Page 33 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“I never got to no book yet. Books is still all secrets.” Disgruntled, the girl slumped in her seat and, forgetting her place, leaned against Glinda. “The mister says that letters are the key, but even when you know the whole family, there’s so many combinations you can make. And they break their word.”

“Yes. Well. You’ll get there.” Against her better judgment she couldn’t help putting her hand on the girl’s hip. “I don’t remember learning to read, but clearly I did, because I can.”

“What does that bit say?” Rain pointed.

“Well, this is hard, even for me.” She couldn’t serve winter on a bed of water to Cherrystone, however often the Grimmerie recommended it. She closed the book, and it slid back into the casing of its casual disguise.

“Secrets. Pfaaah.” The girl was vexed. “Look at that Oz, what I showed you previous.” She traced her finger against the inlay of the table, along the Z whose termini and angles met the encircling O at four points of the oval: . “It looks like a person trapped in an egg. Bent back, on her knees. Can’t stand up straight. Can’t get out. Why don’t the O let her out?”

“That’s Oz for you,” said Glinda. “All about crimping. And I don’t mean piecrust.” Perhaps a lambkin pie with a summer salad of peas and potatoes?

Glinda with Miss Murth, later in the day. “Please take down this message. Eighteenth Highsummer four hours beyond noon. Zackers colon: I need the following colon: four little thingies of lamb eight potatoes the yellow jacket kind blue peppercorn four ripe pears peeled two cloves a dish of clover mayonnaise about sixty peas all the same size and a sharp small knife stop. Oh, and some bickory root. Read that back to me.”

Murth did. “How shall I sign it for you?”

“I really need these things. Sign it Mum.”

“I’ll do no such thing.”

Murth took so long writing out the signature that Glinda knew she was adding a paragraph of specifics she’d cribbed from Cranston’s Encyclopedium of Gentry. The honorary degrees, the citations of merit in the cause of charities from Madame Teastane’s Female Academy to Crage Hall at Shiz. The whole nine yards of it. “Oh, Miss Murth. Are you so jealous as all that?”

“My job is to protect you, Lady Glinda, even if you are losing your mind.”

The kitchen, next day. Zackers served as sous chef and personal bodyguard. Twice he saved Glinda from immolation. His pimples hadn’t improved, but he wasn’t a bad sort. His grandparents had been Munchkinlanders from Far Applerue, he told her, but they’d migrated to Tenniken in Gillikin after the Wicked Witch of the East had risen to be the de facto governor. They had smelt secession in the winds, he told Glinda, and they didn’t like it.

“Oh, who would,” agreed Glinda absently. “Especially if it smells like this poaching liqueur.”

“You might try removing the trotters. Here’s a pincers. Or shall I?”

That seemed to help. “But aren’t you conflicted, Zackers? A soldier of Loyal Oz, going to war against Munchkinlanders who might have been friends and neighbors of your grandparents?”

“If they were friends and neighbors of the wrinklies, they won’t be up to throwing pitchforks at me. They’ll be belted into their rockers like my old kin.”

“The principle of it, I mean.”

“Munchkinland belongs to Oz.” Adamant. “A lot of Munchkins remain Loyal Ozians despite that Mombey, arriviste Eminence in Colwen Grounds. A fair lot of Munchkins quietly think Oz isn’t Oz when it’s severed like this.”

“What is it then? If it’s not really Oz without Munchkinland?”

He replied, “It’s spoiled. Like this reduction. I think we better start over.” He would say no more about himself, and became curt. But the second batch turned out less disagreeable.

In the late afternoon, she directed Puggles to set up a table for two in the rose garden.

“I’m not allowed in the rose garden, Mum.”

“But who will serve? I can’t be expected to cook a meal and then haul it to the table like a milkmaid.”

“Were I you, I should take it up with that buttery-boy Zackers. You seem to be chummy enough with him. Lady Glinda.”

Puggles didn’t know she had a strategy, but she didn’t dare whisper about it. She only said, “This is intolerable. You can’t be tethered like a cow, Puggles. I shall protest. Meantime, give Zackers instruction in the correct layout of a summer table.” But she didn’t protest; she had to whip up the cream and egg yolk for the crawberry fool. And she had to study the Grimmerie.

At seven, as a half-moon appeared opposite the sunset and the lake went hazy and golden with midges, she dressed. Miss Murth saw to Glinda’s hair and perked into compliance the bows that ran from her peplum to the end of her diaphanous train. “The pearl pendants, I think, will do. A jaunty little tiara would be putting on airs. This is alfresco, after all. If I’m in the mood I shall adorn my hair with a rose or two.”

“The thorns will scrape your scalp and you’ll bleed into the dessert.”

“It could only help. I’m ready to descend. Will you carry my parasol?”

“You’ve not been paying attention, Mum. We’re not allowed out of the house anymore.”

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