A/N: Okay, here's the chapter. It's not as good as the other ones...sorry. And I decided to not even try to make them un-gay because that would just mess the whole thing up.
Legolas and Gimli sat in their rocking chairs, each on their own half of the room (Gimli got the one with the slide that actually had a little house underneath it which positively fascinated the dwarf) awaiting the arrival of the children. It was almost six-thirty when Elrond burst into the room, panting, out of breath, and holding a pink thing in his hand.
"I almost forgot!" he gasped. "You two need your uniforms!"
"Uniforms?" Gimli asked, confused.
"Yes, see?" Elrond held up the pink smocks for them to see.
"PINK! PRETTY!" Gimli cried. He swiped the smock from Elrond's hand.
"No way. I'm am NOT wearing PINK! I am a MAN!" Legolas cried. He struck a "manly" pose.
Elrond gave him a strange look. "You're an elf. No, no, Gimli. That one isn't yours. They have your names on them, see?" Elrond unfolded the one in his hand. It said "Gimli, Son of Gloin: Secondary Caregiver-One Year Olds".
"What? I'm secondary?" sputtered Gimli.
"Yeah," said Legolas, who was looking at the one Gimli had handed him. "And I'm primary!"
"How come he's primary and I'm secondary?" Gimli demanded angrily.
"Because he's an elf and you're a dwarf." Elrond said sweetly. "Plus, he's prettier."
"That makes sense." Gimli remarked. "Now, let me put this on...it's so pretty!"
Elrond turned to Legolas, who was reluctantly buttoning his uniform. "Now, some of the parents may not be too happy about leaving their children with a dwarf, so you have to convince them that it's okay. That's why you're the primary caregiver-"
"-Elrond?"
"That's LORD Elrond to you, dwarf!"
"Yeah, um, Lord Elrond, I don't really think this fits."
"Nonsense, it's one size fits...all..." Elrond and Legolas turned to look at Gimli. The shirt hung down past his knees, but was waaaaaaaay too tight across the chest and stomach, in fact, buttons were bursting off before their very eyes. "Um..." said Elrond. "Why don't you just wear it unbuttoned for now?"
"Okay." Said Gimli, looking doubtful.
"Well, I'll be leaving now! Don't take off your uniforms!" Elrond swept out of the room.
As soon as he was out the door, Legolas pulled off his uniform. "There is NO WAY I am going to wear that!"
"Aww...but Leggy, you looked so cute!" said Gimli.
"Don't you DARE call me that!"
"What's the matter, Leggy? Are we in a bad mood today?"
Legolas dashed over to the counter, picked up one of his knives, and hurled it at Gimli, who let out a shriek and threw himself into the little house underneath the slide. The knife embedded itself in the plastic.
"Oh...my." Legolas turned around to see an elf woman standing at the door, holding the hand of a little elf girl. She was staring in complete shock at Gimli and the knife fixed in the plastic slide. "Is this...is this the one-year-old class?"
"Yes," said Legolas, pulling on his uniform again. "Um, I'm Legolas of Mirkwood, and that's Gimli...Gimli, come out please."
Gimli tried to exit through the same little window he had come in, but soon discovered that without the running start he'd had before, his shoulders just would not fit through. "Um, I'm actually, um...cleaning! Yes, we have to clean everything in the classroom before the children come and I'm just finishing up!" he smiled falsely at the elf mother and tried to go back into the house, but couldn't move either way. Finally, he managed to wriggle his way back into the little house, and sat there in a very cramped position pretending to clean.
Legolas, seeing the situation Gimli was in said "Yes, why don't you just leave her here with us, and everything will be just fine!"
"Okay..." said the mother, still looking very unsure. "Well, this is Onna, she's fourteen months, and just to warn you, she'll probably cry for a while."
"Oh goody." Said Legolas under his breath. "I'm sure she'll be okay." He said to the mother.
The elf woman picked her daughter up and said "Mommy has to go keep Lord Elrond from going insane. You're going to stay here and play, and Mommy will be-"
Onna didn't even let her mother finish the sentence. As soon as she caught sight of Legolas, she reached her arms out to him.
"Onna, listen to me." The elf tried to get her daughter's attention back, but it wasn't working. The little girl struggled out of her mother's arms and ran straight to Legolas, reaching up to him. He picked her up, and she put her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder. "Well...I guess she'll be okay then." Her mother said, looking slightly hurt. She turned and left.
"Hey Onna? Can I put you down?" Legolas asked hesitantly. "We need to go help Gimli get out of that...thing." he said. He set the little girl on the ground, but she clung onto his hand and wouldn't let go. "Well, I guess this is better than nothing." He said to himself. He and Onna walked VERY slowly (Onna wasn't the worlds greatest walker) over to Gimli. Legolas surveyed the situation and said "Okay, dude, you can just lift the slide up and crawl under it."
