The Hedgehog of Oz Read online

  This particular Saturday was turning out to be just such a day.

  “Hurry up, Hen,” grumped Uncle Henrietta. “Your legs are as long as mine and I’m twice as wide. There’s no excuse for the snail’s pace.”

  An out-of-breath Auntie lagged behind, trying to balance the rare find of a half-full box of Fruit Gems on her wide back. “Sister,” she wheezed. “You forget I’m older than you. There’s less life in my bones.”

  Uncle Henrietta snorted. “Twelve hours isn’t older, you old biddy. Get a move on.”

  Marcel pulled the box from Auntie Hen’s back. “Need some help?” he asked. “You could spear a few on my spines. They’re sure to stick.”

  Auntie Hen smiled. “Well, now, there’s a plan,” she said, and together they skewered eight limes, a lemon, and two particularly precious strawberry-flavored Gems, to his left shoulder, right flank, and the top of his head.

  “You look like a Christmas tree!” Auntie said when she was done. (Auntie had a fondness for any film with a Christmas tree in it, as they looked “good enough to eat.”)

  “Hrmph,” grumped Uncle Henrietta from the doors to the lobby. “You’re going to look like a deserted Christmas tree if you don’t hurry it up!”

  Marcel rushed up the theater aisle and out into the lobby toward the steps to the second floor. Auntie huffed and puffed behind him.

  Day had dawned while they’d been getting breakfast, and outside the theater’s glass doors, the sky had the gray tinge of cold weather to come. Marcel wondered if he shouldn’t summon the small, retired freight elevator; he regularly encouraged the hens to make use of it to save them all the trial of the steps. Just a pull of the gate and a turn of the crank was all it would take. (He’d seen it in a movie.) Either hen could easily flap up to the handle, and their weight alone would lower the crank for a short ride to the second floor. But Uncle Henrietta only ever said, “I don’t trust hot metal boxes with doors on ’em. Got a bad feeling about it. I once had a dream I roasted to a crisp in something like that.”

  So that was that.

  Just outside the lobby, leaves swirled off the sidewalk onto the emerald-tiled entrance. People rushed past unaware, never noticing things like leaves or hens or hedgehogs. Most never stopped to look at the theater at all.

  As he fixed a candy on his side that was threatening to slide off, Marcel watched a dark car slow and pull up in front of the theater.

  “Hurry up! Dupree will be back soon,” warned Uncle Henrietta. “We cut it too close the last time.”

  “Oh, Sister. You are a worrywart,” said Auntie Hen from somewhere behind the snack counter.

  “There’s always the elevator,” Marcel suggested for the one hundred sixty-somethingish time. “Want me to summon it?”

  “You know how I feel about it!” Uncle snapped back.

  Marcel sighed. As the elevator was their one and only “Emergency Exit Plan” (he’d seen that in a movie too and thought it sounded like a good idea), he’d feel a lot better if they practiced it at least once.

  It wouldn’t be today.

  Marcel followed Uncle to the grand staircase and noticed again the dark car puttering at the curb. The shadow of a man sat behind the wheel. He seemed to be waiting.

  Marcel tripped over a snag in the carpet and caught himself. He was carrying mostly candy this morning, which was a lot heavier than popcorn. The Fruit Gems on his back only added to the load. The stairs would be trickier than normal.

  They’d made it up only three steps when behind them came a thump and a thrashing sound.

  “Oh my, oh dear, oh, this is a problem!” came Auntie Hen’s voice from behind the concession counter.

  “Quit your fooling around and get out here!” ordered Uncle Henrietta.

  “I would,” came Auntie’s muffled voice. “But I seem to be a little stuck!”

  Uncle Henrietta stomped her foot. “Well, get unstuck!”

  The thrashing continued. “I can’t!”

  Marcel set his armload of candy on the step and Uncle her paper sack of popcorn. Crossing the lobby, they made their way behind the glass counter stuffed with snacks. All appeared normal but for the sliding door on the back of the stand, off its track. The wide, feathered bottom of Auntie Hen was wiggling out the back, her skinny yellow legs and feet kicking wildly about.

  “It was unlocked! We can have all the strawberry Gems we want!” clucked Auntie Hen.

