The Hedgehog of Oz Read online

  A small and fuzzy robin sat under a bush not ten feet away.

  “Hello there,” Marcel called out to her. “Are you all right?”

  “Not really,” she’d answered, hopping over to him and explaining the story of her absent parents, her empty nest, and those troublesome, terrible worms.

  “That your nest there?” she’d asked, peering at the bicycle basket.

  And that’s when he’d seen it. The sign. The FOR SALE in bold lettering.

  That’s when the truth of the boy and the words of the bird made their way to his heart. Dorothy had chosen Ethan over Marcel. It was just a matter of time before he was replaced completely in her heart. It hadn’t taken long for Sweetie Jones. Would Marcel have a month? A week? A handful of days before he was pushed from the nest entirely?

  “You can stick with me, if you want,” said the bird. “We can look out for each other.”

  Now, to say that he’d been torn in that moment didn’t quite do it justice. To say he was torn like a velvet curtain in the rubble of a destroyed theater would’ve been close.

  He thought about Sweetie Jones, Ed, Darla Pickens, and Marty Henkle. He thought about the others and the Shirley River Animal Shelter.

  I should go, said a voice inside him. I should go before she does.

  And just like that, like the way a hard kernel instantly and irrevocably pops into a piece of popcorn, everything changed.

  He’d crawled out of the backpack. He’d followed the bird across the field toward a large hedge of honeysuckle. He remembered looking back at Dorothy one last time. Seeing her braids fly behind her as she chased after the soccer ball. Seeing her give Ethan a playful nudge and dissolve into laughter.

  She was so happy.

  In the end, that’s all he could’ve wanted for her.

  And he disappeared into the bush.

  He’d followed the bird through the honeysuckle. Past trees. Along a quiet path. At one point he thought he heard something. Far away. It almost sounded like…

  Was that his name? Was Dorothy calling his name?

  “Do you hear that?” he’d asked the bird. “I thought I heard Dorothy!” He felt dizzy. “I’ve made a mistake. I should go back!”

  But the bird shook her head. “Oh no. You can’t go back,” she assured him. “Once you leave the nest, you can never go back. That’s the rule.”

  Marcel hadn’t had time to question it, for at that very moment, a few kids on bicycles came whizzing down the path and nearly squashed him.

  The bird fluttered under a park bench, and Marcel ran to hide himself in a rosebush. He was shaking. He crouched there hoping to blend into the thorns until he could make his way back to Dorothy’s backpack. He’d made a mistake. He shouldn’t have wandered.

  But just then, a spaniel, sniffing around a tree not far away, hunting for whatever interesting smells he could find, caught a scent—a stick, a bug, a hedgehog. He began to bark, a shrill, excited bark that sounded exactly like a hungry one.

  The dog tugged at his owner’s leash and broke away.

  And Marcel ran. He ran for what he thought was his life. Through bushes, around twisty paths, over rocks and boulders and leafy knolls. He ran until his legs buckled and his lungs gave out. He didn’t know how long he’d run, how far he’d gone. He’d never even stopped to see if the spaniel had followed.

  When he found himself in the middle of a thickly wooded part of the park, with no bird, no idea what direction he’d come from, and weak eyes that offered little help, Marcel tried to call for her.

  “Dorothy! My Dorothy! Where are you?”

  Somehow, she’ll hear. Somehow, she’ll find me, Marcel thought.

  But she didn’t hear. The old basset hound did.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t eat you,” the hound had said, when Marcel stumbled upon his hollow. And those few, kind words were all Marcel needed to spill everything that was in his heart. Everything from Sweetie Jones to shelters, to Dorothy and running away.

  “I been there myself,” the basset hound had said. “Fifteen different places and more stories than you can count. But it’s better to forget all that. Put it all out of your mind. The past is the past. What’s done is done. All there is, is now.” He’d offered Marcel a place to stay for the night. “Been on my own a long time now, and you won’t convince me there’s anything better. But I don’t mind a visitor now and then. Even strays get lonesome sometimes.”

