A&A&A Boarding School
Author's Note: We know that one of our most popular chapters was the Magic class one, and over here we try to do a sequel justice, although we fear it might come short of the previous one.
We're glad that people like netball, even if it's not a very well-known game, and that the Company of Heroines still have their own set of fans among our readers.
We love holidays.
24. Sorcery and Spellcheck
The class went through Defence Skills very half-heartedly, since this was the third physically demanding lesson of the morning already. Butler was not pleased, but somehow could not seem to sufficiently threaten them into putting in effort. Even Anna and Van Helsing were doing more circling than actual taekwondo, and Legolas for once didn't seem interested in knocking Paris flat.
Boromir gave Éomer an unenthusiastic punch in the shoulder. Éomer wandered backwards, then slouched over and returned it with equal fervour.
"I think my brother has a problem with your sister," remarked Boromir to his opponent, in between apathetic blows.
Éomer looked in the direction of Faramir, who was leaning against a pillar of the gym and staring morosely into the distance.
"I think so too," he agreed, and leaned away from Boromir's extended fist. Boromir retracted it and raised his foot wearily. Éomer stepped over it.
"I was about to say that," concurred Boromir, shifting his weight and receiving a lethargic kick from Éomer. He overbalanced, and sank, grateful for an excuse to sit down. Shouldn't we do something about?"
Éomer checked that Butler was over the other end of the gym, reprimanding Joly for whining that taekwondo made him feverish, and sat down unobtrusively as well. "So, what do you suggest it?"
Boromir opened his mouth, but just then Butler spotted them slacking and strode over. "Later," mouthed Boromir, feigning a high kick to Éomer's ear.
Most people looked forward to Magic, some if only because it was a classroom subject.
"Today," announced Professor McGonagall, striding down the aisles between the desks, rapping sharply on tabletops and causing their owners to jump, blush and shut up instantaneously, "we will be doing simple and complex Levitation. I expect all of you to have mastered the spell for all objects weighing lower than a kilogram by the end of the lesson. Students with no magic, your study today will be the evolutionist theory of the magic carpet, encyclopaedias in the cupboard over there. Reflections to be handed in by the end of the class."
Frodo played with a pencil idly and eyed the empty space beside him. He wondered if Sam was having fun.
McGonagall reached the front. "Magic students, you will find a feather on your desks. Wands out, please, wizardry students – Frond, stop painting your nails in my class – and observe. Wingardium leviosa!"
The feather rose into midair. Harry heard Hermione's voice by his ear, as he had expected, "Oh, that's easy, I mean, Ron knows how to do that."
"Oi," muttered Ron indignantly from hisside.
"Complex levitation, however," went on McGonagall, as if she heard, "is a different matter. A series of different charms is needed to move an airborne object through the air, often at different speeds. With the right balance of spells you can move the object as and where you wish, which is the principle used in the manufacture of broomsticks. You will find a list of the necessary spells in your desk drawers. Work your way through them, starting now."
The classroom was filled with people chanting spells, and waving wands if they were wizardry students. McGonagall went to help the others with Holy or Fairy magic, who did not have a defined way of raising feathers. The non-magic students tried to ignore them and concentrate on magic carpet studies, which wasn't easy when accompanied with constant twinges of jealousy.
It took Hermione fifteen minutes to attempt, achieve and memorise all the spells in the Levitation syllabus, and then move on to heavier things, like a whole bunch of Math textbooks with her pencilcase on top of them.
Artemis watched an eraser rub its way lazily overhead. He blinked, and it fell neatly back into the groove on his desk. He turned his attention to where Holly was heatedly flicking blue sparks at her feather, which was resolutely not moving.
A rolled-up slip of paper winged its way over to her eye level, where it proceeded to unroll in mid-air. It said, Patience is a virture. Serenity is the key to achievement.
Holly glared furiously at it. The paper caught fire and burned to death. Ash dropped onto her feather.
"I was only trying to help," said Artemis. "It really is quite easy, you know."
"Stuff it, Mud Boy," growled Holly. Sparks flared from her fingertips, struck the feather like blue lightning bolts, and jolted it straight up, where it crashed against the ceiling and lost several fibres. Holly gave him a triumphant glare, while mentally remarking, He's out of character. Again.
You're out of character. Again, said a voice in Artemis' head.
Really.
Yeah, I can tell.
Can you now. Wait, did I just think 'yeah'?
Yeah, you did, man.
Goodness, what did I just think?
Me. You thought me.
Who're you?
