Heart Of Tin Part 4

NINE.

After the Scarecrow patched me up, Glinda left us, saying she had business with Dorothy to attend to. The Scarecrow watched her go, sighing in admiration. "What a woman," he said wistfully. "Do you think I have a chance?"

"No," I said. "Let's get to work."

There were only a handful of Winkies left.

The Scarecrow brought out each of them in turn, pleading frantically for his or her life no matter how many times we explained we weren't doing anything but improving them. "I don't know why you couldn't have gotten yourself appointed king of a people with more dignity," he muttered. I ignored him.

We operated on six Winkies in total. All but two of them survived the process. The Scarecrow lined them up at the far end of his chambers as he finished, where they stood blinking and quiet, waiting to be summoned.

When we were done at last he cleaned the blood off his stuffed body with a rag. "Need to get an ap.r.o.n," he remarked, dabbing at a tough stain. "This stuff is the devil to get out. You ready to show these fellows to Dorothy?"

I had been confident and sure of myself as we worked, but now that I faced the prospect of going before Dorothy again, I was flooded with doubt. What if she didn't approve? What if the soldiers weren't good enough? The Scarecrow was watching me sharply, and I was aware that my emotions must have been plain. I didn't want to fail her again. I couldn't bear it.

The Scarecrow ordered the Winkies to march, and they did so in eerie unison, moving their arms and legs as stiffly as robots and at the exact same time. We followed them out of his chambers. I flagged down a Munchkin servant, who eyed the Winkie soldiers with discomfort and told us Dorothy was taking the rays in her solarium. The Scarecrow let me direct the soldiers down the hall. They responded to my commands with the same mindless, automated precision they had to his, and I was rea.s.sured by their obedience. How could Dorothy not be pleased?

My beloved was reclining on a luxurious couch in her solarium, dressed in a long, soft robe and holding out one hand to a servant, who was painting her nails. Another girl behind the couch was brushing her hair. She still wore her glittering heels, and they glowed with an atomic-red light that called up in me an answering flare of clockwork emotion. A little black ball was curled up at Dorothy's feet, and I belatedly recognized it as Toto. He jumped to his feet, barking excitedly, and raced to meet us, running around our feet in yapping circles. I stooped to scratch awkwardly behind his ears with my knives.

Dorothy looked up as we came in, her perfect face drawn into a scowl. "What on earth are you doing here? I didn't send for you." Her eyes widened when she saw the soldiers. "And what on earth are those? Woodman, I told you I never wanted to see those filthy Winkies again. What's wrong with their arms?"

I sank down to one knee before her, but her expression didn't change. "Dearest Dorothy," I began, "you must understand, your safety is of our utmost concern. We've been working to perfect an army for you, as I promised."

Dorothy's scowl deepened. "I told you I wanted a real army, Tin, not this-this petting zoo."

The Scarecrow stepped forward, interrupting smoothly. "Ah, Dorothy, of course. And that's why the Woodman and I have worked day and night to create a new kind of soldier for you. Take a closer look, Your Eminence."

The scowl lessened a little, and she stood up, sending the nail polish jar flying. The servant girl scurried after it frantically. She walked toward the mechanized Winkies, Toto racing back and forth between us, and studied them carefully.

"The Woodman will demonstrate their commands," the Scarecrow prompted. I scrambled to my feet and ordered the Winkies to march around the room, and then to execute several coordinated maneuvers. Dorothy watched them with astonishment, clapping her hands in delight as they pivoted back and forth in front of her.

"But this is wonderful!" she cried. "You thought of this?" I began to answer, and then realized she was speaking to the Scarecrow.

"I had some a.s.sistance," he said modestly. I waited for him to mention the hours I'd spent helping him, but he said nothing.

"You've done wonderfully," Dorothy said, flinging her arms around him in an embrace that should have been mine. The ticking of my new heart pulsed faster, and I was filled with fury. I was the one who'd brought the Winkies, I was the one who'd had the idea to build an army for Dorothy, and I was the one who loved her. How dare he usurp the grat.i.tude that should have been mine?

