Page 44 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“I gets to go with the Lion?” Rain was unskilled at the control of elation. It cut Glinda like onion juice in a fingertip newly slit with a paring knife. Or worse.

“You do,” said Glinda. “Off with you then.”

Rain clambered down and ran to the Lion. He backed away with his paws out. The veiled woman with him just laughed. “You’ve faced worse, Brrr. Come. Let’s see what the dwarf has to say about this.”

“You do know who she is—her name is Rain—” said Glinda, but her voice was failing her, and she didn’t know if they heard. They were moving away, turning, cutting up through the scrappy barrens of pine.

Just when it was too much, when Glinda thought she might sob, Rain suddenly twisted about. “But en’t you coming?” she called.

“Can’t possibly.”

“Why not?” The girl sounded petulant, as if suddenly she decided the whole world ought to go her way, all the time.

“Zackers is stuck on the roof. I have to fling some sandwiches down at him so he won’t starve. And there’s Puggles. He can’t move, Rain. Now that I know how to make soup, I have to make some soup and spoon it into his mouth until I can find somebody to care for him, to make him better if it can happen.”

“And there’s Murth,” said the girl ruminatively.

Glinda didn’t believe there was Murth any longer. “You take care of one another. Come and see me sometime if you are passing through.”

Rain had already turned back around and was chattering to the Lion. The woman lifted the girl up on the Lion’s back—he was down on all fours again—and Rain squealed with glee. She grabbed his mane by two fistfuls and her little naked feet came up as her knees went down. Her head went back in joy. Blinding joy. She looked like a girl in the best of times. She looked like a girl broken out of the prison egg. But she didn’t look back.

The Patchwork Conscience of Oz

I.

The Lion backed up as the dwarf turned a red no beet would ever manage. “I sent you to collect a library book, and you come back with a child?”

Uh-oh, thought Brrr. Bad move. He arched his backbone—a bit of alley cat attitude that no one could be fooled by, but it made him feel better. He hadn’t seen the dwarf this seriously off his nut before.

To Ilianora, the dwarf added, “Look, Little Nanny Ninnykins, I always thought you were simple, but I see I was wrong. You’re demented. Take her back where you got her.”

To Brrr’s surprise, Ilianora gave Mr. Boss no quarter. “You’re interested in the future,” she said to him. “Any child is a head start on the future, no matter who they are.”

“So we should maybe kidnap a whole orphanage? Listen, I won’t stand for this. Send her packing.”

“Don’t get your little knickers in a twist,” the Lion said mildly. “We can take care of her. Principles of child governance—how hard could it be?”

“You couldn’t govern a coffee grinder. You’re too big a sissy to run a nursery school.”

“On the contrary. Cowardice is a virtue when it comes to protecting the young and frail. If I can be as scared as a child is of, oh, bumblebees or something, I can better remember to keep us both safely away from them.”

“I en’t scared of no bumblebees,” inserted Rain.

The dwarf ignored her, and snapped at the Lion, “You sure put the pussy in pussycat. You couldn’t even stand up to Lady Glinda when she foisted this hoyden on you.”

Well, there is truth in that, thought Brrr.

Ilianora said to the child, “When did you last have something to eat?”

“I am hungerful,” admitted the girl. “Lady Glinda en’t all that good a cook.”

Brrr let the child slip off his back. The dwarf fumed and spat but the Lion stood his ground. “We’ve got bigger problems than kindercare,” he said. “Have you forgotten that the fleet that the Clock showed us has been attacked? Someone will be wondering who did it, and putting it all together.”

“It gots stuck in the middle of the water,” said Rain.

Ilianora, rooting about in a satchel, located some shreds of ham and bread. A pot of mustard and a spoon. The dwarf took the Grimmerie off into the underbrush of the pine barren, probably to return it to the Clock. In a clearing upslope, the assistants pitched quoits, ponying about and paying no mind.

“Why should he be so aggravated about a kid tagging along?” Brrr asked his wife. “He’s already saddled with us. What’s one more, and a little one at that?”

---