A/N: Okay, first off, SORRY I HAVEN'T UPDATED. My computer broke and I
had to use my brother's, but I couldn't upload any chapters on it. Second,
if you know how to speak elvish, and would be offended by hearing someone
else speak it very badly, I would highly recommend not reading this
chapter. That said, I don't want any flames about my elvish, because I'm
warning you! Alright, third, there have been a bunch of people who have
been like, all excited about this chapter, so don't eat me if it's not what
you wanted it to be. It is the longest though, and I think it was
definitely the most fun to write, but I'll let you decide whether it was
good or not.
Aragorn and Frodo stood in their classroom very nervously, awaiting the arrival of the dreaded three-year-olds. They'd had their visit from Elrond about the uniforms (Elrond could not decide which name to put on Aragorns, so he put them all on. His uniform read "Aragorn/King of Gondor/Strider/Elessar/Estel/Elfstone/A Whole Bunch of Other Stuff: Primary Caregiver—Three Year Olds"). Neither the hobbit nor the man was really looking forward to what was to come. However, had they been given the gift of foresight, both would probably have committed suicide on the spot.
Their day began pretty much the same way everyone else's had. The first children arrived at precisely six-thirty. There were four of them, accompanied by their very hassled looking father. Aragorn greeted them at the door. "Hi kids!" he said in a cheerful voice, that was quite obviously very fake. "We're going to have lots of fun today!"
The kids stared up at him with blank expressions on their faces. "Okay..." their father stepped forward. "This is Umiell," he said, indicating one of the little girls, "this is Kurus," he said, pointing to one of the others, "and I don't know who these two are. I don't think they're my kids, but I could be wrong."
Aragorn stared at him. "How many kids do you have?"
"At least twenty. Anyway, I've really got to get going, but let me just tell you about the kids. Umiell is four years old, but she doesn't talk much. In fact, she doesn't talk at all, and that's why they wouldn't let her go to school. Kurus is three, and we have a few discipline problems with her at home. The other two I don't know anything about."
"Oh..." Aragorn stared at him some more. "Um, well..."
"I really do need to go." the elf left, leaving a very bewildered Aragorn behind.
He finally recovered and turned to the children. "I'm Mr. Aragorn, and this is Mr. Frodo!" he gestured towards Frodo. "We're all going to have fun and play together today." He tried to smile at them, but it looked more like a grimace. The children looked around fearfully, and ran away from him. Soon, they spotted all of the toys and began to spread out around the room.
Meanwhile, Frodo was greeting more children at the door. Most of the parents didn't know the children's names, and some weren't even sure if they were actually three years old. Apparently, it was quite common for parents to take random children in off the streets at night. This somewhat disturbed Frodo, but since he had witnessed firsthand the conditions that these elves were living in, he chose not to comment.
Aragorn looked around the room, trying desperately to count the little blonde heads that kept moving around so quickly. After six tries, he had come up with six different numbers, but they were all somewhere around the general vicinity of thirty-five. He finally gave up counting and turned his attention towards the door where a young elf who looked to be about ten or eleven stood. She was looking around uneasily at the screaming, rambunctious (isn't that a nice word? I spelled it right on the first try, too!) children. Aragorn approached her. "Hey. Welcome to day care. Can I help you?"
She looked up at him, relieved. "Hi, are you the teacher?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
The elf girl giggled at this statement. "I'm Endo. My mommy runs an orphanage, well not really an orphanage..."
Aragorn listened patiently.
"See, what she does is she collects all of the kids off of the streets at night, like, the ones whose parents forgot about them and nobody else's parents took in."
"I see." Said Aragorn.
"So anyway, she wanted me to come tell you that she has sixteen three-year- olds that she's going to bring about an hour late because she has to get them all dressed and ready."
"Wait, hang on a sec!" Aragorn began to panic. "Is this in addition to the fifty that we're going to have already?"
"No silly!" Endo cried. "They were supposed to be part of the fifty, and they're just going to be late!"
Aragorn sighed. "Well, that's a relief!"
Endo smiled. "I've gotta go now and help my mommy get all the kids ready! I'll see you in an hour!"
He shook his head. "If these kids were just as calm and polite as her it would be so easy!"
"ARAGORN! HELP ME!"
Aragorn turned to see Frodo trying fruitlessly to stop some children from tipping over the bookshelf. More of them were running in circles around the room, throwing books and toys at Frodo as they passed him. Umiell, the one who didn't talk, was climbing on his back, pulling his hair.
"OKAY! EVERYBODY! STOP IT NOW!" Aragorn shouted.
Not a single child listened to him.
Aragorn rushed over to Frodo and pulled Umiell off of him. He turned the bookshelf right-side-up, and then dodged a flying matchbox car that was aimed right at his head. "LISTEN TO ME!" He roared. "QUIT IT!" He looked up just in time to see three of the kids climbing onto the windowsills. "GET DOWN FROM THERE!" He began to run towards them when he felt his feet being yanked from beneath him, and he fell, face-first, onto the ground. As the stars in front of his eyes began to fade away, he saw Umiell standing over him, a very pleased expression on her face.
"Aragorn, are you okay?" Frodo rushed over to him.
"OKAY, THAT'S IT!" Aragorn pulled himself up off the floor. Quick as a flash, he drew his sword from it's sheath. It just barely missed Umiell's head. Immediately, all of the children stopped what they were doing and burst into tears.
"Oh, good job Aragorn!" Frodo said angrily. "Now they're all crying!" He sat down on the floor next to Umiell and pulled her onto his lap. "Did the mean ranger scare you?" he asked her.
She nodded, tears still rolling down her face.
"It's okay," said Frodo, standing up. "Look, I'm taking his sword away from him so he can't scare you anymore." Frodo yanked the sword from Aragorn's hand and set it down on the counter. "DO NOT do that again!" he hissed.
"Frodo, that's the only way we can get them to stop!"
