Yellow Brick War (8 page)

I let myself into my mom's apartment building. The hallway was dim and quiet. Someone's cat slunk past me—probably the source of the cat-pee smell in the hallway. My mom was home, and the apartment was full of delicious cooking smells. A guy I didn't recognize was sitting on the couch.

“Hi,” he said, jumping to his feet eagerly as I walked in. “You must be Amy. I've heard so much about you. I'm Jake.” He held out one hand and I stared at him for a second before realizing he meant for me to shake it.

“Uh, hi,” I said. He was pretty handsome, in a farmer kind of way—he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, but his stubble gave him a rugged, manly look instead of a scruffy one. He was wearing a T-shirt that revealed tan, muscled arms, and jeans that were clean but far from new. He took off his John Deere baseball cap as he shook my hand.

“Amy?” My mom came into the room from the kitchen. She
was wearing her favorite (and shortest) skirt and a low-cut top that showed off her cleavage. Her hair was piled in a messy, flattering bun on top of her head, and her cheeks were bright with pink blush. But she had an apron on over her bar-hopping ensemble, and she was holding a long-handled wooden spoon in one hand. She gave me a one-armed hug. “How was school? You met Jake?”

“School was fine,” I said. “And yeah, we just met.”

“Jake lives down the hall,” my mom said, but from the look she gave him, I had the feeling he was a lot more than just her new neighbor. “He lost his place in the tornado, too.”

“You're from Dusty Acres?” I asked, surprised. I was pretty sure I'd have remembered this guy if I'd seen him before.

“No, from Montrose,” he said, naming a town even smaller than ours a couple of miles away. “We were basically flattened in the tornado, but the nearest emergency housing was here. I lost everything—my farm, my whole house. Your mom's been really kind to me since I moved in here. I don't know what I'd do without her.”

I bet
, I thought sourly. They were looking at each other in a way that made me want to barf at the same time it made me think of Nox. I cleared my throat, and my mom jumped.

“Sorry, honey!” she chirped. “I should have told you Jake might be coming over for dinner. I'm making spaghetti!”

You should have told me Jake existed
, I thought. But my mom looked so happy I didn't want to say it out loud. Still, I was a little hurt. She hadn't been too sad about my absence to start up
a juicy romance with the hot neighbor. I walked past them into the kitchen and helped myself to a Coke. That, at least, was one good thing Kansas had that Oz didn't.

Dinner was so normal it was kind of weird. I told my mom and Jake about my day at school while my mom passed around a big plate of spaghetti and a basket of rolls. Anyone watching us would have thought we were any old family sitting down for a meal together. Obviously, I left out the part about plotting a secret search with Madison and Dustin—and I also didn't bring up my meeting with Assistant Principal Strachan. But after Jake went back to his place—giving my mom a big kiss on the lips that I totally ignored—I followed her into the living room and sat down next to her on the couch.

“You didn't have to send him away,” I said. “I kind of liked him.”

My mom beamed at me. “Isn't he great? He's nothing like the other guys I've dated.”
Like my dad?
I wondered. “I don't think I was ready for someone decent before, you know? I mean, I didn't really have my act together.” She got quiet all of a sudden. “As you know,” she said softly.

“Listen, Mom,” I said, ignoring her overshare. I didn't want to get into another conversation about our feelings where I'd just end up hurting hers. “I met with Assistant Principal Strachan today and he said you didn't believe me about the hospital. Is that true?”

She looked down at her hands and sighed. “I wish he hadn't told you that,” she said.

“So it is true.”

“Amy—” She turned to me, and I saw to my surprise that her eyes were welling up with tears. “Look, Amy, like I said, I know I've been a pretty crappy parent for the last few years.”

I couldn't help it. The mom I'd left behind in Dusty Acres had done a lot of damage. “More than a few,” I said before I could stop myself.

She nodded. “Okay, more than a few. When the tornado hit—well, let's just say I don't blame you for using it as an excuse to leave. I'm just so grateful you gave me another chance and came back.” She paused. “Are you—were you—
okay
while you were gone? Were you safe?”

Not even close
, I thought, but I knew what she was asking. She was thinking of real-world girls-on-milk-cartons stuff: scary strangers, dark vans,
SVU
episodes. She'd probably spent every minute since I'd gotten back wondering just what trauma I was repressing.

“Yeah,” I said. “I met some nice people and they, um, took care of me. It was nothing like—I mean, what you're thinking.” Her face sagged in relief. I knew she wanted me to tell her more. But I'd already tried to come up with too many stories for one day. “I'm sorry, I just—I'm really tired. Being back, school and everything. I'll tell you later, I promise.” As long as
later
never came, it was a promise I wouldn't have to actually break.

“Of course, honey. But if you want to talk about what happened while you were gone, I'll always listen. Okay?”