I'm you.
You can't be. This is me. The bit that's thinking this.
Well bugger that bit, it's always been boring.
Don't call me boring.
No, I'm talking about me here.
What? Stop trying to confuse me!
Oh, is the great Artemis Fowl confused? That's quite an achievement!
Shut up! Oh, no…
And you just said shut up! I can see I'm having some influence here.
Stop that. Who are you?
Artemis thought of an evil grin inside his head. You can call me, said this little self, the Voice.
"Fowl, are you slacking off?" came Professor McGonagall's sharp voice, cutting through his mental conversation.
Artemis shook himself back to his senses – at least, he hoped they were his. "No, Professor, just concentrating," he replied with what he hoped was perfect calm.
When she was gone, Artemis slid out of his seat and went over to where the encyclopaedias were kept. He ignored Will, who was staring at him, picked up one and staggered with it back to his desk. Éowyn gave him a funny look. Artemis, not seeing her, opened it with some difficulty and flipped through the pages till he came to P.
POSSESSION.: When an evil spirit takes control of a person or of a person's actions, the individual is said to be possessed. A possessed person may go into convulsions, have extraordinary strength, declaim curses, verses or song that the individual has not learnt previous to possession, or otherwise act in ways distracted from his or her normal personality. Possession presupposes the existence of the Devil as an evil force in the lives of people ……
Oh no, thought Artemis.
Haha.
Quiet, you.
Elizabeth folded a paper crane and sat it on her desk.
"Wingardium leviosa," she declared. The crane rose.
Elizabeth smiled with satisfaction, let it fall, and then checked her list for the Complex Levitation spells.
When she next looked, the crane was gone.
With a growing sense of horror, Elizabeth raised her head. The crane was weaving drunkenly and steadily upwards towards the ceiling, corresponding to the movement of the swaying tip of Jack's wand. Jack had never had any problem with levitation. It was one of his unholy gifts.
"J – " began Elizabeth angrily.
The crane slewed off course, into the whirring blades of the ceiling fan.
Will ducked as shreds of origami paper cascaded over his encyclopaedia.
"Blast," said Jack. He felt Elizabeth's glare on his back and turned slowly, spreading his arms in self-defence. "Sorry, lass, couldn't resist……"
Elizabeth's mouth twisted in that way it had done when her deskmates had nominated her for Christine. She flicked her wand viciously, causing the pirate hat, which had been perched on the edge of Jack's desk, to fly up and towards the open window.
Jack yelled in horror and brandished his own wand. The hat soared back towards them.
Elizabeth, livid, jerked her wand. The hat halted and hovered overhead, as two invisible forces of magic tugged at it. Finally Jack succeeded in breaking Elizabeth's magical hold over it, and snatched at it as it plunged.
Elizabeth, mouth still set, began tearing pieces out of her jotter book and making more cranes. Jack and Will watched in mounting trepidation.
Once Elizabeth had a fleet of twelve cranes, she jabbed her wand at them and muttered various spells from Complex Levitation. After several failed attempts, all the cranes rose into the air at once and zoomed towards Jack, who ducked in time. The cranes passed over his head, did a rather impressive double-back in mid-air, and zoomed back. One of them clipped Jack on the ear and gave him a paper cut.
Jack frowned. Well, two could play at that game. He violently ripped a page out of his own jotter book and began to make reinforcements. Not that he bothered with style and shape. Jack liked cannonballs, and so his army consisted solely of plum-pit-sized scrunched-up balls of paper.
When the cranes next attacked, they were confronted with a volley of paper cannonballs. Several of the cranes went down, spiralling out of commission.
Elizabeth's eyes flamed. Another page, another fleet of cranes. Jack, not to be put down, began to crush more paper balls, this time into bigger missiles. Will, who didn't like any of this, lowered his head carefully to his desktop in the interest of self-preservation, and viewed the expanding of both cellulose armies with wariness, over the top of his encyclopaedia.
When the battle started again, it was even more furious. Balls crashed into cranes, smashing them down into the gap between the chairs; cranes clustered around balls, bashing at them blindly with their heads; both paper creatures collided, plummeting down into the abyss of the classroom floor.
The row in front of them was alerted of the paper war when a cannonball thudded into the back of Eponine's neck. She looked back sharply, and her eyes widened when she saw the mid-air strife.
Eponine turned back to her seat and ripped up a page. In seconds, a paper plane ploughed through Jack's militia of flying paper balls and sent them spraying back at Jack himself.