  Marcel tried the door. It didn’t budge.

  “Turn sideways!” said Uncle. “Suck in your feathers! If you didn’t eat so many peppermints this morning, you’d slide right through!”

  Auntie Hen’s legs kept swinging.

  “Grab a foot,” Uncle said to Marcel. “I’ll get the other.”

  They pulled. They pulled some more. The chicken didn’t budge.

  “We’re running out of time,” said a worried Uncle. She looked through the window of the concession stand to the entrance beyond. Marcel’s eyes followed.

  A little cloud of exhaust puffed in the far corner of the glass doors. Marcel couldn’t see it now, but the dark car must still be there. What was it doing? He felt an uneasiness settle in his stomach.

  (Or maybe he’d had a few too many peppermints too.)

  Marcel thought hard. What might help Auntie slip through the door and fast? The soda machine didn’t seem right. A slushie…? Maybe.

  No.

  Butter. That slippery scrumptiousness generously pumped onto every awaiting popcorn tub.

  He told Uncle Henrietta his idea.

  “That’s the worst plan I’ve ever heard!” she shouted. “Butter on a chicken? My gut’s screaming it’s a bad idea. But I don’t see as we’ve got any choice!”

  Marcel scrambled up the stack of heavy kernel sacks leaning against the back counter to the butter dispenser and threw a soda cup beneath it. He climbed onto the pump and jumped. Butter squirted out in great, greasy spurts. He jumped a bit more. Then he dropped the nearly full cup to a waiting Uncle Henrietta. Some splattered on her head.

  “WORST THING I’VE EVER HEARD!” she squawked again.

  As Marcel made his way down, he could see Auntie’s coppery feathers grow slick as Uncle Henrietta poured the liquid butter over her backside. The grease would take ages to come out, he thought.

  But she did smell delicious.

  Uncle stopped pouring. “Grab a leg!” she ordered again, and she and Marcel pulled and twisted. Still the chicken didn’t budge.

  Just then there was a jangle at the doors. The three of them froze and looked up.

  Gomer Dupree stood just outside, keys in hand.

  A man in a dark suit stood beside him, his meaty fingers reaching for the handle.

  CHAPTER 3 Hot Buttered Hen and Heartache

  AUNTIE HEN SQUEEZED HER EYES shut. “I can’t look!” she squeaked.

  Marcel’s glasses slid off his face and dropped to the floor. “I can’t see.”

  Uncle Henrietta groaned.

  The men at the door stood talking. The shiny brass handle glinted under the man in the dark suit’s grip, but the door, for now, remained closed. Gomer Dupree spoke excitedly, his hands turning like pinwheels.

  Auntie Hen opened an eye. “What’s he doing?” she asked.

  “Does it matter?” Uncle clucked. “Pull!”

  Marcel pulled with all his might, but his paws were slick. He slipped backward and went tumbling into the large spokes of the popcorn cart’s bicycle-like wheels. He felt around for his spectacles, and finding them, threw them back on his nose.

  Past the concession stand and beyond the glass doors, the men were arguing now. Gomer’s keys flashed as he shook them. The man in the suit took his hand from the door handle and reached inside his jacket, where Marcel spotted… a badge. Marcel recognized it from all the action movies he’d seen, winking gold, like a shield. The sight of it gave him a dark feeling. Dark as dried-up Crystal Cola syrup.

  The man pulled out a folded sheet of paper and began to paste it
to the glass.

  Gomer Dupree’s shoulders drooped.

  When the man in the suit finished smoothing out the paper and tacking down the edges, Marcel watched as Gomer shook his head miserably, shoved his keys back into the pocket of his overalls, and walked out of sight. The man in the suit followed.

  “What’s happening?” whispered Auntie Hen.

  “How should I know?” answered Uncle Henrietta.

  Something wasn’t right. Marcel could feel it. Men with badges in the movies were always on some sort of official business and it was almost never good. Marcel shifted his feet. He nibbled his nails. The dark feeling felt sickly, ominously sweet.

  He needed to know what was going on.

  Marcel dropped to all fours and darted to the front doors, being sure to stick to the shadows in case the two men appeared again.

  “Marcel!” squealed Auntie Hen.

