Chapter Ten:

 

Special Agent Dorothy Gale and her companions were having a problem at the Emerald City gate.

An officious gatekeeper with a really apocalyptic case of acne and a sullen attitude the size of Kansas was in the process of snubbing them at the gate, and not one of them was in a mood to suffer fools gladly.

"Not just any riffraff gets into Emerald City," declared the snippy gatekeeper, craning his neck around outside a loophole in the great green gate. He looked to be all of seventeen and his coke bottle lensed glasses somewhat spoiled the fashionable effect of his pierced nose. "You're not even dressed for it, none of you! I never saw a scruffier bunch of slobs!"

Not five minutes earlier, the party of five, before the gates at last, and buoyed by their recent victory over the Poppy Valley security force, had been cheerfully planning their prospective evening in the Emerald City. 

The visit with the Wizard had been their top priority, but they'd also been looking forward to fulfilling various personal errands first. Margot meant to drop by the Cabaret and find her Judy, the Lion intended to look up a lioness friend of his who would give him a place to crash for the night, and Dorothy planned a trip to whatever local garage might be found that could replace her blown out tires.

The Scarecrow had said: "Thank God. Civilization. I wonder if the opera is in town?"

They'd all agreed on spending an hour each on their personal business, then regrouping at the Emerald City Wash and Brush Up Company, a good day spa, for some much needed refurbishing of their images and spirits.  After that, they planned to discuss what approaches might work best with the Wizard over dinner at a continental restaurant the Scarecrow had recommended.

Now this! One obnoxious juvenile overachiever at the gate, and all their plans seemed in imminent danger of collapse.

All were annoyed; Margot had fixed the adolescent gatekeeper with her most withering glare, the Lion had hissed at the young man, and Toto, though muzzled and silent, had expressed his displeasure nonverbally, by peeing on the gate.

But being called "riffraff', "scruffy", and a "slob" by a near-sighted teenage arbiter of good taste with a gold hoop hanging out of his nose was having an absolutely extraordinary effect on the Scarecrow. 

His entire straw frame was vibrating like a tuning fork as he gazed fixedly at the recalcitrant gatekeeper, his maroon eyes appeared to have incandesced to a shade that most resembled molten lava, his sharp white teeth were bared, and his six fingered left hand was twitching like a spiked beetle. Dorothy was keenly aware that people were going to die if something wasn't done forthwith.

"You listen here, you pencil-neck sack of horseshit - I'm Special Agent Dorothy Gale, and I killed the Wicked Witch of the East this morning, I'm carrying the Ruby Brain, we just mopped up the Poppy Valley Heroin Farm security force, and this Scarecrow here is about ready to make twerp tartare out of YOU. We want to see the Wizard, and you probably want to see what it's like to be twenty-one! So you better open that gate, right this red hot minute!"

The gatekeeper went red, then green, then squeaked, "I'll have to get my supervisor," and disappeared inside the gate like a prairie dog down a burrow.

A moment or two later an older, hopelessly officious gatekeeping professional poked his head out of the loophole, and said brusquely: "What seems to be the problem here?"

The Lion, Margot, Dorothy and Toto all grabbed hold of the Scarecrow at once to prevent him from going into launch mode.

"Did someone mention the Wizard?" asked the new gatekeeper. "Was there something about the Ruby Brain? My assistant Marvin here is a good boy, but sometimes he gets things wrong."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Dorothy growled between her gritted teeth, tightening her hold on the Scarecrow's arm, noticing that the ambient temperature in a three foot arc around him had suddenly dropped by forty degrees. "Ruby Brain. Wicked Witch of the East. Open sesame - whatever you wanna hear - just please God open that GATE!"

The older gatekeeper disappeared and the gate slowly swung open. The four of them hustled the vibrating Scarecrow inside as fast as possible, all of them whispering things like  "opera",  "pate de foie gras",  "Emerald City Philharmonic",  "Batard Montrachet" and such in his ears in an effort to keep him calm until they could get him out of the range of the two gatekeepers.

Margot saw a hansome cab just ahead a few paces and they all moved toward it fast, never leaving off their whispering until they'd dragged him into the cab and given the driver the address of the Wash and Brush Up Co., safely across town.

Many blocks of downtown Emerald City had passed, and Dorothy had noted that the entire city and all its people seemed to have a fixation on the color green, when the Scarecrow finally said something.

"Wasn't that horse purple when we first got in this cab? Doesn't it appear to have turned orange just recently? And Barney? Margot? Could you two please stop sitting on me now?"

The five rearranged their seating arrangements and agreed that the horse was, indeed, changing color approximately every five city blocks. To Dorothy, on any other day, this might have seemed strange.

Once at the Wash and Brush Up, everyone but Margot decided to postpone their other business until they'd had a chance to get cleaned up. Margot did not want to put off her reunion with Judy any longer than necessary, but she promised to meet them at the Wash and Brush Up Co. Cappuccino Bar in a couple of hours.

