"Oh, hurry! Hurry!" begged Dorothy, glancing fearfully over her shoulder. The footsteps were now so loud and near, she expected the door to burst right open and Bustabo's red face to appear.
"Goodbye! I'm off!" Before the Scarecrow could stop her, Jellia was off, indeed! Clutching the kit-bag to her bosom, she squeezed through the opening between the bars and dove headlong into space! Next, the Scarecrow, with a sad little wave to Dorothy, dropped out of sight. "Help me push this so-called Soldier out!" puffed Dorothy, as the Cowardly Lion signalled for her to go next. "If we leave him till last—he'll never jump at all!"
"Halt! About face! Help! Mama! Papa! Help! Help! HELP!" wailed Wantowin Battles. But Dorothy relentlessly forced him to the sill and through the opening. As his wildly thrashing legs disappeared over the edge, whoever was coming up the stairs, broke into a run. Thump, thump, THUMPETY-THUMP! Trembling in every muscle, Dorothy climbed to the sill. Spreading both arms, she launched herself into the air.
She heard the grunt of the Cowardly Lion as he forced his way through the opening. Then the fierce rush of wind past her ears as she pitched downward, drowned out all other sounds. At first she was sure the Wizard's falling-out suits were failures, for the lion plunged past her, falling like a plummet. She, too, was whirling downward so fast she felt sure she would be crushed on the rocks below. Closing her eyes, she tried to resign herself to whatever was coming. Then, suddenly, the pajamas filled with air, ballooning out till she floated lightly as a feather. The question now was—would she ever come down?
There was no moon, and in the faint starlight she could make out three other, bulky shapes spinning through the air just beneath her. By kicking her legs and flapping her arms, Dorothy managed to miss several jutting rocks and tree limbs. As she floated lower, the suit began gradually to deflate, finally letting her down as softly as could be, on a strip of sand at the base of the mountain. A little distance away she could see Jellia, already stepping out of her falling-out suit, and the Cowardly Lion, waiting impatiently for someone to help him out of his. Wantowin Battles, very brave now that the danger was past, already had stripped off his flying suit and was shaking and patting the Scarecrow into shape, for the poor straw man had been completely flattened out by his fall.
"Well, how did you like it?" called Jellia, hurrying over to help the lion untangle himself. "After the first swoop, it wasn't bad at all. Really, I quite enjoyed it!"
"Enjoyed it!" choked the Lion, looking indignantly from Dorothy to Jellia. "I'll never set foot in a plane again as long as I live. Brrrrah! Ever since we left the Emerald City we've been falling—flying and blowing about like yesterday's papers. Now that I'm on solid ground at last, I intend to stay there! The rest of you may do as you please, but I shall walk home if it takes a year!"
"I don't blame you," said Jellia, patting the lion soothingly on the nose. "But we can't start without the Wizard. We'll have to hide here till morning and then try to find him."
"Let him find us," growled the Lion, lashing his tail experimentally to see whether there was any wag left in it after the shameful way it had been cramped in the suit, "The whole trip was his idea—not mine!"