Disclaimer: It ain't mine, kids.
Holy crap! An update! I don't even believe it, and I'm the author!
"Yes!" Galinda celebrated aloud as she removed a pink tape measure from around her newly bustier-enhanced chest. "Thirty-six! One more inch than Pfanee."
"Would you look at that?" I drawled from behind my latest reading material. "Your bust measurement matches your IQ."
"At least I have a bust measurement," she shot back. "My nine-year-old brother could fill this bustier better than you could."
I snapped my fingers. "Shoot. I guess I won't be able to join the circus anytime soon." I eyed the pink bow that accentuated her cleavage and wrinkled my nose. "That's the only place I'd be caught dead in one of those."
"Is that so?" She slammed the measuring tape down on the bed. "Well, I don't care where you're caught dead, roomie, so long as I don't have to deal with you anymore."
"O-ho! You think I'm hard to deal with, do you?" I sat up, book forgotten. "You're up at the crack of dawn every morning, banging around in the bathroom loudly enough to wake my dead grandmother all the way in Munchkinland. Oz, I can count on one hand the number of times in a week you manage to go five minutes without carrying on as if the world was about to end! I, on the other hand, never speak a word to you unless it's to get you to stop disrupting me! You're darn lucky, I'd say."
"Well, you're clearly the only one who thinks so. In case you hadn't noticed, I've got the entire student body on my side! Who do you have? No one." She stepped into her dress, jerked up the zipper, and headed for the door. "If you'll excuse me, I have a date with Fiyero—the prince, you know. Have fun studying."
Hold the fort. Fiyero Tiggular? What happened to Mr. "I don't want to be friends with you or anyone else"? Guess His Highness changed his mind…
Lunch the next day bordered on vomit-inducing, and it had nothing to do with the food. It had to do with watching Galinda ooze and fawn and giggle over her brand new boyfriend. It was like watching a little girl try to take care of a baby doll: she smothers it and carries it around by its ankles, all the while beaming and thinking she's doing a wonderful job.
"You'd think he had a sign on his chest that said 'Collecting drool of dumb blondes here,'" I grumbled to myself. What could have possessed him to tolerate that—and with a smile on his face—was beyond me.
Disgusted, I picked up my empty tray and headed for the exit, deliberately altering my course so as to pass Galinda's table. I stopped right in front of her, for once enjoying the silence that accompanied my arrival. I smiled.
"Galinda, dear, if you bat your fake eyelashes any harder, I'm afraid they'll fall right off and land in Fiyero's coffee."
For the first time, I got to see her rosy cheeks turn a blotchy red. Before she could get a word in I had wiggled my fingers cheerily, wished her happy eating, and hightailed it out of the cafeteria, startling more than one student with the sharp peal of laughter that erupted as soon as I got through the door.
Everywhere I went from then on, I saw Fiyero. He was never alone; wherever he went, Galinda and the masses followed. Needless to say, I was confused—and irritated in the extreme. I have to admit that as much as I disliked him, I felt some strange claim over him, because of his confession to me that day at the fountain. Obviously, he hadn't told any of these other people how he felt. Of all people, I knew what was going on.
"Great thing to take pride in, Elphaba," I muttered to myself one afternoon. "He confesses to you that he hates everyone at Shiz, and you decide that makes you special." I guess I really was that desperate.
"Fiyero, will you please stop whacking those pencils on the table?" I asked through gritted teeth.
"Pencils?" He scrunched up his eyebrows. "Pencils….Ohhhh. You mean my drumsticks."
I eyed the ordinary, yellow, number two wooden pencils—complete with rock-hard pink erasers—in his hands. They were heavily dented and chipped, presumably from being beaten against Fiyero's desk. I guessed he must have had them for a while.
…..And they still had not been sharpened.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sucked in a breath. "Fiyero, those are pencils. Pen-cils. You know, the things you use for—oh, I don't know…Writing last week's essay, maybe? By the looks of them, you didn't make it past the first letter."
He slapped his "drumsticks" down on his desk and turned toward me. "You know what, Elphaba? I think I've had enough insults from you."
"Insults? I thought you'd be flattered! I know how much you enjoy your carefree, brainless little prince charade."
The pencil in his right hand snapped. "Somehow, Thropp, coming from you, that doesn't carry much weight."
Excuse me? "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that I'm not the only one putting on an act around here."
I opened my mouth to protest, but at that moment, the bell rang and Fiyero jolted out of his seat and made a beeline for the door. It was just as well—my tongue may as well have fallen off, for all the good it would have done me. For once in my life, I had no idea what to say.