I wished I
could
tell my mom what had happened in Oz. I
wanted to talk to someone human—and at least relatively sane. But I knew that even if I trusted her—which I didn't—there was no way I could ever begin to explain everything that had happened to me, and no way she'd believe me if I tried. For the first time, I wished I'd never gone to Oz at all. My life in Kansas had sucked, but I hadn't had to watch anyone I cared about die. I hadn't turned into a monster, and I hadn't had to kill. As bad as Kansas was, Oz might have been even worse. I'd been a hero in Oz, sure, but no one had really treated me like one. No one had looked at me the way my mom was looking at me now—as if I was the only person in the world, whose safety mattered more than anything else.

“Ready for bed? You have a big day at school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, right,” I said, laughing. “Chemistry is no match for me.”

She smiled and hugged me. “That's my girl.”

As I pulled away, I saw her. It was Mombi. She was standing in the corner, behind my mom, and she looked pissed.

“Get it together, Amy!” the witch whispered. “We're not here for you to win daughter of the year.”

With that, she disappeared.

The next morning, I practically ran to Assistant Principal Strachan's office. Bonding with my mom was nice and all, but I had work to do: like save an entire enchanted kingdom before a magic-crazed nightmare razed it to the ground. Assistant Principal Strachan was about to meet the new, improved Amy Gumm. And I was going to find out the truth about Dorothy.

I had to wait to see him, but luckily I'd gotten to school early. Mrs. Perkins gave me another lollipop and I crunched it while I waited. I couldn't help thinking about Gert, Mombi, and Glamora, lurking in their weird limbo state, waiting for me to accomplish something. Anything. And Nox. Where was he? Was he thinking about me, too? Was he wondering if I was safe? Did he care? Was it possible to drive yourself completely insane in fifteen minutes in a plastic chair in a hallway or did it just feel that way? Finally, Assistant Principal Strachan called me into his office, looking none too pleased to see me.

“What is it now, Miss Gumm?”

“Sir, I've been thinking about what you said yesterday. I'm just so grateful you've lifted my suspension, but it really doesn't seem fair.”

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as I continued. “I understand I was so much trouble before, and I want to convince you I've changed.” I tried to remember the speech my mom had used on me. “I know I don't deserve forgiveness,” I added, “but I'm going to work for it all the same.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I want to serve detention, sir. After school, for the same amount of time as I should have been suspended.”

Assistant Principal Strachan stared at me. “You
want
detention?”

“It's the only way to show you I mean what I say,” I explained. This didn't really make sense, even to me, but he seemed to buy it. Or at least he couldn't figure out a sinister motive behind my sudden desire to scrub the hallways and dust the library.

“Very well,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “You will serve out your suspension as a detention for the next two weeks. I don't know what you're up to, Miss Gumm, but if I find out you're doing anything shady—”

“You won't, sir!” I said quickly, grabbing my bag and resisting the urge to give him a big kiss on the cheek. He was still staring after me in confusion as I ran out the door.

I was so ready to start searching that I didn't pay attention to much of anything that day. I ate lunch with Dustin
and Madison again; true to his word, Dustin had shown up so late for first period that he, too, was sentenced to after-school purgatory. “Aren't you worried they'll kick you out of school, too?” I asked him.

“Are you kidding? I was on the football team,” he said. Madison snorted in disgust and muttered something that sounded a lot like “bullshit double standards.”

I was practically bouncing in my seat on the long hard cafeteria bench. Dustin Jr. was in a cheerful mood, waving his arms around and drooling on his terry-cloth onesie. Watching Madison taking care of her baby, I was struck by how much she had changed. She was still tough, but now it seemed protective. You could tell she didn't really know what she was doing. Sometimes she seemed almost terrified of the baby, as if she might drop him or do something totally wrong. Dustin obviously had no clue how to deal with an infant either. But they both looked at the little guy with so much love. It was strange to see the person who'd made my life miserable for so long this caring and vulnerable. Madison had been good at everything without even trying. But I guess even Madison was no match for ten pounds of screaming, spit-covered, easily damaged newborn.

I wondered if my own mom had been anything like that when I was a baby. If she and my dad had looked at me with that same expression of dopey, helpless, animal love. If anyone would ever love me like that again.
Nox.
I shoved that thought into a closet at the back of my brain and slammed the door. Nox had made his choice and I didn't blame him. I knew Oz would always come
first in his heart. If I felt that strongly about a place, I'd put it before people, too. Maybe I just wasn't meant to have a home. But the least I could do was help Nox save his.

“What are you thinking, Amy?” Madison, having secured Dustin Jr. in his baby wrap again, was looking at me. “You look like you went to another planet. A really, like, sad planet.”

“Nothing,” I said, a little too sharply. But she didn't seem to mind.

“Yeah,” she said. “I know all about that.” For a second I wanted to snap at her. What did Madison know about real sadness? And then I thought of what her life must be like now, how her so-called friends had bailed on her the second she'd turned into a teen-mom warning story, and I realized that Madison probably knew a lot more about suffering than I gave her credit for.

