Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Page 8

  Galinda didn’t see the verdant world through the glass of the carriage; she saw her own reflection instead. She had the nearsightedness of youth. She reasoned that because she was beautiful she was significant, though what she signified, and to whom, was not clear to her yet. The sway of her head made her creamy ringlets swing, catching the light, like so many jostling stacks of coins. Her lips were perfect, as pouted as an opening maya flower, and colored as brilliantly red. Her green traveling gown with its inset panels of ochre musset suggested wealth, while the black shawl draping just so about the shoulders was a nod to her academic inclinations. She was, after all, on her way to Shiz because she was smart.

  But there was more than one way to be smart.

  She was seventeen. The whole town of Frottica had seen her off. The first girl from the Pertha Hills to be accepted at Shiz! She had written well in the entrance exams, a meditation on Learning Ethics from the Natural World. (“Do Flowers Regret Being Plucked for a Bouquet? Do the Rains Practice Abstinence? Can Animals Really Choose to Be Good? Or: A Moral Philosophy of Springtime.”) She had quoted excessively from the Oziad, and her rapturous prose had captivated the board of examiners. A three-year fellowship to Crage Hall. It wasn’t one of the better colleges—those were still closed to female students. But it was Shiz University.

  Her companion in the compartment, waking up when the conductor came back through, stretched his heels as he yawned. “Would you be so kind as to reach my ticket, it’s in the overhead,” he said. Galinda stood and found the ticket, aware that the bearded old thing was eyeing her comely figure. “Here you are,” she said, and he answered, “Not to me, dearie, to the conductor. Without opposable thumbs, I have no hope of managing such a tiny piece of cardboard.”

  The conductor punched the ticket, and said, “You’re the rare beast that can afford to travel first class.”

  “Oh,” said the goat, “I object to the term beast. But the laws still allow my traveling in first class, I presume?”

  “Money’s money,” said the conductor, without ill will, punching Galinda’s ticket and returning it to her.

  “No, money’s not money,” said the goat, “not when my ticket cost double what the young lady’s did. In this case, money is a visa. I happen to have it.”

  “Going up to Shiz, are you?” said the conductor to Galinda, ignoring the goat’s remark. “I can tell by that academic shawl.”

  “Oh well, it’s something to do,” said Galinda. She didn’t care to talk to conductors. But when he continued along down the carriage, Galinda found that she liked even less the baleful look that the goat was giving her.

  “Do you expect to learn anything at Shiz?” he asked.

  “I have already learned not to speak to strangers.”

  “Then I will introduce myself and we will be strangers no longer. I am Dillamond.”

  “I am disinclined to know you.”

  “I am a Fellow of Shiz University, on the Faculty of Biological Arts.”

  You are a shabby dresser, even for a goat, Galinda thought. Money isn’t everything. “Then I must overcome my natural shyness. My name is Galinda. I am of the Arduenna Clan on my mother’s side.”

  “Let me be the first to welcome you to Shiz, Glinda. This is your first year?”

  “Please, it is Galinda. The proper old Gillikinese pronunciation, if you don’t mind.” She could not bring herself to call him sir. Not with that horrid goatee and the tatty waistcoat that looked cut from some public house carpet.

  “I wonder what you think of the Wizard’s proposed Banns on travel?” The goat’s eyes were buttery and warm, and frightening. Galinda had never heard of any Banns. She said as much. Dillamond—was it Doctor Dillamond?—explained in a conversational tone that the Wizard had thoughts of restricting Animal travel on public conveyances except in designated transports. Galinda replied that animals had always enjoyed separate services. “No, I am speaking of Animals,” said Dillamond. “Those with a spirit.”

  “Oh, those,” said Galinda crudely. “Well, I don’t see the problem.”

  “My, my,” said Dillamond. “Don’t you indeed?” The goatee quivered; he was irritated. He began to hector her about Animal Rights. As things now stood, his own ancient mother couldn’t afford to travel first class, and would have to ride in a pen when she wanted to visit him in Shiz. If the Wizard’s Banns went through the Hall of Approval, as they were likely to do, the goat himself would be required by law to give up the privileges he had earned through years of study, training, and saving. “Is that right for a creature with a spirit?” he said. “From here to there, there to here, in a pen?”

