CHAPTER ONE: THE HUMBUG

Once or twice, long ago the fire of enchantment burnt low, and children and even grownups found nothing new in the world, nothing worth seeing or doing or bothering about; nothing, that is, except machines.

The disenchantment spread just about everywhere, until it reached the basement classroom in Winthrop, Massachusetts, where a pair of fish, Mrs O'Rourke and Mr Shermin, lived in a fishbowl. It was there that began the quest that took an entire class to Oz and to Ome, to bring back fire to the world.

It all began one morning when the whole class was there: Eugene and Mark and Linda S. and Linda Crotty and Cindy and Donny and Joey and Timmy and Kevin and Peter and Gaynell and Kathy and the two teachers -- Miss Morgan and Miss Prysby. That morning no one was smiling or laughing or playing: they all looked blank and bored.

"Joey, stop sulking and sit down," shouted Miss Morgan.

"Kevin! Eugene! Stop fighting this instant," insisted Miss Prysby.

When Mrs O'Rourke, the fish, saw them, she was frantic that maybe they were all disenchanted. So she went wiggling to the other end of the fishbowl, where Mr Shermin lived. Mr Shermin knew most everything: he used to be a teacher, till he decided he wanted to be a fish, and then he knew how to make himself a fish, which not many people, even teachers, know how to do.

"Mr Shermin," she said, "please, Mr Shermin, Please wake up".

"What? What is it, Mrs O'Rourke?" he answered drowsily.

"How can you sleep with the world this way?"

"What? What?" He rubbed his eyes with his fins.

"Why just look at these kids; just listen to them".

Miss Prysby was saying, "Settle down now, class. Settle down, sit up, and pay attention".

The class groaned in chorus.

"Miss Prysby," whined Timmy, "Can we go home now?"

"But, Timmy, you just got here, and none too soon -- you were ten minutes late".

"But can't we go home?" he whined again. "I just want to go home".

"Sometimes you kids are just insufferable," she said.

"What's 'insupperable' mean, Miss Prysby?" whined Gaynell.

"Suffer! Suffer!" exclaimed Miss Prysby in exasperation. "As in 'Suffer the little children.'"

"What..". began Gaynell.

"No, no, don't ask me that, too".

Back in the fishbowl, Mrs O'Rourke asked, "What is it Mr Shermin? Whatever is the matter with them?"

And Mr Shermin said, "It's the Humbug".

"The Humbug?" asked Mrs O'Rourke.

"Yes, the Humbug. He's been flying around beating on his humdrum and disenchanting everybody. I was afraid we'd start to hear him down here. It was just a matter of time".

"But where can we go? What can we do?"

"Calm down now, Mrs O'Rourke. Calm down". Mr Shermin was just as concerned as she was, so he tried really hard to think of some way to break the disenchantment. And since the water around his head started to boil, you could tell that he was getting warm and would soon have an answer. So Mrs O'Rourke calmed down and cheered up and calmed down -- up down, up down, just like on a sea-saw, only she wasn't at sea, just in a fishbowl, so it wasn't quite as much fun as riding up down on the waves, but she did have a lot of fun waiting for Mr Shermin to figure out how to get the world back to its usual enchanted self.

"The only way to break the disenchantment is to make the Humbug change his tune; but the only person in the whole universe who can make him do that is the Lizard of Oz".

"The Lizard?"

"You've probably heard of the Wizard of Oz," explained Mr Shermin. "Everybody's heard of him and his emerald city. You remember how he made people wear green glasses so everything looked green to them, and how it turned out that he was just an ordinary person with no magic powers at all, and that things weren't anywhere near as marvelous without the glasses. Well, that story was written by the Humbug. He wants everybody to think that enchantment is just make-believe or dreams or foolishness. He doesn't want people to know about the Lizard. So he named his story The Wizard of Oz, hoping people would confuse it with the Lizard; and he made it a very good story so everybody would remember it and forget the Lizard; and that's just what happened".

"But who is the Lizard of Oz?"

"He lives in the green green grass of Ome".

"Ome?"

"Yes, Ome is the nicest part of Oz, with lakes and trees and lots of grass for kids to roll in".

"Can we get there on the MBTA?" asked Mrs O'Rourke.

"The best way to get there is in a little green VW".

And Mrs O'Rourke remembered that Miss Morgan had a little green VW. But before she could ask anything else, she looked up and saw Eugene standing next to the fishbowl.

"Can I help?" he asked.

"Holy mackerel!" exclaimed Mrs O'Rourke. "Eugene, you nearly frightened me out of my scales. Mr Shermin, I thought you said they were all disenchanted?"

Mr Shermin explained, "They've been down here in the basement at school so they haven't heard much of the Humbug, and they're nowhere near as disenchanted as everybody else; though it's sad to say that some of them are pretty far gone".

Just then they heard ever so faintly through an open window:

"Humdrum Humbug

beating on his humdrum.

Humdrum Humbug

beating on his humdrum..".

"Quick, Eugene!" shouted Mr Shermin. "Put cotton in your ears and get everybody to put cotton in theirs. Maybe it's not too late. Maybe you're all just enchanted enough to get to Oz and roll through the green green grass of Ome and find the Lizard and get him to change the Humbug's tune".