A&A&A Boarding School
Authoresses' Note: Hah. Bah. Poetry Bash. Fanfiction hence ignored. Not at all sorry.
Akwyn: We suppose we must resign to the spinach and black peppers. We've been bad.
Mizamour: Like this? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?
Tsuki Yume: What a pity. Sure Venice must be lovely. Ah, Europe's getting so ex nowadays.
Capricornus152: Wait till Friday. There's quite some A/B then. Thing is, we have so many pairings going on…all canonical, of course…
Sapphire Dragon: Supersintonado? Cool word. That's a funny pun: "After the curtains fell, two of the students decided to follow."
Elenhin: Boromir's reaction to Faramir's change-of-heart was a bit…weird…
Aristo Seran & Onashii: Note that Legolas will be appropriately dignified after this. Note: Dignified does not equal absolved.
Lee: You mustn't punish yourself so. We know certain people who have more of a reason to review than you haven't reviewed (pokeManveriMirkielpoke) We're watching Phantom in London cette June. The Producers? The songs seem to be quite nice…
Catwraith: Yes, yes, coming……Not ballet, although we would love to learn more about Irish step dance. It sounds awfully fascinating.
Lydia is trying to set up a website, but is failing miserably due to FreeWebs Hosting, which is trying to fight her all the way and succeeding brilliantly against her. In the meantime, on to the new decade – and we finally find out what lives in the hospital wing – and what Legolas has been up to all this while……
21. Stargazing and Sleepovers
The Company of Heroines converged instantly upon Lord Elrond as he emerged from the hospital wing. "Elizabeth! How is she?"
"She will live," answered Elrond rather irritably. He sounded weary. "So will the Turner lad. Was it not I who healed them?"
None of them responded to this touch of egotism. Éowyn let out a long expulsion of breath. The knot of worry in her heart loosened by a lot.
"May we see her?" asked Holly.
"You may not," was the answer. "Your friend is fine; there is no need to trouble the hospital nurses. Now get to your dinner."
They weren't really in the mood for dinner at the moment, but Elrond's eyebrows were firmly locked together and promised bad things if they didn't obey. Defeated, the Company slouched down to the dining hall.
Dinner didn't really smell too bad – it appeared to be venison chunks on jasmine rice. The only weird element seemed to be the queer green mush smeared on the venison, which was rumoured to be a widespread mishmash of various mysterious legumes. It turned out to be quite tasteless.
Even Eponine didn't seem interested in the mush. "I wonder how Elizabeth's getting on," she mused mournfully.
"She'll be fine," said Holly, and with a great effort tried to turn attention away from tragedy to something else. "We've got Astronomy tonight at 9.00. On the Astronomy Tower…I wonder where that is?"
"Easy," replied Éowyn, "the tallest one. I think that's unfair – making us stay up late for stargazing. What's the point in stargazing, anyway?"
Anna shrugged. "Bet it's boring."
"Almost everything here is boring," agreed Eponine. "Wish we could skip it. Well, Elizabeth's in the hospital wing, so she can…oh. Oh dear."
The others were too nice to point out that she had brought them all back to depression, so they slowly sank instead into despondence in silence, poking at green mush and mentally mourning their fallen (quite literally) comrade.
"Hermione," observed Ron complainatively, "you don't have to bring so many books."
Hermione gave him a look askance. "Unlike certain people, I do advance reading."
"I bet," retorted Ron, "that it's so dark up there you can't even take notes."
He had a good point. Night on A&A&A was dark, velvety night, black to the point of choking. The many stars didn't really help.
They turned a corner and came to the spiral staircase that wound all the way up through the Astronomy Tower. Harry craned his neck to see the top. "It's really high," he observed.
"Then we had better get started," replied Hermione cheerfully, adjusting her bookbag strap and putting her foot upon the first step. "Don't want to be late, do we?"
Harry and Ron had to agree. Being late was severely frowned upon in A&A&A, and every teacher did their utmost best to discourage it, by being particularly generous in the meting out of detention.
Five storeys later, Harry began to think that they might be a tad late.
Ten storeys later, Ron suggested, panting, that they might stop for a little rest.
"How far is it?" gasped Ron as they leaned against the curving wall of the stairwell. Hermione had put down her book bag and was trying to catch her breath.
