"I"mb afraid that I"mb having a hard time dealing with the sbell of the stinkweeds," she explained, not wanting to hurt the boy"s feelings by mentioning his feet, which Ozma felt certain were the real source of the offensive smell. She believed that it would be better to avoid any statement that might be taken as a gesture of insult.
"The stinkweeds?" replied the boy. "But they are delicious. They are our primary food."
This was not going very well, and the little Queen was already feeling nauseated by the stench. She would not be able to take much time explaining her situation before she became physically ill. This proposed a problem, as she had never known illness to exist in Oz.
Still, it was a matter that would require a bit of research. "I bust see your President," she sniffled uneasily. "Can you take be to himb?"
"Of course," said the boy simply, taking a handful of the stinkweeds and eating it. "I can take you to his mansion, anyway. I don"t know if he"ll want to talk. He is preparing to fight the Sniffers for control of the fertile lands, and is very busy with that right now."
"That"s just the thing," said Ozma. "I need to discuss that batter with himb."
"Well," said the boy, "you are the Queen. Follow me."
Ozma followed the lad as quickly as she could under the circ.u.mstances.
The smell only grew more pungent with each step. It was overpowering.
But she knew that she had to help the two rivals to come to an arrangement quickly, as the Forest Monster could be doing nearly anything at this point, and she was losing valuable time. She wished that she had sent the forest animals on to speak to the Saber-Toothed Light Bulbs without her, but she knew in her heart that such an act might well have endangered her new friends. If she were not with the animals, the Light Bulbs might well have attacked them. No, this was all she could do. She only hoped that she had not chosen the wrong skirmish to settle first.
When she came to the mansion of President Stinky McFoot, she saw that it was expansive. It was a good sixteen acres wide, and had more rooms than any one man could possibly make use of. She hurriedly knocked on the heavy oak door.
Her knock was answered by a Stinkfoot who was dressed as a butler.
"Yes?" he said to her.
"I amb Queen Ozba of Oz," she explained. "I amb here to speak to the President."
"Queen Ozba of Oz?" replied the butler. "But you are just a child. How can you be the queen of anything? Except possibly a toy box."
"I amb Queen Ozba!" she said. "I amb serious! I bean it!"
"Okay," chuckled the Stinkfoot. "I"ll play along for a moment. If you are the Queen of Oz, what is it you wish to speak to President McFoot about?"
"He is planning a war with the Sniffer Nation," said the Queen. "I want to try to find a better way for your people to solve your differences."
"That is very touching," laughed the butler. "But if you were really the Queen of Oz, you would surely know that the matter is already settled.
The Sniffer-snuffers will have to let us have the land we need to survive, and that is all there is to it. Now, go home little girl. We have a lot to attend to, and there really isn"t any time for your games."
"But I amb really the Queen!" objected she.
"Yes," said the butler, "and I am Charles d.i.c.kens. My wife is the Queen of England. Now do run along." He shut the door before Ozma had a chance to say anything more.
"This is not going at all as I planned," sighed Ozma. But the pungent odor was already more than she could take, and she knew that she must get to some fresh air immediately if she was to be of any practical use to either the Sniffers or the denizens of the Lunechien Forest.
Dejectedly, she returned to the Sniffer Nation. She was gasping for air by the time she arrived there, and so she breathed in several lungfuls of the cleaner, purer stuff. It was a treat that she was grateful for.
"So what did Stinky McStink have to say?" President Schnozzle asked Ozma upon her return.
"I did not get in to see Mr. McFoot," said Ozma sourly. "But I sure did get a noseful of your immediate problem."
"Our immediate problem is the fact that a bunch of people with stinky-feet are planning to attack and burn our village to the ground. I am sorry, Your Majesty, but we are left with no other recourse but to go to war with them and destroy them all before they do it to us. Surely you can see that they are unreasonable and unkind and un-un--well, a bunch of other words that start with "un." We can"t allow them to UN-ify us if we can help it, and we Sniffers are a proud people who will not give in without a fight!"
"President Schnozzle," sighed Ozma. "I am not trying to belittle you or your pride. I just don"t think that resorting to violence is the way to deal with any situation. It only leads to misery for both sides."
"Not if we win," replied the President.
"In times of war," said Lisa, "there are no winners." The hoot-owl had stayed back with the four Lunechien animals at the Sniffer President"s modest home, and was also a little disappointed at Ozma"s failure to speak to the Stinkfoot leader. So much had been riding on this meeting.
But Ozma had not gotten in to see him, and the simple fact remained that they were no closer to a solution than they had been before.
"Maybe we need those Saber-Toothed Light Bulbs right here," suggested Nibbles. "Then the Stinkfoots would be too scared to start a fight."
"I doubt it," reasoned President Schnozzle. "I"m not even sure that any Saber-Toothed Light Bulbs could handle the stinky smell of those buzzards."
"Maybe not," said Hootsey. "But it is an idea. What if we were to scare the Stinkfoots back into their own territory?"
"That may be possible," said Ozma. "It looked to me like they had no problem of overpopulation. It was really just their desire to grow more stinkweeds, and their incapability to do so in their soil."
"That"s right!" said Lisa. "But no soil can go indefinitely growing the same crop. Anyone who lives in the forest knows that! And even the Munchkin farmers rotate their crops to keep their soil in balance."
"Rotate it?" scoffed the Sniffer President. "You mean like a phonograph record on a turntable?"
"No," replied Lisa. "I mean that if, say, a farmer plants carrots in his fields this year, he will plant something totally different next year.
This way, the nutrients in the soil stay in balance and can be used to raise more carrots some other year. It"s really very simple. It"s kind of like replenishing with one crop what was diminutized by another."
"So you think that, if the Stinkfoots were to grow carrots instead of stinkweeds for a year, they could go back to stinkweeds next year?" said the President uncertainly.
"I"d say more than likely," agreed Lisa.
"But," put in Hootsey, "the Stinkfoots can"t live without their stinkweed. Or they refuse to, in any event"
"Maybe we have a solution," grinned Ozma.
"But we don"t," said Hootsey. "They will refuse to give up their stinkweeds. You know it"s true."
"Not if they can have them," said Ozma. "Listen, President Schnozzle.
What would you think of letting the Stinkfoots use your land to grow their food here this year, while the Sniffer farmers use the Stinkfoot Nation to grow anything that they want to eat? You can simply switch territories every year, and the rotation of crops will keep both of your soils fertile."
The Sniffer President sat down in a wooden chair. He was obviously deep in thought. "You know," he said after a time, "I think you have something there. If we can only state this plan to the Stinkfoots, I"m sure it would work. I am beginning to recall that even our own farmers have spoken about this rotation of crops on at least one occasion. And I"d bet that the stinkweeds would have made the soil over there ideal for our dietary staples!"
"More than likely!" said Lisa wisely.
"This is all very nice," said Elephant. "But how are we to propose this idea to a people who is as unwilling to listen as a deaf tree-stump?"
"We have got to gain an audience with President McIdiot--I mean, President McFoot. I suppose it does me no good to make fun of his foolishness."
"Not foolishness," said Nibbles. "Just lack of education. I didn"t know until you guys just said so that rotation of crops was a good idea. Mr.
McFoot just doesn"t know about farming. He may be a very very wise man in a lot of other subjects."
"I think you"re right," agreed President Schnozzle. "And I am sorry that I reacted so harshly to his actions, which I can now see that he did out of true concern and love for his subjects."
"In any situation," said Lisa, "it is always best to act, rather than to re-act. It makes you look a lot brighter."
"I wholeheartedly agree," said Elephant. "However, we still have to figure out a way to get McFoot into a position to speak to us."