Chapter Five
"Well, I was thinking," said Emily, bright and early the next morning,
and by "early" I mean eleven-thirty. Because, well, I like sleep . . .
doesn't everybody??
"Always a good idea," commented Rachael. She and Emily were sitting on
their beach chairs on the deck with Dom and Oliver, helping wind yarn so
Emily could crochet blankets for all of the crew for Christmas. (They had
all requested this after seeing Emily's personal blankie, the janky
blankie.) Emily was pulling the yarn from an old afghan, passing it to
Dom, who passed it to Oliver who passed it to Rachael, who wound it into
balls. Have you all never been to a Yarn-Winding Party? Truly? That is
most unfortunate. Just grab a couple of you friends, pop in a movie and
wind away.
. . . Anywho, they were winding yarn, sitting on the deck, while the
other members of the crew kept a lookout.
"Well, what I was thinking about was things we need to do," continued
Emily.
"Besides our current project?" inquired Rachael.
"Yes," affirmed Emily, "Would you like to hear my list?"
"Sure."
Emily took her Amy Brown Faerie Journal that her sister got her for
Christmas, and opened it up and commenced to reading in a very
informative tone.
"First, we need to play pinball."
"Oh, definitely!" agreed Rachie, Oliver and Dom.
"I thought maybe when we got to France, we could see if they sold
pinball machines there?"
The others affirmed that this was a wonderful plan, and Emmy
continued.
"We also need to do laundry."
"I agree to that! I'm running out of bikinis and pajamas and . . . hmm
. . . that seems to be all we wear, isn't it?" said Rachael.
"True, but you know you should always wear clean everything."
Rachael agreed, and said she would "do laundry" (if ya'll know what I
mean) that afternoon.
"Finally, we need to go to a gym."
Rachael was nodding and agreeing, but Oliver and Dominic looked up,
confused.
"Why do we need to go to a gym?"
"Oh, exercise, all that fun stuff," said Emmy, in an off-hand manner.
"But we get enough exercise running the ship!" exclaimed Dom.
"Or do you?" chorused Rachie and Emily, tilting their heads and making
an inquisitive face.
"Well, yeah, I mean for starters, we run-" began Oliver.
"Or do you?" chorused Rachie and Emily again, tilting their heads and
making an inquisitive face.
"Yeah, and climbing into the-"
"Or do you?" chorused Rachie and Emily again, tilting their heads and
making an inquisitive face.
"Yeah, I mean-"
This time it was Dom who interrupted, knowing that Oliver was new and
didn't quite understand the captains yet.
"Just leave it, mate," he said, kindly, "You'll never win."
"Well," said Emily, "I'd better go tell Aragorn to keep a look out for
a gym."
She got up, neatly folding the afghan, and Rachael rose as well, and
they put the yarn in the bag, and left to go do their duties.
"Should I tell her that you can't find gyms from the ship?" asked
Oliver, quietly.
"Nah," said Dom, "Aragorn will figure out something."
Emily told Aragorn their plan and he agreed, and then they spent some
quality time together, before Emily left to go clean her room. Rachael
got all the dirrrrty clothes of the captains and the crew, and with the
help of her charming washer-men, commenced to begin to wash the laundry.
* * * * *
A few hours later, Aragorn spotted a funny thing off the starboard bow
(EVERYTIME! It just makes me want to DAHNCE, dahling!). He called to
Orlando, who was nearby.
"Er- do you see what I see?" asked Aragorn.
"Way up in the sky, little lamb?"
"This is no time for Christmas carols!" exclaimed Aragorn, "Tell me,
is that a billboard over there?"
Orly looked and sure enough, sticking out of the ocean was a
billboard.
"What does it say?" asked Orly.
Aragorn took out the glass-telescope-Turban-of-Surban type thing (Come
on, people, help me out! What is it called?) and looked at the billboard.
"'See . . . Rock City?'" Aragorn read in disbelief.
"Hmm." Said Orlando, "Well, that's odd."
