Content Advisory: Bullying


Chapter Five: Going Postal

Elphaba's luck with socialization did not improve, despite her efforts to be "nice". Being the bigger person was thankless work. She was sore from clenching her teeth and biting her tongue, and she teetered on the edge of bursting at all times. It wasn't the best mindset to be in when it came to making friends.

Elphaba visited Nessarose at her living quarters frequently, but with enough encouragement, she had finally compelled her sister to meet at a campus bakery one morning before classes.

"The classes can be daunting, but I believe I am holding my own," Nessarose mentioned over tea. "There are some rather friendly girls in my creative writing course that I am getting to know better. Oh—I fear I've been dominating the conversation. How have you been, Elphaba?"

"I'm also well. My professor has assigned a really thrilling historical biography that I've been enjoying immensely—"

"No surprise there. But what about meeting people? Making friends?" Nessarose prodded hopefully.

Elphaba sighed and wrapped her hands around her teacup. "It's slow going, Nessa, which can't be surprising. You know how people react to me. Besides, I'm here to learn and not to fraternize with self-absorbed, ignorant—"

"There you go again! Do you hear how judgmental you sound? Why haven't you been making more of an effort?"

"I am, Nessa!" Elphaba said defensively. "I am. But I can't control what people think and if they're not even going to give me a chance—"

"You have to make them see who you really are."

"Well maybe being nice isn't who I really am! Letting things slide, turning the other cheek, smiling at strangers—"

"Smiling at all…"

Elphaba closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead over her sister's bitter comment.

"This affects me too, you know," Nessarose added seriously.

Elphaba glanced up to see Nessarose nod towards a gaggle of girls in the corner whispering and pointing towards the sisters. "They're in my art appreciation seminar. We had a nice conversation about a piece the other day. Now that they see me with you…I guarantee you that they won't look at me the same again. Things are already hard enough for me. Your behavior is a reflection on me too, Elphaba. You know it is."

"I'll try harder. Okay? I will."

"What of your roommate?" Nessarose asked hopefully. "Have you made any progress with Galinda?"

"Well, you know how the adage goes. If you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all."

After tea Nessarose requested that Elphaba bring her letter to Father to the campus post office. Elphaba, of course, accepted. There were two clerks at the window and they both seemed busy. Elphaba patiently waited as they shuffled through a large quantity of parcels, likely care packages overbearing parents sent their darlings.

Elphaba turned her head at the sound of footsteps approaching the counter and made a loud, involuntary sound of disgust when she saw her would-be trampler approach.

"Nice sound," the cart maniac commented, coolly leaning against the counter and gesturing towards the outgoing mail slot. "You know you can actually drop letters off over there."

"I know how the postal system works, thank you," Elphaba muttered. "I need a stamp."

"Just trying to help."

"I said 'thank you', didn't I?"

A silence lapsed between them and Elphaba tapped her foot. Be nice. Let it go. Don't bring up the—

"You know you still haven't apologized," she blurted out.

"For what?"

"For what—" she spluttered. "What do you mean for what?! The cart!"

"Master Tigelaar! Back again?" the clerk brightly welcomed the boy.

"Excuse me!? I've been waiting much longer than he has!" Elphaba complained.

"And we'll be right with you," the clerk replied snidely before smiling towards 'Master Tigelaar'. "What can we do for you, sir?"

"Ah—just checking up again. Seeing if there was any mail for me."

"You know you can actually check your mailbox over there," Elphaba interrupted, pointing to the row of locked mail compartments. Tigelaar gave her a dirty look and she shrugged innocently.

"Just trying to help."

"I've already checked my mailbox," he explained before turning back to the clerk. "I'm asking in case it hasn't been sorted yet."

"Unfortunately, it's the same answer we've given you all week," the clerk shook his head.

Elphaba snorted. The clerk frowned at her, the service with a smile which had been afforded Master Tigelaar missing now. "Name?"

"Thropp, Elphaba. But I just need a stamp."

"Thropp—hold on." He checked her out for a stamp as well as slid a letter her way from behind the counter. "You've got mail. Apologies for the delay, it seems like it got redirected quite a bit."

"Ha!" Elphaba laughed towards Master Tigelaar, waving her letter in the air to gloat. "Looks like someone's got mail."

"Who'd be writing to you anyway?" he sneered, craning his neck to peek at her envelope.

"Wouldn't you like to know."

She swiftly stuffed the envelope in her bag and brushed past Master Tigelaar in a haughty exit. She hadn't caught who'd written to her, but it certainly wasn't any of his concern.

Though Shiz University was in many ways unlike she had hoped, Elphaba loved her classes. She'd begun to gain favor with her professors and, though not all of them were immune to her eccentricity, they all appeared noticeably impressed by her academic prowess. Elphaba had not yet declared an area of study, so she took a wide array of subjects. Her favorite by far was History of Oz taught by one Doctor Dillamond.

