by Speedy In Oz
At dinner the King was abstracted and sad, especially when his gaze rested on his young visitor and the Princess who were sitting side by side, whispering and giggling together. The similarity in their size and appearance was positively startling, now that Speedy wore the loose silk costume of the Islanders, and Kachewka, each time he caught the direction of the King’s gaze, would nod away to himself like a little China Mandarin. The talk was mostly of the warring Sea Kings and conjectures as to how long Umbrella Island would be forced to rest between Roaraway and Norroway.
Bamboula sought to enliven the party with a song, but in spite of its sonorous rendering and catchy tune, it brought only a languid applause from the preoccupied diners. The first verse ran like this:
“Goodhearted and good fellowing we gaily go umbrellowing And find it all so mellowing we’re never sad at all!”
There was more of the same sort of thing and to make up for the company’s lack of enthusiasm Speedy clapped long and vigorously and was rewarded by a deep and special bow from the King’s Su-jester. After dinner, Gureeda showed unmistakable signs of losing herself in a book, and as Speedy was anxious to see how Waddy was getting on, he bade the King and Pansy a polite good night and after a little whispered advice to Terrybubble quietly withdrew. A few minutes later he slipped noiselessly into the Wizard’s workshop.
“Nothing yet,” reported Waddy glumly. He was sitting on the floor surrounded by zippers, clippers, low burning oil jugs, bowls of spiraling incense, perfect heaps of open books, pamphlets and rolls of parchment, and was so distracted and engrossed he never even noticed his first assistant’s new clothes.
Seeing that his presence only disturbed the old sage, Speedy quietly left, picking up on his way out what he supposed was a flash light. There was no lamp on the spiral stair and he thought thus to cheer his trip down. But he slid to the bottom so quickly he did not even have a chance to switch it on, and resolving to return it to Waddy in the morning, he thoughtfully made his way to his own apartment. The bed was turned down and a pair of gaudy yellow silk pajamas had been placed across the foot So Speedy undressed, and slipping luxuriously under the silk sheet and satin quilt turned on the lamp
beside his bed and tried to concentrate on his book of travels.
But try as he would, he could not keep his mind on the gaudy pictures and text. The great, green torrent of Radj’s water gun kept coming between him and the printed page. So he finally gave up all idea of reading, and drawing on his slippers, picked up the Wizard’s flash and stepped softly out on the balcony. Across the water, and twinkling through the transparent curtain of mail, he could see the lights of the Red King’s Castle, and leaning heavily on the balcony railing he tried to think of some way to help Waddy struggling all alone with the terrible problem of the water gun. The Wizard’s flash made a small bright circle of light on the rail, and all at once, to Speedy’s surprise and consternation, the rail began to crumble and melt, giving way so suddenly he had barely time to recover his balance.
“Merciful Monkeys!” sputtered the little boy, borrowing Waddy’s phrase, “this isn’t a flash light; it’s some sort of magic ray. Why it cuts right through iron-through iron!” As soon as he had uttered the word iron, Speedy knew the thing that must be done -the dangerous and desperate thing he himself must do. Switching off the sputtering current, he climbed
noiselessly over the balcony, dropped to the ground and ran swiftly down the terrace toward the King’s private garden.