"Yes."
* * * * *
They would have thought nothing else of it, if several more hadn't
appeared in the afternoon.
"'Lookin' for a work out?'" read Elijah, "'Gym, twenty miles ahead.'"
"Well, there's our gym," said Sinbad.
"Pippin!" called Aragorn.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll go tell the captains." He sighed, resigned.
He went to tell Rachael first, because she was finishing up the
laundry.
"OK, thanks, sweetie," she told him, giving him extra kisses for being
so sweet, "Tell Emma I'll be there in ein paar minuten."
"Okies!" exclaimed Pippin, scampering off to tell Emily the news.
Entering the captains' quarters, he saw Emily sitting in the floor,
folding and putting up the last of the clothes. Hearing him enter, she
turned with a smile.
"Well, it's clean."
"That's good."
"Yeah, Mom will be happy."
"We've found a gym, it's twenty miles away, and Rachael says she'll be
here in . . . uh, 'ein paar minuten.'"
Emily thanked him, explaining that 'ein paar minuten' meant a few
minutes in German, and give him extra kisses for being so cute.
Pippin skipped back to the crew, who were all jealous that he had
gotten extra kisses.
* * * * *
A little bit later, Johnny came down to tell the captains they were
almost there, hoping for extra kisses, (the crew had fought over who got
to deliver the message this time.) He walked in to see them angrily blow-
drying their hair.
"IT'S SO POOFY!" they both screamed, angrily, over the roar of the
hair-dryers.
"Umm, my ladies?" said Johnny, tentatively.
"WHAT?" they yelled, standing up all the way, with their hair poofed
out as a result of the hair-dryers.
"We're almost there."
"Good," they said slightly pacified, "We'll be out in a moment."
They blew him kisses and then continued with the War of the Hair-
Dryer.
* * * * *
Finally, the captains exited their chambers, with non-poofy
hair. (If you don't have curly or extremely thick hair, you have no
idea the horrors of a hair-dryer.) They climbed into the long-boats,
oddly out-fitted for a trip to the gym.
The crew were all wearing T-shirts, Shorts and Tennis Shoes,
whereas Emily was wearing a Flogging Molly T-shirt and jeans, with a
Pointe shoe ribbon in her (not poofy) hair; and Rachael was wearing
jeans, a cute pink shirt and a leather jacket.
"Er-" began Arthur.
"Don't bother," warned Oliver.
They rowed to shore with only minor mishaps ("Grr-this wind
blows my hair into my face and then it gets stuck in my lip-gloss!")
and after docking, they went to check in.
The crew decided to play basketball first, so they went down to
the gym. The crew pleaded with Rachael or Emily to play, but instead
they sat down on the bleachers, pulling colouring books and crayons
out of their satchels, chatting happily.
"No, no, you guys go ahead," said Rachael.
"We'll watch!" said Emily, "and tell you what a good job you're
doing!"
Slightly mollified, the crew agreed and decided it would be
Aragorn, Orlando, Pippin, Sinbad and Johnny versus Elijah, Ian,
Dominic, Oliver, and Arthur. They began playing and it wasn't long
before all the shirts came off. (If you've ever been trapped in the
gym, waiting for the winter guard's turn for the floor, you know it
doesn't take long.)
After noting this key point, Emily and Rachael returned to
talking and colouring. Occasionally one of the crew would run over and
say something like, "Did you see me? Did you see me?" and the girls
would pretend like the knew what he was talking about and blow kisses
and cheer, promptly returning to their state of not-paying-attention
when they left.
When Pippin ran over (he had made a goal!) Emily and Rachie ran
down to congratulate him, and as they did they noticed a great thing:
they guys all got to slap each other on the butts during the course of
the game. After giving Pippin congratulations kisses, they ran out
onto the floor, smacked as many butts as they could reach, and then
run back to their seats.
The men looked at each other, saying "Uh.ok." and then continued
to play.