"I can?" said Gimli, bewildered.
"Yes, it really isn't that heavy."
"Okay, whatever you say Leggy...erm, Prince Legolas." Gimli placed his hands on the ceiling of the little house and pushed the slide up. To his amazement, it was incredibly light and he was able to get out, although he did tip over the slide in the process.
"Um...hi?"
Legolas and Gimli whipped around to see four more mothers, each with three children.
"Oh, hi, uh, just cleaning the slide!" Gimli said cheerfully.
Legolas picked Onna up again and walked over to the mothers. "Hi, I'm Legolas of Mirkwood, and this is Gimli and we...um, yeah. We'll be taking care of your kids."
"Oh, they're not our kids. We just picked them up off the streets."
"Then how do you know that they're one year old?" Gimli asked.
"We don't, but we're guessing."
"Okay...that works too, I guess." Said Legolas, slightly confused. "Um, you can just leave them here and they'll be fine."
"Okay!" said one of the mothers. She pushed the three children into the room and the rest of the mothers followed suit. Then they all scampered out the door.
Immediately one of the little girls began to cry. Gimli waltzed over to her and lifted her up. "Aren't you just the most precious thing?" he said in a falsetto voice. The girl screamed and wriggled out of his arms. She landed on the ground (which wasn't too far away from Gimli's arms) and ran over to the door, trying in vain to reach the handle.
Legolas looked at Gimli. "Um, do you want me to try to calm her down?" he asked doubtfully.
"You better." Gimli went back to sit in his rocking chair by the slide. Two of the little boys followed him and began to play with some building blocks.
Legolas set Onna on the ground and turned back to the screaming girl. He gently touched her shoulder and she turned around. The moment she saw his face, she stopped crying. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his leg. Onna, who seemed to be a bit jealous, toddled over and wrapped her arms around his other leg. Legolas, with a lot of difficulty, managed to detach them. Onna reached up to him and he picked her up. The other little girl, who seemed to be a lot older than Onna, walked over to one of the shelves and sat playing with a teething ring (but not teething on it).
"Wait, okay," said Legolas, "we need to put the older children on your side and the younger ones on mine."
"Yeah, alright." Said Gimli. He looked around him and saw that the children had divided themselves up, boys on one side, girls on the other. "Um, we don't really know how old they are..." he said to himself. He looked around and immediately saw that one of the little boys wasn't even walking yet. He grabbed him around the middle and picked him up. "You get to go hang out with Leggy, isn't that great?" he said to the baby. Gimli walked up to the wall and set the baby down on Legolas' side.
Legolas looked at all of the girls. Most of them needed to go on Gimli's side. He put Onna down and picked up one of the older girls. He set her down over the wall next to Gimli. She began to scream and tried to climb over the wall. Meanwhile, the baby that Gimli had set down started crying also.
Legolas and Gimli looked at each other. "Maybe we should just let them go where they want to."
"Yeah, okay." Legolas picked the girl back up and she instantly stopped crying. The same thing occurred with Gimli and the boy.
As all of this was taking place, more and more children were arriving. By six thirty-four, Legolas had counted thirty-nine lovely blonde heads (including his own) and one ugly orangey-brown one (that one was Gimli's).
Legolas and Gimli sat back and watched the children play happily together for a couple of hours. There was the occasional squabble over a toy, and a few tears, but mostly the elf and the dwarf just relaxed. As he relaxed, Legolas heard with his lovely, and quite accurate, elven ears many different sounds coming from other rooms. From the baby room he heard lots of crying and screaming, and the sound of Gandalf yelling at Pippin. From the two-year-old room he could hear shrieks and laughter, and the sounds of Merry and Sam fighting. The three-year-old room was what most intrigued him, however. He heard screams and yells, swords swishing through the air, and lots of shouting coming from Aragorn. He wasn't quite sure what all of the swords were for, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know either.
Legolas soon fell asleep. The room was full of quiet and content children, and he hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night, so he felt it was okay to do so. All too soon (or so it seemed to him) he was shaken awake by Gimli.
"Legolas, these kids are hungry."
"Give them a snack."
"They're tired too."
"After snack time, have naptime."
"You're so smart! That's what I love about you!" Gimli skipped over to the counter and opened the bag of cookies. "Okay, everyone! Come sit down and I'll give you a cookie!" All of the little boys (except for the ones too young to understand) rushed over and sat down on the rug. "Legolas, the girls will only listen to you."
"Okay," he said "Girls, come sit down." Most of them obeyed.