CHAPTE 14
In the Cave at Roaraway
THE full moon, like a beneficent Chinese lantern, hung low over the murmuring sea, making a silvery lane of light from Umbrella Island to Roaraway. For a moment, Speedy, who had just stepped through the zipper in the metal curtain, stood thoughtfully on the sandy shore. Then, kicking Qff his slippers, h e dove straight into the darkling waters, and coming up with scarcely a ripple, swam rapidly toward the Red King’s Castle. The ocean felt warm and mysterious, and fearful of tropical fish and strange unknown currents, Speedy cut swiftly through the phosphorescent waves and in less than ten minutes was clambering up over the slippery rocks of Roaraway itself. Regretting bitterly his bare feet, he picked his way along the stony shore, stepping close to the castle wall and
keeping a sharp lookout for sentries. Time and again he heard them calling out their watches from the broad rampart over his head, but none were posted on the beach and he proceeded unchallenged to the shallow sea cave that housed the Red King’s water gun. It seemed to take longer than when the seamen. had rowed him there, and Speedy, suffering from more than one bruise and scratch on his unshod feet, sat down on a great boulder at the cave’s mouth to recover himself. The sea, dashing against the rocks inside, sounded like a cage full of lions and as he crept beneath the huge cliff, and began crawling toward the half submerged cannon, he almost felt that real lions were awaiting him. He had turned on the Wizard’s flash and by its sputtering ray he managed to reach in safety the giant rock to which Radj had chained his sea weapon. Here again Speedy was forced to rest. Then, taking a long quivering breath, he turned the flash on the first of the heavy chains. With a loud, clattering noise, the magic ray cut through the iron and the severed links fell clanging to the rocks below. There were more than fifty of these massive chains, holding the gun in a spidery web of iron. Gritting his teeth and hoping that no one heard the awful
racket, Speedy grimly and methodically cut through them all. When only two held Radj’s straining, creaking instrument of destruction to the rock, he stopped to look for something to hold to when these last chains gave way and the gun plunged headlong to the bottom of the sea. He did not intend, after all his trouble, to be dashed off the cliff by the resulting splash and upheaval. A tall, conical rock seemed to offer some security, so hooking his arm around this and also lashing himself fast by the cord of his yellow pajamas, the little boy doggedly completed his task. As the last chain fell away, the water gun with an almost human gurgle and sigh dropped like a plummet to the bottom of the sea. Waves rose in smashing succession to beat upon the small figure clinging to the rock, but closing his eyes and shaking his head like a spaniel after each dreadful dousing, Speedy hung on, and at last when the tumult had subsided issued thankfully from the cave. Retracing his steps till he was at the exact spot where he had landed, with a triumphant and secret wave toward the sleeping King, he again dove into the sea and made his way slowly and painfully back to Umbrella Island.
Recovering his slippers, he let himself through the zipper and tiptoed stiffly and wearily back to the blue
room. Here he stripped off his wet pajamas, dried himself sleepily on a rough blue towel, and still wrapped in its comforting folds, jumped quickly into bed, falling asleep before the sea spray had dried on his forehead.
The conviction that someone was staring intently down at him wakened Speedy next morning. Rolling over he blinked drowsily into the face of the King’s Wizard, who was bending anxiously over his head.
“Glad you can sleep so well,” mumbled Waddy in a slightly annoyed voice. “Know what time it is?”
“No,” yawned Speedy, burrowing down deeper into the silken pillows. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Half past nine,” stated Waddy tensely, “and I’ve come to tell you we must take to the boats. I’m on my way to warn the King. We can just pull out of harm’s way before that gun is set off.”
“Then the umbrella’s not mended?” Speedy sat up clasping his knees with both hands.
“No!” Sinking into a chair beside the bed, Waddy covered his face, gray and drawn from his long night’s struggle to repair the steering gear. “To think we must really leave this island, with all its comforts and treasures and with all the improvements and inventions of a thousand years,” he
groaned bitterly. “I almost had us aloft, another hour will fix it, I swear, but another hour will be too late, but whatever am I doing wasting time here?
Get up, my boy, collect that immense bony wreck an
d come down to the beach.”
“Wait,” called Speedy, as the Wizard plunged unsteadily toward the door. “I don’t believe Radj will shoot off his gun, after all.”
“Why? A King never breaks his word. Now do stop arguing and come along,” directed Waddy irritably.
“Just the same he won’t use it,” insisted Speedy, and leaping out of bed with the blue silk coverlet still clutched around him, he caught hold of the flying cords round the Wizard’s waist.
“Why?” panted Waddy, trying to jerk away.
“Because that gun is at the bottom of the Nonestic Ocean!” crowed Speedy, dancing around the Wizard like a small Indian warrior around a totem pole. “I swam to Roaraway last night and cut it adrift with your magic flash and wouldn’t you like to see the Red King’s face when the clock strikes ten?”