Emmy and Rachie's façade of paying attention was working fine
until Rachael said something funny. After laughing maniacally, Emily
commented that she needed to write that down. Unfortunately, she
didn't have her Faerie journal.
"Just write it on my face," said Rach.
"Like a mustache!" exclaimed Emily.
With explosive laughter, Emily wrote the joke on Rach's face,
curving and twisting; it was quite funny, come to think of it.
However, this did cause the crew to notice that their faithful
captains were not paying attention.
"HEY!" exclaimed Johnny, "You said you'd pay attention!"
Emily looked up from Rachael's chin, where she was adding a
matching goatee. "We are, honey."
The crew made various sounds of disbelief, and Arthur asked, "Oh
yeah, what's the score?"
Emily and Rachael looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Er-it's, um-" thought Emily.
"Seven to twenty-three!" exclaimed Rachael, triumphantly.
"NO- it's nineteen to twenty-nine!" exclaimed Orlando.
"You could at least pay attention, be cheerleaders or
something!" said Sinbad.
"Ooo!" they exclaimed, "FUN! We'll be right back!"
(They never pass up an opportunity to make fun of cheerleaders.)
"Uh-oh." said the crew, as Emily and Rachael got up and ran out,
but they continued playing until the girls made quite a ruckus as they
came back.
"Eeck, mine's too small!" exclaimed Rachael.
"Sorry, the only uniforms I have are from seventh grade stock!"
Emily told her as she adjusted her own too-small purple and gold
uniform.
The men looked up to see their captains clad in uniforms from
former cheerleading days, which were mainly purple with "FLASH" across
the chest in "gold" (also known as mustard) which is very, very,
ironic, if you think about it, they had pleated skirts and all that
fun stuff.
"Wanna see us do a cheer?" asked Rach.
"Uh . . .ok," said the crew.
"Just like in rehearsals," commented Emily as she and Rachael
took their positions. They took a deep breath and began.
"Pull down that rebound,
"And give me a kiss!
"Pull you pants,
"And give me a-"
They trailed off.
"Well- hang on, we'll think of another one."
So the men continued playing, and Emily and Rachael thought.
"Ooo! Ooo!" the squealed and took their positions.
"We've got the ball,
"Let's go for a
"HOO-HA!
"We've got the ball,
(dun-dun)
"HOO-HA!"
"We're number one!" they chorused, "Super Number One China Buffet! Hooray! Spirit Fingers! Jazz hands!"
"Ah . . . that was very good," complimented the men.
"Thanks!"
Yet again, the men resumed play, occasionally traveling near the girls who would, like REAL cheerleaders, squeal and duck, even though the ball was like twenty feet away.
"Ooo! Ooo!" they squealed, a few minutes later, "We thought of another one!"
The men stopped and waited.
"We've got the ball,
"Let's go for a touchdown,
"We've got the ball
(dun-dun)
"Let's touch!"
"We're number one!" they chorused, "Super Number One China Buffet!
Hooray! Spirit Fingers! Jazz hands!"
"Err, that was very good," said Sir Ian, "but there aren't any touch
downs in basketball."
"Oh. . ." said the girls, disappointed, "Well, we'll think of
another!"
"No!" the men chorused quickly, before Aragorn amended,
"Ah- we're done with basketball . . . we thought we'd check out the
rest of the gym."
"OH!" said the girls, "Well, let's go!"
* * * * *
Authoress' Notes: Well, that was fun, and most of it was based on what I did last night, except we didn't actually wear the old uniforms!! Thanks
to all who have read, and thanks to kingmaker for his nice review. His
review does raise one question, though: What is a Mary-Sue? I've seen
this all over the site, and I'm not sure what that is. I assume it's a
bad-ish thing?? And please if anyone knows what the glass-telescope- Turban-of-Surban thing is, let me know, either in a review or email me at
fanresponse_47@hotmail.com ! Thanks, love as always!
P.S. Lan, I gave Pippin extra kisses, just like I told you I would.
You'll have to wait until New Year's for yours!!
