Chapter Nine
Meanwhile, back on the farm . . .
Before any more musings could be presented, the bell rang for first period. Hoping that their classes had not changed, the teens ran to their lockers and then to first period homeroom.
To Vikki's relief, Mr. Pappitulo was still her first period chem. teacher. There were, however, new students. Eomer, for one, was in her class along with Pippin and Merry, prodigies, apparently, considering the hobbits were too young to have been in high school, normally. Along with those three were an assortment of other elves, dwarves, and one strange-looking creature that Vikki would later find out to be called a kender. It reminded the girl quite closely of Pippin . . . in his most juvenile of moments.
The girl successfully got through her first many classes without error or too big of a shock. Finally it came down to her fourth period class, the last one before lunch. As she would do on any normal day, the girl waited for Jessie to come down the hall from her chemistry class so they could walk to Spanish together. To her delight she soon found that Legolas was following Jamie; so was Aragorn, but Vikki didn't care about him. She tried to contain her laughter as Jamie fumed at the sight of Legolas lecturing her on how she wasn't taking enough care of her hair.
Vikki snickered, whispering.
"Do I even want to know?"
Her friend glared.
"I have every single class with those two."
"Hey, I'd kill to have every class with Legolas!"
Jamie cocked an eyebrow.
"Thou knowest not the meaning of torture."
"Jewels," Vikki began. "I've had every class so far with Eomer! The guy is a twit! He knows nothing except when it comes to football."
Unfortunately the last word of the girls' conversation was spoken just a bit too loud, and four of the schools jocks heard.
"Football!" one screamed.
"Football!" yelled another.
"Football!"
"Football!"
"FOOTBALL!!!!!!"
Grabbing each other on the butts and ramming each other into walls with their heads, the football players succeeded in scarring most of the people in the hallway: both mentally and physically.
Finally reaching the sanctity of the Spanish classroom, the girls took their regular seats. For some reason, Mrs. Valdez was nowhere to be seen. Hearing the bell ring, the rest of the class took their seat.
Fortunately for Vikki: Legolas sat to the right of her.
Unfortunately for Vikki: Boromir sat to the left of her, along with Frodo in front of Legolas and Sam somewhere in the front near Jamie. Aragorn was right in front of Mrs. Valdez's desk, and seemed far too excited to be normal.
"Aragorn," Jamie whispered. "It's really not that exciting."
The young man frowned.
"But I thought I heard we were getting a new teacher today-"
Before Jamie could say anything else, a very frazzled Galadriel burst into the room. Jamie, turning back in her seat and catching Vikki's attention, shared a look of shock.
"Alright, class!" the elf Queen began. "Unfortunately Mrs. Valdez has been detained and will not be back for the rest of the year. (cheering from most of the class) I have been promoted to stand in as your teacher. You may call me Mistress Galadriel. Not Ms. Gal, not Ms. Dri, not Ms. G: Galadriel."
Joe Gnotwood, another football player and, though nice, not exactly one of the school's brightest students, raised his hand.
"People call my mom Ms. G! Haha that's funny: are you like my mom?"
Galadriel managed to smile and look sickened at the same time.
"Uh, no. . . .Now, get out your books and please turn to page two hundred and twenty-seven."
Upon turning to the page, Vikki gasped. This was not her Spanish book! Glancing around, she found that everyone else had the same book. What had happened? Risking a glance at Legolas, who was already on the verge of falling asleep, she knew she couldn't ask him. Looking to the front of the room, she could see Jamie was just as distraught, but could not catch her attention.
Glancing back at the book, Vikki realized that it was elvish. Suddenly interested in her language class, she sat a little higher in her seat and decided this just might be fun.
Jamie was excited about taking elvish, but far too confused to be radiant about it. Glancing back in her notebook she found page after page of completed papers, all in elvish, from months before.
"I have no memory of this . . ." she muttered, serious, yet unable to resist quoting the movie. On a graver note, she wondered, what in the world was happening?
By the time class was done, both girls were too exhausted to care. Galadriel had called on them multiple times and, since neither had any recollection of how to put a sentence together in elvish, both had been reprimanded for daydreaming and not paying attention in class.
