Dorothy Must Die 00.5 - The Straw King by Danielle Paige

Author:Danielle Paige
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-10-07T04:00:00+00:00

TEN

Scare was on the post again. His legs and arms were bound. All he could see in every direction were fields of corn. And crows.

One

Two

Three

Four.

They each landed on him and began their cawing and pecking—Stupid Scare . . . Stupid Scare . . . Stupid Scare . . .

Scare awoke with a start. The crows weren’t real. He wasn’t back on the post again, his arms and legs unable to move. Back then, he’d spent day after day, night after night wishing he had more to occupy himself than counting the crows that perched on him. They were not at all afraid of him. And they were not his friends either. He had longed for two things back—friendship and a brain—and now he had both, he reminded himself with a sigh that rustled his straw.

Lion snored as loudly as a steam engine, and there was no escaping the noise that filled the clearing that served as his throne room. His snores were echoed by the cacophonous breathing of Lulu’s winged monkeys, who sprawled out across the ground sound asleep. The noise was awful. But it was a relief compared to the dream.

All the same, the Scarecrow’s heart sank when the first rays of dawn flooded the forest. No matter how convincing Glinda’s arguments had been, the fact remained that his friends—and he—were headed into danger, and some of them would not survive. There was no way around it, he told himself firmly. He could no more have prevented it than he could have changed the time the sun rose and set every day.

Cornelius rushed into the clearing at the break of dawn, wearing a shiny, fringed chain mail shirt and banging vigorously on a rabbit-sized drum. “To arms!” he shouted. “To arms!” The sleeping monkeys stirred, and more animals began to file into the clearing. These were the soldiers Cornelius had picked out, the Scarecrow realized: they were the fiercest and most intimidating of the Lion’s subjects, wildcats and badgers and several wolves, one of whom was already licking chops bloodied by whatever unfortunate creature it had eaten for breakfast. They all eyed the winged monkeys warily, and for a brief moment the Scarecrow wondered what would happen if they refused to be carried.

But the Lion explained Lulu’s plan quickly, and everyone seemed to agree. Each of the Lion’s warriors paired up with a monkey. The Lion was so large that it took two monkeys to lift him.

“I’ll take you,” Lulu barked to the Scarecrow. Lulu was the smallest of the winged monkeys, and the Scarecrow was the lightest of everyone attacking the castle, since he was only made of straw, so he could hardly argue. But he wasn’t happy about being paired with the brash, obnoxious little monkey. Lulu grabbed his shoulders unceremoniously and lurched upward, flapping her wings wildly. “Let’s go!” she yelled. “No dillydallying on my watch!”

All around them, the monkeys launched into the air, most of them with far more grace than Lulu had managed. A

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