LotR: Biology Class

Froggy, Sulky, Rilian, and Edmund; 2004

A/N: Written during a biology class by four very naughty students...

"Zzzzz!" Pippin was in deep repose. "Snort! Zzzzz!"

"Pip!" whispered Merry, nudging him with an elbow. "Pippin, wake up! Teacher Gandalf is staring at you funny. I think he is mad!"

And then Gimli started thumbing through the Biology book. "Ah," he sighed. "I much prefer to study biology in my native Dwarfish." So he ate the book. "Superb," he said, burping out a piece of paper.

"How come Gandalf gets to teach?" whined Legolas. Gandalf eyed him scornfully. Aragorn, who had just noticed Gimli's devouring of the biology book, began to snicker. But unfortunately, it didn't stay that way long. Soon, it grew to a chuckle, then an outright laugh, and then potent guffaws. And finally, he was outright roaring with laughter. Unexpectedly, his chair tipped back, dumping him headlong into the lockers. He hit them so forcefully they pitched forward precariously, tottered for a moment, and crashed down upon him. He was smashed flat as a sheet of paper, much to the amusement of the others. But his feet, crowned with a worn pair of boots, protruded just beyond the edge of the lockers.

"It's the wicked Witch of the East!" cried Sam.

"What happened?" asked Pippin, yawning sleepily. "I didn't see it."

"The Wizard will explain it!" yelled Merry. "The Wonderful Wizard of, well, Biology."

"Well, my foolish friend," said Gandalf, "the Wicked Witch of the East is dead. Aragorn is the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Take his boots! Take his boots!" shouted Legolas eagerly.

"No!" Gandalf yelled over the tumultuous hubbub. "It's time for biology! Our lesson for today is…"

BUZZZZZ! The lunch bell rang. Everyone leapt happily to their feet, making for the door.

"Now wait just a minute, you traitorous Orcs!" Gandalf cried. "You're not leaving until I finish the lesson! So sit down and shut up!" Gandalf raised his staff high above his head and brought it forcefully down on Boromir with a decisive crack. The man fell back into his seat, rubbing his head.

Gimli was enraged. "How dare you!" he railed. Frodo and Sam were huddling in the corner, in fear of Gandalf's sure-to-come wrath. Pippin and Merry cowered under the table. A steady silence fell.

"I want my lunch!" yelled Gimli. "I'd hate to see myself dwindle!"

"IT'S NOT LUNCH-TIME, FOOL OF A FELLOWSHIP!" roared Gandalf. "That was a prank lunch bell! It's only 11:15!" All eyes went to the clock, and were dismayed to find that the wizard was right.

"You're a very mean teacher!" Legolas blurted out with a whimper.

Gandalf halted in his tracks, turning to glower at the elf. Without warning, a wry smile crossed his face and his eyes went altogether clever. "Very well," he said, surprisingly calm. "To give you a taste of what I have to put up with, you Legolas, will teach the class today." Without another word, he strolled casually to the back of the class, behind Boromir and Gimli, and took a seat. By then, Aragorn had crawled out from under the lockers and reclaimed his chair.

"Oh, here, teacher," said Gandalf condescendingly, tossing the elf his staff. "You'll need this, I think!" Legolas caught it and stared at it in puzzlement. "How does this thing work?" Legolas pondered.

Gandalf giggled girlishly, a complete change of character, and pointed at Legolas. "He-he-he," he chortled, leering at the elf. "Teacher Legolas's eyes are too close together! He must be stupid! Ha-ha-har!"

Legolas set the staff down and glared hostilely at the Wizard. Then, he opened the biology book convincingly. "Today class," he began, "we will learn about autotrophs. The most important—"

"Teacher!" cried Gimli. "Gandalf is pulling my pony tail!"

"Ee-hee-hee!" laughed Gandalf. "Carrots! Ha-ha!"

"That is quite enough!" said Legolas, fingering the staff tentatively. "We value very much the lovely orange color of our friend Gimli's mane." Gandalf started yanking even harder.

"Cease and desist!" yelled Legolas. KAZAPP! The elf sent out a blue lightening bolt from the staff. Regrettably, it hit Gimli instead of Gandalf, sizzling his beard with a colossal ball of blue flames.

"Ya-ha-ha!" shrieked Gimli in alarm, jumping up and racing in circles around the room. "Put it out, you fools! Put it out!"

In a panic, Legolas snatched up Gandalf's charming, plastic coffee mug and flung the contents onto Gimli. The flames hissed and sputtered, but died down fairly quickly at the impact.

