So… third chapter wuuuuh
This is shorter than I wanted it to be. And I needed like an eternity to finish it… dk why.

Started writing: 17.09.19

Finished writing: 23.09.2019

Chapter 3
Green

Elphaba's eyes snapped open at the sound of rain drumming against her window.

Momma had left two days prior, heading back towards Munchkinland at the crack of dusk so that she would reach Rush Margins before night had settled in and today it would be Elphaba's first regular school day.

The young woman quickly threw back her blanket and closed the window, watching the rain slid down the glass as tears slipped down a cheek.

With a tired sigh, Elphaba let herself fall into her chair and looked at the sheets on her desk; her schedule and the variety of extra-curricular activities Shiz offered.

This morning, she'd have History classes and later on Literature and she was already buzzing with excitement.

Her eyes wandered through the room, stopping at the sight of her packed school bag. The brand new notebook with the leathern cover, her father had given her as a parting gift seemed to shine beneath the normal school books and Elphaba tilted her head to one side, staring at the small book, thinking of how she'd soon start filling the plain white sheets with her neat handwriting.

It was when the alarm went off that Elphaba came back to reality.

She quickly put off the alarm clock and started getting ready for her first school day.

She was so excited that she was fully dressed and ready at the door at precisely an hour before class would be starting so that when she threw the clock above her fireplace another look, she let her big slip off her shoulder with a sigh and fell back onto her bed. With her fingers tapping a rhythm only Elphaba herself knew, she stared impatiently at the clock, waiting for it to turning quarter past 7:00 o'clock so that she could make her way towards the cafeteria.

Finally, Elphaba rose from her place on her bed and slipped out the door, heading downstairs and over the campus to where the cafeteria was.

Good for Elphaba, the campus was -due to the time- almost completely deserted and so, the green-skinned woman could enjoy breakfast without the stares of her fellow students. One or two students were sitting together in the entrance hall, looking as though they were waiting for someone, but other than that, the only people Elphaba met this morning were teachers.

She had a long breakfast; making the best of her time alone in the cafeteria and only left the large hall when the first students began to drop in and the hall started filling with noise and people. She couldn't flee the whispers, though; they followed her everywhere she went.

"Do you see that?"

"I heard she's ill."

"I heard her parents are frogs."

Elphaba tried desperately to ignore the flush of embarrassment that crept up her cheeks and she kept her head lowered and her hands tight around the handle of her school bag.

This wasn't new to her, of course. But back in Munchkinland, back home, she had her whole family standing behind her. She had her sister who always tried to talk to her friends that Elphaba wasn't some kind of monster, she had her father who kept the rumours down and she had her mother who met every disgusted stare or gape with a look that made shivers run down people's spines.

"The Rose of Nest Hardings has thorns, after all," people had said at first, but they'd never dare to throw Elphaba any looks in the presence of her mother.

Here at Shiz, Elphaba was on her own, there was no one to protect her from the stares and the gossip. It was like a punch into her guts but she tried to keep up her head, nonetheless.

Elphaba was the first in the History classroom, sitting first row with her notebook and sheets already on the table. When the first students began to trickle in, Elphaba held her head up high, meeting their stares with a stoic look. Of course, no one sat down anywhere near her; they all began to sit down where they could sit as far away from her as possible and those who eventually could only be seated in the front row because every other row was filled wrinkled their noses in disgust and sat down with a murderous look at Elphaba.

The only empty seats were the two that were closest to Elphaba.

With the heavy and quick steps nearing the classroom that Elphaba assumed were the teacher's, she sat up a little straighter.

A Goat appeared in the threshold, a heavy-looking coat on his shoulders and a big briefcase in his paws.

"My name is Doctor Dillamond and I will be teaching the history class this semester," he introduced himself and put his bag onto the table.

He swiftly let his gaze wander through the room and Elphaba was positively shocked when his eyes didn't linger longer on her than on all the others. The only reaction she got where the slightly widened eyes her teacher made. Then he averted his look and stared at his papers again.

"To get a first impression, I'm asking you to prepare an essay about the history of Oz of about 500 words. Include everything that seems important to you."

Elphaba rolled her eyes at the groaning of her classmates. Never could anyone just accept a task without complaining. She'd always wondered just why most people tended to argue about things they knew wouldn't change.