It took a while for Legolas and Gimli to get the littler children to sit down, but it was finally accomplished. Gimli handed out cookies, and Legolas handed out sippie cups of apple juice. Then they sat down on the floor to feed the younger ones. All was peaceful.
"You know, Gimli, I really wonder what is going on in the three-year-old class." Legolas said, as he handed cheerios, one-by-one, to Onna who was seated in his lap.
"I don't know. I thought I heard breaking glass a few minutes ago, but I could be wrong."
"I don't think you are. I heard it too."
"Poor Frodo." Gimli said, disentangling the baby in his lap's hand from his beard. "He just got back from saving the world and nearly died, and just when he thought he was finally going to get some rest and relaxation, they tell him to teach pre-school."
"Yeah, well, I feel really bad for Aragorn. He totally had it made. I mean, King of Gondor, really hot wife, tons of money and all that stuff, and now he's running around chasing after a bunch of three-year-olds." Legolas pushed Onna's hand out of his face. "Stop it, I don't want them!" he said, as she tried yet again to feed him a cheerio.
"We're pretty lucky though. I mean, this has got to be the best class. They're all so quiet!"
"Yeah. But be careful, they might start crying again!"
After snack time was over, and Legolas and Gimli had managed to clean all of the crumbs off of the floor, they began the difficult task of getting the children to take naps. There were four cribs, and then some mats and blankets that Elrond had given them to use. Gimli put two boys into cribs and somehow got the rest to spread out on the floor. Legolas had a much easier time getting the girls to lie down on the floor. He put one baby into a crib, tried to put Onna in the other one, but she wouldn't let go of him, so he finally gave up, and sat down in his rocking chair with her on his lap. Gimli turned out the lights, and then sat back down in his chair, spreading a lovely pink blanket over himself.
Most of the children on the floor fell asleep quite easily, and the rest were at least still and quiet, but Onna was another story. She would not stop moving around. She kept pulling Legolas' hair, and hitting him in the face. When he tried to put her down, she would grab onto his leg and climb back up again. After about twenty minutes, she finally got tired of this, and let her head fall back onto his chest. A few minutes later she was asleep. Legolas said a silent thank you to the gods.
Just as soon as everyone had calmed down, the door was flung open. Sam came rushing in, followed by Merry and a whole bunch of two-year-olds. "WE'VE LOST ONE OF OUR KIDS!!!" He cried. "HAVE YOU SEEN HER?"
All of the one-year-olds woke up, and most of them started crying. Gimli tried to settle them down, while Legolas took Sam out into the hallway to talk. Onna, who did not seem to like Sam very much, tightened her grip around Legolas' neck and buried her head in his shoulder. "Okay, Sam, thank you so much for waking up our class." He said sarcastically. "Now, what was your problem again?"
"We can't find one of our kids!" answered Merry, who was trying to get all of the two-year-olds out of Legolas and Gimli's classroom.
"Why can't you find him...her?"
"Well, you see, we decided to take the kids outside to let out some of their energy..." Sam trailed off.
"It was his idea!" said Merry, giving Sam a dirty look.
"And we came back inside..." Sam shot a dirty look back at Merry.
"And when we counted, we only had thirty-four and we really have to find this kid now!" Merry finished.
"Sorry guys, but I haven't seen her. And Gimli and I are kind of busy at the moment, so we can't help you look either." Legolas went back into the classroom and began trying to calm down the girls. He finally succeeded, and also managed to get Onna to stay in a crib, though he had to sit in his chair right next to her, or she'd try to climb out.
The children stayed asleep for a surprisingly long time. Finally, they began to whine, and Gimli turned the lights back on. Once again, the children separated themselves into boys and girls, and played very peacefully. Legolas and Gimli were very happy with their class and the way things were going so far.
Soon, they began hearing the sound of multiple babies crying coming from out in the hallway. The cries would die down and then get louder again. At first, Legolas and Gimli chose to ignore them, as they were not really interested in helping anyone else with their class, but finally, Legolas could stand it no longer. "I'm going to see who that is and what is going on." He told Gimli. Onna reached up to Legolas, and he once again picked her up. Then he walked to the door, and opened it just a tiny bit. He saw the strangest sight he had ever seen in his life.
It was Pippin, pushing two baby strollers, three babies in each, WITH HIS KNEES and holding one baby in each arm. He was inching up the hallway, looking very nervous. One of the babies began to whine. "No! You cannot start crying! PLEASE don't start crying!" Pippin murmured.
"Pippin!" said Legolas.
Pippin jumped and turned around in a full circle before he saw Legolas. The babies in his arms had started to cry again.
"Having fun?" he asked. Legolas opened the door all the way. Onna, seeing Pippin, began to giggle like crazy. She ran her hands through Legolas's hair.
