PLEASE READ: I've never written Elphaba or Glinda quite like this before; much more book-inspired that musical. And I'm warning you now; this piece kind of took on a mind of its own. It just got longer and longer and weirder and weirder, and I really don't know whether the result is at all interesting or just plain ridiculous.
This piece is dedicated to fellow Wicked fanfiction author 'Throppsicle' – she's a truly fantastic writer, and deserves all the reviews she can get, so check out her stories! Happy Birthday, Throppsicle!
"Class dismissed."
And at last, she is free! Oh, at last, at last! Two hours of note passing and hair tossing and stolen giggles and whispers when the doctor was looking the other way – though that hadbeen rather good fun, she has to admit – two hours of pure, excruciating boredom, time she could have spent doing so manymore important things! Things her professors and other people of unfortunate ignorance – her roommate, of course, being at the very top of that list – would never understand, like re-curling her hair, as it so badly needed to be, or at last getting a look at that new Winkie prince in the Ozmo magazine, or decorating her little pink and blue flowered birthday invitations, or answering her Momsie's latest letter, or spending her weekly allowance – a lovely, crisp five-hundred cheque, this time, and all for her! – or even trying out her dainty array of new nail polishes with Pfanee and Shen-Shen…
Oh, there were so many things she could have spent the morning doing…
At least now, at last, she is free to do them.
Galinda rises from her seat slowly, taking her time, waiting patiently for her fellow schoolmates to gather themselves and surround her, once again, in their familiar enveloping mass of giggles and chatters and envious looks and flurry of compliments and offers to carry her books for her from the boys. She pushes her chair back, careful not to let the legs scrape in that noisy, unpleasant way against the wood floor, and begins to collect herself together – hair and uniform, that is, not books and pencils.
She fluffs her hair a little, tosses it once, then leaves it to fall in soft spun gold about her shoulders. She smoothes her already perfectly smooth uniform, hitching the skirt a touch higher – a touch more teasing for those open-mouthed boys whose gazes she can already feel resting on her! – and delicately dusts imaginary dust from her sleeves and shoulders.
Then she reaches to gather her pencils and books together, but now she hurries even less, because of course, any second –
- "Miss Galinda!" a familiar, unusually high boy's voice sounds instantly from behind her. "Oh Miss Galinda, don't you worry yourself with your books, I can pack them for you – here, let me help…"
"Oh, you will?" she gushes, eyes wide with the perfect amount of feigned surprise as she turns to face the munchkin student's adoring gaze. "Why thank you, Master – oh dear, I can be so terrible with names –"
"Boq," he replies at once, smiling so widely it practically splits his round face in half, sweeping books and pencils into her bag with such enthusiasm that half end up scattered on the floor. "Oh no! Oh, Miss Galinda, I'm so sorry -!"
"Thank you, Biq," she sighs, plastering a thankful smile across her features – though inside, her heart sinks. Bother that silly munchkin, spilling her books and papers everywhere, now she will delay half the class leaving as they rush to her aid, and that would not make her appear to be at alllike the quiet, sweet, model student she so badly wishes to appear to be…
"Miss Galinda -!"
"- oh Glin, your books, what a bother –"
"- let me help, Miss Galinda, I can get them –"
"Oh no, it's all right, really!" she protests, swiping gently at the flurry of hands reaching towards her to help. "No, no, you all get on, let me catch you up – I wouldn't want to delay you all, no, of course, I wouldn't dream of it..."
"Oh Galinda -!"
"- oh, you are just the most thoughtful –"
"- well, if you really insist –!"
"Of course, I insist," she trills, bouncing up from her seat to gently push along the shoulders of Pfanee and Shen-Shen, the loudest of the protesters at the front of her fanclub. "Off you all go and get some lunch, I'll be up in just a tick-tock – no, really, Master Biq, it's all right, off you go, that's it, I'll see you later…!"
And thank Oz, oh thank Oz, they begin to trickle away – the boys first, then her outer circle of admirers, Pfanee and Shen-Shen, and lastly…finally…Master Biq. Baq. Or was it Buq?
Sweet Oz, she hasn't time to deal with this now! She has her books to tidy, and her pencils and papers, too.
Turning swiftly back to her desk, Galinda begins to tidy up. Her ink pot has spilled, she realises with a sinking stomach, as she bends to examine the desk and floor where the contents of her bag lie – what a horrendible mess! She rises up quickly again, glancing anxiously round the room for any sign of Doctor Dillamond – but of course, he is already back in his office. Blathering on and on for two hours straight in that awful bleating voice of his, she wouldn't be surprised if he were having a lie down, after all that. The thought makes her giggle.
