The Silver Princess in Oz

by Ruth Plumly Thompson

"What? And leave ME?" gasped the Elegant Elephant, putting back his ears, "and your Kingdom and friends and all your responsibilities? No, no, Randy, this won't do. Besides, you'd probably perish in that outlandish metal wilderness with nothing to eat and no place to rest your head. You can't do it, my boy, and furthermore, I won't let you."

Snatching Randy up in his trunk, he held him as tightly as if he were already running away instead of threatening to do so. In the course of this bitter argument and as the young monarch began pummeling Kabumpo futilely with his fists, they were both lifted bodily into the air and set swiftly down in the Red Throne Room.

"The Master has good news for you," explained Ginger. "LOOK!" With his flashing white grin the little bell boy pointed to the throne itself and then, as was his wont, inexplicably vanished. What he saw made Randy rush forward and fling both arms round the Red Jinn's neck.

"Oh, you did it! You really did it!" he cried, embracing Jinnicky all over again. "How can I ever thank you enough?"

"Where am I?" murmured the clear silvery voice that Kabumpo and Randy knew so well. "Oh, what a netiful, netiful castle. Randy! Randy! And there you are, Big Bumpo, and Thun! But how did we come out of that debasement?"

Without bothering to answer, Randy seized Planetty's hands and looked and looked at her as if he were never going to stop.

"You're the same, and yet different," he mused, scarcely able to believe what he saw. "And Thun is the same, yet different, too."

"I am Thun the Thunder Colt, now, then, and always!" announced Thun, and gave a frightened jump, for he had actually spoken the words at the same time they went spiraling up into a sparkling sentence over his head. "Oh, Princess, Princess!" he whinnied joyously. "Do you hear? Do you see? I can talk, I can hear, I can see and hear myself talking!"

At each word Thun gave an ecstatic bound and then began racing madly round and round the throne room, in and out between the red pillars, leaping over chairs and tables in a positively hair-raising fashion.