Disclaimer: I do not own the Wizard of Oz. Nor do I plan to. This is the only time I shall post this disclaimer as both you and I have better things to do. I own Freece, and its history is open to anyone who knows where to go. Read.


Author's Note: You ought to recognize these characters as they're used in most of my stories. The AP's have been taken out due to lack of space. I may add a few of them in, but only if they ask nicely.


Note to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Queens: If I took your character out, it's only because you didn't come to mind when I chose the characters. Do not bite my head off. Do not throw things at me. Just shut up and read already.


Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a group of friends who lived in a pointless city in Florida. I shall not say that nothing ever happened there, but truly interesting things were a rare occurrence. This group of friends was (and always had been) rather odd for their generation, and some might say that is what made them stay friends, a shared place in the school they spent their days at. Over the years, one of the friends, known as Paprika, went to a different school as the others. One, known as Giraffe, separated herself from the others. Two new members joined the group. One left the next year; one stayed despite the chaos. Another joined and became known as Ivy. One died and was remembered. Thus the group became the Sisterhood of the Traveling Queens. They invented their own worlds and wrote odd stories about them. They became queens and spoke non-existent languages. But most of all, they became closer than family.

It was the summer before they went to high school. It was the summer they left middle school (and tacky uniforms) behind. It was the summer they found their world.


It all started when Turtle's family began remodeling the office building where the family business was located. Little did they know that this would lead Turtle and her friends into some of the strangest (and sometimes more dangerous) situations.


It was a Thursday that day downtown. Monkey was having a last-minute going away party before she moved to Chicago for the next year. As such, they were reminiscing upstairs, away from the adults. Turtle sat on the floor (as she hated the couch's fabric and said it looked Amish) next to Monkey, the only one in the room with short hair. Horse was sitting on the couch, wondering why she was the only normal one in the group, while Aquarius, her cousin, sat at a desk that hadn't been used for actual work since the nineties. The conversation had been lingering on the strange inside jokes over the years (including coffee and the dalai llama) but was swiftly moving on to things they had done. "Oh, my gosh, remember when you burnt that cookie?" Turtle asked Monkey, whilst laughing.

Monkey stuck out her tongue. Turtle had been over at Monkey's house when Monkey had been taken with the sudden idea that, if they put a cookie in the microwave, they could melt it, thus making it into a gooey delicious blob of dough and chocolate. Turtle had finally agreed to try it out, so they put the cookie on a paper towel and put it in the microwave. The problem was that neither of them knew how long it took to melt a cookie. They found out when the cookie began to smoke. This had led to the Burnt Cookie Award a few months later, an award for the dumbest idea of the year that was carried out. Naturally, Monkey had won said award that year.

"Turtle, you helped burn it too," Horse chided. Horse had always been the Mother Teresa of the group. Whenever someone was being teased or anyone was being mean or rude, she sided with the underdog, usually Monkey. Even when Monkey started poking Horse in the arm, she did nothing more than tell her to stop. She was that kind-hearted.

"Only because I wanted to see if it would work!" replied Turtle. She was always getting into trouble, sometimes for that very reason. But most of the time it seemed her sharp tongue with people who weren't her friends that got her into trouble, though that was tied with her strange ideas and the times she acted on impulse. She always had a reason, though, and that's better than some people.

They were all laughing now. "Speaking of which," asked Turtle. "Has anybody got up the guts to say, 'So we meet again, Mengledorf,' to her face?"

"Nope. I'd do it, but she's family," replied Aquarius. Aquarius and Horse were related to at least fifteen people in their school alone, including each other.

Monkey had been quiet for a while now. Turtle waved an arm in front of her face. "Earth to Monkey."

Monkey moved her arm and said, "Quit it! You made me lose it!"

The others were curious now. "Lose what?" asked Aquarius.

"The- I don't know what it is," replied Monkey.

"What's it look like?" asked Horse.

"There it is!" whispered Monkey, pointing. The others looked closer. It looked like a sparkling thread was moving across the wall. It seemed to be made up of more colors than the girls knew the names of, and it was moving. It seemed only natural that they should follow it.

The thread moved toward the door and paused, as though waiting for them. The girls hurried after it, without saying a word. They didn't need to; no one needed encouragement to follow the sparkling thread. It moved along the old hallway and to a door locked by a bent nail. Turtle reached up and turned the nail so that its tape faced away from the door, before opening the door. They were all rather disappointed when they saw the darkness. Turtle reached up and pulled a string. The light switched on, revealing a dusty old wooden staircase surrounded by crumbling brick walls. The stairs turned to their right and up to the third (and top) floor. They followed the thread up without question. It was only when they saw the ladder leading to the roof that they began to worry. But the thread passed it quickly. It seemed to be wider now, and longer. It extended more threads, like tentacles along the wall. The thread moved toward the floor, forming a pool of shimmering liquid. The girls knelt before it, staring down in wonder. That's when a large arm with golden fur reached out and grabbed Aquarius. She didn't have time to scream before she was pulled into the pool. And then she disappeared.

The rest of the girls didn't have time to run away but were also pulled into the pool in rapid succession: Horse by a metal arm, Monkey by one with stitches, and Turtle by a tiny tiger's paw. The pool faded into the ancient floorboards. Its work was done.