Dorothy released the Scarecrow and turned to face me. "Thank goodness I have someone useful around me." She sighed.

"But, Dorothy," I said quickly, "he couldn't have done it without my help-or my Winkies. And the army was my idea, not his."

"Oh, Tin," she said, patting me gently on the shoulder. Her touch was wonderful. "I know you try, I really do. But you keep failing me. How can I possibly count on you? You have no idea how stressful it is trying to run an entire kingdom. It's practically giving me a migraine, and I can't even find a servant who can give me a decent foot rub. Do you have any idea the pressure I'm under?"

"No, of course not," I said humbly. I felt awful. How could I live with myself if I was only adding to her burdens?

"So you see my problem," she continued. "I need to trust you, Tin. You say that you want to defend me, and that's very n.o.ble of you. I really do appreciate it. But you keep making silly mistakes, and people like the Scarecrow have to clean up after you. I want to appoint you head of my defense team, but I can't give you that kind of responsibility unless you prove yourself worthy."

I fell to my knees, clutching her dress. "I'll do anything!" I cried. "Anything at all!" At that moment, Glinda swept smoothly into the room, her eyes full of concern.

"Dorothy, what on earth are you going on about? I can hear you all the way down the hall," she said, looking from me to Dorothy to where the Scarecrow surveyed us, gloating. Then she saw the Winkies. "Oh," she breathed, "what excellent work! Scarecrow and Woodman, you've outdone yourselves. They're perfect protectors for the new ruler of Oz."

Dorothy's mouth snapped shut, and she looked at me in surprise. "You helped?"

"Yes, Dorothy," I said quietly.

"Why didn't you say anything?" she asked impatiently. "Honestly, Tin, I don't know what to do with you sometimes. Where are the rest of them?"

"The rest of them?"

"Well, this is hardly what I'd call an army," she said, her voice cooling noticeably. "Surely there are more?"

"Dorothy," the Scarecrow said, "we've only just begun. You have to give us time."

"Hurry up, then," she said. "I haven't got all day. Just imagine what it will be like when I have an army of my very own!" She twirled around the room like a little girl, and my heart soared. I wanted to do what I could so that she'd always be this happy. And once she was happy, she'd really, truly be mine. I wasn't going to fail her again. I knew what I had to do.

"I will build you an army, Dorothy," I said. "I'll build you an army the likes of which Oz has never seen. No one will harm you, or even dare to try."

Dorothy stopped her dance and threw her arms open wide. "If only Aunt Em and Uncle Henry could see me now!" she cried. Behind her, Glinda was smiling, although the smile didn't reach her eyes. The Winkies were frozen at attention, their grotesque metallic hands to their foreheads in matching salutes. The Scarecrow was snickering next to me, and Toto yapped and ran around the room. Inside my chest, my new heart swelled with such joy that I thought it might burst out of its patchwork housing, and I could almost see the pulsing glow that matched the flaring red of Dorothy's shoes like a beacon shooting out from my chest. I turned to the Scarecrow.

"Prepare your workshop," I told him, loud enough for Dorothy to hear. "The soldiers and I ride out into the countryside tomorrow. Dorothy's army must have new recruits."

"The people aren't going to like that," the Scarecrow said quietly.

I heard rather than felt the ticking of my heart. "The people don't have a choice," I said, and Dorothy laughed in delight. For her, I would raze the villages of Oz to the ground if I had to. Everything was different now, and everything was going to keep changing. Dorothy had come back to Oz at last.

EXCERPT FROM NO PLACE LIKE OZ.

SEE HOW DOROTHY'S RISE TO POWER BEGAN:

ONE.

They say you can't go home again. I'm not entirely sure who said that, but it's something they say. I know it because my aunt Em has it embroidered on a throw pillow in the sitting room.

