The sunlight burned Amanda's eyelids as she woke up. She sat up on her sofa and stretched. "C.J., Dion, what time is it?"
No answer.
"Hello?" she said looking around. The house was still and too quiet for her liking. "Boys, this isn't funny anymore," she said, standing up preparatory to pouncing upon her mischievous sons.
Something didn't feel right after she stood. All of her furniture was displaced, as if an earthquake or tornado had ripped it apart. She got up and immediately went to the front door, throwing it open, and stepped out into the familiar fairy-tale land she had seen hundreds of times. "I don't think I'm in L.A. any more," she said slowly, just as she heard giggling, but no culprits could be seen.
As Amanda walked out farther, a mysterious bubble drifted down from the sky. The bubble splintered on landing, forming into a person, and Amanda let out a yelp as she turned and saw the stranger. "Who are you?" she asked shakily.
"I'm Cheryl, the Good Witch of the North." replied the other, who looked amazingly like Cheryl Banks, Steve Sloan's partner.
Amanda stared open-mouthed. The spun-silk dress, and the magic wand, and the high crown were the same as from her beloved movie, and the woman was wearing what had to be a wig of long, loose, light-auburn curls, but the face was unmistakably Cheryl's. And it was starting to look a tad concerned, as Amanda suddenly felt a little dizzy and staggered.
"Girl, you need to sit down. You've obviously come a long way, and it looks like you had a rough landing." Cheryl took her arm solicitously and led her over to something that looked like a very large mushroom with red and white spots, settling her down on it. She glanced around and clapped her hands. "Children! Some refreshment for the lady!"
Amanda continued to gape as several small heads, followed by small people, suddenly popped out from amongst the technicolor shrubbery everywhere. They had kewpie doll faces, and little funny beards, and funny clothes – "Munchkins!" she exclaimed, only realizing what she had said after she had said it.
And they promptly broke out into song. Feeling slightly ridiculous, she sang along with them. "—welcome you to Munchkinlaaaaand!" she warbled happily.
After the initial start of surprise that the stranger knew their song, the Munchkins sang with such enthusiasm that a small contingent tried to break into "99 Bottles of Sarsparilla on the Wall," before being roundly lambasted by the rest. "We don't sing that until after dinner," one scolded.
Amanda laughed, then sobered as a disquieting thought crept into her mind. If this was Munchkinland, then she was in Oz. And if she was in Oz, she had gotten there – how. She glanced to her right – nothing but more shrubs, houses which by their size and fantastic design obviously belonged to Munchkins. Her eyes slid to the left; more of the same. Reluctantly, she swiveled around on the obliging mushroom, only to gasp in horror at the scene before her.
There, at a somewhat crazy tilt, sat her house. Two long, bony legs, clad in revolting white and red striped tights, stuck out from underneath it at improbable angles. On the end of each leg reposed a twinkling sapphire slipper. ("Wait a minute!" Amanda cried. "They're supposed to be ruby slippers!" "So your dream designer goofed. We got your basic All-American wicked witch," a disembodied voice in her mind replied. She decided it might be wiser not to be difficult, and subsided.)
"Oh, my God," Amanda cried. She ran hastily into the house. "C.J.? Dion? Boys, where are you? Come out right now, this is serious!" But the boys were nowhere to be found, and she finally resigned herself to the fact that her first impression had been right. Where she was, however, was another matter entirely. She wandered back outside, and found the horde of Munchkins clustered around the legs, pointing and whispering fearfully. Cheryl the Good Witch stood nearby, smiling amiably at the little ones.
Amanda marched up to her. "So aren't you supposed to do something about those things, like make them shrivel up or something?"
Cheryl stared at her in a rather bizarrely superior fashion. "That's so passé, don't you think? Water works just as well." She pointed her wand at a large watering can sitting near the house. "Help yourself."
Amanda looked at Cheryl, then the watering can, then back to the Good Witch again. "This wasn't in the movie," she muttered, but she picked up the watering can and sprinkled the sprawled legs, which obligingly crawled up themselves and disappeared, leaving the sparkling blue shoes. The Munchkins uttered a series of oohs and aahs and other assorted slightly musical noises, some of which seemed to contain the words "ding," "dong," and "dead," as well as some truly excruciatingly high-pitched screeches.
Amanda gave Cheryl another look, and the Good Witch sighed.
"Oh, all right. You can have the shoes." With a flounce, she waved her wand at them, and at Amanda, who found they fit like a dream. But the sparkling of her feet was suddenly dimmed as a shadow blotted out the sun, and her new little pals scurried for cover, moaning piteously.
"You killed my sister! You shall pay, Dorothy!"
The voice, which sounded like someone scraping the bottom of an old rusty bucket, came from above, and Amanda craned her neck to see a scrawny, repulsively ugly woman riding on a broomstick and brandishing her fist threateningly. This was better, Amanda thought. At least this one was sticking to the story. She raised her voice so the apparition could hear her. "I didn't kill your sister." She started to add, "My house fell on her," but for some reason she was reluctant to admit it. Something about the look in the old bat's eyes said she knew more than she was willing to let on.
"Yes, you did, you miserable girl!" the witch hissed at her. "And I'm going to make sure you pay for it! Even in Oz, murder doesn't go unpunished!"
Cheryl spoke up. "The Wicked Witch of the East is dead. You're not welcome here, so you might as well get out of town."
Amanda giggled. "Go West, old hag!"
The Good Witch shot her a look. "Don't steal my lines, honey." She waved her wand menacingly at the witch in the sky. "Don't make me come up there."
The Wicked Witch of the West, recognizing superior firepower when she saw it, snarled something indistinct and flew off in a huff, grumbling to herself. Amanda glanced upwards, where a tendril of smoke from the witch's exit still hung threateningly in the sky. "No one's going to take her seriously, are they?"
Cheryl shrugged. "She is a witch, even if she's seriously challenged in the looks and charm departments."
This was not good. Amanda turned to Cheryl pleadingly. "Glinda - I mean Cheryl, I need to get home. I don't know where my boys are, or if they're even all right. And what am I going to do about that hideous old woman accusing me of killing her sister?"
Cheryl gave her a pitying glance. "But, Dorothy, you know the way."
Amanda eyed her warily. "No, I don't. And my name's not Dorothy, it's Amanda."
Cheryl smiled at her warmly. "Of course it is. Dorothy -"
"Amanda."
"Amanda, then." Cheryl pouted. "All you have to do is -" and she performed a graceful flourish with her wand to point at Amanda's blue-shoed feet. "Follow the orange brick road to ask the Magus for help."
Orange? And – Magus? Amanda thought. That didn't sound right; wasn't it supposed to be –
"Follow the orange brick road!" squeaked a Munchkin, sprouting up underfoot, and making her jump. "Follow the orange brick road!" piped another, appearing suddenly at her left side, with similar results. Munchkins began popping up like jack-in-the-boxes, here, there, and everywhere, all exhorting her to follow the orange brick road. In fact, shortly she heard a humming, and then they all broke out into song.
"Follow the orange brick road! Follow the orange brick road! Follow, follow, follow -"
Well, she knew this one too at least. Sooner or later, she'd get to the end of this madness, but - it might be kind of fun to sing the song and skip down the strangely different bricks in the flashing sapphire slippers. Maybe she'd even get to meet - well, you never knew. She linked arms with the two tallest Munchkins so she only had to hunch over a little, and danced down the road, singing, as Cheryl and the rest of the Munchkins waved goodbye.
