nda leaves home she locks the Great Book
together with five jeweled padlocks, and carries the keys safely hidden
in her bosom.

I do not suppose there is any magical thing in any fairyland to compare
with the Record Book, on the pages of which are constantly being
printed a record of every event that happens in any part of the world,
at exactly the moment it happens. And the records are always truthful,
although sometimes they do not give as many details as one could wish.
But then, lots of things happen, and so the records have to be brief or
even Glinda's Great Book could not hold them all.

Glinda looked at the records several times each day, and Dorothy,
whenever she visited the Sorceress, loved to look in the Book and see
what was happening everywhere. Not much was recorded about the Land of
Oz, which is usually peaceful and uneventful, but today Dorothy found
something which interested her. Indeed, the printed letters were
appearing on the page even while she looked.

"This is funny!" she exclaimed. "Did you know, Ozma, that there were
people in your Land of Oz called Skeezers?"

"Yes," replied Ozma, coming to her side, "I know that on Professor
Wogglebug's Map of the Land of Oz there is a place marked 'Skeezer,'
but what the Skeezers are like I do not know. No one I know has ever
seen them or heard of them. The Skeezer Country is 'way at the upper
edge of the Gillikin Country, with the sandy, impassable desert on one
side and the mountains of Oogaboo on another side. That is a part of
the Land of Oz of which I know very little."

"I guess no one else knows much about it either, unless it's the
Skeezers themselves," remarked Dorothy. "But the Book says: 'The
Skeezers of Oz have declared war on the Flatheads of Oz, and there is
likely to be fighting and much trouble as the result.'"

"Is that all the Book says?" asked Ozma.

"Every word," said Dorothy, and Ozma and Glinda both looked at the
Record and seemed surprised and perplexed.

"Tell me, Glinda," said Ozma, "who are the Flatheads?"

"I cannot, your Majesty," confessed the Sorceress. "Until now I never
have heard of them, nor have I ever heard the Skeezers mentioned. In
the faraway corners of Oz are hidden many curious tribes of people, and
those who never leave their own countries and never are visited by
those from our favored part of Oz, naturally are unknown to me.
However, if you so desire, I can learn through my arts of sorcery
something of t