Oz Reimagined Part 5

"How-dee-do," he said. "They call me b.u.t.ton-Bright because I'm as bright as a b.u.t.ton."

"Oh, do they?" I wondered what kind of b.u.t.ton theya"whoever they werea"had in mind. He sounded as thick as his thighs.

"Did you bring ammunition?" asked Jellia, ignoring b.u.t.ton-Bright. I guess she didn't have much use for him either.

Nick Chopper opened the back of the van. It was filled with stacks of cardboard flatsa"filled with eggs. "As many as we could bring," he said. "And I brought a secret weapon."

Out of the back of the van steppedaa chicken, with yellow feathers and a red comb. "This is Belinda," he said. "She's one of the granddaughters of Billina herself. She generously agreed to accompany us."

"Oh, it's so good to see you again, Belinda," said Jellia. She knelt and embraced the chicken.

"Well, you don't need to squeeze me quite so hard," said Belinda. "I'm not a stuffed chicken, you know!"

"It's a great pleasure to see you again, my dear," said the Wizard. "I haven't seen you since you were quite a young chick and used to hide in my pockets!"

"Well, doesn't that beat all," said Joan, low enough so only I could hear her. "A talking chicken."

"What, they didn't teach you about Oz in school?" I said. "All the animals talk there."

"I dropped out after sixth grade. We never got to talking animals."

We would all be grateful for those eggs and the talking chicken before long. The third rendezvous point was beyond the Nome Kingdom, in the Land of Ev. That night, we slept in the tents for the first time. You wouldn't believe how the s.h.a.ggy Man snored! I could hear him all the way across the camp.

The next morning we crossed the border.

The Nome Kingdom was rocky, and the road was in bad repair. It ran between steep cliffs, and several times boulders came crashing down, hitting and sometimes denting one or another of the cars. Now I knew why they all looked so battered!

"They're watching us," said the Wizard grimly. "Waiting to attack."

Ingrid, who was riding in the back next to me, reached over and held my hand.

The attack came on the third day. We had stopped to rest and eat our lunch in a gully. Suddenly, down the rocky faces of the cliffs came the Nomesa"so many of them that the cliffs looked as though they were covered with large black spiders. That's what the Nomes look like, with their spindly arms and legs and their round, fat bodies. Ingrid and Lula Mae screamed and held on to each other. Nick took up his axe and the Wizard raised his wand. b.u.t.ton-Bright and the s.h.a.ggy Man both aimed their guns. Jellia threw open the back of the van and said, "Girls, to me! Form a circle and throw eggs, as many as you can!"

Well, I would have thought that the farm girls, at least, would have been too scared to fight. But all of us followed Jellia's orders. I don't like to remember what happened next. Do you know what happens to Nomes when they are hit by eggs, Dottie? They explode. There we stood in a circle, lobbing egg after egg until our arms were aching, while all around us Nomes were bursting as though they were balloons filled with horrible green goo. Imagine the smell of smashed eggs, of Nome goop, of our own sweat! It was horrible, but we worked together as a team. Meanwhile, the Tin Woodman was chopping their limbs off left and right, the Wizard was turning as many of them as he could into pebbles, and b.u.t.ton-Bright and the s.h.a.ggy Man were shooting into the ma.s.s coming at us. Bullets don't hurt the Nomes. But the s.h.a.ggy Man and b.u.t.ton-Bright did slow them down so we could pelt them with our eggs.

We were so tired, and the Nomes just kept on coming! I could see one standing up on a rock with a hideous crown on his head. He seemed to be directing the others, and didn't he look triumphant to see us girls getting too tired to aim well?

"They've got me!" shouted Nick Chopper. Sure enough, the Nomes had managed to wrench away his axe and were now trying to pull him limb from limb.

"It's time!" shouted Jellia. From the rear of the van flew Belinda, straight at the Nome with the crown on his head. He uttered a high-pitched shriek when he saw her coming and tried to crouch down, but she made straight for his head and beat him with her wings.

"My eyes, my eyes!" he screamed. "Retreat! Retreat, all of you worthless fools!"

Suddenly the Nomes began to scurry back into the rocks, and in another minute, we were the only ones in the gully. We all looked bruised and battered, especially the Tin Woodman, whose left arm was nearly wrenched off.

"Well, at least it's the left one," he said. "I'm a much better fighter with my right."

"I don't think rotten old Ruggedo will be attacking us again soon," said Belinda.

"Why, what did you do?" asked Jellia, smoothing her ruffled feathers and lifting her back into the van.

"Pecked out one of his eyes." She sounded satisfied with herself.

