Page 146 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“Not for us,” he said. “I just mean, to save it from that poor exhausted mother.”

“We’re not old enough for a child. We’re children still.”

“How old are you?” he asked her.

“Somewhere between school and college.”

“No, really.”

“I don’t know. I’ve grown used to ignoring the question. By the standards of the students at St. Prowd’s, I seemed to be about thirteen from some points of view, and fifteen from others. But perhaps I’m eleven, and quick for my age. How old are you?”

He shook his head. “Another way we are made for each other. I can tell even less clearly than you can. I just tramp on and on and I feel as if I never change much. I’ve been a boy since I was born.”

He had raised the subject, but now he seemed to regret it; there was tension in his face, and he walked ahead for a while. She let him go, looking at his stride, the easy throb of his lengthening hair against the straps of his rucksack. She knew what it was to have a broken childhood. It was easier to understand Tip, she now saw, than it had been to figure out the girls of St. Prowd’s. That wasn’t their fault, of course; perhaps she’d been supercilious to them. Too late now.

She caught up to him. “Tell me about La Mombey, then.”

That eased the invisible rack of distress on his shoulders. “She’s a mighty dangerous woman to have as a landlady,” was all he would say at first, but he relented. “She’s got scented oil instead of blood, I think; she slithers inside her clothes.”

“Do you mean that really, or are you prettifying through language?”

He laughed. “I’m not sure. Sometimes you say something to be pretty and it turns out to be pretty accurate. I guess I mean she’s a mystery even to me, and I’ve lived with her my whole life.”

“Well,” she said, “are you her son, then?”

“I am not.” Said firmly.

“If you don’t know who your parents are, how can you be so sure?”

“For a good many years Mombey was a ferocious old hag, like someone you’d see grubbing for coins in the street outside the opera. She had bristles on her chin, and her back was bent double. She couldn’t walk but for sticks and my shoulder; I was her ambulatory cane. Since she was unable to move without me, I went everywhere with her and I saw everything.”

“So she’s too old to be your mother, you’re saying.”

“Yes. I suppose she could be my great-great-great-grandmother. But who cares?”

“What is she doing without you now you’ve run away?”

“Oh, I’m talking about long ago, before she was named Eminence of Munchkinland. You wouldn’t recognize her by the description I’ve just given. I hardly can remember it myself.”

“What happened? She found a spa and took the waters?”

“No. But she dragged me on a long journey over the sands to one of the duchy principalities, I think it was Ev—”

Rain stopped in her tracks. “No one can cross the deadly sands.”

“You believe that?”

“Everyone believes it—isn’t it true?”

“Oh, well, if everyone believes it.” He was mocking her. “And lunch pails grow on trees, too, you know, in some parts of Oz. And even the little bunnies have their own Bunnytown.”

“Don’t make fun of me. I only had one year of schooling, and we concentrated on the life and times of Handy Mandy, a child burglar.”

“Well, I have had no schooling but whatever I picked up at Mombey’s hip. And those so-called deadly sands aren’t impossible to cross. They’re only deadly if you’re stupid enough not to pack properly. Though, to be fair, Mombey may have made it easier because of some spell or other. We had a sand sledge and pressed on through windstorms a week in duration, and when we arrived Mombey presented herself to some second-rate duchess who served us vile sandwiches on alabaster plates. The duchess knew a secret for changing the shape of her head and her body, and performed it for us as a kind of afternoon entertainment. Like charades. Or putting on a tableau vivant. There was only a screen at the end of the room, and she showed us that there were no trapdoors or hidden chambers in which a bevy of beautiful women could wait their turn to pretend to be the duchess. Her magic was limited to that one party trick, but she did enjoy demonstrating it. Her beauty made Mombey look even more hideous by comparison.”

“So…?”

“So when we left, we returned via a lengthy tour of other places where Mombey had private audiences with various potentates, and I watched the sledge. Eventually we reemerged in northern Gillikin, making landfall someplace near Mount Runcible. Mombey drove the vehicle into a gulley, so we had to catch the train heading south from the Pertha Hills. And on the train old Mombey went off to use the powder room, and she powdered herself pretty damn pretty, because I didn’t recognize her when she came back.”

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