Jack aimed a particularly large cannonball at the plane, which missed because Eponine jerked her wand up at the last second. The plane's nose rose, and the ball passed under it. The plane went on to succour more falling cranes.
With the aid of Eponine, the cranes began to beat back the cannonballs. Jack's wand-tip was a blur of panic. The plane, loaded with paper weights and escorted by cranes, bore down onto the crux of Jack's army……
One of the flying cannonballs that resulted from the collision bounced off the brim of McGonagall's hat.
Will, who had been quite certain the silence meant it was all over, took in the situation and ducked again.
"Sparrow," said McGonagall haughtily in the ensuing lull. "You are becoming quite a distraction in my class."
"Professor!" protested Jack. "They were attackin' me, I swear, it ain't fair to put all the blame on poor me……"
"Sparrow!" Professor McGonagall's voice cut in severely over Jack's tirade. "You will write me that same reflection that the non-magic students are doing now! You will hand it to me first thing tomorrow morning! It will be at least five sides of parchment! And your handwriting will be no larger than size twelve!"
Jack stopped short, aghast.
"The next disturbance," went on McGonagall in a quieter but even more menacing tone, "will mean detention. For everybody involved. I'm aware that the two of you," this to a cowering Elizabeth and Eponine, "have records. You don't, Sparrow, and that surprises me, but I hope your own good sense will keep it that way. Am I clear?"
"Yes'm."
"Yes, Professor."
"Savvy."
Jack waited for McGonagall to move over to where Briseis was trying to summon the feather into the air, before ignoring Elizabeth's warning glare and leaning over to Will. "Hey, mate. Could I borrow your essay?"
Before the lunch bell had yet to finish ringing, the stairways flooded with students eager to get as far away from their lessons/classrooms/teachers/all three as possible, and it was high tide in the Dining Hall. Lunch was collected from the omnipresent Lady Galadriel, and the students began to assuage their hunger.
Lunch today was rather pleasant, since it was Elvish cooking. Galadriel was good at Elvish cooking, and hence the food tasted, if not normal, at least as if it should be.
Achilles found himself seated next to Hector, with Aragorn and Arwen opposite him. He had by now noticed that Aragorn sat with different people each mealtime, so that by now he knew almost the whole class, and the whole class knew about him. If they had had an election for class committee, Aragorn would have run for Chair and won. When people looked at him now, they saw a leader.
Achilles had also noticed that no matter who he sat with, Arwen followed him. If the election had been for Screen Couple of the School, they would have run for it and won too. When people looked at them, they saw a couple.
He didn't really mind. He rather liked Aragorn, as a matter of fact. There was a fellow he could trust to watch his back in a fight. And Arwen was a looker, sure thing. He thought of Briseis and sighed.
"What?" said Hector, who had heard the sigh. "Something's wrong?"
Achilles opened his mouth to explicate, but then realise who he was talking to. It was a pity, he reflected, avoiding Hector's gaze, that Briseis's cousin happened to be one of the few people he would think twice before challenging.
"Nothing," he said, and bent over his plate.
Éowyn waited for Eponine to finish depositing their crockery at the collection point, and then the Company of Heroines set off for Math class.
They had reached the doors of the Dining Hall when Éomer accosted them. He seemed to be having trouble breathing from trying not to laugh out loud.
"What?" asked Éowyn suspiciously.
"You've got to see this," gasped Éomer, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out into the hallway and to the right.
When they stopped, she found herself confronted with a large placard, on which was scrawled her name.
ÉOWYN DAUGHTER OF ÉOMUND.
Perplexed, she followed a set of small arrows down the corridor to the next placard.
MY BROTHER IS AN IDIOT.
Still too shocked to do anything but read on, she walked further down to the third.
CALL HIM.
Éowyn stared at the last placard, and then turned to where Faramir had just emerged from the stairwell, with an equally stunned and horrified expression on his face, which was gaining a complexion that could have made a tomato feel inadequate.
Faramir opened his mouth once or twice, like a goldfish, then muttered something like "I'll kill him" under his breath, and fled up the stairs three steps at a time.
The rest of the Company and Éomer wandered up to where Éowyn was still standing shellshocked. Elizabeth waved a hand tentatively in front of her face.
"Would you like us to kill Boromir now?" asked Anna uncertainly.
There was a pause.
Then Éowyn said, in a faraway voice, "No, I think Faramir will get there before us."
And without another word she set off in the direction of the Mathematics classroom.
End of ChapterNext chapter coming…Protractors and Pirouettes