"Yes, but it also makes them cry." Frodo turned to the crying children. "Okay kids! Come over here! We're all going to listen to a story now!"
"I don't wanna listen to a story!" one of the children whined.
"Well, what do you want to do then?" Frodo asked.
"I want to color pictures!"
"NO!" shrieked Kurus. "I wanna hear a story!"
"Color pictures!"
"STORY!!!"
"I don't wanna do either!" complained another child. "I want a cookie!"
"TOO BAD! WE'RE READING A STORY!" Aragorn roared.
"No! Aragorn, be quiet. Kids, listen to me!" Frodo took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "First everyone will get a cookie. Then anyone who wants to listen to a story can come sit by the bookshelf with me, and everyone who wants to color a picture can sit at the table with Aragorn."
"What?" said Aragorn. "Frodo, I'm the primary caregiver here, and I don't think—"
"Just trust me. I used to baby-sit a lot back in the Shire. These are the sorts of activities that will get them to settle down."
"Okay, fine."
Frodo and Aragorn handed out cookies to the children, who were being quite well behaved at the moment. It seemed that Aragorn's sword trick had been effective, although rather drastic, and Frodo hoped they wouldn't have to resort to it again. After the children had finished with their cookies, Frodo called the story-readers over to the bookshelf. About fifteen or sixteen came over. "Okay." Frodo said brightly, looking at the children seated in a semi-circle around him. "Which book would you like to read?"
Kurus jumped up and pulled a book off the shelf. "This one!" she cried.
Frodo looked at the cover. "Okay, we are going to read 'E Foeg Hadhod' um, whatever that means." He opened the book to the first page, which contained a picture of an elf bearing a strong resemblance to Elrond, and began to read. "Daur ifant eledh." The elf children smiled and nodded. "Okay..." said Frodo, quite confused. He turned to the next page which had a picture of a female elf who looked a lot like Arwen on it. "Neth gwandra eledh." He read. The children smiled and nodded some more. He turned to the next page which had a picture of a dwarf with a battle axe on it. "Thent, foeg, gern, goer hadhod!" The elf children grinned and clapped. The next page had a picture of the elf who looked like Elrond hitting the dwarf on the head with the sharp side of his battle-axe. "Um...okay...um...Firn hadhod." He read.
The elf children cheered. Kurus smacked one of them in the face. He began to cry.
"Kurus, that wasn't nice!" Frodo cried. "Say you're sorry!"
"No!" she said defiantly.
"Frodo, what are you reading them?" Aragorn shouted from the table where he was coloring pictures.
"Um, it's just some book called 'E Foeg Hadhod.'" Frodo replied. "Kurus, stop it right now!"
"Um, I don't really think you should be reading them that!" said Aragorn. "From what I've heard, it doesn't sound like the sort of thing you would read to three-year-olds." He turned back to the table where the rest of the children were scribbling all over the place. "No Umiell, do not color on the table!"
Umiell looked up at him angrily. Then, without warning, she picked up her marker and drew a big green streak across Aragorn's face.
Aragorn was livid. He grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up from her seat. "TIME OUT! NOW!" He dragged her over to the corner and sat her down in a chair. "DO NOT move!" Then he went to wash the marker off of his face. A few seconds later, as he was drying off his face with a paper towel, he felt someone climbing on his back. He reached behind him and grabbed Umiell by the wrist. "I SAID DON'T MOVE!" He picked his sword up from the counter and then marched her back to time out. He stood beside her, his sword underneath her chin for a full twenty minutes before he felt she had been justly punished. "Okay, you can get up now, but DO NOT do ANYTHING else that may cause me to become ANGRY..." he glared at her.
"Aragorn!" Frodo cried desperately.
"What is it Fro..." Aragorn caught sight of Endo standing at the door, holding the hand of a little elf girl. Behind her stood a loooooooooong line of more children. "Why me?" he whispered.
"YAY!" shrieked Kurus. "More friends!" she gave Frodo a sweet, yet very annoying simper, and ran over to the new "friends."
Aragorn, who did not trust her at all, grabbed her around the middle and picked her up. She struggled and tried to get away. "Don't even think about it!" Aragorn growled softly into her ear. She just gave him the awful little smile and began wriggling around some more. "I'm warning you..." Aragorn tried to put on a mean face, but it didn't seem to scare her at all.
Frodo was trying to get all of the new children settled and doing something QUIET but he was not really successful in doing so. He looked around for the woman who had brought them, but she was nowhere to be seen. "Great..." he muttered. He had already been in a bad mood before he arrived, and these children were not helping in the least bit.
Someone began tugging on his arm. "Mr. Teacher!!!"
"What?" snapped Frodo.
"I want a cookie!"
"We already had cookies, remember?"
"No."
"We had them right before we read that stupid 'E Foeg Hadhod' book!"
"He he! Foeg hadhod! My little brother's teacher is a hadhod!"
"Wonderful." Said Frodo, who still wasn't quite sure what a hadhod was.
"I want a cookie, Mr. Teacher!"
"I told you, we've already had cookies!"
"No we didn't!"
"Oh...did you just get here?"
"Yes."
Frodo sighed. "Okay, you can have a cookie." He took the little boy by the hand and led him to the counter, where he gave him a cookie. "Now, don't tell ANYONE that you have a cookie, okay?"
"Okay!" said the boy.
But that didn't last long. A few minutes later, the rest of the children were crowding around Frodo asking for a cookie.
"I want a cookie too!" whined Kurus, who had finally given up on trying to get out of Aragorn's firm hold, and had devoted the rest of her time to annoying him.
"No!" Aragorn said.
Kurus scratched him across the cheek. The shock caused him to let go of her, and she fell to the ground and ran over to where Frodo was handing out cookies.
Aragorn could see that the situation was really getting out of hand. "OKAY! WE ARE ALL GOING TO TAKE A NAP! NOW!"
"No! No nap!"
"Yes nap!" said Frodo, relieved.
"More cookies!"