"Well, I was thinking," said Emily, bright and early the next morning,
and by "early" I mean eleven-thirty. Because, well, I like sleep . . .
doesn't everybody??
"Always a good idea," commented Rachael. She and Emily were sitting on
their beach chairs on the deck with Dom and Oliver, helping wind yarn so
Emily could crochet blankets for all of the crew for Christmas. (They had
all requested this after seeing Emily's personal blankie, the janky
blankie.) Emily was pulling the yarn from an old afghan, passing it to
Dom, who passed it to Oliver who passed it to Rachael, who wound it into
balls. Have you all never been to a Yarn-Winding Party? Truly? That is
most unfortunate. Just grab a couple of you friends, pop in a movie and
wind away.
. . . Anywho, they were winding yarn, sitting on the deck, while the
other members of the crew kept a lookout.
"Well, what I was thinking about was things we need to do," continued
Emily.
"Besides our current project?" inquired Rachael.
"Yes," affirmed Emily, "Would you like to hear my list?"
"Sure."
Emily took her Amy Brown Faerie Journal that her sister got her for
Christmas, and opened it up and commenced to reading in a very
informative tone.
"First, we need to play pinball."
"Oh, definitely!" agreed Rachie, Oliver and Dom.
"I thought maybe when we got to France, we could see if they sold
pinball machines there?"
The others affirmed that this was a wonderful plan, and Emmy
continued.
"We also need to do laundry."
"I agree to that! I'm running out of bikinis and pajamas and . . . hmm
. . . that seems to be all we wear, isn't it?" said Rachael.
"True, but you know you should always wear clean everything."
Rachael agreed, and said she would "do laundry" (if ya'll know what I
mean) that afternoon.
"Finally, we need to go to a gym."
Rachael was nodding and agreeing, but Oliver and Dominic looked up,
confused.
"Why do we need to go to a gym?"
"Oh, exercise, all that fun stuff," said Emmy, in an off-hand manner.
"But we get enough exercise running the ship!" exclaimed Dom.
"Or do you?" chorused Rachie and Emily, tilting their heads and making
an inquisitive face.
"Well, yeah, I mean for starters, we run-" began Oliver.
"Or do you?" chorused Rachie and Emily again, tilting their heads and
making an inquisitive face.
"Yeah, and climbing into the-"
"Or do you?" chorused Rachie and Emily again, tilting their heads and
making an inquisitive face.
"Yeah, I mean-"
This time it was Dom who interrupted, knowing that Oliver was new and
didn't quite understand the captains yet.
"Just leave it, mate," he said, kindly, "You'll never win."
"Well," said Emily, "I'd better go tell Aragorn to keep a look out for
a gym."
She got up, neatly folding the afghan, and Rachael rose as well, and
they put the yarn in the bag, and left to go do their duties.
"Should I tell her that you can't find gyms from the ship?" asked
Oliver, quietly.
"Nah," said Dom, "Aragorn will figure out something."
Emily told Aragorn their plan and he agreed, and then they spent some
quality time together, before Emily left to go clean her room. Rachael
got all the dirrrrty clothes of the captains and the crew, and with the
help of her charming washer-men, commenced to begin to wash the laundry.
* * * * *
A few hours later, Aragorn spotted a funny thing off the starboard bow
(EVERYTIME! It just makes me want to DAHNCE, dahling!). He called to
Orlando, who was nearby.
"Er- do you see what I see?" asked Aragorn.
"Way up in the sky, little lamb?"
"This is no time for Christmas carols!" exclaimed Aragorn, "Tell me,
is that a billboard over there?"
Orly looked and sure enough, sticking out of the ocean was a
billboard.
"What does it say?" asked Orly.
Aragorn took out the glass-telescope-Turban-of-Surban type thing (Come
on, people, help me out! What is it called?) and looked at the billboard.
"'See . . . Rock City?'" Aragorn read in disbelief.
"Hmm." Said Orlando, "Well, that's odd."
"Yes."
