A/N: Shout outs to my anonymous reviewer and James Birdsong! Glad you liked the last chapter. This week we dig a little deeper into the politics of years past...
Chapter 18
Elphaba was pacing in Morrible's office. She'd been unhappy with the plan but knew it was their best shot. Needless to say, the Tin Man arriving in Munchkinland was a big deal. Still, there had been no contact from either Boq or Councilman Arif for days.
"You're wearing a hole in the floor or at a minimum your shoes, Miss Elphaba," it was Mopsi's words that made her stop in her tracks.
"I don't like that we haven't heard from Boq or Arif," she admitted.
"I don't like it much either, but we have to assume that things are fine. We have no word to the contrary," Mopsi told her. He, along with Popsi, and the green woman had been digging into Morrible's files and books from the library, trying to find out why the Great Gillikin Railway was built and why the Yellow Brick Road had been rerouted. They had been surprised that no official books seemed to mention this important part of Ozian history.
"I think I found something but it's a footnote," Popsi's words shifted their focus.
"A footnote? This big of a moment, reduced to a footnote?" Elphaba gave him a look.
"I'm afraid that's all I have. It directs me to a different book," Popsi said.
"Well give us what you have," Mopsi told him. His brother nodded and read the footnote aloud,
"See Ozian History Ozma Years. Regrettably, that's it. No author or library location given."
"Do you get the feeling that someone had been trying to hide this the entire time?" Elphaba asked them.
"It certainly seems like an odd way of noting something like this," Mopsi frowned.
"Well, the part that the footnote is referenced on is this – the Great Gillikin Railway connects all the cities of Gillikin and offers much faster transportation than the Yellow Brick Road," Popsi explained.
"The Yellow Brick Road only runs to Shiz, but according to that map that you and Boq found…" Elphaba grabbed the map off of the Quoxwood desk and compared it to the route of the railway.
"They built the railway over the top of the remains of the Yellow Brick Road. So somewhere between the start of construction and the end, the route of the road was altered, even before the railway existed. The route the jewels had to take was through Gillikin because the road dead ended in Munchkinland. This goes way before Frex and his right-hand Munchkin, Jinjuria. There must have been a reason. We need to find that book," she told them.
"You think this is some sort of grudge, carried out by Munchkins who have felt slighted for over fifty years?" Mopsi was confused.
"Honestly, I'm less sure of what I thought we'd figured out, but I can't think of anything better at the moment. Off we go to the library boys," she said. The two quickly followed her out of the office and down to the library.
The three spent the better part of two hours searching in all the logical places for the history book. When they had no luck, they began searching all the remaining places. Finally, another hour passed before Mopsi shouted,
"Eureka!" the other two rushed over to him.
"That book is thick and very dirty," Popsi said as his brother brought it to the table.
"We need a rag to clean it. Obviously, no one has read this one in a while," Elphaba said. Popsi quickly ducked out of the room and headed back to Morrible's office. He grabbed one of the rags used to dust in the Fish Woman's office and then headed for the library but was stopped in the hall by Fiyero.
"We received a letter from Arif," he told the Munchkin.
"We need to get the others. We have news of our own," Popsi said.
To Be Continued…