"NO MORE COOKIES!"
After nearly ten minutes of arguing back and forth with the children about the nap, Aragorn decided that this situation would require drastic measures to get under control. He picked his sword up from the counter and twirled it around in the air. Then he pointed it at the nearest child. "Now...everyone is going to get a blanket from Mr. Frodo...and they're going to lie down and TAKE A NAP!" He did a few more fancy sword tricks to make sure that they got the point.
"Well, I was hoping you wouldn't have to do that again, but I guess—"he was cut off as the door flew open, and Sam ran into the classroom, followed by Merry and a whole bunch of two-year-olds.
"We can't find one of our kids! Is she in here?"
The three-year-olds began to giggle. Aragorn pointed his sword at them to keep them quiet. "TAKE A NAP! Now, what were you saying, Sam?"
"One of our children got lost and we can't find her!"
"I'm terribly sorry." Said Aragorn. "Maybe you should go look some more."
"But...but..."
"Come on, Sam. They have a much bigger class than we do, they can't help us look!" Merry snapped.
"You're not the boss of me!" Sam retorted.
"Okay, it's about time for you guys to leave—Umiell go to sleep—because we have our own problems. Goodbye!" Aragorn shooed them out the door and shut it behind them. "They had better not even think about bothering us again!"
Frodo walked around the room, making sure that the children were lying down and being quiet, and then sank down into his chair and leaned his head against the wall. From the corner of his eye, he saw Aragorn do the same thing.
"Frodo, I'm exhausted!"
"Me too!"
"It's strange...I can run for days on end without stopping for anything...but I can't take care of a few kids for more than a few hours..."
"Aragorn, this is not A FEW kids."
Aragorn was too tired to respond. He closed his eyes, and felt himself drifting off into dreamland (I go there a lot, how about you?).
He was awakened rather suddenly and unpleasantly when he heard the sound of shattering glass. He jumped up and saw Umiell standing by a broken window, a satisfied expression on her face. He reached to the counter for his sword, only to find that it wasn't there. He looked all around him for it, but couldn't find it anywhere.
Umiell began to giggle.
"Umiell, where is Aragorn's sword?" Frodo asked angrily.
She just giggled harder.
Now that the window was broken, Aragorn could hear the sounds of a rushing river beside the building. He ran over to the window and looked out to see a huge waterfall below. The sound was almost deafening.
"UMIELL!!!!! DID YOU THROW MY SWORD INTO THE RIVER?????"
She giggled and nodded.
"WHY?"
She didn't say anything. The rest of the children had begun to gather around her. They stared excitedly at the river. Kurus climbed up onto the windowsill.
"Kurus! Get down!" Frodo scolded.
"Frodo, just let her fall out. If she dies, it won't be our fault, but it'll sure be a lot easier for us!"
"Aragorn! That's awful! No! Everyone, go lie down again!"
But it was useless. Without Aragorn's sword there to make them behave, the children paid no attention to anyone. They crowded around Frodo, begging for more cookies. They hit and kicked and scratched him, and climbed all over him. He had no choice but to comply.
Aragorn tried again in vain to get them to lie down. He looked down at Umiell. She smiled up at him. "You WILL pay for that, do you hear me?" he yelled, over the noise of the river. Umiell just stuck her tongue out at him and went over to join the crowd of children surrounding Frodo. Aragorn looked on helplessly for a few minutes.
"Aragorn! I'm out of cookies!" Frodo screamed.
"Okay...um...I'll go borrow some from Sam and Merry!" said Aragorn, glad to be able to do something useful for a change.
"Okay! Hurry!"
Aragorn scurried out the door. He slammed it right before Kurus managed to follow him out, and he closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.
"Um...hello Aragorn!"
Aragorn jumped and looked up. He saw Pippin standing there, holding a baby in each of his arms and standing behind two triple strollers, filled with babies. If it weren't for the fact that so many crazy things had been going on in his own class, Aragorn would have thought this was quite funny, but it all seemed rather normal to him now. "Oh, Pippin! Hey!" he shook his head. "My God, this is a nightmare. I am NEVER having children!"
One of the babies in Pippin's strollers shrieked, and all the rest of the stroller babies began to cry.
"You look like you're having fun!" Aragorn said. For once, he was kind of glad he had the three-year-olds. At least, he was glad he didn't have the babies.
"Oh yes." Said Pippin sarcastically. "But at least I'm away from Gandalf!"
Aragorn sighed. "He being pretty hard on you?" he asked sympathetically.
"Just a little. What are you out here for?"
Aragorn took a deep breath. "I'm having...issues...with those kids. One of them threw my sword OUT THE WINDOW!"
"Oh my goodness! I guess I'm kind of glad I don't have your group..." Said Pippin, rather unsurely.
"Hey man, I don't really think there's a single age that would be a whole lot of fun." He was silent for a moment, and then remembered that he was supposed to be doing something important. "But anyway, I have to go borrow some cookies from Sam and Merry, and then I gotta get back in there. I can't leave Frodo alone for too long."
"Alright, see ya!" Pippin slowly and painstakingly turned the strollers around WITH HIS KNEES and walked back up the hall the other way.
Aragorn walked across the hall to Sam and Merry's room and knocked on the door. It was answered by a very disgruntled-looking Merry.
"Hey, can Frodo and I borrow some cookies?" Aragorn asked.
"Sure." Said Merry dully.
"Now Merry!" Sam walked over. "That's not your decision to make!"
Merry glared at Sam, and then turned and walked away.
"I'm the primary caregiver!" Sam said brightly. "Now, Aragorn, you want some cookies, do you?"
"Yes."
"Well, they're right up there in the cabinet. Oh, please excuse me, I have to go supervise the secondary caregiver over here!" Sam rushed off the other side of the room where Merry was reading a book to some children.
"Okay...bye!" said Aragorn. He walked over to the cabinet and began taking down box after box of cookies, looking around furtively, hoping that Sam wouldn't notice.
