A/N: Enjoy! No time for more!
Disclaimer: Don't own them. Go read Now or Never for a longer disclaimer.
Normally, the first sound one hears in the morning is pleasant, or at least tolerable, to listen to. It could be the voice of a parent, or a dear friend. Perhaps it is the noise of a brother or sister (which might not always be so pleasant, but is at least better than some things), or a grandparent, uncle, aunt, or cousin.
The first sound one normally does not hear in the morning is the voice of someone one has kidnapped and held for ransom, someone who started out as prey and has now become a kind of friend—the type of friend who annoys one to no end but can occasionally be nice. One also does not usually hear the voice of a fairy. However, these were the characteristics of the owner of the voice that Artemis Fowl the Second heard when he woke up on March seventeenth, otherwise known as St. Patrick's Day.
"Good morning, Artemis!" he heard Holly say cheerfully. "Wakey wakey, rise and shine!" This was followed by a most odd noise. After a moment, Artemis figured out that it was an extremely low-quality recording of a bugle playing a reveille.
"Holly," he groaned, "did you have to wake me up? I was having a pleasant dream."
"Of what?" she asked with a snort. "Gold? Jewels? Bank accounts with easy passwords stuffed full of money?"
"None of your business. Let me go back to sleep."
"Nope," she said cheerfully. "It's Saint Patrick's Day, the 'official' Irish holiday. If I can't get you to celebrate any other holiday, I will get you to do something for this one. Come on, get up. I laid out some clothes for you."
"Whatever it is, I'm not wearing it," said Artemis hastily.
"Just get up and see what it is, Mud Boy. Then you can decide."
The boy rolled his eyes, but he pulled the covers off and stood with a sigh. Stretching and yawning, he made his way over to the huge oak wardrobe (which his mother had insisted on putting there for decoration, even though in his opinion it was much too large to be worth putting clothes in). Once there, he opened it and stopped short in surprise.
"You expect me to wear this?"
"Well, it is Saint Patty's Day," she replied, grinning at the expression on his normally impassive face.
"I am not wearing a green shirt and green…green…" He trailed off, obviously not sure what to call the other part of the outfit.
"Cargo pants," Holly supplied.
"Cargo pants, then. There is no way on God's green earth that I'm…"
He was interrupted by her happy shriek. "Green!" Her finger flew out to point at him, and the next thing he knew, he was sopping wet.
"What was that?" he asked.
"You said green!"
"Yes," he said impatiently, "but what was it?"
Holly laughed delightedly. "Well, what do you know? Artemis Fowl, asking a dumb question."
"Just answer the dumb quest—just answer the question!"
"That was one of Foaly's inventions. See?" She pulled at her index finger, and off came memory latex, not unlike the dart-propelling digit which had been the cause of one Briar Cudgeon's demotion and madness.
Artemis sighed. "In any case, I repeat that I will not wear those atrocious clothes."
"Whatever." Holly shrugged, surprising him. "I won't force you. Here's your suit," she added, pulling his usual attire from the wardrobe and handing it to him.
He took it gingerly. "Thank you. Now, if you don't mind leaving, so that I can change and get cleaned up?" Without waiting for an answer, he put his hand on her shoulder and nearly shoved her out, closing the door firmly behind her.
"Of course I wouldn't mind, Mud Boy!" she called through the door, and was rewarded with a faint moan from inside. Satisfied, she grinned and went down to the kitchen to wait for the shock she knew he was going to get. Of course, he wouldn't find out without a little humiliation first…
Butler was dumbfounded. Actually, he was past the point of being dumbfounded, but he wasn't about to let people see that.
The source of his extreme surprise was simply this: his charge was wearing a sweatshirt.
Not only this, but the words on the shirt were—well, they were nothing that Artemis would ever wear if he was still in his right mind.
Needless to say, Butler suspected a trick.
