Welcome to Oz

Chapter Three

"I'm guessing you're wondering what exactly happened to the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion," Kipper began, glancing at me over the rim of her teacup to confirm this. I shrugged - what I was really wondering was how Kipper had managed to bring me to Oz, and how exactly I would get home, but we had more important work to attend to.

"Each of them found their desired characteristics while helping Dorothy defeat the wizard and get home. The Scarecrow developed the ability to strategize while helping assemble Dorothy's armies and develop plans of attack. The Tin Man found love with a beautiful copper princess who sympathized with the cause. The lion led enough battalions that he became desensitized and war-hardened. Rather than be handed these characteristics, they all earned them through sheer experience." Kipper rolled her eyes. "I'm sure it's all wonderfully poetic."

I smiled slightly to myself. I was learning very quickly that Kipper was not a girl for sentimentality or flowery language. In a way, I liked that. It meant that her offered explanations were straight to the point and easy to understand.

"We're going to have to seem them out," Kipper continued.

"And then?"

"And then maybe they can help us form a revolution." Kipper sniffed and lifted her chin slightly, false bravado entering her voice, and I realized something with horrible certainly.

"Kipper...you don't have a plan for taking down the Wizard again, do you?"

Kipper shifted in her seat slightly but said nothing.

"Kipper! You did not just drag me through an attic closet to tell me that we just maybe have a chance of finding and recruiting three of the most famous figures in Oz to fight someone who it took armies to defeat!"

Kipper bit her lip guiltily. Her eyes were filled with so much torment that I almost felt bad for yelling at her like this - but who could blame me? 

I sighed. It was too late to do anything about our situation now. "You know what? Fine. Let's go find these...creatures, I suppose."

Kipper raised eyes full of thankfulness to me. "Yes," she whispered, her voice quickly gaining strength and confidence. "Let's go. Time's wasting!" She cleared her throat, moving purposefully to a desk in the corner of the cottage that was overflowing with books and papers.

"So...Kipper," I started carefully, setting down my tea so as not to be distracted, "who are your parents? And who did Grandma Didi - Dorothy - have kids with? And who do you live with?" I glanced around the cottage, seemingly devoid of any life other than my long-lost cousin.

Kipper sighed, grabbing the edge of the desk in a white-knuckled grip. "I knew you'd ask that eventually." Her voice was so full of raw hurt that I almost retracted my question, but I held fast. I deserve to know, don't I?

"Before Dorothy found a way home," Kipper explained, "she fell in love with a boy made of light and wind. They had a child together - my mother - during the war. But then, when my mother was just a baby, Dorothy finally found a way home - and left without a second glance." Her voice was biting, each word clipped off short. It was obvious that she did not feel the same way about our Grandma Didi that I did.

"My grandfather raised my mother wonderfully, and when she was all grown up, she, too, found love. She married my father and they had me. I moved out when I was thirteen, though. It was time for me to make my own way in the world."

I shook my head slightly, trying to figure out the math of all of this in my head. "How exactly does time work here versus Earth?" I was still hung up on the fact that Grandma Didi was over a century old.

"Nobody can say for sure. Dorothy was lucky enough to come to Oz during a timeline in which we were relatively aligned with Earth. As it was, she spent three years here and returned about a week after she had left. Had she arrived fifty years earlier, she would have returned to Earth before her mother's mother was born, and even so, the aftermath of her visit prevented her from aging normally. It's all about timing."

I blanched, terrified at the thought of arriving decades before even my parents were born. "Are our timelines aligned right now?"

"Yes - or as close as they will probably ever get. It happens a few decades, and we just got lucky this time, as Dorothy did. If you return a few minutes before I took you, it won't do any damage, will it?"

"Well...no." I sighed. "I wish you had given me a choice in all of this before you brought me here."

"I'm sorry, but we simply didn't have the time," Kipper replied breezily. "Speaking of which...we should get going. The Scarecrow lives close to my house, so we should talk to him first."

I snorted, shaking my head as I took one last sip of my tea and rose to follow her from her cottage. I still couldn't quite grasp everything that was happening to me, but I was trying not to think too deeply about it, instead just skimming the surface and accepting what I found there.

*

We had been walking on the yellow brick road for about an hour before Kipper slowed to a stop in front of an expansive cornfield. I scanned the stalks, expecting to find the Scarecrow standing somewhere within them, doing what scarecrows do. Instead, I found nothing but corn.
"Where is he?" I started to ask, but just then, Kipper jammed two fingers into her mouth and gave a sharp whistle. I flinched slightly at the unexpected noise and blinked at her in confusion.

The corn began to rustle suddenly, and in mere seconds, a scarecrow emerged.

"Oh." I stared wide-eyed at him and just managed to keep myself from blurting out my true thoughts: he's shorter than I had expected.

"Kipper!" the Scarecrow exclaimed, sweeping forward to give her a large hug. I remembered watching The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with my grandmother as a young child and being rather put off by this creature's odd way of moving. Seeing him in real life was no different, although I was more thrown off by the fact that I was practically meeting a celebrity.

"Who's this?" the Scarecrow asked curiously, confusedly eyeing me with his black button eyes that were just too full of life for my comfort.

"This is my half cousin," Kipper replied casually.

"I'm Callie," I introduced myself, instinctively holding out my hand for a handshake. The Scarecrow swung his arm upward with some difficulty, and I caught his hand to save him some of the trouble. It took everything in me not to cringe away from the sensation - his hand was boneless, and yet still somehow felt very much alive as it gripped mine tightly. When he retracted his appendage, I clenched my fist to keep from wiping my hand on my jeans.

"So you're Kipper's half cousin? An indirect descendant of Dorothy?" There was a slight wistfulness in the creature's voice when he said his old friend's name.

"Actually, I'm a direct descendant, too. I'm her granddaughter as well."

Although he had no eyebrows, the skin above the Scarecrow's black button eyes raised incredulously. It was a rather horrifying sight.

"Well, isn't that something," he said cheerily, his sewed mouth curving up into a smile. I averted my gaze, finally unable to handle this cherry on the ice cream scoop of creepiness. "So what do you young ladies need me for?"

"Surely you know that the Wizard is rising again - or at least, someone evil is, and using his minions to do it," Kipper replied, completely businesslike. The scarecrow seemed taken aback, but said nothing, listening carefully. "We know you were a figurehead in the original war...and we need your help with a new one."

The scarecrow blinked rapidly for a few seconds before sighing, sagging slightly. "Oh, well. I knew retirement was too good to last. Let's go!"

I grinned. If recruiting all of them is that easy, this should be a breeze.