obliterated by the deafening, insane music of the swirling storm.

With great difficulty she had now crossed the yard, and as she was about to enter the house, the storm made a final malevolent gesture. Two sharp metal gutters, stripped from the roof by a single blast of wind, came flying toward her like parallel spears. Before she knew what had happened, she saw them stick themselves deeply into the ground at her feet!

Now inside the house, she desperately looked for Toto. The wind, which outside the house had maintained a constant course, now swirled around the furniture in a hundred directions and made it impossible for Dorothy to walk in a straight line. She was tossed and battered like a ship in a maelstrom until an erratic vortex caught her and flung her upon her bed, where she lost consciousness.

Then something strange ensued. The house, now at the center of the tornado, where the air is somehow strangely still, whirled around two or three times, then started to rise slowly through the air like a balloon. Once at the pinnacle of the twister’s funnel, it was whisked across the boundless firmament.

When Dorothy finally regained consciousness she saw that the air in her room was still, but she lay on the bed with Toto beside her until her shattered nerves began to compose themselves. Then she looked out the window and was horrified to see that her house was airborne! It was terribly dark outside, and the wind, which refused to abate, howled horribly.

Dorothy found that in spite of the surrounding turbulence, the house was riding quite easily. When several hours had passed without a catastrophe, she settled down a bit, and then, examining her situation, began to seriously lament her plight. After all, when the house should fall again, she and Toto could be smashed to pieces. With a brave but spurious insouciance, she decided to wait and see what would happen next. But the gentle swaying of the house was a soporific, and Dorothy finally became drowsy and fell asleep.

Chapter 2 “The Munchkins”

A sudden shock jolted Dorothy awake. She noticed that she was back on the ground unscathed, and she gratefully patted the pliant mattress she and Toto had been lying upon. Brilliant sunshine suffused the house with light. Dorothy, feeling restored and refreshed, leaped from her bed and ran to the door. Then, as a wave of uncertainty came over her, she gingerly pushed it open.

As she stepped outside, a little cry of amazement escaped from her lips. As her pupils contracted to adjust to the bright sunlight, her eyes simultaneously widened at the unbelievable vista she beheld.

Sparkling brooks meandered through verdant fields, and variegated profusions of flowers sprang copiously from luxuriant banks. Friendly trees proffered cornucopias of luscious fruits, and singing birds of brilliant, iridescent plumage fluttered from bush to bush.

All this was so different from the arid, gray prairies she had known, that Dorothy surmised she was no longer in Kansas. She promptly divulged her little epiphany