  Marcel had thanked him for his hospitality but decided to go on. If Dorothy was out there, he’d do all he could to find her, and hope, hope there was still a way to get back.

  It was just a little bit farther. A bit farther, a little longer. If he just kept going, he was sure to stumble upon their picnic blanket and the backpack.

  But as the day wore on and dusk began to settle, as night crept in and the dew fell cold and cheerless upon his face, the dark trees, the screaming birds, and the wailing wind all seemed to say:

  You are lost.

  You’re alone.

  You’ll never find your Dorothy again.

  Never.

  It was many days and countless city blocks before Marcel found the theater.

  And it took time, but after a while, he felt himself fortunate. At least he had a couple of hens that loved him. And with The Wizard of Oz playing every Saturday matinee, there was hope, wasn’t there? That maybe a freckled, auburn-haired girl with braces, braids, and high-tops would one day float down the aisles and sit in seat 24G or 15C, and he’d run to her, and life could be what it magically once was?

  But Saturdays slip by.

  Hope dies away.

  The biggest, most beautiful things are always hardest to believe in.

  He’d realized it that day on the roof.

  When he saw her skateboard disappear around the corner, he knew he had a choice.

  Would he follow? Even if it meant losing Dorothy all over again? What if he never found her?

  Did he even deserve to?

  It was easier to stay.

  And soon the boy, the bird, the bicycle basket, the basset hound was the mantra he told himself. It was easier, too, to believe it was all true. That he’d been replaced by the boy; that the bird had been right and you can never go back; that a FOR SALE sign on a basket means a FOR SALE sign on a heart; that the basset hound was right—that what’s done is done, the past is the past, and that all you have is now.

  Marcel sat in the snow. Alone again. With no home. Nothing. Even Toto had left him.

  He was back at the beginning.

  “Moths can be fair-weather friends, you know,” said a voice.

  Marcel looked up and felt his heart leap.

  It was Oona! Dear, good Oona.

  “We can’t seem to stop bumping into one another,” she said. “Quite literally that first day when you knocked me out of the sky with your flying box. And since then, it seems all I need to do is find the loneliest place around and look for the glint of your glasses.” The moth chuckled. “I’ll admit, it’s been hard to keep up. You do travel far.”

  Her wings, torn and a bit rumpled, were as beautiful as ever as she fluttered to him. “Found yourself in a bit of a predicament again, have you?” she asked.

  Marcel bit his quivering lip to keep from crying out and nodded.

  “Oh, Marcel. You do have a way of getting into trouble.”

  The dam to Marcel’s tears broke again, and he wailed. He told Oona of Scamp’s goodbye and Tuffy’s reunion. He told her about the theater and hens, about Wickedwing, Toto. About Ingot. Then he told her about Dorothy. His Dorothy.

  His heart was like the million pieces of a broken-down theater when he said at last, “I’m lost, Oona. I’m so very lost.”

  Oona placed a comforting foot on his paw and looked at him fondly. “Marcel, don’t you know?”

  He shook his head. What else was there to know?

  Oona gave him a small smile. “We’re all a little lost before we’re found.”

  Marcel s
topped crying. He sniffled. “We are?” he asked shakily.

  “Oh yes. I think so. But I’m sorry you’re lost. I’ll help if I can.”

  Marcel shook his head. “You can’t. But thank you. Just being here is enough.”

  The moth’s face changed then, and she looked at him intently. “Marcel, do you believe?”

  “Believe what?” he asked.

  “Marcel,” she repeated. “Do you believe?”

  Marcel knew what she was asking.

  Did he believe he could be found.

  Find me.

  “You must believe it’s possible,” said Oona.

  But Marcel did believe it was possible. That wasn’t the problem.

  Miracles happened all the time.

  His Dorothy was a miracle.

  And so was the theater, he supposed. He’d found it after gulping down that cup full of greenish soda, hadn’t he? He may have gotten sick, but he’d have never found the theater otherwise. So, in a way, that cup full of soda was a miracle too.

  The hen sisters arrived after he’d smashed that green bottle and sent their poultry truck flying.

