[For Matt]

[countyourteeth]

Daphne had never spent much time in the rec room. She found it too confining and, with the weather being what it was, far too crowded. But not even the fastest person on the planet could run all of the time and so the evening found her curled under a thick fleece blanket on one of the rec room couches, an illustrated copy of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz in her lap. Her chin rested on her palm as her eyes scanned the page. A watercolor portrait of Dorothy Gale smiled up at her, her blue-checkered dress billowing in a long gone wind and her silver slippers sparkling under an unseen sun; Toto sat secure in her arms, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth in a doggy grin.

Daphne suppressed a chuckle as she turned the page. "You're not in Kansas anymore, kid," she muttered.