Okay, here's the deal. This is one of those "The-LOTR-crew-are-alive-and- well-in-the-real-world!!" kind-of-stories. Don't ask how they got here – maybe the psychic energy of twenty million fangirls was enough to summon them out of fiction and into reality.
Most of the guys (and gals) are teens. They're in high school together (woot). I haven't bothered to be accurate in terms of ages of characters, but put people in the same grades as I thought appropriate. I might also dump characters that I can't fit in or who seem boring. Tell me if I've committed some sort of heinous crime in leaving out your favourite – I might just feel sorry for you.
This is nowhere near as off-the-wall as my other LOTR fic, so if you're hoping for more It can get pretty lonely[...] action, you may be disappointed. It's a bit more of a character study, I guess, than an attempt to entertain. I am having fun writing it, though, so maybe it'll sell with you guys. Hope you like it.
The Breckster
(Let's start it off with a most int-a-mer-est-ing letter...)
To Whom It May Concern:
Hardie T. Meld Secondary School is far out in the West End of the city, where much of the wetlands have yet to be drained, and the deer are more of a nuisance than an appeal. Its misleadingly ordinary name was entirely intentional. Even today many local residents are surprised to find the school is not a member of the public board, and that their children will have to take the bus into the suburbs every morning for four years rather than attend nearby Hardie T. Meld. Others are even more surprised to find that the school is not the average private institution, either, and that no amount of money will cajole the administration into admitting students who do not meet its enigmatic requirements – which, I admit, very few people have ever actually read.
Hardie T. Meld prides itself in the rather unique racial diversity of its students and staff, an element of school life that has been an intrinsic part of its identity since its founding in 1954. The school is considered, by those who know it, to be the foremost institution in the city in terms of promoting the pacific and mutually beneficial interaction between various races and ethnicities – particularly those that are inclined toward hostility. All in all, the history of the school is deemed to be a total success story.
Return now, however, to the school's ordinary name. As far as I, school principal, am aware, there is and has never been a man (or woman) by the name of Hardie T. Meld, or at least not one that did anything to merit having a school named after him. Rather, this name was very convenient to the original founders (myself included), as it spoke volumes about the nature of the institution.
There need not be anyone in history named Hardie T. Meld. All that matters is the letters in the name, and the fact that they might so conveniently be rearranged to spell another, more meaningful word: Middle-earth.
Let the ordinary schools worry about standardized literacy tests. They'll never had to deal with mandates setting the maximum student age at two thousand years, or special orders of desks for a growing population of students under three feet tall.
Welcome to what is sure to be another lovely year.
Sincerely,
Mr. Elrond Half-Elven
Principal, Hardie T. Meld Secondary School
