Oz Reimagined Part 21

"Exactly," Dizzy says, and now he releases me. "So we gotta keep quiet about this unless we want to have an accident, too."

I'm rubbing my forearm as he says this last bit, and I'm thinking he's right and how wrong that isa"how wrong it is that we should be trapped like this, scattered from our native lands, "employed," and worked down to the bone. I'll even say the real truth here between you and mea"enslaved. How wrong it is that we should be enslaved like this, while the real peoplea"that's the words the Wizard uses for the humans, "real people"a"walk around free in the City above the City and farm our lands and scare off all the talking animals into the Haunted Forest (a place you do not want to go)a"the ones they didn't beat into submission and silence, that is. You see them sometimes, the intelligent animals, beaten like brutes, the knowing and the bitterness shining in their bright eyes.

That girl from another place you hear about, the one who dropped a house on the Good Witch of the East, supposedly exposed the Great and Powerful Oz as a fraud. But he's no fraud. He is great and powerful, and he's used guns and bombsa"he turned some of the Winged Monkeys to his cause early on, even if they aren't all bad, like old Dizzy herea"to conquer Oz, to claim its name as his own, and bit by bit drive out all the magic in the land. But they say something else about her as well: that she really believes he is a powerless old man, that she's just a child, a perfect innocent, a rube. And that's important here. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

For now, back in the bar, me rubbing my forearm like the d.a.m.n Monkey had about half torn it off, Dizzy goes, "We gotta forget it ever happened. You understand me. You understand me, Hops? Not a word, okay. Not a word to anyone."

And Hops nodded his stupid nod, like he was down with that. But that sly look was still shining in his eyes, and I thought that Dizzy, too, was too smart for his own good, and that he might come to regret that smack across the face he'd given the Munchkin. Hops's cheek was turning a deep purplish blue, and I remember thinking, These d.a.m.n Monkeys don't know their own strength and sometimes it comes back to bite them.

I was still thinking that when I headed home, and that night when Calixta and I blew out the last of the tapers and the kids had fallen asleep, I told her the whole thing: about Joe's fall and Dizzy's sermon in the bar and the way he smacked Hops, turning his face all blue and purple as a storm hoving up on the far horizon. She cried a little, and I held her close until the tears stopped, and then we had slow s.e.x in the darkness, and when I cried out and broke inside her, it was a sweet and sensuous thing.

After that, nothing much happened for a while, except they moved Dizzy next to me in the polishing line, and we hung down the wall side by side. We didn't razz each other or even talk much. It was like that day in Frankie's had marked the end of our friendship, or at least its outward expression. Like it was too dangerous to be seen being chummy. The few times we did talk it was in hurried asides, just to wonder alouda"and barely alouda"why we'd been put on the wall side by side like that, and was someone watching us or listening.

We didn't see much of Hops. They'd moved him way down the line, and when I did run into him, he didn't have much to say either. He still had that bruisea"it took a month to fade, from black to blue to a yellowish sallow colora"and he still had that sly secret look in his eyes, like he knew something I didn't, and more than ever I regretted going to the bar with him that day, or even being friends with him in the first place, but a mana"a Munchkina"has to have someone to confide in and like calls out to like, as they say. I'd never really hit it off with any Winkies besides Joe. My remaining friends were misfits, living oxymorons (and in Hops' case, just a moron), a Winged Monkey without his wings and a brute of a Munchkin.

And then I had no friends at all, except that I continued to nurse a place in my heart for Dizzy, even if he was too smart for his own good, because what's a Winged Monkey without his wings? Calixta always said I had a soft spot for losers and ne'er-do-wells and that someday it would do me in, but you know how it is with wives, they talk and talk and talk and you don't listen and you don't listen and you don't listen, and by the time you figure out they were right all along it's too late. After all, I was consorting with a known criminala"a Monkey who'd lost his wingsa"and an idiot, what did I expect? But like I said, like calls out to like, so maybe I'm a misfit myself, or even a criminal. But that's getting ahead of the story again.

What happened next is they made an example of Dizzy. Like cutting off his wings hadn't been enough. They hung a sign around his necka"ORGANIZATION IS SEDITION, it reada"and hung old Dizzy himself from the top of the wall, where we could see him while we worked. They didn't hang him the good way either, where they break your neck with the drop. No, they let him strangle slowly, his hands grasping and pulling at the rope for a single extra breath, and when his strength finally ran out, they let him hang some more, till the birds pecked out his eyes and stripped the flesh from his bones.

