A&A&A Boarding School
Authoresses' Note: We have returned from our long convalescence from some particularly trying tests – especially that horrible French Dictée in Lydia's Examen ("Merde!" says Lydia). So – we have good news and bad news.
Good news – we are fast approaching a hundred reviews! And thank you to the people who have made this possible – Kit Cloudkicker (not that we get your point, but no offence intended), southerngirl4615 (we thank you for your kind concern), Asha Ice (Legolas wa bakayaru des!), Manveri Mirkiel (of course we do, lissehondonya. We live to annoy thee. What a lot of grammar mistakes), kismet truths (what a lot of lovely long reviews! We really must go review House of Assassins...Nous aimons la glace de pomme de terre!), Celias23, codefun (pinch n' poke), Fan of Fanfic (it could be done. Yes, it could...), Shuize (Lydia says it's Carmeanna, not Carmianna – there's a difference – lots of lovely reviews!), Aurora (maybe, maybe), Crow (we can scarcely believe any parent would prevent their child from reading Artemis Fowl. It is blasphemy. We do so pity you...), I AM EOWYN, and Cerse (long hair, girly, shallow...that must mean Legolas is a bishounen. Right, now we hate them.)
Bad news – From 1st October onwards, we are not to touch till the EOY (or secret codeword for exams.) are over on the 22nd October. We are so sorry, but we have to study. Hopefully none of you will drift away and forget about our poor fanfic in the long meantime. Please stay true, and forget not. On the 22nd, seek us once more. We will be waiting. Till then...... namarie......
8. Curry and the Company of Heroines
The dining hall was filled with people relaxing after the first day of school. Anna wove through the crowd towards the coffee machine, which had a long queue. She slipped into line and bumped into someone else also trying to get in line. It was Van Helsing.
Anna sniffed, tossed her head and went off to the fruit juice machine. She got into line. A few seconds passed, as a growing suspicion made itself known in Anna's head until she could not bear it. She spun around and came face to face with Van Helsing. Again.
"Are you stalking me?" she demanded.
"Who's stalking you?"
"You! First I see you at the coffee machine, then I leave, then you come here... what're you doing if you're not stalking me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. The queue at the coffee machine was too long."
"Huh!"
"Fine! I'll go somewhere else, if it makes you happy." Which was intended as a sarcastic comment. Van Helsing swept off and disappeared into the crowd. Anna left the fruit juice queue too, to make sure.
She had just joined the queue for lemon tea when she caught sight of Van Helsing wandering in her direction. Anna nearly shrieked in frustration. "I've had enough! STOP. STALKING. ME!" she yelled at Van Helsing and stomped off, determined to keep away from the drinks machines after that.
"Are you stalking her?" asked Éomer, who was passing.
"No," said the extremely bewildered Van Helsing. "She's raving mad, you know."
Éomer shook his head. "I've got a sister, so I think I know what you mean." He wandered off, humming to himself.
Anna sat down at a table, fuming inwardly. She glanced around to check Van Helsing wasn't anywhere near, and caught sight of Holly and Éowyn chatting nearby. And she was struck by a sudden idea.
"Hello," she said, going over to them.
The two girls looked up. They knew Anna Valerious by sight, and greeted her accordingly.
"I have a proposition," began Anna.
"Mm?"
"Let's set up a gang."
There was an astonished silence. Then Éowyn said with a slightly admonishing tone, "You mean a clique."
Anna shrugged. "Clique, gang, they're all the same. Anyway, we should set up a ga – um, clique for girls like us. As in, girls who don't feel like behaving like proper young ladies."
"I think I see what you mean," said Holly.
Anna went on. "You might call it, well, tomboys, sort of. We'll be the founding members."
"Sure," agreed Éowyn.
"We need rules, though," added Holly as an afterthought. "We must only allow girls with proper qualifications to join. For example, we shouldn't let Lili Frond join."
Éowyn shuddered. "Definitely not. Only girls who are tough and proud of it. And everyone in the clique should vote on whether someone can join or not."
"And no boys," finished Anna.
"Oh, certainly," confirmed Éowyn. "No boys."
"Let's look for other members," suggested Holly.
They thought about it for a long time. "Not Lili, for sure," mused Holly. "Hermione's a nerd...How about Arwen?"
"Too caught up in that boyfriend of hers," argued Anna. "She might want him to join, and then..."
"Not Arwen then. The Trojan girls?"
"Nah. Not enough guts. And that Helen hasn't enough brains either."
"What about the French girls? Cosette's a coward, but the Thénardier girl..."
"Eponine? Hey, that's a good idea!"
They looked at each other. "Okay," said Anna finally, "we ask Eponine. Any others?"
"Elizabeth Swann."
"She's not bad, you know. She can shoot pretty well."
"And she excels at beating up Will Turner."
"Good. We ask Elizabeth too. Okay, let's get on it."
Eponine was twirling an empty coffee mug on her finger and watching Marius Pontmercy stroll about the dining room with a look of longing on her face. She started when the other three approached her.
