A prologue

There was a boy, who, for the purposes of this story, we shall call Dorothy.

Run with me on this one, OK?

Dorothy spent many years in a foreign land not unlike Kansas: abroad at home, if you like. One day, a great storm raged and his house was lifted into the air. The storm seemed to go on forever, and the Wicked Witch of the West flew round and round his uprooted home, tearing her hair out, blaming him for the weather: even though he had seen with his own eyes that the Wicked Witch had caused the storm herself.

Friends were swept up in the storm. Some were lost forever, others clung valiantly on, telling Dorothy just to hold on. One day, they would say, the storm would clear, and everything would be fine. Dorothy, however, could see no end.

Then, after the storm had raged for a full year, a Good Witch materialised from the North and guided his home to her. When he emerged, teary and exhausted, he found the Wicked Witch of the West had been crushed by the house's landing and, waiting outside, was Glinda: the Good Witch of The North.

He looked around the strange new land he found himself in and, bewildered, he asked Glinda how he was ever going to get home.

Glinda smiled a gentle smile and said with a twinkle in her mischievous eyes: "But Dorothy: you are home."

And do you know: he was.