Green with envy | Wicked | Book 1/3

Elphie

Wind blows my hair in all sorts of directions, I pull out a ribbon from my pocket and tie it up.
Father stops hugging Nessa and steps back a bit.
"So my darling, what are you wanting for your birthday?" Father says to Nessa.
Her birthday is only a month away, she will probably say more dolls or somthing childish like that.
"I want to learn the piano" Nessa says surprisingly,
Father looks shocked too.
"Of course, anything you want" he says.
I wish father would at least pretend to like me that much, he only gets me one thing for my birthday, a new picture for my wall.
Father will open up his photo album and I can choose one picture that he will get copied for me.
I've always loved looking through the photo albums at the pictures of mother when she was pregnant, father looked so happy then, there's even a picture of him kissing mother stomach, though he says that was when she was pregnant with Nessa.
But I know he's wrong because of the dress mother is wearing, she got rid of the dress after I was born because she was wearing it during the birth.

Nessa looks over at me, she looks so exited.
"Are you wanting piano lessons?" Father asks,
"Nope" Nessa chimes "just a book"
She's acting like that's all he has to buy, just a book, we don't have a piano.
A bird lands nearby me and I watch it jump about.
Cute little thing.
Father stands up abruptly scaring it away.
I'm a little annoyed but I turn to look at him.
"I think it's time to go" father says grabbing hold of nessas handles.

One we are home, father brings Nessa into the living room, I follow meekly behind.
Father leaves the room.
"What makes you want to learn piano?" I ask Nessa casually.
"It's something that I could do to pass the time when Elphie is at school and my lessons have finished" Nessa says merrily, "I want to study music when I go to school"
Nessa smiles and mimes playing the piano with her fingers.
"Do you think I could do it?" She asks hopefully,
"You can do anything you set your mind to nessa" I say encouragingly.
Nessa beams from ear to ear.

We sit in silence for a while, Nessa moves herself around the room a bit but doesn't say why she's doing so.
"Elphie" Nessa says quietly,
"Yess Nessa," I say look over to her, she's turned away from me, her head looking down at the floor.
"What do socks feel like?"
I laugh loudly, Nessa used to ask me strange questions all the time but this one is definitely one of the weirdest ones.
"Why would you want to know that?" I giggle,
"Elphie I'm serious" Nessa says, turning herself round "can you always feel them or do you kind of get used to it and forget they are there?"
I have to think for a moment, it's an odd thing to ask.
"Umm," I mumble "you kind of get used to the feeling and only think about them when you need to take them off" I say.
Nessa nods and looks down at her own socks, she's wearing black doll shoes with white socks with frills round the ankles.
I think of all the questions that I'd long to ask Nessa, I also think about father coming back in.
"Nessa, what's it like to be beautiful?" I ask timidly,
Nessa looks confused or shocked even.
"I don't know, people don't see me" she says,
What a stupid thing to say, of course they see her.
"What do you mean?" I'm perplexed.
"They see the chair, you don't get half as much attention for just being pretty, you have to play the sympathy card too" Nessa says seriously.
I nod at her and she turns back around.
I've always wondered if I wasn't green if I would be beautiful.
Once I tried to see, Nessa was out at one of her doctors appointments when she was younger and I stole her foundation.
I covered myself in it, I ruined it.
It turned out it was very expensive and it didn't even cover up my skin, father was furious.
I miss Nessa being younger, when she was one and I was four, none of her tantrums had started, they all started around the age of three.
I would prop her up between my legs and read her stories, I don't think Nessa remembers any of that.
I used to be so exited to take care of my baby sister, now it seems more of a chore than anything, but I still do it because it will please father and because I love her.
"Elphaba, do you think I'm being greedy asking for a piano?" Nessa asks out of the blue,
"Not at all" I lie, I think it's horribly greedy.
"I just want something to learn," she says sadly.

Father comes back in the room.
"Almost time for bed" he says facing Nessa, he then turns to me, "I'll take your sister upstairs, Elphaba you bring her chair up with you"
So I get the hard job, nessas chair weighs a ton and it's really difficult to pull up and down the stairs.
I grab hold of the handles and walk up the stairs backwards, I've found that's the easiest way of doing it.
Once father leaves the room, Nessa lets me use some of her expensive hand cream because doing that every day gives me horrible hands.

Father places Nessa into bed gently and I drag her chair into her bedroom, I go into the bathroom and pant heavily, I rest my head on the wall and sink down onto the floor.
I breathe deeply for a while and go back out into our room, father has gone.
I don't bother with the hand cream, instead I just go into bed and close my eyes tightly, I hear Nessa thrashing around in her blankets, desperately trying to turn herself onto a different side.
Finally silence and I'm able to drift off to sleep.