You can't go home again. Well, even if they put it on a pillow, whoever said it was wrong. I'm proof alone that it's not true.

Because, you see, I left home. And I came back. Lickety-split, knock your heels together, and there you are. Oh, it wasn't quite so simple, of course, but look at me now: I'm still here, same as before, and it's just as if I was never gone in the first place.

So every time I see that little pillow on Aunt Em's good sofa, with its pretty pink piping around the edges and colorful bouquets of daisies and wildflowers st.i.tched alongside those cheerful words (but are they even cheerful? I sometimes wonder), I'm halfway tempted to laugh. When I consider everything that's happened! A certain sort of person might say that it's ironic.

Not that I'm that sort of person. This is Kansas, and we Kansans don't put much truck in anything as foolish as irony.

Things we do put truck in: Hard work.

Practicality.

Gumption.

Crop yields and healthy livestock and mild winters. Things you can touch and feel and see with your own two eyes. Things that do you at least two licks of good.

Because this is the prairie, and the prairie is no place for daydreaming. All that matters out here is what gets you through the winter. A Kansas winter will grind a dreamer right up and feed it to the pigs.

As my uncle Henry always says: You can't trade a boatload of wishes for a bucket of slop. (Maybe I should embroider that on a pillow for Aunt Em, too. I wonder if it would make her laugh.) I don't know about wishes, but a bucket of slop was exactly what I had in my hand on the afternoon of my sixteenth birthday, a day in September with a chill already in the air, as I made my way across the field, away from the shed and the farmhouse toward the pigpen.

It was feeding time, and the pigs knew it. Even from fifty feet away, I could already hear them-Jeannie and Ezekiel and Bertha-squealing and snorting in antic.i.p.ation of their next meal.

"Well, really!" I said to myself. "Who in the world could get so excited about a bit of slop!?"

As I said it, my old friend Miss Millicent poked her little red face out from a gap of wire in the chicken coop and squawked in greeting. "And h.e.l.lo to you, too, Miss Millicent," I said cheerily. "Don't you worry. You'll be getting your own food soon enough."

But Miss Millicent was looking for companionship, not food, and she squeezed herself out of her coop and began to follow on my heels as I kept on my way. I had been ignoring her lately, and the old red hen was starting to be cross about it, a feeling she expressed today by squawking loudly and shadowing my every step, fluttering her wings and fussing underfoot.

She meant well enough, surely, but when I felt her hard beak nipping at my ankle, I finally snapped at her. "Miss Millie! You get out of here. I have ch.o.r.es to do! We'll have a nice, long heart-to-heart later, I promise."

The chicken clucked reproachfully and darted ahead, stopping in her tracks just in the spot where I was about to set my foot down. It was like she wanted me to know that I couldn't get away from her that easily-that I was going to pay her some mind whether I liked it or not.

Sometimes that chicken could be impossible. And without even really meaning to, I kicked at her. "Shoo!"

Miss Millie jumped aside just before my foot connected, and I felt myself lose my balance as I missed her, stumbling backward with a yelp and landing on my rear end in the gra.s.s.

I looked down at myself in horror and saw my dress covered in pig slop. My knee was sc.r.a.ped, I had dirt all over my hands, and my slop bucket was upturned at my side.

"Millie!" I screeched. "See what you've done? You've ruined everything!" I swatted at her again, this time even more angrily than when I'd kicked her, but she just stepped nimbly aside and stood there, looking at me like she just didn't know what to do with me anymore.

"Oh dear," I said, sighing. "I didn't mean to yell at you. Come here, you silly hen."

Millie bobbled her head up and down like she was considering the proposition before she hopped right into my lap, where she burrowed in and clucked softly as I ruffled her feathers. This was all she had wanted in the first place. To be my friend.

It used to be that it was all I wanted, too. It used to be that Miss Millicent and even Jeannie the pig were some of my favorite people in the world. Back then, I didn't care a bit that a pig and a chicken hardly qualified as people at all.

