It was Monday. Everybody at school hated Monday, especially Elphie. She rubbed sleep from her eyes as she threw her backpack over her shoulder, whacking the faces of a few freshmen. They scowled at her, and she scowled right back at them. Everybody was grumpy on Monday moorings. Everybody hated everybody on Monday mornings. Elphie looked at her schedule. Everybody hated their schedule on Monday- oh, wait! Elphie took a closer look at her schedule, and that dead, half-asleep part of her woke up and did a little dance around her heart. She had science today, which meant that she shared a class with Fiyero today!
Elphie danced along the hallway, not caring who she bumped into. She felt like singing. She had a class with Fiyero today! People stared at her because of her sudden change of attitude.
Monday mornings weren't so bad after all!
Elphie skipped and skipped down the hall towards the stairs. She danced and danced, and hummed and hummed, and did whatever a happy girl would do when she realized that she would see her crush that day. She bumped into more people, and they all started complaining about her manners, but she just smiled at them.
"Happy Monday!" she exclaimed at random people. Some stared at her more, and some just turned away in annoyance and stalked off.
Suddenly, Elphie ran into a tall wall. It was too warm to be a wall, though. Elphie looked up at who she had crashed face first into. Her heart soared. Fiyero! Oh, Fiyero! Elphie beamed up at him, and she couldn't hear any sound besides her own beating heart, and some sort of annoying buzzing. He took a quick glance down at her, then turn to his left and looked down to someone. Elphie followed his gaze to a short, blonde person. Oh.
Elphie realized what the buzzing was. It sounded like a bee next to your ear, not loud enough to annoy you, but not quite quiet enough so that you would forget that there was a buzzing there. Elphie's face fell when she saw who was accompanying him. Galinda. Her followers thought that she was the greatest person in the world and should be praised and honored for even placing her foot on earth, while the rest of the school just thought that she was plain annoying, and had no right to be sticking her nose in other people's business. Did she mention that Galinda was the gossip worker and creator in the school? All rumors and lies and some truths led and pointed back to Galinda, and every time someone would accuse her of calling them a snob or a lies about a relationship, Galinda would just brush it off and move on to another piece of gossip. It was like a convection current: gossip blows it's way to her, she brushes it off and les it rise to nothing, meanwhile, while Galinda lets one lie go, another one comes blowing to her to replace it.
The buzzing sounds slowly became clearer. Galinda was talking about nonsense, and Elphie was resumed out of her dream world. Fiyero was clinging onto every word Galinda said, and she wasn't even paying attention to who she was talking to. Finally, she noticed Elphie.
"Elphie! Oh, how good to see you! I was just talking to Fiyero about how people think you're so pretty, but it's a shame that you're so nerdy. Plus, you're not as pretty as me. Shame, shame, shame." Galinda mused. Elphie felt herself burning up. She didn't know if it was embarrassment or anger that was coiling itself around her chest. She took deep breaths. Calm down, Elphie. Calm down. Have you even realized that Fiyero is in front of you?
Galinda was smiling coldly at her, but it was disguised as a welcoming, friendly smile. Fiyero didn't see what was behind all that sweetness and sugar. Galinda started talking again.
"Look! Elphie! I stopped by the store today before school, and picked this up just for you. Isn't it pretty?" Galinda held out a black cone, but didn't reveal the other side. She placed it gingerly on Elphie's head, did a quick check, made a few adjustments, and smiled at her "work". Elphie touched the hat. It was plain black craft paper. Not from the store. You could even feel the tape used.
"You made this yourself! This isn't store-"Elphie didn't have time to finish her sentence. Galinda interrupted her rudely.
"It looks fabulous on you! After all, black is the new pink! Toodles!" Galinda waggled her fingers at Elphie, sneered at her, and steered Fiyero away from Elphie. People started looking at her hat, and smiling or laughing at it. Maybe Galinda was right! Maybe black WAS the new pink. Elphie stared helplessly at Galinda and Fiyero's direction, until someone tapped her on her shoulder.
"You do know that your paper cap says 'DUNCE', right?" the boy pointed out. Elphie removed the hat from her head. She looked at the hat to see that the boy was indeed right. She glanced at the boy's direction, and he merely shrugged his shoulders. "Not much I can do about your situation." He walked off into the crowd. Elphie glared at Galinda's direction. Galinda was flirting with Fiyero at a corner. When she caught sight of Elphie holding the homemade hat, she smirked at Elphie stuck her tongue out, and returned her glare for a second. Then she resumed her cooing over Fiyero.
Elphie's chest constricted. She made a sound that sounded somewhere between a scream, a sob, and a whisper. She gave one last glare towards Galinda, and crumpled the paper hat up, and started towards the stairs, throwing the paper in the trash. No memory of Galinda deserves to be recycled. Elphie stormed up the stairs to her locker. She gathered her stuff she needed for science. Her notebook, her science goggles, and her textbook. She slammed her locker shut, and took a deep breath. She needed to recollect herself before she went to see Fiyero in science. She couldn't talk to him all fired up and angry. No. That wouldn't do. Elphie would talk to him in a nice, pleasant manner, and that required some calming down before she could achieve it. She took another deep breath.
Suddenly all her books dropped to the ground. Elphie cursed, and scooped them up, but not before stubbing her toe on the locker below her. She winced, and hobbled to her classroom.
She hated Mondays.