by Unknown
We all change as we pass out of childhood and become adults. Our perceptions of Oz may change as well. So follow the road of yellow brick when you’re ready, but prepare for a detour or two along the way. And remember: whatever version of Oz you find yourself in, there’s no place like it.
THE GREAT ZEPPELIN HEIST OF OZ
BY RAE CARSON & C.C. FINLAY
STRANGE IN A STRANGER LAND
Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, witnessed the Wizard’s arrival.
She sat beneath a tree watching the most spectacular show ever performed by a summer sky. White clouds swirled above an emerald-colored sky, like whipped marshmallow topping on a glass bowl full of lime jello, spinning round and round and round on a potter’s wheel.
She didn’t think it could get any more amazing when the clouds cracked open and sunlight burst through, so blinding that she lifted one patchwork arm to shade her button eyes.
That’s when she saw the balloon.
It was a big bubble made of brightly colored fabric, with a basket hanging underneath and a man inside the basket, clinging to its rim. And it was coming toward her tree.
She jumped up and shouted. “Turn away!”
“I am rudderless in the maelstrom!” yelled the man in the basket. His small voice was getting louder and closer. “Reinless in my carriage!”
The man was making no sense. Scraps waved her hands to shoo the odd vessel aside. “All right, but steer your picnic basket that way!”
“I can’t steer it because—”
The balloon crashed into the branches of the venerable tree, which shook and shook and shook, like a dog shaking off a bath. The balloon deflated, becoming hopelessly entangled, but all the tree’s effort did manage one thing, which was to spill the passenger out of the basket.
He hit the ground with a loud thump, and Scraps ran toward him. She reached down to help, but he jumped to his feet like a cat—not all lithe and athletic like a cat making a spectacular leap but rather all arrogant and full of himself like a cat too embarrassed to admit that he’d taken a bad tumble.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He stared at her uncomprehendingly, so she spoke in a way that he might understand.
“ARE. YOU. ALL. RIGHT?”
“I must have knocked my noggin,” he said, feeling his head for lumps. “I’ve shaken the coin purse, rattled the old dice cup.”
“I don’t know about that,” Scraps said. “But I think you bumped your head—you’re not making a lick of sense.”
He startled when she spoke again, as if hearing her for the first time. “Merciful blessings,” he said. “You’re a talking ragdoll! And a filthy one at that.”
Scraps, who was very proud of her shiny button eyes, orange yarn hair, and striped knickers, opened her mouth to say something likely to land her in a tussle with the strange man, even though she stood no higher than his knee. But the tree spoke first.
“And you’re a blithering idiot,” boomed the good-natured old oak.
He was bending over as he said it, and the man from the balloon jumped so high that he hit his head on a branch and accomplished what falling from the sky could not: he knocked himself out cold.
“What a strange man,” the tree said, his knotholes frowning. “What do we do with him now?”
“I’ll run to the Emerald City and get the Guardian of the Gates,” Scraps replied. “He’ll know what to do.”
PROGRESS!
The Guardian of the Gates had no idea what to do.
The strange man had not stopped talking once since he’d been carried to the guardhouse. He called himself Oz, which was short for Oscar, because he had so many other things to say; there was no time to use a two-syllable name when one syllable was available. His talk was equal parts questions and opinions, although the latter seldom seemed related to the answers he received to the former, until he said, quite out of the blue:
“I’ll tell you what’s not right about this country.”
The statement startled Gigi, which is what the Guardian of the Gates was called by his friends, even though his proper name—George—was only one syllable long. But who in the world used one syllable when two perfectly good syllables were at hand?
“What’s wrong with this country?” asked Gigi, who already knew what was wrong with the guardhouse—half his bread and all his butter had been eaten by the stranger.
“Now don’t go putting words into my mouth,” Oz said. “Not right is not the same as wrong. There’s right and not right, and there’s right and wrong, and there’s wrong and not wrong. But to insist that not right is the same as wrong is to infer a transitive property of equivalence that is not supported by the evidence, for we do not yet know the qualities that individually compose not right and wrong. Am I not right?”
“I think you’re wrong,” Gigi said, trying desperately to follow.
“You haven’t been paying attention at all,” Oz snapped. “Have you never studied the mathematical approach to language known as logic?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Which is not the same as saying that you haven’t,” Oz replied. “But I digress. To return to the original—in fact, the essential—point that I was about to make: what’s not logical, what’s distinctly and preeminently not right about this country, as you have described it to me, is that there are four kingdoms.”
“No, that’s right,” Gigi said. “There are definitely four kingdoms.”
“There are four kingdoms, but not one king. Every kingdom in this land is ruled by a woman! Why, in the land I come from, there is a great city called Omaha, not much different than your fine metropolis, in which my father served as a city councilman for two score years, give or take an annum. In all that time, he did not once serve under or even with a woman. And yet here you are ruled by four of them. Glinda, Bastinda, Locasta, and…Canasta?”
He waved his hand in the air, as if it were a matter of no consequence to forget a witch’s name.
“Her name is—” Gigi started to say.
