With less than three weeks left until his inevitable dismissal, Doctor Dillamond needed to be warned, no matter how much Elphaba dreaded having to tell him he had to leave Shiz. At the end of their next history class, she made sure to gather her things especially slowly.
"You go on without me, Nessa," she said, waving her hand at Nessarose, who looked a little impatient. Immediately after hearing Elphaba's words, she turned around and rushed to the door.
"Boq!" she shouted, rather imperiously, after the Munchkin boy. "Wait for me!"
Elphaba sighed, worried about her sister's behavior, but aware that she had plenty of other things she needed to worry about first. Carefully, she approached Doctor Dillamond, who had already gotten to marking the first of the huge pile of essays lying at his desk.
"Doctor Dillamond?" Elphaba asked, watching the other students slowly – painfully slowly – leave the classroom. The Goat looked up and fixed his glasses. "Could we talk?"
"Naturally, Miss Elphaba! How may I help you? Is this about Master Tiggulaar? I've heard about you tutoring him, and I think—"
"Oh, no, this is not actually about schoolwork at all… It's a much more serious matter."
The Goat perked up his ears. "Oh?" he asked anxiously. Elphaba took a deep breath.
"Doctor Dillamond, do you remember how you told me a few weeks back that there was something bad happening in Oz?" Doctor Dillamond nodded. "Well, unfortunately, you were right to worry about the other Animals. But, as much as I know you'll hate to hear it, you should first worry about yourself. You need to leave Shiz."
Doctor Dillamond's eyes went huge, and it pained Elphaba to see that there was more than just fear in them. There was sadness, too. And even worse, disappointment.
"Doctor Dillamond, please don't think I want you to leave," she pleaded, taking a step closer and hesitantly putting her hand on the teacher's shoulder. "I admire your teachings and your devotion to Animal rights, so much! But you won't help the cause if you get forced into silence by those who don't want you speaking. And I know that this is going to happen when you stay here."
"Miss Elphaba," Doctor Dillamond said indignantly. "I do understand and appreciate you worrying about my safety, but—"
"No, Doctor, you don't understand. I am not just worrying or guessing. I know for sure." She bit her lip. "It's… my powers. Occasionally, I get visions of the future; sometimes hardly understandable, sometimes just a little blurry. But a few days ago, for the first time, I had a crystal clear vision. I saw you being forcibly dragged away from this room. I saw Madame Morrible standing back, her arms crossed, doing nothing. I saw you imprisoned and forced into silence... And I saw a way to avoid it."
Doctor Dillamond was stunned.
"Well, I… I haven't a clue… I really don't know what to say to this," he finally said. "Your words seem so implausible, Miss Elphaba… But then, there have indeed been these rumors… These strange looks I have been getting…" He shuddered and looked down, shuffling nervously with his hooves. Elphaba held her breath, waiting, until Doctor Dillamond looked up again.
"When… when would it happen?" he asked quietly and Elphaba felt a flicker of hope.
"Not for the next two weeks, according to my vision," she reassured him. "I thought… If you decided to believe me, which I hope you will… You could make your way out west. There is a castle there, in the Vinkun mountains. Kiamo Ko. Fiyero's family owns it. It has been standing empty for many years, he told me, and hardly anyone is ever there. I thought it would be a safe place for you to stay. Not forever, of course!" she added hastily and looked around to make sure no one was around. "Doctor Dillamond, I hope to see the Wizard soon, and I will do everything in my power to make this right; for you and for other Animals of Oz. But I need you to keep this a secret. And please, please, I need you to believe me!"
She looked at the Goat, begging for his trust, and saw something shift in his big, kind eyes.
"Thank you, miss Elphaba, for warning me," he said, and with that, the conversation was over.
•••
Unfortunately, time is not in the habit of pausing merely because one needs it to. With just a few days left until Doctor Dillamond's arrest, Elphaba still had no idea how to play the situation in a way that would get Galinda to help her steal the Lion cub from class. She didn't even know how to get Galinda to attend that class in the first place.
"Why did she miss that class?" she kept asking herself, increasingly frustrated. Both she and Fiyero were pretty sure that Galinda had been absent that day, but, no matter how hard they tried, neither of them could recall why. It couldn't have been any major event, they would have remembered it; but what had it been? Had Galinda been sick? Injured? Hungover? Had she cut the class just because? None of the reasons seemed any more or any less convincing than the others, therefore all had to be avoided. Which is why Elphaba spent the week prior to Doctor Dillamond's dismissal constantly oscillating between tiptoeing around Galinda and doting on her like a mother hen. After three days of such treatment, Galinda could no longer pretend not to notice it.
"Elphie! What is it with you?" she asked, after Elphaba had brought her yet another cup of tea with honey and forced her to put a band aid over a paper cut.
"What do you mean?" Elphaba said innocently.
"You've been acting extremely strange lately!" Galinda's voice was almost accusatory. "You disappear somewhere all the time, I haven't heard a single sarcastic comment from you in the last thirty nine hours, you've been bringing me more tea than I could consume in a lifetime, and last evening, when I tried to open the window, you looked like you wanted to chop off my hand!"
