A/Nx2: I've changed the bit with the band teacher in it, par SakuraSun's helpful suggestions. Many thanks for that! Hope this is better.
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Lord of the Rings films from New Line Cinema. Nor do I own any person, place, event, object or idea in The Lord of the Rings, by JRR Tolkien. Averil, Avery, and their assorted friends and enemies are entirely my own creation. Windy Ridge is not a real town that I am aware of. Any resemblance to real persons, places or events is coincidental and entirely unintentional. (That should cover everything! Whew! .) Oh yes...and props to Terry Pratchett for the idea of how to start my tale off. Wouldn't it be great if everyone who borrowed from Terry Pratchett admitted it?
Okay. I'm finished. That's it. Go read and review. . Thanks!
Trouble began, and not for the first time, with a journal.
It was black and rather worn, with countless bits of graffiti on the cover, and it was very zealously guarded by its owner--one Averil, an eighteen-year-old high school senior from Windy Ridge High School.
One fateful day, however, Averil's journal found itself peeking out of her book bag, completely open to theft. It was a chance bit of carelessness on Averil's part--when she had thrown her things down on the bleachers just before band practice, the only thing on her mind was finally beating her twin brother Avery at kickboxing.
"You suck! You suck!" he jeered her as he danced just out of her reach, ducking her blows with a grace that belied his tall, lanky form. It was not that he was much stronger than Averil--but he was clever, and could keep his head in the middle of a fight much better than Averil could. "Ha!" he laughed to himself as Averil slipped on the slick mat beneath their feet. "You lose, runt."
Averil looked up with a scowl pulling at the corners of her full mouth. "Yeah, but you have big ears," she muttered to herself. Avery reached down in a silent offer to help her to her feet, but she impatiently pushed aside his hand and heaved herself upright on her own.
"Don't be such a sore loser!" Avery chided her, watching his sister's tense form as she marched over to the bleachers to gather her things. "It's just a bit of fun! Ril!" His sister didn't turn around, instead pretending to be busy gathering her things. Avery shrugged and began to walk toward the gym door as the band students began to enter.
"AIIIEEE!" Averil shrieked suddenly, making Avery jump. "Ave, what did you do with my journal?" she snapped, grabbing his shoulder.
"What journal?"
"MY journal! My black journal! The only journal I've ever had!"
Brandon, the school mascot, looked at Averil with interest. "Your journal's black?"
"Shut up!" she snapped at him. "Ave, what did you do with it?"
Avery sighed. "Look, brat--I don't have your journal. I don't mess with your stuff ever since the bra incident," he added, referring to the time he'd decided to experiment with using Averil's bras as water balloon launchers.
"Bra incident?" Brandon asked, his curiosity plain.
"Shut up!" Averil and Avery snapped simultaneously.
"Jeez…" Brandon muttered, turning away. What his pale gray eyes sighted on, however, was enough to make him freeze. "Ah…Averil?"
"Yes?" she said, pausing in her argument with her twin for a moment.
"Is your black journal kinda worn-out? With all kinds of scribbly things on the cover?"
"Yes, if you must know…why?"
"Because Sam is reading it."
Averil froze and whirled around; her jaw dropped as she saw her most prized book in Sam's grasp--and heard him reading aloud from it. "August 13th," Sam declared to the circle of listeners. "Joey came over to my house again today. He was going to play basketball with Avery, but since Avery wasn't home he and I played instead. It was so much fun--he actually let me win! He's such a hottie--but I wish he didn't treat me like 'one of the guys'…" Sam paused and let out a girlish shriek, fluttering one hand over his heart as if it were trembling with excitement.
Averil's dark gaze was murderous. "I'll kill him," she said through gritted teeth, shoving several other band members out of the way roughly. "Sam Wright! I swear I'll kill you if you don't shut your big mouth and give me back my journal right NOW!!!"
Sam jumped back, grasping the black book to his chest. "Be a sport, Averil! We're all dying to know what happened between you and Joey."
"Not to mention how someone like you could get the hookup with a so-called 'hottie' anyway," Bethany, the majorette captain, added primly. There was a faint titter among the crowd. "I mean, look at you! You're taller than half the basketball team." Averil's eyes narrowed; at 5'11", she was tall, but just because the comment had a grain of truth did not make it acceptable.
"I might be tall, Bethany, but at least I'm not a whore," Averil replied coldly.
"How could you be? No guy would touch you!" Bethany shot back.
"Whereas there's plenty of you to touch?" Averil answered, raising one brow, forgetting her stolen diary for the moment.
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Just that you need to spend some more time on the treadmill, 'cause you've got more rolls than Heiner's Bakery. Are you trying out for the sumo wrestling team or something?"
Bethany's face had turned a mottled red. "Shut up before I shut you up!" she snapped.
"I'd like to see you try!" Averil taunted.