Pippin looked at Legolas wearily. "Yeah, it's just great." He answered.
"Well, it really is going great in here! Hardly anybody's crying anymore! We're having a great time, aren't we Onna?" he tickled her. She giggled harder and then pulled his hair really hard. "Ow! Pippin, why don't you come into our room? Gimli loves babies, and I'm sure we could help get some of these guys quiet. Onna, let's look at the babies!"
Pippin followed Legolas into the one-year-old room. Legolas and Gimli helped quiet down all of the babies very quickly. Pippin looked amazed.
"So, how's it been going with Gandalf?" Gimli asked once all of the babies were quiet and content.
"Oh god, don't even talk about him!" Pippin shook his head. "He's driving me crazy. He thinks he knows everything, which he probably does, but he expects me to know everything too! And we have so many babies, oh, I have the worst headache. They just will not stop crying. We had to feed all of them and that was really difficult because most of them are too heavy for me to lift. And then Gandalf told me to walk up and down the hall with all these babies. I really hope I didn't disturb your class, but I wasn't about to disobey him, you know..."
Gimli and Legolas listened to Pippin spill out his soul (well, not really spill out his soul, but they listened to him complain about Gandalf) for a while. It actually got quite boring and annoying after a while, so they were really very happy when Pippin's story was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in!" cried Gimli in a girly voice.
Elrond swept through the door. "Just making sure everyone is wearing their uniforms!" He surveyed the room. "Good, good. Glad to see that everyone is following the rules!" He swept out as quickly as he had swept in.
"Okay..." said Pippin. "Anyway, on with my story-"
"I have a better idea." Said Gimli. "Let's talk about something less depressing!"
So they talked and talked. They talked about old times, when they were on their first mission for Elrond (which had proved to be a lot more fun than the current one). They talked about what they had been doing since, and had a few good laughs. Pippin was in the middle of telling them about Merry's sad and unfortunate love life when the door banged open. "Gimli, I need to borrow your axe!" said Aragorn.
"What? Borrow my axe?"
"Yes. These kids are killing me!"
"I won't ask." Said Gimli, getting up to retrieve his axe.
"Thank you so much!" said Aragorn, taking the axe. "Hey, I don't know if you heard, but Sam and Merry found that kid they lost."
"Oh really? That's good to hear! Where was she?" asked Gimli.
"Well, you see, THEY weren't the ones who actually found her...Elrond did!" Aragorn said, smirking.
Legolas laughed. "He wasn't too happy, was he?"
"Definitely not. Apparently, she interrupted some big important council. Elrond was really mad."
"I bet. He really likes his councils."
"Yeah, he marched her back up here. I saw him coming in with her and yelling at Sam and Merry when I was in their room borrowing some cookies. Sam and Merry don't really seem to be getting along at all." He shook his head. "They're worse than you and Gandalf." He added, looking at Pippin.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash and a bunch of shrieks, followed by the sound of screams and cries.
"Oh god, not another window! I've gotta go help Frodo get this under control. Thanks for the axe!" Aragorn dashed out into the hallway.
"Well, that was...interesting." said Gimli.
A little while later, Pippin decided that he had to leave because it was almost time for the "parents" to come pick up the children. Legolas and Gimli helped him get the babies back in the strollers, he picked the two littlest ones up, and then inched out into the hallway.
"Well," said Legolas to Gimli. "It's been an interesting and tiring day, but we better get all of this stuff cleaned up before the parents get here." They were able to get every single toy picked up and put back on the shelf a few seconds before the first parents arrived. They were very proud of themselves.
By five-thirty, all of the children except for two, Onna and the little boy who couldn't walk, had been picked up. Legolas thought he had seen Onna's mother come in and take another little girl, but he couldn't be sure. Suddenly, Elrond came into the room.
"Come on! We're having a council to discuss your first day at work!" he cried excitedly.
"You really like councils, don't you?" Gimli said.
"I most certainly do. Council is such a nice word. It means 'an appointed or elected body of people with an administrative advisory, or representative function.' Isn't that a nice definition?"
"Sure." Said Legolas. "But there's just a tiny problem." He gestured towards Onna and the little boy, who were playing together on the floor. "Their parents haven't come yet."
"Oh, well if they haven't come yet, they probably forgot about them. Just bring them with you to the council. It's not a problem!" Elrond flashed them a smile.
"What? But what if their parents do come?"
"Then they will assume that someone else has picked up their child and they will not care. I told you, it's not a problem. Now come on!"
Legolas and Gimli looked at each other. "Whatever." and they followed Elrond.
A/N: YAY! Finished with that one. Next chapter is about Sam and Merry, and it may not be up until Monday, just depending on what stuff I have to do this weekend.
