A&A&A Boarding School

Authoresses' Note: Oh hey! The sisters return from Kuala Lumpur...and Rukuelle has obtained high-heeled leather boots after the fashion of Anna Valerious. Lydia is green-eyed, not the least because she still doesn't have a leather hat like Van Helsing's. Too bad, says Rukuelle.

But we get to share the boots, don't we? Don't we? Rukuelle is very nice.

Oh, very well. We share.

Thank you.

So, on for review accolades. Lydia likes the word accolades. Accolades to:

reicheru : Aragorn sings the Et Earello song in RotK, if you didn't notice...but being you, you probably didn't. Javert's from Les Misérables.

Asha Ice: Artemis IS Irish! Just that he happens to speak French too. And Russian, while you're at it, and Vietnamese, and Arabic. You know, there's such a thing as multilinggual. You really need to brush up on trivia, dear. Oh, and five thousand years of China history would make Hermione very happy. Squish wants you to update.

Silver Sniper

Katatonia: As mentioned in Chapter 1 AN, we shall not give our reasons for sending them to A&A&A – which is very much a regular school, after all. Lydia has a classmate who was always Nerissa too...'cept she liked being her, though. We should like to see you read like a 'vagabond thief' – after all, it's giving your own style to the character, isn't it? Hee!

Rosie Cotton of the Shire: Actually it's all very AU – though we suppose Butler would still be able to teach after his wound – after all, he IS Butler. Aragorn's healing magic comes from the herbs, actually – or that's what we think. No right answers, likely.

Dark Borg Drone

Tsuki Yume

Vionny

Randa-chan: Believe us, your 'Leggy' is NOT a knowall. Not in the very least. No offence – to you at least.

Mirror of Galadriel: We did draw it out. We have loads of notes on the whole thing – classroom diagrams, dormitory diagrams, enrollment list. As a matter of fact we have a real, fully filled up, register. Perhaps we might start writing report cards for them...

Hotdogfish

Cerse Liminara: Actually, we wouldn't mind – sometimes Rukuelle believes Lydia to have vampiric tendencies

Manveri Mirkiel: Don't blame Zeggy; you haven't updated in a long time either. And wait till you see what we've planned for Legolas. Go on MSN; Lydia hasn't talked to you in a long time. Squish!

Angel(s and Demons): Are you Lydia's angel? It's kinda hard to tell, with all the brackets; but if you are, Lydia says thank you for the roses, which she dried, and Livvy the tadpole has become a frog. And now Lydia cannot tell which of the frogs is Livvy – it was so much easier when she was a tadpole

I AM EOWYN: you should read MoV, it's very good. Oh, we shall have romance – though it's not a main feature. Both of us are severely allergic to fluff, mush or any such. Only romance that's canonical though – the non-canon ones like Legolas/Helen are only for the fun of it and not serious.

Well, we thought it might be easier for you reviewers to read it this way. Although it's longer.

Lydia just wants to advocate all Pirates of the Caribbean fans to read what's probably the best PotC fanfic ever written – Ocean Soul by KA Rose. It's so well-written, so funny, so Sparrow-esque and so sad that she nearly cried at the end. Do read it.

13. Rehearsals and Runaway Homework

Legolas and Paris were waiting outside for Helen, who had gone to the toilet. Legolas was leaning on the windowsill, a slight breeze tousling his golden tresses. Paris was standing opposite him, arms crossed, foot tapping. The tension between the two was electric. People tended to give them a wide berth; anyone who could feel the hostility in the air could definitely tell something was going to happen soon. And that something wasn't anything you wanted to be caught up in.

"You know," began Paris, who was pathetically attempting to make conversation, "I've always wondered how it is, that the two of us look so much alike."

Legolas gazed coolly back. "Indeed."

"Yeah. Actually, you look more like me than I look like my own blood brother."

Legolas flicked his shining locks. "I beg your pardon. I don't think I'd even want to look like someone who's as wimpy as you."

Paris swallowed. "I beg your pardon. I wouldn't want to look like someone who's got hair like yours."

When Legolas next spoke, there was a dangerous ring to his voice. "Excuse me. What was that you said about my hair?"

Paris, who had never been really sensitive anyway, did not locate the dangerous ring. "Well, I mean, what sort of guy would have hair like yours? It's bad enough you're blonde – but to wear it in braids like you do – I mean, how girly can that be?"

In a flash Legolas had leapt off the windowsill and had Paris pinned to the wall by his throat. Paris was beginning to choke.

