The Wizard was sitting on a log in front of a campfire cooking sausages. He didn't look well. His face was covered in untidy stubble, his clothes were tattered and dusty and the sausages he was eating looked slightly mouldy.
He didn't notice them approach until Elphaba had her hand on his shoulder.
"Hello Professor Marvel," she said with a chilling sereneness.
He was very close to having a heart attack; he dropped his sausage into the fire and, twirling to face them, managed to slip off his log into the dirt.
"Elphaba?!" he gasped, "how on earth did you, I mean, why aren't you dead?"
"It's a long story," said Glinda.
"Glinda the Good?" said the Wizard, looking up into Glinda's pixie face, "Now I'm sure I've lost my mind. What are you doing here?"
"Listen pal, we're the ones asking the questions ok?" Spat Elphaba, "So unless you want me to trash this caravan of yours you better start talking."
"What is it you want girls?"
"We want your balloon," said Glinda.
"My balloon?"
"Yes, the one that you flew here in, we want to take it back to Oz." said Glinda.
"I see, well, I'm sorry girls but I don't think I can help you, I sold it you see."
"You what?" glowered Elphaba.
"I sold it, to a travelling circus; they're probably half way around the country by now."
"Well that's just perfect," said Glinda as she bent down and picked up a sausage, skewered it and sat on the log to roast it.
"We can't give up now Glinda, there must be another way."
"Well I can't conjure any bubbles, you can't work a flying spell, we don't have a balloon and we can't wait around for another twister, what other options do we have?"
"Nessa's shoes."
"What?"
"Don't you see? That little girl used them to take her home, so could we!"
"Yeah but there are two fatal flaws in that plan, one we don't have the shoes, that girl Daphne does, and two even if we did they would only take one of us back," said Glinda.
"Not if we wore one each."
"What about Fiyero?"
Elphaba was silent again.
"Well, at least you could go home Glinda, back to the colours."
"Oh no, I'm not going anywhere without you."
"But from Oz you could work out some other way to get us back, and even if you couldn't, at least now you know that I'm alive."
"I can't do that, I'm rubbish at magic, all I've ever mastered is making bubbles and children can do that!"
"But you found a way to get here, I'm sure you could find a way to bring us home too."
"I don't know Elphie, what if I couldn't do it?"
"Well, you could always come and visit us," said Elphaba, "anyway, we haven't even got the shoes yet, why don't we try that first."
It was only then that they realised the Wizard had disappeared and so had his horse.
"You don't suppose he's going after those shoes too do you?" asked Glinda.
"Yes Glinda, that's exactly what I think he's doing."
"Well then I guess we better beat him to it," she said, standing up and brushing the dust off the back of her dress.
And then they were running, running as if their very lives depended on it. But the Wizard had two distinct advantages, one he knew where Dorothy lived and two he was riding a horse.
Luckily Glinda and Elphaba were able to follow his tracks and they reached the house only moments after the Wizard had knocked on the door and been invited in for a cup of tea by Aunty Em.
Glinda burst through the front door like an angry bumblebee and almost knocked the whole house down.
"Stop!" she yelled to no one in particular, and indeed it was to no one for the living room was empty.
She ran from room to room before she saw them, the little girl, with her hair in pig tails, and the wizard pulling a shoebox out from under a single bed.
"Stop!" she yelled again.
"Glinda the Good?" said the child, looking up into the face of her heroine.
"Hello Dorcas."
"Dorothy."
"Right, Dorothy."
"Give me the shoes!" yelled the Wizard, clawing at the shoebox in the girl's hands.
"Leave her alone!" yelled Elphaba, storming into the room like a rampaging tractor.
And then, of course, Dorothy started to scream.
And because Dorothy started to scream Uncle Henry came storming in like a rampaging semitrailer.
And seeing the Wizard on the floor next to his girl, well, he picked him up by the scruff off his neck and threw him out the door.
And then he set the dogs on him.
Back in the bedroom Glinda had stuck Dorothy's head between her knees to calm her down. She was staring at the floor between her feet and breathing heavily.
"Now Dorrit, this is going to be hard for you to understand but this is my friend Elphie and she isn't wicked at all, she is actually very smart and very caring and I need you to let me have those shoes back now because they belonged to her sister who you killed with your house and they're all she has left of her now, so can you do that for me please?"
They walked out of the house full of tea, cakes and hope.
"Ok Glinda, now all you have to do is whatever Dorothy did to get back home and you should get back to the Emerald city."
"Well that's easy enough, all she had to do was click her heels together a few times and say 'there's no place like home', I can do that."
"I only hope this works, here I mean, without any magic."
"It will."
"And once you get home you have to try and find a way to get me and Fiyero back and to convince everyone that we're good."
"Yes, yes, I'll remember."
"But just in case," and Elphaba threw her arms around her little friend and wept a bitter tear into her shoulder, "thank you so much for coming to find me."
And Glinda closed her eyes, clicked her heels together three times and whispered "there's no place like home".
When she opened her eyes she was in her bed, in her room, in the emerald city.
But the room was no longer pink and pretty, it was blue, and lying beside her in the bed was a sleeping Boq.