The Ozzie Bears [a story]

Once upon a time, probably about 74 years ago, there were three brown bears, and they were foraging. And they crossed the woods, avoiding the coal plant, and there was Dorothy, fresh in from Kansas, USA, looking frankly bewildered. Her long, dark hair was messy, as if blown by a harsh wind. She wore a blue-and-white, checkered prairie dress and sensible shoes. And she said, “I think we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” obviously addressing the uncomprehending, brown terrier by her side.

And the oldest and largest bear, being a bear, and surly, as they sometimes are, said, “No kidding, genius.”

“Huh!” said a startled Dorothy. “Where I come from, bears don’t talk.” Dorothy had, in fact, never encountered any bear in her short life, so this was a rather foolish thing to say. However, the bears did not know this.

The youngest and smallest one asked, “Why not?”

“They just don’t, that’s all.”

To Middle Bear this seemed unlikely. Most of the bears she’d known in her youth, and, being a bear herself, she’d known many (though not in recent years), could never shut up. But she did not contest the point. Instead, licking her chops, she said, “You have some food for us?”

“Why, I have no food. I did not mean to leave home and did not take any.” But then she saw that the bears, all of them now, were looking at Toto. “Toto’s not food!” she whimpered. “Toto’s a pet!” She picked up Toto and clutched him tightly, so that the little pup’s attempts to squirm away were foiled. The bears wondered at this. Could a pet not be food? Was there not something called “pet food”? Evidently, where this young human came from, pets were not edible. And so the three bears turned their gaze away from Toto and toward Dorothy herself.

Dorothy had, thus far, forgotten to be scared of these large bears, after having seen them speak. Surely one who spoke to you, even in an accent so strange, would not eat you. In fact, Dorothy had spoken to the plants in the field when her aunt and Toto were not around, and then later she had eaten parts of those same plants, but, now forgetting this, she did not immediately grasp the flaw in her own logic. But she did note the hungry looks the bears gave her, the kinds of looks that had not before been directed her way, except perhaps by the Johnston boy next door when they were picking corn together. Nervously, she said that she needed to get back to her home in Kansas and asked whether there might not be a bus or railroad station nearby.

“Oh, there is a bus station, and a railway station, and a tram stop, but they are not so close, and the day is late, and there are no more departures today,” Middle Bear said with a suddenly ingratiating tone. “Why not take some respite at our cottage, which is very close? You’ll rest up and we’ll have you for supper.” Lost and cold, and with no pay phone in sight, Dorothy weighed her options. None came to mind, and so she reluctantly agreed to accompany the three of them.

And they skirted around the coal plant, and crossed the woods, and ambled between the fields of wheat, where a scarecrow stood above the sheaves. Youngest Bear asked, not for the first time, why the man never seemed to move. “Scarecrow. He’s a scarecrow,” Oldest Bear said wearily.

Dorothy thought the scarecrow bore an odd resemblance to Hunk Johnston, the handyman on her uncle’s farm who sometimes picked corn with her. “If he only had a brain,” she ruminated, “perhaps he could tell me how to get back to Kansas.” For, even in her naïveté, she was beginning to distrust the bears’ implied assertion that they knew the location of a bus or railroad station.

At length they came to a highway. It was a dusty, dirt road, with nothing to distinguish it from the roads back home, save for a large yellow brick to one side. The brick had the number 40 on it. What a strange sort of mile post, Dorothy thought. “What if we follow this road,” she wondered aloud. “Might it not lead to Kansas?”

“Enough of this prattle about Kansas,” Middle Bear implored. “We know nothing of Kansas.”

“Oh, it’s my home. There’s no place like it. It’s —”                                           

 But Oldest Bear growled at her, and she went silent.

They continued on for some time, and through more woods, until they came to the opening of a cave. At the entrance was a hook-like protuberance on which was hanging a little red coat and riding hood. Dorothy did not think these belonged to the bears, as the bears were not wearing any coats when she had come upon them, nor indeed any clothes at all.

“This doesn’t look like a cottage,” Dorothy murmured. She was beginning to regret her decision to follow the three bears but, having committed to this course, entered with them.

They went through a tunnel and then came upon a large open area. High above them, a small hole in the cave ceiling let light in. There was some old furniture and other signs of habitation. They had arrived.

“How about some porridge?” said Youngest Bear.

“No porridge,” grunted Oldest Bear. “Someone ate the porridge.”

“Who?” But no one answered Youngest Bear’s question.

“The cupboard is bare. What might we eat?” asked Middle Bear.

“We’ll boil water and see,” replied Oldest Bear. He then hauled an enormous cast-iron pot from behind a hidden wall and placed it in the hearth while Youngest Bear went to fetch water.