"SAMWISE GAMGEE!"
Aragorn jumped and turned around quickly, hiding the cookies behind his back. In the doorway, clutching the arm of a little girl, stood Lord Elrond. The expression on his face did not suggest that he was in a particularly good mood.
"Yes...yes sir?" Sam asked timidly.
"Does this girl belong in your class? She interrupted my council!"
"SELDA!" cried Merry.
Elrond pushed the little girl forward. She shrieked and ran into Merry's outstretched arms.
Sam rushed over to Merry to try to take the little girl from him.
"Samwise Gamgee, don't even think about it! We have some things to discuss!"
Aragorn figured this was a good time to sneak out unnoticed with all of the cookies, and quietly slipped out the door. He returned to find the three- year-old classroom just as he had left it, with all of the children crowding around Frodo asking for cookies. "Frodo, catch!" Aragorn tossed a box of cookies to Frodo, who proceeded to hand them out.
Meanwhile, Aragorn headed for Umiell, who was standing on the outside of the big circle surrounding Frodo. "We have some things to...discuss..." he hissed (quite loudly...it had to be loud because of the broken window), as he lifted her up. She began screaming and kicking him. "Sorry, that's not gonna work with me!" he said. He set her down in a chair and pinned her hands to her sides. "Now, are you sorry you threw my sword out the window?"
Umiell shook her head.
"Well you will be soon! Just wait until tomorrow...I'll have another sword and believe me, you will get to know that sword VERY well..." Aragorn snickered. "Yes...you and that sword will be best friends! OH MY GOD, what am I THINKING?" he let go of her, and she scurried off to join the rest of the kids surrounding Frodo. "Killing three-year-olds! I mean, even if she IS evil, I can't do that!"
"ARAGORN!"
"WHAT, FRODO?"
"WE HAVE GOT TO GET CONTROL OVER THESE KIDS SOMEHOW!"
"YEAH, BUT HOW?"
"I DON'T KNOW! THINK OF SOMETHING! I'M ALMOST OUT OF COOKIES AGAIN!"
"WHAT? BUT I GAVE YOU LIKE...LIKE TEN BOXES!"
"YEAH! AND THESE KIDS ARE REALLY HUNGRY! THINK OF SOMETHING!"
So Aragorn thought...and thought...and thought...and thought...and then he said to himself, "I KNOW! If I don't have a sword, that doesn't mean nobody else does! I'll just go borrow a sword...well, it doesn't have to be a sword, necessarily. Any sharp weapon will do." He repeated this idea to Frodo.
"BORROW GIMLI'S BATTLE AXE! HE'S JUST DOWN THE HALL!"
"OKAY!"
Frodo watched Aragorn walk out into the hallway, and then proceeded to hand out the remaining cookies. Thankfully, some of the children seemed to have grown tired of cookies, on the other hand, they were now occupying themselves by throwing toys at each other. Frodo, however, was not in any position to stop this behavior and therefore did not even try. As long as they didn't bother him, he would stay away from them.
"Mr. Teacher! He hit me!"
"She hit me first!"
"He threw a fire truck at me first!"
"She threw it at me before that!"
"No I didn't! He threw it at me first!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Uh-huh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Uh-huh!"
"OKAY SHUT UP!" screamed Frodo.
"Oooh!" gasped Kurus. "He said a bad word!"
"I really don't care if I said a bad word!" Frodo felt his head starting to throb. "Where is the fire truck that everybody threw at each other?"
Kurus held up a red plastic fire truck.
Frodo took it from her, and without even thinking, hurled it out the nearest window...but this window had not been broken before. Shards of glass flew everywhere. The children screamed and began crying as they were showered with sharp objects. Frodo gasped and covered his face with his hands. "I didn't mean to do that! I really didn't!"
"FRODO, WHAT HAPPENED?" Aragorn burst into the room, looking around him wildly. He spotted Umiell sitting in a corner looking very smug. "DID YOU BREAK SOMETHING, UMIELL?"
"No, Aragorn, that was me." Frodo said, embarrassed.
"What?"
"The kids were all fighting over this fire truck and I got so sick of it that I decided to just throw it in the river, but I threw it out the wrong window, and now they've all been stabbed by broken glass and I feel so bad about it now!" Frodo began to cry.
"Okay, Frodo, calm down. I have an axe, we'll be in control now." He turned to the children, half of whom were crying, and half of whom were laughing, and brandished the axe menacingly. "Alright LISTEN UP! If you're bleeding, come over here with me and I'll get you a band-aid. If you're not go sit down QUIETLY with Mr. Frodo and he'll...um...play a game with you."
The children immediately obeyed. Aragorn sat and began handing out band- aids and trying to comfort the crying kids. He could see Frodo across the room attempting to play Simon Says. It didn't really appear to be working, but at least things were under control.
"Mr. Teacher! I have another boo-boo!" Kurus scowled at Aragorn. "You didn't give me enough band-aids!" He handed her another band-aid, and she carefully placed it over a miniscule cut on her knee. Then she reached her arms up and hugged him.
Aragorn was stunned. "You are really odd." He said.
A couple of hours later, Frodo and Aragorn were headed to Elrond's council to discuss their first day at work. The rest of the day had passed quite uneventfully. First Elrond had swept through to make sure that they were wearing their uniforms (they were), then a few parents had come to get their children, Endo and her mother had picked up the rest, and Frodo and Aragorn were quite glad to get out of the House of Elrond's Childcare Center, even if it was only for a few hours.
"Oh, I'm so exhausted! And we've to go back tomorrow too!" Frodo sighed.
"Don't make me sad!" said Aragorn. "Let's just go to the council and let's enjoy getting to talk with our friends when we're not surrounded by fifty kids."
And that is what they did!