  “Get back here!” shouted Uncle.

  Marcel ignored them. He had to find out where Gomer Dupree and the badge man had gone.

  He slowed as he neared the glass and crept to the furthermost edge. He peeked out.

  There they were on the sidewalk. Marcel watched as the men shook hands and the man in the suit climbed into the puttering car. This close, Marcel could see something stamped on the car’s door.

  Marcel was lucky he’d spent so many hours watching foreign films and movies for the hearing impaired. He’d taught himself to read using subtitles. “Shirley River Building Inspector,” he sounded out before the car pulled away from the curb.

  A wilted Gomer Dupree watched the car drive off. When at last he looked away, the old Emerald City janitor walked across the street and disappeared inside a hardware store.

  “What do you see?” came Auntie Hen’s nervous squeak.

  Marcel squinted up at the sheet of paper flapping on the door. The print was far too small to read from where he stood.

  “It’s the chicken pox, isn’t it?” wailed Auntie. “Or the bird flu! I saw that in a movie. They put a sign on the door saying the place was contaminated with disease. We’ve contaminated the place, Uncle!”

  “Hush, Sister!” snapped Uncle Henrietta. “Marcel. What do you see?”

  There was no time to answer, for at that moment Gomer Dupree came shuffling out of the store with a large roll of paper under one arm and a plastic bag swinging from the other. He headed straight for Marcel, who scampered back behind the concession stand as fast as his short legs could carry him.

  The three animals watched through the glass as Gomer pulled a writing utensil out of the bag and knelt on the paper. His arm swirled out a string of words. When he finished, he stood and taped the sign to the doors of the theater.

  Gomer stepped back to admire his work. A strange look passed over his brown, wrinkled face. He slid off the cap covering his bald head and placed it over his heart. He stood that way for a full minute before shoving his cap back on and tramping away through the dry leaves on the pavement.

  “This is all so puzzling,” said Auntie Hen, still wedged in the snack counter’s sliding door. “What on earth is going on?”

  “Darned if I know,” answered her sister.

  Marcel licked his lips. His heart still hammered in his chest. But as minutes ticked by, the hammering slowed and returned to its normal thumpity-thump.

  An hour passed. At 11:30, a woman holding the hand of a little girl approached the doors. She stopped to take in the large sign Gomer Dupree had plastered to the front of the building, and the two walked away.

  At 11:34, a tall man strode into the open, emerald-tiled vestibule, took one look, and strode off.

  At 11:35, four elderly women with matching patent-leather pocketbooks shambled up to the glass. One pointed to the darkened ticket booth, another rifled through her purse for dollar bills. One tried to open the doors but found them locked. The last adjusted her bifocals and read from the poster. With glum looks, all four walked back in the direction they’d come.

  It went on like this for the next half hour.

  Eventually, the theatergoers dwindled. Then stopped.

  Auntie Hen fell out of the candy counter with a THWUNK.

  “Really?” said Uncle Henrietta. “You just fell out like that?”

  “I get puffy when I’m anxious!”

  Henrietta shook her head. “Honestly. Sometimes I don’t know how we came from the same coop.”

  Marcel, his short spines still spotted with Fruit Gems, crept out from behind the stand. A beak latched on to his leg and pulled him back.

  “We go together this time,” said Uncle Henrietta.

  They crossed the lobby. Auntie’s buttery feathers gleamed under the crystal chandeliers. Uncle’s too.

  “Well, there’s a sign there. Sure as there’s butter on my backside. Now what?” asked Henrietta when they got to the doors.

  Light shone through the paper; the dark words leapt off the page.

  “I thought it might have pictures,” said a disappointed Auntie Hen.

  “I can read it,” said Marcel. He cleared his throat and picked his way through the backward words. “The Emerald City Theater is closed until further notice,” he read. “Thank you for all the years. Sincerely, Gomer Dupree, Owner.”

  Auntie Hen gasped.

  Uncle Henrietta moaned.

  Marcel’s face felt hot, and he swallowed hard.

  Closed? What did that mean? Would they need to find a new place to live?

