The fourth 'Oz' book by Ruth Plumly Thompson feels like an L. Frank Baum novel thrown through a Ruth Plumly Thompson filter. It's ridiculously episodic, outrageously convenient and wraps up with a deus ex machina; but it's also wildly inventive, frantic in pace and simply joyous in its wordplay. I won't suggest that everything Thompson throws at the wall sticks but I will state on oath that her wordplay is by far the best in the series thus far. Arguably, she achieves that in the first couple of chapters and just keeps on going anyway.

As you might imagine, the lead character this time out is Grampa, an old soldier with a game leg—it actually has a game stored within it—who lives in Ragbag for whom he'd fought in nine hundred and eighty battles. He'd beaten everything, including the drum. When we meet him, he's beating a carpet. Ragbag is in the southwest corner of Quadling country and Grampa is the bravest man in it, though it's fallen on hard times and only twenty-seven families are left, all of them led by King Fumbo and his queen, who is now Mrs. Sew-and-Sew. When Fumbo fails to ring a bell, he wrings his hands instead. The wordplay is incessant.

What's odd about Ragbag is that its hard times have come because of a downfall in its economy, a bizarre idea given that there's supposedly no money in Oz. However, it apparently used to be that all dress goods were made in Ragbag, but that's no longer the case. Now they have to sell rugs to keep afloat. They don't even have enough funds to send the lawns to the laundry. Given all these troubles, it's rather inconvenient that King Fumbo loses his head during a storm. Literally. There isn't any death in Oz either—except for wicked witches, I guess—so he'll wander around without it for a while, but a quest has to be undertaken to retrieve it.

It falls to Prince Tatters to do that, after he throws on the shaggy skin of a thread bear. And, if he happens to be off searching for his father's head, then he can surely seek his fortune at the same time. It may be the only thing to turn around the Ragbag economy. Grampa accompanies him, as that's required by the title, so becoming presumably the oldest lead character in the series thus far, much older than Notta Bit More, the clown from the previous book, 'The Cowardly Lion of Oz'. I have no problem with old lead characters, but it does seem rather surprising in a series that's so intended for smaller children.

Meanwhile, in Perhaps City, another quest takes form. This is where the Happsies live, in Winkie country, where they're led by Peer Haps and are subject to just as much wordplay as the people of Ragbag. For instance, Peer Haps has a yellow hen who produces gold bricks instead of eggs. "She had done more than anyone else to lay the foundation of his fortune." See, that's all Ragbag was missing: a yellow hen that lays gold bricks. Anyway, the old prophet Abrog points out that, in only four days, a monster will marry the princess. He offers himself as husband first, but she vanishes and Percy Vere, the Forgetful Poet, is sent down Maybe Mountain to bring her home.

You won't be surprised to find that these stories alternate, though Thompson hasn't quite found the knack for that yet, so we tend to get a lot of one before we're reminded that the other is still ongoing. The balance here is wildly skewed in favour of the first quest, enough so that we forget that the other one is even there. When it does show its head from time to time, it's typically just so Percy can say something in verse but forget the final word. If that were deliberate, it would be his shtick, but I guess he's just forgetful.

You also won't be surprised to find that both parties expand in number, because that's one of the oldest traditions of the series, going all the way back to Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road. Prince Tatters and Grampa soon acquire a weather cock called Bill. He's from Chicago from which he was whisked away in an electrical storm to Oz, where he gained life. They also find Urtha, a lady made entirely of flowers, in the garden of a wizard called Gorba. Yes, I know. I saw that immediately too. Maybe young audiences in the twenties weren't as aware of anadromes or even anagrams. Percy bumps into Dorothy and Toto, who visited the Tin Woodman but got lost on the way back, so they team up too.

While all my favourite parts of this book tie to wordplay, whether it's puns, double meanings or a barrage of literalisms, Thompson does a strong job with locations too. Sure, they're episodic, one following another without any intention of ever going back, but they often have ramifications to keep them alive as the story progresses. For instance, Grampa and the prince encounter bandits in the Blue Forest—their chief's father told him to take things easy, so he does, literally. Grampa bores them to sleep so they can make their escape, but he takes the chief's pouch of tobacco and his bottle of patent medicine—the one thing he won't take—and both are important.

The most pristine example of wordplay happens in the Blue Forest too. "We've taken everything they have," says one bandit, but Grampa quickly disagrees with passion. "No you haven't. Take my picture, you scoundrel! Take my rheumatism! Take my advice and clear out of this forest before I report you to the Princess of Oz." I do like that. I like it far more than Grampa growing a chimney because he ate a house plant. However, there are many other gems, from a fence that runs round a mountain—literally—to Bill becoming Invisi-Bill when they're all unexpectedly transformed.

There's so much fun here, some of it with situations and a lot of it with words, but it's pretty clear that nobody achieves anything except by chance. They have to climb into hollow trees and spiral staircases to get down and into volcanos to get thrown back up again. If they missed any of those, then the whole book falls apart, just as if they didn't steal medicine from the bandits, they would have been in serious trouble a dozen times over. Every moment is built on an early one, down to the outrageously convenient finalé. If I took a drink for every convenience in in this book, I would be dead.

What I'm starting to wonder is how Thompson's books will continue. Clearly her most imaginative contribution is wordplay, but she's getting a lot better with locations. I wasn't a big fan of some of those in her earlier books but these are much more fun, even if the characters have to encounter still more conveniences to get to most of them. However, I much prefer her stories that seem like they unfold exactly how she envisaged them rather than ones that seem shoehorned into Baum's traditions. Let's see where 'The Lost King of Oz' takes me next month. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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