"Your hair was still wet!" Elphaba tried to defend herself. "You would have caught a cold!"
She sat back on her bed and unfolded the newspaper she'd picked up that morning. As Galinda busied herself with brushing her blond curls, Elphaba's eyes skipped through the columns until a small headline in the corner of the second page caught her attention.
"What the—Galinda, listen to this!" she exclaimed and read: "More restrictions for Animals. A new directive regarding Animal rights is rumored to go into effect within the next week. The new rules would mainly affect the Animals in the fields of law, medicine and education, as the directive would reduce the possibilities of employment… This is just outrageous!"
Galinda put her hairbrush away and looked at Elphaba.
"Don't dramaticise, Elphie, it can't be that bad. I mean, this is the first time I'm hearing or reading about anything like this…"
"Is it really? What about Doctor Dillamond being the only Animal teacher left at Shiz? What about the threats he's been getting? What about Animals everywhere forgetting how to speak? Or did they not mention that in the latest Ozmopolitan?" she added mockingly, pointing at the stack of magazines on Galinda's vanity. "Come on, even you can't be this much in denial!"
"I'm not in denial!" Galinda said defensively. "I just don't think it's worth making a fuss over. It's not like either of us can do anything about it!"
Elphaba glanced at her, sensing the opportunity and deciding to seize it.
"Well, for starters, how participating in Doctor Dillamond's class for once? And maybe showing up on time?"
Galinda frowned.
"Uh, I don't know… I didn't have time for that reading we had assigned… I was thinking of maybe skipping—"
She hesitated, seeing Elphaba's glare.
"On second thought, I am rather fond of the old Goat," she said. "Fine. I'll do my best."
•••
Galinda was decidedly not happy about being forced to come to history class ten minutes early. She tapped the floor with her pink-shod foot like an especially annoyed rabbit.
"See, Elphie," she snarled as the clock over the chalkboard struck three. "I could have gotten the extra ten minutes of my beauty nap!"
"Much as you obviously need it, I think you'll survive," Elphaba retorted, earning herself a not-so-gentle elbow to the ribs. She barely felt it, though, as the nerves turned her stomach upside down. She looked slightly to the side at Fiyero, who gave her a barely perceivable nod of support.
"Good afternoon, everyone!" shrieked Madame Morrible, entering the classroom, followed by a man in a gray uniform, wheeling in a large contraption covered with black cloth. "I am pleased to introduce to you Doctor Nix, your history teacher for the remainder of the semester."
"What happened to Doctor Dillamond?" Elphaba asked loudly, standing up.
"It pains me to say that, as an Animal, he is no longer permitted to teach. He has already left the premises."
"But—"
"Please, Miss Elphaba, take your seat," ordered Madame Morrible.
"Good afternoon, students!" said the uniformed man in an overly cheery voice, and a choir of unenthusiastic Good afternoon's was heard around the classroom. "More and more, every day, with each tick of the Time Dragon Clock, one hears the silence of progress! For example this – this is called a cage!"
He smiled like an illusionist doing a magic trick and pulled the dark cloth hiding the contraption. A cage. A cage with a tiny, terrified Lion cub inside. Despite having lived through this situation once before, Elphaba could barely control her fury.
"You'll be seeing more and more of them in the future. This remarkable innovation is actually for the Animal's own good!"
"His own good?!" Elphaba jumped out of her seat. "He's terrified! Look how he's trembling!"
Doctor Nix twisted his lips into a poor imitation of a smile.
"Ah, nonsense, he's just excited to be here! As I was saying, one of the benefits of caging a Lion cub this young is that he will never, in fact, learn how to speak!"
Elphaba grabbed Galinda's forearm.
"Oh no… What do we do?" she whispered urgently, but the only response was a confused look. "Come on, Galinda! Somebody has to do… something!"
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, praying for all the practice she'd had in the proceeding weeks to be enough. She focused on the image of the caged Lion cub, of Doctor Dillamond smiling sadly at her, of a Munchkin girl she'd witnessed being bullied as a child, of little Nessa never truly being accepted by her peers, of every cause of discrimination and injustice she'd witnessed or experienced in her life. The magic filled her with energy and anger, stirring like a hot spring in her chest; and as she could feel it forming at her fingertips, almost tangible, almost materialized – she let go.
As the class exploded with panicked screams and frantic movement, Elphaba didn't wait for any questions or doubts to kick in. She ran towards the cage and grabbed it, covering it with the dark cloth, and only then turned to Galinda, whose eyes turned out to be fixed on her.
"Elphie… What are you… What's happening?"
"I don't know… I just… I need your help," Elphaba stammered with a genuine pleading note in her voice. "Please. Will you help me?"
Her mind, once again, flashed to another place, another time, when she'd stood trembling, asking her friend to choose a side. She'd been scared then, and now, she realized, she was scared too. Last time, Galinda's choice had been wrong. Would this time be any different?
"Please, Galinda…," Elphaba urged, trying to keep her hands from shaking. Galinda blinked a few times and finally said:
"Okay."