Page 100 of Out of Oz (The Wicked Years 4)

“I don’t want a scoop of whatever is in the pot at the end of your rainbow.” Still, Mister Mikko folded the paper and closed his arms around his chest. “I’m surprised you’d show your face to me, after that larceny.”

“I’ve paid my debt to society, and I’ll make it up to you if I ever get the chance. How is Professor Lenx?” Mister Mikko had lodged with a Boar, another professor retired from Shiz during the enactment of the Animal Adverse laws.

“He passed away, poor sod. I couldn’t keep the house up on my own. Didn’t have the heart, and what’s more, couldn’t afford the help. Thank you very much for that. So I abandoned the old place at Stonespar End and I moved here, where I live in a disgusting hotel for elderly Animals. It’s a good thing I lost my sense of smell a long time ago, believe me. No, don’t sit down, I didn’t invite you.”

“This isn’t the Emerald City under the Animal Adverse laws. I can sit where I like.” Brrr looked about to see if their conversation was annoying anyone, but the only other patron was a White Parrot who had fallen asleep clinging to the windowsill.

“Don’t mind him,” said the Ape. “He’s both deaf and asleep. We can’t disturb him even if we shouted fire into his ear.”

“I don’t trust anyone anymore,” replied the Lion.

“Welcome to the club.” But the Ape relented a little; he clearly was lonely after the death of his companion. “Not that paranoia seems an inappropriate response to a government that relies on secrecy to protect itself. Rather it seems quite sane. Oh, yes. I lectured in Oz history, so you see I know whereof I speak. Surely you remember.”

“No, I was never a student of yours. I was your fiscal agent.”

“Time runs together. How recently did you fleece me?”

“How recently did Professor Lenx die?” This was cruel of Brrr, but he had to move the conversation on.

Mister Mikko removed his monocle and looked coldly out the window. “I never can remember,” he said, quite evidently lying: probably he could remember every hour of his life since. “My area was the early and middle Ozma realms. I never was good at Modern History. Why are you interrupting my meditations with your prattle?”

For all his meekness and tendency to isolationism, the Lion had never entirely trusted sentient Animals. He would have to speak carefully and try to avoid attitude. “I’m told that the Eminence herself has arrived in town today—Mombey, I mean,” in case Mister Mikko’s short-term memory was faulty and he was imagining Nessarose Thropp.

“I’m not a nincompoop,” barked the Ape. “I know who Mombey is. She has the right to come and go as she pleases. What is your problem?”

“I’ve been trying to find out if she’s here to convene a legal investigation. A court case, I mean.”

“You’re afraid you’re being brought up on charges of embezzlement? Where’s the party? Sign me up as a witness for the prosecution.”

“No.” He supposed there was nothing for it. “I’m told that the girl from the Other Land has returned.”

“Ozma?” The Ape snorted his teeth onto the table again, and a good deal of saliva too. “You are imbecilic. Ozma Tippetarius was flung into an infant’s grave eleventy-seven years ago. She decides to come back to life after all this time, she’ll be in a wheelchair. She can have my teeth as tribute.”

“Not Ozma. Dorothy.”

The Ape snorted again. “You’ll have to remind me about Dorothy. Was she one of those idiotic Gillikinese scholarship girls from Settica or Frottica? It was all the rage for about ten years, sending milkmaids off to college. A bad plan all around.”

“Dorothy from Kanzass. The one whose house flattened Nessarose and released the Munchkinlanders from tyranny.”

“Oh yes. So they could rise and embrace another tyranny: our good queen Mombey.”

“Look, Mister Mikko. I’m only asking if you know anything about the return of Dorothy. I heard that she was going to be put on trial, and I wondered if Mombey’s arrival in Bright Lettins means Dorothy is about to be brought in too. If you’re not interested in current affairs, well, don’t let me bother your nap.” The Lion stood up to leave.

“Oh, don’t mind me, you young fool,” snapped the Ape. “I’m less interested in the return of Dorothy than I am in the return of my missing bank deposits. But let me put my ancient ear to the thin walls of my single room and catch what’s squawking, and I’ll be back here tomorrow to tell you what I have heard.”

The next day, a brighter day on the unpleasant side of warm, Brrr met Mister Mikko again. After spending the fee to enter, and finding the Reading Room as sparsely used as the day before, he learned from Mister Mikko that the Ape had had no luck scaring up any information about Dorothy. “I didn’t expect to,” said the Ape, “but in good faith I did ask.”

“You didn’t ask,” said the Lion. “You just wanted me to have to spend money to find out you were useless. Thanks a lot.”

“Nothing like old friends when you need ’em, is there.”

The Lion supposed he deserved this. He had, after all, bilked the Ape of some part of his portfolio. Before Brrr could think of a parting comment that would suggest even a shred of remorse, the White Parrot opened its eyes and said, “Well, you didn’t involve me in the question, but in fact, good sir, I’ve done a little investigation of my own.”

“Oh, my,” said the Lion.

“You’ve got keen instincts,” observed the Parrot. “Yes, Mombey is in town, and yes indeed, to open a court proceeding against Dorothy. It’ll all come out in the town squares tomorrow. I know this from a few Pigeons who live on the rough in a gutter outside a printery. The bills are being run up for posting on kiosks and newsboards. One has to wonder how you knew.”

“A little bird told me,” said the Lion.

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