Legolas and Gimli sat in their rocking chairs, each on their own half of the room (Gimli got the one with the slide that actually had a little house underneath it which positively fascinated the dwarf) awaiting the arrival of the children. It was almost six-thirty when Elrond burst into the room, panting, out of breath, and holding a pink thing in his hand.
"I almost forgot!" he gasped. "You two need your uniforms!"
"Uniforms?" Gimli asked, confused.
"Yes, see?" Elrond held up the pink smocks for them to see.
"PINK! PRETTY!" Gimli cried. He swiped the smock from Elrond's hand.
"No way. I'm am NOT wearing PINK! I am a MAN!" Legolas cried. He struck a "manly" pose.
Elrond gave him a strange look. "You're an elf. No, no, Gimli. That one isn't yours. They have your names on them, see?" Elrond unfolded the one in his hand. It said "Gimli, Son of Gloin: Secondary Caregiver-One Year Olds".
"What? I'm secondary?" sputtered Gimli.
"Yeah," said Legolas, who was looking at the one Gimli had handed him. "And I'm primary!"
"How come he's primary and I'm secondary?" Gimli demanded angrily.
"Because he's an elf and you're a dwarf." Elrond said sweetly. "Plus, he's prettier."
"That makes sense." Gimli remarked. "Now, let me put this on...it's so pretty!"
Elrond turned to Legolas, who was reluctantly buttoning his uniform. "Now, some of the parents may not be too happy about leaving their children with a dwarf, so you have to convince them that it's okay. That's why you're the primary caregiver-"
"-Elrond?"
"That's LORD Elrond to you, dwarf!"
"Yeah, um, Lord Elrond, I don't really think this fits."
"Nonsense, it's one size fits...all..." Elrond and Legolas turned to look at Gimli. The shirt hung down past his knees, but was waaaaaaaay too tight across the chest and stomach, in fact, buttons were bursting off before their very eyes. "Um..." said Elrond. "Why don't you just wear it unbuttoned for now?"
"Okay." Said Gimli, looking doubtful.
"Well, I'll be leaving now! Don't take off your uniforms!" Elrond swept out of the room.
As soon as he was out the door, Legolas pulled off his uniform. "There is NO WAY I am going to wear that!"
"Aww...but Leggy, you looked so cute!" said Gimli.
"Don't you DARE call me that!"
"What's the matter, Leggy? Are we in a bad mood today?"
Legolas dashed over to the counter, picked up one of his knives, and hurled it at Gimli, who let out a shriek and threw himself into the little house underneath the slide. The knife embedded itself in the plastic.
"Oh...my." Legolas turned around to see an elf woman standing at the door, holding the hand of a little elf girl. She was staring in complete shock at Gimli and the knife fixed in the plastic slide. "Is this...is this the one-year-old class?"
"Yes," said Legolas, pulling on his uniform again. "Um, I'm Legolas of Mirkwood, and that's Gimli...Gimli, come out please."
Gimli tried to exit through the same little window he had come in, but soon discovered that without the running start he'd had before, his shoulders just would not fit through. "Um, I'm actually, um...cleaning! Yes, we have to clean everything in the classroom before the children come and I'm just finishing up!" he smiled falsely at the elf mother and tried to go back into the house, but couldn't move either way. Finally, he managed to wriggle his way back into the little house, and sat there in a very cramped position pretending to clean.
Legolas, seeing the situation Gimli was in said "Yes, why don't you just leave her here with us, and everything will be just fine!"
"Okay..." said the mother, still looking very unsure. "Well, this is Onna, she's fourteen months, and just to warn you, she'll probably cry for a while."
"Oh goody." Said Legolas under his breath. "I'm sure she'll be okay." He said to the mother.
The elf woman picked her daughter up and said "Mommy has to go keep Lord Elrond from going insane. You're going to stay here and play, and Mommy will be-"
Onna didn't even let her mother finish the sentence. As soon as she caught sight of Legolas, she reached her arms out to him.
"Onna, listen to me." The elf tried to get her daughter's attention back, but it wasn't working. The little girl struggled out of her mother's arms and ran straight to Legolas, reaching up to him. He picked her up, and she put her arms around his neck, resting her head on his shoulder. "Well...I guess she'll be okay then." Her mother said, looking slightly hurt. She turned and left.
"Hey Onna? Can I put you down?" Legolas asked hesitantly. "We need to go help Gimli get out of that...thing." he said. He set the little girl on the ground, but she clung onto his hand and wouldn't let go. "Well, I guess this is better than nothing." He said to himself. He and Onna walked VERY slowly (Onna wasn't the worlds greatest walker) over to Gimli. Legolas surveyed the situation and said "Okay, dude, you can just lift the slide up and crawl under it."