"Never," hissed Legolas through clenched teeth, "insult my hair again!"

Paris, terrified, could only nod frantically. Legolas threw him a look of pure poison and dropped him.

Paris picked himself up, massaging his throat. He was still in awe of his quick release – and perhaps that made him a little less cautious. So he couldn't resist a parting shot.

"Well, I wasn't the one who got thrashed by a girl on the first day of school."

It's because of people like Paris who never learn from experience, that certain accidents happen. The next thing Paris knew, was that he was flying through the air like a javelin. Legolas had certainly thrown him javelin-style. Paris found himself wishing, as he neared the descent of his parabola, that the girls' toilet hadn't been so near a wide-open window.

It was most unfortunate for the javelin-thrower, in such a case, that Inspector Javert happened to be passing, at that most inopportune moment, right under that very wide-open window.

Crash. "Oof!"

"IMPERTINENCE!!!"

The Company of Heroines were gathered at their usual spot at the tables. However, they were missing a member.

"Where's Anna?" inquired Éowyn with puzzlement.

Eponine shrugged. "Je ne sais pas. I think she wandered off in the crowd."

Elizabeth poked at the Geography assignment. "I hope she's not lost. No time for getting lost with homework like this. "

"Yeah," said Holly. She opened her file and laid their various homework pieces on the table. "Extra Math worksheet – stupid Valjean – Geography assignment. And finally..." She took out a thick stack of pages, covered in gradually sloppier handwriting. "Javert's lines."

Everyone stared in desperation at the spread before them. Slowly Éowyn lifted Holly's lines and inspected them. "Four hundred and seventy-three – not bad, actually. I'm only on two hundred something."

Holly groaned. "I did some during Lit. – I think my hand's paying for it now." She cast a look of extreme hate at the last piece of homework. "Oh gods, how are we going to finish all this for tomorrow?"

"And yet Javert will force us to do it again if we don't," said Eponine sadly.

There was a gloomy silence.

"Ah well," said Éowyn brightly, "at least we could try. C'mon, let's go look for Anna."

The Company of Heroines consented to this futile attempt to cheer them up, packed up, and left in search of the missing Romanian.

No one noticed a stack of foolscap drop forlornly to the floor with a solemn thump, unnoticed in the commotion of departure.

"What now, Hermione?" complained Harry.

"We're going to the library!" announced their overzealous companion.

Ron let out a groan. "Not again! Why d'you want to anyway? The next Geog. lesson isn't till Friday!"

"The sooner you finish everything the better. Don't procrastinate, Ron."

"But...but I haven't even finished Javert's homework, and that's due tomorrow!"

Hermione dropped the arm by which she had been lugging him, shocked. "What? You haven't? I finished it just now."

Harry and Ron gaped.

"You didn't," breathed Harry. "It's impossible. We're talking about a thousand lines here, Hermione."

"Whyever not?" Hermione grabbed their arms and commenced dragging again. "I mean, it's not even brain work. Another hour was all I needed."

"Hermione, everyone knows you're a marvel of academic science, but we're not, and we take over an hour to do our homework."

"Fine, then. Do your lines while I research Geography." Hermione released Harry to push open the library door, and they entered.

Evelyn swooped upon them immediately.

"Oh, my dears, I really was thinking I might never see you again. People always come once, and then they leave forever. I was thinking that no one likes libraries nowadays...but you are here, aren't you? Well, that's wonderful! Come on in, dears, come on in!"

Well, thought Harry, I suppose, if you had been stuck in an abandoned library for a decade, then you would be rather possessive of your only visitors.

They seated themselves at one of the round, dusty tables present in the library. He and Ron proceeded with their lines while Hermione pottered round the bookshelves searching for material, Evelyn hovering at her shoulder reciting recommendations.

They were interrupted by the arrival of Anna Valerious.

Anna gazed around her, puzzled. "Where is this? I thought it led to the Dining Hall."

Harry glanced up and recognised her. "Oh, hi. You probably got lost – this is the Library."

Anna stared around. "Library?" She wandered off into a nearby section. "Ah well. Might as well explore while I'm here." She stuck her head around a bookshelf and called: "If any of the girls come looking for me, tell them I'm here. If Van Helsing comes, don't."

Harry nodded and went back to his lines.

Speak of the Devil. As soon as Anna was thoroughly lost in her section, Van Helsing made his cloaked appearance. Van Helsing raised his hat and glanced around, the slight expression of interest crossing his usually impassive face. "This a library?"

Harry looked up, startled. "Er, yeah."

