CROSSING THE KALIDAH FOREST
The Munchkins escorted the group to the border. When the last of the farms were gone and there was only the forest, they set down the supplies, bowed, and gloomily said: "Goodbye. Don't be angry that we are not going with you. It's just that it is so dark, scary, and lonely in there…"
"Goodbye my dear friends," Dorothy said. "And cheer up! You are free, hopefully, forever!"
"True, true, we forgot about that…" they remembered, cheering up greatly in a mood swing.
When the Munchkins disappeared from view, the group continued. After several minutes, a small house appeared near the road.
"It's the Tin Woodman's house!" Dorothy exclaimed. "We stayed here with Scarecrow, and the next morning met the Tin Woodman, who was standing like a statue. Remember Toto?"
"I remember," Toto said. "I almost broke a tooth when I bit his leg."
It was late afternoon by that time, and the group decided to spend the night in the house. The house was too small for them all, so Charley had to sleep on the floor.
The next day, Lion explained: "Soon we will reach my home forest in which I met Dorothy. It has great soil to sleep on under the great big trees near a great pond, in which the frogs have the loudest voices in the Land of Oz."
"If everything is so great, why did you move to another forest?" asked Toto.
"Political responsibility," Cowardly Lion answered. "I was elected King there."
After two days, they reached the chasm which marked the beginning of the Kalidah forest. Farther ahead, they could hear growling, and everyone became nervous.
Charley then said: "Time to prepare to cross the Kalidah forest."
"How?" asked Dorothy. "Do you have something that will get us across safely?"
"We have the tent," he answered.
"How is that going to help?"
Charley got out the tents fabric and some paint. He then drew a monstrous head on it. It had a pair of beady, angry yellow eyes, a huge mouth full of fangs, with a beard of spikes and curved horns… When he was finished he set it down to dry. When it finished drying, he drew the same thing on the back. He tied two branches on each side so it could be carried.
The rest of the group became nervous. Cowardly Lion flinched when it rose, Toto ran behind him, and Kaggi-Karr squinted.
"And that's not all," Charley said smugly.
The sun began to set. And suddenly, the drawing began to glow. The darker it became, the stronger the light poured from it. It seemed as if sparks came from the eyes and flame from the mouth, which then surrounded its face.
"What is that?" asked Dorothy from behind the sailor.
"The paint has phosphorus in it, which glows in the dark," answered Charley.
Dorothy calmed down, but the rest of the group didn't understand it, and the face continued to be mysterious and frightening to them.
"I think that should be enough to scare away the Kalidahs," stated Charley. He then gave a wooden horn to Dorothy, and told her to blow in it as hard as possible when they went into the forest.
They then entered the forest. Charley was in front, holding one and blowing his horn, Lion, Kaggi-Karr, and Toto in the middle, and Dorothy in the back, blowing her horn and holding the other one. The horns howled like a wolf, laughed like a hyena, and mimicked the voices of other predators. This was accompanied by the Cowardly Lion's roar and Kaggi-Karr's crowing, and the demonic face which was shining brightly in the darkness, held up in a way so that it looked to the right and to the left.
The group made so much noise and the painting was so horrible, that the Kalidahs, waiting near the road for prey, ran away into the forest.
About three fourths of the way, they encountered some broken pieces of wood looking suspiciously like arms and legs. Other than that, the journey was eventless, and by morning they were out of the forest and could see the river. There, they decided to stop for the night.