A/N: Okay, the next chapter might not be up for a while because I have to retype it. When my computer broke, I lost some of my files...sob. But, I was wondering, do you guys want the next chapter to be the last and just leave it as it is, or do you want me to continue it? Like, I wouldn't continue the whole day care thing, but I could have them doing other stuff...I have some ideas, but they're kind of stupid, of course, this one was too. Anyway, just leave me a review and...yeah...it will be a review!
Aragorn and Frodo stood in their classroom very nervously, awaiting the arrival of the dreaded three-year-olds. They'd had their visit from Elrond about the uniforms (Elrond could not decide which name to put on Aragorns, so he put them all on. His uniform read "Aragorn/King of Gondor/Strider/Elessar/Estel/Elfstone/A Whole Bunch of Other Stuff: Primary Caregiver—Three Year Olds"). Neither the hobbit nor the man was really looking forward to what was to come. However, had they been given the gift of foresight, both would probably have committed suicide on the spot.
Their day began pretty much the same way everyone else's had. The first children arrived at precisely six-thirty. There were four of them, accompanied by their very hassled looking father. Aragorn greeted them at the door. "Hi kids!" he said in a cheerful voice, that was quite obviously very fake. "We're going to have lots of fun today!"
The kids stared up at him with blank expressions on their faces. "Okay..." their father stepped forward. "This is Umiell," he said, indicating one of the little girls, "this is Kurus," he said, pointing to one of the others, "and I don't know who these two are. I don't think they're my kids, but I could be wrong."
Aragorn stared at him. "How many kids do you have?"
"At least twenty. Anyway, I've really got to get going, but let me just tell you about the kids. Umiell is four years old, but she doesn't talk much. In fact, she doesn't talk at all, and that's why they wouldn't let her go to school. Kurus is three, and we have a few discipline problems with her at home. The other two I don't know anything about."
"Oh..." Aragorn stared at him some more. "Um, well..."
"I really do need to go." the elf left, leaving a very bewildered Aragorn behind.
He finally recovered and turned to the children. "I'm Mr. Aragorn, and this is Mr. Frodo!" he gestured towards Frodo. "We're all going to have fun and play together today." He tried to smile at them, but it looked more like a grimace. The children looked around fearfully, and ran away from him. Soon, they spotted all of the toys and began to spread out around the room.
Meanwhile, Frodo was greeting more children at the door. Most of the parents didn't know the children's names, and some weren't even sure if they were actually three years old. Apparently, it was quite common for parents to take random children in off the streets at night. This somewhat disturbed Frodo, but since he had witnessed firsthand the conditions that these elves were living in, he chose not to comment.
Aragorn looked around the room, trying desperately to count the little blonde heads that kept moving around so quickly. After six tries, he had come up with six different numbers, but they were all somewhere around the general vicinity of thirty-five. He finally gave up counting and turned his attention towards the door where a young elf who looked to be about ten or eleven stood. She was looking around uneasily at the screaming, rambunctious (isn't that a nice word? I spelled it right on the first try, too!) children. Aragorn approached her. "Hey. Welcome to day care. Can I help you?"
She looked up at him, relieved. "Hi, are you the teacher?"
"Unfortunately, yes."
The elf girl giggled at this statement. "I'm Endo. My mommy runs an orphanage, well not really an orphanage..."
Aragorn listened patiently.
"See, what she does is she collects all of the kids off of the streets at night, like, the ones whose parents forgot about them and nobody else's parents took in."
"I see." Said Aragorn.
"So anyway, she wanted me to come tell you that she has sixteen three-year- olds that she's going to bring about an hour late because she has to get them all dressed and ready."
"Wait, hang on a sec!" Aragorn began to panic. "Is this in addition to the fifty that we're going to have already?"
"No silly!" Endo cried. "They were supposed to be part of the fifty, and they're just going to be late!"
Aragorn sighed. "Well, that's a relief!"
Endo smiled. "I've gotta go now and help my mommy get all the kids ready! I'll see you in an hour!"
He shook his head. "If these kids were just as calm and polite as her it would be so easy!"
"ARAGORN! HELP ME!"
Aragorn turned to see Frodo trying fruitlessly to stop some children from tipping over the bookshelf. More of them were running in circles around the room, throwing books and toys at Frodo as they passed him. Umiell, the one who didn't talk, was climbing on his back, pulling his hair.
"OKAY! EVERYBODY! STOP IT NOW!" Aragorn shouted.
Not a single child listened to him.
Aragorn rushed over to Frodo and pulled Umiell off of him. He turned the bookshelf right-side-up, and then dodged a flying matchbox car that was aimed right at his head. "LISTEN TO ME!" He roared. "QUIT IT!" He looked up just in time to see three of the kids climbing onto the windowsills. "GET DOWN FROM THERE!" He began to run towards them when he felt his feet being yanked from beneath him, and he fell, face-first, onto the ground. As the stars in front of his eyes began to fade away, he saw Umiell standing over him, a very pleased expression on her face.
"Aragorn, are you okay?" Frodo rushed over to him.
"OKAY, THAT'S IT!" Aragorn pulled himself up off the floor. Quick as a flash, he drew his sword from it's sheath. It just barely missed Umiell's head. Immediately, all of the children stopped what they were doing and burst into tears.
"Oh, good job Aragorn!" Frodo said angrily. "Now they're all crying!" He sat down on the floor next to Umiell and pulled her onto his lap. "Did the mean ranger scare you?" he asked her.
She nodded, tears still rolling down her face.
"It's okay," said Frodo, standing up. "Look, I'm taking his sword away from him so he can't scare you anymore." Frodo yanked the sword from Aragorn's hand and set it down on the counter. "DO NOT do that again!" he hissed.
"Frodo, that's the only way we can get them to stop!"
"Yes, but it also makes them cry." Frodo turned to the crying children. "Okay kids! Come over here! We're all going to listen to a story now!"
"I don't wanna listen to a story!" one of the children whined.
"Well, what do you want to do then?" Frodo asked.
"I want to color pictures!"
"NO!" shrieked Kurus. "I wanna hear a story!"
