A&A&A Boarding School
Authoresses' Note: We have observed something that went very wrong.
Fanfiction does not allow the Shift-7, '&'.
Hence our titles have been appearing as AAA Boarding School.
Please note that it's actually supposed to be A-and-A-and-A Boarding School, and D-and-T, and M-and-M, and so on and so forth. Yes.
Cerse Liminara: Nitpicker. Well, we sort of forgot that. Although with the right amount of random jabbing with the plastic, he could have pushed the hat back into place.
Tsuki Yume: It probably has nothing to do with the snow, but with the fall. That's why.
Lee: Oh, what sort of disgraced wizard? Gandalf? Or someone from HP? Do elaborate.
Manveri Mirkiel: Root and Javert probably like the challenge (as they would say of French). It wouldn't be as fun if they just asked the teachers. The thrill of the hunt, see.
Jousting Elf with a Lightsabre: Cheese puff?
Reicheru: Javert is an over-righteous French police inspector who is after Valjean and the revolutionaires – mostly Valjean. He hates Valjean. We've forgotten the number of times we've said this.
Katatonia: So glad to have you back! It was the Grimms Brothers. And we're very proud of that particular spark of attraction. For romance-phobic people like us, a spark is a huge achievement.
Akwyn: Thanks for the description. Don't worry, braces ain't so bad. You'll get used to them. Except you'll never be able to eat chewing gum after that…
Lydia's Angel: Pay attention in class? Weeelll……
Asha Ice: Galadriel is NOTHING like a mouse! Whatever possessed you to say that? Too much attention to Orlando Bloom, perhaps. Hmph.
L-X-R: Yay! (slap hands with your sister) Fellow anti-Legolassers! Unite!
Disneyluver: Glad to see you back too! And thanks so much for your persistent reviewing! (which will get Legolas a little reprieve, but not very much) Since you asked about Elvish novels, he was probably reading something like Vanya Firessë or the like. (We leave you to wonder about translation) For more-about-Javert, see Reicheru's review answer. Well, you are probably the first one to call the Company evil for beating up your – cough – darling. You will probably find their detentions fitting, we think.
In the event that anyone is wondering (actually a lot of you have asked), Châtiment means Punishment in French and Conjugaison…well, conjugation. Which is one of the worst things about learning French. And you thought that English was bad.
Lydia wants to do some self-advertisement for her new fic, River of the Dead, which somewhat tries to explain why she is so obsessed over Sethos, and to spread the general Amelia Peabody fanism. Reviews are appreciated (even if you don't know what the hell is going on)
19. Châtiments et Conjugaison
Pain comes in many different forms.
An hour ago, Anna would have vehemently sworn that having your fingers coated in burning glue was the worst possible pain she had ever experienced. Now she would have vehemently disagreed.
The worst possible pain was to have had your fingers coated in burning glue, had the glue acidised off them, and then be forced to use your tortured fingers to write lines.
And on top of that, to be made to miss lunch when you had been starving the whole morning.
She was drawn roughly from her reverie, as Inspector Javert's baton smacked sharply onto the desk before her, making her pencil case jump. "How many?" growled Javert.
"Six-hundred and thirty-five," muttered Anna, lowering her eyes.
"You're not going fast enough," snapped Javert critically. "It's been an hour already. Write faster!"
Anna winced as pain shot through the joints of her scalded, skinned and aching fingers, and forced herself to keep up the nightmare pace that Javert had set for them. I, Anna Valerious, will not beat up my fellow classmates, elude known arrest or venture into restricted areas ever, EVER again.
She eyed her fingers with trepidation. They had gone all red and shiny, and they certainly hurt like hell. She hoped they would stay on, at least for the rest of the school day.
The lunch bell rang.
That was fast, thought Anna wistfully. End of lunch. French class now. God, I HATE Javert.
She only finished her lines – at nightmare pace – ten minutes into French class. Javert collected all their lines, ran through them to see that nothing was skipped, and fixed them with a severe glare.
"I hope you will do exactly as you have written. And remember, this is only the first part of your punishment. You still have another session with Commander Root after school today, in the field. Scram."
"I have no intention of writing anything for the rest of the day," declared Eponine as they ran hell-for-leather down the corridors towards French class. "I only hope Celeborn doesn't give us more detention for being late. I couldn't face more lines."
Celeborn was sure to be ballistic. Indeed, when the Company of Heroines skidded to a stop in front of the French classroom, their Language teacher fixed them with a freezing glare.
"Ah. So it's the delinquents."
"Sorry," muttered Éowyn as she and Holly skittered past him and slid into their seats.
"You will not do it again," declared Celeborn. "I cannot stand tardiness for my classes. Now, back to what I was saying before you – interrupted. You may be wondering why I am teaching French instead of M. Valjean or Inspector Javert, who are native French speakers. This is because M. Valjean is too busy marking Math diagnostic tests and the good Inspector dealing out lines. And I speak French pretty well myself, if I may say so."
