Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond (4 page)

When the Wizard saw Bobbin, he snatched him off the ground.

“What did you find out?” he demanded.

“That I don’t like flying,” Bobbin said.

“How many soldiers does she have? What sort of weapons?”

Oz, in his enthusiasm, gripped Bobbin too tightly, more roughly even than the Monkeys had. So it was a reflex, really, that caused Bobbin to use the only weapons he owned—his teeth—which he sank into Oz’s thumb.

Oz yelped and dropped Bobbin, who ran off to a safe distance.

“Go back to Nebraska or you’ll smart!” he yelled.

Without waiting for a response, he ran away and didn’t stop until he reached the meadow.

Even though Bobbin never saw the Witch’s Broom, every time the other field mice gathered to hear about his adventure, when he reached the conversation with the Witch, he told his listeners that the Broom moved tirelessly around the castle of its own accord, cleaning every nook and cranny, every crack and hiding place, so that it was the cleanest castle that had ever been lived in by anyone anywhere.

The baby mice shivered when Bobbin told them that part of the story.

Bobbin shivered too.

H
OT
A
IR

Over the years, ever since he ran away from the Peppermint Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Youth, Finagle the Munchkin had been a pickpocket, a highwayman, a mercenary, a Nome wrangler, a goat washer, and once, for two weeks and three Saturdays in the Land of Ev, a wedding cake decorator. Personally, he considered the last two the most dangerous jobs he had ever done.

But then he had never before worked for a wizard.

“So let me get this straight,” he said to Oz as they stood on top of his observation platform, where they could see the Witch’s castle. “The Witch is a danger, so you want to me to go up in a hot air balloon so I can spy on her.”

“I can tell that you are a gentleman of unusual perspicacity and astounding perception, with a mind as sharp as a barber’s razor and as quick to snap as a bear trap,” Oz
said. “And if you do this for me, I promise to pay you all the wealth I previously described, but even that will be as nothing compared to the treasure chests full of glory that shall be heaped upon you.”

“I suspect you get paid by the word,” the Munchkin muttered.

“What was that, good sir?”

“I said, I expect you are as good as your word,” Finagle said. He was puffing on a cheroot and blew a smoke ring in Oz’s direction. “But I have three questions I want answered first.”

“And I promise you three full and satisfying answers, answers that will erase the stain of any doubt and introduce in your mind a comprehension and understanding of the situation that will engender your whole-hearted commitment to the greater cause.”

“No matter how long it takes,” the Munchkin muttered.

“I beg your pardon, my dear friend.”

“I said, and that’s exactly what it takes.” He looked at the tiny basket and the large balloon, which was being inflated with hot air as they spoke. “Question, the first. Why is it you want me to climb up in this contraption and float over her castle, when you could clearly do it yourself?”

“An excellent question. A very wise and sage question. A wonderful question.”

“And the answer?”

“Why, the answer is obvious, my good friend. You need but consider your size compared with mine. Why, I am twice the man you are—”

“Hold on now!”

“Hear me out, please—simply by way of physical proportions. Why, look at me! I’m bigger than you in every dimension. Taller, wider, and thicker.”

“I’m beginning to think you’re thick enough.”

“See, there you have it. So, with me aboard, this hot air balloon would founder like a boat loaded with rocks, and that would do no good at all, not for anyone. And yet, with you aboard, a man whose size is, I daresay, in inverse proportion to his value, whose courage is worth his weight in gold, why the craft will certainly most positively and absolutely soar like a bird in the wind.”

“So, say I soar,” Finagle said, looking out over the valley filled with trees to the sharp edges of the Witch’s castle perched on a distant crag. “What should I see that a bird can’t see—why not just send a bird? I know a crow or two, even a mockingbird, who’ll do for you in a pinch.”

“That’s an excellent question. A very keen and perceptive question—”

“Go on with the answer.”

“Why, isn’t it obvious? I came to you for your reputation as the most courageous man among your people. Is a bird ever as brave as a man? No! Can a bird hold a weapon in his hands? No! Will a bird count the grains of sand—”

“I get the idea,” Finagle said. “So when the Witch’s Monkeys come flying up at me, just like they did for that mousy fellow, you want me to fight them off and then count what’s inside the castle walls—the soldiers and such.”

“Fight them off only long enough to release your ballast and man the hot air pump. Let the balloon rise directly upward until it’s beyond the limited flight of these heavy creatures, and then, when you are clear of the castle, release the air from the balloon just as I showed you and float safely back to land, where I will come and meet you. Can you do that?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Finagle said, but it didn’t add up with what he’d told that field mouse to do—what was this Oz fellow up to?

“Drop the ballast and pump the hot air,” Oz repeated.

“Hot air—I’ve got it. It seems easier than fighting off a few dozen Monkeys.”

“I knew you were the man for the job,” Oz said. “Never has a recommendation more recommended itself. Nor commended its recommender, who deserves a commendation…”

He blinked and regarded Finagle with a fixed smile and a blank stare.

“Lost your flow of words there?” Finagle asked.

“Not at all,” Oz said. “Not at all. I was simply trying to say that you came highly recommended, and with good and self-evident reason.”

