Making Good, Chapter 2a
Disclaimer: No money is being made by combining the X-Men with the Broadway musical Wicked. I’d know, because if it was, I’d be making it, and I’m not. I don’t own either, sadly.
Thanks, as always, to
Quenya_tattoo for awesome Beta-ness, and to
Fatal_blue for poking me repeatedly to get the next chapter finished! Reviews and feedback are always welcome.
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Making Good
Chapter 2: What Is This Feeling?
By the time they’d finished watching Mr. Starsmore’s car, Elizabeth’s hair and clothing had been dripping wet, and the weather, always unpredictable in spring, had taken a turn for the colder. Shivering and wishing that she’d inherited her father’s mutation, Elizabeth dashed off to change, only belatedly realizing that she’d left her notebook where she’d hidden it behind a toolbox in the garage. Trusting it to its hiding place, she’d taken the time to change her clothes before heading back downstairs. Where she found that it wasn’t quite as well hidden as she’d hoped.
“That’s mine!” she protested as she entered the garage, only to find Nic already there, thumbing through her notebook. “Give it back!”
“You made your mom the wicked witch?” he asked incredulously, his tone belied by the grin on his face. “She’s gonna be maaaad.”
“No, she won’t!” Elizabeth protested, jumping to try to snatch the notebook out of her taller friend’s hand as he dangled it just out of reach. “She might not be happy I made her green, but she won’t care about being Elphie, she likes Elphie!”
“Why would she care about you making her green?” Nic asked, finally relenting and handing her the notebook. “I mean, one of her best friends is fuzzy and blue…well, a couple of them, actually,” he corrected after a moment’s thought.
“Oh, she doesn’t like green. I think it’s because one of my dad’s ex-girlfriends had green hair,” Elizabeth explained disinterestedly as she thumbed through her journal, making sure Nic hadn’t torn out any pages. Luckily, she’d apparently intercepted him before he’d gotten that far. She let out a sigh of relief, then looked up at him with an apprehensive expression.
“So, umm, you read it, right? What’d you think? I mean,” she interjected before he could do anything more than open his mouth, “I know it needs changes and stuff, but I’ll do that once it’s all done…”
“It’s okay,” Nic replied with a shrug.
Elizabeth smiled. Knowing Nic, that was high praise - he wouldn’t think twice about telling her that he hated it. Even if he didn’t. If he was saying it was okay, then it really was.
“So, what happens next?” he asked, much to her surprise. “I mean, your mom’s Elphie, my mom’s Glinda. Your dad’s Fiyero?” he guessed.
Elizabeth nodded. That was the plan, anyway. Even if it didn’t work for other reasons, she couldn’t picture any of the adults except her dad saying they liked being brainless. She bit at her lip as Nic seemed to think about something for a long while before letting out a snort of laughter.
“You’re gonna make my dad the munchkin guy, aren’t you?”
“Well…” Elizabeth hedged, then burst out in giggles and nodded.
“Lemme know when you’re done. I’ve gotta read that,” Nic replied with a mischievous grin on his face. “And maybe make copies. Lots and lots of them.” He paused for a moment and eyed her curiously. “Do you want pictures? To go with the story, I mean?”
Her eyes sparkled excitedly and she nodded. Nic’s mom always said the artistic talent in the family had skipped her entirely, but somehow Nic had inherited it anyway. His drawings weren’t as good as Uncle Peter’s, of course, but they were a lot better than anything she could manage. “Would you? That’d be really cool!”
Nic nodded. “I’ll go draw. You go write.” He grinned again, over his shoulder, as he turned to leave. “I’ve really gotta draw my dad as a munchkin, but I need to see the scene first.”
“I’ll go write it now,” she promised, and headed out of the garage.
It was official, Illyana decided sulkily as she lay on her bed, feet propped against the headboard, surreptitiously watching Katherine read her rather large, boring-looking book. Her new roommate was the most annoying person in Oz.