Dorothy did not know what spa services the others might have opted for, but she had the whole package: steam, sauna, Jacuzzi, herb wrap, facial, shiatsu massage, manicure, pedicure, got her hair done, picked up a nice little basic black cocktail dress at the gift shop, and agonized for almost twenty minutes over which pair of shoes to buy to go with it. She was not a woman who ordinarily spent time fussing over herself, but she felt she'd earned every bit of this little orgy of self indulgence, and more to boot.

Besides, she thought, as she dropped by the pet grooming section of the spa to check on Toto, for some unknown reason, she just felt like she wanted to look good tonight. She told herself that she hoped to impress the Wizard, but could not completely dismiss the nagging suspicion that she wasn't telling herself the whole story.

The dismally familiar sound of Toto screaming at the groomers stopped her from questioning her own motives for self-beautification any further, and perhaps that was just as well.  They'd apparently made the mistake of taking the little lamb's muzzle off to bathe him.  She said hello to Barney, who was getting his claws polished in the same facility, then explained about Toto's problem to the appalled grooming staff.

Once that situation had been sorted out, and she had informed the groomers where to find her once Toto's day of beauty was finished, she went into the Wash and Brush Up Co. Cappuccino Bar to await her companions. 

Although she saw no one she recognized in the indoor portion of the bar, upon her entrance, the headwaiter, two busboys and a barista all fawned on her avidly enough to assure her that her extra luxurious attention to her appearance had been well worth the effort. It took the overly attentive waitstaff a solid ten minutes of concentrated fawning before they finally admitted that the Scarecrow had reserved a table for five on the terrace outside, and was already waiting out there, and had left word that she, along with the Lion, Margot, and Toto, were to be escorted outside as soon as they arrived.

She saw the Scarecrow before he saw her. Clearly, he'd taken advantage of the excellent facilities of the Wash and Brush Up to make himself as elegant as any straw individual she'd ever seen, with a new set of clothes, extensive barbering, detailed attention to his shoes, the addition of several exclusive and aromatic brands of hay to his stuffing, and, she noticed, a perfectly executed mending job on the hole in his head behind his ear. He was draped gracefully on a chair at a prime table near the terrace rails, looking as though he owned the entire world, and had been born for the express purpose of improving the general ambiance of dining establishments and drinking espresso out of small bone china demitasse cups.

Holy God, came the sudden, unguarded thought to Dorothy, before she could stop it, damned if he doesn't look about as hot as an electric chair!  

And then a second panicky thought, a split second later: I did NOT just think that! No sir, Uh-UH, no way baby, I did NOT just think that at all!

Dorothy was making a determined effort to suppress the highly impractical if vivid message from the darker regions of her libido, and the fact that the Scarecrow stopped breathing the moment he saw her in her new evening clothes, AND accidentally dropped his cup of steaming espresso into his lap as well, did not aid her a bit.

That the small accident inspired him to shoot up out of his chair like a scalded cat, coupled with the suggestion of an expression of extreme pain on his cloth face, sent her thoughts in a speculative direction that caused her to blush like a tomato and condemn herself roundly at the same time.

"Excuse me," he said, sounding slightly strangled, brushed by her in a whisper of air, and disappeared from the terrace in the blink of an eye.  

Get hold of yourself, girl, Dorothy told herself sternly, and sat down at the table. Within moments, the attentive headwaiter appeared at her elbow like a magic trick, and a double Mocha Latte appeared at her place less than forty seconds later. She'd gulped half of it to steady her nerves before Barney the Squeamish Lion appeared, and Dorothy could not be certain whether she was relieved or disappointed to see him.

In time, Margot showed up, looking refreshed and supremely happy after her reunion with Judy, and then Toto was led out onto the terrace by one of the pet grooming staffers, fluffy as a dandelion, muzzle freshly laundered and firmly in place. The Scarecrow returned from whatever remedies he'd undertaken to correct the effects of the recent misadventure, and the entire group was assembled again. They fell into conversation.

"I don't know," Margot was arguing. "I always think a straightforward approach is best. We oughta just ask the Wizard for what we want, and go from there."

"Margot, how often, that you know of, has the Wizard ever done anything for anyone?" the Scarecrow asked. "What we need to consider is not what we want, but what the Wizard might want. Then we have some basis for negotiation."

"Just because YOU’RE as devious as a corkscrew doesn't mean everybody has to be!" Margot retorted. "There's no reason to think the Wizard can't respond to a straight request, and I think -"

"But we ARE gonna eat before we go see him, right?" asked Barney. "All I've had today was a few scrawny hyenas, and I'm really ready for a nice dinner."

Dorothy had been feeding Toto some sugar cookies she'd cadged from one of the smitten busboys, and she looked up. "What about this Ruby Brain everyone keeps talking about? How does that fit in?"

There was a moment of thoughtful silence, and then everyone automatically glanced at the Scarecrow, expecting an opinion.

