I was intrigued by @thewritersblock's First Chapter Challenge contest, but then I went and looked at the novels I have in progress. They want chapters that are at most 3000 words, and I don't... well.

I looked at the YA fantasy novel I'm working on now, and that first chapter is 6200 words.

I thought, OK, but The Book That's Too Short will work, but no, I recently figured out how to make it not too short, and that chapter is 3800 words.

Then I had one last thought, an adult fantasy novel I stalled out on a couple years ago, but that one doesn't even have chapters.

So. This is my silly project. It's an Oz book, and since all of the original Oz books by L. Frank Baum are in the public domain, I can more or less do whatever I want with their material, as long as I don't cross over into what's been done in that world that's still in copyright.

That's not really a problem with this one. As far as I know all of the post-Baum Oz books have been set after his. Mine is different, it's set in the middle of the original series, and tries to clear up a couple of small continuity questions while still sending many of our favorite heroes on a fantastical adventure, and hopefully getting a flavor of that Ozzy prose that so distinguished Baum's work.

So without further ado:

Rocket Ships of Oz

by Tim Cooper

Author's Note:

This book takes place during, contemporaneous to, and at the same time as the book Tik-Tok of Oz by L. Frank Baum. If you would like to know what happened to Tik-Tok the Mechanical Man and Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, you will find the answers in that book.

Chapter One.
The Rocket.

In a house on a mountain in the Blue Forest of the Munchkin Country of the Land of Oz lived a man named Dr. Pipt, who had once been a magician. In those days his arms and legs went all akimbo, and he was known far and wide as the Crooked Magician. But Dr. Pipt made a Powder of Life which caused a great deal of trouble and attracted the attention of Ozma of Oz, who took away his magic and straightened his limbs, leaving him just an ordinary Munchkin.

With Dr. Pipt lived his wife, Margolotte, who had inspired him to make his Powder of Life. She wanted a servant girl, and Dr. Pipt set out to make one for her. But while he succeeded at making the girl, he failed to make her want to serve Margolotte. So his wife still had many chores that needed doing, and as she no longer had any hope of magical assistance, she turned her attention to her husband.

Dr. Pipt could sit for years stirring cauldrons to make his magical powders, but he discovered quite quickly that he had very little patience for washing floors. “What I need,” he said to himself, “is a project. One that will keep me out of the house as much as possible, so my dear Margolotte will not set me to her chores.”

So Dr. Pipt went into the woods and set about building a rocket ship. A two-seater, for he loved his wife very much, and indeed relished being with her anywhere that was far from soap and water. He would make it out of the strong wood of the Blue Forest, and fuel it with an explosive powder he had discovered in his magical studies, one that required no magic at all.

He knew of a place deep in the forest where the evergreen trees grew exceptionally strong and wide, and while it was a bit of a walk from his house, every minute walked was a minute spent away from dusting Margolotte's good dishes. He cut down many trees, until he had made a sizable clearing to build his rocket ship in. When he went home to Margolotte he said nothing of his project, except, quite honestly, that he was far too tired to wash the windows.

He went back the next day, and cut apart the trees he had felled before, hollowing them out and gluing them together until he had the shell of a rocket ship, a cigar shape rising to the tops of the surrounding trees, much taller than Dr. Pipt. He went home even more tired than the day before, but he still didn't tell Margolotte what he had been doing. He wanted it to be a surprise.

The next day he painted it blue, in order to make it a proper Munchkin rocket ship. He had to take great care climbing around the ship to paint it. He expected it to be much easier, but he had never painted anything without his crooked limbs before, and it was much harder to scamper around the outside of the ship with normal Munchkin legs.

The ship was very delicately balanced, and as he was climbing around it he nearly toppled it several times. He resolved to make it more stable, so the next day he went the other direction in the forest, to a place where the trees grew broad and flat, and cut four fins for his rocket. He could only get them back to his house by the end of the day, and Margolotte wondered why her husband was carrying these large flat pieces of wood around the forest, but he agreed to spend the next day mending their clothes, and she was so happy she forgot all about them.

The next day Dr. Pipt stayed at home and was unhappy, but he kept his secret, and the fins were undisturbed outside their door. He was tired at the end of the day, but kept thinking about his rocket ship, and all that thinking prevented him from sleeping. A good night’s sleep requires the ability to stop your mind from thinking about all the things you were doing during the day, and Dr. Pipt couldn’t do that while the rocket ship was yet unbuilt. He got up, carefully not awakening his wife, and left the house. He picked up the fins outside his door and carried them to the clearing in the dark.

Dr. Pipt was surprised to find that his new clearing, so private during the day, wasn’t empty in the darkness. All the owls of the Blue Forest had come to investigate this new clearing and the tall wooden thing being constructed within it.

The owls of Munchkinland were regular owls, though of course they talked, as all animals do in the land of Oz. But, like the other residents of Munchkinland, they were quite fond of the color blue, and this fondness made them the only owls in the world to pursue ornamentation. Owls have no use for clothing, and little for most kinds of jewelry, but every owl in the forest had a sapphire brooch pinned to its chest, with the size of the brooch depending on the importance of the owl. Many of them also wore small blue cloth caps. The forest’s most important owl, in addition to a large brooch and a cap with exceptionally fine stitching, had as his pride and joy a pair of bright blue boots, made specifically for his owl feet.

