A Grown-Up in Oz
by
John W. Kennedy

Founded on and continuing the Famous Oz Stories
by
L. Frank Baum

Copyright © 1997–2006 by John W. Kennedy.
All rights reserved

To the Reader

When I was born, the book of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was nearly as old as I will be when this book is published. I remember well how, one Christmas, my brother and I received copies of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Marvelous Land of Oz, and how, when I was no more than eight or nine years old, I first attempted to write my own book about Oz, hoping that the Reilly & Lee company would be interested. But there have been few books about Oz published in the years since then, and the Reilly & Lee company seems to have disappeared as thoroughly as Dorothy’s silver slippers did. I thought I would never have the chance to tell a real Oz story.

Then one day I sat down at my trusty computer and connected to the Internet, for it seemed to me that the good folk of Oz must be on the World-Wide Web, seeing that everyone else is. It took me a little time, but I finally guessed the correct name for the website belonging to The Ozmapolitan, which is the principle Ozian newspaper. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the Oz folk were having their own celebration of the anniversary of Dorothy Gale’s first arrival in Oz, and that the Nome King himself had put in an appearance, after so many long years. And there was much more news, too! Now, some of you may be wondering about the name of this book. Certainly there are a lot of grown-ups who have lived in Oz all of their lives, and Joe Robertson certainly isn’t the first grown-up from the great outside world to visit Oz, for the Shaggy Man, Dorothy’s Uncle Henry and Aunt Em, Cap’n Bill, and several others have not only visited Oz, but come to live there always. But as far as I know, this is the first time someone who grew up reading the Oz books has been able, years later, to actually go there.

Of course, there are other people who accompanied Mr. Robertson on his journey. First of all, there’s his little niece Dorothy Anne, who, in a way, brought him to Oz. And then there’s ZIP, who comes from a very different sort of place than either Oz or the outside world.

So now, here is my very own Oz book. And who knows? Perhaps someday I will find some more articles in The On-line Ozmapolitan that will tell another interesting tale of the marvelous land of Oz.

John W. Kennedy
Chatham, NJ
March 31, 1997

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Virtually Real

I should have it working in a minute, Honey.”

“That’s what you said an hour ago, Uncle Joe!”

“I know, honey. Sometimes even grown-ups make mistakes. But this time I really think it’s going to work. Let’s just boot it up one more time.”

Joe Robertson took one more look at the computer, moved the mouse to the shutdown option, and clicked several times. When the system finished shutting down, he hit the Reset button, and watched patiently as the Helium Graphics workstation with 1024 megabytes of RAM and 128 gigabytes of hard disk booted up again. Dorothy Anne, his little niece, watched, but not as patiently. She loved playing games on the computer, and hated waiting when her Uncle Joe was “fiddling around” with it.

“You see, Dorothy Anne, the goggles in the helmet are working, now.” He put on the newly-attached 3-D stereo helmet, with its power indicator now lit for the first time. “This is really something; I can see the desktop—the pretend desktop that’s usually on the screen—floating in the air right in front of me, here.” He pointed to a spot in the air.

“But I can’t see anything there.”

“No, but I can. The goggles inside the helmet show me the screen just as though it were real, and I can reach out and touch it, right there.” He reached out in the air before him and seemed to push an invisible button.

“You have to use the gloves, too, Uncle Joe.”

“Yes, that’s right.” He took off the helmet so he could see, put on the matching gloves, and then put the helmet on again. “Let’s see if I can make this work. I’ll just touch this icon, and—Whoops! there it goes! As soon as I touched the icon, the folder opened, just the way it was supposed to. The gloves told the computer where I was pointing my finger, and that was it! This is great!”

“Can I see it now, Uncle Joe? I want to try the new game!”

“Okay, Honey. But before you try the new game, why don’t you try just using the helmet and the gloves to play Solitaire? That way, you’ll get some practice using them. It’s a little tricksy, and I think it will be easier for you to learn the helmet and the gloves on a game you know, and then try the new game separately. That will give me a chance to read about the game, too.” He took off the helmet and gloves as he spoke, and looked at Dorothy Anne with a twinkle in his eye. “Otherwise, I’ll never be able to keep up with you.”

“Yes, Uncle Joe.” Dorothy Anne had learned during the six months since she had come to live with her mother’s brother that it was best to do what he said with the computer. For many years, he had used computers all day long at the office, and now that he was spending the day at home so he could take care of her, he used this computer, and another little notebook computer, to keep on doing his job from home.

Dorothy Anne had come to live with Uncle Joe when her parents were lost on an airplane that disappeared on a flight from California to Australia. Despite this unhappy past she was a naturally cheery child, and, though she missed her parents a great deal, her days at school, where she was usually a very good student, and her nights, weekends, and vacations with Uncle Joe left her little time to be unhappy in. Uncle Joe’s big computer was especially exciting; it was bigger and faster than any other home computer Dorothy Anne had ever seen at any of her friends’ houses, because of his work. Uncle Joe wrote computer programs for a living, which is a very demanding job for both the programmer and for the computer he uses, but he did most of his work while Dorothy Anne was in school, so most of the time when she was at home, she could use it, both for her homework, and to play games.

She had a new game now that she wanted to play, a game that had come addressed to her in the mail the day before. It was very mysterious, because there was no note with the package, and no return address on it. Also, neither she nor Uncle Joe could remember ever seeing this game in a store, or hearing about it any other way. The game, which came on a DVD-ROM, was called A Day in Oz. The box and the DVD-ROM were both colored purple on top, red on the bottom, green in the middle, and blue and yellow on the sides, which Dorothy Anne knew was a representation of the marvelous land of Oz, with the purple country of the Gillikins in the north, the red country of the Quadlings in the south, the green Emerald City (the capital of Oz) at the center, and the blue country of the Munchkins and the yellow country of the Winkles in the east and west. Uncle Joe had a bookcase full of books about Oz, and the other magical lands surrounding it in the Nonestic Ocean, and Dorothy Anne had read (or had read to her, when she was younger) about half of them so far. The package with the game had also contained the 3-D stereo helmet and gloves that Uncle Joe had just attached to the computer.

While Dorothy Anne was putting on the helmet and gloves and directing her attention to playing the computer’s game of solitaire with these new tools, Uncle Joe stepped into the next room and took another look at the booklet that had come with the DVD-ROM. The instruction sheets for attaching the helmet and gloves to the computer had been thorough and complete (well, almost thorough and complete), but the booklet provided only a bare minimum on how to install the game, and nothing at all about playing it. Presumably, the instructions for playing the game would be included in the game itself, as an on-line “help” feature. There was a little bit written about the game, though, besides the instructions, and he decided to read that part again, to see if, perhaps, there had been anything that he had missed the first time.

A Day in Oz represents a new level in interactive entertainment. Combining the latest advances in virtual reality with a new breakthrough in artificial intelligence, this will provide anyone young (or young at heart) with the adventure of a lifetime in L. Frank Baum’s classic fairyland.

There was also a letter in the package, but it was without any return address or signature. It didn’t even look like a real letter, because it was a photocopy, and not a very good one, but crooked and streaked. It, too, had but little to say.

Dear Customer:

  You have been chosen to receive a preliminary copy of A Day in Oz, which demonstrates our newest technology. In order for you to run this software, we are also including in this package a prototype of our new virtual-reality helmet and gloves. This hardware is still under development, and may malfunction. If this should occur, press the “resynchronize” button and all should return to normal.

The only problem was that Uncle Joe had looked at the helmet, the gloves, and all their connection equipment a dozen times, and couldn’t find a “resynchronize” button anywhere. “Still,” he said to himself, “if this is a prototype, just a first try to see if they got it right, perhaps they decided at the last moment to leave the button out. At the worst, Dorothy Anne can just start the game again.”

Dorothy Anne’s voice came from the study. “I’m going to start the game now, Uncle Joe. The helmet’s easy to use, and I only have to click on the little map of Oz to start it.”

“OK, dear. I hope you have fun.”

A few seconds later, he heard her voice again. “Uncle Joe, this is wonderful. I can see everything in front of me. It looks very—” The voice cut off.

“Yes, Dorothy Anne? What is it? Dorothy Anne? Dorothy Anne?” But no voice came from the other room.

Suddenly worried, he ran to the study door and looked inside. The helmet was sitting on the chair in front of the computer, and the gloves were lying on the floor, but Dorothy Anne was nowhere to be seen!

Chapter 2: An Anniversary

Yipes! Pipes!” Scraps, the Patchwork Girl, came tumbling down the stairs leading from one of the meeting rooms in the royal palace in the Emerald City of Oz.

The celebrated Scarecrow of Oz looked up. “Pipes?” he said.

Pipes, barrels, hogsheads, vats,
Anything bigger that’s
Handy for Ozade, hats
Off if you think of some
Better arrangement for
Keeping it all to pour
Out. There’s a hundred more
Guests who will come.

“Scraps, you can’t mean that. Surely not a hundred?”

“A hundred, or I’m a dund’rhead.”

“I don’t think you’re a dunderhead at all.”

The Scarecrow of Oz, you must understand, is one of the most extraordinary of the extraordinary inhabitants of the Land of Oz. Once he had been an everyday scarecrow, but he found that he wasn’t very good at it, so he decided to make his way in the world like other men. Ever since the wonderful Wizard of Oz gave him his splendid brains, he has done very well indeed, and once even ruled this most magnificent of fairylands for a time. Now he divides his time between life in the Emerald City and the Tin Castle of his friend, Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, who is the Emperor of the Winkies.

His friend, Scraps the Patchwork Girl, is both like and unlike him. Made of an old crazy quilt, she was brought to life to be a servant for the Crooked Magician’s wife, but having no patience with a servant’s life, she now lives in Princess Ozma’s palace in the Emerald City. Unlike the Scarecrow, Scraps was made with brains in her head from the start, but it sometimes shows that the ingredients weren’t mixed properly.

A hundred it is, or five minutes ago,
A hundred it was; but by now I don’t know.
I guess if I count up
Again, it could mount up
To two or three hundred or so.

To emphasize her point, the Patchwork Girl turned a somersault.

“But does Princess Ozma know about it?”

Scraps pointed to the doorway.

She does,
because
she’s here,
the dear.

The Scarecrow looked up to the top of the stairs, and saw the lovely little ruler of Oz standing in the door, together with Princess Dorothy.

“It’s a good thing, Dorothy,” said the fairy, as the two descended the stairs, “that we didn’t decide to have a surprise party to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of your first arrival in Oz. With all these guests arriving, it would certainly be hard to keep it a secret from you.”

“I know. This looks like it will be even a bigger celebration than the one we had for the Wizard and me, all those years ago—the one that King Skamperoo interrupted. At least when he comes, this time, he’ll be coming as a guest, and not as the Emperor of Oz.”

“Yes; Skampavia is a friend of Oz, now. In fact, almost all the magical countries near Oz are our friends; and we owe many of those friendships to you. That’s one reason so many people are coming to the celebration; your arrival in Oz is one of the most important events in history.”

“It feels funny, Ozma, as though I were George Washington, or Joan of Arc. And I’m only a little girl.”

“That’s true, Dorothy, but, after all, even if you are still a little girl, remember that we still had your one-hundredth birthday party a few years ago, so you’ve had a much bigger chance to make history than most mortals ever get.”

“I know.” Dorothy smiled. “Even now, it still feels strange to be more than a hundred years old.”

“No-one to look at you,” said the Scarecrow, “would think that you were over a hundred.”

And, indeed, no one would. Although Princess Dorothy of Oz has reached her second century, she still looks just the same as she did when she came to live in Oz almost ninety years ago. This is the nature of that very special fairyland, that no one grows any older than he wants to, or ever has to die. Dorothy is originally from Kansas, in the United States of America, but after four exciting adventures in the land of Oz, she came to live there permanently, along with her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.

Her companion, Princess Ozma, looks hardly older than Dorothy, although she owes her youth, not to the enchantment of Oz, but to the fact that she is an immortal fairy, far older than anyone could even believe. During Dorothy’s first trip to Oz, Ozma had been hidden under a transformation, but soon after, she was found, and took her rightful place as ruler of the Emerald City and of all Oz. She has always been a just and fair ruler, and is loved by practically all her people.