After some thought, he delivered one.

"As it relates to the Wizard, I don't know. Available information about the Brain's properties is sketchy at best, and I'm afraid I haven't had access to suitable research facilities for some years. So, there, it's an "X" factor." 

He paused, took a sip of espresso, then stared into everyone's eyes for a moment, getting their attention.

"However, as it relates to the Wicked Witch, I needn't tell any of you that we have a bit of a problem. The Witch has made his position in regard to the Brain abundantly clear, has he not?"

They all glanced around nervously, reminded, once again, that despite their current civilized surroundings and spa-induced sense of well being, they still had a powerful enemy in the Witch, and that their business with him was left unfinished.

As if summoned by their renewed sense of unease, the sound of the other diners and coffee drinkers around them exclaiming over some mysterious phenomenon first nibbled at the edges of their attention, and then became intrusive, and finally became impossible to ignore.

Other diners were leaving their tables and massing at the terrace rails, many looking up into the twilit early evening sky, some pointing, all growing increasingly alarmed.

Dorothy and her companions looked up into the sky. The Lion's face fell at what he saw there, and Margot's heart sank.

It was the Wicked Witch himself, riding his hospital bed in the sky, Cordell beside him, using his signature green smoke to skywrite a message. A message that wasn't likely to turn out to be "happy birthday", they all felt certain.

"How does he always manage to show up every darn time we're talking about him?" Dorothy inquired irritably.

"Well, he IS a witch, Dorothy," Barney said gently, as though she were a small, somewhat backward child.

As they watched, the letters "S" and “U" appeared in the sky.

"S, U?" Margot said.  "Suit? Like a lawsuit?"

One green "R" formed.

"Sur?" the Lion asked. "Sur . . . prise? Surprise?"

An "I" and an "N' appeared.

"Surin . . ." said Dorothy. "What does THAT mean?"

A smoky "D", then an "A", and finally another "R" marched across the sky.

The Scarecrow burst out laughing.

"It means he's letting that illiterate monkey Cordell do the steering! 'Surindar' ! I love it!"

The completed message read: "Surindar, Dorothy - bleah!"

Just about everyone of any education who saw it could not help but snicker a bit, even though the medium used to convey the misspelled message was highly alarming. Everyone could see that it was the Wicked Witch of the West's doing.

Slightly panicky talk from the coffee house patrons erupted all around Dorothy and her companions, and several people suggested that the Wizard might know what was going on, and should be asked about the strange message at once.

"Sorry, Barney, I think that dinner is gonna have to wait," Margot said. "If we want to see the Wizard tonight, I think we'd better get going now. We'll never get in with this crush. They must have seen that message all over the city."

Even Barney had to agree that this made sense. The five travelers rose from their table quietly, the Scarecrow left enough on the table to cover the bill plus a decent tip, and all five of them faded out of the Cappuccino Bar. Once outside, they grabbed a hansom cab before anyone else could get their hands on it, and sped off.

Fifteen minutes later they'd arrived at the huge green doors of the Great Hall of Oz, just ahead of a mob of anxious Emerald City citizens.

A tinny public address system had been rigged outside the great doors, a hurried, sloppy installation job, to Dorothy's practiced eyes. An announcement loop was going at full blast and the volume was turned so high that the grating audio feedback the huge speakers were putting out virtually overwhelmed the content of the announcement.

"Please return to your homes. There is no cause for alarm. The Wizard has matters well in hand. Please return to your homes. There is no cause for alarm . . .”

"Bullshit," Barney roared at his companions. "No cause for alarm! Just LISTEN to this noise!"

The ghastly whining, screeching, amplified howl of the feedback was far more effective in dispersing the apprehensive citizenry than any calming prerecorded message could have been. Dorothy and her friends gritted their own teeth against it and waited out the crowds, a matter of only some few minutes, considering the awful tinny din.

Once every last Emerald City resident had been driven away, Dorothy tapped the Scarecrow, pointed to what she believed was the main line supplying power to the PA, and asked to borrow the Harpy in pantomime. She took her new, elegant, leather-soled shoes off, replaced them with her ugly, cheap, but well insulated rubber-soled old ones, and with three judicious cuts, disabled the PA.

Blessed silence ensued.

"Gosh, maybe they're not such terrible shoes after all, huh?" she said to the Scarecrow with a mean little smirk.

"Oh, Dorothy, thank you, I could just kiss you," Margot enthused, rubbing her sore ears. She turned to look at the doors, then glanced at her companions. "So . . . what now?"

They all looked at the huge, forbidding doors for a time. Certainly, doors of this vast size and grandeur had not been designed to encourage the uninvited visitor.

These visitors, however, did not particularly require encouragement.  It was short work to locate the ornate doorbell, even shorter work to ring it.

They all stepped back a pace, each aware that this was something of an occasion, and calmly awaited whatever answer would come.