As they walked around the mall—and here was another shock; Artemis never went to the mall, but Holly had insisted and the boy had agreed—the bodyguard glared at several people, just in case they were a threat to his charge's safety. Mostly they were teenagers, snickering and pointing at the shirt, but there were a few others as well: a six-year-old in a wheelchair, a girl with an outfit so blindingly pink that several passersby were covering their eyes in pain, and a middle-aged adult with a black sweatshirt, black jeans, dyed-black hair and several piercings in each ear. (Anyone would be forced to admit that this, at least, was rather strange.)
Eventually, of course, Butler's mood caught his employer's attention. "Butler?" he asked. "Is something the matter?"
The manservant almost told Artemis about the sweatshirt right then and there, but as he opened his mouth, he caught Holly's small smirk. He glanced over at her. When she saw him looking, she winked and mouthed the words, 'Don't tell him.'
After a moment of thought, Butler decided that a little humiliation would be good for his charge. "No," he said quickly. "I'm fine." He had to hide a smile of his own in anticipation of Holly's plan (he was sure she had a plan).
"Are you quite sure?" asked Artemis.
"Yes," said Butler. If he hadn't been a bodyguard, he wouldn't have been an expert at lying, and so the boy probably would have figured out that something was up. Then again, if Butler hadn't been a bodyguard, he wouldn't have been witnessing the strange sight of Artemis Fowl the Second wearing a 'Kiss me, I'm Irish' sweatshirt on Saint Patrick's Day.
"Hey, Artemis?" Holly asked when they got back home.
He sighed. "What now?"
"Well, there's a sort of Saint Patty's Day party underground…I was kind of wondering if you would come."
Artemis nearly groaned. More celebrations. His social muscles weren't fit for this kind of thing. If she'd only leave him alone…
Yet another part of him said that he shouldn't miss an opportunity like this. A Saint Patrick's Day party belowground. It could be fun.
He rolled his eyes inwardly. "Would I have to wear green?"
"No," said Holly, looking as though she was suppressing a grin. "I'm sure they'd understand. Of course, you might want to wear a little, just so you don't get pinched. I think we can leave out the face paint and feathers, though."
"Face paint and…?"
"Relax, Mud Boy. I'm just kidding."
"Hi, everyone!" shouted Holly enthusiastically, pushing open a door and letting out a lot of noise and a huge wave of rather pungent green smoke.
Artemis drew in a breath of surprise. Not the smartest thing to do when there's smoke around. He coughed and choked, and Holly promptly hit him on the back until he stopped—rather harder than necessary, he thought as he regained his breath. Nevertheless, he gasped out a, "Thanks," and stumbled inside the room with her.
"It's Holly!" a voice said, its owner unrecognizable through the smoke. "And Mud Boy too!" He was roughly pulled inside, bumping into the person who was pulling and knocking both of them to the ground. Feeling about in the bitter-smelling haze for something to haul himself up with, his hand came in contact with a warm surface. He moved his hand along it—
"Ouch!" said someone.
"Sorry," Artemis mumbled, realizing that he had been touching that person's face.
A hand reached out and grasped his, getting him to his feet. "It's okay, Mud Boy," said the voice, and suddenly the smoke cleared to reveal Foaly.
"Oh, that's better," the centaur said as the last of it drifted off down the corridor.
"What is that smoke?" Artemis asked, blinking his eyes to get rid of the tears that had been caused by the odor.
"Oh, that," said Holly dismissively from beside him. "It's a Saint Patrick's Day tradition. We always annoy Julius with his own fungus cigar smoke. We started using it because it was green. Of course, once we saw how mad he got, the color was just an added bonus," she added, with a grin.
"Fungus cigars," said Artemis disgustedly. "You leprechauns have strange traditions. I don't know how anyone puts up with that stuff, even to annoy the command…"
He was interrupted by the appearance of the elf in question, storming into the room, his face the color of a tomato.
"Good afternoon, Julius," said Foaly, obviously attempting to sound pleasant and polite without bursting into laughter.
