"No. I mean I"m trying to say, er ... "howdy doody" to you."
"Oh. Now I understand. I"m sorry for being so dumb. But you see, my entire vocabulary comes from TV shows. I never actually went to school, so some things I do not know. I beg of you, forgive me!" he shouted as he bent down on one knee and held Graham"s hand.
"There"s no need to be so dramatic," said Graham. "I forgive you."
"Oh, thanks a bunch," the creature said. "Is there anything you"d like to watch? You can watch any television show that"s ever been recorded in television history. Just say the word."
"Well, nothing right now," Graham answered. "But I"m really curious as to how you came into being."
"HOW! I! CAME! INTO! BEING? Hmmmmm. Oh, you mean how I was manufactured.
Well, originally a tinsmith made me. But then I lost my head over a girl. Then one day an electrical genius from Mars came to Oz to discuss a contract to build satellite dishes. They wanted to bounce signals from Mars to earth in order to relay Martian soap operas in exchange for some earth programming to Mars. Their favorite earth programs are reruns of _Mork and Mindy_ and _Star Trek_. They"re even more popular than their prime-time blockbuster, _My Favorite Earthling._ Anyway ... as I was saying ... Let"s see ... I had lost my head, and--"
"Now, wait a minute!" Graham interrupted. "There are no people on Mars.
Besides, the environment there is too hostile to support life."
"Oh. You mean that they have too many harsh TV critics?"
"No. I mean that--For one thing, the temperature would be too harsh.
It"s way too cold on Mars to support life. Not to mention the atmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide."
"Oh, my dear boy," smiled the face. "You don"t know anything, do you?
Oh, you know your scientific facts all right but, according to my memory banks, there is life all over the universe that your scientists" crude observation methods cannot even detect."
"You"re beginning to sound like the UFO people I talked to," Graham answered with a tone of disapproval in his voice.
"Well, nevertheless, life exists simultaneously on many different frequency levels that are undetectable from one to the other--an a.n.a.logy would be the many TV channels that are in the air simultaneously, but you can only tune in to the one frequency that your tuning device is locked into."
"Well, I"ve heard that before," answered Graham.
"Yes. And people are tuning devices in themselves. That"s why some people are sensitive to the vibrations from Oz and can see what is going on there. Mr. Baum was the first person in America who was able to tune into Oz, and he wrote many history books on this land. Well, that is to say, they were recordings of current events at the time he wrote them, but they are now history. And as much as he wrote, he was only able to record a tiny fraction of our history. Since then, many people have contributed. Some more than others."
"I wonder why no one in America was able to tune into Oz before L. Frank Baum," Graham said.
"Because there are millions of frequencies, but he happened to hit the right one one day when he was telling stories to the children. He was very lucky to hit it because of the tremendous odds against him. But once he did, it was easy after that. And it was easy for other people to follow him because they knew it could be done and kept persevering until they were able to tune in themselves. The secret is not to give up if you are truly interested, because once you lock into it, you become better attuned as time goes by. I heard a good example of this sort of thing on my sports channel just the other day. They were discussing Roger Bannister and how he broke the four minute mile in 1954 and that no one in earth"s history up until that time believed it could be done, so no one did it. But once Mr. Bannister ran the mile in three minutes and fifty-nine point four seconds, other people broke the record because now they knew it was possible after all. They had never really tried hard enough before that, because they simply did not believe. This just shows that you can do anything you set your mind to do as long as you believe it"s possible. Let me recite a poem I heard once on my Public Television channel. This poem, if my memory banks serve me right, is by a gentleman by the name of C.W. Longenecker:
_The Victor_
_If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you like to win but think you can"t, Its almost a cinch you won"t If you think you"ll lose, you"re lost.
For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow"s will.
It"s all in the state of wind.
If you think you are outcla.s.sed, you are.
You"ve got to think high to rise.
You can ever win a prize.
Life"s battles don"t always go To the stronger or faster man.
But sooner or later, the man who wins.
Is the one who thinks he can._"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
"That"s very inspirational," said Graham. "I must remember that. But doesn"t it apply equally to girls?"
