Yellow Brick War (7 page)

“Dorothy's
shoes
?” Madison's eyes were wide in disbelief. “You really
did
get hit on the head, right? News flash, babe. Dorothy isn't a real person.”

“Well . . . ,” I said, hesitating. “I can explain—” But I was cut off by the bell for fifth period. Dustin and Madison were staring at me. Dustin Jr. burped and closed his eyes. “Meet me after school,” I said in a rush. “On the front steps. It will make sense. Sort of. I promise.” But they were gathering up their books and bags.

“Gotta hose this little dude off,” Madison said, not meeting my eyes. Okay, fine. Madison had been the worst thing in my life before I left for Oz, and Dustin had just been a dopey dreamer who I thought I had something in common with. Who was I kidding? We weren't friends. And it didn't matter, because I didn't need them. I'd done everything else on my own. I could do this, too. Dustin gave me a little wave as they walked away from me.
I waved back. At least he'd always been nice. Even if it was only because he wanted something from me.

I needed a plan, but I didn't even know where to start. Gert, Mombi, and Glamora hadn't given me much to go on. In between pre-calc and PE I ducked into the girls' bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and did my best to send out a couple of tendrils of magic just to see if I suddenly could. But it was no use. I was going to have to do this the hard way, and I didn't have a clue where to start.

To make my day even worse, I had a hot date with Assistant Principal Strachan. He'd told my mom I'd have to come in and meet with him on my first day back. The last thing I wanted was to make waves, so I made sure I was at his office ten minutes early. The receptionist, Mrs. Perkins, had probably been working at the high school when my grandmother was in diapers. She was a sweet older lady who always wore matching twinsets, no matter the weather, and kept a stash of lollipops in her desk drawer. Which I knew, because I'd spent a lot of time in Assistant Principal Strachan's office. But Mrs. Perkins never judged me no matter how many times I got in trouble. I think secretly she was on my side.

“Amy!” she exclaimed as I walked into the school office. “It's been a while since you visited!” She winked at me and dug a lollipop out of her drawer before I even asked. “The principal will be with you in just a moment. Have a seat.”

“Cherry! You remembered,” I said, sitting in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. I didn't really care that much about
Mrs. Perkins's lollipops, but she always seemed so happy when I took one that I pretended to be excited. A few minutes later, I could hear Assistant Principal Strachan yelling for me from behind his door. Mrs. Perkins winked at me again as I took a deep breath and walked into his office.

If I'd changed in the last month, Assistant Principal Strachan definitely hadn't. His wire-rimmed glasses were slipping down his big, bulbous nose. His pitch-black toupee was slightly askew, revealing a thin tuft of graying hair underneath. His suit was the same one he wore every single day—and probably had been wearing every single day since around 1995. His beady brown eyes peered at me through his glasses. And, as usual, he didn't look happy to see me.

“Miss Gumm,” he growled, pointing to a chair in the corner like I was a kid. I guess I did still have that lollipop. “Very nice of you to rejoin us after your little sojourn.”

“I was in the hospital,” I said.

“Your mother has already shared her concerns with me,” he said, ignoring me. “She felt we should accommodate you given your circumstances, but I'm not so sure I agree. You've started fights repeatedly—”

“I've never started them!” I protested, and he scowled.

He clucked his tongue. “Already arguing with me. I see you haven't changed much. Look here, young lady. Your mother told me your story about being in the hospital. I think all three of us know that's a lie. I don't know where you've been the last month, Miss Gumm, but one whiff of trouble from you and you'll be
expelled. Permanently. Am I making myself clear?”

I opened my mouth to protest again and then shut it. If I got kicked out of school, I'd have no possible way to search for the shoes, which meant no way to get back to Oz—for me or for anyone else. “Yes sir,” I said meekly, swallowing my pride. “I'm sorry.”

“You should be suspended,” he grumbled, but my apology seemed to mollify him. “Get back to class. Don't let me see you in my office again.” I nodded obediently. As I left, Mrs. Perkins snuck me another lollipop.