“Ozma,” said the Scarecrow, “if, as Scraps tells me, we have a hundred or more extra guests coming, I don’t see how we can manage.”

“It will take a lot of work, and we will have to increase the palace staff. Jellia Jamb is interviewing new maids now, and we will take on some more guest valets, as well. The Wizard of Oz will see to it that the food does not run out, and as for the guest rooms, haven’t you ever noticed that there are always enough of them in the palace, no matter how many people arrive?”

“But,” said Dorothy, “it seems like such a lot of bother just for me.”

“Why,” said Ozma, “a little or a lot of bother, that’s what friends are for. Besides, even though the party may be to celebrate the centennial of your first journey to Oz, we’ll all share in enjoying it, and that’s what celebrations are for.”

“And there’s a lot to celebrate,” added the Scarecrow. “If you hadn’t been blown to Oz by that cyclone, you would never have found me, and I suppose I’d still be up on that pole. Nick Chopper would still be rusted solid in the Munchkin Forest, the Cowardly Lion would still be living as a wild beast, and half of Oz would still be ruled by wicked witches. Why, Oztory practically begins with you.”

Scraps began running up the stairs. As she went, she shouted over her shoulder:

If Oztory all starts with Dorothy,
Then on day after tomorrow, the
Hon’rable guests will all want to be seen with her.
Yet if we don’t finish the dinner,
Our Dorothy’s sure to get thinner,
And then everyone will just have to grow lean with her!

“Scraps is right, Ozma,” said the Scarecrow. “We’re all going to be very busy getting things ready, even if we start right now. Fortunately, she and I never need to sleep.”

“True,” said Ozma. “That’s why I’ve put the two of you in charge of things. But with such a surprising number coming, I’m sure you’ll be glad of the extra help.”

“We’ll be very glad, indeed,” said the Scarecrow, “as long as they’re really helpful.”

“I’m sure they will be,” said Ozma.

“At any rate,” said Dorothy, “they’ll be going to work at noon, today, so we should all finish organizing things before then.”

“That’s true,” said the Scarecrow, and they all followed him up the stairs after the Patchwork Girl.

Chapter 3: Into Oz

Uncle Joe looked around. There was no other door but the door to the room he had come from, and the windows were closed and locked on the inside. There were no closets or other hiding places and no one was concealed under the desk that held the computer. Dorothy Anne had vanished completely.

“Think, Joe, think,” he said to himself. “She didn’t go out the door, she didn’t go out the window, and there’s no place else she could have gone. Sherlock Holmes said, ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ There are the helmet and the gloves.... What if somehow these gadgets—took her? It’s a crazy idea, but every other idea I can think of seems even crazier.”

He looked at the screen of the computer; there was nothing unusual there. If Dorothy Anne had started A Day in Oz, it had stopped running.

There was only one way to tell what had happened, and that was to try himself. He picked up the helmet and sat in the chair. Then he put on the gloves and helmet. In the helmet, he once again saw an image of the desktop floating in the air in front of him. He reached out, and touched the icon labeled “A Day in Oz”, and a window opened up, displaying the following:

You wonder what happened to the little girl who was using the computer before you, so you decide that there is only one way to tell. You pick up the helmet and sit in the chair. Then you put on the gloves and helmet. In the helmet, you once again see an image of the desktop floating in the air in front of you. You reach out, and touch the icon labeled “A Day in Oz”, and a window opens up, displaying strangely familiar text. Then everything begins to blur around you, and you suddenly find yourself in....

Then everything began to blur around him, and he suddenly found himself in a clearing near an old farmhouse. Nearby, there was an old-fashioned mailbox on a post. Feeling very strange, indeed, he reached out and opened the mailbox. In the mailbox was a note. Slowly, he reached in, took out the note, and read it.

Hello Ozite! Welcome to A Day in Oz! In it, you will find enchantments, strange creatures, new friends, old friends, old and new enemies, and, maybe, even an explanation or two. This note will return to the mailbox as soon as you have finished reading it, for the benefit of the next player.

True to its word, the note suddenly vanished from his hand, and reappeared inside the mailbox. The mailbox door closed, and then suddenly started to wrinkle and fold in upon itself, until the mailbox seemed to have a face. Then, to complete his consternation, the mailbox spoke. “I’m not supposed to help you out like this, but you look confused; Dorothy Anne went inside the house; you should go in after her.” As soon as the last word was spoken, the face vanished, and the mailbox was just a mailbox again.

“Well,” said Uncle Joe to himself, “that’s enough to make a dragon laugh, as one might say.”

The farmhouse was very old, and the wood it was made of had turned completely gray, as old wood is inclined to do when it is exposed to the weather. He walked up to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked, so he rapped upon it. “Dorothy Anne? Dorothy Anne? Are you in there?” But there was no answer.

This was a puzzle. If Dorothy Anne were in the house, she should be able to hear him, as the house was very, very small. On the other hand, if she weren’t, then he could be wasting time trying to get in. “But,” he said to himself, “this is supposed to be a computer game, and computer games are full of puzzles like locked doors, so it’s natural that I should run into one. In that case, I’ll have to solve it.”

But how? He looked at the two windows, but couldn’t open them or see anything through them. “And that means,” he reasoned, “that there aren’t any windows in the back or at the sides. The house is too tiny for there to be more than one room, so I would see sunlight from any other windows through these windows, if any other windows were there. I guess if there’s nothing left but the windows and the door, I’ll have to break a window. I can’t believe anyone actually lives here, so it won’t do any harm.”

Now, Uncle Joe, being a grown-up, was very aware of the dangers involved in breaking glass, so he looked around on the ground for a stone he could throw at the window, so as not to be near it when it broke. After a moment, he found a fine, round one that looked right, picked it up, and threw it at the window, only to get a big surprise when the stone stopped in mid-air and dropped to the ground. But the real surprise came a moment later, when a tiny little nymph appeared before his face, looking like the kind of winged fairy you see in old books.

“Vandalism is against the law, and not allowed,” she said, and vanished.

Uncle Joe had heard of nymphs like this before; sometimes they turn up in computer games to make something harder, when the one writing the game can’t think of any cleverer way of doing it. Apparently, whoever had written this game had decided that breaking the window open was cheating. “OK,” he said to himself, “let’s see if there’s another way. If I can’t use the door or the windows, then I have to go in through the roof or through the walls.” He stepped back to look at the roof, but couldn’t see anything, at least on the front side. “Let’s see what’s on the other sides, then,” he said, as he walked around to the left side of the house. There was nothing there, nor was there anything on the back wall, or the back roof. Finally, he walked around to the last side of the house, hoping that there would be something on that wall, but there wasn’t.

Then he looked again. There was a rain gully leading up to the wall and going under it. It was a large gully, large enough for a grown man to crawl in, so that is what he did. Climbing down into the gully, he got on his hands and knees and crawled up to the wall and then under it, to the space under the house. It was dark there, but some light came in through the gully behind him so that he could see.

Above him he could see the boards that made up the floor of the house and the beams that held them up. He could also see rusty nails pointing down at him, so he scrunched down to keep away from them, because rusty nails are very dangerous. As he did, he saw a golden glint out of the corner of his eye. He reached out, and discovered a piece of golden cloth, and then another just like it. They looked intriguing, so he stuffed them into his shirt pocket and continued on all fours along the gully.

As he got, as nearly as he could tell, to the center of the house, he saw a square panel above him, like a door. He pushed upwards on it, and found that a door was precisely what it was—a trap door that opened up into the house. Cautiously, he put his head through.

Inside the house, he saw a large bed, a small bed, a table and chairs, and a few other pieces of furniture, all made very simply out of wood. Lying on the small bed, fast asleep, was Dorothy Anne!

He quietly lifted himself up onto the floor, walked to the bed, and gently shook her. “Dorothy Anne, wake up.”

She opened her eyes and stretched. “Uncle Joe! Is that you? Was I asleep? Uncle Joe, do you know where we are? This is Oz! And this is Dorothy’s house from Kansas, the one that blew her away to Oz in a cyclone and landed on the Wicked Witch of the East! Only—you can’t be Uncle Joe, really, because this is a computer game, isn’t it?”

“No, dear, I’m afraid it isn’t. I’m not sure what it is, any more, but right after you started playing the game, you disappeared, and I used the game to follow you. You don’t have the helmet and the gloves on, any more, and I don’t think I do either. Try to take the gloves off, or the helmet.”

Dorothy Anne felt at her arms and at her head. “I can’t; they’re not there!”

Uncle Joe did the same. “And I can’t feel them or get them off, either. Somehow, that game has really brought us to the real Oz, and I have no idea how to get us home!”

Chapter 4: Maisie Makes a Mistake

Maisie Meshie was feeling very proud. With all the work to be done for Princess Dorothy’s celebration, the call had gone out from Ozma’s palace for extra helpers, and nearly all the young men and women of the Emerald City had shown up at the door to be interviewed. Maisie had never been inside the palace before, and had found it almost overwhelming, but she found Jellia Jamb, Ozma’s housekeeper and one of the Emerald City’s great celebrities in her own right, very down-to-earth and friendly. Jellia had offered Maisie the job of cleaning up the royal conservatory, a sort of greenhouse attached to the palace, where all sorts of rare and strange plants are grown, and Maisie accepted it at once, for she had often helped out her mother in the kitchen garden.

When Maisie got to the conservatory, she was taken rather aback. It was much, much bigger than she ever thought it could be, and she knew right away that it would take her all day to get through it all. Indeed, if Ozma’s palace weren’t kept so clean and tidy as a matter of course, one girl would never have any hope of cleaning up the whole conservatory in one day, no matter how hard she went at it.

As Maisie was working, she saw all sorts of plants that she had never seen before, for the conservatory of Ozma’s palace contains nearly every kind of plant known in the great outside world, and quite a few of the extraordinary plants that grow only in Oz and the other magical lands nearby. There were giant sunflowers from the Winkie country, lunch-box and dinner-pail trees from Ev, and the completely unheard-of bagooda-fruit tree. There were dama-fruit from Voe, and pickle bushes from Mo, but only a plaster model of the people-bushes from the Land of the Mangaboos, since it would be cruel to Mangaboo people to keep them unpicked, and cruel to the people of the Emerald City to pick the haughty and unfeeling Mangaboos from their bushes, thus allowing them to walk about and annoy the populace.

Maisie swept up under and around each one, and carefully pruned away every dead branch she found. She had a little watering can, and whenever she found a plant that looked thirsty, she gave it a drink. Unfortunately, Maisie wasn’t an expert on exotic plants, and sometimes she made mistakes, watering one plant too little, or another plant too much. For the most part, this made little difference, but when she got to one plant, she made a very big mistake, indeed.

All by itself, sitting in a pot, there was a single cactus. Now, cactus plants grow in the desert, and are naturally inclined to live in very, very dry ground. In fact, people who keep them have to mark off days on the calendar for watering, because it is not time to water a cactus again until it has been so many days since the last time that you have forgotten that you have to do it.

This particular cactus had been watered by the gardener only two days ago, and didn’t need to be watered again for a long time, but to Maisie, who didn’t know anything about these matters, it looked as though it needed to be watered very badly. In fact, she emptied her entire little watering can onto it, and then, because it still looked dry, filled the can up from the tap, and poured it all out onto the plant again.

Even after this, the pot and the cactus still seemed to be dry, but Maisie was sensible enough to see that adding any more water would be just silly, so she went on with her work, never knowing what it was that she had done. Now, if this had been the outside world and an ordinary cactus plant, the poor plant would certainly have died from so much extra water, but, since this was Oz, not the outside world, and since this was not at all an ordinary cactus plant, something else happened.

As Maisie went out of sight, the cactus began to tremble, slightly at first, then violently, finally erupting in an enormous series of sneezes, sneezes that threw out a thick cloud of yellow smoke. As the smoke drifted away, there, where the pot and cactus had been, was a fat-bodied, thin-faced, very angry little Nome, none other, in fact, than Ruggedo, the former Nome King!

