Follow the Yellow Brick Road,

The journey that all souls venture.

Take me to the Emerald City.

Take me to the end of the rainbow.

I could just click my ruby slippers

Once, twice, three times,

The beautiful weapon, so tempting.

It could all be over in an instant.

There’s no place like home.

Geneva Ditty tore the page from her notebook and crumpled it into a ball. She stuffed the notebook into The Beast, her hideous striped bookbag, a beloved necessity so ugly, with its muted green, various brownish reds and bright salmon stripes, that it was beautiful. The lush green grass felt cool and soft on her bare feet as she walked to the bus. It greeted her with its friendly orange-yellow sides, saying, “Good afternoon! It’s a pleasure to take you home after a long day of school! Here, come sit on my padded seats and take a load-off. That feels good, doesn’t it?” And it did, after sitting in hard, plastic school chairs all day. She thanked the brown vinyl with a pat and thought about her poem.

The ending was all wrong. Jane, as many people knew her, didn’t normally like to end poems or stories or songs, because doing so meant that the experience was over. First lines, attention-grabbers, were her specialty. She was always very proud of her eye-catching first lines, except for this one. The metaphor intrigued her, “Life is the Wizard of Oz”, and part of its charm, she supposed, was quoting the story. The thrill of writing her own, great opening was missing, though. Perhaps if she slept on it, she’d think of a solution.

Putting it out of her mind, she stared out the window. Familiar scenes whizzed by: the train station, Mrs. Fedderly’s garden, overgrown with reds, yellows and purples, and the creek that she was sure would be her Walden Pond if was ever to journey there. For the longest time, she had wanted to walk home and visit all these places, but never had the time.

When at last she arrived home, she went straight to her bedroom. A simple, glass vase sat on the nightstand. It held a flower made of pink and white tissue paper with a green, pipe cleaner stem. Reaching into The Beast, she found Henriette, a small paper blossom of gold and red. Full of sympathy, she smiled at Oswald, the flower in the vase, who then smiled back, with no energy. Without saying a word to either of them, she switched the two and kissed Oswald, dropping him in a large, clay flowerpot with those who had stood before him. Jane knew it was an odd ritual, but she had been performing it ever since she was young. Every morning, she made a tissue paper flower, named it and carried it as her companion for the day. Bad luck always seemed to ensue if she forgot to carry a flower. As a thank-you for serving its purpose, she would put the flower in the vase that afternoon, where it would watch over her that night and work its magic from afar the next day.