Several people at the back of class took the liberty of rolling their eyes.
"Very good," said Celeborn, and immediately proceeded to speak in rapid and indecipherable French.
"D'abord, nous allons reviser les tenses français. Ensuite, est-ce que vous voulez écrire un petit redaction? Pour tes devoirs, bien sur. Alors…"
Éowyn's first impression was that Celeborn had gone mad and was babbling on in lunatic language. Then she looked around and saw that Artemis and Holly seemed to be understanding him perfectly. Her reaction to that was to assume that she was the one going mad.
Then she looked to her left and saw that Harry and Ron were both gaping at Celeborn in bewilderment (Hermione, of course, was listening with the utmost comprehension). To her right: Anna and Van Helsing were staring at their teacher in equal puzzlement. Carl seemed to understand too– but no matter. At least she wasn't alone in insanity.
"What's going on?" Aragorn asked in confusion.
"I think he's talking French," Arwen whispered back, alabaster brow creased quizzically. "Perhaps he said something about essays – but I really don't know what he's talking about!"
Aragorn raised his eyebrows. If Celeborn's own granddaughter didn't understand, the situation must be drastic.
Achilles put up his hand.
"Quoi?" inquired Celeborn, not very pleased at the interruption.
"What the heck are you talking about?" asked Achilles bluntly.
Celeborn froze. He stared at Achilles. Then he turned his stare and let it wash over the rest of the class.
"How many of you speak good French?" he asked.
Artemis put up his hand. So did Hermione. The French Revolution, Gavroche, Eponine and Cosette raised theirs. The fairies' hands, with the exception of Lili's, rose. So did Elizabeth's and Carl's. Everybody else just stared back at him.
Celeborn passed a hand over his eyes. "You mean the rest of you don't understand French?"
The not-so-bilingual part of the class shook their heads mutely.
"Oh dear," muttered Celeborn in a voice of doom.
He remained silent for quite a few seconds. The class watched with either slight concern or detached amusement. Evidently M. Celeborn had just had to reconfigure his teaching strategems.
After some time, Celeborn said in a depressed tone: " I suppose now we have to start from the very beginning."
So they proceeded to go through the tedious committing to memory of the various verb conjugations.
"Je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont, elles sont…"
Eventually the students who already knew quite a bit of French began to tire of watching their not-so-fortunate classmates brutally dismember the conjugations of the tenses and slaughter French pronunciation. Artemis put up his hand.
"Mille pardons, monsieur, but some of us know all of this already like the back of our hands. Could we please do something more…stimulating?"
Celeborn was looking, by now, a trifle harassed. "Er…stimulating? Er, by all means. Er…write an essay?"
"About?"
Celeborn's nerves were seriously rattled. "Anything! Whatever you want! Just don't…interrupt the lesson any more."
"D'accord," murmured Artemis. He fetched foolscap and pen and proceeded to cover the paper with neatly printed French. The French Revolution followed his example – although their content resembled more revolution propaganda than normal essay writing. Gavroche proceeded to draw his famous stick-figure comics.
"Yes, yes," went on Celeborn, who seemed a bit more encouraged. "Those who can speak French, write me an essay on whatever topic you choose. If you raised your hand just now, I expect one essay from each of you by the end of the lesson, at least two-pages long. Check your grammar. Now, back to conjugaison…"
"D'Arvit," muttered Holly, who had been hoping to slack. Her fingers still hurt.
"J'ai, tu as, il a, elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils ont, elles ont…"
"Whatcha writing about?" whispered Éowyn, leaning over to look at Holly's work.
"Carrots."
"What?"
"It was the first thing that came to mind," murmured Holly ruefully. "Really, carrots ain't bad. Hmmm…jus de carotte…nourriture"
"I don't get French," Éowyn complained.
"It has always struck me as an overtly flowery language," interjected Artemis. "Sometimes overtly unnecessary. Fancy having to decide if everything is masculine or feminine. It is not a wonder, really, that the English consider the French quite silly. Consider the illogical requirement for six different conjugations for one verb – and only in the present tense, at that."
"Why do you like French, then?" asked Éowyn, with an undertone of sarcasm.
Artemis shrugged. "The challenge."
"Why do you like French, Hermione?" Ron was asking over the other side. "It's horrible."
"No, it's not!"
"Well," went on Ron, warming to his topic, "I can't see why anyone would want to go to such bloody trouble just to speak in past tense!"
"It's an educated language," said Hermione huffily. "Very elegant and refined. People of high linguistic calibre speak it. Not like you understand."
"I don't," concluded Ron. "Showoffs speak it, that's why."
"Tais-toi," retorted Hermione.
Ron didn't understand that, so he didn't reply. Which was obeying, really.
By the end of class, French pronunciation had been laid prostrate, and was now bleeding severely from little knife-cuts. Celeborn was looking very haggard.
"Put your essays on my desk," he said. "Class dismissed." After collecting the essays, he staggered weakly out of the door and stumbled in the direction of the staffrooms.