"I can?" said Gimli, bewildered.
"Yes, it really isn't that heavy."
"Okay, whatever you say Leggy...erm, Prince Legolas." Gimli placed his hands on the ceiling of the little house and pushed the slide up. To his amazement, it was incredibly light and he was able to get out, although he did tip over the slide in the process.
"Um...hi?"
Legolas and Gimli whipped around to see four more mothers, each with three children.
"Oh, hi, uh, just cleaning the slide!" Gimli said cheerfully.
Legolas picked Onna up again and walked over to the mothers. "Hi, I'm Legolas of Mirkwood, and this is Gimli and we...um, yeah. We'll be taking care of your kids."
"Oh, they're not our kids. We just picked them up off the streets."
"Then how do you know that they're one year old?" Gimli asked.
"We don't, but we're guessing."
"Okay...that works too, I guess." Said Legolas, slightly confused. "Um, you can just leave them here and they'll be fine."
"Okay!" said one of the mothers. She pushed the three children into the room and the rest of the mothers followed suit. Then they all scampered out the door.
Immediately one of the little girls began to cry. Gimli waltzed over to her and lifted her up. "Aren't you just the most precious thing?" he said in a falsetto voice. The girl screamed and wriggled out of his arms. She landed on the ground (which wasn't too far away from Gimli's arms) and ran over to the door, trying in vain to reach the handle.
Legolas looked at Gimli. "Um, do you want me to try to calm her down?" he asked doubtfully.
"You better." Gimli went back to sit in his rocking chair by the slide. Two of the little boys followed him and began to play with some building blocks.
Legolas set Onna on the ground and turned back to the screaming girl. He gently touched her shoulder and she turned around. The moment she saw his face, she stopped crying. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his leg. Onna, who seemed to be a bit jealous, toddled over and wrapped her arms around his other leg. Legolas, with a lot of difficulty, managed to detach them. Onna reached up to him and he picked her up. The other little girl, who seemed to be a lot older than Onna, walked over to one of the shelves and sat playing with a teething ring (but not teething on it).
"Wait, okay," said Legolas, "we need to put the older children on your side and the younger ones on mine."
"Yeah, alright." Said Gimli. He looked around him and saw that the children had divided themselves up, boys on one side, girls on the other. "Um, we don't really know how old they are..." he said to himself. He looked around and immediately saw that one of the little boys wasn't even walking yet. He grabbed him around the middle and picked him up. "You get to go hang out with Leggy, isn't that great?" he said to the baby. Gimli walked up to the wall and set the baby down on Legolas' side.
Legolas looked at all of the girls. Most of them needed to go on Gimli's side. He put Onna down and picked up one of the older girls. He set her down over the wall next to Gimli. She began to scream and tried to climb over the wall. Meanwhile, the baby that Gimli had set down started crying also.
Legolas and Gimli looked at each other. "Maybe we should just let them go where they want to."
"Yeah, okay." Legolas picked the girl back up and she instantly stopped crying. The same thing occurred with Gimli and the boy.
As all of this was taking place, more and more children were arriving. By six thirty-four, Legolas had counted thirty-nine lovely blonde heads (including his own) and one ugly orangey-brown one (that one was Gimli's).
Legolas and Gimli sat back and watched the children play happily together for a couple of hours. There was the occasional squabble over a toy, and a few tears, but mostly the elf and the dwarf just relaxed. As he relaxed, Legolas heard with his lovely, and quite accurate, elven ears many different sounds coming from other rooms. From the baby room he heard lots of crying and screaming, and the sound of Gandalf yelling at Pippin. From the two-year-old room he could hear shrieks and laughter, and the sounds of Merry and Sam fighting. The three-year-old room was what most intrigued him, however. He heard screams and yells, swords swishing through the air, and lots of shouting coming from Aragorn. He wasn't quite sure what all of the swords were for, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know either.
Legolas soon fell asleep. The room was full of quiet and content children, and he hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night, so he felt it was okay to do so. All too soon (or so it seemed to him) he was shaken awake by Gimli.
"Legolas, these kids are hungry."
"Give them a snack."
"They're tired too."
"After snack time, have naptime."
"You're so smart! That's what I love about you!" Gimli skipped over to the counter and opened the bag of cookies. "Okay, everyone! Come sit down and I'll give you a cookie!" All of the little boys (except for the ones too young to understand) rushed over and sat down on the rug. "Legolas, the girls will only listen to you."
"Okay," he said "Girls, come sit down." Most of them obeyed.
