The old gnome was sputtering like a firecracker. What chance had he now with two after him? Then suddenly he had an idea. Without stopping, he fumbled in the box which he still clutched under one arm and pulled out the bottle of Expanding Fluid. Uncorking the bottle he poured its contents over his head—every single drop!
This is what happened: First he shot out sideways, till Peg and Wag were almost crushed against the wall. With a hoarse scream Wag dragged Peg Amy back into his room, which was now barely large enough to hold them. They were just in time, for Ruggedo was still spreading. Soon there was not an inch of space left to expand in. Then he shot up and grew up and grew and grew and groaned and grew till there wasn’t any more room to grow in. So, he burst through the top of the cave, with a noise like fifty boilers exploding.
No wonder Dorothy thought it was a cyclone! For what was on the top of the cave but the royal palace of Oz? The next instant it was impaled fast on the spikes of Ruggedo’s giant head and shooting up with him toward the clouds. And that wretched gnome never stopped growing till he was three-quarters of a mile high!
The royal palace of Oz impaled fast on the spikes of Ruggedo’s giant head
If the people in the palace were frightened, Ruggedo was more frightened still. Being a giant was a new experience for him and having a castle jammed on his head was worse still. The first thing he tried to do, when he stopped growing, was to lift the castle off, but his spikes were driven fast into the foundations and it fitted closer than his scalp.
In a panic Ruggedo began to run, and when a giant runs he gets somewhere. Each step carried him a half mile and shook the country below like an earthquake and rattled the people in the castle above like pennies in a Christmas bank. Shaking with terror and hardly knowing why, the gnome made for his old Kingdom, and in an hour had reached the little country of Oogaboo, which is in the very northwestern corner of Oz, opposite his old dominions.
The Deadly Desert is so narrow at this point that with one jump Ruggedo was across and, puffing like a volcano about to erupt, he sank down on the highest mountain in Ev. Fortunately he had not stepped on any cities in his flight, although he had crushed several forests and about a hundred fences.
“Oh, Oh, My head!” groaned Ruggedo, rocking to and fro. He seemed to have forgotten all about conquering Oz. He was full of twinges and growing pains. Ozma’s castle was giving him a thundering headache, and there he sat, a fearsome figure in the bright moonlight, moaning and groaning instead of conquering.
The Book of Records had been right indeed when it stated that Ruggedo had something on his mind. Ozma’s castle itself sat squarely upon that mischievous mind—and every moment it seemed to grow heavier.