“Third and final question then,” Finagle said, staring hard at the castle, which protected the valley of the Munchkins from the wild creatures beyond. “What have you got against the Witch?”

Oz paused thoughtfully. He pulled a brass tube from his trouser pocket, held it up to his eye, and stared across the valley to the castle. Finagle was about to repeat his question when the Wizard finally spoke.

“In the land where I come from, we have wonderful institutions of learning, where a man can discover all the secrets of the universe, and that’s why these institutions are called universities,” Oz said. “And in these universities, there are wise men called philosophers, who ponder the fundamental questions of life. Being in the business of questions, they employ a tool named for their most distinguished predecessor, a philosopher named Socrates, and this tool is called the Socratic Method, and those who use this tool answer questions with more questions in order to reach a more enlightened perspective.”

“What?” Finagle said.

“That’s precisely how you do it,” Oz said. “So permit me to answer your question about the Witch with a question of my own.”

“Go ahead,” Finagle said.

“Do you know what sort of man the Witch might be interested in?”

Finagle narrowed his eyes. “Where are you going with this?”

“Yes, by Jug! That’s how you do it. Socrates would be so proud—OWW!”

Oz hopped on one foot, holding his opposite shin—the one that Finagle had just kicked.

“That’s for sending me up in a balloon with a bunch of flying Monkeys chasing me,” the Munchkin said. “And I want twice what you offered to pay me.”

M
ONKEY
B
USINESS

Wisdom from Omaha: you only have one chance to make a first impression.

Oscar Diggs was not about to waste that chance. He stared at himself in the full-length mirror and admired the work done by the tailors in the Emerald City.

A double-breasted vest in emerald silk with silver buttons. A tailcoat in a complementary green, trimmed in black velvet. Fall front trousers in a lovely shade of fawn. He had never looked so good.

To be fair, the effect was marred somewhat by the straps holding the canister of oxygen to his back, and by the bug-like mask, connected to the tank by a breathing tube, that at the present moment hung loose about his neck where a less
inventive and more ill-prepared man would tie an ordinary cravat.

He was, he assured himself, most inventive and well prepared and wholly extraordinary, even without a cravat.

More importantly, he had a plan.

A plan, which, so far, had worked to perfection.

The first part had involved simple helium balloons and an even simpler field mouse. The balloons revealed the direction and speed of the valley’s winds while the mouse served up misdirection by relaying his false concerns about soldiers to the Witch.

The second part of the plan employed a hot air balloon, which permitted him to measure the speed and maximum ascent of the Winged Monkeys, who were his real target all along.

Now the third part of his plan—involving a hydrogen balloon, of the type popularly called a zeppelin—was about to be set into motion.

He climbed into the large gondola of the craft, which was moored to the top of the tower that the Emerald Citizens had built for him, and he untied the ropes that held him down.

His heart beat faster as the craft rose majestically into the air.

The Valley of the Witch was long and narrow, split by a gleaming blue ribbon of river, cushioned by thick green orchards on either side, and framed by rugged peaks of bare stone that reached straight up to the sky. At the upper end of the valley, a picturesque castle occupied a bluff overlooking the river.

“The question,” Oscar Diggs mused, “is why a witch needs a castle at all. Either she has great wealth, which her army of Winged Monkeys guards for her, or she has great
enemies, which her army of Winged Monkeys protects her from. Either way, it’s the business with the Monkeys that is key.”

His palms grew sweaty as the great airship approached the Witch’s castle. He wiped his hands on his trousers and peered through the telescope. The Monkeys were already perched along the battlements and on the rooftops, eyeing his approach.

“The question,” Oscar Diggs asked himself, “is, How much is she willing to trade to get the Winged Monkeys back.”

Of course the bigger issue was going to be stealing them in the first place. It was too late to double-check his calculations. He had made his plan and—

Here came the Monkeys!

It was much more terrifying to see in person than it was to watch from the safety of his viewing platform. He pulled his mask over his face, turned on the flow of oxygen, and braced for the impact.

The gondola rocked as the first Monkeys landed on the sides and swarmed aboard. They ran all around the rim and rigging, curiously exploring the craft just as he’d seen them do during the previous tests. Then they began creeping down the rigging toward him, eyeing him warily, ready to pounce.

“Not yet, not yet,” he muttered to himself, his hands shaking.

More Monkeys jumped on. Then more and more. The moment they were all aboard, he yanked the rope he had prepared, releasing thousands of pounds of ballast.

Straight up the zeppelin went, fast enough to press them all to the floor of the gondola. In four seconds they reached a height where the air was too thin to support the Monkeys’ flight. In eight seconds they reached a height where the air
was too thin for them to stay awake. The Monkeys in the rigging lost their grip and tumbled into the gondola at his feet.

Oscar shivered in the cold, but the dazed or entirely unconscious Monkeys were now at his mercy. He moved quickly around the gondola, binding them hand and foot and wing with ropes he had brought specifically for that purpose.

When he was certain that all his prisoners were secure, he changed the course of the zeppelin and reduced his altitude, bringing it back toward the Witch’s castle. All the way he gave thought to the encomium this daring would win him and the epithets that would cling like laurels to his name forever after.

Oz the Wise!

Oz the Wonderful!