It took a while for Legolas and Gimli to get the littler children to sit down, but it was finally accomplished. Gimli handed out cookies, and Legolas handed out sippie cups of apple juice. Then they sat down on the floor to feed the younger ones. All was peaceful.
"You know, Gimli, I really wonder what is going on in the three-year-old class." Legolas said, as he handed cheerios, one-by-one, to Onna who was seated in his lap.
"I don't know. I thought I heard breaking glass a few minutes ago, but I could be wrong."
"I don't think you are. I heard it too."
"Poor Frodo." Gimli said, disentangling the baby in his lap's hand from his beard. "He just got back from saving the world and nearly died, and just when he thought he was finally going to get some rest and relaxation, they tell him to teach pre-school."
"Yeah, well, I feel really bad for Aragorn. He totally had it made. I mean, King of Gondor, really hot wife, tons of money and all that stuff, and now he's running around chasing after a bunch of three-year-olds." Legolas pushed Onna's hand out of his face. "Stop it, I don't want them!" he said, as she tried yet again to feed him a cheerio.
"We're pretty lucky though. I mean, this has got to be the best class. They're all so quiet!"
"Yeah. But be careful, they might start crying again!"
After snack time was over, and Legolas and Gimli had managed to clean all of the crumbs off of the floor, they began the difficult task of getting the children to take naps. There were four cribs, and then some mats and blankets that Elrond had given them to use. Gimli put two boys into cribs and somehow got the rest to spread out on the floor. Legolas had a much easier time getting the girls to lie down on the floor. He put one baby into a crib, tried to put Onna in the other one, but she wouldn't let go of him, so he finally gave up, and sat down in his rocking chair with her on his lap. Gimli turned out the lights, and then sat back down in his chair, spreading a lovely pink blanket over himself.
Most of the children on the floor fell asleep quite easily, and the rest were at least still and quiet, but Onna was another story. She would not stop moving around. She kept pulling Legolas' hair, and hitting him in the face. When he tried to put her down, she would grab onto his leg and climb back up again. After about twenty minutes, she finally got tired of this, and let her head fall back onto his chest. A few minutes later she was asleep. Legolas said a silent thank you to the gods.
Just as soon as everyone had calmed down, the door was flung open. Sam came rushing in, followed by Merry and a whole bunch of two-year-olds. "WE'VE LOST ONE OF OUR KIDS!!!" He cried. "HAVE YOU SEEN HER?"
All of the one-year-olds woke up, and most of them started crying. Gimli tried to settle them down, while Legolas took Sam out into the hallway to talk. Onna, who did not seem to like Sam very much, tightened her grip around Legolas' neck and buried her head in his shoulder. "Okay, Sam, thank you so much for waking up our class." He said sarcastically. "Now, what was your problem again?"
"We can't find one of our kids!" answered Merry, who was trying to get all of the two-year-olds out of Legolas and Gimli's classroom.
"Why can't you find him...her?"
"Well, you see, we decided to take the kids outside to let out some of their energy..." Sam trailed off.
"It was his idea!" said Merry, giving Sam a dirty look.
"And we came back inside..." Sam shot a dirty look back at Merry.
"And when we counted, we only had thirty-four and we really have to find this kid now!" Merry finished.
"Sorry guys, but I haven't seen her. And Gimli and I are kind of busy at the moment, so we can't help you look either." Legolas went back into the classroom and began trying to calm down the girls. He finally succeeded, and also managed to get Onna to stay in a crib, though he had to sit in his chair right next to her, or she'd try to climb out.
The children stayed asleep for a surprisingly long time. Finally, they began to whine, and Gimli turned the lights back on. Once again, the children separated themselves into boys and girls, and played very peacefully. Legolas and Gimli were very happy with their class and the way things were going so far.
Soon, they began hearing the sound of multiple babies crying coming from out in the hallway. The cries would die down and then get louder again. At first, Legolas and Gimli chose to ignore them, as they were not really interested in helping anyone else with their class, but finally, Legolas could stand it no longer. "I'm going to see who that is and what is going on." He told Gimli. Onna reached up to Legolas, and he once again picked her up. Then he walked to the door, and opened it just a tiny bit. He saw the strangest sight he had ever seen in his life.
It was Pippin, pushing two baby strollers, three babies in each, WITH HIS KNEES and holding one baby in each arm. He was inching up the hallway, looking very nervous. One of the babies began to whine. "No! You cannot start crying! PLEASE don't start crying!" Pippin murmured.
"Pippin!" said Legolas.
Pippin jumped and turned around in a full circle before he saw Legolas. The babies in his arms had started to cry again.
"Having fun?" he asked. Legolas opened the door all the way. Onna, seeing Pippin, began to giggle like crazy. She ran her hands through Legolas's hair.