While they waited, Oldest Bear sat in the largest chair and began filing his claws. Middle Bear sat in the second largest chair and began re-reading The Magic Pudding. Wombat was her favorite character, though she could not abide those festering, fetid creatures in the flesh.

After venturing back and forth to the water hole 40 times, Youngest Bear was able to fill the cauldron with water. He then went to sit in the smallest chair, but then stopped. “Someone’s been sitting in my chair!” he whimpered. For he could see that there was a tear in the fabric of the seat that he had not made.

Meanwhile, a nervous Dorothy had been standing for some time. “I can repair that chair!” she burst out, and quickly withdrew a needle from the folds of her dress. Permission being granted, she plucked a stray thread from the underside of the upholstery and in ten minutes had the chair looking as new.

Now the water in the pot began to warm with the heat of the fire. Oldest bear placed some parsnips in the water. Middle Bear added something that looked like yams. Youngest bear added some leaves and some berries. Dorothy wondered whether something else might be added later. Middle Bear stirred the ingredients with a long spoon, reaching to the back of the enormous pot. But then she dropped the spoon; it fell behind the enormous pot to the back of the large hearth. “That’s most unfortunate,” she said, for she could not reach the back of the hearth. Nor could Oldest Bear, who was even larger than she. Nor, even, could Youngest Bear, who was small but round and could not quite squeeze in the space between the pot and the wall. With the 40 buckets of water in the enormous pot, it could no longer be lifted, and taking the water out, with nowhere to put it, would mean having to make 40 more trips to the water hole and waiting once more for the water to reheat. “Necessity dictates invention,” said Middle Bear, “A stick will have to suffice.” She would figure out later how to serve the stew.

“I can reach that spoon!” Dorothy then exclaimed. Without pause, she carefully squeezed into the space at the edge of the hearth, holding herself against the wall and her dress against her legs, away from the hot coals. Within five minutes, she placed the spoon in Middle Bear’s paws.

                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Toto, all this time, had been napping against a limestone formation. But suddenly, he awoke and sprinted toward the cave entrance. Dorothy, afraid of losing him, gave chase, while Oldest Bear, afraid of losing her, trailed behind. They followed Toto into the bright opening. Toto suddenly stopped before a large pile of bones, whereupon Dorothy was able to scoop him into her arms. As she stood there, wondering how far away she was from home, Oldest Bear ambled toward her with some rapidity but, just before reaching her, pulled up short and howled in a most frightening fashion. He then rolled over, such that Dorothy, having turned back toward the cave opening, was forced to scamper out of his way. He began earnestly to pull at his left foot, without any apparent relief of his suffering, until finally he lay listlessly there at the opening. Gingerly approaching, Dorothy could see the source of his torment—a nail had been driven into his paw.

Summoning her courage, she said, “I can take that out!” She grabbed two pieces of limestone and placed one on each side of the nail. Squeezing them together, she was gradually able to pry the iron spike from the sole. Within three minutes, she had removed it. Oldest Bear would have wept with joy, were bears able to weep. He felt an unfamiliar sense of gratitude and spontaneously changed the dinner plans. He invited Dorothy to partake of the stew.

Apart from desiring not to offend her intimidating hosts, she was quite hungry, and sat down with them, albeit on the floor, there being no surplus of chairs. After swallowing three spoonfuls of greyish broth, she was certain that, of all soups she had ever tasted, this was surely the very worst. Even Auntie Em’s corn cob soup with raisins was less objectionable. Toto, offered his own portion of the foul stew, discreetly vomited afterward, but the culinary judgments of a mutt could not reasonably be the subject of offense, and none was taken.

The unpleasant repast now consumed, Dorothy engaged Middle Bear in a game of chess and Youngest Bear in a game of hide and seek. There were an astonishing number of hiding spaces. The hour grew late. Promises were made to escort Dorothy to the railroad station the next day; meanwhile, all parties retired to an alcove she had somehow failed to notice during the games. Oldest Bear liked to lay down right against the limestone wall, cold and hard though it seemed to Dorothy. Middle Bear preferred a nook filled with soft straw. Too soft, Dorothy thought. Youngest Bear had for his slumber a large mattress, which seemed just right to Dorothy, and she was offered its use. Feeling slightly less gratitude than his elders, Youngest Bear asked why young human females must always sleep in his bed, but received no answer.