Harry peered up through the dim opening framed by the curling steps. It didn't look any closer than it had on ground level. "Can't tell."
Hermione would have climbed Mt. Everest if the classroom had been on the other side. "Let's go," she panted, and they set off trudging determinedly.
They went on trudging determinedly until the fifteenth floor – that was, approximately the fifteenth floor; Harry was quite sure he had lost count along the way.
"Why the hell do they have to build it so high?" exclaimed Ron, glaring ferociously at the impenetrable heights of the winding stair.
"Language, Ron," gasped Hermione. She didn't have any breath left to say anymore.
Twenty floors later, Harry was all ready to throw his jaded body down the hole in the middle of the stairwell – except, of course, that it would be a horrendous waste of all that effort they spent getting up there.
The twenty-first floor was, fortunately, the last one. The three tired mountaineers dragged themselves out of the dimness of the stairwell, into the refreshingly open night air of the rooftop. It was indeed a rooftop classroom, although it had not forsaken the three-by-three seating arrangement, even at such heights. It was certainly a good place for an Astronomy class. The stars looked as close as electric lighting in a normal classroom.
Not that any of them noticed all this. It was all they could manage to haul themselves to their seats and flop down into them with audible sighs.
When Hermione had got most of her breath back, she observed with a start that they actually seemed quite early. As a matter of fact, no one seemed to have attempted that colossal climb just yet. The other seats were all empty.
There was a clip-clopping of hooves. Harry blinked. Was that Foaly? No, it seemed to be another centaur. A more handsome one that Foaly. The starlight glimmered faintly on his glossy flanks and his golden waves of hair.
"I am Firenze," said this apparition of starlit rooftops.
Harry blinked. Again.
"You need not worry," went on Firenze in his serenely calm voice. "They will be late. I have foreseen it in the stars."
They nodded blankly.
Firenze and the stars proved to be accurate, however. It was fifteen minutes before Artemis turned up, sweating more than he usually did on a normal day. Fifteen minutes later the rest of the class began to trickle in, in varying states of fatigue, depending on their level of fitness. Aragorn looked as if he had been taking an evening stroll. Arwen did not.
Firenze waited till they were all seated, before beginning sonorously. "Astronomy may seem to some a useless skill. This is untrue to those who have been trained in the art of true stargazing – an art which I am hired to teach you. Gaze up at the constellations above you."
They did so. Several necks immediately cricked.
"Observe," came Firenze's slow words. "How the constellations circle. Each one with a meaning, settling inexorably into the patterns of fate. Let us take them one…by one…"
"Knew it was boring," muttered Eponine, flopping back onto her desk and cradling her head on her arms.
Firenze's voice went on and on. Their necks proceeded to ache inexorably, like the maelstrom of stars whirling overhead. "Can you see Venus? It is the little one over there, but still so bright…"
Achilles could not see Venus. He couldn't even tell any of the little pin-pointed dots of light apart. He followed Eponine's example.
On and on about Venus. How many attributes did the idiot planet have?
Mulch grunted and curled up in his chair.
Firenze appeared supremely unaware that the attention span of the class was wavering on the brink of absolute destruction. He rambled on.
Pippin was snoring. Gimli gently turned him on his side so that he stopped, and then went to sleep himself.
There was a series of rhythmic thunks as the heads of the French Revolution hit their desks syncophantically. Firenze didn't even look up.
Most of the people whose necks had been cricked had fallen asleep on the desks of the persons behind them. The latter didn't really mind, since they weren't conscious either.
Firenze appeared not to notice that his class had gone comatose. He went on rambling to Hermione, who was probably the only student struggling to keep awake. She was trying not to look at the time, which was 11.36pm and severely overshooting the original lesson period.
Eventually bookishness was defeated by Morpheus. Hermione's pen fell from her motionless hand, and the centaur was the only one left awake and preaching.
Overhead, the stars in their cosmos sea whirled upon their majestic paths of celestial divinity, magnificently, regally, inexorably…
Achilles awoke.
He had been having a quite a good dream. He faintly remembered it involving Briseis. And tonsil hockey, indirectly.
Waking up was a very painful experience. His neck ached. That was the first thing he noted. The second thing was that the rest of him ached almost as much.
Ow.
He opened his eyes.