Pippin looked at Legolas wearily. "Yeah, it's just great." He answered.
"Well, it really is going great in here! Hardly anybody's crying anymore! We're having a great time, aren't we Onna?" he tickled her. She giggled harder and then pulled his hair really hard. "Ow! Pippin, why don't you come into our room? Gimli loves babies, and I'm sure we could help get some of these guys quiet. Onna, let's look at the babies!"
Pippin followed Legolas into the one-year-old room. Legolas and Gimli helped quiet down all of the babies very quickly. Pippin looked amazed.
"So, how's it been going with Gandalf?" Gimli asked once all of the babies were quiet and content.
"Oh god, don't even talk about him!" Pippin shook his head. "He's driving me crazy. He thinks he knows everything, which he probably does, but he expects me to know everything too! And we have so many babies, oh, I have the worst headache. They just will not stop crying. We had to feed all of them and that was really difficult because most of them are too heavy for me to lift. And then Gandalf told me to walk up and down the hall with all these babies. I really hope I didn't disturb your class, but I wasn't about to disobey him, you know..."
Gimli and Legolas listened to Pippin spill out his soul (well, not really spill out his soul, but they listened to him complain about Gandalf) for a while. It actually got quite boring and annoying after a while, so they were really very happy when Pippin's story was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in!" cried Gimli in a girly voice.
Elrond swept through the door. "Just making sure everyone is wearing their uniforms!" He surveyed the room. "Good, good. Glad to see that everyone is following the rules!" He swept out as quickly as he had swept in.
"Okay..." said Pippin. "Anyway, on with my story-"
"I have a better idea." Said Gimli. "Let's talk about something less depressing!"
So they talked and talked. They talked about old times, when they were on their first mission for Elrond (which had proved to be a lot more fun than the current one). They talked about what they had been doing since, and had a few good laughs. Pippin was in the middle of telling them about Merry's sad and unfortunate love life when the door banged open. "Gimli, I need to borrow your axe!" said Aragorn.
"What? Borrow my axe?"
"Yes. These kids are killing me!"
"I won't ask." Said Gimli, getting up to retrieve his axe.
"Thank you so much!" said Aragorn, taking the axe. "Hey, I don't know if you heard, but Sam and Merry found that kid they lost."
"Oh really? That's good to hear! Where was she?" asked Gimli.
"Well, you see, THEY weren't the ones who actually found her...Elrond did!" Aragorn said, smirking.
Legolas laughed. "He wasn't too happy, was he?"
"Definitely not. Apparently, she interrupted some big important council. Elrond was really mad."
"I bet. He really likes his councils."
"Yeah, he marched her back up here. I saw him coming in with her and yelling at Sam and Merry when I was in their room borrowing some cookies. Sam and Merry don't really seem to be getting along at all." He shook his head. "They're worse than you and Gandalf." He added, looking at Pippin.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash and a bunch of shrieks, followed by the sound of screams and cries.
"Oh god, not another window! I've gotta go help Frodo get this under control. Thanks for the axe!" Aragorn dashed out into the hallway.
"Well, that was...interesting." said Gimli.
A little while later, Pippin decided that he had to leave because it was almost time for the "parents" to come pick up the children. Legolas and Gimli helped him get the babies back in the strollers, he picked the two littlest ones up, and then inched out into the hallway.
"Well," said Legolas to Gimli. "It's been an interesting and tiring day, but we better get all of this stuff cleaned up before the parents get here." They were able to get every single toy picked up and put back on the shelf a few seconds before the first parents arrived. They were very proud of themselves.
By five-thirty, all of the children except for two, Onna and the little boy who couldn't walk, had been picked up. Legolas thought he had seen Onna's mother come in and take another little girl, but he couldn't be sure. Suddenly, Elrond came into the room.
"Come on! We're having a council to discuss your first day at work!" he cried excitedly.
"You really like councils, don't you?" Gimli said.
"I most certainly do. Council is such a nice word. It means 'an appointed or elected body of people with an administrative advisory, or representative function.' Isn't that a nice definition?"
"Sure." Said Legolas. "But there's just a tiny problem." He gestured towards Onna and the little boy, who were playing together on the floor. "Their parents haven't come yet."
"Oh, well if they haven't come yet, they probably forgot about them. Just bring them with you to the council. It's not a problem!" Elrond flashed them a smile.
"What? But what if their parents do come?"
"Then they will assume that someone else has picked up their child and they will not care. I told you, it's not a problem. Now come on!"
Legolas and Gimli looked at each other. "Whatever." and they followed Elrond.
A/N: YAY! Finished with that one. Next chapter is about Sam and Merry, and it may not be up until Monday, just depending on what stuff I have to do this weekend.