Even in the dark, the owl king’s fine boots drew the attention of Dr. Pipt. “Hello,” said he to the owl. “Have you come to see my rocket ship?”

"Oh, is that what it is?” asked the owl. “I would never have thought it a thing intended to fly.”

“Well, sir owl,” said Dr. Pipt, “I surely know far less about flying than you do. But while you have great wings which allow you to fly through the forest, if someone like me is to fly it may only be done with far greater trouble.”

“It must indeed, to make you build such a thing,” said the owl. “I don’t know if it’s a monstrosity or a marvel. My people will debate the question while we watch you finish it. For it is certainly the most interesting thing to happen in the Blue Forest in quite some time.”

From that point on Dr. Pipt had constant owl commentary as he built his rocket. The owls had opinions on everything, from the positioning of the landing fins to the upholstery of the seats in the cockpit. This could have been quite annoying, but as no two owls could ever agree on any point, Dr. Pipt felt no need to take them seriously, and their chatter was reduced to background noise.

Finally, after many days of work, the ship was ready, tall and blue with silver fins, and windows everywhere. At home that morning, Dr. Pipt hunted through his workshop, looking through what remained of his magical materials until he found the glass jar that held the explosive powder he intended to use as rocket fuel.

When he went back to the house, Margolotte tried to get him to scrub the kitchen floor, but instead he told her he had a surprise for her, and to come with him into the forest. She came willingly, excited to see what her husband had been working on in secret. She had guessed many times, while he was gone, about what he was doing out in the forest without her. But none of her guesses prepared her for the sight of the rocket ship rising bright and blue out of the clearing.

“It’s amazing!” she said. “Fabulous! Wonderful! I’m sure you’ve done an incredible job of building it!” She hugged and kissed her husband excitedly. “But, dear? What is it?”

“It’s a rocket ship, my love,” said Dr. Pipt, who was pleased by her praise and not at all concerned that she didn’t know what she was praising. “You and I are going to fly through the clouds, perhaps to the Moon or even the stars!”

“Oh!” said Margolotte. “How exciting that is! But I couldn’t possibly go to the Moon without a coat. What if it’s cold there? I’ll have to go back to the house. And there are other things we will need.”

Dr. Pipt put his arm around his wife. “I’ve thought of that,” he said. “Last night I brought down our coats, and extra clothes, and food and drink, and presents for anyone we might meet. It’s all in the rocket ship already. All that remains is for us to get in and me to add the rocket fuel, and off we will go!”

“Let’s go, then,” said Margolotte. Dr. Pipt had built a ladder on one side of the rocket for them to climb up into the cockpit, and Margolotte spotted it and began climbing up, not even waiting for him to go first. She reached the top and started inside, but then stopped, leaving her husband to cling to the ladder below her feet.

“It’s too small!” she said.

“What do you mean,” said Dr. Pipt, struggling to hang onto the ladder.

“You’ve built it too small! I can’t get in the door, and even if I could, we can’t sit in those chairs! Get down, get down!” Dr. Pipt made his way to the ground, and his wife climbed down after him. Then he went back up by himself, and found that she was right. He could squeeze into the door, but once inside the cockpit it was terribly cramped, and the chairs he had worked so hard to make were indeed too small for him to sit in.

“I don’t understand it,” he said when he had returned to the ground. “How could I have built everything too small for us?”

“It’s all those years you spent being crooked,” said Margolotte. “You think you can still get into any little space. Like when you tried to clean behind the stove.” That had not been Dr. Pipt’s finest hour, and their kitchen had never been the same. “We don’t have to go today. Take a few days to make bigger chairs, and we’ll go then.” She kissed him on the cheek. “It’s a very nice ship.”

“I can’t just make bigger chairs,” said Dr. Pipt. “There’s not enough room. The whole ship is too small. I’d have to make an entire new one, and this one would be a waste.”

“You’ll figure something out,” said his wife. “Just stay here and think. I’ll go back to the house. I’m sure you can manage to find something to do with this ship.”

She left, and Dr. Pipt sat at the edge of the clearing, looking up at the ship and trying to think how he could get himself and Margolotte into it. He sat there all through the day, but couldn’t solve the essential problem of the ship just not being large enough. He was still sitting there when the sun went down and the owls began to arrive.

The king of the owls flew right down to where he was sitting. “Why are you so sad, Dr. Pipt?” the owl asked.

“I made a mistake,” he said. “I built my ship too small, and my wife and I can’t get into it. Unless I can figure out some way to make us smaller, or it larger, it will never fly.”

“Only magic can do that,” said the owl. “And magic is outlawed. Ozma would be very angry were you to break the law again.”

“She was kind to me the last time,” said Dr. Pipt. “There must be another way, but I can’t see it.”

“Whenever we owls have a problem,” said the Owl King, “we ask ourselves the One Question. We believe if we have the answer to the One Question, we will be able to solve any problem which faces us.”

“What is the One Question?” asked Dr. Pipt.

“Who,” said the owl.

“Who?”

“Who.”

“Of course!” said Dr. Pipt. “Margolotte and I are too large for the rocket, but we are hardly the smallest people we know. We can send someone else. Your Majesty, I’m sure it’s beneath your Royal dignity, but will you consent to fly a message for me?”

“I want to see this rocket fly,” said the owl. “And will help any way I can.”

“Fly to the Emerald City, then,” said Dr. Pipt. “And find me Ojo the Lucky!”