Meanwhile, Hops' bruise slowly faded, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the humiliation of it had never faded from his heart, for that sly knowing look hadn't faded from his eyes, and now that Dizzy was gone, I felt it turn ever more certainly on me. And this time Calixta talked and talked and talked, and this time, because every day I got to see old Dizzy hanging there from the wall, I listened.

It was time to get out.

I'm smart too, you see, but I'm not too smart for my own good. That's what I like to think anyway. So I made a plan, and part of the plan is what I've written here. Tonight me and Calixta and the kids, we're vacating this s.h.i.thole forever. We're going to cross the fields of poppy and take our chances in the Haunted Forest. We don't care that the talking animals are angry and capable of just about anything, and we don't care what they say about the trees. We're going to make a home there, close by the road of yellow brick. They say this girl, this Dorothy, comes back to Oz upon occasion and takes the road of yellow brick up to the Emerald City. And what I'm going to do is, I'm going to give her this lettera"and hope, because if the rumors and legends are right, she managed to kill the Good Witch of the East and the Good Witch of the West all on her own. She must be a sorceress of great power to have done the deeds that are attributed to her. And I'm hoping something else as well: that she really was an innocent, a rube, and that when she realizes what she's done, she'll set things to right.

"Dorothy," I will say, "the Emerald City is built upon the backs of millions."

"Dorothy," I will say, "the Munchkins no longer have a song in their hearts."

"Dorothy," I will say, "help us."

Help us.

OFF TO SEE THE EMPEROR.

BY ORSON SCOTT CARD.

A four-room school in Aberdeen, Dakota Territory, September 1889 The teacher introduced six-year-old Frank Joslyn Baum as one of the new first-graders. "Young Frank's father is Mr. L. Frank Baum, editor of our town's newspaper. Does anyone know the name of the newspaper?"

One hand went upa"that of a nine-year-old girl. Frank noticed that the bands of fabric around the bottom of her dress were darker, the colors deeper. The dress must always have been too big for the girl, but over the years during which she wore it, the hem had been let down three times, exposing fabric less faded by the sun. Frank liked to notice things like that and figure out what they meant.

The teacher seemed reluctant to call on the girl. "Why don't you tell us the name of your father's paper?" the teacher asked him.

"She knows," said Frank, pointing at the girl, who was now sitting with both hands tucked under her bottom.

"Do you think she does?" asked the teacher with an air of condescension. "Dotty, what were you raising your hand to say?"

Dotty looked straight at Frank. "Your father's store went bust," she said. "He owned Baum's Bazaar."

Frank blushed. It was shameful that the store went out of business; no one spoke of it.

"I fail to see what that has to do with the name of the newspaper," said the teacher. Then, in a voice loud enough for all to hear, she said to Frank, "Now you know why I rarely choose to call on Dotty."

"It was a wonderful store," said Dotty. "Your father gave Auntie Bess credit, and it got us through the winter."

"That is enough, Dotty," said the teacher.

Auntie Bess. Frank knew Bess Kra.s.sner was one of the customers whose failure to pay had led to the bankruptcy. Frank didn't miss much. Mrs. Kra.s.sner was a stern woman who frightened most children with her cold glare, but Frank was not afraid of her. He could look right at her even when she glared.

"The newspaper is the Aberdeen Sat.u.r.day Pioneer," said Dotty, "and Mr. Baum writes the column *Our Landlady.'"

Then Dotty sat down.

Frank read his father's column every week, every word. He should not be in first grade, but the teacher would not hear of advancing him. "Children learn raggedly unless they have guidance," she had said. "Whatever he thinks he has learned on his own will almost certainly have to be taught to him again, but now in its proper order."

When Mother told this to Father, he laughed. "I'm sure our poor boy has his letters all inside out. She'll set him straight."

At first Frank wanted to tell his father that he did not have any letters inside out, but then he realized that Father was joking. Father always made everything either funny or very dramatic. Father was an actor at heart. He used to own a theater but it burned down. Father had written plays. Mother often said that a man like that had no business running a store. Frank heard everything. He remembered everything.

After school, instead of walking straight home, he went up to the older girl, Dotty. "Why do you care about my father?"

"I don't," said Dotty. "And I don't care about you."

"Why did you say that about him giving credit? Your aunt never paid him back."

"She will," said Dotty. "She is a woman of integrity." She turned her back on him and started walking along the dusty road, the opposite direction from Frank's way home. He followed behind her.

"It's too late to pay him now," said Frank. "The store's already out of business."