After that attack word must have gotten around, because we were not attacked again. It took several more days to cross the Nome Kingdom, but finally we reached the border of Ev. There the landscape changed: the rocky cliffs gave way to green meadows and pleasant gardens. As we pa.s.sed each farmhouse, families came out to ask us about our journey through the Nome Kingdom and praise usa"especially Belindaa"for our bravery.

At the end of that day, we reached the third rendezvous point: a farmhouse on the border of the Deadly Desert, where yet more girls were waiting for us. They had arrived several days ago, some of them with Aunt Em, Ojo the Lucky, and the Scarecrow, who had come through Noland, and some with Polychrome, Johnny Dooit, and the Cowardly Lion. "They had an even more dangerous journey than we did," said the Wizard. "Not even Ruggedo is as dangerous as Queen Zixi. She is a sorceress almost as powerful as Glinda, and although she is hundreds of years old, she has learned to maintain her youth by eating the hearts of young women. You can imagine how much she would like to capture any of our girls!"

After dinner I went out and looked at the place where the green meadow ended and the Deadly Desert began. "h.e.l.lo, my dear," said the Wizard. I had not heard him come up behind me.

"What now?" I asked, looking at the endless expanse of sand that would turn you to sand yourself as soon as you stepped on it.

"Don't you worry about that. Now that we're all here, Ozma can wish us over the desert sands with her Magic Belt. She can only make one wish a day, but tomorrow after breakfast, we will gather in the farmyard, and you will see the Emerald City for the first time!"

The next morning, after a breakfast of pancakes with maple syrup, we gathered together in the farmyard. Some of the girls looked scared, and some held each other's hands or put their arms around one another's waists. At nine o'clock exactly, the Wizard made a particular signa"and the next thing I saw was a great palace, all of white stone with turrets and parapets and whatever else palaces have, including great archways flanked by stone lions with emerald eyes. It was the most magnificent thing I had ever seena"even more magnificent than San Francisco! Standing on a balcony above us were five girls. The tallest one, who had long black hair and looked like a film star, said "Welcome to Oz. I am Ozma, and these are Dorothy, Betsy Bobbin, Jinjur, and Trot."

And then she told us.

Have you been wondering, Dottie, while you've been reading this letter, why all these girls are being taken to Oz? Well, I wondered that tooa"wondered as I lay in my tent, listening to the s.h.a.ggy Man snore at night. Wondered as we traveled day after day through the Nome Kingdom. Why all these girls?

Ozma told us.

Standing up on that balcony, she told us about how she had been taken as a baby to the witch Mombi, and how Mombi had turned her into a boy, and made her work, and beat her. "I never want another girl to be beaten the way I was," she said. "So any girl who wants to come to Oz is welcome. She will find refuge here with me. But we have to save all the other girls, don't you see? That's why I invite any girl to join my army. It will be an army of liberation, sent from Oz to conquer all the lands around and then the rest of the United States of America. But we're not just going to conquer and rule the country, girls. We're going to transform it too, so it becomes like Oz." She held out her arms to us, and I don't think Mary Pickford could have looked more appealing. For a moment even I wanted to sign up right away, to save all those girlsa"even if it meant conquering the United States. Of course I did sign upa"I mean, Sally Russell signed up. We all did.

Are you laughing, Dottie? At the thought of an army of girlsa"all those runaway girlsa"fighting our military, with their guns and tanks? Well, you can stop laughing now. After Ozma's speech, which was short (she probably gives it every day, as more and more girls arrive), Dorothy showed us the camp. That's General Dorothya"she, Betsy Bobbin, Jinjur, and Trot are the generals of Ozma's army. Each of them leads a division of the army that is a.s.sociated with one of the countries of Oz. Joan, Ingrid, Lula Mae, Frances, Enid, and I were put in the Quadling division. We were given our uniforms, and then Dorothy, our General, talked to us about what we would be doing now that we were soldiers.

We stood on a hill, looking down at the camp, which was covered with tents as far as the eye could seea"red and yellow and purple and blue.

"Time works differently here than it does in the outer world," said Dorothy. "We've been gathering soldiers for ever so long. If a girl doesn't want to join Ozma's army, she doesn't have toa"but almost everyone joins. Who wouldn't want to fight for Ozma and Oz? Anyway, the girls who come here know what it's like out there. I remember what it was like in Kansasa"never enough to eat and people pa.s.sing through who had no place to call home. They were just trying to get to California, where they thought things would be better. Well, here in Oz, if you don't have enough to eat, you find a lunch pail tree!"