On my way back to class, I stopped in front of the tired old glass-cased diorama by the school's front doors. It was a display dedicated to Kansas's most famous export,
The Wizard of Oz
: a dollhouse-sized farm with a backdrop of a painted tornado and, in the distance, a faint, glittering image of Oz. There were even little cows grazing in the fake grass that surrounded the farm, and a plastic Dorothy in a tiny checked dress shading her eyes as she looked toward the descending tornado. A tiny plastic Toto capered at her feet. When it was new, the diorama must have been nice, but that had been a long time ago. Over the years, dust had crept in and thickly furred the figurines, hiding their features under a layer of gray. The grass was patchy and balding, and several of the cows had fallen over.

I'd never thought much about the diorama before, but it had a whole new significance now—especially since I'd found the scrap of article. Even though I
knew
Dorothy was real—she'd almost killed me enough times—it was still sinking in that
Dorothy was
real.
She'd been a farm girl on this very patch of land. Her enchanted shoes were probably—hopefully—still here. But if the witches were right, how was it that no one knew? I'd found the article without much trouble by doing a basic internet search. Everyone knew about Dorothy's story. So how was it possible that in a hundred years no one had figured out it was true? Had someone tried to cover it up? It was the only explanation I could come up with, but I couldn't imagine who—or why.

There was no point in worrying about that now; I had way bigger problems. If the shoes were really here, I'd have to figure out a way to search for them without getting caught, stay out of trouble, keep Assistant Principal Strachan happy, and convince my mom that everything was okay. And I couldn't help but think about what he'd said in his office about all three of us knowing that I'd lied about being in the hospital. Was that why my mom had accepted my totally implausible story—because she'd known all along I was making it up? Did she think I had just run away? Had she pretended to believe me because she thought the truth might hurt too much for her to hear? I filed that under “things to figure out later” and ran back to chemistry. I had a lot of work to make up, and I needed everyone to believe I was happy to be home until I had another chance to escape.

After they'd ditched me in the cafeteria, I wasn't expecting to see Madison and Dustin waiting for me on the front steps after school, just like I'd asked them to. I did a comical double take, and Madison grinned. “I don't know what your deal is,” she said, “but you're the most interesting thing that's happened in Flat Hill since some dumbass thought a hill could be flat.”

The feeling of relief that overwhelmed me took me by surprise. I wasn't
totally
alone—at least, not for the moment. If you'd told the old Amy Gumm that she'd be hanging out after school with Madison, Dustin, and their drooling newborn, I'd have said you were completely nuts. But then again, a lot had happened to that Amy Gumm. I could take this in stride, too.

“It's kind of a long story,” I said, thinking fast. I had to come up with
something
to convince them Dorothy was real, but I couldn't tell them anything close to the whole truth.

“So let's go get ice cream downtown and talk it over,” Madison said. She laughed at the expression on my face. Madison? Eating food with calories? It really was a whole new world. “What? So maybe I never got over my pregnancy cravings. That thing about pickles is totally true, too.”

“She eats, like, a pint of rocky road a
day
,” Dustin said.

“Shut up,” Madison said, hitting him.

“Lead the way,” I said.

Flat Hill's downtown drugstore was like something straight out of the 1950s. It probably
was
straight out of the 1950s—and no one had bothered to clean since then either. The long old-fashioned lunch counter was always sticky, the bar-stool upholstery was cracked and peeling, revealing the gross yellow foam padding underneath, and they only served three flavors of ice cream—vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. But there was nowhere else to go. Kids from school were already piling into the booths by the window, giving me and Madison dirty looks, but Madison held her head high and ignored them, settling regally onto a bar stool with Dustin Jr. in his baby wrap and Dustin Sr. on her other side.

“Okay, so,” I began, once Madison had ordered a triple-decker chocolate sundae—“With extra syrup!” she barked—and was busy spooning ice cream into her mouth. “You know how in
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Dorothy is from Kansas?”

“Yes, Amy, we know that,” Madison said drily.

“I found part of this newspaper article from 1897,” I explained. “It was
by
L. Frank Baum, the guy who wrote the original books,
and it was an interview with a girl named Dorothy who survived a tornado that struck Flat Hill that year. She talked about having crazy visions of a wonderful place.”

Madison and Dustin looked at me expectantly. “And?” Dustin asked.

“Well, that proves Dorothy was real, right? So her shoes must be real,” I said. Okay, so maybe I hadn't quite worked out the most convincing argument.

Dustin's forehead creased and Madison smiled. “That's his thinking face,” she said affectionately. He gave her a dirty look.

