Disclaimer: Long chapter, but long wait for it, so I guess it's okay. Wait, no it isn't... I've had about two-thirds of this sitting on my flash drive Friday, then I forgot to bring it home over the Labor Day weekend. And I'm sorry about the ending, too. Dear Old Shiz is a long scene, and I needed to find somewhere to break so The Wizard and I gets a chapter. Ah well. RENT, not mine, Wicked, not mine... What else don't I own? Cheese Doodles, I have no cheesedoodles. I think that covers it. -LostOzian
Everybody basked in the glow of the scant applause, before Joanne said her line,
"Well, this has been fun!" Elphaba looked at Glinda as Collins, Mark, and Benny exited.
"Fun?" she asked. "That was how you described it, fun?" Glinda bit her lip and poked Elphaba.
"Glinda!" Roger did the same said-scream that Angel had done. "Is it true you were her friend?!" Fiyero leaned across Elphaba slightly to talk to Glinda.
"Wait, Glinda, you and Elphaba were friends?!" he said, smiling. Glinda pouted angrily and poked him, too.
"I did know her- ah, that is, our paths did cross…" Joanne folded up the umbrella. "At school."
The little Dear Old Shiz melodies started, Collins, Benny, and Mark joining the others onstage, looking somehow more student-y. Mark had the scarf tied around his neck like a tie, beaming proudly at the loft ceiling.
"Hey, I think he's you now," Nessa whispered to Boq. Boq wondered where he could get a scarf like Mark's. There was another little melody thing and Roger, Mimi, and Angel high-tailed it off stage.
"When we were both very young," Joanne said, and Maureen ran on stage, having managed to braid her hair by herself backstage and staring at the stage lights like a person watching fireworks for the first time, carrying a drawstring bag. Joanne left. Elphaba started clapping, because this was her little stage twin that just entered, and it was special. Maureen brushed imaginary dirt off her sleeve, preparing herself for school.
"O-oh hallowed halls and vine-draped walls, the proudliest sight there is…" Everyone started singing, including Maureen, and including everyone backstage, because it wouldn't be loud enough if only the four onstage were singing.
"Small graduating class," Nessa noticed.
Maureen turned to see Collins, who immediately jumped backwards in well-acted shock, then tried to skirt around Maureen. Maureen looked kind of hurt and a bit sad, but kept singing, this time turning around as Benny turned to face her. Benny just kept turning, going off in a completely different direction. The three converged on the right side of the stage as Maureen looked at them from the left.
"Our da-a-ays at dear, o-old…" Joanne entered, the tiara turned upside down and clasped around her neck like a collar-necklace thing, symbolizing that she was Galinda now.
"O-o-o-o-old…Shiz…" she passed a large messenger bag off to Mark without looking at him, and Mark proceeded to huggle it like the stalker Boq is.
"Dear old Shizzzzzzzzzz…" Everyone glared at Maureen.
"What?" she said. "What are you all looking at?" Elphaba smirked as Maureen nailed the famous line and dug it deep into the ground with how good it was. "Oh, do I have something on my cheek?" Maureen rubbed slightly at the green makeup as everyone recoiled. "Is my underskirt showing?" Maureen slammed her bag down angrily.
"All right, let's just get this over with," she said, proceeding to count off on her fingers. "No, I am not seasick, yes, I have always been green, no, I did now chew grass as a child…"
"Elphaba!" Roger shouted, pushing Mimi onstage, wearing the dorky governor hat and carrying a shoebox.
"It's me! It's me!" Nessa hissed to anyone who was paying attention. "In the expensive chair!" Mimi did look rather innocent and Nessa-ish, sitting there serenely with her hands folded in her lap.
"Stop making a spectacle of yourself!" Roger picked up his scolding, Maureen's line drowned out by Nessa's excitement. "I'm only sending you to this school for one reason-"
"I know," Maureen said, looking down at Mimi. "To look after Nessa." Roger turned a loving face to Mimi, unable to get Mark's supposedly helpful words out of his head. "Okay, so she was your wife last scene, but right now, she's your daughter! If you kissed her or something, then you're practicing incest." Maybe Mark would have been a better Fiyero. He had the whole 'brainless' thing going on by assuming Roger was that bad of an actor.
"My perfect little girl," Roger said, giving the shoebox to Mimi. "A parting gift?" Mimi opened the box and took out one of the sparkly Converse shoes.
