HOME! OH MY GOSH! HOW LONG HAD HE BEEN GONE? AND HOW WAS HE GOING TO GET BACK? WHY, OH WHY HAD HE NOT TRIED TO HITCH A RIDE WITH THE SPACE PEOPLE? CHAPTER EIGHT: A STRANGE ENCOUNTER Graham mentally kicked himself for not thinking of asking the UFO people for a ride back to America. He had felt so much in awe of the magnificent spaceship and its unique occupants, though, that it had never entered his mind to ask a selfish favor of them. He now regretted that feeling. After all, the two aliens had made it obvious that they meant to serve him and help him to learn. Surely they would never have considered it a selfish request on Graham's part had he simply asked that they drop him off in America on their way to wherever they might have been headed. But it was, alas, a little bit too late to cry over spilled milk. Instead, Graham had far more important matters to attend to. He had, after all, come into a very strange land where the physical laws he was used to no longer seemed to apply. Not only that, but his presence would be missed before too long, and he did not want to cause undue worry back home. But even more immediate: he had a powerful and very wicked Witch to deal with who would soon catch on to his lies, and she was not going to be at all happy with him. Had Graham been a lesser boy, he might have broken down and cried. But Graham decided instead to make the most of the grave situation. He continued to walk past the area where the UFOlanders had been. His main concern now was to get as far away as possible from the awful old Witch's castle. He was wondering in which specific direction to go when he heard a noise in the trees. At first he could not identify the sound, although it was a familiar sound. Because it was so far out of place in Oz, it did not register at first. But, yes! Now he was certain. It was the sound of a television set. That is to say, the sound of human voices that could only be coming from a radio or TV. It is a sound you simply cannot mistake. Now the sound was getting louder. It was coming toward him. _What on earth could a television set be doing here_? Graham thought. And how could it be moving toward him? The answer immediately became known when out from a clump of trees walked a robotic looking creature. He had triangular shaped legs and arms and body. In place of a face he had a portable television set. Not only that, but the channels kept changing. First Channel Two with the evening news. Then Channel Four with a basketball game. Then Channel Seven with _Jeopardy_! Then Channel Eleven with a program about UFOs. Then Channel Thirteen with a commercial for Head and Shoulders anti-dandruff shampoo. And so on, and so on. Well, this was the strangest sight to behold. A walking television set. It walked right up to Graham and stopped right up against his face. Then the screen went blank for a moment and a face appeared. That is to say, not a human face