Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond Read Online Free

every direction. Poor Bobbin began to twitch nervously. This was hardly the surreptitious entry that Oz had promised him.
    The balloon was barely over the castle wall when other faces appeared in the windows and along the battlements—the Witch’s Winged Monkeys, furry little men with leathery wings and sparkling golden vests.
    Then there were Monkeys on the roof of the castle.
    Then there were Monkeys in the air above the castle.
    Bobbin paddled his tiny legs furiously, like a swimmer desperate to make it to shore, even though his intention was only to turn around and climb up the string. The activity made him swing like a pendulum and soon he was all tangled up, which cut off his circulation and made his toes go numb.
    The Monkeys flew up in waves, spinning round and round Bobbin’s balloon until it was twisting like a leaf in a whirlwind. The more daring Monkeys flew in and poked at the balloon, or—worse!—at Bobbin.
    “No no no no no no no no no no no no no!” he screamed.
    The Monkeys laughed and spun him round and round and batted his balloon until he was screaming at them to—
    POP!
    The balloon disappeared like a wasted wish, and he plummeted toward the rocks below. At the last second, as the rocks loomed large in his vision, a tiny hairy hand thrust out of nowhere and grabbed him.
    The Monkey carried Bobbin high into the air, higher than his balloon had been, and then the Monkeys played a game of keep-away, tossing Bobbin back and forth, dropping and catching him over and over again until he was limp and exhausted with terror.
    Eventually the Monkeys grew bored, and they took Bobbin to the castle, where he was presented to the Witch of the East.
    “Who sent you to spy on my castle?” the Witch asked.
    “Oz,” Bobbin said, and then, feeling like that wasn’t quite enough, like it might be a good idea to have a powerful protector, he added, “Oz, the great and powerful. He’s a wizard! He came from Nebraska, and he…he…has progress, which he keeps in his pocket.”
    While he spoke, his eyes darted back and forth, looking for the terrible, the awful, the frightening Broom of Doom.
    The Witch reached down and, with one long fingernail, scratched between Bobbin’s ears. Despite his wariness, Bobbin closed his eyes and sighed.
    “Tell me everything you remember,” the Witch said.
    So that’s what Bobbin did, even though when he got to the part about the Broom of Doom, she laughed so hard that tears fell from her eyes.
    “That’s a good boy,” the Witch said when the laughter subsided and her breath returned. “Will you take a message to this wizard for me?”
    “Y…y…yes,” Bobbin said.
    “Tell him, if he’s smart, he’ll go back to Nebraska.”
    “I can do that,” Bobbin said.
    “I know you can,” the Witch said, giving him a big yellow-toothed smile. “Now…would you like to walk back to the Wizard’s base of operations, or would you like my Monkey friends to fly you there?”
    “Walk! Walk! Walk!” Bobbin shouted.
    He staggered like a drunk all the way back to the far end of the valley.
    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,