"Alright class, we wont stay in here all day, alright? It's far too dull!" Lindir announced. Gimli's strength had already destroyed three tambourines and Arwen had gotten nail polish on the piano, as well as Sam had destroyed all the guitars and Frodo got stuck in the harp. Pippin and Merry where wearing bongos as hats and Legolas had forced the triangle around his neck and now could not get it off.
"…Help…" Legolas was loosing oxygen. Once Lindir cut the triangle into three pieces of metal, he continued his announcement.
"What do you all say to an exciting visit to the petting zoo?" Lindir asked. All the children looked back at him, blinking, unsure of what to say to this suggestion.
"What's that?" Elladan and Elrohir piped up.
"It's, well, an area, with animals, and you pet them." Lindir tried to explain as basically as possible.
"That's so exciting!" Faramir was very pleased and began jumping up and down. Boromir rolled his eyes.
"Can we leave him at the zoo?" Boromir asked. Lindir gave the boy an angry frown and continued explaining.
"Now, before we can go, all the instruments have to be in place or else we wont get to ride the ponies or the horses." Lindir said, and was shocked at how fast every child made sure every item was away where it used to be, and even helped Frodo out of the harp and tried the strings to the guitar back together (though the guitar was still broken and needed new strings). Even Elladan and Elrohir got some nail polish remover and washed off the keyboards, though Lindir figured they only did so to be able to push down on the keys and make them play notes. Arwen was probably the only child who did not clean a thing, but being so feminine and afraid to damage her hair, makeup or nails stood in the way of cleanup.
"Alright class, you all did an excellent job at cleaning up, I'd say it's almost cleaner than before if Elladan had not… ahem… raped the wall…" Lindir mumbled. None of the children understood.
"So do we get to ride the cows?" Pippin asked. Lindir shook his head.
"Well then, what about riding the chickens?" Merry suggested, getting a no from Lindir.
"But we cleaned so well!" Frodo exclaimed.
"Yes, and because of that you can ride the ponies, horses and the llamas, but the cows and chickens are off limits to ride." Lindir said softly to the group of children.
"Well I want to ride a bull!" Boromir pouted.
"That is far to dangerous for a child, any child, especially a young one like yourself master Boromir…" Lindir started. "Now children, line up two by two. Whoever you stand beside is your partner, and hold his or her hand so we don't lose him or her…" Lindir said.
Immediately Estel grabbed Arwen's hand, which made the other children figure that by partners Lindir meant take the hand of which you want to marry. Since there were not many girls in the class, a fight commenced over them, but nobody except Estel and Arwen where holding hands in the end.
"I did not ask you to MARRY them!" Lindir explained. Quiet murmurs of "Oh…" spread through the group and soon each child held their friend's hand in a line.
"Alright, children, follow me. We will be able to walk to the zoo, it is located very close to this school." Lindir stated, bringing the group of children out of the classroom and out of the school.
The children remained very quiet in their lines just to make sure they where allowed to go and ride the horses, ponies and llamas. Boromir was even quiet just since he felt that he still had a chance to ride a bull.
When they arrived, Lindir had the unfortunate to have to pay for each child's entrance to the zoo, as well as his own entrance fee, which was doubled. Each child needed to pay two dollars, coming to a total of eighty dollars for all the children, plus four dollars for Lindir to enter. Tax also made the price become 95 dollars, a lot for poor Lindir, a simple schoolteacher.
As soon as the children entered, Lindir had to make sure they stayed with their partner and all together as well or he was sure he would loose one. The zoo they where visiting was one of the largest petting zoos in Middle-Earth, aside from one in Mordor, but only orcs could go in that one and usually you'd be petting imprisoned elves or hobbits not llamas and alpacas.
Their first animal to observe and pet was the monkey. There was five monkeys and a tour guide (who Lindir had to pay forty extra dollars for) held one of the more tame monkeys for the children to pat on its' head.
Everyone gave the monkey a little pat on its' head before the tour guide began to tell them about said monkey.
"This little guy is Harry. He's only been with us two years, and he is very tame." The lady tour guide told the children before moving to the next exhibit.
The tour guide took out a small little white rabbit and let all the children pet it. Boromir was the only one who did not, thinking that the bunny had some evil schemes and that if he pats it he would be devoured. Boromir had a wild imagination…
"This rabbit is Ron. He loves eating carrots. Here, why don't you feed him one?" The tour guide gave Merry a carrot to feed to Ron the rabbit, but instead of feeding the rabbit Merry ate it for himself. The tour guide said nothing and put Ron away, bringing the group of children and Lindir to the next part of the tour, the penguins.
"Now kids, we can't take the penguins out to pet, but we can look at them. These animals like the snow and the water and usually live in cold, cold places." The tour guide explained. From the look Frodo gave the penguins, it seemed he really wanted to be a penguin, just like Legolas did.
"Alright, why don't we go to the next animal before these children jump into the penguin cage?" Lindir suggested. He had already stopped ten out of forty of the little rascals from joining the penguins in their cage.
The next exhibit smelt worse than the monkey one did, to the children. The elves pinched their noses and for once wished they did not have such a great smelling ability.
"This is where we keep the pigs. I will not be picking one out of the cage as they are all muddy and I'm certain you'd much rather not pet them. The pigs do tend to roll in mud and eat things you little ones would not. That rather fat pig is a mommy pig, her name is Hermione." The tour guide showed the children a very large pig, which amused all the children, but none wanted to ride her like they originally did since she did smell bad and she did have a very large amount of mud on her.
"When do we get to see the moo moo cows?" Legolas asked, raising his hand.
"The cows? Soon. In fact, we can go right now. Follow me." The tour guide led them all to where the cows where mooing. All the children where very excited to see all of the many cows and to hear the mooing. Even some of them mooed along with the cows.
"Moo!" Legolas said, giggling.
"These are cows. You can go and pet them. You all know what noise a cow makes, and hopefully you know that we get hamburger and milk from them." The tour guide said.
"Ew! Now I have a reason never to drink milk again!" Boromir made a face.
"Now that you have all pat the cows, we will go see the chickens, roosters and their little chicks." The tour guide announced. All the little hobbits where excited and quickly followed, whereas Legolas was a bit reluctant to leave the "moo moo cows" so was slower at following.
Everyone, even Arwen who did not like how dirty the animals were, loved the baby chicks, though Boromir stepped on an egg and the mommy chicken attacked him for that.
"These little babies are very cute. They are not newborns but they are still very young, so be very gentle with the babies. As for the chickens, we get eggs that we eat from them." The tour guide said, letting the children play with some of the little yellow chicks.
"Now what are we going to see?" Grima asked. Grima did not like the cute little animals that they had already seen; he only enjoyed the pigs and Harry the monkey.
"It's time to visit our stables where the ponies, llamas and horses are kept." The tour guide said. All the children started to jump up and down and excitedly followed their guide to the stables.
To be continued…So sorry it took a while to update!
Manwathiel: Haha, well, when he starts to "change" Elrond will teach Elladan the real meaning of serenading… I'd hate to know what at the moment little elfling Elladan thinks sex means…
Bberry06: That jar can't hold brains well at all.
Mistopurr: That's okay; a review is a review despite its size!
Haldir's Heart and Soul: Yes, I was debating if I will age them or not. I will.
Here comes the hockey puck: I love using my readers' suggestions.
Eleniel of the Stars: Music is fun… Well, I hated music class personally so it's fun to pick fun at it!
MatrixElf: I may make the geeks do that when I age the children from kids to teenagers soon.