“Vesuvius and vinegar! Brimstone and brickbats! If I ever catch that Himself the Elf, I’ll boil him in lizard juice and have him with my tea! I’ll make him into elf cheese and spread him on slate crackers! More than sixty years to sit here as a vegetable! I, Ruggedo the great! Ruggedo the terrible! Ruggedo the conqueror of Oz!”

“But first things first,” he said, calming down. “If that confounded, do-gooding Ozma, or Glinda, or the Wizard, or any of those other bothersome namby-pambies catch me here, alone without any magic, they’ll just transform me again, and then where will I be? No, I must be clever, as clever as only I am. That foolish child did not see me, and no one else seems to know that I am awake. In time, they will miss the cactus in the pot, but for the last few days they have talked of nothing but a party they are planning for that hateful Princess Dorothy —Dorothy who stole my Magic Belt from me and gave it to Ozma, beginning all my woes—and so, for a time, they will not notice. No, I must be crafty, crafty, in this time I have been given.”

“The first thing I must do is find a place to conceal myself. Where? Under the palace? Yes. Under the palace there are places that only I remember, places that I dug myself, places that I found, places that only I know about, and places that no one at all knows about. Then, come nightfall, oh what I shall do!”

Ruggedo, you must understand, was for many years the king of the Nomes, who live underground, shunning the light. Many years ago, Dorothy and Ozma took from him a Magic Belt that he possessed, because he kept using it for wicked purposes. This made him so angry that he tried many times to conquer Oz with his Nome armies, until Tititi-Hoochoo, the great Jinjin who lives on the other side of the world, was finally forced to take his kingdom, which lies across the Deadly Desert from Oz, away from him, and give it to his chamberlain, a Nome named Kaliko. Still, by magical means, and with other armies that he managed to acquire from time to time, he continued to attempt the conquest of the Emerald City, until finally he was transformed by Himself the Elf into the cactus in a pot, in which form he had remained for many, many years.

Tiptoeing carefully, Ruggedo sneaked through the aisles of the conservatory, until he reached the door leading to the main palace building. Then, eyes roving in all directions for fear he would be seen, he began to make his way through the palace corridors, darting from one piece of furniture, statue, or drapery to another. After several minutes, he thought he heard voices, and tried to hide behind something large, before noticing that it was a large potted plant. “Ugh!” he said (not caring just then to be reminded of such things), and jumped into a small room.

As the voices drew nearer, he looked frantically about himself for a place to hide, but the room was empty, except for a queer-looking suitcase in the center. Ruggedo ran to the suitcase, and looked at it. On it was a label reading:

Professor Marzipan-Little's Fractal Satchel -- Anything goes right in

Ruggedo could hear footsteps, now. Seeing nothing else to do, he opened the satchel, and climbed into it.

The lining of the satchel was very loose, and for a moment, Ruggedo found himself lost in it. Then, as he moved forward, he turned his head a little to the right and found himself with his head poking out of the satchel’s opening. He started to duck back inside, when he noticed that the sounds from the corridor had vanished. After waiting a moment to be sure that they were really gone, he climbed out of the satchel, and carefully looked around. It was only then that he noticed that something had changed; the label on the satchel now read:

[Mirrored] Professor Marzipan-Little's Fractal Satchel -- Anything goes right in

“This must have taken me to the place where the other side of mirrors is,” thought Ruggedo. “I’ll have to go back inside to get back to the real palace.”

He climbed back in, and after once more becoming lost in the lining of the satchel, climbed out again, only to receive a great shock, because the label had now changed to read:

[Twisted] Professor Marzipan-Little's Fractal Satchel -- Anything goes right in

The Nome King was lost inside the satchel!

Chapter 5: An Old Friend and an Old Enemy

Nick Chopper, the Emperor of the Winkies, was wondering whether he would ever be able to get away to Princess Dorothy’s celebration. He knew that everyone expected him at Ozma’s palace, but he had a job to do as Emperor, and he was beginning to question whether he would be able to get away in time.

“I appreciate your telling me this, Woot,” he said to the Gillikin boy before him, “but are you really sure of what you saw?”

“As sure as sure,” said Woot the Wanderer. “As I was walking through the Gillikin Forest, I heard a squirrel chattering above me, and looked up to see it. Suddenly, the squirrel vanished, and in its place there was an orange. Then I saw a green monkey drop down onto the branch, take the orange, and eat it.”

“But there is only one green monkey in the entire Land of Oz,” said the Emperor, “and that is Mrs. Yoop, the giantess. After she transformed you into a Green Monkey, Ozma had to place that form onto her in order to restore you to your proper shape. If you really saw what you say, then I’m really afraid that after all these years, Mrs. Yoop is back again, and has somehow regained her ability to do magic.”

“I am sure that is it,” said Woot, “for the monkey wore a little lace apron, just like the one I took from Mrs. Yoop all those years ago.”

I should say something about Nick Chopper, who is one of the most curious of the celebrities of the land of Oz. Once, he was a Munchkin woodchopper, but one day he got in trouble with the Wicked Witch of the East, who enchanted his ax so as to make it cut off his leg. When he got a new leg made of tin, the Witch made the ax cut off his other leg, and this continued until he was made of tin altogether. Soon after, he was caught outdoors in the rain and rusted, and there he stood, unable to move, until he was rescued by Dorothy on her first journey to Oz. While on that trip, he made the acquaintance of the Winkies, who were looking for a new ruler, and who were so impressed by his bright appearance that they chose him for the job. Now he lives in a beautiful tin castle, and, under Ozma, rules the entire western quarter of the land of Oz.

Years ago, when he was on a journey with his best friend the Scarecrow and this same young boy, Woot the Wanderer, they had run afoul of Mrs. Yoop, a giantess who practiced the Yookoohoo form of magic. She transformed them into a tin owl, a stuffed bear, and a green monkey, but with the aid of a powerful fairy, who had also been captured by the wicked woman, they escaped with Mrs. Yoop’s magic apron and found Ozma, who was able to restore all of them to their true forms, except, at first, for Woot. In order to make a boy of Woot again, Ozma had been forced to transform Mrs. Yoop herself into the same green monkey, and because Ozma thought this punishment enough, nothing more was done to her.

“Do you think we should tell Ozma about this?” said Woot.

“I do,” said the Tin Woodman, “but now it occurs to me that I remember Ozma writing me out a receipt, in case Mrs. Yoop ever came back.” He reached out and rang a tin bell.

“You rang, your imperial majesty?” said the Winkle majordomo who entered the throne room.

“Please go to my study, and in the fourth drawer in the fifth row of drawers in the third cabinet, please find a green box and bring it to me.”

“Yes, your imperial majesty,” said the servant, who bowed, turned smartly, and left the way he came.

“Ozma told me that she thought that Mrs. Yoop would be unable to work magic after being transformed into a green monkey, but that, Yookoohoo magic being very strange, she thought I should be prepared. Perhaps we can use what she put in the box to solve this problem for ourselves, and, if not, at least we will have tried.”

The majordomo returned. “Here is the box, your imperial majesty,” he said, presenting it.

The Tin Woodman took it. “You may go,” he said to the servant, who departed.

“What’s in the box?” said Woot.

“Let’s see,” said the Emperor, opening it.

Inside the box was a folded slip of very old paper. Unfolded, it said the following:

To defeat a Yookoohoo once and for all, make the clocks run on time.

“That doesn’t make much sense,” said Woot.

“No, it doesn’t,” said the Tin Woodman, “but I suppose Ozma will know what it means. Fortunately for us, I was expected to travel to the Emerald City today, anyhow. Ozma sent the Sawhorse and the Red Wagon to fetch me, and they are waiting, now. But, as you are mortal, and need to eat and sleep, we shall wait until the morning.”

*   *   *   *   *

Early on the next day, Woot and the Tin Woodman went out to the stables. There, waiting for them, was the famous Sawhorse of Oz, hitched to Ozma’s equally famous Red Wagon. The Sawhorse was originally a regular sawhorse made out of a log with four legs added on, but it had been brought to life with a magic powder. It is now the most famous horse in Oz, and the fastest, and it never grows tired.

“Hello,” said the Sawhorse. “Are you ready to leave now?”

“Yes, indeed,” said the Emperor. “Woot the Wanderer, here, is traveling with us. He’s the reason we didn’t leave last night. Unlike you and me, he needs to eat.”

“Yes,” said the quaint creature. “For myself, I am happy that I do not have to eat, for it must be a terrible inconvenience either to stop what one is doing just to eat, or to suffer when it is not possible to do so.”

“That is true,” said the Tin Woodman, “but I remember when I was made of meat and ate like others. It did not seem so inconvenient, then.”

“Your Majesty is very wise,” said the boy, “but I am sorry to be the cause of delay. Still, a good meal is a very pleasant thing.”

“Since I have never eaten,” said the Sawhorse, “I must leave the question to you two, who have more knowledge than I. Many people seem to enjoy arguing about things they do not understand, but I see no sense in it.”

“Climb in here, Woot,” said the Tin Woodman. “We must get our news to Ozma.”

The boy did as he was bid, and the Emperor followed him. At once, the Sawhorse started to draw the Red Wagon behind him, running faster and faster until Woot could barely see the scenery as it flashed past him. Most wagons would no doubt shake themselves to pieces, but the Red Wagon, which has been equipped by the Wizard of Oz with the very finest magical springs and bearings, glided along behind the Sawhorse far more smoothly than the most expensive automobile traveling down the finest highway in America.

So smoothly did the Red Wagon progress along the road that the passengers did not even notice it when they passed under a tree and a green monkey wearing a lace apron dropped out of a branch and into the empty rear seat.

Chapter 6: Uncle Joe Meets ZIP

Don’t worry, Uncle Joe,” said Dorothy Anne. “If we’re really in Oz, all we have to do is find Ozma; she can send us back with her Magic Belt.”

“I suppose that’s true,” replied her uncle. “But how do we go about finding Ozma?”

“That’s easy. If this is Dorothy’s house that fell on the witch, then we’re in Munchkinland, so all we have to do to get to the Emerald City is to follow the yellow-brick road.”

“Which way?”

“I don’t know. Don’t you remember? Some of the Oz books say that the Munchkins live east of the Emerald City, and some say they are to the west. So we’ll have to find a Munchkin and ask which way it really is.”

“Yes, I think you’re right. But listen, dear, why didn’t you answer when I called? I know you were asleep, but this is a very small house, so I should have awakened you. Come to think of it, how did you go to sleep in the first place? I reached this place only a minute or two after you left.”

“I don’t know,” said the little girl. “When I saw the house, I knew right away that it had to be Dorothy’s, because the houses in Oz are round, and this is square, so when I couldn’t get in the front door, I remembered from the book that there was a trap door under the house, so I looked for a way to crawl under, and I found it. But when I got inside, all of a sudden I was so tired, I just had to lie down and sleep.”

“Wait a minute! Uncle Joe, I remember now! I had a dream! I dreamed I was in a big skyscraper, and there was no way out. And I was afraid, because I didn’t even know how I got there. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a great, big voice, saying:”

There's only one way out; did you surmise
The route by now? For if ’tis a surprise,
Perhaps it is too late, but if you’re wise,
You’ve found the _____________________

“Only then you woke me up, and I don’t know how it ended.”

“Hmmm,” said Uncle Joe. “I hope we weren’t supposed to know how that poem ended. It’s funny how, even if this is the real Oz, things keep happening the way they do in a computer game.”

“Well,” said Dorothy Anne, “a regular computer game couldn’t have brought us to the real Oz, so maybe it was a magic computer game. And if it was a magic computer game, then we could still be part of it even without the computer.”

“I wonder,” said her uncle. “Anyway, I guess we should get going. I don’t know what we can do for food on the road, but people in the Oz books always get along, somehow, so I guess we can, too. Do you feel like crawling under the house again?”

“Can’t we go out through the door?”