Bethany lunged forward, but was caught by one of the band members. "Calm down there, Bethy. You don't want to get suspended right before the competition tomorrow night," a few of her friends told her.
"It's worth it if I can shut her fat mouth!" Bethany answered, eyes blazing.
Averil's eyes narrowed and she started toward Bethany, but Avery pulled her back. "It's not worth it, Ril," her twin soothed her. "She's just a stupid bi--"
"What is going on here?" the band teacher exclaimed in anger. The crowd of students quickly backed up from the furious teacher who stood with her hands on her hips, assessing the situation with disapproval. "Were you two girls fighting?"
"I'm sorry," Bethany said, looking up with an rueful expression. "But I can't stand here and let Averil talk about you that way! She said you were a demented old hag."
"Did not!" Averil and Avery simultaneously exclaimed.
The band teacher sighed, putting one hand to her forehead. "Girls, I have enough trouble out of you as it is," she murmured. "Must we get into another episode like this one? I thought I had ended the rivalry between you two."
"Rivalry? Try war," Averil muttered.
"Well, I've never really disliked Averil," Bethany said sweetly. "But I can't just sit there and deal with her rude comments and--and--and her conceited attitude!"
"Really, now," Averil murmured, her face going blank.
"Bethany, you know fighting is not the answer," the teacher chided her. "If you have a problem with one of your classmates, you should see a trusted adult and ask for advice. Let us handle it, and stay out of trouble."
"But--" Bethany's blue eyes seemed to cloud over for a moment, and then she brightened. "But you weren't here yet! And you're the only teacher I really trust!" Averil snickered, and Bethany glared over.
The teacher looked from one girl to another uncertainly. "You should've just walked away, Bethany, and went to find me."
"I'll do that next time," Bethany promised with an innocent expression.
"See that you do. Both of you," she added, glancing briefly at Averil and Avery. "Or else I'll be forced to take sterner actions--like removing you from the majorette corps or color guard." With that, the teacher stormed off, yelling for the students to walk out to the field.
"But--you can't do that!" Bethany called after the band teacher, her features still curved in a perplexed, innocent expression. "Being a majorette is, like, my total life!"
"Oh, give it up, Bethany," Averil muttered.
"Next time you should lie to the band teacher like Bethany does," Avery commented, never taking his eyes off Bethany for a moment. "Tell her that you're pregnant or something. I'll back you up." Bethany gave Avery an annoyed look.
"No," Averil answered, arching one dark brow. "I'll let Bethany be the only one who stoops that low because she can't handle getting detention."
Bethany began to follow the band students leaving the gym at a leisurely pace. "You know--" she began, glancing over her shoulder. "I'm glad I told Sam where you keep your diary now." Smugly she sauntered away, her sandy blonde curls bouncing as she walked.
Averil's eyes narrowed, but Avery laid a hand on her shoulder. "Let it go," he told her brusquely. "Let it go." Soothingly he smoothed his twin's sleek dark hair. "Go get your flag and the rest of your twirly stuff," he told Averil. "I'm going to go get your diary back." Averil smiled to herself and began gathering her things.
Late that night, when she should have been resting for the band competition she would be participating in the next day, Averil found herself sitting up and scribbling in her newly recovered journal. This was not meant to be an entry--instead, she found herself writing out a letter, though to whom she couldn't be sure.
This day has been terrible, she began. I almost got in a fight with Bethany again. She thinks she's such great stuff because she's a cheerleader and a majorette. Sam stole my journal and read it to the whole band--and of course he would have to find the part about the guy I used to have a crush on. And then the band teacher told me that if Bethany and I didn't stop fighting, she'd take me off color guard. How unfair is that?! It's not like I'm the one who ever actually starts it, anyway. I just...well, I can't leave well enough alone, I guess.
I swear, sometimes it seems like the only people I can trust are my family. Avery's practically my best friend. I hope we go to college together--I don't want to think about how awful it will be for me if I have to go alone.
Averil leaned back, gazed at the various fantasy posters that lined her walls--unicorns, fairies, dragons. I wish I could go somewhere where I could start over and make a new name for myself, she wrote. A place where Avery and I could get out of the everyday grind of school and work and have real fun and adventure. A place where I could have some real friends. Even a place where I could do something exciting once in a while, even if it's dangerous, because the most dangerous thing I do on a regular basis right now is driving in rush hour traffic.
I don't know if there's a place out there like that. But if there is--some other country, some other universe--I would love to go there. And I'd love to take my friends with me, especially Avery. Someplace… Averil's pen hesitated for a moment--then she sighed and wrote, someplace where I could make a difference.
