"Tell me again why I'm doing this."
"Because you want to go to this stupid ball, too?"
The Thropp sisters were on their way to Madame Morrible's office, ready to set their plan of luring the headmistress away into action.
"Come in", the teacher's authoritative voice sounded from inside once they stood in front of the door.
Elphaba pushed Nessa's wheelchair inside and closed the door behind her.
"The Thropp sisters, how lovely", Madame Morrible said in a honeyed voice and rose from behind her desk.
"How may I help you, my pretties?"
Elphaba nudged her sister's shoulder.
"We came here with an important message", Nessa began, giving her best to sound official.
"From our father", Elphaba added and silently pleaded that her plan would pan out.
"Aha, the Govenour has a message for me and how come he didn't contact me directly?"
A short pause developed and Elphaba tried to frantically think of an explanation.
"He's impassible at the moment, Madame, insofar, that he can't face the public, if you understand", she stated and hoped that the headmistress would swallow the difuse elaboration.
"Impassible, I see", Madame Morrible muttered.
"And what kind of part do I play in this business?"
"He asked you to visit him, because...he needs you to, er, carry out an important task", Nessa explained bouncily and the two girls observed the headmistress eyes grow narrow.
"And why would he need me of all people?"
"Oh, the letter didn't say that, Madame", Elphaba jumped in before Nessa would be stammering another suspicous sentence.
"It just said that the matter was of utter urgence and it couldn't wait."
"Well, doesn't the Governor know that I have a school to run and cannot simply drop everything because he needs a favour?! Not to mention the fact that Lurlinemas is coming up in two days!"
It did not look too well for their plan.
"There will be payment, of course", Nessa said all of a sudden and Madame Morrible's eyes bore into hers.
"Payment?"
"Why certainly! I don't know how that could have slipped my mind, our father will pay you duly and come up for all your travel expenses. But, just to stress the urgency of this errand, you will have to leave today to make it in time! Father explicitly pointed that out."
"Oh, why, then I have to pack and order a carriage at once! Hush, hush, girls, I must get ready for the journey!"
"But Madame, one thing more to add, you do not have to order a carriage, Father has sent someone to fetch you this afternoon!"
Moments later, the Thropp girls found themselves on the corridor again and grinned at each other.
"This has worked splendidly so far! That greedy old fisheye would do anything for a bit of extra money, wouldn't she?"
The plan Elphaba had developed with her friends included the forged invitation by the governor and making sure the headmistress had to turn around halfway because of an obstacle on the road, alltogether giving them two days on which the Christmas Ball would take place and there was enough time left afterwards to clean up everything before Madame Morrible arrived back.
To ensure credibility and a rather sluggish progress of the journey, Fiyero had contacted Avaric, his servant and friend, to play the part of the Governor's employee.
He would make sure that after exactly one day's journey there would be a fallen tree blocking the road and that there was no choice but to turn around.
The details of how exactly this would go down, Fiyero and Avaric had cleared on there own, while Elphaba and Nessarose had worked on their speech for Madame Morrible.
In the evening, the headmistress had finally taken off and everyone was excited as ever, partly because of the impending festivities, partly because they were anxious if the plan of the false invitation would work out as planned.
Students were carrying boxes of gold and green ornaments into the dining hall, traditional Lurlinemas colours.
"Oh, I wish we could really celebrate Christmas and not only call it that because of some silly forbiddance", Elphaba sighed and put the Snow Trumpets up again, this time cautious not to step under one with Fiyero, who was handing her ornaments.
"It would surely be something different."
"Or not so different at all, the customs seemed pretty similar from what I read in the books."
"So we could keep Lurlinemas after all?"
Fiyero was smiling.
"You're not making much sense just now."
"It's just, this whole discovery of Otherworld literature has got me thinking", Elphaba said.
"I wonder if it actually exists, you know? If we could really go there and celebrate Christmas and be part of it all."
"Maybe you should consult Glinda about that", Fiyero mumbled, a wary look to his eyes.
"Glinda? What does she know about crossing realms?", Elphaba laughed.
"Probably less than she thought she did."
"Now you're the one not making much sense."
"And you are, Miss Elphaba, standing under a Snow Trumpet."
"Oh no."