The Lizard of Oz: Chapter Twenty-Five
Everything Matters
Inside the whale, the darkness was filled with every imaginable danger. Miss Shelby screamed. Peter hid his head on Miss Osborne’s shoulder.
Linda S. said, “This is scary, Miss Osborne. I’ve never been this scared before, not even in the Fun House.”
Kevin said, “Fun House? Aw, that’s kids’ stuff. Did you see the Godzilla movie?”
“Godzilla?” said Joey, “That’s nothing. You should have seen…”
Everybody had a horror movie they wanted to talk about.
Soon they were singing The worms crawl in and Found a peanut, and Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.
“Music mighty strong medicine,” said Mr. New Man.
“My, this is exciting,” said Miss Shelby. “It’s like being swallowed by nature herself.”
She stretched out on the whale’s soft tongue and took a nap.
Soon everybody was taking a nap.
Then the whale started to twist and turn.
Everybody woke up and huddled together.
Then a retching noise came from deep down inside, and the whale threw up, and the whole class was thrown up on the shore.
“Man, I feel like a new man,” said Mr. New Man. It sounded funny hearing him say that again after all they’d been through together, but everybody was feeling great and knew what he meant.
Miss Osborne checked the VW. It had landed right-side up; and, by some miracle, it still worked.
“Don’t go running off,” she told the class. “This could be Ome, so we need to put on sunglasses. We’ll be safe, I’m sure, so long as we keep these sunglasses on.”
Everybody put on sunglasses and stretched out on the beach, with the waves tickling their toes. They felt even better than they had when they fell into the river from the mushroom. Maybe they were relieved to be safe after all the danger they had passed through. Miss Osborne, in particular felt good that the quest was ending. Finally they were in Ome, and soon they’d be Home.
“Gosh,” said Donny, “that bush over there looks like it’s on fire.”
Everybody went running to the bush.
Timmy got close enough to touch it.
“Watch out!” shouted Miss Shelby. “You’ll get burnt.”
“But it isn’t burning, Miss Shelby,” Timmy answered.
“Of course it’s burning,” said Miss Shelby. “We can all see it’s on fire.”
But when she got closer, she too saw it wasn’t burning.
“I wish Mr. Shermin were here,” she said. “He’s so good at explaining things. I learned so much from him.”
“Why that’s the fire that doesn’t burn,” said Miss Osborne, and she rushed forward with the stick that Plato had given her.
“What are you doing?” asked Joey.
“I want to see if this stick will catch fire, so we can bring the fire back home.”
The stick glowed when she put it in the bush; but when she took it out, the glow faded.
“Do you think it’s God?” asked Miss Shelby.
“Beware,” a voice boomed, like it was coming from a loudspeaker.
Miss Shelby screamed, “The bush is talking!”
But Donny said, “Gosh, no, Miss Shelby. It’s that astronaut over there.”,
On top of the hill a man in a spacesuit was walking toward them, waving frantically.
“Stand back from that bush,” he said. “Return to the water. This area is contaminated. Radioactive material.”
Everybody ran back to the water and waded up to their waists in it. The spaceman plodded toward them.
“What’s wrong?” asked Miss Osborne. “Did somebody drop a bomb or something?”
“No, miss, it’s a natural phenomenon,” he answered. “Alpha and omega particles. It’s long been a mystery, but we’re very close to a break-through. Research has been going for years. Scientists named this land “Ohm” because they thought the phenomenon was electrical. An ohm is a measure of electrical resistance. But just last week we successfully separated and identified the two major forms of radiation: the alpha particle and a new particle we’ve christened the ohm-ega particle. That’s an event of cosmic significance.”
Miss Shelby explained to the class, “That means it’s very important.”
“Well, not really,” the scientist corrected her. “Alpha and omega particles are cosmic rays and our discovery is very important in the study of cosmic rays. But nobody’s sure how significant cosmic rays are in elementary particle physics.”
Miss Shelby explained to the class, “Elementary means basic. The most important things, the building blocks you need for further study are elementary. Our school is an elementary school.”
“Well, it’s different in physics,” the scientist explained. “Elementary particles are very advanced. Not that we’ve advanced that far in our knowledge of them, but that only advanced students ever study them. Actually, very few people study them, and we know very little about them and how they relate to the world of ordinary experience.”
“You mean they don’t matter?”
“Brilliant, my dear, brilliant!” he exclaimed. “Particles matter. The very word we’ve been looking for. It’s difficult to explain what exists and what happens at the subatomic level. Sometimes we talk of matter, and other times we talk of energy. Neither concept alone is sufficient, and yet the concepts of energy and matter seem mutually exclusive. When we try to put them together, we wind up with strange-sounding expressions like matter waves. It all makes sense in terms of equations; but when we try to tell people what we’re doing, language keeps leading us into the trouble. The words we use often mean more than we mean them to mean.