The alarm clock on her nightstand beeped, and glancing at the display Averil realized that it was two o'clock in the morning. "I've got to get some sleep," she sighed. "I've got a three hour bus ride to that competition tomorrow." She pulled the letter she'd been writing out of her diary, folded it, and stuck it under the white candle that perched on her window sill. Briefly she opened the window and, lifting the screen aside, leaned out to gaze at the twinkling stars--there was no moon that night. Their faint light shone on the hillside beneath her home, the crowns of the trees, the sparkling stream that ran from further up the mountain to the valley below. Then, sighing, Averil climbed into bed, falling asleep as she watched her curtains flutter in the breeze.
The bus ride was worse than either Averil or Avery could have imagined, even in their worst nightmares. Though they both pushed their way to the back of the bus and settled in comfortably before the trip even began, the air inside the vehicle was stifling and humid. "I think I'm dying," Averil groaned, leaning her head against the bus seat.
"At least your uniform is thinner than mine," Avery answered. "You'd think it'd be cooler when it's raining cats and dogs outside." He looked outside at the nearly black, lightning-torn skies. "Creepy, isn't it?"
"It--" Averil paused as a roll of thunder briefly drowned out any possible conversation. "It is," she answered at length. "I didn't know it was supposed to storm today." She twisted in her seat, leaning against the wall of the bus, then looked across the aisle at her twin. "Hey, Ave…were you in my room this morning?"
"I went in there for a second looking for my goofy band hat. Why?"
"Well--" Averil frowned. "Did you move this piece of paper I had under the candle on my window sill? I looked for it this morning and it was gone"
"No. What'd you lose?"
"Just…a letter," Averil answered dismissively, shrugging. "No big deal."
"Whatever," Avery replied with a shrug. The bus whipped around a particularly sharp curve in the winding mountain road, and Avery frowned. "That bus driver's going too fast," he muttered to himself. "Even I can drive better than this."
"Then go drive for him," Averil replied, pulling out her portable CD player and popping her headphones on. Avery rolled his eyes and turned his gaze back out the window as his sister began humming along with the music.
Averil abruptly found herself pitched forward as the bus lurched. "What's he doing?!" she shouted angrily--and then she saw that the bus was spinning in the road, headed for the outcropping of rock on the left side of the road. The students collectively screamed in horror as the bus slammed into the boulder, bounced off and skidded across the highway. She felt a hand reach across and take hers, and turning her head she saw her brother staring at her with wide eyes. In Averil's ears her CD continued to play inanely, as if nothing had ever happened--as if this were all a surreal dream.
The bus crashed through the guardrail and soared through the air, bouncing off the rocky mountainside over and over again like a ball. Avery and Averil held onto each other as they were pitched against the ceiling, then one of the walls of the bus, then the floor. Averil screamed as her ribcage collided with the edge of one of the seats and a sickening crack was heard. Avery felt his foot collide with someone's head as he was tossed violently about.
And then, just when they were sure that they would never stop falling, the bus came to a halt again, thudding against some unseen barrier. Averil found herself sprawled across the roof of the bus, staring at the jumbled bodies of her classmates who lay prone amid the shattered window glass. Her CD had finally stopped--Averil realized that the headphones had been ripped off her head and thrown who-knew-where. She could hear a roaring in her ears and realized belatedly that blood was pouring from her temple. Awkwardly she raised one hand and pressed it to the gash in a hazy effort to stop the bleeding, then realized that someone still had her other hand in a viselike grip.
"Ave…Avery?" Averil panted, looking at her brother in horror. He looked even worse than she had feared--one arm was thrown back at an awkward, unnatural angle and his face was deathly pale. His uniform was soaked--but with rain or blood, Averil wasn't sure. "Avery?" she said again, trying to elicit a response.
He finally stirred, blinking several times, and his dark eyes took on for a moment a sense of clarity. "Ril," he said, and his mouth curved up in a humorless smile.
"Are you okay?" she asked, concern etched on her features.
"You're the one with blood all over her face…" Avery tried to move and groaned in protest at the pain brought on by his effort. "I don't feel so great, Ril," he murmured.
Averil's eyes widened. "Just lie still," she told him, fear evident in her voice. She tried to sit up and slid on the glass that was scattered all around her, falling back on her side. Her hand slipped from the gash on her head and she clamped it back, feeling weak and wondering why there was a sharp stabbing pain in her side every time she tried to breathe. "Ave?"
Her brother didn't answer, merely turned his head again and smiled at her a little again, then shut his eyes, going perfectly still. Averil followed her brother's example, laying her head on her arm , listening to the roaring in her ears and trying not to think about the fact that blood was flowing freely from her temples, around her fingers pressed against her wound and down her arm. At last, she shut her eyes, and darkness took her.
Dum-da-DUM!!! Okay, so it's a ghetto cliffhanger--a ghetto chapter, for that matter--but things will pick up. This is the obligatory introductory chapter, after all. O.o And now I will ask you to please and let me know what you think! If everyone hates it, I promise I'll take it down.
Love from Narwain