An update! Finally! Sorry, guys, but the end of the year is not a fun time. I have exams coming up so updates are going to be sparse for a while. Anyway, I've decided not to have Galinda change her name. It just didn't seem plausible in the story, and I prefer the name Galinda anyway. ) Happy reading!
To Fidel Castro: I don't mind negative reviews. What I do mind is negative reviews that have absolutely no constructive criticism. We call those flames and they are unappreciated on this site. But even that wouldn't have been so bad if you hadn't been cowardly enough to be anonymous. If you're going to flame, the least you can do is make sure that the author can get in touch with you to find out what the flamer would recommend to make their fiction better. However, I did glean one compliment from your review. You managed to indirectly call my fic one of the best on this site, and for that I thank you, whether or not it was intentional.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Just like they haven't been for the past 10 posts.
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"My name is Professor Nikidik. Following the tragic and accidental death of Doctor Dillamond, I will be your new life sciences teacher. We'll start with a demonstration involving the reaction of iodine and..." Elphaba tuned out their new professor after this point. She had decided, right after seeing him, to not even give him a chance. For the most part, the other students seemed to be ignoring him as well, but that was just how they responded to science teachers in general. Besides, they had more pressing things to be thinking about. Following Dillamond's death, Crage Hall had not only inherited the boys' life sciences teacher, but the boys as well. This was the college's first (and if Morrible could help it, last) co-ed class.
The only plus to this that Elphaba could see was that she now shared a class with Boq. She was a bit surprised to see how clumsy he was around girls. After they had spent so much time together, he was completely at ease around her, but a classroom-full of giggling college debutantes seemed to guarantee his running into anything that stayed still long enough. Even sitting safely in his desk he had managed to drop his books and pencil four times, each time returning to his seat with a flush the size of the Gillikin.
"Class dismissed," said Nikidik a frustrating hour-and-a-half later. The class poured from the hall for their lunch break. Because the weather was finally warm enough, Galinda, Elphaba, Galinda's group of friends, and the tag-along Nessa had started eating lunch in the courtyard outside the school cafeteria. Today, Boq and Avaric joined them.
"What do you think of Professor Nikidik?" Galinda asked Elphaba carefully.
"Nikidik?" Elphaba asked, "More like 'Niki-Dick Head,'" she said, eliciting a chuckle from the two boys.
Galinda sighed. This is what she had been worried about. Her friend hadn't even given Nikidik a chance after losing Dillamond. Before she could pursue the subject, Elphaba very pointedly turned away and ate her quiche in Nessa's direction.
It was in the middle of a bite of her very healthy salad that Galinda saw the carriage approaching the front gates of Shiz.
She tapped ShenShen with her free hand and jabbed Elphaba in the side with her elbow while pointing with her fork to the near-parade that followed the fancy coach.
Elphaba downed a swig of her tea ponderously. "Wonder who that is," she said.
"It's bound to be someone rich!" exclaimed Pfannee, already primping her hair and checking her teeth in a small handheld mirror that she seemed able to whip out a moment's notice from her form-fitting bodice.
The coach stopped stolidly in front of the main gates and they opened as they had been enchanted to by Morrible herself.
A reveler on a white horse behind the carriage hopped down and played a short fanfare on a bugle. "Presenting his royal Prince Fiyero of the Vinkus! Son of Gathor, son of Truman, son of Yoorn."
"A prince!" exclaimed ShenShen, Pfannee, and Galinda in harmony with accompanying squeals. When the prince actually descended from the red plush interior of his carriage, the squeals turned into something closer to crazed shrieks, and not just from the three girls beside Elphie. Most of the female population of the courtyard were having fits. That is, except for the green girl and her sister. Elphaba just rolled her eyes and Nessa pretended to be completely oblivious, as if her holiness put her above any attraction to dashingly handsome (and rich!) princes.
"Thank you, thank you," Prince Fiyero said to both his bugler and the screaming girls in a voice that practically made a mess all over the courtyard with the overflowing confidence it exuded. He flashed a dazzling white smile and winked in the general direction of the courtyard. Spontaneously, the more dramatic of the girls faked graceful fainting spells while squinting through nearly-closed eyes in his direction to see if he was paying any attention.
"That lucky son of a bitch," muttered Avaric, fervently wishing he had been born a prince.
Fiyero's entrance gained so much gossip that Elphaba felt she might puke if she had to hear another word about his good looks, royal status, and rumored sexual god-ship. She was dismayed to learn that he would be sharing her life sciences class.
Later that week, at their second class with Nikidik, Prince Fiyero walked in five minutes after the class had started, flipping his hair all the way to his seat and earning the attention he had apparently been craving.
"Who are you? You're late," stated Nikidik mid-lecture.
"Prince Fiyero of the Vinkus," he replied smoothly.
Nikidik nodded with a smile, "Oh. All right, then," and continued teaching.
Elphaba ripped a corner off her paper and wrote a quick note to Boq.
Boq jumped a foot when her note hit him squarely on his Munchkin nose, but he covered it up with a mock sneeze. When he read her message, he snickered quietly and scrawled a message back.
After he had passed it back, she read what she herself had written in her small, tidy cursive. "Why do the rest of us get a lecture if we show up half a second late but that little snot just gets a smile? Niki-Dick Head seems a tad corrupt, doesn't he?" and his responding large, loopy print, "We'd get smiles if we were shoved up his ass as far as Monsieur Prince is. All the teachers do it. It's even worse at Briscoe."
Elphaba made a face at him and watched as all the girls anywhere close to where Fiyero was sitting stared at him, including Galinda. In fact, she noticed, especially Galinda. And it was her blonde roommate that Fiyero was paying attention back to. Elphaba saw him wink at her. It took all her self-control to not grab her textbook and bring it down on his royal head.
Unfortunately, Galinda and Fiyero not only continued flirting, but Galinda began inviting him to join them on their weekend excursions. Elphaba very seriously considered stopping going on these trips but she felt that she had to go along to make sure that Fiyero didn't get to friendly with what was hers. Elphaba didn't like the possessiveness of Galinda that Fiyero brought out in her, and she reminded herself as often as she could that she didn't own Galinda.
On one of these weekends, Galinda had planned a trip down to the Suicide Canal for a picnic lunch. Elphaba accepted, as did Boq, Avaric, Nessa (though she had never technically been invited), ShenShen, Pfannee, and, unfortunately, Fiyero.
"How do I look?" Galinda asked with a squeal, leaping from the bathroom where she had just finished with her hair and makeup. She had fretted over what to wear all week, deciding that she would have to break out the big guns to impress Fiyero. Elphaba had rightly assumed that this meant she would be wearing her most revealing dress. As Galinda stood expectantly waiting to be reviewed, Elphaba took in her many brightly-colored frills and extravagant accessories and was afraid for a moment that she would melt like candy out in the sun. After this initial fear passed, Elphaba took in her neckline. It was cut in a dangerous V that left just enough to the imagination to leave Elphaba staring.
"Elphie?" interrupted Galinda's voice.
"Hmm?" asked Elphaba, barely glancing up.
"Why are you staring at my chest?"
Elphaba's head snapped up. "Um. What? I wasn't staring at your…your…" Elphaba gave up and gestured weakly at Galinda's breast region.
"Yes, Elphaba, you were," Galinda said. She sounded more confused than angry.
"Well," Elphaba said, quickly trying to rectify her lapse, "there's something on your bodice. Right there," she said, pointing. Then she hurried off to 'grab the book she had left at the library', leaving Galinda to look in vain for the invisible stain on her chest.