by Speedy In Oz
After all, summer was coming and he was entitled to a vacation and poor old Terrybubble would never have another chance to be alive again. Speedy felt sure that once his fossil reached America, the curious gift of life bestowed by the exploding geyser would be lost.
Terrybubble, himself, was happier than he had been in the whole four hundred years of his prehistoric existence. Clattering clumsily after the Princess and Speedy, he did as far as possible everything that they did, and almost everything a wire-haired
terrier could do, besides. But there was still one trick he felt he must accomplish before he fully qualified as the little boy’s pet. That was to sleep on the foot of his bed.
The dinosaur spent most of his nights on the royal terrace talking to Pansy, counting the stars overhead or taking sly turns at the wheel that guided Umbrella Island. But on the night Speedy had found Sizzeroo sobbing in the garden, Terrybubble suddenly had a splendid idea. Why could he not put his head in through the window and rest it cozily on the foot of the little boy’s bed, reasoned the fossil cleverly. How surprised and delighted Speedy would be to waken and find him there!
Now Terrybubble’s head was as large as a good sized room, but the blue room occupied by his little chum was much larger than a good-sized room and, provided Speedy’s legs were not crushed in the process, the idea was perfectly possible. Waiting till most of the lights were out, Terrybubble, not quite sure of the location, began sticking his head in first one window and then another. Several startled screeches rang through the castle as sleepers wakened to see the gleaming skull of the dinosaur outlined in the moonlight, but as he quickly withdrew and as the
courtiers were growing more or less accustomed to the cadaverous monster, nothing much came of it.
But Terrybubble, growing more cautious, merely looked through the remaining windows, moving methodically along the south wing and coming finally to a great double French pair thrown wide to admit the soft May breezes. The curtains had been drawn and behind the billowing hangings a dim light was burning and muffled voices droned together in the half darkness.
Recognizing the voice of the King and Kachewka, Terrybubble rested his head on the top rail of the balcony prepared to listen. No one had ever told Terrybubble that listening at doors and windows was bad form, and perhaps it was just as well, for what he heard changed the whole course of Speedy’s adventures and perhaps saved Terrybubble himself from becoming a mere heap of bones on some deserted Ozian hill.
“Everything is going famously,” whispered Kachewka in his unctuous wheezy voice. ‘This American boy likes our island so well we’ll have no trouble at all keeping him till the giant comes. As for that colossal and exasperating skeleton, I’ve given orders for him to be pushed overboard at the first opportunity. Why should we clutter up our castle
with a prehistoric ruin-a live and dangerous one,
too?”
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Sizzeroo, stamping his foot angrily. “If anything happens to Terrybubble, you shall answer for it with your head.”
“Meaning that my head is bone?” inquired the old counselor. “Well, accidents will happen!” Kachewka spoke so callously that Terrybubble felt a chill run down his back bone. Even if the King forbade the parashooters to shove him off the island, he felt that Kaehewka himself would somehow accomplish his downfall. And a giant? What in Taradash was a giant? And how dare they talk of turning Speedy over to one? Quivering with fright and sorrow, Terrybubble managed to hold himself rigid and not give away his presence by the rattling of his bones.
“It could not have happened better,” continued Kachewka, shuffling his feet backward and forward on the polished floor. “You hit a giant in the head with the island, the giant demands your only child to repay him for the injury, and along, just in time to take her place, comes this American boy. The giant thinks the Princess is a boy, so everything is splendid and Speedy can lace the fellow’s boots for the rest of his mortal life. Good enough for him, too,
the impertinent little commoner!”
Terrybubble did not stop for the King’s answer, and even if he had heard Sizzeroo soundly scolding the old counselor, he would still have been convinced of his own and Speedy’s peril. He was in such a great hurry to find him he nearly swept Pansy off the balcony rail, as he slid his head rapidly along to the next window.
“Here, here, what’s this?” In her official position as Watch Cat, Pansy was making her rounds and she felt that Terrybubble’s actions were highly suspicious. “Are you castle breaking or what?”