"We have a proposition," began Anna, a tad unoriginally. "We have a clique, and we'd like you to join."
Eponine gave them a suspicious look. "Pourquoi? What's this clique about?"
"Hm." The three considered. "Erm, being tomboys," suggested Anna. "Having guts. Beating up boys who pick on us. That sort of thing."
The French girl considered. "Is the Lark in it?"
"The Lark?"
"Cosette. She calls herself that. Stupid name, if you ask me."
"No, she isn't. She's a scaredy-cat."
Eponine brightened visibly. "Bien. I'm in."
Holly and Éowyn gave each other high fives. "Great. Let's go find Elizabeth."
Elizabeth was curled up in a corner like a large cat half-asleep. She sat up and stretched when the four girls came over. "Hello. You want anything?"
"We have a proposition," repeated Anna, for lack of anything better to say. "We have this clique with the four of us in it, and we're inviting you to join."
Elizabeth gazed up at them with her large eyes. "So, what do we do in this clique?"
Éowyn repeated most of what they had told Eponine.
Elizabeth yawned. "Sounds fun. You can count me in."
The newly gathered clique sat on the window seat and discussed their newfound association.
"We should give it a name," said Elizabeth.
"Girls' Gang?" suggested Anna.
"Too general. And it's a clique," admonished Éowyn.
"Tomboys' Clique?"
"Eeek."
"The Clique of, erm, Shieldmaidens?"
"Éowyn, not all of us are shieldmaidens."
"The Clique of Conqueresses!"
"The Company of Conqueresses!"
"There is no such word as conqueresses."
"You sound like Hermione Granger. How about the Company of Heroines?"
There was a silence as the five realised that was actually a good idea.
"The Company of Heroines," said Anna finally, "isn't a bad name."
"So," said Holly. "We're the Company of Heroines?"
"Yeah."
"I agree too."
"Unanimously."
"I second that."
"I...I third that."
"Eponine!"
"Sorry."
The Company of Heroines high-fived each other and went off to spend the rest of the afternoon climbing trees in the school field.
They only returned when dusk was settling over the damp grass and tempting smells were beginning to waft out of the dining hall windows. Galadriel was ladling hot chicken curry into the bowls of hungry students. There was also a large stack of paper at the head of the first-year table. Closer examination revealed it to be the Introductory Term Essays, marked and returned. People around the table were examining their essays with varying degrees of trepidation or upset.
Lili Frond stared at her paper. Celeborn had apparently given up marking by the first paragraph with its ten-mistakes-per-sentence rate and had summed up his comments in twelve red words at the bottom of the page.
THIS IS NOTHING BUT INSUFFERABLY ABOMINABLE DRIVEL. IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR. OR. ELSE.
Somehow, Lili didn't exactly mind. To be specific, she was more puzzled than angry, mainly because she was still trying to figure out what 'abominable' meant. She had the vague impression it was something negative, but that was about it.
Malfoy picked up his paper and groaned inwardly. 12/20. Looking down, he saw Granger's paper on the top of the pile. No surprises there. But he still couldn't help feeling the twinge of envy at the 18 ½ in red ink and neatly circled.
"Stop peeping at other people's marks, Malfoy." A hand snatched the paper out from under his nose. Malfoy sniffed and looked down his nose at the Muggle girl, turning his mind over for a testy reply, but she was no longer looking at him. Hermione seemed to have entirely forgotten her own advice and was staring openmouthed at the paper that had been previously covered by hers.
"Impossible..." she breathed.
Ron peered over her shoulder. "What's wrong? So Fowl got 18 ½ too, so what? Does it matter?"
"Of course it does," snapped Hermione, picking up Artemis's paper and leafing through it. "You wouldn't understand. You've never been top in anything."
"Hermione," said Harry warningly, "you really shouldn't..."
"I believe that's mine."
Hermione glanced up. Artemis Fowl fixed her with his own icy glare. Hermione gave an exclamation of frustration, threw the paper at him and stomped off. Harry and Ron followed, throwing somewhat apologetic glances at Artemis. Malfoy smirked to himself and left to fetch some curry.
"You know what?" mumbled Merry through a mouthful of curry as they went down the aisle carrying their bowls – he and Pippin didn't wait till they were seated before they began eating – "we should set up a – an – "
"Association?" suggested Pippin.
"Wow." Merry considered. "You know that word? I didn't know you knew anything over five syllables."
"Precious few words, actually," replied Pippin. "I do know encyclopaedia, that's about – "
"Anyway," said Frodo hurriedly, "what sort of association?"
Merry was glad of the distraction. "The six of us – " he waved his hand vaguely to indicate the four hobbits, Mulch and Gimli, and tipping some curry unknowingly onto Sam's shoes along the way, " – can form an association of short people."
Gimli wanted to mention that compared to the hobbits, he wasn't relatively short, but he decided it might be unkind. "So we, er, short people can look out for each other?"
"Yeah!" chorused Merry and Pippin in unison.
"Aah," supplemented Mulch.
"Let's call ourselves the Short Alliance," suggested Frodo.