  Scamp determining to help him once she’d seen the unnatural color of his lime Fruit Gems and heard his plight—that was a miracle too.

  And they just happened upon Ingot in his hulk of a tractor. His silver and green hulk of a tractor.

  Tuffy. That strange tree. Full of vines and moss and green as spring.

  The green towers of the popcorn factory.

  The green balloon on the box truck.

  Oona’s green and glowing wings fluttering broken and beautiful before him now.

  “Hope, Marcel. Not just belief. You have to hope.”

  Marcel’s eyes brimmed with tears again as he looked down at his feet.

  Hope. Such a tricky thing it was.

  To put your hope in something so precious and risk being disappointed even one. More. Time. It felt like the hardest thing you could ever be asked to do.

  “Do you know?” said Oona. “Moths like me have just one week—one week to be a moth! That’s a lot of life to be lived in such a short time. And how impossible it is that just as you were starting your journey, I was starting mine!” Oona smiled. “I wanted a friend and there you were. You and your box.” She chuckled. “I don’t understand journeys. But I do know what keeps us taking the next step. Hope, Marcel. Come now. It only takes a little.”

  It only takes a little, he heard Dorothy say.

  It only takes a little.

  Oona’s face brightened. “If you could wish for anything, if you could be anywhere at all right now, where would you be? Come on, Marcel! Where?”

  Marcel straightened his shoulders as best he could. He made room in his chest. With everything he had, with what tiny faith he could sweep out of a dusty corner of his heart, he said those five hard but simple words, words he’d loved for a very long time now.

  “There’s no place like home.”

  Marcel looked at the sky full of stars. He looked at Oona.

  She nodded encouragingly.

  Pick a star. Make a wish. Say a prayer. Dare to hope.

  He picked one. It wasn’t the biggest. It wasn’t the brightest. It was just one small star. And then he closed his eyes, fixed his mind on Dorothy—his Dorothy—and clicked his tiny heels one, two, three times.

  (It couldn’t hurt.)

  “I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home,” he whispered.

  Marcel opened his eyes to Oona smiling at him. “There’s no place like home,” he said again.

  “There certainly isn’t.”

  Oona reached up and touched Marcel’s broken glasses. Marcel took them off and set them down.

  “Do things look a bit different?” Oona asked him.

  They did. A little. His glasses were so scratched and broken they weren’t much help anyway. But that’s not what Oona meant.

  She wanted to know: Did he see things differently?

  He did.

  Things felt different when you dared to hope the smallest hope.

  “Now take a deep breath and look, Marcel,” said Oona. “Look around you. What do you see? What’s the next step?”

  Marcel closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. He let it out and looked.

  Things were fuzzy. They usually were.

  He saw glowing snow. The moon. The outlines of trees. Across the open field he saw a wooded area, trees all mashed together, pitch black against the moonlight. Just a blob of darkness, really. Except for… that.

  What it was he couldn’t tell, but something with a strange greenish glow stuck out from the darkness. “What’s that?” Marcel asked, taking a step toward it.

  “Let’s go see,” Oona replied.

  Marcel ran and Oona flew over the open field. The greenish thing took shape as they drew nearer. It was a sort of column, peculiar and glowing faintly—a tree trunk. Marcel slowed to a trot, then a walk. Five feet away, he halted.

  There, in front of him, was a tree. A glowing tree.

  A tree covered in glow-in-the-dark star stickers.

  “Oona, it’s…” Marcel crept up to it, reached out, and plucked a sticker from the tree. He held it in his paws. “It’s Dorothy.”

  Beneath his feet, a star sticker shone. A few feet away another was gleaming through the snow. And then more. Running off into the distance.

  A trail, Marcel thought. His heart skipped a beat.

  “Go ahead,” said Oona.

  Marcel crept ahead to the next star, and the next.

  It was a trail.

  A trail back home.

  “She never gave up,” Marcel said, turning to look at Oona. His face beamed, and his voice was choked. “Thank you,” he said. “For helping me. For being my friend. Oh, thank you.”