Gimli noted to his utter disappointment that he had a good-sized hole in his beard, big enough to lob a baseball through unimpeded. "Gee," said the Dwarf sullenly, "thanks a lot." Gandalf giggled mirthfully at the back of the room.

"Now, back to the lesson," said Legolas. "As I was saying, the most—"

"Teacher Legolas," whined a certain Wizard in the best little-kid voice he could produce, "I gotta go to the bathroom!"

"Please!" said Legolas hopefully. "Please, by all means, would you go?"

"Okay!" Gandalf raced out the door.

"Quick, while he's gone!" said Frodo urgently, "start the lesson!" Everyone pulled out notebooks and pencils.

"Excellent!" said Legolas. "I'm glad to have such earnest and dedicated students. Now, to continue our study of autotrophs and such, you will need to take notes of the major points as I outline them…"

A while later, when Legolas had finished reading the chapter and giving a brief lecture, he set the book down and beheld his "students." It turned out that everyone had been very impish while he had been trying to teach them biology. In fact, the only people who had even taken notes at all were the studious Hobbits, Frodo and Sam. Everyone else, I'm sorry to say, was quite rotten. First, Pippin had once again fallen asleep. But while he did so, Merry and Boromir had drawn a curly mustache on his face in permanent black marker. Then, Gimli began braiding his mustache hairs into dreadlocks. Aragorn had drawn a nutty picture of Legolas in his notebook. And last but not least, Merry, Boromir, and Aragorn started playing cat's cradle. When they noticed that Legolas was staring at them irritably, they hurriedly hid the string behind their backs.

"Uh," said Legolas coolly, "very smooth."

As time passed, Legolas realized that Gandalf had not returned from the bathroom. "Where is Gandalf?" he asked.

"Still in the bathroom," yawned Merry.

"Well, I suppose I must go find him," said Legolas. "Frodo, you're in charge until I return."

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Frodo. Legolas egressed from the room, while Frodo made his way up front. But, alas, he was too short to see over the top of the table, so he had to stand on a chair.

"Attention class," he started. "It is now officially nap-time. Let the snoring commence!"

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…"


Meanwhile, Legolas was outside the bathroom door.

"Hmm…" he said thoughtfully. "I believe Gandalf is being truant." He put his hand on the door to open it, but before he could, it opened from the inside and Gandalf strolled out, looking well pleased. My, was he a sight! He was drenched from head to toe in toilet water, wrapped like a mummy in wet toilet paper, he smelled fairly rancid, and to top it off, he was wearing a wide grin from ear to ear.

"Mwee-hee-hee-hee!" he chuckled evilly. "Sorry teacher. I had a little accident! Guess you'll have to clean it up. Mwee-hee-hee-hee!" He ambled casually back to the biology room.

Legolas smirked and crossed the threshold of the bathroom. dun, dun, DUN!

Legolas' eyes widened with horror as they scanned from floor to ceiling. He backed up and closed the door, then strode back to the classroom, muttering curses vociferously.

He entered the room, finding Gandalf standing near the doorway. He smiled evilly, revealing sparkling white teeth. He was holding a beaker containing evil-looking green chemicals in each hand. He grinned like the Mouth of Sauron and poured a drop of one into the other.

"He-he-he—" said Gandalf.

KABOOM! An earth-shaking explosion, resembling an atomic bomb, filled the room. Everyone woke up immediately. (Except Pippin, of course) They all looked like Merry and Pippin had after they set off the firework in the tent during Bilbo's 111th birthday party.

"Hoooly—" said Aragorn, coughing out a smoke ring.

"Smoooke!" finished Gimli.

Gandalf looked like he had fallen into a tar pit, but he was still grinning from ear to ear. "Mwee-hee-hee-hee!" he chuckled.

The chemicals had exploded right in Legolas' face. His hair was a blackish-green, and it was smoking like a chimney. It was standing straight up, as if it itself was freaked out. The elf's face was the same color as his hair. He was rather dazed, and looked so flimsy that he might fall over at any moment. "Go to the office!" he croaked weakly.

Gandalf handed Legolas the remnants of the shattered chemical beakers and skipped merrily to the office, never once losing the evil grin.

It was then that the lunch bell rang. Everyone limped out the door to go to lunch. Legolas didn't. He stood staring around at the mess. And in that moment, he decided he would never criticize someone else's teaching methods again. He also decided he would stay a long, LONG, way away from Gandalf thereafter!

Finis