"Oh! Jeweled shoes!" she exclaimed. Elphaba leaned across Glinda and Boq and grabbed Nessa's arm.
"Maybe now you'll rethink whether you wanted the shoes or the chair to be expensive."
Nessa looked back at the Converse skeptically as Roger exited, shoving the shoebox into Elphaba's hands.
"Elphaba…" Mimi was about to say consolingly. Maureen shrugged.
"What can he get me?" she said, giving the shoebox for Mimi to hold on to. "I clash with everything." Glinda slapped Elphaba's arm lightly.
"I can name at least seventeen different shades of pink that would flatter you off the top of my head!" the blonde said.
"Galinda," Elphaba said pointedly. "Shush."
"Hello, students!" Angel said brightly, bouncing onstage as Morrible. The Pussy Galore wig had been horribly mutilated and twisted into a kind of beehive thing, which apparently meant she was Morrible. "I am Madame Morrible, headmistress here at Shiz University!"
"No, you're not," Fiyero said. "Too nice."
"And young," Boq added.
"And pretty," Glinda continued.
"And happy," Nessa furthered the trait-listing. Roger snuck onstage without the Governor beanie and supposedly became another student.
"I would have killed to have her for headmistress," Elphaba broke the pattern, but it was true. Angel would have kicked Morrible's ass nine times out of five.
Joanne and Maureen had raised their hands, supposedly both with questions about room assignments. It was actually kind of hard to believe it was Joanne; she was twitching her hand in the air and doing a strange dance that slightly resembled Irish river dance at the same time.
"Yes, is this about room assignments?" Angel turned to Joanne, shying away slightly at the energy with which she was raising her hand.
"That's honestly what you looked like, Glinda," Elphaba pointed out.
"Don't speak when I'm speaking!" Glinda hissed, pointing at Joanne.
"-been assigned a private suite," Everybody excepting Maureen, Mimi, and Angel started complaining. Joanne held up a hand, a technique she learned as a lawyer.
"But you can all come visit me whenever you want!" Joanne said. Everyone 'aw'd as Mark was given the lines of Galinda's friends.
"You are so good!" he exclaimed. Boq felt like crawling in a hole.
"No, I'm not," Joanne barely paid attention, turning back to talk to Angel.
"Yes, you are!" Mark continued. Joanne, irritated that Mark was continuing to talk to her, turned around again.
"Now stop!" she said, holding out the 'op' for a little. Mark shut up, looking like he was glowing just because Joanne talked to him.
"I sound gay," Boq muttered.
"Ah, don't say that around them," Elphaba warned. "I think half the cast is gay. Including Glinda and me." The thought struck Boq as rather funny, but he bit his lip to keep from laughing at the thought and continued to watch the show. Angel finished with Joanne and turned to Mimi, even though Maureen was raising her hand.
"Oh, what a tragically beautiful face," Angel said, gently touching Mimi's cheek. And this was okay because they were Amiga-Chicas, and it didn't seem disturbing because Angel was playing a nice beautiful Morrible at the moment. She turned and noticed Greenie Maureenie. Meanie. Bo Beenie. And other 'eenie's.
"I'm the other daughter, Elphaba. I'm beautifully tragic," she said flatly. Angel seemed put off by the sarcastic hostility.
"Let's all poke the cynic!" Glinda said, miming that she was poking Maureen. Nessa and Boq joined in. Fiyero poked Elphaba herself, and Elphaba fumed.
Maureen said her line about staying with her sister, and Angel offered to let Nessa stay with her. Maureen started protesting.
"See? You two are related," Boq made the point to Elphaba. "You're both over-possessive." Elphaba poked him irritably.
Joanne raised her hand at exactly the wrong on-cue time, and Angel decided that Maureen and Joanne should share a room (which all the Bohos found oddly funny, seeing as they were lesbians)
Angel started to take Mimi away, and Maureen started screaming, until finally, "Let her go!"
Despite Mark's really cool idea to use remote control cars, the Bohos decided to not use anything motorized. Angel suddenly turned and pushed the chair back towards Maureen, acting out that this was not of her own free will.
The push only landed Mimi halfway to Maureen, a gap of about five feet in between them. So Maureen had to go get Nessa anyway.
"Should I have tried to help?" Elphaba asked, referring to casting a spell from the audience.
"Nah," Fiyero said. "Give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was planned that way."