  “See? A friend is never far away.” The moth’s face was bright as she floated to him, the green of her wings lit with the first hint of dawn. “Go, Marcel, go! Go home!” she urged.

  Oona left a tiny kiss on his cheek and fluttered into the coming light. She looked back at him one last time, smiled—and flew away.

  Marcel watched her go.

  And then he turned and looked at the way before him. He took a shaky step.

  The stars stood out against the darkness. A path. A star-sticker trail.

  And with that, he ran. Passing sticker after sticker, star after star. There was popcorn now too. Here and there a soggy piece. Stars and popcorn, popcorn and stars. Marcel’s heart swelled as the trees flew past, and then lampposts, buildings, and streets. He felt as if everything, everything—every stick, every snowflake, every house and rock and tree, every single atom—urged him on.

  Go, Marcel! Go home!

  He didn’t know how long he ran, how many stars he passed, but it felt like two hundred seconds and two hundred hours, a handful of stickers and a heap.

  He was going to her. He was going home.

  Then the streets became sort of familiar; the houses looked very much like ones he knew.

  The stone birdbath in the garden.

  The yellow brick town house, one window wild with five braying hounds.

  The house with the rusty porch swing. The old man bundled and swinging with his morning cup of tea.

  Then he saw it. The old maple with the tire swing.

  Marcel slowed as he came near, a snowy hedge blocking his view.

  He reached the last star before the hedge ended and the trail turned up a short walk. His heart beat fast. A lump caught in his throat. He rounded the corner.

  In front of him, the last stars and popcorn kernels dotted a shoveled walk.

  A walk to a clapboard house with a painted door.

  An old soccer ball left in the lawn. And a skateboard.

  A new red bike was propped against the bushes. A new bike with an old basket. A hedgehog-size basket right there on the handlebars.

  Marcel walked the final few steps, legs shaky. His heart, weary and broken, was also mended and so
full.

  One star was all that remained.

  Marcel stood on the step. He looked up with tears in his eyes to see the stars he loved so dearly, the stars he’d wished on so many a night, winking out from the ceiling behind a third-story window.

  Pick a star, he heard his Dorothy say. Pick a star.

  And oh, he did.

  In the window, an overhead light clicked on, and the stars winked out. The sun was just coming up over the horizon and painting everything a peach light.

  Marcel took a deep breath and lowered his bleary gaze to the waiting flap of the hedgehog door he’d passed through so many times and wiped his feet on the tired old mat. Its faded green letters read: WELCOME HOME.

  “Welcome home,” he whispered to himself.

  A smile crept over his face.

  And Marcel stepped inside at last.

  Finale

  OUTSIDE A PLAIN BUT CHEERFUL house, with windows that glint in the sun and glow after dark stands a tree. It’s an old tree. Its branches spread wide. They’re filled with tiny buds like little promises in spring; they clutch clouds of fire come fall. One holds up a tire swing. And there, in the tree’s trunk, at just about the third-floor window, you’ll find a generous hole.

  Now, look closer.

  Four pairs of masked eyes peer out of the hole. They’re looking through an open window, straight into a star-filled room. It isn’t the stars they’re taken with. It’s a small television, where a girl in sepia tones sings a song about a rainbow. Not one pair of masked eyes can look away, foremost, their father. He watches from behind them, his back pressed up against a bit of wallpaper: an old front page of the Shirley River Herald, two treasured handprints muddying up the edge.

  Look closer still.

  On the ledge of the window sits the newly elected mayor of Mousekinland. She’s taken this trip a few times, hitching a ride on a popcorn delivery truck bound for the city. It isn’t a safe trip, but a foolhardy journey never bothered her much anyway. This time she’s brought six mouselings, each one carrying a sling-shooter, each one quivering with barely controlled electricity. At this very moment, these normally wild and tiny mice can’t seem to take their eyes away from the television either.

  (It’s probably safer that way.)

  Now look.

  Inside the starry room, on a bed with fourteen pillows, a few books, and a laptop sits a girl. She’s a little older now. She still wears red high-tops, though, and a smile—a straight one, the braces long gone.