“Um… Robin?” Alan-a-Dale whispered. “You’re forgetting the next part of our plan.”
“OH YEAH,” Robin Hood said. “THANK YOU, MY FAITHFUL MINSTREL. WE WOULD HAVE MET OUR DEMISE HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR YOUR STEEL TRAP OF A MEMORY. MOVING ON—LOST BOYS, YOUR TIME HAS COME!”
Suddenly, the Lost Boys from Neverland appeared on the rooftops of the Lincoln Center theaters and pelted the Wicked Witch with water balloons.
“Take that, you mean old hag!” Tootles said.
“Adults like you are the reason we don’t want to grow up!” Curly said.
“Go back to the nightmare you came out of!” Nibs said.
“Leave our friends alone!” the Lost twins said.
Although Slightly had been a baby since the Lost Boys visited Morina’s cottage, he still did his part and squirted the witch with his bottle. Soon the Wicked Witch was drenched, and she began to smoke and sizzle as the liquid melted her body. Just as it had happened with Captain Hook, instead of bodily fluids, the witch dissolved into words. All the prose L. Frank Baum used to describe the Wicked Witch in his books now dripped from the witch’s body.
“You horrid little brats!” the Wicked Witch screamed in pain. “You’ll pay for this one day! You may have stopped me in the Otherworld, but I’ll get my revenge in the Underworld!”
The witch staggered across the Lincoln Center courtyard, leaving puddles of words as she went. She tripped and fell headfirst into the fountain and disintegrated completely. Friar Tuck knelt beside the fountain and said a prayer for the salvation of her soul.
Now that the Wicked Witch of the West was dead, her vicious spell over the Winkies was lifted. They dropped their weapons and pranced around the courtyard in celebration. Alan-a-Dale strummed a happy tune so that they had something to dance to.
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” Robin Hood asked. “WHY ARE THE WINKIES SKIPPING AROUND LIKE THEY’RE INTOXICATED?”
“Robin, they’ve been freed!” Beau Rogers called down to him. “The witch has been controlling them for years!”
“YOU MEAN, THE WITCH FORCED YOU TO WEAR THOSE OBNOXIOUS OUTFITS AND ANSWER TO THAT DEGRADING NAME?”
“No, we had those before the witch’s spell,” a Winkie said.
Robin was greatly disturbed to hear it. “MIGHT THERE BE ANOTHER WITCH INVOLVED?” he asked.
Suddenly, Blubo swooped down from the sky and landed on the edge of the fountain. He dived in and searched through the Wicked Witch’s watery remains. The others were curious about what the monkey was doing and gathered around the fountain to watch him.
“I found it!” he announced.
Blubo resurfaced with the Wicked Witch’s golden cap in his hands. He threw it on the ground and then smashed it with one of the Winkies’ spears until it broke into hundreds of pieces.
“There!” Blubo said with a satisfied smile. “From this moment forward, no one will ever control the flying monkeys again!”
The Winkies cheered for the monkeys’ newfound freedom. Although the Merry Men, the Lost Boys, and the archaeologists had no idea what Blubo was talking about, they joined the characters from Oz as they danced around Lincoln Center in celebration.
“SUCH A STRANGE PLACE, THIS OZ,” Robin Hood declared. “IT’S NOT EVERY DAY YOU CONVERSE WITH WITCHES, MONKEYS, AND WINKIES. ACTUALLY, IT REMINDS ME OF A WEEKEND I HAD IN FRANCE.”
The card soldiers and the Queen of Hearts followed the Tin Woodman from Midtown all the way to Washington Square Park in Lower Manhattan. The park was famous for the towering arch that stood at its north entrance. The Tin Woodman hurried through the arch, expecting to see the park filled with the Cyborgs from “Galaxy Queen,” but the Cyborgs were late.
“Oh dear,” the Tin Woodman said.
The card soldiers caught up with the Tin Woodman and formed a circle around him. They pointed the sharp ends of their staffs at the metal man, and he dropped his axe. The Queen of Hearts sauntered into the circle and strutted around the Tin Woodman, eyeing him like he was a delicious treat.
“Hold him down,” she ordered with a devilish smile. “I want to cut off his head myself!”
The soldiers grabbed the Tin Woodman by the arms, kicked his legs out from underneath him, and forced him into a kneeling position. The Queen of Hearts picked up his axe and practiced swinging it.
“So you’re the one they call the Queen of Hearts?” the Tin Woodman asked.
“That’s correct,” the queen said.
“But I don’t understand,” he said. “You invade other people’s homes and claim them as your own. You cut off people’s heads for sport. How can you be the Queen of Hearts when you act so heartless?”
“Is your head hollow?” the queen asked with a snort. “Every creature in existence has a heart—it’s just a muscle that pumps blood through the rest of your body. What you’re talking about is compassion—it’s much rarer and a total waste of time, if you ask me.”
The Tin Woodman’s eyes darted back and forth as he tried to make sense of it all.
“So, what I’ve been searching for this whole time, I’ve actually had inside me all along?” he asked. His jaw dropped and his eyes opened wide as he made the greatest discovery of his life.
The Queen of Hearts shared a confused glance with her card soldiers—was the man she was about to decapitate asking her about life lessons?
“I’m told that that is a conclusion most people come to before the end of their life,” she said. “Lucky for you, you’ve reached it just in time. Now hold your head steady—this is going to hurt.”
His realization made the Tin Woodman feel like he was seeing the world for the first time. He was so overwhelmed, tears filled his eyes—but he couldn’t get emotional and rust. He needed to save himself from the Queen of Hearts so his new life could begin.
“Wait!” the Tin Woodman said. “If you’re so fascinated by my head, you should see my heart.”
“Stupid man,” the queen said. “You just said you didn’t have one—now you want me to look at it?”
“I was mistaken,” he said. “You may be the Queen of Hearts, but I guarantee you’ve never seen a heart like mine before.”
The Tin Woodman had captured the queen’s attention, and she raised a curious eyebrow.
“Very well, before I cut off your head, I’ll have a look at your heart,” she said. “Turn him over!”
The card soldiers pulled the Tin Woodman up and turned him on his back. The Queen of Hearts leaned over his metal torso and yanked open the small door in his chest. To her horror, the queen didn’t find a heart at all, but a tiny little woman standing inside him!
“BOOOOO!” Trollbella screamed.
“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!” the Queen of Hearts screamed.
The queen was so stunned, she dropped the Tin Woodman’s axe and stumbled backward. The soldiers pinning the Tin Woodman quickly went to help the queen. Trollbella jumped to the ground, retrieved the axe, and tossed it to the Tin Woodman once he was on his feet. The Queen of Hearts roared with anger and pointed her finger at the unlikely duo.