Chapter 4
For several hours Richard and Dorothy strode down the road, which seemed to glimmer under the glow of Dorothy's silver shoes. Many times, Richard found himself staring at the shoes for as long as fifty paces down the road. They were gorgeous; just the kind of shoes that maybe a princess of Oz might wear.
Suddenly he wondered: is there a princess in Oz? It was a great and vast country, so surely there had to be a king or a lord of sorts ruling over everything. The thought struck him so quickly that he opened his mouth to ask Dorothy, when he remembered that Dorothy was as much of a newcomer to Oz as he was.
"Oh, what beautiful countryside," Dorothy said, as they walked through a long line of strange-looking houses. There were blue fences, with large fields of grain and vegetables, surrounding the houses, which were all painted the exact same dainty blue. One after the other, the Munchkins were coming out through their doors, and bowing low, as though they were greeting a king, and not a usual little girl like Dorothy. Still she tried to smile back at each bowing Munchkin as they came, as did Richard, though he still felt strange in these parts.
After they had been passing the Munchkin houses for a long time, Richard took out the compass, which glowed lemonade pink, feeling more than just a little lukewarm in Richard's palm.
"Hey, I'm sorry," Richard said to the silver instrument. "I don't know what you want, so can you please try to cooperate with me?"
The compass soothed its pink light, which slowly faded to grey. Richard sighed, and dropped his arm to his side again, clasping the compass in a loose grip, as though he was about to drop it. His fingers slowly started to draw away from the compass, finally holding it by the chain, dangling beside Richard like a metal purse.
"Goodness, Richard, this is getting to be a long walk," Dorothy soon said, looking back at him. "And look. The sun is starting to set."
Richard followed Dorothy's pointed finger past the trees and mountains, where the sky was a coral pink, meeting with the shifting blue color of the late afternoon sky. Richard blinked twice at the sky, where now, the sun was falling behind a mountain, making thousands of golden rays span around, like a circular fan in the sky.
"Whoa," Richard murmured. "How…how long have we been walking down this road?"
The compass warmed up quickly, and it blinked on and off continuously, until Richard pried the lid open. To his surprise, the face of the compass lifted to reveal another circular slab of marble beneath it. A clock face, just as ornate as the compass itself, stared back at Richard, the hands of the clock ticking gently.
"Wow, it's getting late!" Richard said, accidentally snapping the compass closed in alarm; it glowed a bright red, searing Richard's hand so that he had to pass it to the other one.
As if on cue, Dorothy slowed her pace, and exhaled deeply. "Phew," she whispered. "I don't know how much further I can walk, Richard. And if you say it's getting to be late, maybe we should stop to rest."
"Why don't we?" Richard agreed, all too quick to sit down on a rock on the side of the road. But he shot back up when something sharp poked him in the behind; the rock was made entirely out of book spines, the cover corners poking up to the sky.
Richard stood up so quickly, that the compass brushed against the rocks with a bang. But when the silver surface touched it, the rocks glowed the same bright silvery white, and then broke apart into several pieces. And when the pieces stopped glowing, they had been transformed into hardcover books, with boldly colored titles and yellowed pages.
Dorothy jumped before she ran to the transformed rocks, but her eyes shone with wonder. "Oh, Richard, look what these are! The compass has changed the rock into books."
Richard held the compass to his eyes by its chain. It glowed yellow, but didn't send off any waves of gentle heat. He observed the smooth silver surface again, but he certainly didn't see it the same way as before.
"This thing tells you where you are, it tells the time, and now it can make rocks into books!" he muttered. "Hmm. What else can you do?"
"I can't believe it," Dorothy said while she glanced over some of the books. She put down her basket, and sat down to open the front covers, while Toto trotted and panted excitedly beside her. "That's such a remarkable compass. I wish I had one like that back in Kansas."
"If you think that it will like you enough," Richard muttered.
"How strange," Dorothy whispered. She was thumbing through the pages of a book, which Richard noticed was titled, The Marvelous Land of Oz. "It's a story all about Oz. Hmm, I wonder why some books about Oz might be lying around here."
Richard looked back at the compass. "You want us to read about Oz?" he asked sincerely. The compass glowed yellow, and it stayed that way, before Richard decided to kneel down and look at the book Dorothy was holding.
Over her shoulder, he watched while she flipped through the pages faster. Dorothy's eyes skimmed over the words, and sometimes she ran her finger along the lines while she read them. There were many pictures accompanying the chapters, and those were where Dorothy stopped most often.
There were several peculiar drawings, but where Dorothy halted her turning the pages was when she noticed a tall, slim creature with the head of a pumpkin. There was a face carved into the pumpkin, automatically reminding Richard of a jack o' lantern from Halloween.
"That's certainly a strange looking thing," Dorothy noted, pointing to the picture. "What do you suppose that is?"
Richard held the glowing compass towards the page to read, in the growing dim of twilight. He found a passage near the bottom of the page, and he began to read aloud,
"'I must give him a name,' he cried. "So good a man as this must surely have a name. I believe,' he added, after a moment's thought, "I will name the fellow 'Jack Pumpkinhead'!'".
Then suddenly, Dorothy shrieked, while the book started to vibrate, and tumbled to the ground out of her hands. From out of the pages, shot a giant pumpkin, with the facial features of a jack o' lantern, and an entire body to go with it, leaving the book behind to tremble and shake.