* * * * *
They would have thought nothing else of it, if several more hadn't
appeared in the afternoon.
"'Lookin' for a work out?'" read Elijah, "'Gym, twenty miles ahead.'"
"Well, there's our gym," said Sinbad.
"Pippin!" called Aragorn.
"Yeah, yeah, I'll go tell the captains." He sighed, resigned.
He went to tell Rachael first, because she was finishing up the
laundry.
"OK, thanks, sweetie," she told him, giving him extra kisses for being
so sweet, "Tell Emma I'll be there in ein paar minuten."
"Okies!" exclaimed Pippin, scampering off to tell Emily the news.
Entering the captains' quarters, he saw Emily sitting in the floor,
folding and putting up the last of the clothes. Hearing him enter, she
turned with a smile.
"Well, it's clean."
"That's good."
"Yeah, Mom will be happy."
"We've found a gym, it's twenty miles away, and Rachael says she'll be
here in . . . uh, 'ein paar minuten.'"
Emily thanked him, explaining that 'ein paar minuten' meant a few
minutes in German, and give him extra kisses for being so cute.
Pippin skipped back to the crew, who were all jealous that he had
gotten extra kisses.
* * * * *
A little bit later, Johnny came down to tell the captains they were
almost there, hoping for extra kisses, (the crew had fought over who got
to deliver the message this time.) He walked in to see them angrily blow-
drying their hair.
"IT'S SO POOFY!" they both screamed, angrily, over the roar of the
hair-dryers.
"Umm, my ladies?" said Johnny, tentatively.
"WHAT?" they yelled, standing up all the way, with their hair poofed
out as a result of the hair-dryers.
"We're almost there."
"Good," they said slightly pacified, "We'll be out in a moment."
They blew him kisses and then continued with the War of the Hair-
Dryer.
* * * * *
Finally, the captains exited their chambers, with non-poofy
hair. (If you don't have curly or extremely thick hair, you have no
idea the horrors of a hair-dryer.) They climbed into the long-boats,
oddly out-fitted for a trip to the gym.
The crew were all wearing T-shirts, Shorts and Tennis Shoes,
whereas Emily was wearing a Flogging Molly T-shirt and jeans, with a
Pointe shoe ribbon in her (not poofy) hair; and Rachael was wearing
jeans, a cute pink shirt and a leather jacket.
"Er-" began Arthur.
"Don't bother," warned Oliver.
They rowed to shore with only minor mishaps ("Grr-this wind
blows my hair into my face and then it gets stuck in my lip-gloss!")
and after docking, they went to check in.
The crew decided to play basketball first, so they went down to
the gym. The crew pleaded with Rachael or Emily to play, but instead
they sat down on the bleachers, pulling colouring books and crayons
out of their satchels, chatting happily.
"No, no, you guys go ahead," said Rachael.
"We'll watch!" said Emily, "and tell you what a good job you're
doing!"
Slightly mollified, the crew agreed and decided it would be
Aragorn, Orlando, Pippin, Sinbad and Johnny versus Elijah, Ian,
Dominic, Oliver, and Arthur. They began playing and it wasn't long
before all the shirts came off. (If you've ever been trapped in the
gym, waiting for the winter guard's turn for the floor, you know it
doesn't take long.)
After noting this key point, Emily and Rachael returned to
talking and colouring. Occasionally one of the crew would run over and
say something like, "Did you see me? Did you see me?" and the girls
would pretend like the knew what he was talking about and blow kisses
and cheer, promptly returning to their state of not-paying-attention
when they left.
When Pippin ran over (he had made a goal!) Emily and Rachie ran
down to congratulate him, and as they did they noticed a great thing:
they guys all got to slap each other on the butts during the course of
the game. After giving Pippin congratulations kisses, they ran out
onto the floor, smacked as many butts as they could reach, and then
run back to their seats.
The men looked at each other, saying "Uh.ok." and then continued
to play.