Intelligent and generous, Doctor Dillamond seemed to care more about Elphaba's mind than her skin. Perhaps it was because he was the sole Animal professor on campus, he seemed to understand the concept of standing out. Dillamond praised Elphaba's work and held her up as an example which, while it didn't help her gain favor among her peers, provided her immense satisfaction.

She stepped into the classroom and assessed the seating situation. Before, she'd always sat alone at the front, but Nessarose's pleas ran through her brain on repeat.

Be nice.

Elphaba steeled herself and approached a table where a girl was seated alone. Elphaba gestured to the empty seat and cleared her throat.

"Is this seat taken?" she asked, her chest burning with the awkwardness of it all. The girl's eyes widened and began to stammer. "Yes! Sorry, it's taken—it's—"

"Taken by me!" a boy called from the back. He abandoned his own seat and chivalrously slid beside the girl. She blushed and looked at her hero with doe eyes.

"Th—thank you Jozsef!"

"Call me Fox," he flashed a grin.

"Yes, it's his seat."

Elphaba swallowed and turned her eyes towards the rest of the class. They seemed to be catching on to what she was trying to do.

"Would anyone care to compare notes?" Elphaba offered tersely, holding up her notebook.

Sounds of squeals and chair legs dragging on the floor sounded as people hurriedly began consolidating seats, pairing among each other as if it were a game of frantic musical chairs. Nobody wanted to be the last one standing.

"This seat is taken!" "Buddy system!" "Not it, not it."

The humiliation in Elphaba's chest soon shifted to resentment. She gripped her notebook tightly and gritted her teeth. Oh, how she wanted to say something…

She opened her mouth. Your behavior is a reflection on me too, Elphaba. She closed her mouth.

Elphaba strode in defeat to sit at the empty table at the front of the class and, with darkly comical timing, her dreaded roommate entered the room. She glanced at the last empty seat beside Elphaba and sighed.

"Excuse me," she addressed the class sweetly. "May I steal a spot from somebody?"

"Of course, Galinda!" "Pick me!" "This seat is free!"

The students stood and pushed one another out of the way to free a seat for Galinda. Whether they wanted her or wanted to be her, the seat beside Galinda Upland of the Upper Uplands was the most coveted spot in all of Oz. Eventually a group of three opted to squish together at one table rather than take the empty seat beside Elphaba, leaving Galinda free to secure a seat a few rows back.

"Class! Everybody, please take your seats," Doctor Dillamond announced as he entered. If only he knew.

Dillamond began his lecture and Elphaba began taking diligent notes, eager to put her discomfiture behind her. If only it were that easy.

"I didn't know that vegetables needed an education," a girl whispered loudly to her friend. They both giggled under their breath.

"Well, if she isn't just the smartest pea in the pod!"

They wanted Elphaba to react. They wanted her to hear them. She didn't hear them.

Elphaba stared steadfastly at Doctor Dillamond's chalkboard, notating his points about Animals achieving crystallization in the field of—

A chewed-up wad of paper landed beside her foot, surely missing its assumed target, her head. She turned and saw a boy behind her poised to send another her way, but he lost his nerve and lowered his artillery the moment he was caught.

It was one thing to avoid her, dislike her, but it seemed that the student body—foolishly emboldened by their groupthink—had decided to react to Elphaba with a fight response rather than flight. Elphaba burned at the thought of humbling herself before them. She was now more than a subject of curiosity to them—she was their quarry. The tactic she'd employed out of her respect for Nessarose was not easing their mob mentality as she hoped…it was exacerbating it.

"Class dismissed," Doctor Dillamond cleared his throat, waving them off with his hoof.

"A very enlightening lecture, Professor," Elphaba complimented as students exited around her.

"Thank you, Miss Elphaba. I must say it still warms this Goat's heart to hear such things. Especially with the state of things…"

Elphaba knitted her eyebrows together. "What state of things, Professor?"

"Oh—nothing," Doctor Dillamond cleared his throat. "You should go off with your friends."

"That's alright," Elphaba sighed heavily. "I have no friends."

She pulled out a book and exited the classroom. She cracked it open and began to read as she walked, in part to avoid eye contact with others, in part to finish her chapter. Much of the campus traffic flowed through the quad, an open space with a grand statue of a gentleman with a top hat and cane. It wasn't uncommon for students to congregate there between classes. Elphaba kept her head ducked as she exited the hall and stepped onto the quad.

"Better look both ways before crossing!" an unwelcome voice caught her off-guard. "There may be rogue carts."

Elphaba looked up and groaned to spot Master Tigelaar for the second time that day loitering against the brick wall. So much for a big campus.

"Only if their drivers are half as maniacal as yours," she grumbled before charging forward to avoid him.

