Audio-book version of Now and Then and Other Tales from Ome (complete text, plus illustrations and audio narration by the author). To hear the audio, you must have the RealPlayer.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of this story for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.This story originally appeared in the
collection Now & Then and Other Tales from Ome. You
can buy that book from Amazon.com.
You can buy this story, with others and with the second edition
of The Lizard of Oz on a single diskette from Amazon.com
It was summer vacation, and everything was different: Mary Jane didn't have to go to school, and everything she just loved turned into a car -- all the animals, that is.
Mary Jane just loved all sorts of animals. She loved horses, cows, and birds. And she was very sad when they turned into Mustangs, Mavericks and Falcons.
But Leroy was very happy. He followed Mary Jane all over town. Every time she saw a little pony and just loved it and it turned into a car, Leroy would jump in that car and drive it round and round.
Soon Leroy and James and Ricky and Raymond and Michael and David and Penny and Frank and Julie and Desire were looking all over Brockton for horses and cows and birds to take to Mary Jane so she'd just love them and they'd turn into cars. Even Miss Morgan went looking for horses and cows and birds because she was tired of her little green VW.
Everybody wanted a car of their own. Everybody wanted two cars, three cars, as many cars as they could get. Miss Morgan got ten cars, so many cars that she had no place to put them; so she stacked them in her front yard.
Soon there weren't any horses or cows or birds in all of Brockton. And Mary Jane was very very sad because she just loved animals. And Leroy and James and Ricky and Raymond and Michael and David and Penny and Frank and Julie and Desire and Mis Morgan were sad because they wanted more and more cars. And Miss Morgan's little green VW was very very sad because Miss Morgan never drove her anymore.
Mary Jane saw the little green VW crying, and she felt so sorry for that little green VW that she ran up to it and hugged it and just loved it.
All of a sudden, the little green VW turned into the sweetest little green animal that Mary Jane had ever seen. Mary Jane could tell by its tail that it wasn't a horse or a cow or a bird.
She had made a brand-new kind of animal: one that you could ride and that said "moo" when it was happy, and that had a beak like a bird.
Mary Jane rode the VW all over town. She just loved it so much that she just loved every car that she saw; and every car that she just loved turned into an animal -- until there weren't any cars left in Brockton, just horses and cows and birds and strange new animals, like Darts and Thunderbirds and Saabs.
At first everybody in Brockton, except Mary Jane, was very sad, because nobody had any cars anymore.
Then Mary Jane had a idea. She whispered it to Miss Morgan, and Miss Morgan told the mayor, and the mayor told the rest of the town. The next morning, Brockton officially opened as a zoo.
People came from all over the world to see the little green VW and the Darts and Thunderbirds and Saabs and Comets and Gremlins and other strange animals. And soon Brockton because the richest town in the whole world.
That fall, Mary Jane rode to school on the little green VW.
And Leroy and James and Ricky and Raymond and Michael and David and Penny and Frank and Julie and Desire and Miss Morgan rode on horses and cows and birds and brand-new animals. And everybody was happy -- especially the animals.
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