“No, I guess not. Dorothy locked the door a hundred years ago, and back in those days, locks worked the same on both sides, so if it’s locked on the outside, it’s locked on the inside, too. But you’ve given me an idea, all the same.” Saying this, Uncle Joe walked over to one of the windows and opened it up. “Let’s go out this way.”

The two of them climbed the window to the outside. Then, as they stood outside, Uncle Joe picked up the stone he had thrown at the window before, turned around, and threw it again at the open window. As before, the stone stopped in mid-air and dropped to the ground. Then the tiny little nymph appeared before his face, as before.

“Vandalism is against the law, and not allowed,” she said, and stopped. “But.... Oh dear, the window is supposed to be closed when I appear.”

“I know,” said Uncle Joe. “I guess I got you.”

“I guess you did,” said the nymph. “But what am I supposed to do now? All my instructions say is to pop out when someone tries to break one of the windows and stop him. If anyone can just climb in the window anyway, I don’t know what’s going to become of me.”

“Don’t you have anything else to do? Can’t you just go home?” said Dorothy Anne.

“No,” said the nymph. “My only job was stopping people from breaking those windows, and most of us Computer-game Nymphs haven’t had a real home since the Castle of the Implementors was knocked down to make room for a wrestling arena, years ago. Every once in a while, we may get work in a game, but the rest of the time we have nothing to do at all.”

“That’s too bad,” said Dorothy Anne. “I’m sorry we ruined the game for you.”

“Oh, it’s all right,” said the nymph. “The truth is that you two are the only people who were supposed to play A Day in Oz, anyway, so my job here was already over.”

“Wait a minute!” said Uncle Joe. “Do you mean that you know what’s going on here? Who brought us here, and what is this all about?”

“I’m sorry,” said the nymph, “but I don’t know anything about this. They just told me that I had to stop people who tried to break the windows and that only two people would be playing the game, a little girl, and a grown-up man. My real problem now is that I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this. You see, we nymphs don’t stay around inside games; we just appear when we’re supposed to, and when we do what we’re supposed to do, we go back where we came from. But now, I seem to be stuck here.”

“Oh dear!” said Uncle Joe. “I’m truly sorry!”

“Don’t be,” said the nymph. “Now, for the first time, I get to have an adventure, myself, instead of complicating other people’s adventures. It will be fun!”

“Well, I’m glad you feel that way,” said Uncle Joe. “But we should introduce ourselves. I’m Joe Robertson, and this is my niece, Dorothy Anne Peridot.”

“I’m ZIP,” said the nymph.

“And we’re going to go to the Emerald City, to see if Ozma can send us home,” added Dorothy Anne. “Maybe she can do something to help you, too. Uncle Joe, doesn’t this seem just like The Wizard of Oz, except that we’re going to see Ozma, instead of the Wizard?”

“It certainly does, dear. But of course Oz and the yellow-brick road got much safer after Ozma came to the throne, so I don’t know if we will have as many adventures as Dorothy and her three friends did.”

“I thought you said she was Dorothy,” said ZIP, pointing to Dorothy Anne.

“No, I’m Dorothy Anne Peridot. Dorothy Gale —Princess Dorothy of Oz, now—is someone else, but she had an adventure like this, once upon a time. In fact, this house belongs to her.”

“Oh,” said ZIP.

“Well, let’s see if we can find the yellow-brick road,” said Uncle Joe. “We don’t know whether to go east or west, but since we don’t know where in the world Oz is, or what time it is in Oz, I also can’t use the sun to know which way east and west are, at least until it is nearer to sunrise or sunset than it is now.”

“But I believe the yellow-brick road ought to be very near the house, so if we just look around, we should find it. Let’s all look.”

In half a minute, they found the road, and started walking down it, “For,” as Uncle Joe reasoned, “even if we go the wrong way, we are likely to meet someone who will know the right way, while if we don’t go any way, we’ll never get anywhere.”

After about five minutes, they came to a round house, in the usual Oz style. In front of the house, there was a sign.

This was one of the homes of the
Wicked Witch of the East
who was destroyed when
Princess Dorothy’s house fell on her.
All persons are notified
never to set foot in here!

Suddenly, Uncle Joe felt something scratching inside his shirt. He reached inside, and found the two pieces of golden cloth from under the house. As he took them out, they suddenly started to twist about like snakes and jump out of his hands. As Dorothy Anne, ZIP, and Uncle Joe looked on in astonishment, they filled out, until you could see that they were stockings, and that, although they were filled with nothing but air, they were dancing as through legs were inside them!

Chapter 7: The Nome King’s Plan

Think, Ruggedo, think!”

The Nome King had been in the room that was inside the second satchel for several hours. Fearing to become lost forever, he decided not to enter the third satchel until he had some notion of how they worked. “For,” as he reasoned, “no one would have made this with only a way to get in, and no way to get out.” Over and over he contemplated the words on the satchel: “Professor Marzipan-Little’s Fractal Satchel: Anything goes right in.” Well, Ruggedo was right in, all right! But how to get out?

Suddenly, he had an idea he thought worth trying. He climbed into the satchel once more, and after twisting his way through the lining, found himself in the room again. Holding his breath, he looked at the label on the satchel. It read:

[Mirrored] Professor Marzipan-Little's Fractal Satchel -- Anything goes right in

“Yes!” said the Nome King to himself. “I’ve solved it!” Quickly he climbed into the satchel again and turned his way through, coming out again. This time, just as he expected, the label said:

Professor Marzipan-Little's Fractal Satchel -- Anything goes right in

“I got it! I got it! I got it! I got it!” said Ruggedo, so excited that he began to dance a little jig. “And I know just what it is that I’m going to do with this little bag of tricks, oh yes I do! You’re coming with me, my wonderful discovery, yes you are!” He picked up the satchel and poked his face out the door of the room. Due to the time the Nome King had spent inside the satchel, it was night now, and he neither saw nor heard anyone on his way as he scuttled right into Ozma’s throne room, and into the antechamber where Ruggedo knew that Ozma kept the Magic Picture.

Ozma’s Magic Picture is one of the greatest treasures of Oz, because where ordinary pictures stand still, the Magic Picture shows whatever is happening at some distant place. Of course, scientists and engineers in the great outside world have learned how to make televisions since the Magic Picture was made, but the Magic Picture is still more wonderful than television, because a television can show only what is seen by a television camera, while the Magic Picture shows anything, anywhere in the world, and all that is necessary is to tell the picture what it is to show.

Ruggedo had a plan to use the picture. He commanded it to show him the location of Ozma’s Magic Belt, and of the Little Black Bag the Wizard of Oz keeps all his best magic in. “I can’t get to Glinda now,” he said to himself, “for she lives far to the south of the Emerald City, but once I have the Magic Belt—my Magic Belt—and the Little Black Bag, I’ll be able to take care of Glinda, yes I will.”

Having ascertained that the Magic Belt was hanging in a closet in Ozma’s bedchamber, and that the Wizard of Oz kept his Little Black Bag under his bed, Ruggedo picked up the satchel again and made his way to the hall containing Princess Ozma’s suite. Here, however, he found a problem, for at the entrance to Ozma’s rooms, he found a guard. (Ozma is not afraid of her people, and requires no guard for that reason, but it wouldn’t be proper for the ruler of all Oz to have no guards at all, and so she keeps a few on hand, for respectability’s sake.) But Ruggedo had a plan to get past any guards.

He put the satchel on the floor, and climbed inside it. Just as he hoped, when he made his way out of the satchel, he was not in the room where he found it, but was still in the hall outside of Ozma’s room. But here, inside the satchel, there was no guard. Quickly, he picked up the satchel and ran into Ozma’s bedchamber, which was empty. Then he entered the closet where the Magic Picture had shown him the Belt.

There was no belt there, but Ruggedo knew what to do. He dropped the satchel, climbed in, and came back out in the real closet. Moving quickly and quietly (for he knew that Ozma was asleep in the room outside the closet), he took the Belt from where it was hanging, buckled it about his waist, and then climbed back inside the satchel. Once he came out in the closet inside the satchel, he scurried on his way to the suite of rooms belonging to the Wizard of Oz.

Carefully, he put the satchel down beside the bed, next to the place where the Magic Picture had shown the Little Black Bag to be. Then he held his breath and extended his arm out of the satchel. His questing hand soon found the bag, and he grasped it and drew it inside. Having succeeded in his thefts, he picked up the satchel one last time and ran through the halls and down the stairs into the palace basement. After searching for a few minutes, he found a secret entrance into the tunnels he himself had built long ago on his first attempt to conquer Oz, and there he returned to the real world.

“Very well,” he said to himself. “I have my Magic Belt and that confounded Wizard’s Little Black Bag, and I have a nice, safe place where no one can find me or the satchel. Now I can sit and think, and make sure that I have a plan with no mistakes in it, so that no one, no one at all, will be able to stop me this time.”

And so Ruggedo sat and thought. He thought and thought as he had never thought before in all his long, wicked life. He thought about every time he had tried to conquer the Emerald City and about how, every time, he had failed. He thought about tunnels, beasts, and all sorts of magical devices that had been the key to wonderful, clever plots, all of which had failed completely. He thought, too, about other would-be conquerors, and how they had failed. Finally, he thought he had a plan, the greatest plan for conquering Oz that anyone had ever had.

The first thing he had to do was to stop Glinda the Good from interfering. Glinda, as the most powerful sorceress in Oz, has often defeated effortlessly, and in only a moment, villains who had thoroughly overcome Ozma, “and so,” thought Ruggedo, “it may be that she has never yet shown the full extent of her powers.”

Ruggedo knew that one danger to him was Glinda’s Great Book of Records, on the pages of which appear, at once, everything that happens anywhere in the world. Even if he could stop Glinda, someone else might read something in the book that would be dangerous to him. “Still,” said Ruggedo, “that’s simple to take care of. Magic Belt, let’s see how well you’re working after all these years. Bring Glinda’s Book of Records here!” At once, at the Magic Belt’s command, the Book of Records appeared before Ruggedo.

“And now, three more little jobs for you, my precious Belt! First, move Glinda to her own palace, but inside the satchel, inside the satchel, inside the satchel, a thousand times inside the satchel!”

*   *   *   *   *

Far away, in the south country of the Quadlings, lies Glinda’s beautiful palace. In her bedchamber, the lovely sorceress lay sleeping, when, suddenly, she vanished. But in the world one thousand and three times inside the satchel, where there was a palace just like the real one, Glinda suddenly appeared, and awoke with a start. Wondering what it could have been that awakened her, she turned to the nightstand at the side of her bed, picked up the little bell that was there, and rang it.

She expected one of the lovely young ladies that make up her private guard to answer, and was disturbed when no one came. She rang the bell again, and again there was nothing but silence. After a minute, she arose, put on a dressing gown, and went out to explore the palace by the light of the moon.

Wherever she looked, she found no one. Even the swans that draw her chariot through the air were nowhere to be seen. After an hour, her situation was plain; she was completely alone in the palace. What was more, her Book of Records had disappeared. As dawn appeared, Glinda, dressed in a jacket and trousers to make traveling easier, set out on the road to the north, hoping to find an answer to her questions in the Emerald City.

Chapter 8: The Witch’s Return

The golden stockings continued to dance, while Dorothy Anne and Uncle Joe stared in wonder and ZIP just stared. But, after a few moments, the dance ceased, and the stockings were still, as though the one in them were standing and thinking. Suddenly, they turned and ran into the cottage, not even stopping at the door, which opened before them and closed behind them as quickly and neatly as the automatic doors at the supermarket.

“Uncle Joe, what was that?!” said Dorothy Anne.

“I don’t know, but I have a terrible feeling,” said her uncle. “I found those stockings while I was searching under the farmhouse, before. I didn’t know what they were, but they seemed interesting. Now I’m afraid they might be the very stockings the Wicked Witch of the East was wearing when the house fell on her.”

“You mean that golden stockings go with silver slippers?”

“Yes, I do. I would hate to think that somehow I may have turned loose some of the old witch’s wickedness when I picked those stockings up, but I’m afraid that that’s just what I’ve done.”