“What?” repeated Terrybubble stupidly, then grasping Pansy in his claw he held her close to his bony nose. “Tell me, what’s a giant?” he whispered fiercely. “Quick!”
“A giant! My gooseness! Who’s been talking about giants? And what are you doing poking your head in windows and lurking around all by yourself in the dark? Come away to the terrace, there’s a good fellow.”
Without a word Terrybubble moved quickly to the royal terrace and there placing Pansy on the branch of a tree level with his head, poured out the whole conversation he had overheard just now on the King’s balcony.
“Hm-mm!” murmured the Watch Cat regretfully, when he had finished. “Well, you were not supposed to know about this giant, but since you’ve found out, I might as well tell you that it’s true. Sizzer did hit a giant in the head with the island-a giant named Loxo, big as a mountain-big enough to make even you look small, and this giant was so mad he’s coming back to take the King’s daughter to lace his boots. Only he thinks the Princess is a boy so that’s what gave Kachewka his big idea and Speedy does look like Gureeda, now that I come to think of it. But I’m sure the King will never consent to such a mean trick and no one else knows about it. Still, when that old Sneezer makes up his mind he usually has his way. If I were you, I’d take the boy and leave.”
“Leave?” quavered Terrybubble tremulously.
“Yes, leave,” said Pansy solemnly. “You have the Wizard’s umbrella. It will carry you safely down to Oz. We are right over Oz now and once you reach Oz, you and Speedy can apply to Princess Ozma for
help.”
“But what about the little girl?” Terrybubble’s eyes rolled round and round.
“Oh Waddy will think up a way to save her, and
anyway that’s not your affair,” the Watch Cat told him carelessly. “After all, her father injured the giant and she must pay the penalty.”
“But that giant might hurt her,” worried Terrybubble, waving his claws about anxiously. “Oh my dear self. This is as bad as a Mogger and yesterday we were all so dythrambic and gay.”
“Better leave,” advised Pansy, backing away.
“when things go thus, both thus and so, ‘Tis best to bow-meouw and GO!”
“I couldn’t meouw,” sighed Terrybubble as the Watch Cat disappeared in the shadowy leaves. “But I could snort and rumble and jump off the island. I’ll do it,” he muttered, gritting his teeth in a determined manner. “I’ll take the boy and go to Oz now.”
Shuffling rapidly back to the south wing of the castle, Terrybubble boldly thrust his head in the first window he came to, and as so often happens when we least expect it, found he was at last in the right room. Fast asleep in the canopied bed lay Speedy, dreaming happily of rocket planes, water guns and a marvelous journey to Lost Forest.
Squeezing his head, shoulder blades and claws through the open window, the dinosaur cleverly
picked up all the clothing in sight and stowed it in an orderly fashion in the left side of his hollow chest. Then folding the little boy lightly in the blue quilt, he picked him up and tenderly placed him on top of the clothing. Speedy stirred, murmured and flung out his arms, but did not waken, and Terrybubble as quietly as possible started away from the castle.
He had almost reached the royal terrace when another splendid idea occurred to him, and hurrying back to the south wing, he thrust his head inquiringly in the window on the balcony next to the King’s apartment. Again he was r
ight, and again he had found the person for whom he was looking. Gureeda, sleeping as soundly as Speedy, was curled up on her canopied couch. Having had by this time some experience, it took Terrybubble scarcely any time to transfer the little Princess in her satin coverlet, sixteen books, six complete outfits and her parasol, to the right side of his capacious chest. Resting comfortably on the heaps of soft garments, neither of the children wakened, and with a long sigh of satisfaction, Terrybubble set out for the island’s edge.
Pansy was sitting on the gold gate at the foot of the King’s garden to see him off, and if she noticed two figures instead of one, she made no comment.
“I’ve helped you,” purred the Watch Cat proudly. “I’ve turned the wheel so that the island is directly over Oz. Don’t puncture yourself on a castle spire.”