"But there are wicked people even in Oz," said Enid.

"Yes, what about old Mombi?" asked Lula Mae.

"Of course," said Dorothy. "But Glinda finds out about them, and they're punished."

"And do you really think a bunch of girls can conquer the American army and air force?" asked Frances dubiously.

"Oh, but we don't just have a bunch of girls," said Dorothy. "We also have the Jack Pumpkinheads, and the Wogglebugs, and the Tik-Tok Men. Come on, I'll show you." And she showed us, all right.

The Jack Pumpkinheads are grown in fields in Gillikin Country, where Ozma created the original Jack when she was a boy. At least, their pumpkin-heads are. Their bodies are made of wood, and when they are put together, they are sprinkled with the Powder of Life. "It's mixed up in large vats in Gillikin Country," said Dorothy. "We can sprinkle it on anything we like, of course. But the Jack Pumpkinheads are good soldiers. They can't be killed, and they just keep on going unless you chop them up into small pieces. If they lose a limb, they can replace it with any old piece of wood."

The Wogglebugs come from hatcheries in Winkie Country. "They reproduce so quickly that we have lots more than we need," said Dorothy. "When they're born, they're just the size of a pea, but if we need them to fight, we highly magnify them. They're pretty scary, aren't they?"

I have to admit, if I had an army of Wogglebugs coming at me, I'd turn around and run! They look sort of like c.o.c.kroaches, but when they're highly magnified and standing on their hind legs, they're the size of a man.

"The Tik-Tok Men are made in a factory in Munchkin Country," said Dorothy. "They're just about indestructible, and the machine guns are built right in."

You've never seen anything like the Tik-Tok Men, Dottie! When I saw them, I realized that they would plow our soldiers down and keep on marching. For the first time, I was scared. What if I never escaped from Oz? But there's no time to be despondent when you're an intrepid girl reporter, is there? Instead I tried to estimate the size of the Oz forces.

"But the girls are the most important part," said Dorothy. "Girls are a lot fiercer than most people suppose. All these girlsa"they've come to Oz because of how they were treated out there. I ought to knowa"I was like them until Uncle Henry and Aunt Em took me in. They can fighta"we've been training them. And they can direct the Jack Pumpkinheads and Wogglebugs and Tik-Tok Men, who haven't much brains of their own."

I remembered how we had all fought the Nomes together. Maybe Dorothy was right. Maybe girls don't fight in the world out there because they've never been taught how. As we walked through the camp, between the colorful tents and banners, I saw girls everywhere: some of them were practicing a kind of jiu-jitsu, some of them were loading and unloading their guns, some of them were listening to lectures on how to blow up trains. They looked busy and serious but also festive in their colored uniforms, as though they had gathered for some sort of outing. I began to see that Ozma's army was nothing to laugh at.

"Ozma doesn't want to kill anyone," said Dorothy. "She doesn't even like to swat flies! She says they are as much her subjects as any creature in Oz. She'd be much happier if everyone just surrendered. That's why she's sending the army of Oz first. But things have to change, don't you see? If the army doesn't work, she'll use the Magic Belt. She can wish whole countries dead, if she wants to."

"Will that work outside Oz?" asked Ingrid. She sounded shocked at the thought of such destruction.

"Of course," said Dorothy. "Magic is like electricity. It works the same everywhere."

So you see, Dottie, I've got to get my story out! Don't you tell anyone any of this, because I don't want to be scooped. I'm going to stay here long enough to figure out the size of Ozma's army, and then I'm going to cross the Deadly Deserta"I don't know how yet, but if a rug merchant can get across, so can I. And then I'm going to break the largest story that the Ledger has ever seen!

Your loving sis, Nell My dearest Dotts, I've asked the s.h.a.ggy Man to bring you this letter. When you've read it, I want you to tell Mamsie the whole storya"from when I first started investigating Mary Lang's disappearance. Make sure she's sitting down on the parlor sofa, and tell her slowly. It's not good for her to be startled or upset. But she was the one who always told us stories about Oz, so maybe she won't be as startled as you or I would be.

Once you've told her, I want the both of you to pack up whatever you needa"but only what you need. The s.h.a.ggy Man will bring you back to Oz, and there isn't much room in the Gump. Do you remember the Gump? Ozma made it when she was a boy, out of two sofas lashed together with palm fronds for wings, a broomstick for a tail, and a head that looks as though it once belonged to a peculiar sort of moose. It's the most sarcastic creature, but quite safe to fly in. It will carry you across the Deadly Desert and into the Emerald City. The s.h.a.ggy Man will make sure that you arrive safely.