But then, all of a sudden, as she makes to turn back to the mess around her desk…she spots something that makes her stop dead. Something so obvious, so utterly unmissable – so disgustifying, as it, as she, always is – she can't believe she missed it before. And she realizes that she is not alone after all.
Far across the classroom, in the very centre of the front row, sits Miss Elphaba.
The midnight-haired girl has not, to Galinda's surprise and instant suspicious distaste, made any move to clear her things for the end of class. She sits hunched like a vulture in her desk chair, her thin, angular limbs, concealed inside their dark navy uniform, stuck out at sharp angles as she bends intently over her desktop, from which a little scratching sound issues from. Her pitch-black hair, wound tight into a thick, twisting rope of plait plunges down her back, over the back of the chair, reaching almost to her hips. The little of them that she has, Galinda thinks with a small, private smirk. She runs her hands once, quickly, over her own, perfectly curved, shapely hips, just for the sake of it. Galinda has the sort of curves any woman in Oz would diefor.
One particular feature of the hunched schoolgirl before her, however, is hidden. And it is only visible when, all at once, she reaches up one thin, long-fingered hand to her forehead, and slips off the pair of ghastly old-lady round glasses she has been wearing. And Galinda can see, for the hundredth horrendible, stomach-churning time that one particular feature the angular girl possesses that makes her so impossible to miss. Until today, that is, Galinda thinks with a small twinge of annoyance at herself.
That long-fingered hand is green. Glaring, alien lime green.
No, not a smudge of eye shadow, or a trick of the light, or a clever dip of nail polish. Green.
Green as sin.
And sweet Oz, the sight is discustifying. Beyond hideoteous.
Moss-coloured, artichoke, seaweed green. The most awful bodily distortion she has ever seen, and wagers ever will see, in her life. A nightmare come true.
Galinda wonders, errantly, and not for the first time, what it would feel like to touch the raven-headed girl's green skin. Touch the scaly emerald of this alien creature she has so unfairly been forced to live with, live with, day in, day out, for her days here at Shiz.
She wonders, with a delicate shudder, whether it would perhaps feel at all slimy. Cold. Damp, even. Flabby, like a bean or a cabbage? Or hard and rough, like the bark of a tree?
Or slippery and oily and greasy like the underbelly of a snake…
She finds she is practically shaking with repulsion at the mere thought. One of her greatest, most secret fears is that the creature she rooms with will one day, accidentally or even on purpose, as would be her wicked way, touch her, and if her roommate's condition is at all contagious…
Ugh, ugh, ugh, how she hates it! How she hates her! How she hates that sick, twisted, discustifying Miss Elphaba…
Yes, the artichoke had a name. A stupid name, at that – Thropp, made her sound like a silly little bird, or something! – and Elphaba. Sweet Oz, what wereher parents thinking?
And it isn't only the ongoing avoiding-problem Galinda so despises about her – no, there are many other things, too. Things like how impossibly hard it is to look away from that deadly skin once she has glanced at it even once. How it seems to catch her, snare her, steal her gaze, and once caught…impossible to look away from. How many times does Galinda catch herself staring, transfixed in the most awful of ways. How ridiculously, nauseatingly uncomfortable she always feels nowadays in Miss Elphaba's presence, dreading that she will one day turn and see Galinda staring, gazing, drinking in the horrific sight of her…
And then there is, of course, the problem of how she can never hold herself up for a second when caught in a fight with her roommate – and they have many, many fights. How powerless her high status and good looks and charms and persuasiveness and all else besides are against Miss Elphaba. How Miss Elphaba herself…with that impossibly quick tongue and hissing, spitting arguments that make no sense to her and always leave her fumbling for words and unable to pick up from her last sentence – how impeccably needle-sharp Miss Elphaba is in every way, sharp as knives, cunning as a Fox, cleverer than half the professors, fiery and passionate and powerful, so powerful, swathed in the kind of magic that Galinda can hardly even begin to understand…
Magic she has seen many a sorry student face and pay dearly from…
Oh Oz.
All right, in truth – and Galinda hates to admit it to herself, hates it, hates it! – Miss Elphaba frightens her more than it is possible to put into words.