“Why, it’s poppycock!”
“No, it’s…what’s poppycock?”
“Poppycock? It’s a species of flower. You usually find it planted in gardens along with balderdash and humbug and ample beds of bunkum. Does she have an army?”
“The Witch?” Gigi said. “She has a few soldiers, I suppose. But mostly she has the Winged Monkeys.”
“Monkey business, is it?” Oz murmured to himself.
“And she’s very capable with magic.”
“I can do a bit of magic myself!”
Oz pushed up his sleeves to his elbows and showed Gigi his hands, palms up, then palms down. Then his right hand darted to Gigi’s ear, and when he pulled it back, a tiny silver-colored disc was pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
Gigi snatched the disc away and examined it.
On one side was a portrait of a severe-looking man with feathers tucked in the back of his hair. On the other side was a picture of a large, hairy beast with a larger, hairier hump. “What is this?” Gigi asked.
“This is what you call progress,” Oz said. “In the land where I come from, which is known as Nebraska, there were once great tribes of Indians and endless herds of buffalo. Then men like me came along, and we achieved progress, which we memorialize by stamping it on a nickel.”
“What happened to the Indians and the buffalos?”
“The same thing that is going to happen to your witches now that I’m here,” Oz said, snatching the coin away. “Progress!”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Gigi said.
“I believe it makes five of them.” Oz flipped the coin in the air with his thumb and caught it in his fist, which he held in front of Gigi’s nose. Then he opened one finger at a time to reveal an empty hand.
“Hrm,” Gigi said skeptically.
But Oz just wiggled his fingers and grinned. “Now that’s magic.”
“Yes,” Gigi said. “I’m certain that i
t is.”
He wasn’t certain at all, but he would help this Oz fellow anyway, just in case. There was no need to risk getting progressed.
THE QUEEN OF THE FIELD MICE
“Your Majesty, it is a pleasure of immeasurable proportions, a satisfaction both sublime and profound, an honor far beyond a man of my own humble origins, to make your most regal and diminutive acquaintance,” said the whiskered stranger who had come from the Emerald City with the Guardian of the Gates.
“Delighted to meet you, too, I’m sure,” the Queen said, glancing up at the Guardian of the Gates, who was deliberately avoiding her gaze. She brushed her whiskers with her paw, in case they held any crumbs. “Who did you say you were again?”
“I am Oscar Diggs, from the wide and narrow land known as Nebraska, which lies across the hills and over the rainbow, where I am a modest purveyor of marvels, an itinerant educator of the masses, and the possessor of great and powerful devices of extraordinary merit. But you may call me Oz.”
“Oh my,” said the Queen, who thought she could smell a cow patty before she stepped in it. “Well, how can I help you, Mr. Oz?”
“Your Majesty,” Oz said. “I’m not here to ask for your help like some beggar far from home. No, indeed! Rather I hope you will allow me to describe the manner in which I can help you.”
“You help me?”
“Your Majesty, this field that you occupy is part of a much bigger land—in fact, a kingdom! A kingdom is a structure of government that I trust you, as a fellow monarch, albeit of a more limited domain, approve of and even support. But right now this kingdom has no king, a situation that confounds sense and boggles the cerebrum. Instead you are ruled by a witch, a woman who, instead of a scepter, carries a broom. Do I need to paint a picture for you?”
“Oh, please,” said the Queen. “I love paintings.”
Oz began to stomp around in a circle. “A broom is the bane of every mouse. It’s cold outside, and there is no food, but—look!—over here is a cottage. A simple home. You peer inside the door, and what do you see? A fire on the hearth, providing warmth and safety. You see that there are crumbs upon the floor, so small they’ve been cast off by the giants who live here—but these tasty, savory crumbs will fill your belly and feed your numerous brood of starving children. Do you follow me so far?”
“I do,” said the Queen, but in a tone intended to indicate not at all.
But this Oscar person seemed pleased. He thrust his hands dramatically at her. “And then here comes the broom! It slams you against the wall. It pursues you into the corner. No matter where you turn, there waits the broom, relentless and unforgiving, until it has chased you back out into the cold, bruised and battered. Until it has swept up all the crumbs—food that could feed your loyal, hungry subjects—and tossed them into the flames where they can feed no one at all. And is this fair?”
“It’s horrifying,” said the Queen, her whiskers twitching.
“Exactly,” said Oz. “But here you are—you live in a kingdom ruled by a witch with a broom, and what will she do with that broom? She will chase you, and slap you, and destroy the food supplies of your people, and leave you all with nowhere to turn and nowhere to live. Horrifying! But fortunately you have me.”
“We do?”
“You do! And Your Majesty,” Oz said, bowing low. “If you will just do as I ask, I can put an end to the Witch’s broom and guarantee peace and prosperity for the foreseeable future.”
The Queen looked at Gigi, who was twirling his toe in the grass and still avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know…”
Slam! Oz stomped his boot on the ground, making her jump.
“That’s not me,” Oz said. “That’s what the Witch wants to do to you this very minute.”