You might be surprised by this letter, after the last one I sent you. But when I sent it, I had just arrived in Oz, and I didn't understand how important this war isa"how it must be waged and won. (That's pretty good, isn't it? Waged and won. I think I'm going to use that in my next article.) Ozma has appointed me Royal War Correspondent of Oz, and I'm proud to fulfill that role. Once the war starts, it will be important for you and Mamsie to be safea"and no place will be safer than the Emerald City.

But I'd better tell you what changed my mind about this war. About a week after we had begun our training, General Dorothy came into our tent. She said, "Sally and Jane, you've been chosen to join Glinda's personal guard. Are you willing?" Jane and I looked at each other in amazement. Glinda's personal guard is an elite unit in the armya"it contains the bravest, best-trained girls from our division. We both nodded. "You'll be going down to Quadling Country," said Dorothy. "There you will continue your training with Glinda herself. Make me proud, girls!"

That afternoon we packed our kits and set off, about a dozen of us. It took us several days to reach Glinda's palace, but the journey was pleasanta"we walked through green fields and sunlit forests, mostly following the road of yellow brick, and had no trouble at all from Hammer-Heads or Fighting Trees. Sometimes we slept in tents, and sometimes we pa.s.sed farmhouses, where we were given food and beds for the night. When the Quadlings heard we were joining Glinda's personal guard, they bowed and curtseyed with great respect.

Glinda's palace is not as large as Ozma's in the Emerald City, but when I first saw it, with its spires glowing in the light of the setting sun, I was impressed! Instead of tents we were put in barracks made of marble and rare woods, with the most luxurious baths I have ever seen, and were given new uniforms of rose silk.

The next morning we began the most intensive training we had yet received. Do you know, little sis, how to kill someone with a pocket comb, or a mirror, or even a handkerchiefa"everyday items that a girl might carry in her purse? Do you know how to pick any lock with a hairpin, or make a bomb out of ordinary household ingredients? Well, I do! Glinda's guards aren't just soldiersa"they're spies. We were trained by a roly-poly sergeant who could flip any of us on our backs before you could say "Boo!" I can tell you that we gave each other many bruises! At the end of the day, I would lie in one of the baths, in rose-scented water, to ease my aching muscles.

When we had been at Glinda's palace for about a month, we were told that Glinda herself wanted to see us. I thought we would be taken to a throne room of some sort, but instead we were shown into a pleasant parlor. There were sofas and armchairs upholstered in rose chintz, and on the low tables were trays with heart-shaped cookies and chocolate cake. There was also a cut-gla.s.s bowl of strawberry punch. As we stood in that room, not quite sure what to do with ourselves, Glinda herself entered. She looked about our age, although I've heard that she's more than a thousand years old. She wore a long rose-colored gown and a gold crown on her head. She was not as beautiful as Ozmaa"at least, she looked less like a film star and more like a Sunday school teacher, with calm gray eyes. She said, "Girls, please pour yourselves some punch and take some cookies and cake. And then sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I've asked you here because I like to get to know my new recruits."

I piled cake and cookies on my platea"the training had made me hungry! We all sata"some of us on sofas, some in armchairs, some on the floor. When we were all comfortably seated, Glinda said, "Girls, I'd like to hear your stories." So we went around the room and all told where we had come from before we came to Oz.

Oh Dottie! What some of those girls had gone through. I felt ashamed of myself, telling the made-up story of Sally Russell. Some of the girls cried and held each other, and I could see that sometimes tears flowed silently down Glinda's cheeks, although she remained silent.

"Thank you girls for sharing your stories," she said when we had all spoken. "You have gone through pain and loss and grief. I hope that here, at my palace and in Oz, you will find what you have so often missed in the outer worlda"a sense of sisterhood and of family." Before we left she embraced each one of us.

"I feel so much better now," said Joan when we were back in the barracks, sitting on our bunks. "As though my heart were lighter. Listen to me! Can you believe I just said that?" And you know? It was the first time I had seen her actually smile.

That night I couldn't sleep. I lay awake in the darkness, remembering the stories those girls had told; one had shown us cigarette burns up and down her arms.

The next morning, before the other recruits were awake, I went to the sergeant's quarters. She was already awake, of course, doing her calisthenics. "I need to talk to Glinda," I said.

She looked at me for a moment, keenly, then nodded. "Glinda will be in her study," she said. "If you're not sure of the way, ask one of the porters."

I did have to ask one of the porters, a girl in a rose-colored dress and ruffled ap.r.o.n, who was mopping the marble staircase. She led me to Glinda's study and opened the door. Glinda sat at her desk, doing whatever sorceresses do in the mornings. I walked up to her, boldly enough, and said, "I'm not Sally Russell."

