Abducted to Oz

  CHAPTER THREE:

  PRELUDE TO THE PARADE

  Dorothy and Ozma have become fast friends over the many ageless years.Only on rare occasions is the incident with the Wicked Witch discussedany more. Once a year, on the day of the anniversary, there is a paradeand a feast, but the reason for these festivities is not generallyacknowledged. The very fact that dear little Dorothy is present isconsidered reason enough to celebrate. Oz people, it should be told,will accept any excuse to have a celebration. And the celebration mightwell have continued as it always had, except that something mostpeculiar had happened this year. Sir Simon the Shrew, who had come tolive in the Emerald City after Princess Ozma had magically enlarged himto human-size, had become very good friends with Dorothy. He was of theopinion that the annual festival should better commemorate the event onwhich it was founded. He determined that the most elaborate float in theparade should be one which depicted Dorothy dousing the Wicked Witchwith water.

  Because he was now as large as a human child, Simon was able to gathertogether the materials he needed in record time. Although he was hardlyW.W. Denslow or Frank Kramer, Simon's artistic abilities were farsuperior to those of Dirk. Borrowing the Red Wagon, he created a largeplatform on which he could build his float. He arranged with Kabumpo,the Elegant Elephant, to draw the float through the streets, as hethought it would be too heavy for the Sawhorse. Kabumpo agreed to thisonly because he respected Dorothy and because he enjoyed parades. He wasstill a tad disgruntled about being used as a work-horse, but he allowedthis feeling to be repressed in favor of the pomp and circumstance ofthe parade. He was, after all, a bit of a show-off when he could getaway with it. And that is a real understatement!

  Sir Simon the Shrew was able to construct upon the Red Wagon amagnificent papier mache image that kind of resembled Dorothy. She woreone shoe, which Simon coated with glue and sprinkled with silverglitter. He deftly colored her dress blue and white and gave hertwo braids in her ribbon hair. He stood back and admired hismasterpiece. "Wow!" said Simon. "This will get a lot of attention!"But he still had to make the Wicked Witch. This was a harderprospect, as Simon did not like to create anything that was ugly. To besure, there are very few people or things that are uglier than theWicked Witch of the West.

  After some time and not less than three failed attempts to construct afigure of the old Witch, Sir Simon sighed. It was hard to make her lookright. Because of his kind and gentle nature, Simon's images alwayswound up looking too friendly. This was not the right image for theWicked Witch at all. She had to look mean and hateful. She had to looklike the kind of person who would happily have the Tin Woodman and theScarecrow destroyed, or take an innocent little girl as her slavewithout remorse. At last, he decided he had to do it with his eyesclosed. This way, he would not be as repulsed by the Witch's cruelty.Shutting his rodentine eyes, Sir Simon painted the most horribleface he could. After he opened his eyes to look at his handiwork, hefound himself feeling quite queasy. He had to turn away to avoid beingsick. "Perfect," he muttered. "It looks just like her."

  He then set up the float and hinged the arms of the Dorothy figure insuch a way that she could dump a bucket over the Witch's head. Givingthree cheers for creativity, he had constructed the Witch out ofballoons and covered them with brown sugar. He had then pushed a pininto the figure to produce a hollow sugar figure that would dissolveinstantly when touched by the water. This would be the highlight of thewhole parade! Simon was very proud of himself. He pushed his magnificentfloat into a large storage locker behind the palace. The room was dustyand cobwebby enough to assure him that it was not used very often andthat his surprise would not be discovered before the day of the parade.

  "Now I'll need to find a bucket and fill it with water," he said.Looking around the room, he noticed an oak bucket that was already fulland which was just the right size for his sculpture. He quickly securedit in place in the papier mache Dorothy's hands. "If this doesn't get alot of loud cheers from the crowd, nothing will!" He rubbed his pawswith glee.