  “I quite agree, travel is so broadening,” said Galinda. They endured the rest of the trip, including the change across the platform at Dixxi House, in a frosty silence.

  Seeing her fright at the size and bustle of the terminus at Shiz, Dillamond took pity and offered to engage a carriage to take her to Crage Hall. She followed him, looking as unmortified as she could manage. Her luggage came behind, on the backs of a couple of porters.

  Shiz! She tried not to gawp. Everyone hustling on business, laughing and hurrying and kissing, dodging carriages, while the buildings of Railway Square, brownstone and bluestone and covered with vine and moss, steamed softly in the sunlight. The animals—and the Animals! She had scarcely ever come across even the odd chicken squawking philosophically in Frottica—but here was a quartet of tsebras at an outdoor café, dressed flashily in black-and-white satin stripes on the bias to their inborn design; and an elephant on its hind legs directing traffic; and a tiger dressed up in some sort of exotic religious garb, a kind of monk or maunt or nun or something. Yes, yes, it was Tsebras, and Elephant, and Tiger, and she supposed Goat. She would have to get used to enunciating the capital letters or else she would show off her country origins.

  Mercifully, Dillamond found her a carriage with a human driver, and directed him to Crage Hall and paid him in advance, for which Galinda had to come up with a weak smile of appreciation. “Our paths will cross again,” said Dillamond, gallantly if curtly, as if putting forth a prophecy, and he disappeared as the carriage jolted forward. Galinda sank back into the cushions. She began to be sorry that Ama Clutch had punctured her foot with a nail.

  Crage Hall was only twenty minutes from Railway Square. Behind its own bluestone walls, the complex was set with large watery-glass windows in lancet formation. A tessellation of quatrefoils and blind multifoils ran riot at the roofline. The appreciation of architecture was Galinda’s private passion, and she pored over the features she could identify, although the vines and flatmoss fudged many of the finer details of the buildings. Too soon she was whisked inside.

  The Headmistress of Crage Hall, a fish-faced upper-class Gillikinese woman wearing a lot of cloisonné bangles, was greeting new arrivals in the atrium. The Head eschewed the drabness of professional women’s dress that Galinda had expected. Instead the imposing woman was bedecked in a currant-colored gown with patterns of black jet swirling over the bodice like dynamic markings on sheet music. “I am Madame Morrible,” she said to Galinda. Her voice was basso profundo, her grip crippling, her posture military, her earrings like holiday tree ornaments. “Flourishes all around, and a quick cup of tea in the parlor. Then we’ll assemble in the Main Hall and sort you out as to roomies.”

  The parlor was filled with pretty young women, all wearing green or blue and trailing black shawls like exhausted shadows behind them. Galinda was glad for the natural advantages of her flaxen hair, and stood by a window so the light could dazzle itself off her curls. She hardly sipped the tea. In a side room, the attendant Amas were serving themselves from a metal urn, and laughing and yakking already as if they were old friends from the same village. It was somewhat grotesque, all those dumpy women smiling at each other, making marketplace noise.

  Galinda hadn’t read the fine print very closely. She hadn’t realized there would be a need for “roomies.” Or perhaps had her parents paid extra so sh
e could have a private room? And where would Ama Clutch stay? Looking about her, she could tell that some of these dollies came from families much better off than hers. The pearls and diamonds on them! Galinda was glad she had chosen a simple silver collar with mettanite struts. There was something vulgar about traveling in jewels. As she realized this truth, she codified it into a saying. At the earliest perfect opportunity she would bring it out as proof of her having opinions—and of having traveled. “The overdressed traveler betrays more interest in being seen than in seeing,” she murmured, trying it out, “while the true traveler knows that the novel world about her serves as the most appropriate accessory.” Good, very good.

  Madame Morrible counted heads, gripped a cup of tea, and shooed everyone into the Main Hall. There Galinda learned that allowing Ama Clutch to go looking for a surgery had been a colossal mistake. Apparently all that chatter among Amas hadn’t been frivolous and social. They had been instructed to sort out among them whose young lady would room with whose. The Amas had been relied upon to get to the nub of the matter more quickly than the students themselves. No one had spoken for Galinda—she had gone unrepresented!