Morning sunlight, first gently, then demandingly warm, washed over his face in a wave of heat. The rooftop classroom was filled with sleeping students. Firenze was nowhere in sight.
Achilles swore under his breath, leaned over and shook Briseis gently awake. As an afterthought, he shook Andromache a lot harder.
"What?" cried Briseis, gazing around her dazedly. Then, as realisation dawned: "Oh dear."
They moved around the class, hastily shaking people awake. Achilles marched over to Artemis and grabbed him by the arm, twisting it around. Artemis came awake swiftly and yelped.
"Seven fifty-five," muttered Achilles, reading off Artemis's gold watch. "Damnit, we're late for Celeborn's class!"
Hermione's face took on a look of utter despair.
"We can make it if we hurry!" exclaimed Chix Verbil. He darted towards the stairwell and plunged downwards through the middle vortex.
"Easy for him to say," complained Haldir sniffily. "He's got wings."
Hermione scooped up her books and ran determinedly for the stairs. Ron pelted after her going, "Slow down, we're going to be late anyway……"
Merry looked distraught. "It's nearly eight? But that means……"
"…no breakfast!" wailed Pippin.
The faces of the Short Alliance took on a hangdog look.
"Chix is right," declared Aragorn, addressing the whole class. "There's only a very slight chance we could make it, but it's worth a try."
"Spoken like a true leader," commented Arwen admiringly, handing him his Astronomy book. "Let's go."
Looking down the bottomless vortex of the stairwell, however, would have made the hearts of the staunchest quail in fear.
Aragorn made a start by moving towards the steps. Everyone else followed edgily.
Even though going down was a lot easier than going up, they were only at the nineteenth floor when the bell rang. There went all chances of getting to class on time.
At floor eighteen, Pippin was struck by a sudden idea. "Remember the first day of school?" he panted to Merry.
"Yes," Merry panted. "Why?"
"Remember when I fell over the banisters?"
Merry stopped. "You're mad."
Pippin hastily amended. "I don't mean fall over the banisters! I was going to suggest sliding down the banisters."
"Ah." Light dawned upon Merry. "I see."
Two floors below, Aragorn, in the lead of the rooftop exodus, was treated to the sight of two hobbits speeding down the banisters at a supremely speedy rate, whooping and shrieking loudly. They rounded a couple of curves and shot out of sight.
Aragorn stopped short. He gazed after both of them. And then, before Arwen could begin remonstrating, he vaulted onto the banister, long legs dangling, and was off after them.
It started a new class trend.
Enjolras had always been one for revolutionary ideas. He leapt onto the banister and, with loud whoops of encouragement, got the French Revolution spiraling down after the pioneers.
Éowyn laughed out loud, and followed them as well. The Company of Heroines adored extreme sports.
Van Helsing, not to be outdone by anything Anna Valerious did, scrambled onboard and slid out of sight.
By that time, most of the more liberal members of the class were sliding down the banisters. It conquered distance at an remarkable rate. The hobbits shot off the end at ground level less than a minute later, landing splat on the ground. Aragorn landed on top of them, followed by a consecutive rain of revolutionaires.
When everyone had more or less recovered from their rough ride, they had to pick themselves up and walk, like so many battered beanstalks, to Quenya class.
Celeborn was majorly annoyed. "I detest late students even more than late homework," he pronounced to his tardy class. "But since you have had such a late night, I will not press matters. Now, please pay attention to my Elvish lesson."
Quenya lessons were Celeborn's pet subject. It was after all, his native language. It constantly irked him that of all the languages he taught, students seemed to find it the most difficult.
Celeborn proceeded to teach them how to write the date in Quenya, by forcibly drilling the names of the different months into their heads. It was painfully, mind-numbingly boring. Holly found a piece of colourful construction paper in her file, and she and Éowyn began a cheerful 'Get Well Soon Or Else' card to Elizabeth.
"Miss Short!"
Holly jumped, and guiltily shoved the card under her desk. She eyed Celeborn nervously as he advanced on her. "Er…yeah?"
"Name the fifth month of the year!"
Holly racked her brains. "Er…May?"
"I meant in Quenya Elvish."
Holly swallowed. "Oh yes. Elvish. Um. Er." Normally she was fluent in most languages, but Elvish was a bit out of her depth.