Galinda shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, teeth nibbling at her lower lip – before she remembers that this would perhaps distort her carefully applied dusty-rose lipstick, and quickly stops.
Miss Elphaba still bends over her desktop, the little scratching sound louder, now, almost hurried, and then there is the little plop of a quill being dipped into ink…
Writing. She is writing something, Galinda thinks, yes, that's it – a letter, perhaps? I wonder who too? It's not like she has any friends, and surely if her father was anything to go by, she hasn't much close family, either…
And a sudden, daring little idea pops into Galinda's head. A rather cruel one, really, but Galinda tries not to think of that – after all, Miss Elphaba is least frightening when she, Galinda, is teasing her. Well…all right, sometimes, more than teasing her.
But Miss Elphaba deserves it. More than deserves it. Galinda feels that this time, most certainly, it is justified.
She takes a deep breath – and then calls out loudly, plastering a smile upon her face in the hope it would leak into her tone.
"Writing home, are we, Miss Elphaba?"
The emerald-skinned student pauses in her flurry of scribbling onto the sheet of notepaper, her thin frame going very still. Galinda tosses back silken curls, fighting the little swoop in her stomach, determined to win one over on her hateful roommate, this time.
Miss Elphaba turns very slowly, very purposefully in her oak wood chair, to rest two stone-cold slits of brown eyes upon her smirking roommate. Galinda's stomach swoops even lower.
"No, Miss Galinda. Not writing home. I'm sure it will come as the greatest of surprises to that frivolous blonde head of yours to know that I do not, in fact, ever even think to waste my time writing to anyone. I have better things to be doing."
Miss Elphaba's every word is as perfectly calm and collected as can be, her voice low, edged with just the barest hint of delicate sarcasm.
Galinda lets out a high, tinkling little stream of nervous laughter; hurrying to try and retort with her own sarcasm.
"Oh, of course, Miss Elphaba, I never considered for a second you might be writing to, well, you know, friends. That is, considering you have none, and I'd wager the count is just the very exact same for you back in Munchkinland, that would be…simply…decidedly…difficult!"
Miss Elphaba's turn to laugh; long and loud and delighted at Galinda's pathetic attempt to mimic her effortless use of long-words and such perfectly refined speech. Galinda suppresses a fresh shudder of revulsion at the sound; the crackling, reedy, nails-on-a-blackboard burst of cackles, unlike any laugher she has ever heard before – and dreads to hear again, each time. It thrills her, electrifies her body in the strangest, alienist of ways, almost as much as it frightens her.
She waits with sweaty hands clasped tight behind her back till her roommate has finished, struggling to keep her smirk and smile in place.
"Well, Miss Galinda, I do believe our rooming together seems to be having a most positive affect on at least one aspect of your unfortunate character."
She cackles again, softer and more to herself, this time, rising sharply from her seat and turning to shovel books and papers into her own tattered old bag with toad-coloured hands. "Such mature language, and so becoming, you truly can come out with the most delightful streams of words when you want –"
"Shut up, Miss Elphaba!" Galinda bursts out, unable to stop herself, her cheeks warming like hot coals in a fire as Miss Elphaba turns to focus on her face with a wide, gloating smile of great satisfaction.
"Ah, now, just look at me," she sighs with mock-wistfulness, hooking her bag over one bony shoulder and beginning to pace – slowly, purposefully, Galinda thinks – across the classroom. "How flattering, see now, I have made the golden girl of Shiz blush, how shall I bare such an honour –"
"Shut up, you horrid filthy artichoke!" Galinda shouts, cheeks blazing like rubies. But it is no use. Miss Elphaba still paces closer; leeringly closer, closer than she was comfortable with, close enough to touch, that dreaded touch she'd been avoiding for so long now…!
…but then Galinda spots the paper, the one Miss Elphaba has been writing upon, sticking out from her bag – and she remembers, suddenly, that original, daring little idea she had.
And she doesn't stop to think, to let herself have any time to hesitate. Quick as a flash, she swipes the letter from the bag with a pearly-smooth hand, fingers missing Miss Elphaba's bare olive arm by inches – ugh, ugh, ugh! – and makes a dash for the door of the classroom.
Elphaba's strangled cry of horror echoes down the line of desks as Galinda runs, giggling near-hysterically with a mixture of triumph and relief, the paper clutched above her head in her tauntingly waving hand…
"Give that back, give it back, give it back -!" Elphaba half-shrieks, and even Galinda has to marvel at the amount of panic, of pure terror she exudes, spiralling out of control as it cuts through her voice. "Give it back, you little wretch, give it back -!"