“You what?” gasped Waddy, clutching his braided beard with both fat hands. “You really mean that gun is at the bottom of the sea? why this - this is simply simpanoorious. No wonder you were sleepy
this morning! How can we ever repay you? Wait
here. I’ll tell the King! I’ll tell the Court! I’ll tell
the whole sweet island!”
“Stop! Stop! Please don’t!” Letting go the cord around the Wizard’s waist, Speedy seized his coat tails and hung there resolutely as Waddy tried to rush through the door.
“Listen. No one knew about that gun and now We’ve fixed it so they never need to know. Let’s keep it a secret just between ourselves. It will only make a lot of talk and excitement and I’d hate that.”
“Now whatever are you talking about?” grumbled the Wizard, dropping into an arm chair. “Here, let me look at you. I don’t believe you’re true. A nice sight you are, with all those bruises and scratches and sea weed still stuck in your hair! But I’ll tell you this, you look more like a Wizard every minute, the Assistant Wizard of Umbrella Island.
How about it? Will you take the job?”
“As long as I’m here I will,” grinned Speedy, knowing he had gained his point. “But, oh Waddy, it was awful in that cave!”
“Next time you decide to use magic, let me help!” Sweeping his first assistant to his barrel-like chest, Waddy gave him a tremendous hug. “But tell me,”
he continued seriously, “how did you get hold of my metal melting flash and how did you think up such a scheme in the first place?”
Perched precariously on his vast knee, Speedy soon told him, and after telling and retelling the important parts, till Waddy was perfectly satisfied, Speedy hastily donned another of his gaudy suits and accompanied the Wizard in Chief to his enchanted tower.
“When that red-headed rascal misses his gun there’ll be all kinds of trouble,” prophesied Waddy, settling happily down before the electric steering board, which was in a much more hopeful state than on the evening before. “But it won’t matter, now. I ought to have this finished in forty minutes, so curl up on that red couch and have yourself a nap. You’ve done enough helping for today. There’s your breakfast on that tray, too. I ordered it, thinking you’d be up to see me first thing this morning.”
Instead of taking the nap suggested by the Wizard, Speedy, after downing the appetizing breakfast, hurried over to the revolving telescope on the Roaraway side of the tower. Unfortunately he could not see the side of the island where the water gun had been, nor the excitement and rage of the Sea King when he went to set off his terrible sea cannon. But
presently four boat loads of warriors swept round the curve. In the first boat, Radj stood angrily erect, shaking his great red shield and spear at Umbrella Island.
“They’re coming over! They’re coming over!” yelled Speedy, tumbling off the tall stool before the telescope. “They have tips of fire on their spears. Oh Waddy, are you sure that curtain will hold?”
“It won’t need to,” answered the Wizard with a satisfied little sniff. “We’re leaving, my boy, sooner than sooner, in other words at once!”
As he finished speaking, Waddy touched a lever on his board and Speedy felt an answering alive-ness and vibration through the whole island, like the throb of engines on an ocean liner. Just as the Red King’s boats scraped against the sandy shore, Umbrella Island lifted, and lightly as a toy balloon went soaring up toward the sky. Almost overturned by this unexpected take-off, the four boats bounced and rocked violently about, and the last thing Speedy saw was the wrathful red face and waving arms of the angry ruler of Roaraway.
“It seems too bad that an invention like that had to be destroyed,” he sighed, turning rather thoughtfully away from the telescope.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” puffed the Wizard easily. “A fellow smart enough to construct one water gun is smart enough to duplicate it. In three months that big sea lion will have a new gun and be lording it over all the islands in the Nonestic Ocean.”
“Say, do you have any paper and pencils?” asked Speedy, seating himself hurriedly beside the Wizard. Now that his steering board was mended, Waddy was polishing its levers and buttons with a large silver cloth.
“I want to draw a diagram of that gun before I forget how it looked. I believe Uncle Billy could make one just as powerful for the United States Navy and wouldn’t that be a scoop? You know, I believe I’ll join the navy,” he muttered a moment later, as he settled down seriously with the materials Waddy had obligingly supplied.