“But we have to find out what’s going on in there, don’t we? Shouldn’t we go into the house and see if they’re doing something, and make them stop?”

“I don’t know, dear. The sign seems to say that no one should go inside that house, and I wouldn’t want to go breaking Ozma’s law?”

“Do you want to go inside, though?” asked ZIP.

“I think it would be a good idea, ZIP, but the sign says: ‘All persons are notified never to set foot in here,’ and I don’t like to go against the Law. Back in America, the Law says that’s it’s all right to break the Law if you absolutely, positively have to, to stop something worse from happening, but this is Oz, not America, and, besides, we don’t know why the law says not to go in, and we don’t know what’s going on inside, or if we could stop it if we wanted to.”

“But we know it probably has something to do with the witch, and that means we should probably stop it,” said Dorothy Anne.

“Excuse me,” said ZIP, “but I can go into the cottage without setting foot in it, you know. With my wings, I can fly in, and see what’s happening. The sign says no one may set foot in there, but it doesn’t say anything about not flying in.”

“Well,” said Uncle Joe, “perhaps you’re right, there. If this were America, I’d argue with you for treating the Law like a riddle, but it seems to me that that’s just the way the Law is always handled in fairy countries, so I suppose it must be all right. Go on in, then, if you can, but be careful.”

“Hooray!” said ZIP. “I’m off upon my very first adventure!” Quickly the little nymph flew to the door, but found that it wouldn’t open to her. She flitted around to the windows, but they were all closed. “Try the chimney,” cried out Dorothy Anne (who had forgotten for the moment that whatever was inside the house might hear her), and that is what ZIP did.

Carefully, at first, for she feared there might be a fire below, she flew down the chimney, eventually passing through a stovepipe into an old, potbellied stove in the cottage kitchen. As she flittered about, looking for an exit, she suddenly heard a loud Clang! The stove door opened before her, and a shovel came through it. As ZIP flew back up toward the stovepipe, so as to escape the shovel, she saw that it was being used to remove ashes from the stove—for this was the very old-fashioned sort of stove that burns wood, or coal, instead of using gas or electricity. The shovel took out seven loads, but did not reappear for an eighth time.

ZIP slowly flew back down to the stove door, and looked out. There she saw a most peculiar sight. Great double handfuls of ash were gathering together on the floor, lifting themselves a few feet into the air, and then falling apart and cascading back down. At first, ZIP couldn’t imagine what this could possibly mean, but, as she watched, she saw that some of the ashes stuck in the air, halfway down, and that they were slowly beginning to form the shape of an old woman, whose legs were in the golden stockings, and whose arms and hands were picking up and dropping the ashes upon herself.

As more and more ashes made the old woman’s form, ZIP imagined she could hear a voice singing something. At first, it was very small, like this:

From ash to ash,
My form I’ll take,
And teeth will gnash
And knees will quake....

but as ashes continued to accumulate, it sounded more like this:

And I will make
Her sorry, who’s
The one to take
My silver shoes!

until, finally, it sounded like this:

From ash to ash,
My form I’ll take,
And teeth will gnash
And knees will quake,
And I will make
Her sorry, who’s
The one to take
My silver shoes!

and as ZIP looked on in dismay, the Wicked Witch of the East took form, just as she was in life, except that instead of showing any colors, she was all in shades of gray, like a black-and-white photograph.

Wasting no time, ZIP flew back up the stovepipe and out the chimney. “The stockings took ashes from the stove, and kept pouring them out, and there’s a witch there now! She was singing something about getting even with someone who took her shoes.”

Dorothy Anne and Uncle Joe turned to each other, worried. “Uncle Joe, it’s the Wicked Witch of the East, come back to life, and she wants to do something to Dorothy! We have to get to the Emerald City and warn her!”

“Yes, I’m afraid you’re right.”

“Only—oh! Uncle Joe! We still don’t know which way the Emerald City is!”

“Yes we do. Since Dorothy never went by the Witch’s house when she went to the Emerald City, we know now that we’ve been going the wrong way on the yellow-brick road. We have to go back the way we came.”

“Oh, of course! But can we get there before the Witch does? She has all kinds of magic, and it will take us days to make the trip.”

“Maybe I can help,” said ZIP. “My specialty is slowing people down, after all.”

“But that was in computer games,” said Uncle Joe, “computer games that were set up so that your tricks would always work. This may be partly a computer game, but it’s also real life, where no one wrote the story ahead of time. Your tricks could fail, and you could even be hurt. No, I think it will be smarter if you fly on ahead of us to the Emerald City. You can get there faster than we can, and, because you’re something like a fairy, yourself, perhaps Ozma will be more ready to believe you.”

“Oh!” said ZIP. “I suppose you’re right. But let me do one trick to slow down the Wicked Witch before we leave.”

She flew over to the door of the cottage, and did something that Dorothy Anne and Uncle Joe couldn’t see, but when she came back, there was something odd about the door that made their eyes hurt when they tried to look at it. “What did you do?” said Uncle Joe.

“Oh, I sort of broke the door,” said ZIP. “I fixed it so it’s open and closed at the same time. The Witch won’t be able to get out, because the door is closed, but she won’t be able to open it, because it’s already open.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Dorothy Anne.

“I don’t know about making sense,” said ZIP, “but it happens all the time in computer games.”

“That’s true,” said Uncle Joe, with a wry grin.

Chapter 9: Princess Dorothy is Puzzled

Good morning, Ozma! I’m sorry I’m late, but Scraps caught me on the way here, and wanted me to approve everything she and the Scarecrow got done overnight.” Princess Dorothy stepped through a door into Ozma’s private garden, where they had arranged to meet for breakfast. “Ozma?” Dorothy looked about, but the ruler of Oz was nowhere to be seen. On a little table there sat an untouched breakfast laid out for two.

Dorothy went back through the door into Ozma’s private sitting room. “Ozma?” she called, but there was no answer. Wondering what could have happened to Ozma, she made her way into each room of the suite, but without success.

Giving up, she left the royal apartment, and headed for the throne room. On the way, she met Jellia Jamb. “Jellia,” said Dorothy, “have you seen Ozma anywhere? We were supposed to meet for breakfast in her garden, but she wasn’t there, and I couldn’t find her anywhere in her apartment.”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Princess Dorothy,” replied the little maid. “She ordered breakfast in the garden for two before retiring last night, and it was delivered on time, but I haven’t seen her, and I don’t know whether she ever showed up. If you say she didn’t, I can’t imagine what could have happened to her.”

“Perhaps she had business that wouldn’t wait,” said Dorothy. “It is unusual that she wouldn’t send word to me about breakfast, but p’rhaps it was an emergency, and she didn’t have time. I’ll go look for her in the throne room.”

Dorothy proceeded on to the throne room. As she turned a corner, she ran head-on into two large, ferocious beasts, a lion, and a tiger. “Hello, Dorothy,” said the lion.

“Hello, Lion, and hello to you, too, Hungry Tiger. I’m glad to see you got here in time for the celebration. Have you seen Ozma? We were going to meet for breakfast, but I can’t find her.”

“Now Dorothy,” said the Hungry Tiger, “how could we miss your party? After all, the Cowardly Lion here was part of your very first adventure in Oz, so he had to be here.”

“And Tiger is my best friend,” continued the Lion, “so he had to be here. But to answer your question about Ozma, I’m afraid we haven’t seen her. Still that doesn’t mean much, for we just now arrived at the palace, and were headed straight for your apartment. Perhaps you should look in the throne room.”

“That’s just what I was doing,” said Dorothy.

“And we’ll come with you,” said the Cowardly Lion. The three went on their way.

I hope you have heard of the famous Cowardly Lion of Oz. At one time he lived in the forest, with all the other beasts, and was very unhappy, because whenever danger threatened, he was afraid. When Dorothy met him on her first journey to Oz, they traveled together to meet the Wizard of Oz, who gave the Lion a dish of courage to drink. Sometimes the Lion thinks the Wizard’s courage must have worn out, because he is still afraid when he is in danger, but somehow he always seems to end up doing the brave thing anyway, so everyone likes him just as much. In fact, there is no better companion in all Oz to take on a dangerous journey.

Near the end of his first adventure with Dorothy, the Lion became King of the Quadling Forest, and it was there that he met his friend the Hungry Tiger, who is always hungry because his conscience won’t allow him to eat a fat baby, even though he really wants to. Now he and the Lion divide their time between their friends in the forest and their friends at Ozma’s court.

When they arrived in the throne room, there was Ozma, sitting on the throne. “Good morning, Ozma!” said Dorothy.

“Good morning, Ozma!” said the Cowardly Lion.

“Good morning, Ozma!” said the Hungry Tiger.

“Good morning,” said Ozma.

There was an awkward silence. Finally, Dorothy broke it. “I’m sorry I was late getting to your garden for breakfast. When I got there, I couldn’t find you.”

“No, I wasn’t there,” said Ozma.

“Oh,” said Dorothy.

After a moment, Dorothy continued. “So I guess something happened?”

“Yes,” said Ozma.

“Oh,” said Dorothy. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” said Ozma.

“Oh,” said Dorothy again. “Are we going to have breakfast now?”

“No,” said Ozma. “I’m busy.”

“Oh,” said Dorothy, one more time. “Then I guess we’ll just leave, if you don’t mind.”

“No, I don’t mind,” said Ozma.

“Oh,” said Dorothy. “Well, I guess we’ll be going, then.”

“Yes,” said Ozma.

Dorothy stared for a moment at her friend, and then left the throne room. The Lion and the Tiger came with her.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Dorothy suddenly halted and turned to the Lion. “Oh, Lion,” she said. “I don’t understand. What can be wrong with Ozma?”

“I don’t know,” said the great beast. “Tiger, have you any ideas?”

“No, I don’t,” said the Hungry Tiger. “Dorothy, are you sure you haven’t hurt Ozma’s feelings somehow?”

“I don’t think so. When I saw her last night, she was perfectly happy, and I haven’t seen her since. I was a few minutes late for breakfast, but Ozma knows how busy we’ve all been, and she would never make a fuss over something like that. Besides, I said I was sorry, and I truly was, and Ozma never holds a grudge.”

“Do you think something could be wrong with Ozma?” said the Cowardly Lion.

“I don’t know,” replied Dorothy.

“Do you think the Wizard can help?” said the Tiger. “I don’t know,” Dorothy said again, “but even if he can’t, we’d be no worse off than we are now.”

“That’s true,” said the Lion. “Let’s go see him now.” Together, the three walked to the palace apartment of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Perhaps I should explain here that the Wizard came from America, just like Dorothy, and when he first came to Oz, he wasn’t a real wizard at all. But somehow or other, he managed to make the Ozites believe that he was, and had them build the Emerald City for him. When Dorothy found out that he was nothing but a humbug, he went back to America, but a few years later, he came back, and the good sorceress Glinda taught him real magic. Since then, he has invented all sorts of new magic, some of it based on mechanical and scientific ideas from America, so that it is hard to say which of the two knows the more magic now. Only these two are allowed by Ozma to work magic at large in Oz, because she trusts them not to create mischief with it.

On the way, they bumped into the Scarecrow, and Dorothy told him about Ozma’s strange behavior. “It seems to me that you are right, Dorothy,” he said. “Let us ask the Wizard what this can mean.”

When Dorothy and her friends got to the Wizard’s rooms, they paused in surprise, for the door was wide open. This was most unusual, for the Wizard of Oz spends most of his time in his rooms either asleep, or else performing experiments in magic that it is very dangerous to disturb, so his doors are never left open, and Dorothy knew this. She explained to the others.

“I do not like it, Dorothy,” said the Lion, “for there is likely to be danger in these rooms, but I suppose I will have to go in, and see whether anything has happened to the Wizard.”

“Thank you, Lion,” said Dorothy, “but I don’t think you’ll have to do that. If there’s anything bad in there it’s most likely magical, and not a wild animal, so I expect we would all would be in just about as much danger as each other. We can all four go in together.”

