and the Cowardly Lion! Jonathan squealed and kicked his legs under the blanket.
His parents beamed with pleasure. It was rare to get a reaction from Jonathan that was easily understood. The voice was asking people to write away for a special record album of songs from the film.
'I know a little boy who would like that,' his mother said, smiling. And Jonathan went quiet with longing. He didn't dare say yes. Years later, he still regretted that they had never got the record.
Then suddenly it began. There were more clouds, like the CBS eye, and a chorus of voices rising up like a great wind.
Dorothy came running over a hill. She wasn't like Dorothy in his pretty little book. She was large and had dark hair, but as soon as she started to speak, there was something in her voice that soothed Jonathan as he worried. He was worried that it was so different from his book.
Her Aunty Em said a lot more things, and the farm was full of people. There was going to be more story. This was a delight to him, but he also felt betrayed. How could so many things have been left out of his book?
Jonathan remembered liking Dorothy swinging back and forth holding on to a huge barnyard wheel. It seemed like something fun to do. He was excited by her visit with Professor Marvel, who was brand-new and nothing to do with the story he knew at all. Then he grew suspicious. What if the movie was completely different and Dorothy didn't go to Oz at all?
He did not perceive Miss Gulch at all, nor was he badly affected by the threatened death of Toto. Jonathan had never had a pet to love. He had not learned to care for little animals. In fact, to him the eyes of animals seemed cold and alien. They chilled, rather than warmed him. Perhaps also he didn't understand the line about taking the dog to the Sheriff to have him destroyed.
The major disappointment was the cyclone. Jonathan was looking forward to seeing the cyclone almost as much as Oz itself. A few months before, there had been a cyclone warning, a great rarity for Ontario, and everyone had gone out and picked up loose branches and closed the shutters over windows. Jonathan had had to be dragged sullenly back inside the house. He had wanted to stay outside to see it.
But now the cyclone was lost for him amid the black-and-white blur of the television screen.
'There it is,' his father said, pointing.
'Where?' demanded Jonathan, becoming angry. He had imagined cyclones as great, solid, spinning things that came from nowhere out of a blue sky. He peered narrow-eyed at the television, seeing only swirling clouds. 'I can't see it!' he wailed. He saw Dorothy running, and behind her, beyond the porch of the house, he could just barely make out something moving in the sky. Was that the cyclone?
He forgot his anger when Dorothy woke up inside it. He loved the idea of being warm and safe, cradled in the wind. He loved the chickens flying about inside the storm and the people in a boat, rowing their way through clouds as if through water.
Then there was a lady on a bicycle. It had been a long time since Miss Gulch was on the screen; Jonathan had forgotten all about her. He didn't recognize her. He did recognize what she turned into.
Suddenly, clothes streaming behind her, there was a huge horrible witch riding a broomstick.
He screamed and hid under the Indian blanket.
'Jonathan!' laughed his mother, always taken aback by his susceptibilities.
'Is it gone?' he demanded.
'Yes, yes,' said his mother. Jonathan stayed under his blanket. He heard Dorothy screaming, and he screwed his eyes shut.
There was a line in Jonathan's shortened book: 'The cyclone set the house down very gently for a cyclone.' He had liked that. He knew what it meant. There would be quite a big bump, but not so big that Dorothy would be hurt. He wanted to see the house land so he forced himself to watch. He looked out from under his blanket in time to see the room and the house come to a stop with a tremendous bump. Oh, said Dorothy. Perfect! They had done it perfectly!
Dorothy was in Oz. Jonathan wanted to see the Munchkins and he wanted to see the Good Witch. Most of all he wanted to see her give Dorothy the magic kiss that meant no harm could come to her. Jonathan loved the idea that no harm could come.
Dorothy went toward the door. Jonathan was so excited, he almost had to pee.
'Look,' said his father. 'This is the part that turns into color. She steps out and everything is in color.'
The commentary was an unwarranted distraction. Jonathan knew perfectly well that the television couldn't show color. He was gripped by both joy and edgy suspense. Dorothy peered out through the door. Then she stepped out onto the porch, but he still couldn't see Oz.
'There, that's when it turns into color!' exclaimed his father.
Oz was black-and-white. It didn't matter. Dorothy's eyes were wide and round, and she wandered through a strange gray place full of television mist and giant leaves. Jonathan went breathless and still. And then, there was a floating, silvery globe.
'That's like Space Cat!' cried Jonathan, overjoyed.
The bubble turned into Glinda, the Witch of the North. The magic kiss was to come.
Glinda asked, so very politely, if Dorothy were a good witch or a bad witch. Jonathan loved the idea of good witches. He loved the way Oz people spoke, very polite and slightly addled. When Glinda asked if Toto was the Witch, Jonathan shrieked with laughter and kicked his feet.
'Sssh, Jonathan,' said his mother, worried about the way he could get overexcited.
Jonathan loved it that Dorothy had killed the Wicked Witch. It was good that she had not meant to do it, and it was so strange to see the Witch's striped-stocking feet sticking out from under the house, strange in the way that being tickled is strange, slightly fearful and gigglesome at the same time.
'She'll be all squashed and flat,' said Jonathan gleefully.