"Color pictures!"
"STORY!!!"
"I don't wanna do either!" complained another child. "I want a cookie!"
"TOO BAD! WE'RE READING A STORY!" Aragorn roared.
"No! Aragorn, be quiet. Kids, listen to me!" Frodo took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. "First everyone will get a cookie. Then anyone who wants to listen to a story can come sit by the bookshelf with me, and everyone who wants to color a picture can sit at the table with Aragorn."
"What?" said Aragorn. "Frodo, I'm the primary caregiver here, and I don't think—"
"Just trust me. I used to baby-sit a lot back in the Shire. These are the sorts of activities that will get them to settle down."
"Okay, fine."
Frodo and Aragorn handed out cookies to the children, who were being quite well behaved at the moment. It seemed that Aragorn's sword trick had been effective, although rather drastic, and Frodo hoped they wouldn't have to resort to it again. After the children had finished with their cookies, Frodo called the story-readers over to the bookshelf. About fifteen or sixteen came over. "Okay." Frodo said brightly, looking at the children seated in a semi-circle around him. "Which book would you like to read?"
Kurus jumped up and pulled a book off the shelf. "This one!" she cried.
Frodo looked at the cover. "Okay, we are going to read 'E Foeg Hadhod' um, whatever that means." He opened the book to the first page, which contained a picture of an elf bearing a strong resemblance to Elrond, and began to read. "Daur ifant eledh." The elf children smiled and nodded. "Okay..." said Frodo, quite confused. He turned to the next page which had a picture of a female elf who looked a lot like Arwen on it. "Neth gwandra eledh." He read. The children smiled and nodded some more. He turned to the next page which had a picture of a dwarf with a battle axe on it. "Thent, foeg, gern, goer hadhod!" The elf children grinned and clapped. The next page had a picture of the elf who looked like Elrond hitting the dwarf on the head with the sharp side of his battle-axe. "Um...okay...um...Firn hadhod." He read.
The elf children cheered. Kurus smacked one of them in the face. He began to cry.
"Kurus, that wasn't nice!" Frodo cried. "Say you're sorry!"
"No!" she said defiantly.
"Frodo, what are you reading them?" Aragorn shouted from the table where he was coloring pictures.
"Um, it's just some book called 'E Foeg Hadhod.'" Frodo replied. "Kurus, stop it right now!"
"Um, I don't really think you should be reading them that!" said Aragorn. "From what I've heard, it doesn't sound like the sort of thing you would read to three-year-olds." He turned back to the table where the rest of the children were scribbling all over the place. "No Umiell, do not color on the table!"
Umiell looked up at him angrily. Then, without warning, she picked up her marker and drew a big green streak across Aragorn's face.
Aragorn was livid. He grabbed her by the arm and lifted her up from her seat. "TIME OUT! NOW!" He dragged her over to the corner and sat her down in a chair. "DO NOT move!" Then he went to wash the marker off of his face. A few seconds later, as he was drying off his face with a paper towel, he felt someone climbing on his back. He reached behind him and grabbed Umiell by the wrist. "I SAID DON'T MOVE!" He picked his sword up from the counter and then marched her back to time out. He stood beside her, his sword underneath her chin for a full twenty minutes before he felt she had been justly punished. "Okay, you can get up now, but DO NOT do ANYTHING else that may cause me to become ANGRY..." he glared at her.
"Aragorn!" Frodo cried desperately.
"What is it Fro..." Aragorn caught sight of Endo standing at the door, holding the hand of a little elf girl. Behind her stood a loooooooooong line of more children. "Why me?" he whispered.
"YAY!" shrieked Kurus. "More friends!" she gave Frodo a sweet, yet very annoying simper, and ran over to the new "friends."
Aragorn, who did not trust her at all, grabbed her around the middle and picked her up. She struggled and tried to get away. "Don't even think about it!" Aragorn growled softly into her ear. She just gave him the awful little smile and began wriggling around some more. "I'm warning you..." Aragorn tried to put on a mean face, but it didn't seem to scare her at all.
Frodo was trying to get all of the new children settled and doing something QUIET but he was not really successful in doing so. He looked around for the woman who had brought them, but she was nowhere to be seen. "Great..." he muttered. He had already been in a bad mood before he arrived, and these children were not helping in the least bit.
Someone began tugging on his arm. "Mr. Teacher!!!"
"What?" snapped Frodo.
"I want a cookie!"
"We already had cookies, remember?"
"No."
"We had them right before we read that stupid 'E Foeg Hadhod' book!"
"He he! Foeg hadhod! My little brother's teacher is a hadhod!"
"Wonderful." Said Frodo, who still wasn't quite sure what a hadhod was.
"I want a cookie, Mr. Teacher!"
"I told you, we've already had cookies!"
"No we didn't!"
"Oh...did you just get here?"
"Yes."
Frodo sighed. "Okay, you can have a cookie." He took the little boy by the hand and led him to the counter, where he gave him a cookie. "Now, don't tell ANYONE that you have a cookie, okay?"
"Okay!" said the boy.
But that didn't last long. A few minutes later, the rest of the children were crowding around Frodo asking for a cookie.
"I want a cookie too!" whined Kurus, who had finally given up on trying to get out of Aragorn's firm hold, and had devoted the rest of her time to annoying him.
"No!" Aragorn said.
Kurus scratched him across the cheek. The shock caused him to let go of her, and she fell to the ground and ran over to where Frodo was handing out cookies.
Aragorn could see that the situation was really getting out of hand. "OKAY! WE ARE ALL GOING TO TAKE A NAP! NOW!"
"No! No nap!"
"Yes nap!" said Frodo, relieved.
"More cookies!"
"NO MORE COOKIES!"
After nearly ten minutes of arguing back and forth with the children about the nap, Aragorn decided that this situation would require drastic measures to get under control. He picked his sword up from the counter and twirled it around in the air. Then he pointed it at the nearest child. "Now...everyone is going to get a blanket from Mr. Frodo...and they're going to lie down and TAKE A NAP!" He did a few more fancy sword tricks to make sure that they got the point.