“Very well,” said the Lion, “but I’ll go first, just the same,” and he led the rest into the first room. There, the three saw nothing but an empty rack for coats and hats and two doors, one to the Wizard’s workshop, and one to his bedroom.

“I’ll look in the bedroom,” whispered the Tiger. “Lion, you and the others look in the workshop.”

The three walked slowly and quietly into the room on the left. This is a room that the Wizard has fixed up as a workshop, with beakers, retorts, condensers, tripods, and stranger implements, such as an alembic and an anthenor, that all sit on workbenches and the floor. Oddly enough, however, the storage cabinets above the workbenches were all empty now.

But before they could investigate this, they heard a sudden cry from the other room. It was the voice of the Hungry Tiger, shouting “Lion, Scarecrow, Dorothy! Come quickly and help me!”

Chapter 10: Boq

Goodbye, ZIP!” said Dorothy Anne. “We’ll see you in the Emerald City!”

“Goodbye!” said the nymph, as she flew away. “I’ll find this Ozma and tell her about the witch for you.”

Dorothy Anne and Uncle Joe watched her until she disappeared among the trees. “What do you think Ozma will do, Uncle Joe?”

“I don’t know. I suppose she knows all about wicked witches, though, so I’m sure things will be all right. In the meantime, we’d probably better be getting along. We don’t know how much ZIP’s trick will slow the witch down, and we don’t want her catching us.”

It was a strange feeling for the two of them to be walking down the famous Yellow Brick Road, but the air was warm— though not too warm—birds were singing, the fields and the little copses they passed smelled delightful, and they soon forgot all about the witch and just enjoyed themselves. When it was growing dark, they drew near a great farm, with a Munchkin farmer standing by the gate. As they passed, he greeted them, “Hello, travelers!”

“Hello, sir,” said Uncle Joe. “We’re travelers, all right, all the way from America, and we were wondering if we could have a place to spend the night.”

“Travelers from America, are you? Isn’t that part of Kansas?” said the farmer.

“Not exactly, sir,” said Dorothy Anne. “Kansas is part of America. We’re from Maine, which is another part of America.”

“Oh,” said the farmer. “I met a traveler from Kansas, once. She lives in the Emerald City, now, where she’s a princess.”

“Princess Dorothy?” said Dorothy Anne.

“Yes, Princess Dorothy. Do you know her?”

“No,” laughed Uncle Joe. “Princess Dorothy last lived in Kansas almost a hundred years ago, long before we were born. But she’s just as famous in America and the rest of the great outside world as she is in Oz. There have been books and —other things—made about her and her adventures in Oz, especially the first one, when she traveled down this very road.”

“Yes, that was when I met her. Do these books say anything about me? My name is Boq.”

“A little bit,” said Dorothy Anne. “The first book of all says how you gave Dorothy and her dog Toto a party, for having killed the Wicked Witch, but I don’t think you come into any more of the stories. Does he, Uncle Joe?”

“No, but there was once a man named Alexander Volkov who liked the story of Dorothy’s first trip to Oz so much that he decided to make up some more stories about her, and in those stories, he made you an important helper to the Scarecrow.”

“To the Scarecrow?” asked Boq, surprised.

“He never knew about Ozma,” explained Uncle Joe. “In the stories he wrote, the Scarecrow is still the king of Oz, just as the Wizard left him.”

“A helper to His Majesty the Scarecrow,” said Boq. “How strange! But if you’re travelers from America, I can surely give you supper and a bed for the night, just as I gave Princess Dorothy all those years ago.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Uncle Joe, and the three walked into the farmhouse.

Inside, Boq presented them with a delicious dinner of roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas, and Ozcream for desert. As they ate, he asked how they came to be in Oz.

“Magic,” said Uncle Joe. “We don’t know just how it happened, but it seems to be someone’s intent that we should come to Oz. I’m worried about that, in fact, because, not knowing what was happening around us, we may have done something very bad, by accident.”

“Something bad? What was that?” asked Boq.

“I’m afraid we somehow awakened the Wicked Witch of the East.” He explained what had happened with the golden stockings and told Boq how ZIP had gone on ahead to give warning.

“That sounds very bad,” said Boq, “but I don’t see how you can be blamed. I’m sure that if I came to Kansas or Maine by magic, I’d probably do something just as bad, not knowing any better. In the meantime, your friend is on her way to the Emerald City, and no doubt Ozma will know what to do. Of course, you are still right to follow her, because it’s always right, when you make a mistake, to help fix it.”

“To tell you the truth, I’d like to go with you. The farm can get along without me for a while, my wife is away visiting, and I’ve often regretted that I didn’t accompany Princess Dorothy on her journey. Of course, back then, we all thought she was a powerful sorceress, so it never occurred to me that she might want a companion.”

“Well,” said Uncle Joe, “I’m sure we wouldn’t mind having a local guide. Dorothy Anne, do you think we should take Boq with us?”

“I think so, Uncle Joe.”

“Then it’s settled. Boq, we’d be happy to have you join us.”

The next morning, the three set out. Boq showed the two Americans the place where Dorothy found the Scarecrow and told them about the farmer whose field it was, whom Boq knew. Later, as they walked along, he told them about everyday life in Oz.

“Even under the Wicked Witch, things weren’t so bad, most of the time. Oh, she was cruel and spiteful, but there was only one of her, and there were many of us, so most of us didn’t have to worry too much about her, most of the time. But when she became angry with someone, then that someone had to look out. Do you know the story of the spell she put on the ax of Nick Chopper?”

“Yes,” said Dorothy Anne. “That’s how he got to be made of tin.”

“Yes, that’s how it was,” replied Boq. “Anyway, after Princess Dorothy’s house fell on her, all we Munchkins were very glad indeed, for even those of us who had never been harmed by her were always in fear of her. I’m sure no-one wishes to see her return, for since then, our life has been most happy. We all do whatever work we love best. I love farming, for example, and so I am happy to be a farmer. Then, whatever we have that we do not need, we can give to those who do need it out of love, rather than giving more than we can spare to the Witch out of fear.”

“I wish it could be that way back in America,” said Uncle Joe.

“Perhaps someday it will be,” said Boq.

*   *   *   *   *

Behind them, at the Witch’s cottage, a window opened, and a gray raven climbed out. At first, it blinked in the noonday sun; then it took flight. After circling around the cottage three times, it took off for the west and the Emerald City.

*   *   *   *   *

The Yellow Brick Road was in far better repair than it had been for Dorothy and her friends a hundred years before, for Ozma is always careful about the roads her subjects travel, but accidents can happen at any time, and they eventually came to a place in thick woods where a great old tree had fallen across the road.

“We’ll have to go around here, where the roots are,” said Boq. “This tree was a very tall one, so it will be much further around on the other side. Be careful, for there are likely to be thorns.”

Uncle Joe, being the tallest, led the way, and Boq followed him, with Dorothy Anne bringing up the rear. Perhaps they should have watched her more carefully, for while they found it easy to climb over the roots and fallen branches in the way, the little girl found it much more difficult, and she soon lost sight of them. At first she was too busy trying to make her way under the dark canopy of leaves to notice, and then she supposed that she would soon catch up with them, but after a time, she became worried, and, finding a bare patch of grass ahead of her, started to run.

Suddenly, Dorothy Anne stepped on a flat rock that pivoted under her, and she fell into a hole in the ground. As she fell, the rock moved back into place, and within a moment, there was no sign that she had ever been there!

Chapter 11: The Little Wizard is Littler

Help!” repeated the Hungry Tiger, and Dorothy, the Lion and the Scarecrow ran into the other room. There, they found the striped beast curled up and trembling before the one thing that could frighten him: a fat baby, lying asleep on a great, grown-up-size bed. The Scarecrow turned to look at the baby, and Dorothy spoke to the Tiger.

“There, there,” said Dorothy. “You know you would never really eat a fat baby. Time and again you’ve tried to, but your conscience has told you you mustn’t, so you never have.”

“Dorothy’s right,” said the Lion. “You never have.”

“I know,” said the Hungry Tiger. “It was just the surprise of it all, looking for the Wizard, and finding a fat baby instead. But where could it have come from?”

“From Omaha,” said the Scarecrow.

“Omaha?” said Dorothy. “Omaha’s in America. The Wizard came from Omaha.”

“I know,” said the Scarecrow. “And unless I’m mistaken, this baby is the Wizard of Oz himself!”

“The Wizard?” cried Dorothy. “How can that be? Why do you think this baby is the Wizard?”

“Look here,” said the Scarecrow. “The baby has a bracelet of little wooden beads that say ‘OSCAR’. ‘Oscar’ is the Wizard’s real name, as I recall.”

“That’s true,” said Dorothy. “I remember him saying so, once. But how could he have turned into a baby like this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t we ask Ozma?” inquired the Cowardly Lion.

“That is an excellent suggestion, my friend,” said the Scarecrow. “Dorothy, do you think you can pick him up and carry him? My fingers aren’t exactly made for carrying babies.”

“Certainly, Scarecrow,” said Dorothy, and the four friends, with the baby, proceeded back down the stairs.

As they came to the bottom, a little dog ran up to Dorothy. “Who’s the baby?” he said.

“We’re not sure, Toto,” said Dorothy. “but the Scarecrow thinks that somehow the Wizard has been turned into this baby.”

“Let me smell it,” said Toto. Dorothy kneeled down and held the baby out for Toto to sniff. “It smells like a baby,” said the dog, “but it smells like the Wizard, too.”

“Are you sure?” asked Dorothy.

“My nose is sure,” said Toto.

“That settles it,” said the Hungry Tiger. “Toto’s nose always knows. This delicious-looking fat baby must be my old friend, and I’m very glad I didn’t eat him.”

“And I am glad you didn’t eat him, too, old fellow, for if you had, I would have had to tear you to pieces, which I wouldn’t have enjoyed at all,” said the Cowardly Lion. “But let us see what Ozma has to say.”

“What Ozma has to say about what, Lion?” said a familiar voice from behind them. They all spun around.

“Nick Chopper!” cried the Scarecrow, and the two old friends embraced.

“Hello, Scarecrow!” said the Tin Woodman. “Hello Dorothy, Lion, Tiger, Toto! But who is this baby?”

“We think it’s the Wizard, Nick,” said the Scarecrow, “because of this bracelet and because of Toto’s nose, and we are going to ask Ozma what she thinks should be done about it. But who is this with you? Isn’t it young Woot?”

“Yes, it’s me,” said Woot. “And we have a problem for Ozma, too. Do you remember Mrs. Yoop?”

“Mrs. Yoop? I should say so,” said the Scarecrow. “She turned me into a stuffed bear!”

“And she turned you into a tin owl,” said Dorothy to the Tin Woodman.

“So she did,” said the metal Emperor, “and I cannot say that it was at all an enjoyable experience. That is why we came at once: to warn Ozma when we learned that Mrs. Yoop seems to have regained her magical powers, and to ask our ruler’s advice. Shall we bring Ozma our problems together?”

“If Mrs. Yoop is back, I should say so!” said Dorothy, and all seven headed for the throne room, still carrying the baby.

Ozma was seated on her throne, where Dorothy had last seen her. “Ozma,” said Dorothy, “excuse us, but we have news.”

“Oh?” said Ozma.

“It’s two different things, actually, your majesty,” said the Tin Woodman. “Woot, here, has seen Mrs. Yoop.”

“Mrs. Yoop?” said Ozma.

“Yes, Mrs. Yoop,” said the Tin Woodman, “the Yookoohoo who caused us so much trouble with her transformations. Woot has seen her working magic, so we thought you should know.”

“A Yookoohoo?” said Ozma. “They are supposed to be—that is, this Mrs. Yoop is very dangerous, isn’t she? I suppose we’ll have to do something about her.”

There was a long silence. Finally, Dorothy broke it. “And the other problem is that the Wizard of Oz has been turned into this baby, here. We found it in his laboratory.”

“This baby?” said Ozma. “This baby, here? But whatever makes you think that? If I were to find a baby in the Wizard’s laboratory, I wouldn’t think it was he.”