"Oh, of course!" the TV responded. "But the poem was written a long time ago, before non-specific gender language was in vogue."
"You seem rather wise for a manufactured person," said Graham. "Where did your brain come from?"
"Oh, I haven"t really got a brain in the traditional sense of the word.
My brain is largely electronic and preprogrammed from a lot of things I"ve seen and heard on TV. There are lessons to be learned, even from the poorest of shows."
"Do you have a name?" asked Graham.
"Well, most of my friends call me Telle. My full name is Telle Visionary. But you can just call me Telly."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER NINE:
CAPTURED AGAIN!
"Well, Telly, you are a most fascinating person. Would you like to accompany me on my mission? You see, I am a stranger in a strange land, and I"d feel a lot better with someone like yourself who is familiar with the way things work here. Also, I haven"t the slightest idea where I am or where I"m going. Not only that, but I escaped from a Wicked Witch and she"s probably mad as heck right now and looking for me."
"I"d be delighted to accompany you, my little friend. Although I must tell you, I don"t know how much protection I could give you from the Wicked Witch because, if it"s the one I think it is, she"s bullied me from time to time. Whenever she sees me, she zooms right in and makes me run all the soap operas she"s missed. Sometimes I have to sit for hours and hours while she catches up. By the way, what is the mission you mentioned?"
"Oh, my mission is to get home to America," Graham answered quickly. "My parents must be worried sick about me. Have you any ideas how I could get back before that Witch captures me again?"
"Well, let"s see! Hmmm, dum de dum de dum, Hmmm, um, let me think..."
There was a long pause. "No!" he finally said. "I can"t think of a single way you could get back to America. In fact, I really don"t think it"s even possible for a human being to get back once he"s here. The only person I know of who ever did that was Dorothy Gale of Kansas. And the reason I know that is that I run the movie every year and the end is always the same. Dorothy clicks her heels together three times and says, "There"s no place like home, there"s no place like home, et cetera," and she wakes up in her bed back in Kansas. Now, there"s an idea! How about we go and see Dorothy? She"ll know how to get you back. Why didn"t I think of that first?"
"Wonderful!" the boy exclaimed. "I"m beginning to feel a lot better.
What is Dorothy doing now? Is she--" Graham"s question was cut short by a big, extremely loud popping sound and a cloud of smoke. When the smoke cleared, who should be there but the Wicked Witch, grinning from ear to ear and prancing up and down with excitement!
"Well, my little friend. Found you at last, haven"t I? Loved your spell!
Oh, it was terrific! See how beautiful I look? DO YOU? DO YOU?" she screamed, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. "Look at me. Look, I say!" she yelled as she jerked his face to hers. "Do I look more beautiful to you? Let"s see. What was the last line of that spell ...
Oh, now I remember: Look in the mirror and you shall see, none more beautiful than thee! You little liar. LIAR! Did you hear me?"
"How could I not?" asked Graham. "The way you"re carrying on, I a.s.sume there are people in Kansas who can hear you." But he cowered behind Telly as he said so.
"h.e.l.lo, my good woman," said Telly, holding out one of his peculiar triangle-shaped arms. His handshake was not accepted by the wicked woman. "Allow me to say that you are more exquisitely beautiful than any of the television stars I"ve ever seen or heard of!" said the robotic man. "And believe you me, I have run more Miss America beauty pageants than you can shake a stick at. You are lovelier than any of those girls.
You are more innocently ravishing than Ginger Grant on Gilligan"s Island! You are the epitome of human grace and style! You make all other women pale beside you!"
"Huh?" said the Witch, dropping Graham like a sack of potatoes. He caught his breath and tried to stand up, but the Witch had put one of her big, long feet on his chest to hold him down. "What are you talking about, Tube-face?" the Witch asked of the television-person.
"I am just admiring your gorgeousness!" said Telly in a musical tone of voice. "Are you the next TV heart-throb? The next Susan Lucci? Are you going to take the couch potatoes of the world by storm and make all of them yearn to be you? You could, you know. You surely are already the envy of everyone who has ever laid eyes upon you!"