He'd broken her concentration too much to continue reading so Elphaba opened her bag to put her book away. She frowned upon spotting the envelope from this morning, realizing that it had slipped her mind before. The letter looked bent and worn, as if it had been shuffled from mail bag to mail bag all across Oz. Beneath a red post office stamp with her forwarding address at Shiz was a letter addressed to her by way of the Ozian Pen Pal Service.

Yero.

She stopped in her tracks, stunned at the surprise. However, she was not able to linger on her discovery for long before a funny feeling crept along the back of her neck. Like she was being watched. A less keen eye wouldn't have noticed, but Elphaba's unfortunate childhood had gifted her with a heightened sense of awareness. She'd call the skill a premonition, but the sad truth was that she had been on the receiving end of enough harassment to recognize the signs of oncoming torment.

All of the signs were there. The quad was quieter than it should have been, multiple people were pointing behind her, and the students had banded together to distance themselves from their prey. Elphaba had only enough time to thrust the envelope into her pocket and turn before she heard a voice command: "NOW!"

The world slowed and Elphaba heard a loud liquid slosh as a flood of water thrown from a bucket arced in the air towards her face. She threw her hands in front of her and squeezed her eyes shut, preparing herself for the inevitable soaking—

That never came.

She opened her eyes to see the water hanging in midair, rippling ever so slightly in an unnatural levitation. Her hands were open faced; fingers tensed, and a sensation buzzed in her fingertips. Her eyes then shifted dangerously to her would-be attacker, the chivalrous Jozsef Fox who'd rescued the girl in history.

Elphaba took a deep breath and posed her question in a steady voice.

"Why?"

"We—we—" Fox stammered, clumsily dropping the bucket with a loud clang. "We wanted—"

"Go on."

"We wanted to see if water would…wash the…green off?" Fox mumbled. His brilliant idea didn't seem as hilarious to him now.

"Ah," Elphaba said calmly.

She thrust her hands forward with a mighty force and the floating water immediately doused Fox as well as others who had the misfortune of standing too close.

"YOU IMBECILE!" Elphaba unloaded fiercely. "DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU COULD HAVE DONE!?"

Her letter from Yero, still safely dry, surely would have been ruined.

Fox, now drenched head to toe, stumbled backwards at the sound of her voice and tripped backwards over the dropped bucket. Scattered laughter at his expense rippled through the crowd and Elphaba whipped around to address them with wild eyes.

"What are you laughing at!?" she shouted, silencing their glee at once. "You're no better, none of you!"

Spurred by her own adrenaline, Elphaba stomped up towards the gigantic statue in the center of the square, used the man's cane to hoist herself up, and stood upright on the pedestal to address the crowd from higher ground.

"Attention Shiz University! My name is Elphaba Thropp. I know you've seen me. I know you've talked about me. Now that I have your attention—let's get this sorted out!" she shouted loudly enough to cause a distorted reverb among the surrounding buildings. "I'm green and I always have been green! Your comments aren't clever, your jokes aren't funny, and none of you are as special as you think you are! So, you can go ahead and laugh until your sides are aching but you're in for an unpleasant year if you think I'm going to continue to lie there and take it!"

Elphaba's chest heaved in rage, her hand still gripped tightly around the cane of the statue, as she stared down upon the petrified students.

"NOW GET OUT!" she screamed, thrashing her hand down to produce a puff of red smoke and sparks which crackled loudly like a firecracker before dissipating on the ground. "GO!"

Students began tripping over themselves to clamber out of the square amidst screams and general panic. The only person Elphaba didn't see escaping was Master Tigelaar himself who hung back by the wall. With a fresh wave of ferocity Elphaba hopped off the statue and charged towards him. She gripped his shirt in her hand and yanked at it so his face was close to hers.

"And you…don't you dare darken my feet with your shadow until—you—APOLOGIZE!"

She released his shirt roughly and pointed a finger in the direction he'd run off in if he had any brains at all. He didn't run, merely raised his hands in surrender and wordlessly backed off.

For now.

The square now sufficiently empty, bookbags abandoned, papers blowing in the wind, Elphaba strode towards the statue and pulled herself up to sit on it as if it were her throne. She crossed her legs and glanced around at the windows of the buildings surrounding the square, offering a cheeky wave to the onlookers spying down upon the ruckus. She stopped waving upon locking eyes with Madame Morrible who stood at her open office window with an unreadable expression. Elphaba gulped as the Headmistress calmly pulled the windows shut and stepped away.

She was going to be expelled. What other course could Madame Morrible take after such a calamity?

"You really blew it this time, Elphaba," she mumbled to herself.

Figuring she had nothing to lose, Elphaba slowly pulled Yero's letter out of her pocket and opened the envelope with a heavy-hearted curiosity.

Dear Fae,

I know you told me not to write. I respect your decision even though it's dumb. However, you'll understand why I had to write when I tell you.

I'm at Shiz.