As soon as class had finished, Elphaba was sure that history would be her major. Doctor Dillamond was an unbelievably good teacher, and he didn't seem too bothered by Elphaba's skin. He hadn't even flinched when their hands had touched when she'd handed him her essay.

With a satisfied smile, Elphaba stepped out of the history classroom. Her face fell when she looked up and into the piercing blue eyes of a beautiful blonde girl.

She had her arms crossed before her and was accompanied by two other girls who surely wore more makeup than fitted into their bags.

"Ahem," the blonde said, and she said it in such a voice that Elphaba immediately straightened her posture to stare back at her.

"Yes?" she asked and, too, crossed her arms.

The blonde wrinkled her nose. "You're blocking the way, Artichoke."

Elphaba snorted. "How imaginative."

One of the other girls stepped forward, her eyes sparkling furiously. "It means you have to step aside!"

Elphaba huffed. "Oh, really? I must have failed to hear the question because I was so caught up by the amount of makeup on your face. Sorry."

The girl's face flushed in fury and she took two steps towards Elphaba. But before she could say anything, her blonde friend took a hold on her arm and sent her a look that let Elphaba know just who was in charge.

"Well, all the makeup in the world wouldn't suffice to cover up your ugliness, Artichoke," the girl said and lifted her chin a little bit so that she looked taller.

It only made her look ridiculous in Elphaba's eyes.

"Some have the looks, others have the brains," Elphaba said with a shrug and shouldered her bag. "Mind if I were leaving? Your... blonde-ness is beginning to rub off on me."

And before the blonde or any of her friends could do so much as open their painted mouths, Elphaba slipped past them and hurried down the hallway.

In the past, Elphaba had hated her tallness; it was something that made her stick out even more. She was tall for a Munchkin, tall for a woman in general. With five-foot, eight she easily towered above the majority of female students at Shiz.

But right now, Elphaba couldn't have been fonder of her long legs that carried her outside the building before any furious insults of the blonde girl and her friends could reach her.

She swept out of the hallway and quickly climbed downstairs, rushing out of the door and into the warm morning sun.

Running was something Elphaba didn't often do. She'd learnt that in most cases others could run after her just as well as she could run away from them. She'd learnt that running to her Momma and Father after every single insult or attack didn't stop people from harassing but only gave them more to hate her for. A frog and a traitor was something even Elphaba hadn't wanted to be called.

Running was something only cowards did and Elphaba wasn't a coward. But from time to time one had to escape the haters and blonde girls with more makeup than brain cells...

Elphaba's searching look fell onto the large oak tree she'd seen from her window this morning and a small smile began to form on her lips. With long strides, the green-skinned girl reached the tree, her eyes wandering across the trunk to search for a way up.

Had she been in Munchkinland, Elphaba would have taken the little time she had to make sure that the tree she wanted to climb wouldn't suddenly come to life and rip her off its trunk. But she wasn't in Munchkinland and thus, Elphaba climbed up without a second thought. Her well-trained hands and feet found just the right spots to pull and push herself up the large tree trunk and soon, Elphaba was sitting on a thick branch several feet above the ground, her long legs dangling on both sides of the branch.

With a heavy sigh, Elphaba pushed back a strand of black hair behind her ear and leant against the tree trunk. She reached into her bag and pulled out the book she'd read on the carriage ride to Shiz. Oz, it felt as though that had been a lifetime ago; but in reality, it had only been two days.

Shiz had held the purpose of showing her all the foreign possibilities to live her life. All it had shown her until now was that, no matter what she did, no matter she said and no matter how much she tried to blend in, in the end, she would always, irreversibly be the weird girl with the green skin. She'd thought here at Shiz everything would be different; no small-minded Munchkins but other people who were just as keen on learning new things as her.

Now, Elphaba snorted at the naïve wish she'd had.

Maybe, she thought, she didn't belong in this world; the only place where she wasn't sticking out the same severe way as in the rest of Oz was the Emerald City.

She'd still been young when they'd last been there; her Father and Momma, Nessie and Boq Underhill who was a good friend of Nessa's but she still remembered its looks vividly.

It was just as green as her; the walls, the streets… even the air had seemed to have the slightest shade of green in it. No one had stared at her as openly as they did here at Shiz, no one had pointed at her and no one had tried to slip past her without a look of disgust displaying on their faces. At the Emerald City, Elphaba had -for once in her life- felt truly welcome.