Van Helsing continued taking in the view. "So...anyone else here?"

"Only Hermione and the Librarian," answered Harry, mindful of Anna's parting words.

Van Helsing nodded, pushed his hat back down and wandered off into another section – fortunately, Harry noted, quite far from the one Anna had entered.

Hermione returned, bearing a colossal stack of books on Russia, her selected country, which she let crash upon the table with no little satisfaction.

"You shouldn't have chosen Russia," commented Harry, as Hermione opened a massive atlas and began to leaf through the plaque-like pages.

"Whyever not?"

"Because Russia's the biggest country in the world. That means you'll have to draw more maps and more diagrams and more..."

"Harry," interrupted Ron, "you know Hermione. That's why she chose Russia."

"Oh."

"Hello," put in Frodo.

All three jumped. "Now you!" exclaimed Harry.

"What about us?" said Merry, looking puzzled and hurt.

"No, it's just that the library seems really popular today, when it hasn't been in the last decade over."

Gimli shrugged. "We were just looking for a quiet place to do our homework – "

" – the Dining Hall's too noisy, see – " put in Pippin.

" – and then we saw Van Helsing and followed him here."

"Why Van Helsing?" asked Harry in a digressing manner.

The Short Alliance shrugged. "Merry's idea," replied Mulch.

"Hey, it was a good one. We're here, see."

They were interrupted by Evelyn's squeal of delight.

"More visitors! Oh, I'm positively delighted! What is it you came here for, dears? Research? Borrowing novels? Need any help?"

"Peace and quiet," said Sam.

"Oh." Evelyn seemed to deflate – if a ghost could deflate, that was. "Well, I'll leave you alone then. Got to get back to filing the books, you know."

They watched with some trepidation as Evelyn floated off to the nearest ladder and began to climb it. "Wait a minute. I would swear that those French texts don't belong there..."

"There go all our chances for peace and quiet," sighed Harry.

At the library door, the four members of the Company of Heroines jumped in synchrony as a series of dreadful crashes filled the air. "Mon dieu! What on earth was that?"

"Hopefully not Anna."

They rushed in, and were confronted by the sight of Harry, Ron, Hermione and the stunned Short Alliance in the middle of a ring of neatly felled bookshelves. Evelyn crawled out from underneath a bookshelf that had just neatly missed Frodo's toe. "Ah, that felt good..."

Elizabeth was distracted by the sight of Van Helsing emerging from the shadows of the library and picking his way suspiciously through the mess. "Get him!" she screamed, and charged.

The very shocked Van Helsing was pinned up against one of the still-standing bookshelves for interrogation by a horde of angry girls, before he could even say the particularly colourful Latin phrase he usually used for such circumstances. He said it anyway.

"What have you done with Anna?" asked Éowyn angrily.

"Don't deny it," added Elizabeth, "we know how you hate her, and now she's gone missing..."

"All the evidence points against you," declared Holly, who had clamped Van Helsing's shoe to a couple of encyclopaedias.

Van Helsing stared. "Are you mad? I haven't done anything to Anna. I haven't even seen her since Geog. And give me back my hat."

"Not till you say where Anna is," warned Eponine, holding the hat just out of reach.

Evelyn swept over as the bookshelves righted themselves. "Now, now, my dears, I'm very sorry to interrupt – but you're not allowed to fight in libraries, you know, so if you wouldn't mind taking your argument somewhere else..."

Everyone else ignored her. "I haven't got a damn idea!" yelled Van Helsing. "You know, this is unreasonable harassment..."

He was cut short by Anna's sudden appearance from another corner of the library pushing a book-filled trolley in front of her, muttering various things. "Stupid trolley...you did have to get in the way, did you...blocking up the aisle like that...oh, what's going on? I thought I heard some crashing..." Then she spotted her comrades. "Oh, there you are! I was wondering..."

Then she recognised the person in their midst. "YOU!" she screamed, pointing at Van Helsing. "Are you STALKING me again?"

Before Van Helsing could reply, he was unceremoniously dropped by his captors, who were rushing towards their friend. Wherewith Van Helsing slid indecorously to the ground, recovered his hat with much difficulty and rose to leave.

Anna untangled herself and gave chase. "You didn't answer my question! Now, if you don't leave off stalking me, for whatever perverted reason you have..."

"For the umpteenth time, I am not stalking you. Nor am I a pervert. So shut up and bugger off."

"You dare talk to me like that!"

"Oh, don't go all high-and-mighty on me..."

"I am not!"

"Oh yes you are."

"Am NOT!"