“Amy,” he said slowly, “even if this thing you found proves that
Dorothy
was real,
Oz
isn't real. She was just a girl who hit her head during a tornado and hallucinated. So her shoes can't be real, because in the story she got the shoes in Oz, and Oz doesn't exist.”

“Right,” I said. “It's, uh, I want to like—
metaphorically
look for her shoes. I mean . . .” I thought fast. “I mean, we can prove she was real if we find the rest of that article. And then we'll, uh, be famous!” I added brightly. “Totally famous. We'll go viral. It's our ticket out of Flat Hill.”

Madison stared at me, her eyes narrowed. “So what's the part you're not telling us?”

“Which part?”

“Amy, this story is insane. Your house gets wiped out by a tornado. You disappear for a
month
. You come back and tell everyone you were in the hospital, which is clearly not true, and now you're obsessed with proving that a character in a cheesy
old movie was a real person?”

“I . . . Well, yeah,” I said. “I mean, I'll do it by myself. I understand if you don't want to help me.”

“Help you do
what
, exactly?” Madison asked patiently, like I had the brain development of Dustin Jr.

“Find Dorothy's sho—find, uh, more evidence that Dorothy existed,” I said lamely. “You know, like . . . I couldn't even find the rest of the article. But I know there has to be some kind of . . . I don't know, newspaper collection or something. Her farm was where the high school is now. I mean, there has to be more about her.”

“How do you know Dorothy's supposedly real farm was in the same place as the high school?” Madison asked.

“I, uh . . . ,” I faltered. “I just, um, guessed.” They were both looking at me like I had grown an extra head. “Come on, you guys, if we can prove Dorothy existed, we'll be completely famous. On TV. Interviews and stuff. You name it.” Madison was starting to look intrigued instead of suspicious. “Anyway, I thought maybe I could start by trying to find the whole Baum article and, uh, starting from there.”

“Why don't you just go to the library?” Dustin asked.

“The library?”

“Flat Hill's historical archive is in the library at the high school,” he pointed out. “I had detention one time and they made me dust back there.”

“Oh my god, Dustin, you're a genius,” I breathed. Of course. It was so obvious. Here I was, worrying about magic, when all I needed was to find an old newspaper.

“He's okay,” Madison said, patting him on the shoulder.

“The only thing is, they keep the really old stuff locked up, and you have to have special permission to get back there,” Dustin added. “I think you have to be writing a paper about it or something.” My heart sank. Great, just what I needed. Everything I needed was locked up in some dusty old room no one really cared about, and I couldn't even break in using magic.

“Maybe I could sneak into school at night,” I said.

“Wow, you are
really
serious about this,” Madison said. “Why don't you just get detention?”

“What?”

“If that's how Dustin got back there, it'll probably work for you, too,” Madison said reasonably. “We can get detention, too, if you want company,” she added, holding Dustin Jr. aloft with a wicked gleam in her eye. “Pissing off Strachan is like my new full-time job. Dustin can pee on his desk or something.”

“No way,” Dustin said.

“I meant the baby.”

“I
know
you meant the baby. I mean no way can you piss off Strachan, Mad. He's itching for an excuse to throw you out of school. But if you want help looking, Amy, I can go with you. I just have to show up late for class a couple of times.”

Madison stuck out her glossy lower lip in a fake pout. “You're so boring,” she sighed.

“Strachan would love to throw me out, too,” I mused. “I have to figure out a way to get in trouble without actually getting in trouble.”

“Don't you have detention already? Like, technically?”
Madison asked, batting her eyelashes. “I seem to remember a certain hallway fight with a defenseless pregnant chick.”

“Of course,” I said, practically slapping my forehead with the heel of my hand. “I'll just tell him I feel bad getting out of my suspension. You're totally brilliant, Madison.”

“I know,” she said airily, polishing off her sundae and eyeballing the dish like she was ready to order another. How was she so fit? “Breastfeeding,” she said, answering my unasked question. “Plus, carrying this little sucker around all day is a total workout. I'm in the best shape of my life.”

“If I watch you eat any more ice cream, I'm going to puke,” Dustin said firmly, pushing the plate away. Dustin Jr. woke up and wailed aloud as if in protest. Heads turned as Madison tried unsuccessfully to shush him. “We better get home,” Dustin said to me. “But I'll see you tomorrow in the clink.” He grinned, and I wanted to hug them both. For the first time since I'd gotten back to Kansas, I had a plan.

“See you tomorrow,” I said.