Read Online Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Danielle Paige
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worked,” I said.
“It worked. Misdirection’s not that powerful, but it will do the job. It won’t hide us from them totally; it just makes us easy to overlook. They’ll simply be distracted every time they look in our direction. Trust me.”
The thing is, I was having a really hard time concentrating on what she was saying. But I got the idea.
Crossing the flying road was like trying to walk on a breeze. It rippled and dipped and swayed back and forth, and every time you lifted your foot you had to wonder if there would be anything under it when you put it back down.
Ollie was fine: he went scampering on ahead on all fours as easily as if we were still on solid ground. Indigo didn’t have too much trouble either. She was so squat and compact that it would take a wrecking ball to knock her over. But I was neither a monkey nor a Munchkin and I had to stretch my arms out at my sides and consider each step carefully.
I didn’t look down. I just kept my eyes on the road; the bricks yellower than ever against the dull gray of the sky.
Well, I tried to. Unfortunately, it’s hard to keep your eye trained on a moving target. Every time the narrow swath of road shifted, it revealed the water a million feet below us and still as menacing as ever. I didn’t know which would be worse: the fall, or what would be waiting for me underneath the surface of the nasty, slimy river.
With every step, I wanted to panic. I wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and hug my legs to my knees and give up. But I didn’t do any of those things.
Tornado or no tornado, a girl from Kansas doesn’t let much get to her. So I set my fear aside, put one foot in front of the other, and as the road carried me high into the sky, I felt myself becoming less and less afraid. I wasn’t going to let anything as stupid as a breeze or a few wobbly bricks knock me off my feet.
That’s what it means to be from the prairie. It was something I had in common with Dorothy.
I knew exactly how high up I was when I felt my fingertips scraping clouds.
After my dad left, my mom and I would watch Wheel of Fortune every night after dinner. I wasn’t very good at it, but my mom always guessed the answer before the contestants. At the end of each episode, Pat would thank their sponsors, and as he reminded us about the joys of Flying the Friendly Skies, an airplane would drift across the screen, bound for Sunny Aruba or Fabulous Orlando or wherever, floating in slow motion across a sunset-pink landscape of fluffy clouds.
I didn’t like the idea of airplanes, and I didn’t really want to go to Orlando anyway. But I’d always wondered what it would be like to touch a cloud.
Now I knew the answer to that, at least when it came to Oz clouds. It turned out they were just as soft and fluffy as they looked on Wheel of Fortune , as solid as cotton balls, but they were nothing you’d want to curl up and take a nap on. Every time my fingers grazed one, it sent an icy shock up my arm and down my spine into my toes. Some of them were as small as party balloons and others were as big as couch cushions, and soon they were so thick in the air that I had to swat them out of my path in order to keep moving.
Meanwhile, I could hear monkeys screeching, getting louder and louder. They were so close that I could feel their wings flapping just inches above my head. Every now and then I’d hear a scream so loud it straightened my spine. The sour smell of monkey breath filled my nostrils.
But Indigo’s spell had worked. They were close enough to touch, but the monkeys were ignoring me, acting like I wasn’t even there.
Finally the road began to curl in on itself, rising up in a steep, tight coil until I came to the top and stepped onto a small, circular platform twice as wide around as a hula hoop. This was the top. I was so high up that even the monkeys were beneath me now. It was all downhill from here. Literally: on the far edge of the platform, the yellow road
“It worked. Misdirection’s not that powerful, but it will do the job. It won’t hide us from them totally; it just makes us easy to overlook. They’ll simply be distracted every time they look in our direction. Trust me.”
The thing is, I was having a really hard time concentrating on what she was saying. But I got the idea.
Crossing the flying road was like trying to walk on a breeze. It rippled and dipped and swayed back and forth, and every time you lifted your foot you had to wonder if there would be anything under it when you put it back down.
Ollie was fine: he went scampering on ahead on all fours as easily as if we were still on solid ground. Indigo didn’t have too much trouble either. She was so squat and compact that it would take a wrecking ball to knock her over. But I was neither a monkey nor a Munchkin and I had to stretch my arms out at my sides and consider each step carefully.
I didn’t look down. I just kept my eyes on the road; the bricks yellower than ever against the dull gray of the sky.
Well, I tried to. Unfortunately, it’s hard to keep your eye trained on a moving target. Every time the narrow swath of road shifted, it revealed the water a million feet below us and still as menacing as ever. I didn’t know which would be worse: the fall, or what would be waiting for me underneath the surface of the nasty, slimy river.
With every step, I wanted to panic. I wanted to sit down in the middle of the road and hug my legs to my knees and give up. But I didn’t do any of those things.
Tornado or no tornado, a girl from Kansas doesn’t let much get to her. So I set my fear aside, put one foot in front of the other, and as the road carried me high into the sky, I felt myself becoming less and less afraid. I wasn’t going to let anything as stupid as a breeze or a few wobbly bricks knock me off my feet.
That’s what it means to be from the prairie. It was something I had in common with Dorothy.
I knew exactly how high up I was when I felt my fingertips scraping clouds.
After my dad left, my mom and I would watch Wheel of Fortune every night after dinner. I wasn’t very good at it, but my mom always guessed the answer before the contestants. At the end of each episode, Pat would thank their sponsors, and as he reminded us about the joys of Flying the Friendly Skies, an airplane would drift across the screen, bound for Sunny Aruba or Fabulous Orlando or wherever, floating in slow motion across a sunset-pink landscape of fluffy clouds.
I didn’t like the idea of airplanes, and I didn’t really want to go to Orlando anyway. But I’d always wondered what it would be like to touch a cloud.
Now I knew the answer to that, at least when it came to Oz clouds. It turned out they were just as soft and fluffy as they looked on Wheel of Fortune , as solid as cotton balls, but they were nothing you’d want to curl up and take a nap on. Every time my fingers grazed one, it sent an icy shock up my arm and down my spine into my toes. Some of them were as small as party balloons and others were as big as couch cushions, and soon they were so thick in the air that I had to swat them out of my path in order to keep moving.
Meanwhile, I could hear monkeys screeching, getting louder and louder. They were so close that I could feel their wings flapping just inches above my head. Every now and then I’d hear a scream so loud it straightened my spine. The sour smell of monkey breath filled my nostrils.
But Indigo’s spell had worked. They were close enough to touch, but the monkeys were ignoring me, acting like I wasn’t even there.
Finally the road began to curl in on itself, rising up in a steep, tight coil until I came to the top and stepped onto a small, circular platform twice as wide around as a hula hoop. This was the top. I was so high up that even the monkeys were beneath me now. It was all downhill from here. Literally: on the far edge of the platform, the yellow road
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