And so, first thing in the morning the three bears and Dorothy set off. “Yes, yes,” said Oldest Bear, leading them out of the cave and back into the forest. “This way.” He had no idea where they were going but was too proud to admit it. Middle Bear supposed he did not know where they were going, but did not wish to ruffle his dignity by asking. Additionally, she also was unfamiliar with the location of a railway station, having heard about such a thing only from a previous and unfortunate visitor. However, in time they came again to the highway they had encountered the day before, the one with the brick markers. Oldest Bear assumed that this must lead to the station, and so they followed the yellow-brick road, although none of them actually knew whether they were headed in the right direction.

Another half hour went by with nothing but more road and more yellow bricks. The roadside was dry and dusty. Dorothy clicked her heels together three times to expel the dirt from under her stockings. She had tried to ask how much farther the station was, but the bears had merely grunted and pretended not to understand the question, and the only human they had seen was a shepherd who had run screaming at the sight of them and immediately withdrew behind a gated fence. A lonely house finally appeared. When she espied a man there standing by an automobile, she hurried ahead of the bears, toting Toto, and walked up to him. He was a tall, slender man wearing a fine suit. He had a highball in his hand and was staring at the engine of a fine-looking black-and-white Packard. “Good morning,” he said. “Looks like you two might be lost.” Toto immediately began barking; a return bark came from inside the house.

“I’m trying to find the railroad station, Mr. …”

“Powell’s the name, William Powell. But you can call me Nick,” said the thin man.

“I’m Dorothy. Pleased to meet you.”

“Dorothy? I had an important client by that name a few years back.”

“Oh, and what do you do?”

“Drink too much, I suppose, but right now I’m trying to get this car started. I’m afraid that station is a long ways off, traveling on foot. Might be walking myself if I can’t figure out what’s wrong with this old rust bucket.”

At that, Dorothy said that she could fix the vehicle in exchange for a ride and train fare to Kansas. The thin man didn’t have the heart to tell her that no train could take her to Kansas from where they were. So he told her it was a fair offer, but declined. But she implored, “Don’t you think I can do it?” and he relented. Besides, he needed his car fixed. Sure enough, in under an hour she had it in working order. Uncle Henry’s insistence on teaching her to take apart and repair his old flivver had taught her to recognize a clogged carburetor when she saw one.

The bears had meanwhile breakfasted on cold leftover stew they had taken along and some macadamia fruit and green apples Youngest Bear had gathered from the forest. They were now lolling about nearby under the only shade tree in the vicinity. Dorothy walked over to them to thank them and say good-bye.

When he heard that Dorothy would be traveling in a stylish roadster, Youngest Bear wished to come along, but Middle Bear stated that that would be a poor idea and was not something bears did. Oldest bear grunted in agreement, then withdrew from their picnic basket a pair of deep red, slipper-style shoes. “We don’t need these. Take them,” he said, placing them back in the wicker basket. So she did, and thanked them for the gift and their hospitality. Though pleased to be getting his bed back, Youngest Bear hugged Dorothy.

She walked back to where the car was standing. “You’d best drive,” said Nick.

They mostly passed dust and dirt and grass and sheep. Dorothy thought that if the sheep had been cows, it would have looked like Kansas. She told Nick how Auntie Em had wanted to send Toto away just because he had bitten that old crone Mrs. Gulch who lived nearby. Mrs. Gulch acted like she’d almost lost a leg, when it was just a nip, and only because Mrs. Gulch had swatted Toto with a newspaper for doing his business on her rose bushes. Dorothy hoped a house had fallen on that wicked witch. She told him how Hunk Johnston had once chased her around a ping pong table after drinking a lot of beer. Nick said that reminded him of one of his cases. A case of wine, she’d supposed, but it seemed he had been a private detective.

“So what’s a nice gal like you doing with a bunch of bears?” said Nick.

“So what’s a city swell doing living on a roadside?” Dorothy retorted. Neither of them answered the other. Instead, Nick told her about dinner parties he’d hosted in San Francisco with his wife, Nora. Dorothy decided he was more interesting than just about any of the folks back home.

At last the landscape changed. There was a golf course, and more houses, and purveyors of food along the roadside. They could see larger buildings in the distance. It reminded Dorothy of Topeka, where she had once traveled with a cousin to purchase a used reaper. But as they drew closer to the heart of the city, she could see it was even larger than that. They crossed a majestic bridge, the largest she had ever seen, then drove along a wide boulevard with numerous business establishments and important-looking structures. And then they came to the rail station. Soberly, Nick wished her luck and handed her a wad of strange-looking banknotes, which she stuffed in one of the red shoes.

