by Speedy In Oz
Feeling as if he had swallowed a baseball, Speedy placed the note under his tall tumbler, gently touched the arm of Ozma, who was sitting on his right, and whispered an earnest sentence in her royal ear. Ozma smiled, nodded understandingly and, touching the jewelled Magic Belt she wore around her waist, spoke a few words under her breath. As all heads turned to the King’s Su-jester, who had risen to render his song, Speedy disappeared noiselessly from his place, dropped lightly as a feather through the dreamlike mists and rainbows surrounding all fairy countries, and came down with a soft thump in the middle of the worn leather sofa in Uncle Billy’s study.
CHAPTER 20 Home Again
UNCLE BILLY was sitting in an arm chair looking mournfully out of the window,
but he turned quickly at the little noise behind him.
“Hello! So it’s you! I thought you’d come back, even though the professor assured me you’d been blown to bits!”
The inventor jumped joyfully to his feet. “Boy, let me look at you! Silks and satins, boots and a queue! Where’ve you been? Looks as if it might have been China!”
“Farther than that,” chuckled Speedy, clutching him exuberantly round the waist. “I’ve been to Umbrella Island, and oh, Uncle!”
You, now knowing the whole strange story, will realize Uncle Billy’s astonishment and surprise at the amazing experiences of Speedy and the dinosaur. We’ll all have to watch sharply for that water gun, for as surely as fishes have fins and turkeys have feathers, Speedy and his uncle will duplicate and perfect the Sea King’s curious invention.
They decided, and quite wisely, too, to say nothing to Professor Sanderson of what really happened to Terrybubble, and unless he reads this story, he will think his dinosaur was lost in the volcanic geyser.
And Terrybubble, on many a moonlit night, sits sorrowfully on the edge of Umbrella Island, vainly looking for Speedy. Much as he loves Gureeda and
Umbrella Island, he still longs for the little boy who made life so interesting and real.
Waddy, too, flying the Island dangerously low over the mortal world, pointing his telescopes here and there, never gives up hope of finding again his assistant wizard.
And who knows? Perhaps some calm evening, Umbrella Island will float over your very own housetop. If it does, and the rope ladder is down, go aboard by all means. For my part, I believe Speedy will some day return, marry the Princess, and become King of the Island!
THE END
ON March28, 1933, Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote to a correspondent: “I hear exciting news concerning a flying island over Oz and would not be surprised if a whole book full of adventures were happening there this very minute. I’ll tell you about it next year.” Thus, a year before its appearance, the author began giving tantalizing hints about the new Oz book.
The Oz book for 1934 was a milestone. It was the fourteenth Oz novel by Ruth Plumly Thompson, exactly the same number of Oz books that L. Frank Baum wrote. The story’s action was largely confined to a single location, Umbrella Island, rather than involving a great deal of travel as in most other Oz books. The book re-introduced one of Miss Thompson’s most successful boy characters, Speedy, and presented to her readers two of Thompson’s best and most imaginative creations, Umbrella Island itself, and the marvelous Terrybubble.
Whereas circumstances spaced out Baum’s Oz titles over a twenty-year span, Thompson’s fourteen titles appeared in just fourteen years. During his period of writing Oz books, Baum wrote other books and pieces for newspapers and magazines as well. So did Ruth Plumly Thompson. She edited a weekly children’s page for The Philadelphia Public Ledger, produced advertising pamphlets for Royal Baking Powder and other products, and got out three of her five non oz books. It was a busy fourteen years for Thompson, but she would go on to write five more novels about Oz.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 20 Home Again