"Well, I was hoping you wouldn't have to do that again, but I guess—"he was cut off as the door flew open, and Sam ran into the classroom, followed by Merry and a whole bunch of two-year-olds.
"We can't find one of our kids! Is she in here?"
The three-year-olds began to giggle. Aragorn pointed his sword at them to keep them quiet. "TAKE A NAP! Now, what were you saying, Sam?"
"One of our children got lost and we can't find her!"
"I'm terribly sorry." Said Aragorn. "Maybe you should go look some more."
"But...but..."
"Come on, Sam. They have a much bigger class than we do, they can't help us look!" Merry snapped.
"You're not the boss of me!" Sam retorted.
"Okay, it's about time for you guys to leave—Umiell go to sleep—because we have our own problems. Goodbye!" Aragorn shooed them out the door and shut it behind them. "They had better not even think about bothering us again!"
Frodo walked around the room, making sure that the children were lying down and being quiet, and then sank down into his chair and leaned his head against the wall. From the corner of his eye, he saw Aragorn do the same thing.
"Frodo, I'm exhausted!"
"Me too!"
"It's strange...I can run for days on end without stopping for anything...but I can't take care of a few kids for more than a few hours..."
"Aragorn, this is not A FEW kids."
Aragorn was too tired to respond. He closed his eyes, and felt himself drifting off into dreamland (I go there a lot, how about you?).
He was awakened rather suddenly and unpleasantly when he heard the sound of shattering glass. He jumped up and saw Umiell standing by a broken window, a satisfied expression on her face. He reached to the counter for his sword, only to find that it wasn't there. He looked all around him for it, but couldn't find it anywhere.
Umiell began to giggle.
"Umiell, where is Aragorn's sword?" Frodo asked angrily.
She just giggled harder.
Now that the window was broken, Aragorn could hear the sounds of a rushing river beside the building. He ran over to the window and looked out to see a huge waterfall below. The sound was almost deafening.
"UMIELL!!!!! DID YOU THROW MY SWORD INTO THE RIVER?????"
She giggled and nodded.
"WHY?"
She didn't say anything. The rest of the children had begun to gather around her. They stared excitedly at the river. Kurus climbed up onto the windowsill.
"Kurus! Get down!" Frodo scolded.
"Frodo, just let her fall out. If she dies, it won't be our fault, but it'll sure be a lot easier for us!"
"Aragorn! That's awful! No! Everyone, go lie down again!"
But it was useless. Without Aragorn's sword there to make them behave, the children paid no attention to anyone. They crowded around Frodo, begging for more cookies. They hit and kicked and scratched him, and climbed all over him. He had no choice but to comply.
Aragorn tried again in vain to get them to lie down. He looked down at Umiell. She smiled up at him. "You WILL pay for that, do you hear me?" he yelled, over the noise of the river. Umiell just stuck her tongue out at him and went over to join the crowd of children surrounding Frodo. Aragorn looked on helplessly for a few minutes.
"Aragorn! I'm out of cookies!" Frodo screamed.
"Okay...um...I'll go borrow some from Sam and Merry!" said Aragorn, glad to be able to do something useful for a change.
"Okay! Hurry!"
Aragorn scurried out the door. He slammed it right before Kurus managed to follow him out, and he closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.
"Um...hello Aragorn!"
Aragorn jumped and looked up. He saw Pippin standing there, holding a baby in each of his arms and standing behind two triple strollers, filled with babies. If it weren't for the fact that so many crazy things had been going on in his own class, Aragorn would have thought this was quite funny, but it all seemed rather normal to him now. "Oh, Pippin! Hey!" he shook his head. "My God, this is a nightmare. I am NEVER having children!"
One of the babies in Pippin's strollers shrieked, and all the rest of the stroller babies began to cry.
"You look like you're having fun!" Aragorn said. For once, he was kind of glad he had the three-year-olds. At least, he was glad he didn't have the babies.
"Oh yes." Said Pippin sarcastically. "But at least I'm away from Gandalf!"
Aragorn sighed. "He being pretty hard on you?" he asked sympathetically.
"Just a little. What are you out here for?"
Aragorn took a deep breath. "I'm having...issues...with those kids. One of them threw my sword OUT THE WINDOW!"
"Oh my goodness! I guess I'm kind of glad I don't have your group..." Said Pippin, rather unsurely.
"Hey man, I don't really think there's a single age that would be a whole lot of fun." He was silent for a moment, and then remembered that he was supposed to be doing something important. "But anyway, I have to go borrow some cookies from Sam and Merry, and then I gotta get back in there. I can't leave Frodo alone for too long."
"Alright, see ya!" Pippin slowly and painstakingly turned the strollers around WITH HIS KNEES and walked back up the hall the other way.
Aragorn walked across the hall to Sam and Merry's room and knocked on the door. It was answered by a very disgruntled-looking Merry.
"Hey, can Frodo and I borrow some cookies?" Aragorn asked.
"Sure." Said Merry dully.
"Now Merry!" Sam walked over. "That's not your decision to make!"
Merry glared at Sam, and then turned and walked away.
"I'm the primary caregiver!" Sam said brightly. "Now, Aragorn, you want some cookies, do you?"
"Yes."
"Well, they're right up there in the cabinet. Oh, please excuse me, I have to go supervise the secondary caregiver over here!" Sam rushed off the other side of the room where Merry was reading a book to some children.
"Okay...bye!" said Aragorn. He walked over to the cabinet and began taking down box after box of cookies, looking around furtively, hoping that Sam wouldn't notice.
"SAMWISE GAMGEE!"
Aragorn jumped and turned around quickly, hiding the cookies behind his back. In the doorway, clutching the arm of a little girl, stood Lord Elrond. The expression on his face did not suggest that he was in a particularly good mood.