"Oh no!" Galinda squeals, still giddy with relief from her small victory, dancing out of reach behind Pfanee's now-empty desk. "No, Miss Elphaba, I want to know what you are writing, it's all mine,now!"
She makes a dash under a row of stacked tables and out the other side to her still-untidy desk, almost ripping the paper in her haste to get it open – she is going to shout it out as loud as she can, shout it to the school, make Miss Elphaba pay, make her feel as humiliated, as helpless as Galinda so often is, make her pay, pay, pay…
"Dearest Mother!" she sings delightedly, dancing out of reach as Miss Elphaba practically snarls with rage and horror, making another leap towards her. "I miss you, oh Mother, I miss you so much I can hardly stand it -!"
"- give it back -!"
"- just can't tell you how much I love it here at Shiz, Doctor Dillamond's lectures most of all, they give me such confidence, Mother, make me feel so powerful and alive and like I could just take off and do anything I wanted, be anything I wanted, and oh Mother, how I wish you could come to visit me during the holidays and I could show you all round the classrooms and lecture halls and everything -!"
"- give it BACK -!"
"- and Mother, there's this girl, this girl, oh Mother, such a beauty, there aren't words to describe her, and how she makes me feel -!"
"- GIVE IT BACK -!"
…and that was it. The time was up.
Galinda couldn't think. Couldn't think.
Couldn't even move; too flabbergasted, too consumed by what she had read, too frozen with disbelief as she gazed open-mouthed at the page in front of her…
…she couldn't even bring herself to care as the sheet was ripped from her fingers by its original owner's.
She didn't even notice as her own knees buckled, heart pounding full out and ready to burst with the emotions running through them – didn't even care as her skirt rumpled upon collapsing down upon her desk chair, didn't care…didn't care…
Oh sweet and merciful Oz…
She couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it.
Miss Elphaba…of all people…
But…of course, it did make sense, she supposed. There had been rumours buzzing round the school like swarms of wasps ever since Miss Elphaba's first day at Shiz; terrible, scandalous rumours that even she hadn't quite been able to bring herself to giggle about, all brought about by the disdain, the utter disinterest Miss Elphaba always harboured towards the male population of Shiz; the gossip was forever flying about that it was not men, no, but women the artichoke of Shiz preferred the company of…
But Galinda had never dreamed…never even considered…
…they could be true…
She wondered, for one needle-stabbing second who exactly Miss Elphaba had been writing about, this girl…and felt the strangest, sickening jolt of something deep in her stomach. Sweet Oz, the thought of Miss Elphaba…with someone…
And her mother was dead. Galinda knew that. She had died at the younger Thropp sister, Nessarose's, birth – Miss Elphaba had had no mother for over a decade, now. Yet, she was writing letters to her…
…letter she would never send…
Letter that would never reach the person they were meant for…
Oh sweet Oz.
Galinda felt suddenly sick. Sick at herself, sick at what she'd done. Sweat collected within her clenched hands. Her heart began to pound again, loud as a steam engine, this time, her breathing uneven as she fought desperately to contain herself, her fear, her sudden, pure terrorat what she'd done…
Ohsweet Oz, what had she done…?
She knew Elphaba was watching her. She knew…because she could feel her, now. Turned away, slumped over her own desk as Galinda was…she could feel those hard, nut-brown eyes burning into her back, almost feel those razor-sharp fingernails cutting into her arms, hear the hissing words of hatred, of black magic at her ear, her roommate's revenge upon her for what she'd done…
Oh sweet Oz, what had she done…
Miss Elphaba was crouched, coiled like a panther waiting to strike, on the classroom floor below her. Despite this, at that moment she seemed a thousand times taller than Galinda. Miss Elphaba's every limb was ridged, clenched tight and held fast in an attempt to disguise how much her body was trembling, lips clamped over one another, eyes burning, blazing with suppressed fury, with disguised pain, with rage…
She rose very slowly, trembling with anger, to stand before Galinda.
And everything seemed to happen at once.
The floor began to shudder. Literally, shudder, shake like an earthquake had taken hold of it, and up above, the lights flickered, wined and rocked, and the desks trembled like every limb of Miss Elphaba's trembled with rage, with pain, and Galinda heard her own voice cry out for help, weak and feeble amongst the noise of the classroom taken hold by magic…
"Miss Elphaba stop it, stop it, stop -!"