And she was bored. But for once, that paled by comparison to the annoyance presented by the green-skinned girl who was sharing what should have been her room. She wondered, not for the first time, whether or not appealing to Ms. Frost could at least result in the assignment of a different roommate - Rachel, or Tabby, even Amara would be better than sharing a room with someone who looked like a lizard and had stolen her chances at becoming Ms. Frost’s sorcery student.
Not, she had to admit, that she’d managed to talk the headmistress into that the previous term. But she’d written a paper. All on her own, without it even being assigned. And then the lizard across the room had stolen the spot from her, just by throwing things around the foyer. There was just no justice in the world.
At least she had to admit that what’s her name seemed no happier to be sharing a room with her than vice versa. She couldn’t understand that - people always wanted to be her roommate - but it was some consolation to know that the other girl was as miserable with the situation as she was.
“Illyana!” someone called from outside the door, and she sat up and smoothed her skirt so it hung in neat folds over her knees.
“Come on in, Dani!” she called back. Ignoring the long suffering sigh of her roommate, she watched the door open and the dark haired girl enter and pass Katherine without acknowledging her presence. Illyana nodded her approval, then caught the excited look on her friend’s face as she plopped down next to her on the bed.
“Guess what I just heard!” Dani announced.
She was practically bouncing with excitement; an unusual but not unheard of state for Dani, but one which undoubtedly heralded news of the most exciting variety. “Oooh, let me guess!” Illyana demanded, then paused to think for a moment before beaming over at her friend, palms hitting the bed as she bounced lightly. “They’re having a shoe sale at the Emerald Boutique?”
“Better!” Dani countered with another bounce, resulting in a somewhat ominous creak from the frame.
“You’re going to break the bed,” Katherine noted aloud without turning to look at either of them.
Illyana sniffed in her direction. As if she cared. Except, a broken bed might result in Dani not telling her news. Casually, she stopped bouncing, just as if she’d planned to all along, then turned back to her friend. “Oh, just tell me, then!”
“Welllll,” the other girl began, “you know Bobby? The Winkie Prince whose reputation is so scandalicious?”
Illyana grinned and nodded, waving her hand in encouragement. Dani took forever to get to the point sometimes, but she had to admit, Bobby was a good place to pause. She’d seen pictures, and heard rumors. Not only was he adorable, but he’d actually been kicked out of every school in Winkieland.
“He’s coming here!” the dark haired girl announced with a bounce.
“No!”
“Yes!”
“And we care, why?” Katherine inserted.
Dani sniffed. “If I were acknowledging the person who asked that, I’d point out that he’s just the absolutely most eligibilish male in Oz, and has been voted “Cutest Smile EVER” by Emerald City Weekly’s reader poll. But I’m not, so I won’t.” She grinned at Illyana, who nodded her agreement. No reason to tell Katherine any of that, if she didn’t know. Not when they were pretending she wasn’t there.
“This is perfect!” she replied aloud instead. “It’s been sooooooo boring this term, and it’s only the third day! How did he get kicked out of his new school this fast?” she wondered aloud.
Dani shrugged. “No clue, but he’s supposed to be here later today. Want to go hang outside, see if we can see him coming?”
“Of course not,” Illyana disputed with a serious expression, then bounced to her feet as it morphed into an impish smile. “We’ll go take a walk. That way, we’ll just happen to be outside when he arrives!”
“Subtle,” Katherine observed dryly from her desk.
Illyana ignored her in favor of grabbing hold of Dani’s hand and tugging at it. “Come on!” she urged. Not only was this an excellent opportunity to get out of the positively poisonous atmosphere in her room, but they might actually get to meet him first if they hurried. And first impressions, she knew, were always the most important.
Katherine looked up from her tome entitled Magikal Practices as Illyana and Dani left the room, then leaned back in her chair and let out a sigh of relief. Of all the roommates she could have possibly been assigned…
Well, no. She supposed any of them would have reacted the exact same way; Dani’s reaction proved that much, even setting aside the probability that she (and the rest of the school, for that matter) were following Illyana’s lead. The fact that somehow she’d managed to be assigned the most vapid girl in all of Oz as a roommate was just the icing on the cake, not the substance. She really didn’t belong here, and she knew it. The sad thing was, she didn’t really seem to belong anywhere else, either.
