Saturday, February 15, 2020

This Week's Oz Short Story

The second story in the 2010 half of the 2009/2010 double flipbook edition of Oziana is "Fiddle's Revenge" by Arianna Brown, with illustrations by Dennis Anfuso. This takes place not long after the events of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with the Scarecrow on the throne of the Emerald City and the flying monkeys enjoying their newly won freedom. Prince Kuku drops the Golden Cap in the heart of the forest, however, and none of the flying monkeys are brave enough to get it, thinking there's no way anybody could find it anyway. Unfortunately, they're wrong, in that Fiddle, the son of the giant spider slain by the Cowardly Lion, is there. He uses the monkeys to exact revenge for his mother's death! While he's tying up the Lion, however, Kuku slips away and goes to the Scarecrow, asking for his help. The Scarecrow's plan? Poppies! He gathers as many poppies from that poppy field as he can, and drops them over Fiddle, causing him to sleep. Not wanting to kill him, the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and king of the Flying Monkeys tell him that, now he is the new ing of the forest, he has to pass a test that involves him giving something away (the only thing Fiddle has is the Golden Cap), and then spend the night in the Deadly Desert before returning home on his own. And that's the last they end up seeing of him.

It's a little brief, and the ending is abrupt. It's implied that Fiddle can survive in the desert—remember, this was before the desert was known to turn living creatures to dust—and would prefer it there. But maybe, some day, Fiddle will leave the desert and come back to Oz to exact even more revenge.

While we're at it, the only extras for this issue are the two covers. The 2009 cover is "Lifting the Curtain" by Charnelle Pinkney, and it depicts Toto lifting an emerald green curtain to show his old home in Kansas. The 2010 cover is "The Queen and Her Court" by Tim Art-McLaughlin, and shows Ozma and some of her famous friends.

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