"Cool," said Pippin. "Yeah, let's."
The Short Alliance continued on down the aisle in search for a seat – quite ignorant of the fact that danger awaited them at the aisle's end – in the form of Legolas.
It didn't take very long to happen. Legolas came towards them, his own bowl of curry cupped in his hands. He didn't see them; he was concentrating on getting to the empty seat beside Helen before Paris did. The Short Alliance didn't see him either. And so Legolas and Gimli collided.
Gimli stumbled. Legolas, being taller and lighter, tripped. Both of their curry bowls flew up into the air, revolving slowly, ominously, before coming down with certain catastrophe. The people around them had barely enough time to scat before the hot curry landed, with a traumatizing splat, on the elf and the dwarf.
Everyone froze.
In the silence, curry dripped down onto the floor. Chicken lumps slid greasily down Gimli's front. Legolas was completely drenched. The curry had given his blonde locks an unappetizing muddy brown shade, and his originally spotless tunic was unquestionably ruined. The sauce, however, had done nothing to mask the wrath upon his face.
In a flash, he had grabbed Gimli's shirt front and attempted to drag him up by his collar. Three things worked against him, however: firstly Gimli's mighty struggles, secondly the grease from the curry, thirdly Gimli's rather heavy weight, so he gave up on that. By that time Gimli had retrieved his senses, and a brutal exchange of blows took place.
The hobbits were too terrified to do anything. Mulch considered risking his skin to help. Legolas was over twice his height – but then, Gimli was after all his friend. He tentatively threw himself into the fray, so as to speak, but was thrown out of it into a bench quite as quickly by Legolas's elbow. Mulch rubbed his sore hip and contemplated new strategies. He decided it might be time to use his major weapon.
Outside the dining hall, Root and Vinyáya were walking towards dinner after a long meeting with Butler to discuss tested topics for Physical Education. Root put his hand on the door handle. He was about to open the door when he thought of something and turned back to tell Vinyáya. "How about we switch the weightage to thirty percent so that..."
It was at that moment that Legolas was blasted off Gimli and into Root's face by a massive ball of odorous air, which dissolved over the two of them a nanosecond later.
For the second time in so many seconds, everyone froze.
Root shoved Legolas off him and rose to his majestic height of slightly over a metre. His face was beautifully suffused and looked liable to rupture any moment. In a voice dreadful to all who were listening, he demanded: "Who did this?"
Fingers were pointed. Quite a few were pointed at the hobbits, but the majority were aimed at Legolas, Mulch and Gimli. This confirmed what Root had gathered before being hit.
"You three," he growled, breathing heavily through his nostrils, "will have detention. I believe Professor Celeborn has already one student on detention tonight. Well, you will join her."
The matter dealt with, Commander Root spun abruptly on his booted heel and strode, his face still pulsing crimson, to his seat at the teachers' table. The three accused stared after him in shock. Paris smirked from his seat beside Helen. The hobbits trembled. And Legolas, Mulch and Gimli decided this was none too good.
Commander Root strode to and fro before his four detainees, like a general reviewing his troops. "You will be cutting the lawn grass." Legolas found a pair of garden shears shoved into his hand. "You will cut the area between the walls and the hedge." Root waved his arm at the general area. "Each grass blade is to be exactly five centimetres high."
The four of them stared. "Exactly five centimetres?" managed Anna finally.
"To the very centimetre." Root whipped out a small ruler and a torchlight. "I will personally measure your work." He handed each of them small plastic rulers and torchlights. "Now. Start work."
It was backbreaking. They could barely see apart from the torchlight beams, and even then it was impossible to cut the grass according to Root's requirements. The night was velvety, almost choking, and with it came an insupportable amount of mosquitoes. Gimli slapped at them in vain, and wearily chopped away at the stubborn grass. Beside him, he thought he could hear Mulch chomping away at the unfortunate mosquitoes who attended him.
Commander Root plonked his ruler down beside Anna's newly-cut grass and inspected it. "Still one and a half centimetres too high," he said critically, and got up to go inspect Legolas. Anna stared after him in disbelief at this injustice. "I can't believe this," she hissed. Grass blades sprayed from the vicious teeth of her shears like drops of green blood.
It was nearly eleven before Root pronounced himself satisfied with the height of the lawn grass. The four dragged their tired selves back to bed, not even bothering to change into nightclothes. In the girls' dormitory, Anna kicked off her boots and fell back on her bed, grumbling.
"So how was it?" asked Eponine sleepily, roused by the clunking of boots on floor.
"He made us cut the grass," complained Anna. "Exactly five centimetres. He measured it with a ruler, would you believe it?"
Eponine muttered something unintelligible and went back to sleep.
Anna stared at the ceiling, running the events of her first full day at school through her head. Van Helsing. The Company of Heroines. Five-centimetre-tall grass. She shut her eyes and let her body fall through layers of sleepiness.
What with all she had been through that day, it didn't take her long to go to sleep altogether.
End of ChapterNext chapter coming ... Magic and McGonagall