[As we join the story in Chapter Two, Dorothy, Toto her dog, and Billina her hen are visiting Aunt Em and Uncle Henry on their new farm in the Munchkin Country of Oz. They have all been sharply awakened by a sudden movement of the entire house.]

The house seemed to have been transported to the center of a dense jungle. Gigantic leaves waved gently in the morning breeze like huge fans. Green trunks covered with fine hair rose higher than the roof of the house. Vines as thick as Dorothy’s leg wound everywhere. As the sun rose, Dorothy saw a short distance from the house parts of smooth red spheres nestled in the leafy growth. Farther off rose a jumble of small hills striped green and white.

A huge hairy leaf rested on the porch rail and nearly touched the floor of the porch. Toto sniffed at it cautiously. Then he took the edge between his jaws and shook it furiously. Uncle Henry stepped to the edge of the porch and crouched to examine something. The others gathered behind him.

A ray of light broke through the leaves, illuminating a half circle of orange that extended from beneath the porch.

"Carrot," said Uncle Henry. "It's the top of a giant carrot."

Dorothy moved down the porch looking over the rail. "Here, too, Uncle Henry," she said. "There's another over here! And another, and another! It's a whole row of carrots right under the porch." She pointed in a line past the porch. "I think it goes on, but I can't see much more--there are too many leaves and vines and..." Dorothy stopped. She turned to look at Uncle Henry who stood and turned to look at her.

Aunt Em fluttered her hands in the air. "Sakes, Henry, what is it?" Then she sucked in a quick breath and froze.

"It's the vegetable garden," said Dorothy. "The whole house has shrunk and it's sitting in the vegetable garden!"

"I don't believe that's quite it, Dorothy," said Uncle Henry. He stared at the first giant carrot and rubbed his brown scalp with one hand. "It's not the house that's shrunk. It's the vegetable garden that's grown." He pointed.

Squeezed between the carrot and a vine as thick as a tree-trunk were what they now recognized as huge greens of several onions.

"Why," said Aunt Em, "I've never in my life planted carrots and onions jammed so close that way. And if I had, I'd've thinned 'em out long ago."

"That's a fact, Em," said Uncle Henry. "For some reason all the vegetables in the garden grew giant overnight. Only thing is, there wasn't room for 'em all so they smashed up against each other." He squinted out into the tangle of greenery. "Looks to me as if our garden has spread out over the whole valley."

Dorothy remembered the rocking motion she had felt during the night. She leaned over the porch rail to peer into the tight, dark space between two giant carrots where they disappeared beneath the porch.

"Uncle Henry," said Dorothy, "I think the carrots squeezed upward as well as outward when they grew. I think the house has been raised from the ground."

Billina poked her head between the rail supports and turned to stare down between the giant carrots. "Mighty black down there," she said.

Uncle Henry went into the house and came out with a broom. He held the head of the broom and lowered the handle between the carrots. It met no resistance. He walked to the end of the porch and looked around the corner of the house.

Dorothy peered around her uncle. Instead of the barn, she saw a mass of splintered wood that littered the knobby surface of a gigantic squash.

Uncle Henry set the broom down and leaned gently against the house, staring at the blue-painted boards of the porch. He almost seemed to be splintering, just as surely as the barn had. "Maybe," he said, "maybe I'm just not cut out to be a farmer."

Aunt Em touched his sagging shoulder. "Henry..." she murmured. He did not look up.

Aunt Em turned to Dorothy. The sparkle in her aunt's eyes was gone. The old grayness that Dorothy hadn't seen for years rested there.

Dorothy realized as if for the first time that she had no memory of her real parents; there had always been only Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. She had loved them all her life. Now they needed help.

Dorothy looked at the giant garden that filled the valley. "This is magic," she said. "We need help from someone who understands it--the Wizard or maybe Glinda the Good. They could get rid of these vegetables, I'm sure, and make the farm as good as new."

"How can we reach them?" said Aunt Em.

"We could climb over the vegetables until we reach the end," said Dorothy.

"Not me," said Aunt Em. "I don't climb."

Uncle Henry's voice was tiny, as if an envelope of air surrounded him through which sound barely car-ried. "Climbing over these giant vegetables won't be so easy for someone who can't run a farm without a lot of magical help. And what if they begin growing again?"

"I'll go for help," said Billina. "I'm small enough to push through this jungle and if there are any gaps or other obstacles I'll just fly over."

Dorothy eyed Billina skeptically. "A hen--fly?"

"Well, I could flutter," said Billina, drawing herself to her full height. "I'm a champion flatterer. I'll cross this valley, head straight for the Emerald City, and alert the Wizard as soon as I arrive."

Dorothy shook her head. "You're too slow, Billina. We don't know why the garden grew like this and we don't know what else might happen--maybe something worse. We need help now. And we can't wait until Ozma thinks to look at us in the Magic Picture, or Glinda reads about us in her magic Book of Records."

Dorothy looked up at Aunt Em. "I can travel the quickest," she said, "and I'll bring help as fast as I can.”

"I'm coming with you," said Billina. "I won't let you make such a journey alone."

"I can't stop you, Billina," said Dorothy. "But I'm not sure you'll be able to keep up."

Toto rubbed his shaggy body against Dorothy's legs and whined.

"All right, Toto, you can come, too," she said, shaking her head and smiling.

She looked at her aunt and uncle uncertainly.

"Henry and I will be fine as long as we're together," said Aunt Em.

"Well, I mustn't waste any time," Dorothy said.

Continued in The Giant Garden of Oz
Copyright © 1993 Eric Shanower. All rights reserved.