He had returned but he found himself more and more excluded from Ozma’s inner circle after a lukewarm reentry. “It’s *temporary*, dear,” she kept repeating to him. “I brought you back after all. You’re *here*; back in Oz, back to patrolling the Yellow Brick Road. And boy dear howdy that took some smooth talking to the inner council to get done,” she often reminded him. “So be *grateful*. You’re not out *there*.”
But it’s been months again, maybe years. When would his so called probation end here in the cornfield far away from a central power he was use to? Contemplation like this naturally led him to check the clock that always beats the times in his chest. 7:15 in Quadlingland, 3:15 in Munchkinland. And in the center, the middle, well: heartbreak.
He watched her slip away in the stalks, reminding him of that old Oklahoma song about a quirky little alien who comes to Earth and can’t get enough of corn, all types. He involuntarily begins to sing it in his head.
I like cornflakes, corndogs
I like corn bread and cornstarch
I like the band Korn and popcorn, I like all kinds of corn
ALL KINDS OF CORN!
He can’t recall the rest and, anyway, Ozma had already disappeared down the rows. Their meetings were almost as brief as in the Lost Forest when he was truly exiled. Now it’s still a false exile, an ostracizing by the rest. Scarecrow barely talked to him, feigning being constantly tied up with businesses of the mind. Lion similarly excused himself when encountering the famed metal being, saying he had to face down or have a tangle with this or that adversary who still lived some distance from wherever they were standing at the time. And Dorothy… he doesn’t even like to think of Dorothy.
—–
“I thought we were going to replace Dorothy with *me*,” spoke up the precious precocious child listening in on Marsha “Pink” Krakow’s latest version of her novel with a working title of “Lost Path of Oz,” changed from the earlier “Forgotten Road of Oz.” “After all, L. Frank Baum’s greatest goal was to please a child. And what better way to carry on that tradition than to cast me, a child as child can be, in the leading role of your book. Similarly, Vain and Artery Boyy replaces Lion, and Rock” — she looks over at him, dumbly counting the fingers on both hands over and over to make sure they’re the same on each — “well, we’ll work on him,” she admitted, sharing a smile with Pink about the irony.
“Maybe,” gleaned Pink, “maybe *you* should replace the Scarecrow, Toddles. And Rock can play Dorothy — you know what I mean.”
Toddles as the brains of the operation. She instantly likes! She automatically sees it is the right change to affect.
“No one is going to play ANYTHING until I get some ANSWERS!” Toddle’s grandma Alice Farrowheart had shown up at the reading in the so called Center Hole of Big Sandy. With a loaded shotgun.
Marsha quickly checked to see if this was in the book as well.
Sunklands 
