Accidents Will Happen

Chapter One

Theoretically, this should have been a glorious day, a perfect start into the new semester, with her absolute favourite subject—Architectural Design—right in the beginning of her not too early Monday morning. Alas, when Galinda arrived at the auditorium, the entire class was already abuzz with the breaking news that their old professor from ARCH101 had been replaced last minute with that louche new lecturer named Miss Greyling. For all Galinda knew, she was said to be more or less pretty and young—very young and very inexperienced, if she remembered correctly. The thought vexed her to no end. After all, she'd come to Shiz to learn from renown masters of their fields. This Miss Greyling didn't even have a doctorate yet. Was that really the best her expensive tuition fees could buy?

The heavy double doors flung open, and a throng of students from the previous lecture poured out of the room. Galinda worriedly scanned her surroundings. Her friend Milla was supposed to be in the same class, but she was nowhere in sight. As they hadn't seen each other since that party on the first day of winter break, she had rather hoped that they'd be able to chat and catch up before the lecture started, but apparently, there would be no time. If she was really unlucky, the girl might not show up at all, leaving Galinda to suffer all by herself in a room full of mostly boys and a couple of very strange and terribly disagreeable nerdy chicks.

Not willing to risk having to sit in the last row or somewhere behind a big, fat beam, or—even worse—underneath the monstrous thirty-plus kilogram projector, she had no choice but to go ahead on her own. She found herself a lovely little spot just off-centre in the second row and put up her pink laptop tote bag to reserve a seat for Milla. Pulling out her binder, she went through the first couple of pages of the preface, even though she firmly expected housekeeping to take up the majority of their first lesson. Especially if there really was a new person to teach it.

Out of the corners of her eyes, she noticed a tall, fairly dark-skinned guy sitting down next to her. She was determined to ignore him, but just when she'd pointedly turned her head the other way, she felt a finger tapping on her shoulder. Initially rolling her eyes, she quickly thought better of it and put on a sweet smile before facing her neighbour.

"Oh, hi," she cooed prettily, determined not to let her annoyance show.

"Yeah, hi," replied he, looking somewhat flustered.

Taking a clock tick to study him, she was pleasantly surprised. He was handsome enough, and his eyes were kind. She couldn't say that she'd noticed him in class before. There weren't that many non-Gillikinese students at Shiz to begin with, so a Vinkun fella like him would certainly have caught her attention.

"I know it's a rather stupid question, but I'm new here. Is—is this ARCH111?"

Oh, how cute.

She laughed mildly and held up her folder, the code of the course printed in huge letters, slap bang in the middle of the yellow cover sheet.

"Ah, good to know," answered the Vinkun boy and chuckled along in relief. "Thanks. I'm Fiyero by the way."

"Galinda. How come you're new but in a second semester architecture class?"

He uneasily scratched his neck and made a funny face.

"I hadn't exactly planned on outing myself straight away, but I transferred from another uni after failing most of my courses there. I used to major in arch, but now I'm just doing it as an elective. I'm only sitting here for easy points, and because it neatly fit into my schedule. I'm mostly focusing on sociology now."

"Wow, that's like... not related at all," giggled Galinda. "But whatever makes you happy, right?"

Their conversation was cut short by Milla's arrival.