"Don't you 'good afternoon' me!" cried the outraged commander. "I can fire you right here and now, you know!"
"Why, Julius, whatever are you talking about?" said Mulch, suddenly appearing beside Foaly with a huge grin on his face.
"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about! That…that…stuff is disturbing my work, distracting my office directors, disorganizing my meeting…"
"Distinctly distorting your disinterest in disharmony. Not to mention your face," muttered Foaly, at which there was a ripple of laughter.
"DONKEY…"
"Now, really, Julius. Foaly has all your best interests at heart, I'm sure," said Mulch.
"He knows you have anger management issues, and he tries to be kind, but…" added Holly, allowing her voice to trail off mid-sentence.
Root's complexion went from tomato to plum. "I do NOT have anger management issues! And don't call me Julius!"
Now even Artemis couldn't resist joining in. "Certainly, Julius, you know better than to begin a sentence with the word 'and'."
The commander turned on him, now completely incensed. "Don't you start, Mud Boy!"
"Why ever not?"
Root made a strangled noise which sounded rather like, "Argh!" and stomped off, slamming the door behind him. A wave of laughter danced in his wake as everyone in the room collapsed in uncontrollable fits of mirth.
"N-nice, Mud Boy!" gasped Holly, clutching her stomach.
"Thanks," he said. He was finding out, to his surprise, that standing here in the midst of LEP officers, sharing in their fun, felt quite natural. One could almost have said that he was happy.
Of course, that was before he found out what he was wearing.
The question arose after everyone had gotten over their laughter and stopped having mental pictures of a red-faced Commander Root. They were all milling around again, chatting and laughing and occasionally breaking out into a Saint Patrick's Day song (none of them were drunk—the LEP wouldn't have allowed that, and, for that matter, Holly wouldn't have brought Artemis—but they all loved the tune), which Artemis was beginning to pick up the lyrics to.
"Buy me a hat with a feather in green,
A little white pony, so fair to be seen,
Sing me a song of a rainbow at dawn,
For I am a wee little leprechaun," he sang, attempting to make sense of the words.
Holly covered her ears. "You need to work on staying in tune," she said.
"I sing just fine," Artemis retorted, acting injured.
"You know, for a supposed genius who usually could fool the most paranoid animal into thinking he's a statue because his face is so blank, you sure seem to be having a lot of fun," she said.
He grinned. "I am."
She grinned back. "Good." Looking around for Butler, she spotted him halfway across the room, talking with Mulch. "Oy, Butler! Artemis says he's having fun!" she hollered.
He looked over and gave her a thumbs-up, and then continued his conversation.
"Hey, Mud Boy," said Foaly, coming up to them. "I meant to ask before: what's that you're wearing?"
Artemis looked down at himself, fully expecting to see a suit, and froze.
"Kiss me, I'm Irish?!" he said loudly after a moment. It must have been a bit too loud, though, because everyone in the room stopped talking and turned to stare at him.
This, of course, was exactly the sort of situation Holly had been hoping for.
"Yeah," she told him, making sure that everyone could hear. "I used another of Foaly's inventions to make it look like a suit until you put it on. Thanks to the remote control, I could switch it whenever you looked."
"You mean to tell me that I've been wearing this all day?"
She laughed. "Yep."
He looked daggers at her. "Holly Short, do you know what I should do to you for this?"
"No, but I know what I should do to you," she said with a grin.
"What do you mean?" he asked, frowning.
Holly activated her wings. Buzzing up to his head, she grinned at him once more and kissed him on the cheek.
Artemis turned pink. "I…what…?" he stuttered.
With another huge smile, Holly landed on the floor again. "Happy Saint Patrick's Day, Artemis," she said.
A/N: Muahaha.
There will probably be more later, involving Artemis's revenge (hehehe), however, I don't have it written yet, and I've had this for ages and kept forgetting to post it. So...yeah.
BANZAI!!!
hollybridgetpeppermint