Then Lady Glinda had the most unfortunate experience of realizing—very slowly, picking up cues as if they were bug bites—that the residents of Zimmerstorm didn’t fuly believe the testimony of those who’d been dismissed from Mockbeggar. They harbored a suspicion that Lady Glinda was in colusion with the occupiers.

She could hardly blame them. She was Gilikinese herself, of course, and she had had high-ranking association with the Emerald City. And she couldn’t mount an explanation in public—former Throne Ministers didn’t do that. Besides, who would believe her? She just had to sit in stony silence as the cabbage-faced Munchkinlander hostess grunted and scowled and made as if to dump the tea in her lap. “A biscuit,” Glinda begged.

“No biscuits,” snapped the proprietress. “Your military friendsies scarfed ’em al up. For ’emselves.”

“Perhaps a roundlet of toast?” wondered Miss Murth.

The toast came about twenty minutes later. It had been burnt inedible. As burnt as the cotton fields.

“Perhaps a constitutional,” suggested Lady Glinda.

“That’s five farthings, Mum,” said Sour Peasant Woman.

Lady Glinda wasn’t in the habit of carrying coin. Miss Murth had none to carry. How embarrassing to have to petition Private Zackers to pay the establishment. I won’t make that mistake again, Glinda thought.

Stil, while Zackers was settling up, Glinda and Murth got ahead of him, across the vilage square. A miniature escape! Oh, hilarity.

“Into the lending library, Murthy,” said Glinda. “Quickly now. Move your arthritic hips or I’l run you down.”

The librarian was a retired Munchkin on a stool. She recognized him though she didn’t know his name. “I’m looking to borrow a book that can teach one the essentials of preparing a meal,” she said. “For dining, I mean. For human dining.”

“Books en’t going to teach that, Lady Glinda,” he said. “Mothers teach that. Closest I can help you with is a volume on animal husbandry, which has an ilustrated index on slaughtering your own livestock.”

“I think not,” she murmured. Turning, she saw a notice board behind his desk. A scrol was posted with nails. She peered at it. A crude drawing with a handwritten announcement. She hadn’t brought her reading glasses. “Miss Murth, can you decipher that message?” she asked.

Miss Murth could not. “You want something read, you should’ve brought Rain,” she said, somewhat cruely.

“I can read that for you, Lady Glinda,” said the librarian. “It says that the Clock of the Time Dragon is coming through in the next week or so, weather and the military situation permitting.”

“It looks like a chapel on wheels of some sort.”

“It’s an entertainment, Mum. Sort of a puppet show for adults. You en’t never seen it?”

“Nor heard of it.” She intended frost in her tone, but thought better of it. “My dear man, would you tel the managers of this traveling enterprise to make their way to Mockbeggar Hal? I do believe that if the soldiers had something to look forward to, we might keep them from doing any more damage than they have already done, for instance, today.” Luckily, this Munchkinlander wasn’t as suspicious as the tea-wife in the shop. “Can’t say them traveling clocksters wil listen to me,” he replied. “But I can pass on the word and see what they’l do. They operate with cheeky diplomatic immunity, far as I’ve heard. Cross these parts every few years, don’t matter if it’s Wicked Witch of the East or the old Eminent Thropp or that mean old Zombie Mombey in charge. They seem pretty fearless. I’l give ’em your message.”