“No danger,” whispered Terrybubble with a rather grim smile. “I’m nothing but punctures already.” Fumbling with the enormous umbrella, he finally got it up, and opening the gate walked rather uncertainly to the edge of the island.
“Wish I were going,” sighed Pansy, stepping daintily along beside him. “But you never can depend on the cream in strange countries, and besides some one must stay here and look after Sizzer. He’s an old fool, but I’m very fond of him. By the way, any last messages to inquiring friends?”
Pansy’s melancholy question so upset poor Terrybubble that he almost lost his balance, but shaking his head in a dignified manner, he swung the umbrella over his shoulder and with a reckless wave of his left claw sprang bravely off into space!
CHAPTER 16
Terrybubble in Bad Company
Now you have all, doubtless, fallen asleep, but tell me, have you ever fallen awake?
For that is precisely what happened to Speedy and the Princess when Terrybubble took his bold leap from Umbrella Island.
Feeling exactly as if they had unexpectedly pitched down the steep slide of a scenic railway, both sprang up and with two muffled screams stared wildly at each other and then out at the swirling black darkness into which they were so unaccountably plunging.
The eyes of Terrybubble cast two bright streaks of phosphorescent radiance back upon them, and Speedy, first to realize they were being carried off by the dinosaur, pounded desperately on Terrybubble’s ribs.
“Stop! Stop!” he panted. “Where are you going? What have you done?”
“I’m jumping to Oz. I’m saving you from a giant,” whistled Terrybubble, turning his head around and nodding it reassuringly at the small figures huddled in their satin quilts.
“But there are no giants on Umbrella Island,” gasped Speedy, noting with relief that Terrybubble had the enormous umbrella made by the Wizard over his head.
“Yes, but there are going to be,” Terrybubble told
him darkly. “You don’t know it, but this Princess girl does. A giant is coming to take her because her father hit him in the head with Umbrella Island and you were to be turned over to him instead of Gureeda. That’s why they gave you all those fine clothes, my boy. That’s why everyone was so nice to us. We were to be thrown like bones to a giant.”
Now all this conversation, more or less interrupted and blown about by the wind, was so astonishing to Speedy that he sank down on his pile of silk costumes. But Gureeda, even more astonished, sprang indignantly to her feet.
“Why, Terrybubble, who ever told you such a story?” she called up angrily. “A giant is coming, but Waddy was working on a plan to save me, and my father and I wouldn’t ever have let Speedy take my place. Why, Terrybubble, I’m ashamed of you!”
“It wasn’t your father’s idea,” mumbled the dinosaur, mournfully. “It was the idea of that old man who wanted to break me up into buttons. I overheard him telling the King about it tonight. It’s all settled, I tell you, and the parashooters have orders to shove me off the island!”
Terrybubble’s voice carried such conviction that even Gureeda was silenced, and covering her face with both hands she began to cry softly to herself.
“Now, now, don’t you care.” Speedy leaned over and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “The giant won’t get either of us and I don’t believe you knew anything about Kachewka’s fine scheme. Terrybubble doesn’t either, or he wouldn’t have brought you along. Look! We’re falling slower now and when we land we’ll be in Oz. Remember? You said you wanted to go to Oz.”
“Yes,” sniffed Gureeda, peering rather uncertainly between her fingers, “but not this way. Oh, Speedy, do you really think I’d have let them give you to a
giant?”
“Of course not.” The little boy spoke vehemently. “Now look, Gureeda, we’re not so badly off. I had to go to Oz anyway and it will be lots more fun having you along and Terrybubble brought our clothes and even some books for you. He’s not such a bad old planner after all, and he can carry us anywhere we want to go.”
“But where will we go?” sniffed Gureeda, wiping her eyes on the corner of the silk quilt and trying to glimpse through Terrybubble’s ribs the shadowy country beneath them.
“We ought to come down near the Emerald City, whatever that is,” announced the dinosaur complacently. “Pansy turned the island in that direction.”
“She did! Good old Pansy! I believe everything is going to turn out just right,” declared Speedy, clasping his knees and adjusting himself calmly to the surging motion of Terrybubble’s parashoot.
