CROP ANGLES

A math extra credit story written by Samantha Cranston, who doesn't own Lord of the Rings, and whose mum made her put this story up.

"Pippin? Peregrin Took, where are you? Pippin, you come out here NOW, you here me?"

Pippin Took slid down from the tree he had been climbing to answer his mother's screams. A few apples fell off and hit him in the head. "Hullo, Mum!" he greeted her cheerfully, "What brings you here?" He tried to cover up his nervousness, as his mum looked angry with him. PLEASE tell me she hasn't found out about the noodles. He thought, forcing a smile.

"You will not believe the conversation I just had with Farmer Maggot."

Why was he just noticing now how much his mum looked like an evil penguin when she was angry? "Oh really? When was this?"

"Fifteen minutes ago," she said, highly not amused by how cheerful her son was about this.

"Oh. And…what was this remarkable conversation about?"
"It seems that Mr. Maggot has crop angles…and crop triangles."

"Isn't it crop circles?"

"No, not in this case."

"And you're implying that I made them?"

"You and your cousin Merry are the only people on the entire planet who would go through the trouble. Come on then, if you won't confess to it, then I'll show you."

And so, Pippin and his mum made their way to Farmer Maggot's fields. Pippin kicked at small rocks. Maybe I won't get in THAT much trouble. At least, as long as she doesn't find out. He thought.

He kicked a rock, which hit his mum's heel. "Sorry." He muttered.

"Here we are," she said," Recognize anything?"

"This isn't Farmer Maggot's field."

"We're on the hill over looking it. See, there's one of the triangles I was talking about on the way over."

She was talking on the way here? thought Pippin. He followed his mum's arm to the section of crops she was pointing at. ''That's not a triangle. It's two acute angles."

"No, it's a right angle and an obtuse angle that came together to form a triangle."

"Oh."

"Then we have those two perpendicular ones over there. And then there's two similar triangles over there."

Since when did this become a math lesson? "Err…sure."

"And if you didn't notice, each acute angle measures about 43 degrees."

Pippin fought back the urge to say "Fahrenheit or Celsius?", but he was in enough trouble with the living protractor that was his mother already.

"There's at least seven more triangles, each with a trigonometric ratio of .34."

"So you're a calculator, too?" Pippin muttered under his breath.

'What was that?"

"Nothing. What was what?"

"Oh. Anyway, it's really hard to find the trigonometric ratio of anything, but I managed. 'Chief Soh Cah Toa' is how I was taught to remember it."

Pippin forced back a yawn. This had to be the most boring moment in his ten year old life. Couldn't he just be punished already?

"Oh, look! Each acute angle is next to its complement and supplement! Wasn't that clever of you!"

"Thanks! I guess it was kind of clever of……" his mum shot him a look that would have scared off an attacking hungry tiger. "I…mean….It was aliens! Green, fat aliens from, err, Betelgeuse! This is like, their written language, see! OW! Stop pulling my ear! OUCH! Hey!"

Pippin sat glumly in his bedroom, wondering how he could have been so stupid. He was now grounded for a week. He heard a tap on his window, and looked up to see Merry knocking to get his attention. Marvin opened the window.

"Hullo, Pippin! Hope you didn't get in to much trouble helping me with my geometry homework."

Pippin grinned weakly. "It'll pass. At least they haven't found out about the noodles yet. Hey, how come you're not in trouble?"

"I told my parents it was for my education. Oh, and by the way, I failed that homework assignment."

They both heard a scream from Pippin's sister's room, followed by his mum demanding to know where all the pasta had gotten to.

"Run," suggested Pippin.

"Way ahead of you!" Merry called from across the yard, before taking off towards his home. Pippin slammed the window shut.

FIN

As I said, this was originally written as a math extra credit story. I then turned it in for some story writing thing, and had to change everyone's names to make it 'original'.