“But there’s a bracelet that says ‘OSCAR’, and ‘Oscar’ is the Wizard’s name,” said Dorothy, “and Toto says the baby smells just like the Wizard.”

“Oh, does he?” said Ozma. “I had forgotten about—” she gestured carelessly toward the little dog, “—Toto. But are you sure, Toto? Smell again.”

“Certainly, Ozma,” said Toto. Dorothy held the baby where Toto could reach. “This baby smells just like —nothing at all.”

“Nothing, Toto?” said Dorothy. “But just a minute ago, you said it smelled like the Wizard.”

“And a minute ago it did,” said her old friend, “but now it doesn’t. In fact, neither does anything else. Dorothy! I think I’ve lost my smeller!”

“Are you sure, Toto?” said the Scarecrow. “Perhaps you just have a cold.”

“I don’t think so,” said Toto. “I didn’t have one when I woke up this morning.”

“Well,” said Ozma, interrupting, “if Toto isn’t sure, I’m not sure what I can do. It would be very wrong to turn this baby into the Wizard if it isn’t the Wizard, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Dorothy.

“But what about the bracelet?” said the Scarecrow. “Perhaps Toto’s nose can’t tell now, but my brains still tell me that if the bracelet says ‘OSCAR’, then ‘Oscar’ must be the baby’s name.”

“But many babies must be named ‘Oscar’,” said Ozma.

“And my heart tells me that Toto and the Scarecrow must be right,” said the Tin Woodman.

“My courage doesn’t say anything one way or the other about it,” said the Lion, “but I have never known Toto’s nose or the Scarecrow’s brains to go wrong.”

“Nevertheless, it is my decision that this baby must stay a baby. My mind is....” Ozma suddenly stopped. Into the throne room flew little ZIP.

“Is Princess Ozma here, or Princess Dorothy?” she cried. “I have to tell them that the Wicked Witch of the East is back, and coming after them!”

“The Wicked Witch of the East?” said the Scarecrow. “But she was destroyed a hundred years ago!”

“Perhaps she was,” said ZIP, “but someone restored her.”

“But who would do that?” gasped the Tin Woodman. “She was evil, and everyone hated her.”

“It was an accident,” said ZIP. “I am supposed to tell you that someone from the outside world found her golden stockings and, not knowing what they were, carried them to the witch’s house, where they came alive and made themselves a new witch.”

Everyone crowded around ZIP as she told them about Dorothy Anne and Uncle Joe, how they had found themselves in Oz, what had happened with the stockings, how she herself delayed the witch, and how she had come on ahead to give the warning.

“Nick, you’re the only one among us who knew her,” said the Scarecrow. “Was she just as bad as the Witch of the West?”

“I never knew the Witch of the West,” said the Tin Woodman, “but the stories I’ve heard about them were just about the same.”

“The Witch of the West wanted me to be her slave,” said the Lion. “I didn’t like her.”

“But you never gave in to her, my friend,” said the Tiger. “If you could be so brave, even before the Wizard gave you your courage, then surely you need not fear any witch now.”

Woot interrupted. “Excuse me,” he said, “but does anyone know where Ozma went?”

They all looked up. Princess Ozma had vanished!

Chapter 12: Dorothy Anne in Underland

Dorothy Anne blinked. There was no sunlight in the cave into which she had fallen, but a strange blue light came from the walls. She stood up and noticed that she had landed on a large pile of hay, which had saved her from injury. “Maybe,” she said to herself, “lots of people fall through the hole, so someone has put this hay here so that they don’t get hurt.”

She looked around. The cave seemed to be a perfect circle with four doors equally spaced around the wall. Above each door was a letter; turning around, Dorothy Anne read “‘N’... ‘E’”...“ ‘S’... ‘W’. That’s a compass: North, East, South, and West. I wonder what’s on the other side of the doors.”

She looked around again, but couldn’t see anything but the haystack, the cave walls, and the doors. She looked up, but the hole she had fallen through went up and up until it disappeared in the darkness, and even if there was a way to get out of the hole, she couldn’t see any way to climb up to get there in the first place.

She looked first at the door marked “N”. The door was shut tight, and had no handle, no bell, no knocker, and no knob, but when she looked very closely, Dorothy Anne found a tiny bit of brass with an even tinier hole. “It looks like a keyhole,” said Dorothy Anne to herself, “but I don’t have a key, and I’m sure I never saw a key that small.”

She looked at the other doors, and they were all the same. Each was completely solid and closed tight, with no other feature than a little brass plate with a little brass keyhole. Discouraged, she returned to the haystack and sat down to think, but as she reached back to use her arm as a pillow for her head, she felt a sharp prick.

She rolled over onto her side to see what had pricked her, and although her hand stung, she couldn’t help laughing, for there in the middle of the haystack was a needle! She picked it up to look at it more closely, and found that it was, in fact, no needle, but a very tiny key. Quickly, she ran to the north door, inserted the key in the hole, and turned it. As soon as she did, the door opened by itself.

On the other side was a very large cave, so large it almost looked like outdoors, lit almost as bright as day by hundreds of street lamps. Dorothy Anne was at one end of a long street that seemed to be the main street of an underground village. Both sides were full of little shops, and many other little streets ran through the main street; the main street itself vanished into the darkness far away in front of her.

But the strangest thing that she saw was the people, for while the people themselves looked not unlike Munchkins she had seen along the road, they were all arranged around the street in a half circle, all looking at Dorothy Anne, cheering and applauding.

For a moment, all she could do was stand there amazed, turning her head from side to side and wondering what on Earth, or under the Earth, was going on. She couldn’t help but think of Dorothy Gale and how the Munchkins treated her as their heroine when her house landed on the Wicked Witch, but Dorothy Anne was quite sure that she hadn’t killed anyone, not even by accident.

She was wondering what to do when one of the people held up his hand and the noise stopped. He walked up to Dorothy Anne and said, “Hello, Heroine! Welcome to Underland. I am Bozzo, the mayor of North Underland, and I am here to give you any assistance you may require in your adventure.”

Dorothy Anne looked at him. He was rather chubby around the waist, and he had a long, white beard and glasses. He had a nice smile, and he didn’t seem to be a crazy person, although what he said made very little sense to her, so she decided to find out what he could possibly mean by this.

“Do you mean you can help Uncle Joe and me and Boq with the witch?” she said. “We could really use it.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about this witch of yours,” said Bozzo. “But I can aid you on your quest for the Key of Mee.”

“Have you lost your key?” asked Dorothy Anne.

“It’s not my key, o Heroine, but the Key of Mee,” he replied.

“But if it’s the key of you, how can it not be your key?” she asked.

“It is not the Key of Yew, but the Key of Mee,” answered Bozzo. “In fact, that is how the whole trouble started. Years ago, the Wizard Mee lost his key to the magic elevator that travels from Underland to Oz, and, since then, all we Underlanders have had to stay here, out of the sun. After much study, Mee learned that the key had not been lost, but had been stolen by the Wizard Yew, who hid it somewhere in Underland. That day, Mee went in search of Yew and the key, and never returned.”

“Ever since then, whenever people have fallen down the hole that leads to Underland, we have tested them to see whether they are clever enough to find a key, by hiding the key to the city in the haystack that we put up to catch people that come through the hole. As you see, that key is very like a needle, and everyone knows how difficult it is to find a needle in a haystack. If they do not find the key to the city in a day, we let them in anyhow, but if they do find it, we acclaim them as our Hero or Heroine, and send them to find the Key of Mee.”

“So far, though, every one has come back a failure, finding nothing, and have settled down to live here in North Underland. But now you are our Heroine, and because you found the key to the city faster than anyone else ever has, we are sure you will be clever enough to find the Key of Mee, and free us from our underground imprisonment.”

“But,” said Dorothy Anne, “haven’t you ever gone after the Key of Mee by yourself?”

“No, of course not,” said Bozzo. “If the great wizard Mee could not find it, how could we ever do it?”

“But then why do you think I can do it,” said the little girl, “when I’m a stranger, and not a wizard, and don’t know anything about Underland?”

“Why, everyone knows that when a stranger comes to a town, he must be either a hero or a villain, and since no villain would ever want to come to Underland, it follows that you must be a heroine. Besides, you are as trapped here as we are, so you may as well try.”

“That’s true,” thought Dorothy Anne to herself. “But is there anything you can tell me?” she said aloud to Bozzo.

“We can take you to the Wizard Mee’s workshop,” he replied, “and there, perhaps, you will find some clues. You mustn’t take anything with you, of course, for if you fail, all the clues must be available to the next Hero or Heroine. That’s only fair.”

“But what if there is something there that I’ll need?” said Dorothy Anne. “Perhaps the reason no one ever found the Key is that no one had something they needed from the workshop.”

“Ah,” said Bozzo, “but if there were such a thing, the Wizard Mee would have taken it anyway, so it makes no difference.”

Dorothy Anne could think of nothing else to say, so she followed Bozzo. All the other Underlanders watched them as they walked down the street and into the Wizard’s house, which made Dorothy Anne a little nervous, but they didn’t follow inside.

The house was small, and she couldn’t see where the workshop could be, but when Bozzo stood in the middle and clapped his hands three times, there was a loud grinding noise, and a doorway opened in one of the walls. “That was the Wizard Mee’s way of hiding his workshop from outsiders,” he said. “Follow me.”

Inside the workshop, which was lighted by a green glass globe floating a few inches below the ceiling, Dorothy Anne could see only a workbench with a tall stool in front of it. At first, she could see nothing on the workbench, but when she looked again, she saw a sock, a glass eye, and a little branch from an evergreen tree. She picked up each one to examine more closely.

The sock looked like a perfectly ordinary sock, except for a little label sewn into it that said “In my first, find my last.” She recognized the bit of evergreen as a Yew tree, like the ones in Uncle Joe’s back yard, and she saw that there was a ribbon tied to it that said, “In my last, find my first.” Finally, she looked at the glass eye, which also looked ordinary (as far as Dorothy Anne could tell), but it was sitting in a little dish to keep it from rolling around the workbench, and around the outside of the dish was written on one side, “In my first, find my last,” and on the other, “In my last, find my first.”

“Are these all the clues?” she asked Bozzo.

“I’m afraid so,” he said. “So far, no one has ever been able to figure them out.”

“Well, maybe I will,” said Dorothy Anne, and she commenced to study the three clues.

Chapter 13: A Curious Library

After many hours, Glinda the Good was certain that something was going on that was even stranger than she had at first suspected. All along the road that she was walking, she had not seen one single living creature, apart from trees and other plants and, of course, herself. When she reached the Hill of the Hammerheads, and even those rude creatures were not there to block her path, she became certain that something had happened in the Land of Oz that had never happened before, something involving a strange new kind of magic.

Yet what it could be puzzled her. The disappearance of the Great Book of Records seemed to show that whatever had been done had been done by an enemy. “But what enemy,” she said aloud, “would wish to make all the living creatures in Oz disappear? An empty country is not worth stealing.”

“Why not?” said a voice from behind her.

The lovely sorceress spun about. “Who spoke?” she said, and then let out a gasp, for standing before her was the ugliest and oldest woman Glinda had ever seen. Her hair was gray, and there was little of it. Her eyes were almost yellow, instead of white, and even her nose had wrinkles. “Who are you,” said Glinda, “and what do you know about what has happened to Oz?”

“Who am I?” said the hag. “I am Neeuq Ixiz of Xi. I am she that Queen Zixi of Ix sees in the mirror —or ‘used to see,’ I should say, for she has finally succeeded in banishing me from her sight, as she has sought to do for centuries. You see, she learned long ago the secret of forever looking young and beautiful, but she has always been greatly distressed by the fact that she does not look so to herself, when she looks in a mirror. Instead, she has always seen me.”

“I know of Queen Zixi’s long search for a way to seem to herself as she seems to others,” said Glinda. “My Book of Records has told me of her many attempts to find a spell to do it. Are you saying that she has at long last succeeded?”