In his mind’s eye he could aleady see himself in the smart uniform of a naval officer in command of a fleet of battle ships equipped with these tremendous and powerful new water guns. Indeed, he was so busy with thoughts, and the Wizard was so occupied with his polishing, that neither heard the creak of the banister, bringing visitors up the spiral stairway, and both jumped with annoyance as a series of
thumps and bangs sounded on the door.
“Aha, the hand shaking committee!” Throwing down his silver cloth, Waddy made a little grimace, then waddled resignedly across the room to admit Sizzeroo, Bamboula, Kachewka and a dozen or more courtiers, who had just discovered the Island was moving again.
“Oh bother,” exclaimed Speedy, shoving his diagram quickly into a drawer. “Don’t they know we wizards have important work to do?”
“They think they have important work to do, also,” sighed Waddy. “Thanking us is the work they have set themselves to do just now, so we might as well oil up our smiles and bear it. All ready now.”
There was simply no resisting this big jolly Wizard, and impatient as he was to finish his sketch, Speedy was grinning broadly as the royal delegation burst impetuously into the tower shop.
CHAPTER 15
Terrybubble Leaves for Oz
SEVERAL days had passed since
Speedy’s exciting swim to Roaraway - days so calm and dreamlike, so unreal and enchanting that he hated to think of leaving this island. He and Gureeda had jolly mornings, swinging their heels from the island’s edge and climbing the trees in the umbrella groves. He and Waddy had thrilling afternoons, flying the island, testing out magic devices in the Wizard’s tower. He and Terrybubble had curious evenings when they slipped off together to explore the jungles that covered the western half of Sizzeroo’s small domain.
At Speedy’s request, Waddy kept the island circling over Oz, and though he often squinted through the Wizard’s telescope at its many gay and familiar castles, he was not quite ready to be rescued. Once he set foot in Oz, it would be his plain duty to relieve as soon as possible the anxiety of Uncle Billy by asking Ozma to send him and Terrybubble back to the United States. For a little longer Speedy wanted to enjoy the life of a carefree visitor and assistant wizard of Umbrella Island.
It was pretty grand to waken in a castle-to find a blue and silver footman standing at attention beside the bed to offer him a tall tumbler of fruit juice, to eat like a king at every meal and to have his slightest wish or desire immediately fulfilled or anticipated.
He never tired of the droll songs of Bamboula, the King’s Su-jester, and the sarcastic verse
s of Pansy, the Watch Cat. Indeed, he grew fond of everyone in the castle with the exception of Kachewka, and though the sneezy old counselor showered him with small favors and attentions, Speedy always felt cross and uncomfortable in his presence.
Of all that grand and gay company, only Sizzeroo puzzled him. Though the round, double-chinned face of the island’s ruler seemed just formed for good-natured jollity, it always wore an expression of extreme sorrow and melancholy. Once, coming unexpectedly upon his Majesty in a secluded nook in the garden, Speedy was shocked and embarrassed to find him in tears.
“Why, whatever’s the matter?” blurted out the little boy. “Shall I call the Wizard or Kachewka?”
“No, no, it’s nothing,” choked Sizzeroo, dabbing at his eyes with a tremendous silk handkerchief. “I just got to thinking of all the canary birds left without water and bird seed, of all the old men without pipes and of all the little children without grandmothers!”
“But do you know of any special ones?” inquired Speedy, very much bewildered by the King’s answer.
“Perhaps there are not as many as your Majesty supposes.”
“Oh! Oh, what difference does it make?” sobbed Sizzeroo. “Oh me! Oh my! Oh me, my, you and us!”
“But please, can’t I bring you something?” begged Speedy, jumping up in great distress.
“Bring a bucket,” gulped the King, and throwing his handkerchief over his head he stumbled off down the garden path, leaving Speedy more mystified than ever. When he questioned Gureeda about her father’s strange actions, the Princess looked almost ready to cry herself, and, convinced that there was something both members of the royal family were concealing from him, Speedy resolved to stay long enough to solve the mystery.