  After the forgettable welcome remarks, as couple by couple the students and Amas left to locate their lodgings and settle in, Galinda found herself growing pale with embarrassment. Ama Clutch, the old fool, would have fixed her up nicely with someone just a notch or two above on the social ladder! Near enough that Galinda would suffer no shame, and above enough to make it worth the while of socializing. But now, all the better young misses were linked together. Diamond to diamond, emerald to emerald, for all she could tell! As the room began to empty, Galinda wondered if she shouldn’t go up and interrupt Madame Morrible and explain the problem. Galinda was, after all, an Arduenna of the Uplands, at least on one side. It was a hideous accident. Her eyes teared up.

  But she hadn’t the nerve. She stayed perched on the edge of the fragile, stupid chair. Except for her, all the centre of the room had cleared out now, and the shyer, more useless girls were left, around the edges, in the shadows. Surrounded by an obstacle course of empty gilded chairs, Galinda alone sat like an unclaimed valise.

  “Now the rest of you are here without Amas, I understand,” said Madame Morrible, a bit sniffily. “Since we require chaperonage, I will assign each of you to one of the three dormitories for freshers, which sleep fifteen girls each. There is no social stigma to the dormitory, I might add. None at all.” But she was lying, and not even convincingly.

  Galinda finally stood up. “Please, Madame Morrible, there is a mistake. I am Galinda of the Arduennas. My Ama took a nail in her foot on the voyage and was detained for a day or two. I am not in the dormitory class, you see.”

  “How sad for you,” said Madame Morrible, smiling. “I’m sure your Ama will be pleased to be a chaperone in, shall we say, the Pink Dormitory? Fourth floor on the right—”

  “No, no, she would not,” interrupted Galinda, quite bravely. “I am not here to sleep in a dormitory, Pink or otherwise. You have misunderstood.”

  “I have not misunderstood, Miss Galinda,” said Madame Morrible, growing even more fishlike as her eyes began to bulge. “There is accident, there is tardiness, there are decisions to be made. As you were not equipped, through your Ama, to make your own decision, I am empowered to make it for you. Please, we are busy and I must name the other girls who will join you in the Pink Dormitory—”

  “I would have a private word with you, Madame,” said Galinda in desperation. “For myself, dormitory partners or a single roomie, it is no matter. But I cannot recommend that you ask my Ama to oversee other girls, for reasons I may not say in public.” She was lying as fast as she could, and better than Madame Morrible, who seemed at least intrigued.

  “You strike me as impertinent, Miss Galinda,” she said mildly.

  “I have not yet struck you, Madame Morrible.” Galinda delivered the daring line with her sweetest smile.

  Madame Morrible chose to laugh, thank Lurline! “A spark of spunk! You may come to my chambers this evening and tell me the story of your Ama’s shortcomings, as I should know them. But I will compromise with you, Miss Galinda. Unless you object, I will have to ask your Ama to chaperone both you and another girl, one who comes without an Ama. For you see, all the other students with Amas are already paired off, and you are the odd one out.”

  “I am certain my Ama could manage that, at least.”

  Madame Morrible scanned the page of names, and said, “Very well. To join Miss Galinda of the Arduennas in a double room—shall I invite the Thropp Third Descending, of Nest Hardings, Elphaba?”

  No one stirred. “Elphaba?” said Madame Morrible again, adjusting her bangles and pressing two fingers at the bottom of her throat.

  The girl was in the back of the room, a pauper in a red dress with gaudy fretwork, and in clumpy, old-people’s boots. At first Galinda thought what she saw was some trick of the light, a reflection off the adjacent buildings covered in vines and flatmoss. But as Elphaba moved forward, lugging her own carpetbags, it became obvious that she was green. A hatchet-faced girl with putrescent green skin and long, foreign-looking black hair. “A Munchkinlander by birth, though with many childhood years spent in Quadling Country,” read Madame Morrible from her notes. “How fascinating for us all, Miss Elphaba. We shall look forward to hearing tales of exotic climes and times. Miss Galinda and Miss Elphaba, here are your keys. You may take room twenty-two on the second floor.”