“Not precisely,” said Ixiz. “But by holding a mirror up to another mirror, and reciting a certain charm she invented, she has banished me, her reflection, from the world inside the mirror to this world one thousand and three times inside the mirror. Now, instead of me, she sees nothing at all. I have been wandering in this world for some time. Finally, sensing that another living being had come here, I came here to see who you could be. As I am only a reflection, it takes me no time to travel from one place to another in these mirror worlds, and neither the Deadly Desert that separates Oz from Ix, Ev, and other such countries, nor any other barrier can stop me, though I see that you are from the real world, and consequently suffer from the same limitations here that you have there.”

“But why is it that there are no other people here, apart from the two of us?” asked Glinda.

“Because no mirror is perfect,” answered Ixiz. “Starting from the real world, each mirror world fades just a little, until here, through so many mirrors, the images of quickly moving people and animals fade away to nothing. Because other things change so slowly, or not at all, it takes many more mirrors, but in time they likewise vanish.”

“I see,” said the sorceress. “This is a strange new kind of magic with which I am not at all familiar, but perhaps you have told me all I need to know.” Thereupon she opened a purse tied at her side and removed from it a tiny house made of stone. Carefully, she placed it on the ground by the side of the road, and waved her right hand over it; then she stood back, gesturing to Ixiz to do the same.

Slowly at first, then more quickly, the little stone house began to grow, not only in size, but in shape, throwing out wings and a high, broad staircase at the front. Eventually it formed a building almost as large as Ozma’s palace. Above the staircase was carved the legend:

Portable Library of Magical Stvdies

This is Glinda’s traveling library, which holds extra copies of the 500,000 or so most important books in her collection. “You may come with me, if you wish,” she said to Ixiz. “I may be in here for a while.”

Up the steps she went, to the great brass doors. With a wave of her hand, they parted to admit Glinda and Ixiz. Inside was a great hall that ran up to the huge domed roof, with ten galleries around it. It was entirely empty, except at the very center, where there was a pedestal with a crystal ball on it.

“Open catalog,” said Glinda. “Search subject: ‘Mirrors.’” In the ball appeared a list of all magical subjects involving mirrors. “Select ‘worlds within,’” she said, and the list was replaced with a list of books about worlds within mirrors. Glinda, who keeps track of events within the great outside world, as well as Oz, has seen how computers are used in libraries nowadays to manage the lists of books that older libraries keep on little paper cards, one for each book, and she recently constructed these magical computers to list the books in her portable library, the main library at her palace, and the Public Library of Oz in the Emerald city. They work just like the computers of the outside world, but use magic instead of electrical circuits. Also, unlike the computers in our libraries, which need someone to enter all the information about new books, Glinda’s library computers know automatically whenever a new book is added, and what subjects it covers.

“I wish to read these books here,” she said, and all the books listed in the crystal ball came flying down from the galleries. At the same time, a desk appeared next to her, along with a chair; the books swept down and neatly landed on the desk. “Another chair, please,” she added, and a second chair appeared by Ixiz. “Ixiz, I expect I shall be reading for some time. You may sit and wait for me, if you wish, but I’m afraid I have nothing here for you to read, as these are all books for workers of magic.”

“Being the reflection of Queen Zixi of Ix,” said Ixiz, “I am a magic worker myself. Perhaps I can help you, for living behind the mirror as I do, I am more accustomed to these matters.”

“Very well,” said Glinda. “Add a desk to the second chair,” she added, seemingly to the air, and a second desk appeared for Ixiz. “You can take half these books, and I will take the other. Let us hope that one or the other of us will find a way to move us between the worlds.”

Ixiz took some of the books and sat down at her desk. The two opened a book apiece, and started to read. As the hours went by, they continued to turn pages, searching for a way out of the world one thousand and three times inside the mirror.

*   *   *   *   *

After a long time, the beautiful sorceress looked up. “Ixiz,” she said, “I think I may have found an answer, but I will need your help. Do you wish to return to your own world, only once inside the mirror?”

“Indeed I do,” said the crone, “for it is the business of a reflection to reflect, and without Queen Zixi, my life is quite purposeless. Can you help me?”

“Indeed I can,” said Glinda. “But we have a long journey ahead of us, since I cannot flit about from place to place as you can.”

“I have often thought,” said Ixiz, “that it must be very strange, living as you do, not able to go from one place to another without going through all the places in between.”

“It does not seem so strange when it is always that way,” replied Glinda.

Chapter 14: A Meeting of Villains

That was a very clever idea, transforming yourself to look like Ozma.”

“Who said that?!” shouted Ruggedo, for it was indeed he, and not the lovely little fairy, who had spoken so queerly with Dorothy and her friends. What with everything that had been happening, he had grown afraid that things were becoming too complicated for him, and so, when their attention was diverted by ZIP’s arrival, he had snuck out of the throne room and made his way to the room in the palace cellar where he had concealed the satchel.

“A friend,” said the voice. “But tell me, if Ozma is you, what did you do with the real Ozma?”

“She is where no-one will look for her,” said the wicked Nome, “and that’s all any ‘friend’ that I cannot see needs to know.”

“Oh, as to that, I haven’t any great objection, except that it is rather disgraceful to be seen as I am.” Out of a shadow behind a door, a green monkey emerged. “You see, I wasn’t always like this. I was a powerful sorceress—or Yookoohoo, to be precise—but that spiteful Ozma transformed me into this shape, merely because I had played some harmless games with a few of her friends. One of them had already stolen my greatest magical instrument, so that it took me years and years to escape from my own castle, but at last I succeeded in weaving this lovely new magic apron for myself. At first, I went after the tin man, but as he and that accursed Woot boy decided to come here, I thought I’d hitch a ride and take care of all my enemies at once—except for the Rainbow’s daughter, who traveled with them; I don’t know when I may find her.”

“Imagine my surprise when I arrived and saw that Ozma was not Ozma at all, but the old king of the Nomes.”

“How did you know?” interrupted Ruggedo.

“Yookoohoo magic is all about transformations, and I am a Yookoohoo. You could not hide under a transformation from me. You couldn’t even hide from a common dog, until you were reminded of it.”

“That’s enough of that!” burst in the Nome King. “I knew the dog was a danger. It merely —slipped my mind.”

“If you say so,” said the monkey. “But the real question is, now that you’ve conquered Oz, what are you going to do with it?”

“I don’t know,” said Ruggedo. “The first time I tried to conquer Oz, they gave me something to drink that made me forget, and although I’ve recovered much of my memory since, I’ve never been certain about what I planned to do with Oz after conquering it. But I know I’ve got my Magic Belt back, and that’s the main thing. After all this time, I finally have my Magic Belt back.”

“I’ve heard of this Magic Belt,” said the green monkey. “I understand it does transformations, just like my magic apron. Belts and aprons are a lot alike; do you suppose there’s any connection?”

“I couldn’t say,” said Ruggedo. “I am not a wizard, myself, and though I have owned and used many magical devices and spells in my long life, I know very little of how they are discovered or made. Take my Belt, for instance. Many years ago, I obtained it from the wizard who first made it by promising to tell him the location of the largest diamond in the world.”

“Then it was a fair trade,” said Mrs. Yoop.

“A fair trade?” replied the wicked little Nome. “Oh yes, it was fair enough, for I told him where that diamond is. It is not my fault that it happens to be in the Hollow Tube that goes all the way through the center of the earth to the realm of the great Jinjin, so that no one can ever get at it.”

“But could he not travel there?” asked the monkey.

“Not at all, for it is impossible to enter the Hollow Tube without ending up in the great Jinjin’s land, and Tititi-Hoochoo (that is the great Jinjin’s name) has strictly forbidden anyone to travel through it.”

“No, I got my Magic Belt fair and square, and if he got no diamond, that is not my problem, for I only promised to tell him where it was, and not that he would have it.” (When Ruggedo was king of the Nomes, he often behaved in just such a manner as this, getting things from people by seeming to promise rewards to them, rewards that he could afterward find a way, like this, of giving without actually giving anything. I am afraid that there are many other people in the world who behave in just this way.)

“He was very angry, as I recall, and said that he would find some way to obtain his diamond, no matter how long it took. I had my Nome guards escort him from my presence, and that was that. And so you see that, although I have known and used much magic over the years, I know very little about how magic is actually made.”

“You have missed much,” said the former giantess. “for it is quite impossible to appreciate anything that one does not understand, and it is impossible to understand anything if one does not understand how it is made.”

“Oh, granite and gravel!” said the wicked old Nome. “I do just fine with my magic as it is.”

“Well, I don’t see that we shall ever agree,” said Mrs. Yoop, “and it doesn’t matter what you do with Oz as long as you leave me alone, and let me have my way with the tin man, the stuffed man, and the boy. And that rainbow fairy, if she ever turns up.”

“Some of them have been troublesome to me, over the years, but Ozma and Dorothy have always been my great enemies. You can deal with them as you like, and it matters not at all to me. Throw them into Lake Orizon, or change them into biscuits and eat them with pickles and mice, for all I care. You stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours, just as long as Oz is mine.”

“How nice,” said a new voice. “Only, you see, Oz is mine!”

The two villains looked up to where the voice was coming from, and there they saw an ash-gray raven, sitting on the head of a statue near the door. “Yours?” said the Nome King, “and who are you? You’re just a bird!”

“Oh, not precisely,” said the raven. As it spoke, it suddenly began to crumble, and the ashes of which it was made drifted toward the floor. But instead of hitting it, they reformed into the shape of an old woman.

“The Witch of the East, at your service,” she said. “Of course the part about ‘service’ is only for politeness; you are going to be at my service. But who are you? You,” she said, gazing at the Nome King, “look like one of those annoying fairies that I thought the four of us got rid of, and you,” she continued, turning to the monkey, “are only a beast, but I know a magic Yookoohoo apron when I see one. And where is that accursed wizard? This is his city, his palace, but he’s nowhere to be seen. And why aren’t you wearing those absurd green spectacles he makes everyone wear in the city.”

“The Wizard of Oz?” cried Mrs. Yoop, the monkey. “He hasn’t ruled in the Emerald City for a hundred years. ‘The Witch of the East’ you say? She hasn’t been around for a hundred years, herself, not since that annoying child Dorothy dropped a house on her. Only.... Perhaps you are, indeed, who you say you are, since you seem not to know what has happened in Oz all these years.”

“Very well, then. This ‘fairy’ here is actually Ruggedo, the rightful king of the Nomes, who has just conquered Oz. I am Mrs. Yoop; as you guessed, I am a Yookoohoo; my proper form was stolen from me by Princess Ozma, whose form Ruggedo is at present wearing. The same Dorothy whose house destroyed you a hundred years ago also destroyed the Witch of the West by melting her with water, and sent the Wizard of Oz away to his own country. Soon afterward, Ozma took over the Emerald City. The Wizard came back a few years later, but he no longer rules, and those silly spectacles are long forgotten.”

“And what about my silver shoes?” asked the witch.

“I do not know,” said the monkey. “Do you, your majesty?”

“I have heard that that confounded Dorothy took them and lost them,” said the Nome King.

“Lost them?!” shrieked the witch. “Very well, then, we’ll settle the issue of who is to rule Oz later. For now, just tell me where I am to find this Dorothy!”

Chapter 15: Dorothy Anne’s Quest

Do you know that this is from a yew tree?” said Dorothy Anne to Bozzo. “Wouldn’t that have something to do with the Wizard Yew?”

“That’s what everyone else thought,” replied the mayor.

“Then perhaps they were wrong,” said Dorothy Anne, “since none of them ever found the key,” and she went back to studying the three clues. “Did any of them ever figure out what the ‘first’ and ‘last’ are?”

“What ‘first’ and ‘last’ are you talking about?” said Bozzo.

“Right here on the label,” said Dorothy Anne.

“What’s a ‘label?’”

“A label?” said the little girl. “Why, it’s a little piece of paper or something that you put on something, and you write on it to say what it is.”

“Ah,” said Bozzo. “What’s ‘writing?’”

“Why, writing is—it’s just writing. It’s making marks on paper so you can read it.”

“Oh, reading,” sai