"Wordsworth?" Evelyn's voice cut through the air. The librarian ghost reached out towards a nondescript book on the second shelf. "You're supposed to be in the Poetry section..."

"Oh no," muttered Harry. "Er, maybe the two of you should get out of the..."

The ladder toppled.

Everyone in the library who was not occupied with being crushed either covered their eyes or watched and winced in horror.

"...way," finished Harry helplessly.

Evelyn scrambled out from underneath WIR – WIX and rushed towards them. "Oh dear. Oh dear. I keep forgetting it's rather hard on people who're still alive." She turned and gestured commandingly at the bookshelves. "Get off them! Now!"

The bookshelves righted themselves, in an almost apologetic manner. At once several people rushed forward and began pulling the two victims out of the wreckage. Harry, Ron and Gimli dragged Van Helsing into the empty carpet space while Éowyn and Eponine hoisted Anna upright and supported her out.

"Anna," said Holly urgently, "Anna, are you all right? Can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two," mumbled Anna. "It's okay, I'm fine. Mothballs saved me."

"Mothballs?"

Anna tried to explain. "You see, on impact most of the books turned into mothballs..."

"They were rather suffocating, though," commented Van Helsing, who was trying to un-dent his hat.

"You don't interrupt. Anyhow, that sort of cushioned the impact."

"Oh. Ah."

There was silence as everyone contemplated the latest curious event that had happened in their lives.

"Ah, well," began Hermione cheerily. "Ghost bookshelves. You never know."

Legolas Greenleaf stumbled out of Detention Class, shaking his sore hand mournfully. Two detentions already – he wondered whether cutting lawn grass or writing "I, Legolas Greenleaf son of Thranduil, will not throw my fellow classmate at my CLE teacher again" was worse. It was a fairly close comparison.

Something still irked him, as he entered the almost empty Dining Hall. That last sentence of Paris. Obviously the wimp had only said it to annoy him, but it still rankled. As long as Holly's insult to him remained unavenged, his dignity would remain the price.

He stepped on something, which crackled. Looking down, he observed yet another set of papers that had landed on the floor amidst all the other junk that four levels of students will produce. But the name on the front sheet caught his eye.

Holly Short: Lines for Inspector Javert

A – ha.

After ascertaining that Anna and Van Helsing had survived the incident with nothing worse than slight concussion and hat dents, everyone went back to their work – namely, with the exception of Hermione, Javert's lines.

The exception of Hermione suddenly expanded to include the exception of Holly, when the latter realised that her lines were missing from the folder.

"D'Arvit! Where did they go?"

"What? Who's gone?"

"My lines." Holly stared in horror at her folder with its blatant lack of foolscap lines. "D'Arvit. If I don't get them back Javert will make me rewrite them again. D'Arvit, d'Arvit, d'Arvit."

"Oh, no," Eponine looked up with a mix of horror and pity. "I don't think anyone could stand that."

"Certainly not me," moaned Holly.

"You can't have lost them too long ago," suggested Éowyn kindly. "Perhaps you just left them in the Dining Hall."

"Right. I'll go and look."

Holly fled out of the library, followed by Éowyn, who wanted to help search.

Another twelve minutes passed as everyone else went on with their homework. Then there came the sound of running feet. Holly and Éowyn reappeared, the signs of distress clear on their faces.

"It's not there."

The Company of Heroines stared at them in dismay. "Let's all help look," proposed Elizabeth, who wanted to at least do something. "We can't just let you get tortured by Javert."

"No," answered Holly distractedly, "you need to finish your own lines. Or else he'll get to torture you too..."

Anna interrupted. "We're friends, remember. If we do anything we do it together. If you get tortured, we all get tortured together."

Holly grinned at all of them through her desperation. "Thanks so much. You're great pals."

But at this moment something rather awful interrupted. One of the worst things that could interrupt at a time like this.

Arwen burst into the library, slightly out of breath. "Oh, there you are! We've been searching everywhere..."

"Why?" asked Hermione. "What do you want us for?"

Arwen leaned against a bookshelf to regain her breath and smoothed her hair. "Don't you remember what the Lady Galadriel said? At all?"

Everyone shook their heads, clueless.

"Rehearsals," went on Arwen. "For the Phantom of the Opera. She wants you all in the Theatre right now."

Holly clapped her hand to her mouth. "Not now."

Arwen shook her head. "She says now. Or else."

Holly let out an exclamation of frustration.

"D'Arvit!"

End of Chapter

Next chapter coming... Phantom Speech and Partnering Upsets