"Yes...yes sir?" Sam asked timidly.
"Does this girl belong in your class? She interrupted my council!"
"SELDA!" cried Merry.
Elrond pushed the little girl forward. She shrieked and ran into Merry's outstretched arms.
Sam rushed over to Merry to try to take the little girl from him.
"Samwise Gamgee, don't even think about it! We have some things to discuss!"
Aragorn figured this was a good time to sneak out unnoticed with all of the cookies, and quietly slipped out the door. He returned to find the three- year-old classroom just as he had left it, with all of the children crowding around Frodo asking for cookies. "Frodo, catch!" Aragorn tossed a box of cookies to Frodo, who proceeded to hand them out.
Meanwhile, Aragorn headed for Umiell, who was standing on the outside of the big circle surrounding Frodo. "We have some things to...discuss..." he hissed (quite loudly...it had to be loud because of the broken window), as he lifted her up. She began screaming and kicking him. "Sorry, that's not gonna work with me!" he said. He set her down in a chair and pinned her hands to her sides. "Now, are you sorry you threw my sword out the window?"
Umiell shook her head.
"Well you will be soon! Just wait until tomorrow...I'll have another sword and believe me, you will get to know that sword VERY well..." Aragorn snickered. "Yes...you and that sword will be best friends! OH MY GOD, what am I THINKING?" he let go of her, and she scurried off to join the rest of the kids surrounding Frodo. "Killing three-year-olds! I mean, even if she IS evil, I can't do that!"
"ARAGORN!"
"WHAT, FRODO?"
"WE HAVE GOT TO GET CONTROL OVER THESE KIDS SOMEHOW!"
"YEAH, BUT HOW?"
"I DON'T KNOW! THINK OF SOMETHING! I'M ALMOST OUT OF COOKIES AGAIN!"
"WHAT? BUT I GAVE YOU LIKE...LIKE TEN BOXES!"
"YEAH! AND THESE KIDS ARE REALLY HUNGRY! THINK OF SOMETHING!"
So Aragorn thought...and thought...and thought...and thought...and then he said to himself, "I KNOW! If I don't have a sword, that doesn't mean nobody else does! I'll just go borrow a sword...well, it doesn't have to be a sword, necessarily. Any sharp weapon will do." He repeated this idea to Frodo.
"BORROW GIMLI'S BATTLE AXE! HE'S JUST DOWN THE HALL!"
"OKAY!"
Frodo watched Aragorn walk out into the hallway, and then proceeded to hand out the remaining cookies. Thankfully, some of the children seemed to have grown tired of cookies, on the other hand, they were now occupying themselves by throwing toys at each other. Frodo, however, was not in any position to stop this behavior and therefore did not even try. As long as they didn't bother him, he would stay away from them.
"Mr. Teacher! He hit me!"
"She hit me first!"
"He threw a fire truck at me first!"
"She threw it at me before that!"
"No I didn't! He threw it at me first!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Uh-huh!"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Uh-huh!"
"OKAY SHUT UP!" screamed Frodo.
"Oooh!" gasped Kurus. "He said a bad word!"
"I really don't care if I said a bad word!" Frodo felt his head starting to throb. "Where is the fire truck that everybody threw at each other?"
Kurus held up a red plastic fire truck.
Frodo took it from her, and without even thinking, hurled it out the nearest window...but this window had not been broken before. Shards of glass flew everywhere. The children screamed and began crying as they were showered with sharp objects. Frodo gasped and covered his face with his hands. "I didn't mean to do that! I really didn't!"
"FRODO, WHAT HAPPENED?" Aragorn burst into the room, looking around him wildly. He spotted Umiell sitting in a corner looking very smug. "DID YOU BREAK SOMETHING, UMIELL?"
"No, Aragorn, that was me." Frodo said, embarrassed.
"What?"
"The kids were all fighting over this fire truck and I got so sick of it that I decided to just throw it in the river, but I threw it out the wrong window, and now they've all been stabbed by broken glass and I feel so bad about it now!" Frodo began to cry.
"Okay, Frodo, calm down. I have an axe, we'll be in control now." He turned to the children, half of whom were crying, and half of whom were laughing, and brandished the axe menacingly. "Alright LISTEN UP! If you're bleeding, come over here with me and I'll get you a band-aid. If you're not go sit down QUIETLY with Mr. Frodo and he'll...um...play a game with you."
The children immediately obeyed. Aragorn sat and began handing out band- aids and trying to comfort the crying kids. He could see Frodo across the room attempting to play Simon Says. It didn't really appear to be working, but at least things were under control.
"Mr. Teacher! I have another boo-boo!" Kurus scowled at Aragorn. "You didn't give me enough band-aids!" He handed her another band-aid, and she carefully placed it over a miniscule cut on her knee. Then she reached her arms up and hugged him.
Aragorn was stunned. "You are really odd." He said.
A couple of hours later, Frodo and Aragorn were headed to Elrond's council to discuss their first day at work. The rest of the day had passed quite uneventfully. First Elrond had swept through to make sure that they were wearing their uniforms (they were), then a few parents had come to get their children, Endo and her mother had picked up the rest, and Frodo and Aragorn were quite glad to get out of the House of Elrond's Childcare Center, even if it was only for a few hours.
"Oh, I'm so exhausted! And we've to go back tomorrow too!" Frodo sighed.
"Don't make me sad!" said Aragorn. "Let's just go to the council and let's enjoy getting to talk with our friends when we're not surrounded by fifty kids."
And that is what they did!
A/N: Okay, the next chapter might not be up for a while because I have to retype it. When my computer broke, I lost some of my files...sob. But, I was wondering, do you guys want the next chapter to be the last and just leave it as it is, or do you want me to continue it? Like, I wouldn't continue the whole day care thing, but I could have them doing other stuff...I have some ideas, but they're kind of stupid, of course, this one was too. Anyway, just leave me a review and...yeah...it will be a review!