“We have to be careful with our words, because they can imply whole systems of thought, and no single system of thought or set of concepts is adequate for describing the world around us. We’re faced with the difficult task of using contradictory sets of concepts, now using one and now another, according to the needs of the moment. It’s a complicated process that can only to be learned by experience. There are no signposts to tell us when to use which.”
“Gosh,” said Donny, “Winthrop’s like that. There aren’t any street signs, and it’s awful easy to get lost unless you’ve got a magic coin.”
Miss Shelby started to reprimand Donny for interrupting, but the scientist just kept talking.
“Particles matter,” he said. “That’s beautiful. A simple pun might make it easier to talk about elementary particles. Yes, matter is a verb as well as a noun, and on the subatomic level it makes more sense to use the word as a verb. Light isn’t matter as a noun, but it’s matter as a verb. Language, for all its pitfalls, is capable of unexpected beauties. Its very imprecision can be a source of clarity. Light matters. Electrons matter. Elementary particles matter. Perhaps even matter matters.”
“I certainly hope so,” said Miss Shelby. “I’d hate to think people spend their lives studying things that don’t matter.”
The scientist laughed, “That’s another good one. The words keep meaning more than we mean them to mean. If we aren’t careful, we might find ourselves talking about values and morals and other things that have nothing to do with physics.”
“All these theories are fine, I’m sure,” said Miss Osborne. “But are these children in danger here? What’s wrong? Why all this radiation?”
“When we learn more, I’m sure it will turn out that this is a natural phenomenon. The sun is our main source of cosmic rays, but we’ve found a strong concentration here. We need to find out how that can be.”
Miss Osborne smiled and explained to the scientist, “If the sun is the source, then this is perfectly natural. The Dragon of Ome, sometimes called the Lizard of Oz, swallowed the sun. It’s in his belly.”
“Dragon?” asked the physicist. “I must admit I don’t know anything about dragons. They weren’t in the curriculum. You mean to say there are dragons around here?”
“Why, yes, there is one dragon — a very big one,” said Miss Osborne. “We haven’t seen him yet, but we’ve heard about him from reliable people. If you’ve been studying the source of these cosmic rays, surely you must have seen the dragon.”
“Can’t say that I have. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that there is such a beast. I might have stood right next to it, even touched it, without recognizing that it was a dragon. Because of this protective suit, I get data second-hand. I don’t see directly anymore than I hear or speak directly. The sense data are translated into electrical impulses, which are then re-translated inside the suit into recognizable stimuli. The equipment reports what it has been programmed to report. Dragon simply doesn’t compute. The way I get the message, there’s a powerful source of cosmic energy in the form of alpha and omega particles diffused through a shield of organic material. Come to think of it, it’s possible that the organic material could be a dragon’s body.”
“Is the radiation dangerous, sir?” asked Miss Osborne. “We’ve come a long way to find this dragon and bring back some of this fire that doesn’t burn. But when I tried to light my torch on that bush over there, it didn’t catch; it just glowed a short while and went out.”
“We’ve noticed such effects,” noted the scientist. “It seems to be some sort of induced effect. The bush radiates because it has long been near the source of radiation. Somewhat like induced magnetism. If such a bush is separated from the source, its radiant properties diminish. As for the dangers, this radiation, for reasons unknown, attracts people. If you don’t wear protective equipment and you get too close, the attraction is irresistible.”
Kathy asked, “Is it really that attractive? Does it use a special perfume? Or a love potion?”
“I couldn’t say. Science doesn’t concern itself with the physical form of these stimuli. It could be a dragon or a man or a pile of stones. What matters is what it does to people.
“The closer you get to the source, the greater the danger. You see the way that bush seems to be burning. Well, the same thing that happened to that bush can happen to be people. The radiation can change a man so that he in turn can endanger others. Take a look at that patient over there.” He pointed to a man on a stretcher on the beach. “No, don’t go too close to him. We’re waiting for a rescue team to take him away. Notice the glow around his head — similar to the glow around the bush. We call that the halo effect. That may be the origin of myths about halos.
“This source, whatever it might be, destroys the will and the sense of self. The more extreme cases can no longer distinguish between themselves and the world. They lose the power of human speech. They go into a coma, mumbling meaningless syllables. Then their breathing and their heart rate slow down. I’m here to conduct tests and to do what I can for the victims. That’s difficult because the victims show no desire to be cured. But we’re making progress and hopefully some day we will be able to cure them and make them productive members of society.”
Mark asked, “What’s he talking about, Miss Shelby?”
“He wants to cure that sick man with the halo. He wants to make it so that man can hold down a job and earn a living wage.”
“You mean that guy won’t have his halo anymore?”
“No, I suppose he won’t.”
“That’s a shame,” said Mark. “He looks neat with that halo.”
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Links to other chapters and the story of how this story was written.