"It is never too late to pay a debt," said Dotty.

"It's too late for it to do any good," said Frank.

She turned to face him. "Do you want me to poke you in the nose?"

"Why did you tell about your family needing credit to get through the winter?"

"One must never be ashamed of poverty, my Auntie Bess says. One must only be ashamed of wealth that one does not share with those in need. Your father shared. Auntie Bess says that makes him a good man, even if he does hate Indians."

"Everybody hates Indians," said Frank. "They scalp people and they're savages."

"It's also good for children to have minds of their own, and not to echo the opinions of adults."

"Your aunt says."

"I am wise enough to pay close attention to my aunt."

"So you echo her opinions," said Frank.

Dotty glared at him, but it was not as icy a glare as Bess Kra.s.sner's. "I have independently reached the conclusion that my aunt is right."

"About everything?" asked Frank.

"So far," said Dotty.

"Why are you bothering to talk to a six-year-old?" asked Frank. "The other fourth-graders don't talk to us younger children."

"One must be especially kind to the little and stupid," said Dotty, "or they will not get wiser along with bigger."

"Auntie Bess again?" asked Frank.

"No," said Dotty. "It was one of my own. Here's why I'm talking to you. First, your father is a good man, so I owe courtesy to his son. Second, you can already read and write as well as a fourth-grader, but you don't make a show of it. Third, you followed me and won't shut up."

She stepped out of the lane and into the brown scruffy gra.s.s beside it.

"Where are you going?" asked Frank.

"I'm following the road," said Dotty. She continued walking farther into the gra.s.s, heading for a cornfield.

"No you're not," said Frank. "It goes that way."

"That road goes that way," said Dotty. "Feel free to follow that road, if you want."

"What road are you following, then?"

"I always follow the yellow road," said Dotty. She walked on resolutely.

Frank followed her. "Where is it?"

"I admit that even I can hardly see it here," said Dotty. "There's only a brick or two visible, and then only when the light is right. But by now I know this part of the road by heart."

"What bricks?"

"The light isn't right," said Dotty. "But there's one right there, in the morning, on a clear day."

Frank looked where she was pointing. "I don't see anything."

"Because you are not sufficiently observant."

"I'm very observant," said Frank hotly. "Father says so."

"And yet you are not observant enough." Dotty broke into a run.

"Dotty!" Frank called. "I can't run as fast as you."

"I'm counting on that," she called back.

He ran as fast as he could and caught up with her by the scarecrow in the middle of the field, its pants and a shirt and a hat stuck on a pole, with straw stuffed in the clothes. Crows sat on its shoulders. It was clearly not very effective. Dotty was conversing with it.

"If he can follow me, then he can come," Dotty said.

The scarecrow said nothing, but Dotty answered him as if he had spoken. "See? Here he is. n.o.body else has been able to follow me this far."

Again, silence from the scarecrow.

"Of course he can't hear you," said Dotty. "He hasn't yet been noticed by the Emperor."

Silence.

"I have so, or I could never have found you and talked to you in the first place. So I'm going on, and as long as he can follow me, I'm taking him with me."

Again she seemed to listen, until she grew quite impatient and held out a hand toward Frank. "Hold my hand," she said. "I'm taking you with me no matter what he says."

"Taking me where?"

"To see the Emperor of the Air," she said.

"Where does he live?"

"In. The. Air," she said.

"We're on the ground," Frank pointed out. But he made his legs trot along fast enough to keep up with her, despite her long-legged strides farther through the corn. "Are there more yellow bricks now?"

"Yes, there are," said Dotty, "and I don't mind that you can't see them. Everybody knows I'm crazy, which is why they call me *dotty' even though my name is Theodora."

"I'll call you Theodora if you want," said Frank.

"Just keep up," she said. "You're doing very well so far, but we have a long way to go before dark. I brought an oilcan, you see." She reached into her lunch bag and held it up.

This made no sense to Frank, but it was an adventure, and she was a big kid who admired Father, and he was sure that eventually the small oilcan she brandished would make some kind of sense.

"Be careful now," she said. "We're coming into the trees. And don't let go of my hand. I don't want to lose you halfway between."

There were no trees at all. Not any.

"Stop looking with the fronts of your eyes," said Dottya"no, Theodora. "Stop looking at what everybody sees. This is a magical land if you're willing to see it."

"Says Auntie Bess?"

"She can't see anything," said Theodora. "Or I should say, she refuses to come and refuses to hear me talk about the Empire of the Air, so there's no chance that she'll ever see it. But here you are."