"That was horrible." Vikki mumbled.
"Tell me about it." Jamie sympathized. "I thought for sure she was gonna give us both detentions."
Vikki rolled her eyes.
"Not that! Did you even see who I was sitting next to?"
Her friend thought.
"Oh, yeah! You were next to Legolas. I thought you'd be happy about that-"
"No! Did you see who was on the other side of me?"
Jamie's face was a blank stare. Vikki growled.
"You're little buddy? Gondor-boy?"
Jamie grinned silently.
"Oh, yeah I bet you think it was funny, huh?" Vikki continued. "I'm trying to get the elf to notice me, while Boromir is looking all sad and dejected and asking me every ten minutes if there's any flower that I'm not allergic to!"
By now Jamie was openly laughing.
"See you at lunch," was all she could get out before the two parted ways and went to their lockers.
When the two finally did meet up again it was in a very crowded lunchroom. Usually on Mondays Jamie would sit at Rol's table, but seeing how Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, Eomer, and the rest of the crew took up the entire table and more, she decided to sit at Vikki's. Jessica, upon seeing that her salvation had come, quickly grabbed her stuff and moved with Jamie to the other table, away from all the crazy jocks.
Upon sitting down, however, the crazy jocks got up and moved, following them, now completely crowding the other table, leaving Mike, Rols, Andy, and Amy to fend for themselves.
Legolas, getting to the table first, took a seat in between Vikki and Jamie. Boromir, not wanting to seem rude, was forced to sit next to Jamie and away from his girlfriend. Vikki, it seemed, was not minding the swap one bit, even though she was just as oblivious to Boromir's every move as Legolas was to hers.
By the end of lunch, most of the teens had left to go outside and talk. Boromir, whispering something to Jamie, had he follow him outside. Legolas came as well, along with Eomer, even though he soon got sidetracked by a group of cheerleaders.
Walking back over to their familiar green table, the soon-to-be knight of Gondor plopped down, a sad look etching across his handsome face. The other two sat down nearby, Legolas' hands itching to mess around with Jamie's hair, but forcibly resisting.
"I don't know what's wrong with us," Boromir sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. "It's like, over night she changed. Suddenly she doesn't wanna go out with me anymore."
Taking this all in, Jamie found her head hurt.
"Come on, Boromir, it can't be that bad."
He nodded solemnly.
"It is. She won't even sit next to me any more. I think she's trying to avoid me."
Legolas looked upset, not noticing the throng of girls that were gathering near the group as they talked, whispering his name and applying an extra coat of lipstick.
"Well, did you talk to her?"
The knight wrung his hands.
"I meant to, but I'm so nervous!"
His grey-blue gaze searched Jamie's face pleading.
"Miri, you gotta help me! What am I doing wrong?"
The girl felt like absolute crud. She knew what she had to do, though.
"Look, why don't you go back inside and discuss it with her before lunch ends, ok?"
The young man bit his lip.
"Will you guys come with me?"
Legolas rolled his eyes.
"No, we won't come with you. C'mon, Bory; be a man!"
At this Boromir's tangible sense of resolve tightened. Getting up, he glanced at his two friends.
"I'll be right back."
Meanwhile . . . .
Orome sat under a tree in the early morning shade that graced the mountain of Taniquetil. The sun was only just beginning to rise; the rest of the Valar were still sleeping . . . if gods could truly sleep. Orome, his dark eyes looking particularly mischievous, was staring at something in his hand.
It was a small glass ball a little bigger then a lemon. A mist seemed to reside in it, making the pictures it projected look somewhat faded. This was what the god was so intent upon looking at, for the tiny sphere showed a strange school, one with elves and humans, dwarves and hobbits . . . and in the center of the picture there appeared a group of very familiar teenagers.
"Oh, the fun is just beginning!" Orome chuckled, waving his hand across the globe to clear the picture away and stuffing the orb back in his pocket. Manwe, the lord of the gods would be awaking soon . . .
. . .Best not spoil the game and let him find out.