the door.

  The last kernel was snapped up, and the gulls began to fly off.

  Ingot turned to face Marcel and Tuffy. “Follow me. Say nothing. Look as tough as you can…” His gaze fell on Tuffy, and Ingot made a little sigh. The raccoon still had his paws over his eyes. Ingot reached up and mussed the raccoon’s fur into an angry mess, pulled Tuffy’s paws from his face, and waited for the raccoon to open his eyes. “Just cross your arms, Tuffy. Cross your arms and look mean. You need to do this for Scamp, you hear? I’ll take care of the rest.”