Cory Leonardo - The Hedgehog of Oz

Also by Cory Leonardo

The Simple Art of Flying

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALADDIN

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division

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www.SimonandSchuster.com

First Aladdin hardcover edition February 2021

Text copyright 2021 by Cory Leonardo

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Book designed by Tiara Iandiorio

Jacket design by Tiara Iandiorio 2021 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Jacket illustration 2021 by Jennifer Bricking

This book has been cataloged with the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-5344-6759-0 (hc)

ISBN 978-1-5344-6761-3 (eBook)

For Caleb, Sam, and Amelia

May you always find your way back

Back to the road that leads you home.

T UCKED BETWEEN A BRICK APARTMENT building and a busy corner deli, on a storybook tree-lined street, sits a theater. A run-down but beautiful theater.

At precisely six oclock every morning, a long ladder pushes through the shiny front entrance, and with a wrench and a terrible screech, the ladder unfolds. Under the cheerful glow of the marquee, an elderly man ascends.

One by one letters are plucked from beneath the NOW SHOWING sign and scooted around. Attack of the Atomic Alien-Cats becomes Night of a Thousand Kisses in the bat of an eyelash. Though the marquee might read Marigold Takes Manhattan! at 6 a.m., by 6:05, Bleak Battle III will blaze in its stead, lit up by the hundred globe lights that hug the edge of the great sign and wink on the cracked tiles below.

A ticket booth, all glass and gold trim, stands waiting between two sets of doors, ready to collect dollar bills, coins, traces of pocket lint.

And every evening, tickets in hand, the moviegoers file in with anticipation. Past the doors. Into the lobby. Through the warm, inviting balm of buttery popcorn air.

A line forms at the snack counter. Orange Fizzy Pop and Crystal Cola sloshes into tall cups of ice. Popcorn pops in an old-fashioned popcorn cart and spills into greasy buckets; stray kernels crunch into the carpet below.

The cash register chimes as a woman in blue orders Chocolate Buttons and gummy Fruit Gems, while a gaggle of small boys presses noses and sticky fingers to the smudged glass. They ogle long ropes of licorice and lollipops the size of their heads. A pair of elderly gentlemen order the same confection selectionsCoco-nutties, Toffee Beans, and Cinnamon Snapsthree boxes each. Gumdrops, peppermints, caramels so sticky they cant be carved from your teeth for a weekthe register sings and sings and sings.

Past the concession stand, deep inside and so high it seems pinned to the clouds painted on the peeling ceiling, a heavy curtain cascades to the stage and pools in great crimson tufts. (It harbors more than a few moth-eaten holes.) And though its a bit worn now in places, the theaters proud gold paint brightens the baseboards, the balcony, the flying monkeys spiraling up pillars to the opera seats, a cornice of poppies crowning the stage. Emerald City murals, chipped and faded over the years, glow from the wings, while the theaters threadbare velvet seats warm under the sparkle of diamond chandeliers.

All is hushed. Everything waits

CRASH-CLONK. The lobby doors open.

People stroll down the aisles and plunk themselves into seatstwo here, three over there.

Chandeliers dim as tiny glass bulbs bordering the aisles flicker to life, lighting the way for more napkins, a splash of soda, a second bag of licorice.

The music strikes its first chord. Voices hush.

The curtain rises.

And the show goes on.

The theaters heart beats differently every night. The screen might conjure a laugh, a gasp, even an infrequent snore. A sob might bubble up and float into the rafters.

Squeals of fright. Peals of delight. Its just like this that the months and years of the Emerald City Theater have marched on. And from gleam and sheen to wear and tear, the decades slowly drifted by.

There is one thing, however, that has always remained the same.

Every Saturday at noon sharp there plays one matinee show.

The film hasnt changed. The same movie reel clicks away every Saturday and has for as long as anyone can remember the doors being open.

And lately, something else, too.

A small pair of eyes has been glued to the noon matinee each week. A pair of eyes, behind a pair of much-too-large eyeglasses.

Kansas. Flying houses. A group of travelers on the yellow brick road. Every Saturday, high in the theaters sagging balcony, now closed off and cobwebbed with time and disuse, a bespectacled Marcel perches on the back of a dusty theater chair, taking it all in. The Wicked Witch cackling and the film reel crackling. Those ruby slippers and no place like home.

Marcel knows every word of Over the Rainbow. Hes sung it probably a thousand times.

Well, before. Before he came to the theater, that is. Once upon a time.

He hasnt sung a note of it since.

For a while, as the first violin notes quivered to life and his beloved moving picture lit up the screen, he could still imagine it, though. A reunion. One fit for the movies.

A happily ever after.

Maybe shed seen the marquee. Maybe with a hitch in her heart and Marcel on her mind, shed decide to take in the showtheir showone more time.

And for a while, hed watch. Not the matinee. But for that glimpse of braids, the flash of braces, a sticker-covered skateboard. For a long time, months even, a glimmer of hope remained.

But she never came.

And now?

Well, Auntie Hen might perch beside him. And when shes not pecking at a popcorn kernel or the sticky remains of a lemon drop, Uncle Henrietta will sit for a few. Two fat hens, roosting in the balcony above a dark theater, watching The Wizard of Oz.

And Marcel, that Oz-loving hedgehog?

Yes. He watches too.

M ARCEL LISTENED AS GOMER DUPREE wrapped up the days battle against the old janitors sworn enemy: bubble gum. Blobs on the metal trash baskets, wads under seats, globs stuck like growths to the flying monkeys carved into the pillars.

When the last wad was vanquished, Gomer (getting on in years and stooped with arthritis) valiantly vacuumed candy and popcorn kernels from the seat cracks and scrubbed what soda pop glue he could from the floor. He missed some things.