Yellow Brick War by Danielle Paige

counted the overalls they sold at the feed store. There was a bus, though, that ran once an hour to the biggest nearby town, where you could stock up on slightly outdated ensembles at one of those giant box stores that also sold kitchenware, hunting rifles, and kids’ toys.
    The bus ride passed quickly enough, and soon we were walking in the front door. I let my mom pick out the clothes she wanted to buy me; I didn’t care what I wore. As she flipped through a rack of pastel sweatshirts with rhinestone slogans like CUTE and FLIRT, I said casually, “I guess I should start back to school tomorrow.”
    She stopped short. “School?” she asked.
    I shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like I can get out of going forever.”
    â€œHoney,” my mom said, “you just got home. I think you can take a week or two to settle in.” She paused. “I don’t know if you remember,” she said delicately, “but before you disappeared—I mean, before the tornado picked you up—you got suspended. We’ll probably have to deal with that, too.”
    Suspended? I had no idea for a moment what she was talking about, and then it all came rushing back. Madison. The fight she’d picked with me the day the tornado hit—how she’d pretended it was my fault and told the assistant principal, Mr. Strachan, that I’d assaulted her. After battling Dorothy, Madison Pendleton seemed like a pretty pathetic enemy. It was hard to believe I’d once lived in terror of her. Poor little Salvation Amy had gone to ninja camp. Now that I thought about it, I waskind of looking forward to seeing Madison again.
    â€œRight,” I said. “I forgot about that.”
    â€œI can go talk to Mr. Strachan tomorrow before I go to work,” my mom offered. “I’m sure we can figure something out if you’re sure you’re well enough to go back. I know you missed a lot of school, but I’ll ask if you can make up the work you were absent for and still graduate on time.” Graduate? Right. That, too, was something from a life that seemed so far away I could barely even think about it. In every way that really mattered, I had already graduated.
    â€œSure, thanks,” I said. My mom gave me a thoughtful look, but she turned back to the rack of clothes.
    She ended up buying me a couple of T-shirts and sweatshirts, and one pair of jeans. She didn’t say it out loud, but I knew that was all she could afford—and she couldn’t really afford even that. She didn’t say anything about money later that night either, when we ordered an extra-large pizza with extra pepperoni from the chain store a couple of blocks over—what constituted fine dining in Flat Hill. My mom flipped through channels on the beat-up old TV she told me she’d gotten from the Salvation Army.
    So maybe it was true. Maybe I always was going to be Salvation Amy.
    So what? I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything here anymore, except finding those stupid shoes and going back to Oz. Somehow, without really thinking about it, I’d decided already: I didn’t belong in Kansas anymore, no matter howhappy my mom was to see me. I couldn’t just go back to being the same person I’d been before. Not after everything I’d seen and done. I couldn’t go back to a place where no one would believe anything that had happened to me was real. I’d watched people I cared about die. I’d risked my life. I’d used magic. I’d fallen—okay, fine, I’d fallen in love. And there was no one in Kansas I could share any of that with. It was as if Oz had made the decision for me. Or maybe I just didn’t have much of a choice.
    â€œOh, look!” my mom said happily. “
The Wizard of Oz
is on. Remember how we used to love that movie?”
    I almost dropped my slice of pizza on the sad shag rug. There she was, in all her glory—Judy