How It All Goes Down
- Boq tries to question Elphaba about Dillamond's work. She hints that she managed to get most of his notes out of his lab before the police got to them.
- Elphaba is studying the notes on her own and refuses to let anyone help her, since it would be too dangerous.
- Boq and Elphaba attend their coed Life Science class with Doctor Nikidik, who talks very softly and is very boring. Most of the class is taking a power nap.
- But then Nikidik busts out a vial of some magic potion and announces that he plans to use it on one of the portraits of the school's founders to make the portrait talk.
- It's just like Hogwarts!
- But before the magic session can get underway, a new student from the Vinkus enters the classroom.
- The draft from the open door messes up the potion, which has turned into a magical mist, and a pair of antlers hanging on the wall gets doused instead.
- The antlers come to life and attack the poor new student.
- Crope and Tibbett come to save the day and wrestle the antlers away from the new kid.
- Boq sums it up best: "What an awful welcome to Shiz" (2.3.3.25).
- At least the Vinkus kid has something interesting to write home about.
- Glinda, meanwhile, is in class listening to a discussion about the differences between science and sorcery.
- The teacher Miss Greyling argues that sorcery is way cooler than science since "[i]t builds anew rather than revealing the old" (2.3.3.27).
- Later Glinda brings up the topic among her friends and Nessa warns her that sorcery might be corrupting her morals.
- Glinda wants to tell Nessa to stuff it.
- Boq, Elphaba, and Avaric are in another life sciences lecture.
- Nikidik is really going to have to go all out this class if he wants to top his whole "magical antlers turn homicidal" thing.
- But then some students wheel in a lion (or a Lion) cub. Nikidik argues that when animals or Animals are young you can't tell the difference between them.
- The class goes into an uproar, though. Elphaba keeps yelling about the "political implications" of the lesson and a lot of students protest because the cub is obviously scared.
- Finally when Nikidik is about to "experiment" on the cub, two girls jump up and rush the cub out of the room.