t it was
hardly a restful sleep that he experienced. It was a deeply troubled
sleep. In his dreams, he saw the tortured faces of the many that he had
mistreated in his angry power play. The wispy night visions experienced
by his companions were hardly any more enjoyable, except those of
Princess Ozma, who rated enough respect from the Sleep Fays that they
would not allow any negative influences to disturb her sleep. Instead,
she saw visions of the beautiful Love Fairy, and the lilting,
music-like laughter of the Laughing Fay. These served to make her smile
inwardly as she slept.

Ozma was the first to awaken. She felt refreshed and envigorated. The
sound of birds chirping and the warm sun on her face brought her out of
her deep restful slumber.

The first thing that her eyes focused upon was a two-dimensional shadowy
shape moving toward her along the ground in much the same manner as the
shadow of an airplane would. She instinctively looked up at the sky to
see what flying object might be casting its shadow on the ground. But
there was nothing to account for it. Then she became apprehensive, for
it occurred to her that perhaps one of the land sharks had escaped her
snailifying spell and followed them and that was what she was seeing.
But no; it was definitely just a shadow, for it had stopped right in
front of her. Then the shadow stood up as it became a three-dimensional
human being.

"Good morning," said the shadow, who had now taken the form of a very
ordinary man. This awoke the others, who were surprised to see a man in
a baseball uniform.

"Forgive me for startling you all," said the man. "But you see, when the
sun comes up high enough in the sky, we shadows resume the forms of our
previous selves. In fact, we are identical to our previous selves except
that our bodies are composed of high-frequency molecules as opposed to
the low frequency molecules of our earthly bodies." Seeing the quizzical
look on everyone's face, he quickly continued: "It's quite simple,
really. We are composed of the same material you are. After all, none of
us could reside in Oz if we weren't."

"It makes sense, when you think about it," said Ozma. "But I am very
curious as to why you are wearing baseball clothes. Have you just come
from a game?"

"Yes, I have," answered the man. "Baseball is pretty big in Shadowland.
You see, we have a large population here of old baseball players and
baseball fans. It's the biggest thing we all h