Certainly not at home. While technically, she supposed Paige’s condition wasn’t her fault, her father certainly felt that it was. The servants followed his lead; while they doted on Paige as the daughter of the Governor of Munchkinland, Katherine seemed to fall into some sort of gray area. Uncertain whether they should defer to her as their employer’s daughter or shun her as her father did, they settled for an uneasy middle ground in which they ignored her existence unless necessity brought her to their attention. The only real regret she had with that situation was that her sister frequently did the same thing.
She’d hoped things would be different, here, among the allegedly enlightened students of Chussets Academy. She should have known better. Closing her eyes, she felt a trace of a smile tug at her lips. Maybe, if Ms. Frost was right, that would change. Maybe her real place was with the Wizard, using her abilities to protect the land and its people. She could do it, and she would - and finally, everyone would stop judging her on the basis of her admittedly oddly colored skin.
It was even possible the Wizard might be able to do something about that…Katherine stared out the window, unseeing. She’d never ask, of course, and by then it probably wouldn’t even matter, but…
She sighed and shook her head, then stood up and began to gather up her books. If she didn’t get her mind out of the Emerald City and get to her History class, she wouldn’t have to worry about any of it. Bracing herself for the latest round of whispered insults, she headed out the door.
Shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, Bobby gazed up at the unwelcoming stone building that would be his new address. It had an imposing look to it that seemed to be shared by most of the institutes of higher learning that he’d been privileged to attend. Or maybe it was just that they were all starting to blur together.
He wondered, as he scratched at the bridge of his nose, just how long it would take him to get kicked out of this one.
“You want your bags inside?” Sam asked, and Bobby replaced his serious expression with a grin as he turned back to his sometime friend, full-time conscience. The friend part would probably be more pronounced, he admitted to himself, had it not been for the knowledge that his father was paying Sam to keep him in line. Not that the poor guy had much luck at it. Still, he liked Sam, so he just shrugged nonchalantly, grin permanently intact.
“Probably should take in a couple, huh? At least make it look like I’m planning to stay.”
“Yer father’s going to be pretty put out if you get kicked out of another school,” Sam observed seriously. “Ah mean, two days at the last one? Gotta be a new record.”
Bobby shook his head and smirked. “Nah. Got kicked out of one in less than three hours.” He didn’t bother to mention that it had actually been an accident that time. He hadn’t intentionally spilled the suntan oil at the bottom of the stairs. He’d just been running to the door with it, in the hopes of being the first to… “Whoa,” he said, cutting off his own thought process as he caught sight of a pair of girls heading toward them, talking animatedly and apparently trying to ignore the dark haired guy who was tagging along in their wake. “Man, check it out,” he said as his eyes fell on the shorter of the girls, an absolutely adorable blonde.
“Ah’m checking,” Sam replied breathlessly.
Curious, Bobby glanced over to see that Sam’s eyes were actually fastened onto the blonde’s taller friend. Ah well. No accounting for taste.
Leaving his friend to his gawking, he stepped forward as the three approached and grinned, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “So, are you the welcoming committee?” he asked hopefully. “Because if you are, I have a question for you…”
“What kind of question?” the blonde asked, tossing her hair slightly over her shoulder. “We might be able to help…”
“Well, I was wondering,” he began, then leaned in conspiratorially, figuring he might as well start things off on the right note. “Where do we find the hottest spot in town? Y’see, I have some celebrating to do. Third day of the semester, second school. Seems a reason to have a party, don’t you think?”
“Definitely,” the blonde agreed without hesitation and immediately jumped up about ten notches on his list from the already high rung she was holding.
“Except that we were going to go study,” the dark haired young man inserted, not quite tugging at the blonde’s arm. Crush in progress, Bobby decided with a quickly suppressed smirk. The blonde seemed unimpressed with the attention.
“Study?” Bobby asked with feigned incredulity as if he believed studying was the last thing that should be on the mind of any students. Which, in a way, pretty much summed up his attitude toward education. Throwing his arm around the shoulders of the dark haired boy, he led him away from the girls. “Come on, waaay too serious. Do y’know what the real problem with schools is?” he asked, ignoring Sam’s long-suffering sigh. “They always try to teach the wrong lessons. I mean - studying,” he turned to the crowd of students that was slowly gathering around him and rolled his eyes, “do we really need that kind of stress in our lives?”
