We walked on through the woods. By now the yellow bricks underfoot were almost completely covered in dead branches and rotting leaves, so traveling had become kind of a pain in the ass. Still, if this story followed the movie at all, I was pretty sure there was a Cowardly Lion somewhere in these woods, and once we added him to the group it was straight to Emerald City, one more witch murder, some tearful goodbyes and bam, back to the mall to fill out a VERY STRONGLY WORDED market research form. I’d be out of there in…

No time? I realized that I’d already been in the Oz Matrix or whatever it was for at least two and a half days. Was this one of those things where I’d wake up to find that no time had passed in the real world? Or was I actually laying on a cot in the back of a shitty mall store with wires and feeding tubes hooked up to me, and all of this was happening in real time? If I just never came home from the mall, my Mom would freak the fuck out.

Suddenly I was even more eager to return home. A deep growl came from some wild animal hidden among the trees. And even though I was specifically looking for something that fit that description, the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“That was a lion, right?” I asked. “Do you guys think that sounded like a lion?”

The Scarecrow gasped. “I certainly hope there aren’t any lions in these woods!”

I was definitely hoping there were. But come to think of it, in the real world, lions didn’t even live in forests. “Um, how far are we from the Emerald City?” I asked the Woodsman. “Are there, like, any African savannas between here and there?”

“I cannot tell,” he said, “for I have never been to the Emerald City. But my father went there once, when I was a boy, and he said it was a long journey through a dangerous country.”

Well, that was no help. “But I am not afraid so long as I have my oil can,” he continued, “and nothing but fire can hurt the Scarecrow. And you bear upon your forehead the mark of the Good Witch’s kiss, which will protect you from harm.”

Oh yeah—I had pretty much blocked that whole thing with the kiss out of my memory. There was another mysterious growl, and Toto scampered close to my side. This wasn’t the kind of book where some animal ate my dog, was it?

As if on cue, there was a terrible roar from the forest, and an enormous lion bounded into the road. This wasn’t some 1930s character actor in a fur suit, either. It was an actual lion, and it was huge. With one blow of its paw it sent the Scarecrow tumbling off the road, and it did its damnedest to maul the Tin Woodsman with its claws. He didn’t even dent, but he fell on his side and lay perfectly still.

Toto ran straight toward the lion, barking, and the big cat opened its mouth to snap him up in one bite. It didn’t look cowardly at all. Still, half on instinct and half based on the fact that I thought I knew how this story was supposed to turn out, I rushed forward. “Please be the cowardly one, please be the cowardly one, please be the cowardly one,” I muttered to myself.

Then I punched that big, stupid lion right in the nose. “DO NOT EAT MY DOG.”

The lion yelped and fell back on his haunches. “I didn’t eat him!” he whined, rubbing his nose with a paw.

Oh, thank god. “You ARE the cowardly one! Ha!”

“I know it,” the Lion said, hanging his head in shame. “I’ve always known it. But how can I help it?”

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“I don’t know,” I said, irked. Coward or not, if the Scarecrow and Woodsman had been regular people they’d pretty much be dead right now. “Maybe don’t attack people who are stuffed with straw?”

“Is he stuffed?” the Lion asked, surprised. “So that’s why he went over so easily. It astonished me to see him whirl around so. Is the other one stuffed also?”

“No,” I said. “Tin.”

“That’s why he nearly blunted my claws,” the Lion said. “When they scratched against the tin it made a cold shiver run down my back. What is that little animal you are so tender of? Is he made of tin, or stuffed?”

“Neither. He’s a, uh… a meat dog, I guess.”

“Oh! He’s a curious animal and seems remarkably small, now that I look at him. No one would think of biting such a tiny thing, except a coward like me.” He was starting back up with the self-pity schtick again.

“You get that it’s not okay to maul people because you’re scared of them, right? Like, straight-up killing someone is not an appropriate reaction to the wiggins?”

The Lion sighed. “All the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for the Lion is everywhere thought to be the King of Beasts,” he said. “I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way. Whenever I’ve met a man I’ve been awfully scared; but I just roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go.”

“But that isn’t right. The King of Beasts shouldn’t be a coward,” the Scarecrow said. He had managed to get back on his feet, and was attempting to pat himself back into shape.

“I know it,” said the Lion, wiping a tear from his eye with the tip of his tail. “It is my great sorrow, and makes my life very unhappy. But whenever there is danger, my heart begins to beat fast.”

“Perhaps you have heart disease,” said the Tin Woodsman.

“It may be,” said the Lion.

“If you have, you ought to be glad, for it proves you have a heart. For my part, I have no heart; so I cannot have heart disease.”

“You know,” I said, “that actually doesn’t even sound like cowardice. It sounds like social anxiety. My friend Madeline has that. Pretty much everyone has that. What you should do is go to the Wizard and ask him to give you some Klonopin.”

“And that would cure me?” the Lion asked. “Do you think Oz could give me this Klonopin?”

“Just as easily as he could give me brains,” the Scarecrow said.

“Or give me a heart,” added the Tin Woodsman.

“Then, if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you,” said the Lion. “For my life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage.”

At last, our little group was complete. Or I hoped it was, at least. For all I knew the movie had trimmed its cast for budget reasons, and the book version of Dorothy also teamed up with a talking broom handle and a motherfucking pirate ghost.

The dark forest, for its part, just kept going and going for hours. At least having a full-sized lion at our side seemed to be keeping miscellaneous hidden growly things away. The rest of the day was utterly uneventful. In fact, the most interesting thing that happened was when the Tin Woodsman stepped on a bug, and was so upset about it that he cried his jaw shut. Then he couldn’t talk, so had to do a kind of frantic, grunting pantomime until the Scarecrow finally figured out what his deal was and got some oil up in there.

“This will serve me a lesson, to look where I step,” the Woodsman said. “For if I should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying rusts my jaws so that I cannot speak.” He spent the rest of the afternoon carefully walking with his eyes fixed on the road, meticulously stepping over every ant.

“You people with hearts have something to guide you,” he said, “and need never do wrong. But I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart, I needn’t mind so much.”

Of course, I had technically killed one witch already, and if the Cowardly Lion reacted to most strangers the way he had when he’d met us, he probably had a whole cave full of Munchkin bones hidden somewhere in the forest. If it was kindness the Tin Woodsman was after, an actual, physical heart didn’t seem to have all that much to do with it.

I couldn’t bear to bring it up, though, because I was sure it would break whatever mechanism that big, dumb robotic sweetheart was using as a substitute.