"What's next?" asked Éowyn as Holly began packing pens into her pencil case and trying to massage her cricked fingers at the same time.
"Free period."
"Free period? They're so nice?"
"No, not really. It's because we have Astronomy at nine p.m. later."
"Ah. That's good, anyway."
"No, it's not."
Éowyn frowned. "And why not?"
Holly gave her a reproachful look. "You've forgotten? Detention with Root."
"Oh."
They joined the other three detentioners. Anna was telling Eponine about the last time she had had detention with Root.
"Stop it, Anna," complained Elizabeth. "You're making it worse."
"Am I? Don't worry, I'm sure it'll be nothing like the last time. Root seems to get more creative as the days go by."
"Anna!"
Root was waiting for them in the field. He had five large baskets and was gazing pointedly at a large patch of grass that had been fenced off. As the Company arrived, he took the cigar out of his mouth and began handing out baskets.
"You see that there patch? Lately we have been having an infestation of starwort."
"What's starwort?" asked Anna.
Root led them over to the patch. It was the normal long green grass that covered the rest of the field, but it was dotted with small, pretty-looking plants that had star-shaped flowers of a delicate light green and feathery grey leaves. "Those. They've been troubling the runners for quite some time. The Lady was going to make up something for them, but I told her to save some for you lot." His grin was very wide and very alarming. "Pick that patch clean in an hour."
Baskets in hand, the Company of Heroines advanced on the innocent blossoms with skepticism. The starwort plants trembled in the breeze and looked, if possible, more frail and delicate than ever. Surely such pretty little things couldn't cause anyone any harm.
But then, Root had mentioned that he had saved them specifically for this batch of detentioners. There must be something about those flowers.
Perhaps they were poisonous.
If that's so, mused Holly, I shan't touch the flowers. Or the leaves. Just the stems. Yes, there can't be anything wrong with those thin little stems…
Her fingers closed on the soft stalk of the nearest starwort.
"D'ARVIT!"
White-hot pain shot up her arm as needles of agony jabbed themselves without mercy through and through her fingers, like vengeful knives. Holly had very rarely screamed in her life. This was one of those times for screaming.
Gradually, the throbbing pain lessened – although it was still too strong to go away. Holly opened her eyes. The plucked plant lay at her feet, its snapped stem seemingly more fragile than ever. The other four were watching her with open-mouthed horror. Root was watching her with a mocking grin, the cigar back between his teeth.
It was the mocking grin that made Holly bend down, grit her teeth, pick up the starwort and drop it as fast as she could into the basket. Again the pain stabbed up her fingers, like fire, hot liquid fire. Holly's mouth opened involuntarily; she had to fight the scream like a demon to force it down. She would not give the commander the pleasure of seeing her scream again.
Resolutely, she moved forward. The rest of the Company followed, approaching the starwort with apprehension. Elizabeth bent down till she was nearly eye-to-flower with a starwort. She could see nothing of danger on it. She took a deep breath and nipped it out of the ground.
Elizabeth's shriek cut through the air like a sonic blast. Half the field away, the walls of the gym shuddered. Indoors, several students in the Dining Hall dropped their plates of food. The starwort rippled as if a storm had blown over them.
Elizabeth hurled the ripped starwort into the basket and held the throbbing hand up for inspection. Thousands on thousands of the tiniest white barbs had driven themselves into the flesh of her thumb and index finger.
One by one, each of the Company discovered the excruciating pain of the starwort needles as they lodged themselves without mercy into vulnerable flesh, till the flesh of each finger was a veritable forest of minuscule spines. They bore it, however. As each new onslaught of needles pierced their skin, and each new wave of starwort poison sent fire up their veins, they bit back their screams and flung the hateful plants into their baskets. The pain was maddening. Nothing before this, not even Javert's line-writing classes, could have prepared them for this venomous agony. Their hands swelled with the poison and the pain, and the throbbing beat into their heads until their very minds screamed with the torment. Anna's hands were bleeding, and Elizabeth had bitten her lip so many times it was oozing blood too.
Root was impressed. He let their fortitude try itself for an hour, before he decided they had been punished enough and released them.
When she was asked to recount the terrible experience of her detention, Holly could not remember how they got to the hall where the Phantom of the Opera rehearsals were being held. All she could remember, in that seething morass of pain that was her only memory of that period, was Galadriel's soothing voice and the cool touch of the salve she was applying on their tortured hands, and the dizzying little jerks that shot through her arm as Galadriel pulled each and every little barb out. Somewhere in that memory, she could dimly recall Galadriel saying that they could only purge the starwort poison if all the needles had been removed. Her mind was not working very well – it was all in a whirl and in French, for some queer reason – something to do with carrots, perhaps?
Châtiment…starwort…carotte…starwort…châtiment…starwort…carotte…starwort…
Pain comes in many different forms, indeed.
End of ChapterNext chapter coming… Psychotherapy and Prejudice