“We don’t!” one of the girls agreed perkily.
Bobby nodded agreement. “We don’t,” he told the guy with full mock-seriousness. “Now…” he grasped for a name and realized he didn’t have one, so he waved his hand, urging him to supply it.
“Jono,” the taller boy said reluctantly. “And that’s Dani,” he continued, indicating the darker haired of the girls he’d been talking with.
“And Illyana!” supplied the blonde girl.
Smiling acknowledgement, he winked at the blonde and continued. “Jono, right. Now Jono, the studying isn’t going anywhere, right? Whereas,” he grinned, “I’m probably only going to be here a few days, if the last school was any indication. So, we need to celebrate now, before I’m not here to celebrate with. Sooo,” he continued as he turned to the others, “what’s the most swankified place in town?”
“That would be the Oz Dust Ballroom!” Illyana announced.
“Perfect!” he pronounced as he dropped his arm from Jono’s shoulders. “Now, who’s in? Party, Oz Dust, 8:00?”
Judging from the rather enthusiastic response of the other students, Bobby assumed that nearly everyone was. Which was just about perfect, really. If there was one thing he was good at, it was making sure everyone had a good time.
Okay, that probably was the only thing he was good at. But he was okay with that. Mostly. Usually. Besides, it was true enough. He could spend all his time worrying about what was going to happen next, or…just let it happen, and have a good time in the interim. Considering even his father had finally admitted that he was never going to amount to anything, there wasn’t much point in trying.
Besides, if he didn’t try, he wouldn’t screw up. Even better reason to just make light of it all.
“Ya sure this is a good idea?” Sam asked unenthusiastically as he sidled up to him.
“Best I’ve ever had,” Bobby replied as his attention shifted to the conversation Illyana was having with Jono.
“Well, if we’re going, would you maybe like to go with me?” the dark haired boy was asking, all the while casting evil looks in Bobby’s direction. “I mean, if you don’t have other plans…”
“Oh Gino -“
”Jono,” he pointed out.
“Jono, right!” the blonde replied, reaching up to pat him on the shoulder. “That’s really sweet of you! But you know what would be even sweeter?” She gestured toward a blonde girl in a wheelchair who’d just entered the courtyard. “Y’know, I feel really bad going off for a party and just leaving Paige here. It seems so unfair,” she pouted.
Bobby fought an urge to laugh as he leaned back against a tree and watched. She was good - and undoubtedly knew it, though that didn’t affect his interest in the least.
“Well yeah, I guess,” the dark haired boy replied slowly, obviously trying to figure out how the fairness or unfairness of the scenario had anything to do with his proposal.
“It’s a real shame someone doesn’t invite her,” Illyana mused, glancing over at the girl and shaking her head. “I don’t know if I’ll even go if she doesn’t - I’d feel way too guilty.”
“Ummm, well, maybe I could invite her?” Jono offered, obviously hoping that if he did, Illyana would go as well.
“Oh, would you? I’m sure she’d just love to go with you,” Illyana gushed, reaching up to give the guy’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll just see you later then, okay?”
Jono wandered off toward the other girl with a perplexed expression on his face, and Bobby straightened up and grinned as Illyana approached.
“Nice job,” he observed sincerely.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied, an expression of total innocence on her face, one contradicted by the mischievous glint in her eyes. “But now I don’t have a date for the party,” she observed with a pout.
“Yes, you do,” he countered, knowing full well that she expected it but happy to not disappoint. “Pick you up around 8:00? After all,” he said with a playful pout of his own, “it’s my party. You couldn’t be mean and make me go by myself, would you?”
“I could, but I won’t,” she replied with an impish grin. “See you at 8:00, then,” she added with a flip of her hair as she turned and walked away.
Bobby watched her go, grin slowly spreading. Maybe Chussets Academy wouldn’t be so bad after all.