Chapter One
Let’s Twister Again
“Oh, no,” she moaned. “It’s happening again.”
Gripping tight to the coverlet, eyes squeezed
closed, she felt the bed begin to move, counter intuitive to the direction that
the house was spinning. She may not have achieved education beyond a level
undetermined, but if there was one thing that Dorothy Gale had mastered, it was
the geometric physics of motion… and how to ride out a twister alone in your
bedroom while the parental guardians and hired help cowered safely in the storm
cellar. She reached for Toto, who slept alongside her always, but his little
furry self could not be found. Letting go of the metal frame beneath that held
the rickety bed together, Dorothy sprang up in alarm. The coverlet, ripped from
her hands sailed out the open window that should have been closed in the first
place. Aunt ‘Em never liked the idea of an open window in the young girl’s room
at night. She feared the poor waif might catch her death, blah, blah, blah.
What Dorothy had caught following nights of fresh air slumber was some type of
skin condition. No local physician, nor medicine man, nor the great Professor
Marvel could identify neither the disease or its cure. ‘Twas the gentle Aunt ‘Em
who prevented recurrences, insisting that the window remain shuttered at night
to hold off the dreadful bug, which is exactly the cause, you see. Mosquito
bites, and yes, even mosquitoes themselves maintain a long and sordid history
not to be revealed here.
“Toto,” she cried. “Oh, Toto, where are you?”
No bark replied, no whimper no whine.
“We’re supposed to be a team you and me,” the
girl whined in his place.
The bed slammed against the wall beneath the
window drawing Dorothy from her sorrowful reverie. Aunt ‘Em would not be happy.
A cow flew past, looking neither distressed nor perturbed, but rather
nonplussed, maybe if Dorothy had had the time to read its face.
Next came Auntie ‘Em, knitting and rocking in her
old wooden chair.
“Auntie ‘Em, Auntie ‘Em” Dorothy screamed.
“It’s happening again.”
“And I told you not to sleep near the window,”
the callous woman cackled, laughing so hard that she rocked too far backward.
Dorothy brought her hands to her face in
anguish. “Oh, n-o-o-o,” she moaned. “You’re off your rocker.”
The crowing of her loving auntie morphed madly into
something more horrid; her neighbor, the cranky spinster Mrs. Gulch, pedaled
past, wailing, “I’ll get you, my little pretty.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and my little dog too,”
Dorothy said, rolling her eyes. “But you are not green, and you blew your cue.”
Why was she talking in rhyme, she wondered?
“Toto can’t come out to play anyway,” the girl
said to herself, her head in her hands. “He’s not by my side which is just
where he should be.”
Poor Dorothy was ready to cry, but then the
house jolted and took an unexpected turn, a left instead of a right, a counter
instead of a clock, an up instead of a down. Mean Mrs. Gulch, gone, yet all but
forgotten crashed head on into the wooden window shutter with such force that
it began to splinter to pieces.
“It’s m-e-l-l-l-t-ing,” she screamed.”
Dorothy could barely hear her over the rush of
the wind. The house rocked and rose on the wave of the wind and then suddenly soared
downward through a salt tinged blizzard of mist. Dorothy ripped that last lumber
lifeline from the wicked Ms. G – there was never any evidence that she had ever
been a Mrs. anyway – and climbed precariously upon it, convinced for sure that
this time the house would not survive. Placing the pointed remains of the
shutter beneath her feet, she eased forward, spreading her legs far enough
apart to maintain equilibrium. Kicking the bed aside, Dorothy gripped the edges
of the window frame, crouched low and catapulted herself out of the tiny
bedroom and into the maelstrom, paddling hard into the wave wind and surfed
sailed into the unknown.
The collision had not been kind. Most aren’t
she assumed upon awaking in another sparse room so similar to the one she had
just left behind. At least she hadn’t killed anyone this time.
“Oh my,” she sighed. “Now, where am I?”
She sat straight up in alarm upon a bed
somewhat like her own. As her vision cleared, her eyes fell on a most horrific
sight, a house, her house. Beneath it, two black and white striped stockinged
legs protruded; a matching pair of ruby red slippers adorned each foot.
“Oh my,” she groaned again, raising her forearm
to her forehead. “I can’t surf anymore. I’m so sleepy. Oh, please, I have to
rest for just a minute.
Toto, where’s Toto?
Damn dog,” Dorothy sighed and abruptly fainted.
Tom
Jan 2025