“The Watch Cat will tell your father where we are, and once we reach the Emerald City, Ozma of Oz will pretty soon fix that giant especially if he’s an Oz giant.”
“Oh, he is!” explained Gureeda eagerly, “and Loxo’s so enormous that even Terrybubble would look like a tiny mouse beside him.”
“But I am not going to be beside him,” said Terrybubble placidly. “That’s why I jumped off the island.”
“Seems to me the ground’s getting nearer,” said Speedy, rolling over on his stomach and squinting curiously down through the spaces between Terrybubble’s ribs. “We must have gone a bit off the course, for I don’t see the towers or lights of the Emerald City anywhere.”
“What do you see?” questioned the Princess
eagerly.
“Well, it looks like a mountain! There we’ve missed it very nicely and are coming down at the foot. Hold on to a rib, we’re going to bump.”
There was indeed a severe bump, as Terrybubble and his umbrella hit the soft earth and his bones rattled like loose window shutters in a wind, for several minutes afterwards. His passengers were badly tossed about, too, but when the excitement subsided and Speedy took stock of the situation, he found no real damage had been done. Following his orders, Terrybubble lowered his umbrella and hung it on a nearby tree, and by the light of his phosphorus eyes the two children saw that they had come down near the mouth of an immense cave.
Begging the Princess to stay where she was and try to get a little more sleep, Speedy slipped on a pair of the boots Terrybubble had brought along and slid down the long vine to the ground. There was no moon and even with the dinosaur’s eyes shining like street lamps over his head, it was still too dark to explore the cave, so Speedy, after a little reconnoitering, sat down with his back to a soft rock impatiently waiting for morning.
He must have dozed off while he was waiting, for when a sudden tickling behind his ear awakened him, he saw Gureeda was dangling a long leafy branch before his nose. The Princess had put on the gayest costume Terrybubble had packed in his chest and
her usual good spirits and gaiety seemed fully restored. She had also brought down a book for herself and a suit for Speedy. So retiring to the cave, he hastily dressed himself and prepared for the day’s adventures.
Leaving the exploration of the cave until later, they began to look around for something to eat. At the foot of the mountain were great clusters of berry bushes and to the right a small stream cut through the meadows before them like a rippling silver ribbon.
“Little Enough River,” said the sign swinging from a birch tree on the
bank, and as it was indeed little enough to hop across, they amused themselves for several minutes in this sprightly fashion, especially Terrybubble, who felt very jolly and dythrambic since his escape from Kachewka.
The mountain behind them and the countryside before them were so fresh and green that Speedy felt the Emerald City could not be far away, and after he and Gureeda had quenched their thirst in Little Enough River and satisfied their hunger with the fragrant berries, he suggested that they walk around to the other side of the mountain. They had quite a time getting Terrybubble to come. He had discovered some ferns on the river bank and was trying his best to roll in them. But when you are
twenty times as large as, an elephant and have only bones to roll, it is an extremely difficult matter, and fearful lest he crack a rib, Speedy finally persuaded him to give up the idea and come along.
On a smooth slab of rock part way round they found the mountain’s name. “Big Enough Mountain,” read Speedy thoughtfully. “Well, it is pretty
big.”
“Yes, but big enough for what?” queried Terrybubble, waving; his claws argumentatively. “Big enough for what?”
Speedy did not have to answer, for coming just then to the other side of the mountain, they saw two great feet, as long as schooners, resting against the rocks. Above the feet were two tremendous legs above the legs a giant, sitting on the mountain top, a telescope glued to his right eye. Now naturally, they did not see all of these things at once, but one look at those enormous boots had been sufficient to send them springing away from the mountain side.
Terrybubble, like a mother hen defending her chicks, ran in frantic circles around Speedy and Gureeda and then, pouncing on them with a little moan, thrust them desperately into his chest and started at a fast clip for other and far away places.
It was while he was running that Speedy noticed the giant’s telescope, and Gureeda the big black and blue spot on the ogre’s forehead.
