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

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,” Ozsaid. “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