Celeborn gave a shark-toothed grin. "My dear girl, have you been listening?"
"Of course!" expounded Holly, trying to stall for time. "That is…I have been listening, but the word kinda slipped my mind…wait a minute, it'll probably reappear in my head by then…"
"Lótessë," said Artemis quietly.
"Thinking, thinking," went on Holly. "What did you say? Professor Celeborn, I do know the word, except that I cannot recall if there are any accents…Are you giving me the answer?"
"I should suppose so," muttered Artemis under his breath. "May in Elvish is Lótessë. Would you like me to spell it out to you?"
"Oh yes!" exclaimed Holly. "Now I remember. Lótessë. That was it. Lótessë."
Celeborn stalked off, disappointed in his effort to punish a student for inattention, having been foiled by Holly's apparently Lazarus-like memory. Holly leaned over. "Thanks," she whispered. "I didn't know you were the sort that helped people with their homework."
"I'm not," responded Artemis coolly. "But then, I'm not Draco Malfoy either."
The class had had a late night, and fifteen minutes into the lesson they were already yawning. Celeborn noted this and switched tactics by giving them groupwork to do instead.
He patrolled the class, separating a squabbling Grantaire and Gavroche and primly correcting Achilles's multiple pronunciation mistakes, until he came to Jack's bench. Jack was sitting by himself, alone and forlorn.
"Where are your groupmates?" inquired Celeborn.
"Hospital wing," muttered Jack.
Celeborn was at a loss. In the end, he decided to let Jack off the hook and exempt his bench from having to pass up the groupwork. Jack went on looking forlorn as he left.
He was wondering about Will and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth awoke.
For a moment, she thought that she had gone blind. She couldn't see a thing, although her eyes were open. She sat up bolt upright in shock, and shadows moved behind the screen of the bandages.
Bandages?
Elizabeth touched her face. It had been positively mummified in linen bandages.
Elizabeth gave a little scream, and tore at the material with frantic fingers. With her rending fingernails she managed to dig a small hole amidst the bandages, and ripped the entire mask off.
She was in what must be the hospital wing – a dim room with two rows of neat, unadorned beds facing each other. The beds on either side of her were filled. On her left was Will, whose head had been swaddled in much the same way as hers had been. His leg was monstrous with wrapping, and he appeared to be on a drip. Elizabeth looked at her own hand, and espied a thin tube emerging from the flesh. She was on a drip too.
The motionless figure on her right could have been a mummy, fully wrapped and bound. The facial features were hidden beneath the many layers of bandage, but there was no mistaking that bright golden hair that leaked out from under them.
"Legolas?" queried Elizabeth.
The form wriggled slightly, and rolled stiffly to face her. "Is that Elizabeth?" it said, sounding extremely muffled. "I saw the two of you brought in, when they changed my bandages."
"We beat you up that bad?" asked Elizabeth. She wasn't sure if she should appear remorseful.
"That's what they think," mumbled Legolas indistinctly. "They won't let me out. After I'd torn away the bandages for the first time, they bandaged my hands together so that I 'wouldn't do myself any more harm'. I can't even sit up."
"Who's they?" The situation sounded severe.
Before Legolas could answer, there were frantic footsteps around the corner, and an entire bevy of hospital nurses burst into view. They were all swathed in hospital robes and fearsome surgical masks, and they were waving a large collection of dangerous-looking medical implements. "She's awake!" shrieked one. "She's awake!"
"Um," began Elizabeth.
The nurses gave her no time to say any more. They pounced like voracious wolves upon a single defenceless rabbit. Four of them seized her head and shoulders and forced her back down onto the bed, while another two began bandaging her forehead. Elizabeth kicked, screamed and struggled. To no avail – there were simply too many of them.
"She's hysterical," remarked one of the masked nurses. "Must be the concussion. We'll give her a little something to make her sleep."
"Nooo!" shrieked Elizabeth, but through the cracks in the bandage, she saw the nurses part like the Red Sea before the one holding the dripping needle. Elizabeth opened her mouth to scream, and the resulting bellow was ear-shattering, made even more so by the sharp pain in her arm as the needle went in.
The world proceeded to break up into coloured spots, which dissolved casually into a thick black background……
End of ChapterNext chapter coming…Shootouts and the Sewage System