  She smiled broadly at Galinda as the girls came forward. “Travel is so broadening,” she intoned. Galinda started, the curse of her own words lobbed back at her. She curtseyed and fled. Elphaba, eyes on the floor, followed behind.

  2

  By the time Ama Clutch arrived the next day, her foot bandaged to three times its natural size, Elphaba had already unpacked her few belongings. They hung raglike on hooks in the cupboard: thin, shapeless shifts, shamed into a corner by the fulsome hoops and starched bustles and padded shoulders and cushioned elbows of Galinda’s wardrobe. “I am happy as cheese to be your Ama too, don’t matter to me,” said Ama Clutch, smiling broadly in Elphaba’s direction, before Galinda had a chance to get Ama Clutch alone and demand that her minder refuse. “Of course my Papa is paying you to be my Ama,” said Galinda meaningfully, but Ama Clutch answered, “Not as much as all that, duckie, not as much as all that. I can be making up my own mind.”

  “Ama,” said Galinda when Elphaba had left to use the mildewy facilities, “Ama, are you blind? That Munchkinlander girl is green.”

  “Odd, isn’t it? I thought all Munchkinlanders were tiny. She’s a proper height, though. I guess they come in a variety of sizes. Oh, are you bothered by the green? Well, it might do you some good, if you let it. If you let it. You affect worldly airs, Galinda, but you don’t know the world yet. I think it’s a lark. Why not? Why ever not?”

  “It’s not yours to organize my education, worldly or otherwise, Ama Clutch!”

  “No, my dear,” said Ama Clutch, “you’ve made this mess all by your lonesome. I’m merely being of service.”

  So Galinda was stuck. Last night’s brief interview with Madame Morrible had not provided any escape route, either. Galinda had arrived promptly, in a dotted morpheline skirt with lace bodice, a vision, as she’d said to herself, in nocturnal purples and midnight blues. Madame Morrible bade her enter the reception room, in which a small cluster of leather chairs and a settee were drawn up before an unnecessary fire. The Head poured mint tea and offered crystallized ginger wrapped in pearlfruit leaves. She indicated a chair for Galinda, but herself stood by the mantelpiece like a big game hunter.

  In the best tradition of the upper-class savoring its luxuries, they sipped and nibbled in silence at first. This gave Galinda the chance to observe that Madame Morrible was fishlike not merely in countenance, but in dress: Her loose-fitting cream foxille flowed like a huge airy bladder from the high frilled neckline to the knees, where it was tightly gathered and dropp
ed straight to the floor, hugging the calves and ankles in neat, anticlimactic pleats. She looked for all the world like a giant carp in a men’s club. And a dull, bored carp at that, not even a sentient Carp.

  “Now your Ama, my dear. The reason she is incapable of supervising a dormitory. I’m all ears.”

  Galinda had taken all afternoon to prepare. “You see, Madame Head, I didn’t like to say it publicly. But Ama Clutch suffered a terrible fall last summer when we were picnicking in the Pertha Hills. She reached for a handful of wild mountain thyme and went pitching over a cliff. She lay for weeks in a coma, and when she emerged she had no memory of the accident at all. If you asked her about it, she wouldn’t even know what you meant. Amnesia by trauma.”

  “I see. How very tiresome for you. But why does this make her unequal to the job I proposed?”

  “She has become addled. Ama Clutch, on occasion, gets confused as to what has Life and what doesn’t. She will sit and talk to, oh, say, a chair, and then relate its history back to us. Its aspirations, its reservations—”

  “Its joys, its sorrows,” said Madame Morrible. “How truly novel. The emotional life of furniture. I never.”

  “But, silly as this is, and a cause for hours of merriment, the corollary ailment is more alarming. Madame Morrible, I must tell you that Ama Clutch sometimes forgets that people are alive. Or animals.” Galinda paused, then added, “Or Animals, even.”

  “Go on, my dear.”

  “It is all right for me, because Ama has been my Ama all my life, and I know her. I know her ways. But she can sometimes forget a person is there, or needs her, or is a person. Once she cleaned a wardrobe and tipped it over onto the houseboy, breaking his back. She didn’t register his screaming right there, right at her feet. She folded the nightclothes and had a conversation with my mother’s evening gown, asking it all sorts of impertinent questions.”