Extract from WICKED The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Madame Morrible lowered her head to signify that she was done. There was a rumbling of indistinct comments. Galinda, who didn't know much about Poetry, thought perhaps this was the accepted way of appreciating it. She grumbled a little bit to Shenshen, who sat in a straightback chair to one side, looking dropsical.

Wax from the taper was about to drip onto Shenshen's silk-shouldered white gown with the lemon-chiffon swags, and ruin it, most likely, but Galinda decided Shenshen's family could afford to replace a gown. She kept still. 'Another,' said Madame Morrible. 'Another Quell.' The room grew silent, but a little uneasily so.

Alas! For impropriety,
That guillotines sweet piety.
To remedy society
Indulge not to satiety
In mirth and shameless gaiety.
Choose sobering sobriety.
Behave as if the deity
Approaches in its mystery,
And greet it with sonority.
Let your especial history
Be built upon sorority
Whose Virtues do exemplify,
And Social Good thus multiply.
Animals should be seen and not heard.

Again, there was mumbling, but it was of a different nature now, a meaner key. Doctor Dillamond harrumphed and beat a cloven hoof against the floor, and was heard to say, 'Well that's not poetry, that's propaganda, and it's not even good propaganda at that.'

Elphaba sidled over to Galinda's side with her chair under her arm, and plunked it down between Galinda and Shenshen. She put her bony behind on its slatted seat and leaned to Galinda and asked, 'What do you make of this?'

It was the first time Galinda had ever been addressed by Elphaba in public. Mortification bloomed. `I don't know,' she said faintly, looking in the other direction.

'It's a cleverness, isn't it?' said Elphaba. 'I mean that last line, you couldn't tell by that fancy accent whether it was meant to be Animals or animals. No wonder Dillamond's furious.'

And he was. Doctor Dillamond looked around the room as if trying to marshal the opposition. 'I'm shocked, shocked,' he said. 'Deeply shocked,' he amended, and he marched out of the room. Professor Lenx, the Boar who taught math, left too, accidentally crushing an antique gilded sideboard through trying to avoid stepping on Miss Milla's yellowlace train. Mister Mikko, the Ape who taught history, sat dolefully in the shadows, too confused and ill at ease to make a move.

'Well,' said Madame Morrible in a carrying tone, 'one expects poetry, if it is Poetry, to offend. It is the Right of Art.'

'I think she's bonkers,' said Elphaba. Galinda found it too horrible. What if even one of the pimply boys saw Elphaba whispering to her! She'd never hold her head up in society again. Her life was ruined. 'Shhh, I'm listening, I love poetry,' Galinda told her sternly. 'Don't talk to me, you're ruining my evening.'

Elphaba sat back, and finished her apple, and they both kept listening. The grumbling and murmuring grew louder after each poem, and the boys and girls began to relax and look around at one another.

When the last Quell of the evening had knelled (to the cryptic aphorism 'A witch in time saves nine'), Madame Morrible retired to uneven applause. She allowed her bronze servant to administer tea to the guests, and then the girls, and finally the Amas.

In a heap of rustling silk and clicking abalone lake shells, she received compliments from the male professors and some of the braver boys, and begged them to sit near her so she could enjoy their criticisms. 'Do tell the truth. I was overly dramatic, wasn't I? It is my curse. The stage called, but I chose a life of Service to Girls.' She lowered her eyelashes in modesty as her captive audience mumbled a lukewarm protest.