Upon getting out of the car, Dorothy turned to the station, but Toto clearly wanted to go in the opposite direction. When Dorothy looked more carefully, she could see the entrance to an enormous fair. “Sesquicentennial Celebration,” a sign read. She could see carnival booths and food stands and buskers, as well as the largest Ferris Wheel she had ever seen. It looked wondrous, it was early, and the train could wait. And so she wandered about the place. Almost immediately, Toto guided her toward the animal exhibits. Tamer animals like goats and emus wandered behind shorter fences, while enormous cages contained those that were more dangerous. In one, monkeys flew between two trees that were in the cage. In another was a lion, although oddly, the animal moved away at Toto’s approach, as if afraid. The last cage, labeled “North American Brown Bears,” was unoccupied. When Dorothy asked one of the workers were the bears were, he just shrugged. But a boy near her whispered, “Ran away, they did. Escaped.”

Unsure of whether she had been given enough excess cash to afford the rides and other enticements, Dorothy continued to walk and observe. She came upon a columned structure with a temporary banner. “The Emerald City,” read the banner. She heard musicians playing and entered to find an enormous ballroom bathed in green light. Refreshments were being sold and ordinary people danced to a band that Dorothy thought sounded just like Glenn Miller on the radio. Or possibly Larry Clinton. A pair of well-dressed young men looked in her direction. She inquired of a chaperone as to the location of a toilet and quickly changed into the ruby shoes the bears had given her. There were some golden hairs stuck to the insoles and heels, but after she brushed them off the shoes looked as good as new and seemed to brighten up the blue in her gingham dress. No sooner had she walked back to where people were dancing than one of the young men approached her.

 “I heard you talking to the chaperone. You a Yankee?” he asked.

“No, I’m from Kansas,” she replied. The boy looked at her oddly.

“Like to dance?” She did like to, but there was no one to watch Toto, and she was afraid he might run away and get lost in this enormous building. “Does he always come along with you, then, when you go out and such?” said the stranger, a sturdy-looking, fair-haired lad who looked to be 16 or so. Vaguely, she said she’d just blown into town and was trying to get home. “Well, perhaps we could walk over to the wizard’s exhibit then. Maybe he can give you directions.” The wizard, he explained, in an accent similar to that of the bears, was a man hired by the fair to tell fortunes, bestow magical powers, and other wonderful things. “All rubbish, of course.” But it sounded fun to Dorothy, and she agreed to go. “We’re off to see the Wizard, old bean,” the young man told his friend, and then they were.

The Wizard was to be found in a large tent in the center of the fair. A hulking attendant stood before the entrance. “Do you have an appointment?” he demanded. They did not. “You must have an appointment.” They asked when an appointment was available. “At 12:50,” said the attendant. It was 12:46. They decided to wait.

Exactly four minutes later, the attendant directed them inside. The Wizard was an imposing figure visible only as an outline, shrouded behind a curtain. As Dorothy approached, an amplified, male voice asked, “Who are you, and why have you come?” He sounded much like Oldest Bear.

“I’m Dorothy, and I’ve come to seek help in returning to Kansas.” She was beginning to suspect that no mere train would convey her to Kansas from this strange place.

“Where—Why should I help you?” boomed the voice of the Wizard.

“Isn’t that your job?” snapped Dorothy.

“Very well. Why do you want to go to Kansas?”

“It’s my home. I miss my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.” However, even as she said this, she was beginning to realize that she did not miss them that much.

“To get to Kansas, you must sail across the ocean. Or take a dirigible, possibly. That is all.”

Dorothy pondered his words. No one else approached the wizard. After a minute or so, the curtain parted and, not a bear, but a small, costumed old man stepped out. “Oh,” said the man, whose face was wrinkled, “thought you’d left. It’s my break.” At this point, Toto ran toward him and bit his leg. “Ouch,” said the man. Toto was too small to do much damage, but there was a visible tear in the Wizard’s gown. With ripped clothing and no curtain, he looked much less imposing than before.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sir. You must let me pay for the repair. How much do you think it will be?”

“Oh, no more than a quid, I’d say,” said the disheveled wizard.

Dorothy looked inside her basket at the wad of money in her shoe. She looked more closely at the bills, pound notes, five-pound notes, and even a few ten-pound notes, and read the lettering on them. She handed the man a one-pound note, hoping that was enough to buy a quid, whatever that was. She was beginning to realize it might cost a lot of money to get back to Kansas. As if to confirm the point, she asked, “Where am I?”
“Some call it Oz,” he said, pocketing the bill.

“Are you called Ozzians?”

“Ozzies. We’re Ozzies.”
 
Beaming in her blue-white gingham dress and ruby shoes, Dorothy smiled. When she thought about it, she didn’t miss home. There were probably a lot of places like it. Maybe better. It occurred to her that Nick had given her a goodly sum of money. Kansas could wait, she decided. She’d send Auntie Em and Uncle Henry a nice postcard. For a while, anyway, she would be an Ozzie too.