“What can we do about it?” the Queen said, ready to agree with almost anything the stranger asked if he would just leave her alone.
“I have brought with me, from the land of Nebraska, an element called helium and several things called balloons…”
A CLEAN SWEEP
It was hard for Bobbin, one of the smallest of the field mice, to predict which thing would be more terrifying that day.
Would it be getting tied to a string that was tied to a balloon that was then sent floating aloft to drift over the Witch’s castle?
Or maybe while he dangled hundreds of feet in the air, it would be climbing up the string and chewing a tiny hole in the balloon—a hole not so big that the balloon would pop and drop him to his death, but just big enough to allow the balloon to descend slowly into the castle.
Or maybe it would be searching the castle, memorizing everything he saw, never knowing when the Witch’s Broom of Doom, as it was now being called among the field mice, would slam down on his tiny body.
As it turned out, the most terrifying thing was none of these.
They started on an observation platform that stood above the trees on a high hill overlooking the valley and the distant Witch’s castle. Socks were tied to poles at each corner of the platform. Wind filled them, indicating which direction it was blowing. Only when Oz was satisfied with the wind did he fill the first balloon and set it adrift. They watched it until it floated over the castle and away.
“We’ll call that test a success,” Oz said as he filled the second balloon from the metal tank. “Now’s for the real adventure. Are you ready, my lad?”
“Ready,” Bobbin squeaked. He wanted very much to be brave and do a good thing for his fellow mice.
“Your valor and fortitude are deserving of the highest recognition,” Oz said. And he tied the string around Bobbin’s waist and set him adrift over the forest.
Bobbin kept his eyes mostly closed and drifted over trees that looked at him with puzzled faces. Whispers ran through the leaves, branching out in every direction. Poor Bobbin began to twitch nervously. This was hardly the surreptitious entry that Oz had promised him.
The balloon was barely over the castle wall when other faces appeared in the windows and along the battlements—the Witch’s Winged Monkeys, furry little men with leathery wings and sparkling golden vests.
Then there were Monkeys on the roof of the castle.
Then there were Monkeys in the air above the castle.
Bobbin paddled his tiny legs furiously, like a swimmer desperate to make it to shore, even though his intention was only to turn around and climb up the string. The activity made him swing like a pendulum and soon he was all tangled up, which cut off his circulation and made his toes go numb.
The Monkeys flew up in waves, spinning round and round Bobbin’s balloon until it was twisting like a leaf in a whirlwind. The more daring Monkeys flew in and poked at the balloon, or—worse!—at Bobbin.
“No no no no no no no no no no no no no!” he screamed.
The Monkeys laughed and spun him round and round and batted his balloon until he was screaming at them to—
POP!
The balloon disappeared like a wasted wish, and he plummeted toward the rocks below. At the last second, as the rocks loomed large in his vision, a tiny hairy hand thrust out of nowhere and grabbed him.
The Monkey carried Bobbin high into the air, higher than his balloon had been, and then the Monkeys played a game of keep-away, tossing Bobbin back and forth, dropping and catching him over and over again until he was limp and exhausted with terror.
Eventually the Monkeys grew bored, and they took Bobbin to the castle, where he was presented to the Witch of the East.
“Who sent you to spy on my castle?” the Witch asked.
“Oz,” Bobbin said, and then, feeling like that wasn’t quite enough, like it might be a good idea to have a powerful protector, he added, “Oz, the great and powerful. He’s a wizard! He came from Nebraska, and he…he…has progress, which he keeps in his pocket.”
While he spoke, his eyes darted back and forth, looking for the terrible, the awful, the frightening Broom of Doom.
The Witch reached down and, with one long fingernail, scrat
ched between Bobbin’s ears. Despite his wariness, Bobbin closed his eyes and sighed.
“Tell me everything you remember,” the Witch said.
So that’s what Bobbin did, even though when he got to the part about the Broom of Doom, she laughed so hard that tears fell from her eyes.
“That’s a good boy,” the Witch said when the laughter subsided and her breath returned. “Will you take a message to this wizard for me?”
“Y…y…yes,” Bobbin said.
“Tell him, if he’s smart, he’ll go back to Nebraska.”
“I can do that,” Bobbin said.
“I know you can,” the Witch said, giving him a big yellow-toothed smile. “Now…would you like to walk back to the Wizard’s base of operations, or would you like my Monkey friends to fly you there?”
“Walk! Walk! Walk!” Bobbin shouted.
He staggered like a drunk all the way back to the far end of the valley.
When the Wizard saw Bobbin, he snatched him off the ground.
“What did you find out?” he demanded.
“That I don’t like flying,” Bobbin said.
“How many soldiers does she have? What sort of weapons?”
Oz, in his enthusiasm, gripped Bobbin too tightly, more roughly even than the Monkeys had. So it was a reflex, really, that caused Bobbin to use the only weapons he owned—his teeth—which he sank into Oz’s thumb.
Oz yelped and dropped Bobbin, who ran off to a safe distance.
“Go back to Nebraska or you’ll smart!” he yelled.