  Marcel had grown used to the theater. Grown used to his popcorn-bucket house with the chewed door, nestled between the two hen sisters. To gathering armloads of candy every morning for breakfast—some might consider a candy breakfast a dream! He liked the smell of popcorn. It wasn’t Dorothy’s popcorn of course—Dorothy liked hers doused in butter with Parmesan cheese, in a pillow fort on the floor, and an old musical or The Wizard of Oz warbling away on the television. But for the past six months, the theater had been home.

  He and the hens could get by on lime Fruit Gems for a while. Especially if they rationed them. But would they have enough food until the theater opened again? If it opened again? Would they need to find food elsewhere?

  Would he have to go back out on the street?

  Marcel’s knees buckled.

  “I need a hug,” Auntie said.

  “I need a Toffee Bean,” said Uncle.

  Marcel felt like he needed a nap. He promised himself that as soon as he returned to the torn, velvet cushion of seat 6HH and crawled inside his popcorn tub, he’d turn a few times, curl up, and pray for a sound, forgetful sleep.

  But it would have to wait.

  The hen sisters decided that since they’d already suffered a trip down the stairs, they might as well gather what food they could and save themselves the trial of another trip.

  “Could stick all our goodies in that awful contraption and send it up,” said Uncle, pointing to the small elevator. “You can handle it, can’t you, Marcel?”

  He couldn’t. He couldn’t fly up and reach the lever. But maybe an elevator full of sweets would be reason enough for the hens to try….

  He’d cross that bridge later.

  As Auntie and Uncle raided what they could of the open concession stand and loaded it into the elevator, Marcel did another sweep of the theater. He was working hard at pulling over a cup of Chocolate Buttons he’d sniffed out when, suddenly, he heard a door open. Then voices.

  Then the terrified squawks of the hen sisters and a thrashing of wings.

  “He’s got me! He’s got me!” squealed Auntie Hen.

  Marcel’s stomach dropped like a stone.

  He—Gomer Dupree—did not, in fact, have Auntie, though he was, at this very moment, chasing her down the theater aisle toward Marcel. Two others were hot on the tail feathers of Uncle Henrietta.

  “You go that way!” shouted a bearded man to Gomer. “Peterman, you go over there. We’ll meet in the middle!”

  “Marcel!” Auntie slipped through Gomer’s grasp like a re
cently buttered hen. “Marcel! What do I do?” she squawked.

  Uncle Henrietta flew at the bearded man’s head and scratched at his shiny hard hat. “Get to safety, Hen!”

  “Where?” she squealed.

  Marcel couldn’t breathe. His legs, he didn’t think, would carry him.

  If only they’d practiced his “Emergency Exit Plan.”

  “The elevator,” he managed to spit out. “Get to the elevator and stop between floors! Stick to the plan!”

  He sure hoped the hens remembered the plan.

  Marcel sucked in his breath and sprang into action.

  He hopped off the seat and ran down the row. He flew up the center aisle but turned four rows from the back to avoid a large boot. He could hear flapping wings, excited voices, and the near-constant squawking of the sisters. Marcel scrambled down the row to the end and waited, breathing hard.

  He remembered a small hole in the wall on the other side of the theater, and he had a thought.

  “Auntie! Uncle! Take the elevator! Don’t wait for me! I’ll lead them away! I’ve got a place to hide!” He could wait it out inside the hole until the men quit looking.

  He just needed to make it there.

  “I’m too scared!” Auntie squealed, as behind her, Gomer Dupree stumbled over Marcel’s cup of Chocolate Buttons and they scattered like ants from a trampled anthill. The others were crawling down rows in pursuit of Uncle, who’d clambered under the seats.

  Marcel’s heart was a snare drum, and the blood pumping through his veins felt fizzy with soda pop. What they needed was a distraction.

  All three men now crawled on the floor after the hens. Each time any of them thought he’d caught one, the buttered hen would slip through his grasp. “Three on two!” one of the men shouted. “We corner them! Over there!”

  Marcel planted his feet. He sucked up his courage. He waited for the men to crawl after the hens into the aisle.

  Auntie emerged, then Uncle from under the seats ahead. Gomer appeared, then the others.

  Marcel bolted. With every ounce of him, he made as much noise as his little lungs would allow. A hissing, howling ball of needles, Marcel made for the crawling men.