"Get up," the green girl's voice rang out, the softest of murmurs – and Galinda was on her feet before she could even blink, her lower lip wobbling, her stomach somersaulting into panic as Elphaba stepped towards her with one slime-green hand outstretched –
- "Don't touch me -!" she barely had time to shriek –
- before Elphaba had. The skeletal emerald fingers wound tight as coils of rope around the front of her blouse, shoving her backwards, slamming her into the wavering wall, and Elphaba was suddenly so dreadfully, terrifyingly close Galinda wanted to scream.
"Get away from me, you cretin -!"
"You keep your voice down, Miss Galinda," Miss Elphaba hissed, her face contorted with loathing – the shuddering room began to calm slightly, shake a little less, in rhythm with Miss Elphaba's panting breath. "You stay calm, and so shall I, try my best to keep my magic under control, now how about that, Miss Galinda…?"
"Let me go -!"
But she wouldn't. She wouldn't.
And Galinda was so frightened now she couldn't even bring herself to protest as Miss Elphaba bent her vile-skinned face so close she wanted to shriek – yet all she could manage was the smallest of squeaks.
"Please," she heard her tiny, choking voice begging. "Please, Miss Elphaba, please, let me go, let us discuss this civilly…"
"There is nothingI wish to discuss with you, Miss Galinda!" Elphaba half-spat, the words venomous. "I have the simplest request – no, instruction – no, command – for you, that you are to obey at all costs, and if you do not…well, we shall just have to wait and see, shan't we?"
She smiled; the expression a twisted, leering thing, Galinda thought – struggling to disguise the broken pain underneath. The blonde girl nodded frantically. She shoved desperately, pounding her little fists against Miss Elphaba's bony shoulders – but she only slammed her back again, body flattening Galinda's against the hard wood-panelled wall.
"The contents of that letter," she half-hissed, inches from her again,"stay between you and me, Miss Galinda, till the day you lie dead in your grave – which I can assure you, will be tragically soon, if you so much as let slip one word of what you read to anyoneon this earth. Ever."
She caught a handful of golden curls.
"Do I make myself clear enough for that thick, flimsy, airless blonde head of yours…?" she hissed with awful sarcasm. Galinda whimpered, her lip trembling as she fought against tears; struggling, longing, begging for release now – though from what, she wasn't quite sure anymore. Miss Elphaba stared unblinkingly into her wide eyes for a few seconds – and sweet Oz, her gaze seemed to burn straight through Galinda's skin and deep down into the darkest, most secret parts of her…
And then she was gone. Away from Galinda's face, the grip vanished from her aching neck, her spindly frame already half-way across the room as she strode fast, almost running, bag slung over one shoulder…the precious letter to her dead Mother clutched crumpled and ruined in one leafy-green hand.
Galinda couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only stare after her – transfixed, as she had always been, by this terrifying roommate of hers. And she watched…watched in horrified fascination as the twisted green-as-sin features crumpled, collapsed in against tears...reaching to hide the sight from her with one thin, skeletal-clenched hand…
Oh sweet Oz, what had she done to her…
Galinda took a slow, deep, shuddering breath in; closing her eyes. Trying to calm herself. To slow her breathing to an acceptable, normal pace. To forget that terrible sight of the last person of earth she would have expected to see crying…doing exactly that…
When she finally fluttered them open once more, Miss Elphaba was gone. Silence hung heavy, almost stifling in the air. All magic had left the room, along with its maker. She was far away, now. Most likely shovelling her way through lunch in that dreadfully unladylike fashion down in the dinner hall, seated alone as ever in one corner, raven head bent over a thick, leather-bound book…
Galinda shuddered. Clasped her hands together behind her back to stop them trembling. Took another slow, deep calming breath.
It's over, she told herself . It' won't have to think of it for the rest of the day, won't have to speak one word to her ever again. It's over. Over…
But even as Galinda stepped over to her desk, shoved the last of her spilled books and ink into her bag and hooked it carefully over her shoulder – even as she tossed her corn-silk curls, smoothed her skirt, and plastered her very best attempt at something like an old, bouncy-little-Galinda-Upland smile across her still scarlet-flushed features...
Even as she turned and fled from the room as fast as her feet would carry her…
…she knew, deep down, that it wasn't. It wasn't.
If anything, it had only just begun.
Sweet Oz, what was Miss Elphaba doing to her?