They were there for me when I was sad, or when something was funny, or when I just needed company, and that was what mattered. Even though Millie couldn't talk, it always felt like she understood everything I said. Sometimes it even almost seemed like she was talking to me, giving me her sensible, no-nonsense advice in a raspy cackle. "Don't you worry, dearie," she'd say. "There's no problem in this whole world that can't be fixed with a little spit and elbow grease."

But lately, things hadn't been quite the same between me and my chicken. Lately, I had found myself becoming more impatient with her infuriating cackling, with the way she was always pecking and worrying after me.

"I'm sorry, Miss Millicent," I said. "I know I haven't been myself lately. I promise I'll be back to normal soon."

She fluffed her wings and puffed her chest out, and I looked around: at the dusty, gray-green fields merging on the horizon with the almost-matching gray-blue sky, and all of it stretching out so far into nothing that it seemed like it would be possible to travel and travel and travel-just set off in a straight line heading east or west, north or south, it didn't matter-and never get anywhere at all.

"Sometimes I wonder if this is what the rest of life's going to be like," I said. "Gray fields and gray skies and buckets of slop. The world's a big place, Miss Millicent-just look at that sky. So why does it feel so small from where we're sitting? I'll tell you one thing. If I ever get the chance to go somewhere else again, I'm going to stay there."

I felt a bit ashamed of myself. I knew how I sounded.

"Get yourself together and stop moping, Little Miss Fancy," I responded to myself, now in my raspy, stern, Miss Millicent voice, imagining that the words were coming out of her mouth instead of my own. "A prairie girl doesn't worry her pretty little head about places she'll never go and things she'll never see. A prairie girl worries about the here and now."

This is what a place like this does to you. It makes you put words in the beaks of chickens.

I sighed and shrugged anyway. Miss Millie didn't know there was anything else out there. She just knew her coop, her feed, and me.

These days, I envied her for that. Because I was a girl, not a chicken, and I knew what was out there.

Past the prairie, where I sat with my old chicken in my lap, there were oceans and more oceans. Beyond those were deserts and pyramids and jungles and mountains and glittering palaces. I had heard about all those places and all those things from newsreels and newspapers.

And even if I was the only one who knew it, I'd seen with my own eyes that there were more directions to move in than just north and south and east and west, places more incredible than Paris and Los Angeles, more exotic than Kathmandu and Shanghai, even. There were whole worlds out there that weren't on any map, and things that you would never believe.

I didn't need to believe. I knew. I just sometimes wished I didn't.

I thought of Jeannie and Ezekiel and Bertha, all of them in their pen beside themselves in excitement for the same slop they'd had yesterday and would have again tomorrow. The slop I'd have to refill into the bucket and haul back out to them.

"It must be nice not to know any better," I said to Miss Millicent.

In the end, a chicken is a good thing to hold in your lap for a few minutes. It's a good thing to pretend to talk to when there's no one else around. But in the end, if you want the honest-to-goodness truth, it's possible that a chicken doesn't make the greatest friend.

Setting Miss Millicent aside, I dusted myself off and headed back toward the farmhouse to clean myself up, change my dress, and get myself ready for my big party. Bertha and Jeannie and Ezekiel would have to wait until tomorrow for their slop.

It wasn't like me to let them go hungry. At least, it wasn't like the old me.

But the old me was getting older by the second. It had been two years since the tornado. Two years since I'd gone away. Since I had met Glinda the Good Witch, and the Lion, the Tin Woodman, and the Scarecrow. Since I had traveled the Road of Yellow Brick and defeated the Wicked Witch of the West. In Oz, I had been a hero. I could have stayed. But I hadn't. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry were in Kansas. Home was in Kansas. It had been my decision and mine alone.

Well, I had made my choice, and like any good Kansas girl, I would live with it. I would pick up my chin, put on a smile, and be on my way.

The animals could just go hungry for now. It was my birthday, after all.

TWO.