"Who are you, then?" she asked with a kind look on her face.

"My name is Eleanor Dale, and I'm a reporter for the San Francisco Ledger. I came here under false pretenses so I could figure out where all the missing girls had gone. Are you going to have me court-martialed?"

Glinda smiled. "My dear, I knew all this long before you arrived at my palace. I was waiting to see if you would tell me."

I stared at her. "How did you know?"

"I have a book that tells me everything that happens, all over the world. It told me you were coming here as soon as you thought of it yourself. The words appeared on the pages of the book as though written by an invisible pen. I do wish it had an indexa"it can be most unwieldy to use."

"But then why did you let me come into Oz, and come here from the Emerald City?"

"Because you're a brave girl, and I thought that we could use you on our side. Anyway, if your letters had fallen into the wrong hands, Ozma could simply have wished them to disappear. But you're willing to fight for us now, aren't you, Eleanor? To fight for Oz and everything it represents?"

I nodded. "Should I go back and join the others in the barracks, then?"

"No," said Glinda. "I let you train with my guards until you were ready to tell me the truth, but now that you've shown your honesty and loyalty, I have a more important task for you. We need someone to write about the war effort, to create leaflets and pamphlets and articles for the Emerald City Daily and all the smaller newspapers in Munchkin Country and the other countries of Oz. You'll be syndicated, my dear."

Well, you can imagine what I thought of that!

So here I am, sitting in my office in Ozma's palace in the Emerald City. Later today I have an interview with Professor H.M. Wogglebug, who developed the Wogglebug strategy, and then I'm reviewing the troops with General Betsy Bobbin and touring a Tik-Tok Man factory. And I'm meeting Sc.r.a.ps the Patchwork Girl for dinner, but that's just because we're friends. Oh, and you won't believe thisa"I found Mary Lang! She's in the Munchkin division and is becoming a demolitions expert. She says she's happy here in Oz and looking forward to contributing to the war effort. She wanted to let the real Sally Russell know that she was all right, and I said the s.h.a.ggy Man could post a letter for her.

I can't wait to see you and Mamsie again! I have a lovely apartment here in the Emerald City, which I'm sure you will both love. And I will be glad to know that you're safe in the coming months as Ozma begins her invasion of California. I'm looking forward to covering the siege of San Francisco! Remember, the Gump is perfectly safe, and the s.h.a.ggy Man will be with you the whole time. See you soon, darling!

Your loving sis, Nell (Royal War Correspondent of Oz)

THE BOY DETECTIVE OF OZ: AN OTHERLAND STORY.

BY TAD WILLIAMS.

It was hard to imagine anything was actually wrong here.

It was the nicest Kansas spring anyone could imagine, the broad prairie sky patched with cottony white clouds. Redbuds cheeky as schoolchildren waved their pink blooms in a momentary breeze, and a huge white oak spread an umbrella of shade over the road and for quite a distance on each side.

As he crossed a little wooden bridge, Orlando Gardiner saw the birches rustling along the edge of the stream, exchanging secrets with the murmuring water. The stream itself was bright and clear, flowing over large, smooth rocks of many colors and festooned with long tendrils of moss that undulated in the current. Fish swam below him and birds flew above him and it seemed like it would be May in this spot forever.

But if everything was as nice as it looked, why was he here?

To: HK [Hideki Kunohara]

From: OG [Orlando Gardiner, System Ranger!]

RE: field dispatch, kansas simworld i'm sub-vocalizing this while i'm actually onsite investigating, so sorry for any confusion. i know you think the kansas world was hopelessly corrupted from the first, and if it really has gone bad you'll utterly have my vote to de-rez it, but first impressions are that everything looks pretty good here, so let me finish checking it out before we make any moves. Like you said, I'm "the one who'll have to deal with the bulls.h.i.t if it goes wrong," and that's what I'm doing.

He could see the modest roofs and central spire of Emerald in the distance, everything as neat and well kept as a town in a model railroad. The first time he had seen this place, it had looked like something out of a medieval painting of h.e.l.l: dry, blasted, cratered as if it had been bombed, and populated with creatures so wretched and freakish they might have been the suffering d.a.m.ned. But it was the only Oz simulation in the Otherland network, and Orlando had fought hard to keep it running; it was good to see it thriving. Oz had meant a lot to him when he was a kid confined to a sickbed. When he had been alive.

But that still didn't answer the main question: If everything was good in Kansas, why had he been summoned?