Accidents Will Happen

Chapter Three

Elphaba peered down at the shorter girl on the other side of the door, her expression a picture of absolute stoicism. Only she herself knew what a significant amount of effort it had taken her to drag her sorry ass to uni this morning. Around the time she'd gone to bed the previous night, this hadn't even been the plan at all. That ditzy Galinda-girl was to blame—not only for accosting her on her way to work, but also for haunting her dreams later on. Elphaba had been nearly content in her cosy bubble of denial and isolation, until she'd come and popped it with her tiny, pointy heels and squeaky voice. What a nuisance. Being back in the biology lab with Doctor Dillamond and, especially, beholding the look on the blonde's face, however, she figured that it might all be worth it in the end. Truth be told, she could hardly hold back the grin that tried to tug at the corners of her mouth.

"What—what are you doing here?" cried her classmate in indignation.

Seemingly impassive, Elphaba merely quirked an eyebrow.

"Why, last time I checked, I was the lab assistant, and you literally begged me to come back."

Oz almighty, watching all that bottled up and carefully contained frustration so obviously coursing through Galinda's tiny body was glorious. She couldn't have asked for a more effective pick-me-up.

"Ah, Miss Glinda."

Elphaba took a step away from the doorway, affording her professor a better look at his other student and Galinda an opening to come inside the room if she so wished.

"I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience. As it turns out, Miss Elphaba seems to feel better now and has decided to attend class today. That being said, there is much to prepare for our experiment today, and if you could lend her a helping hand, I'm sure Miss Elphaba would be more than grateful."

Giving each girl a brief nod, the professor pushed past them in order to return to his office. Elphaba and Galinda stayed behind, first watching him leave, then simultaneously turning back to stare at each other.

Elphaba cocked her head and folded her arms.

"It's okay, I can handle this. You go have a nice beauty nap in the corner, my pretty."

Galinda's eyes narrowed briefly, but her features soon evened out, and a serene smile appeared on her glossy lips.

"Well, I'm here now. Might as well make myself useful. I think I kinda know my way around the storage room now. What do we need?"

Elphaba's glee over the success of her prank nearly dissipated. She hadn't really anticipated ending up being stuck with little miss perfect for the rest of lab prep. Grudgingly, she picked up the sheet on the teacher's desk and skimmed through the required materials.

"We're going to extract DNA from strawberries. For each student we'll need three beakers—what are you doing?"

Slightly confused, she watched Galinda, who'd circled to the other side of the desk and opened one of the drawers. She noisily pushed around its contents until she located a purple marker.

"I'm making a list, silly," was her offhand reply as she uncapped the pen and began to write.

"Uh, alright." Elphaba cleared her voice. "Well, so it's three beakers, one measuring spoon, one sieve, one spatula, one scalpel, and one ziplock bag. You just get those, and I'll gather and distribute the ingredients."

After pursing her lips and casting one more glance at her list, Galinda disappeared into the storage room. Elphaba followed her with her eyes until she was out of sight, then let her gaze wander back to where her neat, swirly handwriting decorated the outermost panel of the whiteboard. Her letters were flawlessly balanced and even, and just as dainty as the hand which had produced them. No one would strive for such casual perfection unless they had something to hide.