"Mr. Wogglebug," said Jelia Jamb, "Ozma wants to see you right away. It's about something very important which will have great significance to you."
Mr. Wogglebug was now especially curious as to what Ozma could want an audience with him for and so he followed Jelia into the throne room where she left him with Ozma.
"You wanted to see me, My Queen?" he said with a bow.
"Yes, Mr. Wogglebug," replied Ozma. "Glinda the Good has just contacted me with some newly discovered information which I'm sure will hold a special interest with you."
"And what is that, My Queen?" he inquired.
"It has just been discovered that Professor Nowitall, who had been teaching students in the North of the Winkie Country for many centuries, has just recently disappeared without a trace."
Mr. Wogglebug looked up in great shock and asked, "He has? Whatever happened to him?"
"No one knows," replied Ozma solemnly. "He just mysteriously disappeared after one night. And almost at once a new teacher was brought in to replace him. And this teacher is a woman. And shortly after she took over more mysterious things began to happen to the students in that part of Oz. Some of them have disappeared as mysteriously as Professor Nowitall did before them. And other students have just started to behave in very strange ways as well. So, I thought that since Professor Nowitall holds such a special place in you that you would be willing to find out the causes behind his and the students disappearances."
Mr. Wogglebug nodded and replied, "Yes, indeed I am. I shall start out for the Winkie Country at once without a moment to lose!"
He then went swiftly back to his room where he found his special green suitcase. Then he began looking around on his desk for his wishing pills. It was then that he heard the voices of Herbert and George enter the room.
"What are you doing, Papa?" asked Herbert.
"Are you going somewhere?" asked George as he noticed the suitcase.
"Yes, I am," he said. "I have a very important matter to attend to. You remember how I told you about how I got to be the way I am, which was due largely in part to Professor Nowitall who is doubtless the best scholar in all of Oz? Well, it seems now he has suddenly disappeared and there is a new teacher in his place who might possibly be causing strange occurrences among the students. And now I feel it is my duty to go and find out what this is all about and to solve it."
"Can we go with you, Papa?" asked the twins in unison very eagerly.
"We always wanted to meet Professor Nowitall," added Herbert.
Mr. Wogglebug considered this for a moment. On the one hand he didn't want any harm to come to his sons if there should be any danger of it involved. But on the other hand he was sure they would come to no harm as long as he stayed close to them, and he also really did want them to meet Professor Nowitall as much as he himself wanted to meet his old schoolmaster again.
"Very well, my sons," he said. "You may come with me and meet my old schoolmaster when we find him. And we most certainly will find him if he can be found again."
The twins cheered and embraced their father excitedly. Mr. Wogglebug then found a wishing pill on his desk, swallowed it, and said while holding tightly to each of his sons hands.
"Take us to the schoolhouse of Professor Nowitall!"
Then before they knew it they were all standing in the one room schoolhouse in the Winkie Country. Mr. Wogglebug recognized everything in it at once.
"I remember everything here so well," he murmured as he looked around everywhere. "And yet it all looks so different, which I suppose must be because I've changed so much since I was last here."
He looked around at everything from the long and wide blackboard to the students desk which numbered at about twenty and the larger desk belonging to the schoolmaster in the corner. And at the many bookshelves piled with every book on every subject that could be studied. He glanced over at the hearth where he had made his home beside so many years ago until the day he was discovered.
"This place feels like... home to me," he said softly. "I wonder why I never thought to come back here before now."
"Papa, what's that up there?" asked Herbert pointing to something on the wall just above the teacher's desk.
Mr. Wogglebug looked toward what his son was pointing at and saw what appeared to be a large white billboard with seven squares carved into it in twenty rows all going horizontally.
"I'm afraid I don't know," he said, "I don't ever remember seeing it there before in all my time here. It must be something the new teacher has put in."
"Look, Papa," said George pointing towards the window. "People are coming up the hill!"
Mr. Wogglebug looked and he saw about twelve children making there way up the hill. He knew this meant the new teacher would also be arriving soon and he had better not let himself and his sons be caught here.
"Come, my sons, we must be where we can be safe," he said to them as he led them quickly out of the schoolhouse.
They found the grove of trees standing nearby and his among them as they watched the twelve children walk up the hill and up the path leading into the schoolhouse. As they watched them they couldn't help but notice the peculiar ways in which they walked and looked. They dragged their feet along tiredly and staggeringly as if they were in casts, and they kept their heads down and their arms drooping low at their sides. They saw the face of one small girl and saw how glazed over her eyes were and lined with redness and her face pale as ash.
"I'm afraid there really is something terribly wrong going on around here," Mr. Wogglebug whispered to his sons.
A moment later they heard what sounded something like a rushing of wind hough they felt no wind rushing near them. And the next moment they looked up and they saw a most unnerving sight of a tall and bony figured woman who had long night black greasy hair that hung low around her face which they caught a glimpse of and saw that she had the darkest eyes they'd ever seen and also the smallest and narrowest and she had a large gaudy nose like a beat and a very long and thin mouth which seemed to have lips of no color. She was wearing a long black and gray dress that looked like it had just been brought out of a trunk of a long neglected attic. The sight of her sent shivers down their spines and they all gathered closer to each other.
Then after she had entered the schoolhouse they all crept quietly towards the window and bent down low at the side of it so that they could observe what was going on.
"Good morning, everyone," said the woman teacher in a voice that sounded both high-pitched and so cold it chilled them thoroughly. "Take your seats."
"We're... all... already... in... our... seats..." said one boy in a droning voice that sounded like a broken tape recorded voice.
"How dare you talk back to me in that way!" shrieked the unsightly woman in a voice so horrid that Herbert and George winced as they put their hands up to their antennas.
Mr. Wogglebug watched to see the students reactions and found a few of them only bobbed their heads on their desks and most of them stared straight ahead with their eyes glazed over like wax statues.
"That makes your first X of the day!" the teacher continued shrilly.
He then watched as she went over to the white billboard on the wall and took a large feather of the blackest black an dipped it into the blackest of blackest ink and then the pen made sharp screeching noises as it scratched a long and narrow X onto a square of the billboard.
"What is she doing that for, Papa?" whispered Herbert weakly.
"I'm afraid I have no idea, my boy," replied Mr. Wogglebug. "I see no reason for it."
Then as the day went on they watched unnoticed as the teacher seemed to keep on drawing more and more X's onto the squares on the white billboard. She would do this every single time any one student made a single move or sound that she apparently didn't like at all and she would berate him or her endlessly for it all the while. During the day she handed out assignments that were extremely easy to do and also extremely boring in their nature and content so that some of the students ended up falling asleep doing them, and the ones that got them done were then given yet another stupid assignment that was worse than the last one and on and on and on.
"Papa, she is hurting those kids in there," whispered George almost tearfully. "Why is she doing that?"
"I have no idea," replied Mr. Wogglebug in an equally hurt voice. "But I intend to find out who she is and what is behind her motives."