Emmy and Rachie's façade of paying attention was working fine
until Rachael said something funny. After laughing maniacally, Emily
commented that she needed to write that down. Unfortunately, she
didn't have her Faerie journal.
"Just write it on my face," said Rach.
"Like a mustache!" exclaimed Emily.
With explosive laughter, Emily wrote the joke on Rach's face,
curving and twisting; it was quite funny, come to think of it.
However, this did cause the crew to notice that their faithful
captains were not paying attention.
"HEY!" exclaimed Johnny, "You said you'd pay attention!"
Emily looked up from Rachael's chin, where she was adding a
matching goatee. "We are, honey."
The crew made various sounds of disbelief, and Arthur asked, "Oh
yeah, what's the score?"
Emily and Rachael looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"Er-it's, um-" thought Emily.
"Seven to twenty-three!" exclaimed Rachael, triumphantly.
"NO- it's nineteen to twenty-nine!" exclaimed Orlando.
"You could at least pay attention, be cheerleaders or
something!" said Sinbad.
"Ooo!" they exclaimed, "FUN! We'll be right back!"
(They never pass up an opportunity to make fun of cheerleaders.)
"Uh-oh." said the crew, as Emily and Rachael got up and ran out,
but they continued playing until the girls made quite a ruckus as they
came back.
"Eeck, mine's too small!" exclaimed Rachael.
"Sorry, the only uniforms I have are from seventh grade stock!"
Emily told her as she adjusted her own too-small purple and gold
uniform.
The men looked up to see their captains clad in uniforms from
former cheerleading days, which were mainly purple with "FLASH" across
the chest in "gold" (also known as mustard) which is very, very,
ironic, if you think about it, they had pleated skirts and all that
fun stuff.
"Wanna see us do a cheer?" asked Rach.
"Uh . . .ok," said the crew.
"Just like in rehearsals," commented Emily as she and Rachael
took their positions. They took a deep breath and began.
"Pull down that rebound,
"And give me a kiss!
"Pull you pants,
"And give me a-"
They trailed off.
"Well- hang on, we'll think of another one."
So the men continued playing, and Emily and Rachael thought.
"Ooo! Ooo!" the squealed and took their positions.
"We've got the ball,
"Let's go for a
"HOO-HA!
"We've got the ball,
(dun-dun)
"HOO-HA!"
"We're number one!" they chorused, "Super Number One China Buffet! Hooray! Spirit Fingers! Jazz hands!"
"Ah . . . that was very good," complimented the men.
"Thanks!"
Yet again, the men resumed play, occasionally traveling near the girls who would, like REAL cheerleaders, squeal and duck, even though the ball was like twenty feet away.
"Ooo! Ooo!" they squealed, a few minutes later, "We thought of another one!"
The men stopped and waited.
"We've got the ball,
"Let's go for a touchdown,
"We've got the ball
(dun-dun)
"Let's touch!"
"We're number one!" they chorused, "Super Number One China Buffet!
Hooray! Spirit Fingers! Jazz hands!"
"Err, that was very good," said Sir Ian, "but there aren't any touch
downs in basketball."
"Oh. . ." said the girls, disappointed, "Well, we'll think of
another!"
"No!" the men chorused quickly, before Aragorn amended,
"Ah- we're done with basketball . . . we thought we'd check out the
rest of the gym."
"OH!" said the girls, "Well, let's go!"
* * * * *
Authoress' Notes: Well, that was fun, and most of it was based on what I did last night, except we didn't actually wear the old uniforms!! Thanks
to all who have read, and thanks to kingmaker for his nice review. His
review does raise one question, though: What is a Mary-Sue? I've seen
this all over the site, and I'm not sure what that is. I assume it's a
bad-ish thing?? And please if anyone knows what the glass-telescope- Turban-of-Surban thing is, let me know, either in a review or email me at
fanresponse_47@hotmail.com ! Thanks, love as always!
P.S. Lan, I gave Pippin extra kisses, just like I told you I would.
You'll have to wait until New Year's for yours!!