Abby, being a young and relatively uneducated farm girl, had never heard the word hallucination before, and if she did, she might have thought it was a Latin swear word (which are, incidentally, the best kind). Therefore, when she glanced upward and realized that the woman whose shadow had caught her attention was green, she could not for the life of her think of a word or phrase to describe how she felt, other than, I'm dreaming, I'm crazy.

And as a result of being young and relatively uneducated, there was only room in her head for questions. Many of them, actually, were quite thoughtful and intelligent, and would give the woman a longed-for intellectual challenge. But, as these things often go, the first one she managed to vocalize was dense, vague, and really rather stupid-sounding.

"W-what?"

The woman sighed. "I said, 'I hope you're not crying because of me.'"

Abby blinked, and found that the next thing that came out of her mouth betrayed no fear, astonishment, or confusion. It was actually rather polite. Unfortunately, though, it was equally stupid-sounding. "Why would I be crying because of you?"

Even the cat looked disappointed.

The woman, whose shoulders were held confidently high, now slumped them. She rolled her eyes and shot Abby an expression of deepest contempt. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out, and it soon closed again, and the woman settled for a narrow-eyed frown.

As we have established before, Abby was simple, but not stupid. "I mean . . ." she quickly backtracked, "I was already crying before you got here. It has nothing to do with you."

The woman nodded and her shoulders rose slightly, but she said nothing.

Wanting to avoid an uncomfortable silence with a green lady, Abby pressed on: "Who are you?"

It was a fairly straightforward question, and certainly not stupid-sounding. So Abby was surprised to see that the woman opened her mouth, closed it again, and began to think. After a second or so, an expression came over her face that Abby was not able to identify. Experience would later tell her that an expression like that meant that a person was thinking the equivalent of, "Oh, screw it."

"Elphaba," she said.

"EL-fa-ba?"

"You can call me Ellie."

Abby nodded, and than sat back against the tree. There were literally a million questions running through her head: Where did you come from? Are you from here? Are you sick? Have you seen Dorothy?

The one she chose to ask was, "Ellie . . . why are you green?"

The answer the woman – Elphaba – gave was very witty and had to do with the reason Abby didn't hear it. A man – a scarecrow, actually – had emerged from the cornfield, covered with various pieces of the corn plant and looking as if he had been pecked half to death. And, from her experience, scarecrows don't walk.

The scarecrow opened his mouth, as if to say something in response to the green woman's, but Abby beat him to it. Looking around Elphaba, she exclaimed, almost breathless, "Whoa! You're a . . . a scarecrow, and . . . you're . . . you're walking! How . . .?"

Elphaba threw back her head. Abby thought she might scream something to the heavens, or faint, but all she did was laugh. "Hang on," she said, "I'm green. This isn't paint or powder. This is my actual skin." She rubbed her wrist vigorously to prove it. "For all you know, he's wearing a costume. Why are you more amazed by him than you are by me?"

Abby, Boss, and the scarecrow all stared at her. Abby began to tell her matter-of-factly that she had lived on a farm all her life and could tell the difference between a scarecrow and a man, but was interrupted by a most uncharacteristic cackle from the scarecrow. "I guess I just have that charisma, Elphaba," he said.

Elphaba somehow frowned and smiled at the same time. "It's because you're popular," she accused. Abby watched this, extremely confused.

"As if that's a bad thing!" the scarecrow laughed.

"Hey!" Elphaba pointed a long finger at the scarecrow. "Wonder how GA-linda would react if she saw you all . . . corny."

Though she still had no idea what was going on, this comment made Abby chuckle. But the scarecrow was suddenly as serious as can be.

"Glinda," he replied, "is as good as dead to us. I just hope one of us can have enough courage to remember that."

He said it with such conviction that Abby expected Elphaba to sober up as well. But she only laughed harder. "Courage! Don't think I didn't hear you screaming for help a few minutes back. Really brave, Mister Guard Captain."

They glared at each other, eyes narrowed, arms folded.

Abby cleared her throat loudly. They looked at her, inquisitive. She said, "Well, that's all good, but it doesn't explain why YOU'RE green and you're a scarecrow and walking."

They glanced at each other, and then back at her. At the same time, the scarecrow said, "Magic," and Elphaba said, "Just because."

There was a long, incredibly awkward silence.

"Well?" Abby asked, standing up. Boss bounded off her lap and up the tree. "Which one?

The scarecrow started to speak, but Elphaba shushed him. "We are who we are because we are," she said wisely. "There's really no explaining it." For a second the scarecrow looked as if he might contradict, but ultimately nodded in agreement. "Is there a house nearby?"

"Yes," Abby said, suddenly exhausted. The whole exchange had taken five minutes. "Just out of sight. If you follow me, I guess we could . . . work something out."

"That'd be great," Elphaba said, and the odd trio began to walk. Gesturing towards the scarecrow, she said, "This is Bob, by the way."

The scarecrow stopped dead in his tracks.

"What?"