After-school detention was a motley collection of the school's biggest losers (whose number I probably would've counted among even if I
hadn't
offered to serve out my sentence): a couple of potheads, a guy I recognized from one of my classes junior year who was always getting in fights in the halls, and a girl with a bleach-blond ratty perm and stonewashed jeans straight out of 1997 who rolled her eyes at me as I eagerly accepted my vacuum cleaner and dust rag. The shop teacher, Mr. Stone, handed out supplies to my fellow detainees, and then mumbled instructions so low that he might as well have been speaking another language. Just then, the door swung open and Dustin walked in.

“Hi, Amy,” he said. “We should—”

“No socializing!” Mr. Stone said, coming to life a little. Dustin apologized and accepted his bottle of glass cleaner. “Help Gumm with the science classrooms,” Mr. Stone added.

“Actually, sir, I thought we could clean the library,” Dustin said innocently. “That was my job last time. I'm a real expert.”

Mr. Stone stared at Dustin as if he was up to something—which, of course, he was. Sort of. But Dustin just looked back with a vacant, innocent expression. I had to look away or else I'd start cracking up.

“Fine,” Mr. Stone growled. “But I'll be checking up on you. Any hanky-panky . . .” He stopped short and then flushed red. One of the potheads snickered and sneezed the name of a venereal disease.

“That's enough!” Mr. Stone barked. “For that, you're on bathroom duty, Carson.” Mr. Stone tossed Dustin a set of keys, and I hid another smile as I followed him to the library.

I'd never spent any time in the high school library. From what I could tell, nobody else had either. Dustin unlocked the door to what was more or less a glorified janitor's closet: a tiny, windowless room full of rusting metal shelves crammed with books that hadn't been new when my mom was going to school here. It looked like the shelves hadn't been dusted since the last time Dustin served detention. The sad little book display arranged on a tiny table near the door was springtime-themed—despite the fact that it was October. There wasn't even a librarian; if you wanted to check out books, you were supposed to borrow a teacher's keys and use the honor system. Literature theft wasn't
exactly a high-concern crime in our neck of the prairie. The school probably would've been excited just to learn that someone could actually read.

The “archive” turned out to be a closet at the back of the library. Dustin flipped through the keys Mr. Stone had given him, but none of them fit the lock. “Shoot,” he said. I looked at the flimsy wooden door, and then at Dustin. He grinned. “Really?”

“Come on,” I said. “I did your homework for you for a year. You owe me.”

He nodded solemnly. “You do have a point there.” Bracing one foot against the doorframe, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled. Muscles bulged under the soft fabric of his cornflower-blue T-shirt, and I remembered with a pang that I'd once had a major crush on the guy. Dustin might be a little dumb, but he was hot. The door creaked alarmingly, and with one final tug it came away from the frame with a splintering crack.

“Wow,” I said. “I didn't think that would actually work. You're really strong.”

Dustin blushed modestly. “It's just, like, laminate,” he mumbled.

“We're going to be in so much trouble,” I said, looking at the ruined lock.

“Nah,” he said. “Nobody comes in here. They won't notice for years.”

Eagerly, I looked over his shoulder at the contents of the closet: a teetering stack of dusty cardboard boxes, piles of faded
fabric, and, weirdly enough, a rusty old hoe. That was it. The entire historical archive of Flat Hill, Kansas.

“I guess this place was always a dump,” I said. Dustin pulled the top box off the stack, grunting with surprise at how heavy it was. I lifted the lid, revealing a stack of ancient yearbooks. The top one was dated 1967.

“Far out,” Dustin said, leafing through it. “Check out this dude's hair.” He pointed to a blissed-out-looking hippie guy with shampoo-commercial-worthy blond waves past his shoulders.

“Totally not fair,” I said. I shoved the box aside and went for the next one while Dustin looked at old yearbooks. More yearbooks, a box of old newspapers—none of them dating back to the time of Baum's article—a leather-bound book whose title,
Tales of the Prairie
, was embossed on the front in frilly letters. Nothing. My heart sank. The piles of fabric were old-fashioned aprons and a frayed blue banner with CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 1934 sewn on in bright red letters.

“I guess that's it,” Dustin said in disappointment.

“There's one more box,” I said. “Way at the back.”

“I don't see it.”

I reached for the box and then yanked my hands back with a yelp. It had
stung
me. I popped a finger into my mouth, tasting blood. “There's something sharp back there,” I said.

“I don't even see what you're trying to grab.”

I reached in again, more cautiously this time, and then I felt it, like a halo around the battered old box: the unmistakable buzz of magic. A thrill ran through me. I'd been
right
. There was
something here—and someone had tried to hide it. Someone powerful enough to use magic in Kansas. Someone who'd been able to keep the truth about Dorothy a secret for over a century. Someone who
had
to be from Oz.

“Give me those dust cloths,” I said. Just as Dustin handed them to me, the library door swung open, and we both froze.

“I don't see much cleaning happening in here,” Mr. Stone growled. Dustin's eyes were huge.

“Oh, shit,” he mouthed.