Richard and Dorothy looked up at the great stick figure that had emerged in front of them, who stumbled around just a little while getting his bearings. Finally, he stood still and twisted his pumpkin head the right way with a low crunching. This peculiar creature wore purple pants, a red shirt, a vest with white polka dots, and long stockings sticking up from his shoes.
"Uh…hello," said Dorothy first, standing up and trying to give a sure grin to the pumpkin-headed thing.
The creature turned its head, and looked down upon Dorothy. Then it waved its hand jovially at her, its pumpkin face widening happily. "Oh, hello," it said, in a low, but warm, voice. "Where did you come from? As I recall, you weren't here a moment ago." It turned its head around, and frowned helplessly. "And neither was I."
"You came from out of this," Richard explained, picking up the book and holding it out for the pumpkin creature to see. "You're Jack Pumpkinhead."
"I know that I am," Jack said, "it's the name that my creator, Tip, gave me when…" He stopped, and slapped a hand to his mouth in surprise. "How did you know?"
"We read about you," Dorothy said gently. "We didn't know that you would come out of the book."
"Are we still in Oz?" Jack Pumpkinhead asked, looking around once more.
"Yeah," Richard answered. "We're going down the yellow brick road to find the Emerald City."
"The Wizard will be there," Dorothy continued. "He's going to use his magic powers to send me and my dog, Toto, back home."
"Yes, Tip told me all about the Emerald City," Jack said warmly. "It's in the very center of Oz, where the great Wizard ruled a long time, until a Scarecrow was offered the throne by the people there. Everything there is supposed to be a glorious green." But slowly, Jack Pumpkinhead's excited smile drooped, and his shoulders slumped. "But I fear I may never see the beauty of that place."
"What do you mean?" asked Richard.
"I am color-blind," Jack said sullenly. "Tip and I were once in the Country of the Gillikins, where everything, he said, was purple. I could only see grey. Just like I can now."
"How dreadful," Dorothy said sadly. "Well, at least you aren't altogether blind. I can't even imagine what that would be like."
"No, I am not," Jack agreed, while some light seemed to come back into his hopeless expression.
"My name is Dorothy," Dorothy said, smiling up at Jack.
Jack perked his head up, like an anxious dog. "Are you the Dorothy who destroyed the Witch of the East? Who…who came here all the way from the big, outside World?"
"Yes," answered Dorothy.
"Well, then, who is your friend?" Jack asked.
"I'm Richard," he replied. "I'm from the real world too."
Jack scratched his head for a moment, as if trying to think harder than ever. "Were you blown here by a cyclone? Oh, dear me!"
"No," Richard said. "I came here by this." He held up the compass, which instantly glowed sunshine again.
"Oh, my!" Jack Pumpkinhead exclaimed, shielding his eyes, even though there was no real need to. "What is that?"
"It's a…well, I don't know what to call it," Richard said, lowering the compass to open the lid. "It's a compass, but it's also like a pocket watch." He hesitated to say the next part. "It talks to me through light and warmth, too."
"Oh, how extraordinary," Jack said. "Did the Wizard give it to you?"
"I've never met the Wizard," Richard said. "We're on our way to meet him, remember?"
"Ah, yes, perhaps, but wherever did you get it?" Jack wanted to know.
"A librarian," Richard answered.
"What is a librarian?" Jack asked, scratching his head again.
Dorothy giggled, and reached for Jack's hand. "Well, why don't we sit down now?" she asked, having taken a look at the darkened sky, full of stars. "We're quite tired from our long walk, and you can join us if you want to."
"I'd be most delighted, thank you," Jack said. "And then, if you please, you can tell me all about librarians, and what sorts of things they do in the World. But please speak kindly, and slowly. I may get confused."
Dorothy giggled but Richard only groaned, putting away the compass, and picking up the open copy of The Marvelous Land of Oz from the ground. He followed Dorothy and Jack Pumpkinhead under a thick tree, and sat down, pulling the book open. He sat several inches away from them, so that he could concentrate on his task. He also made sure to read and turn the pages quickly, so no extra characters would come out.
He reached into his pocket, and pulled the compass out by its chain. Holding it above the book, the silver light cast its glow onto the yellowing pages.
"If Jack Pumpkinhead wants someone to explain things all the time, I'll give him someone to talk to," Richard thought, while he thumbed through the book. He zipped his eyes across every line, searching for a description of a creature with raggedy clothes, a patchy face, and a body stuffed with straw…
But soon enough, Richard found himself reading aloud, "'…To be more explicit, the initials mean that I am Thoroughly Educated'…"
"Richard, aren't you going to sleep?" Dorothy asked gently. "I'm pretty sure it's time for us to rest a little."
Richard looked over those words so deeply that he didn't hear Dorothy at first. But still, he looked up, and noticed that Dorothy was lying down upon the grass, with Jack Pumpkinhead sitting beside her. He was looking down on her like a careful father, observing her while she closed her eyes.
He looked back into the book, and then back to a solemn-but-innocent looking Jack Pumpkinhead.
"Have I got a present for you, Jack," Richard whispered, as he set the book down, with the pages still open.
With the compass, held by its chain, over the book, Richard watched while the book started to shake and tremble.