A&A&A Boarding School
Author's Note: We present to you a 25th chapter that isn't so much school-based as inspired by Lydia's experiences with her drama society.
The sisters apologise if they have not got their arithmetic set theory correct. It was still too good a joke to waste.
The quote Holly makes about dance being a beautiful art form comes from Lydia's senior Kavya Akash, whose dancing experiences resembles Holly's quite.
Rukuelle's still very upset about what happened to the fly in the first part of this chapter. Lydia can't fathom why she cares about the fates of plot devices.
25. Protractors and Pirouettes
It was hot, lazy weather, the sort that comes in the same package as stay-back afternoon lessons – and flies.
This particular fly that came with the weather had entered the classroom through an open window, seeking to escape the heat – although it didn't find much of a temperature drop inside. It alighted upon Ron's nose for a stopover, but hastily embarked upon the air once more when its unsuspecting perch sneezed.
The fly circled Hermione's head once – she barely noticed, so intent upon her notes was she – and headed for the board upon which Valjean was attempting to demonstrate the concept of numerical sets to the class. It landed neatly in the centre of a six, and then crawled along between the bars of an equal to settle in the middle of the null sign.
"…and so if Set A intersects Set B and both sets have nothing in common, then we say that their intersection is null, because there is no relation whatsoever between the two sets……"
"Like how the set of intelligent people in this class intersecting with the set of girls in this class produces null?" said Artemis softly.
It was a supremely suicidal thing to say, especially since he was seated in the vicinity of at least four members of the latter set that weren't going to take a comment like that lying down. Hermione gave an outraged gasp and made as if to stand up in objection, but Holly was nearer and able to exact her own revenge faster. The fly, which was resting on Artemis' textbook, hurriedly took off to avoid his flailing arm as Artemis' shoulders jerked suddenly, his face creasing up in pain.
Holly looked prepared to twist harder, but M. Valjean had been forewarned of this sort of thing happening by the experiences of his colleagues, and hastily intervened before it could get any worse. "Mlle. Short, you will release M. Fowl's wrist at once, do you hear? M. Fowl, you will do well to watch that tongue of yours. And now this is settled, might I go back to my instruction?"
The fly left that scene behind it as it swooped round a corner of a desk, barely escaped being swatted at by Van Helsing's hat, flew on and settled on Joly's eraser. Joly eyed it suspiciously. "Feuilly, do you think it's a typhoid-carrier?"
Feuilly grunted irritably and used the paper fan he had folded in his boredom to smack the fly, which again escaped, caused Legolas some annoyance by buzzing in the vicinity of his sensitively-tipped ears, and then darted off to land in the groove on Achilles' desk, blissfully ignorant of the fact that above it, Achilles was aiming a protractor, ready to smack down.
Briseis looked up, and being imbued with that unfortunate passion some people have for small and apparently defenceless creatures, exclaimed, "Don't, that's cruel!"
Achilles looked up at the sound of her voice, and the fly, still unaware of the sticky demise it had just eluded, took off again, leaving behind a philosophical argument of kindness-to-small-creatures vs. it-was-sitting-on-my-bloody-desk.
The fly made its rounds of the class, darting lithely, hovering, alighting for seconds on a desk edge or a pencil or a worksheet. It narrowly evaded being stuck through by a geometry compass casually thrown by Aragorn – as it was, it lost a leg. It settled on Grub's desk for a while to recuperate – the desk's owner was asleep as per normal in a Math class – and then took off again when Trouble noticed it and flicked idly at it.
The fly swooped low between Malfoy and Lili, skimmed through Frodo's curls, and then finally found what it wanted: the sandwich which Mulch was consuming illegally under the table. It settled in happily between the watercress and the bacon.
Mulch saw the fly as an addition of extra protein, picked it out of the sandwich, held the struggling insect up between his stubby fingers, and then ate it whole.
"Thank you, class, that will be all," said Valjean at the front. "Au revoir. Have a nice day."
In normal circumstances, students looked forward to the end of the school day. Not this lot.
"…front, back, side-ways-jump-and-turrrrrn…….no!"
Holly nearly overbalanced and clutched at a prop desk just in time. Some people weren't meant for ballet, and she was quite sure she was one of them.
She struggled to regain her balance and was confronted by the sight of Galadriel bearing down upon her. Holly blanched and nearly collapsed again.
"I know not how many times I have said it," began Galadriel in musical exasperation, "but the third pirouette is to the right. My dear Holly, you have been pirouetting to the left for the whole of this rehearsal. And you are in the front row, so it looks ghastly."
Not for the first time, Holly wished she hadn't been a personification of her surname. Fortunate people like Anna and Éowyn were tall enough to dance in the back row and so escape scrutiny.
Galadriel bent so that she was at the level of Holly's sightline, which meant a lot of bending.
"Holly, I wish you would put some effort into this. Try and like dance – it's a beautiful art form."
Yeah, thought Holly, a beautiful art form – for people who can do it.
Galadriel frowned. "I heard that," she said reprovingly. "Some self-esteem is in order, my dear. Now, we'll start from the second bar……"
Holly pulled herself together and decided to make an effort this time, if only so they could end this torment. Gods, she hated this production.
"…front, back, side-ways-jump-and-turrrn—yes! Very good, Holly! Very good, all of you! Now, you may have a break of fifteen minutes. After that, I intend to have one full run – scriptless."
There were muffled gasps from amidst the cast, and some flurry as Jack seized Andromache's script – he'd lost his again – and began to desperately try to commit his multitude of lines to memory. The ballet girls scattered, glad to be off the stage at long last.
"I really don't want to think about performance night," moaned Éowyn, as she waited her turn in the queue for the water cooler.
"It'll be a nightmare," agreed Holly. "I'll wake up screaming nights long after this is over."
Fifteen minutes later, the class filed back onto stage as if drawn unwillingly by the invisible magnet of Galadriel's mind. Their director was in top form today. "From the top, my dears! Places this minute! This minute, I say! Are we all ready? Lovely – three, two, one, lights!"
Galadriel swept offstage to join Celeborn, who had drawn up two armchairs out of nowhere. She lowered herself onto the one he was proffering dutifully, her attention all on the brightening stage.
The orchestra began. It was technically an orchestra, although it sounded truthfully like Artemis playing with some back-up percussion. The curtains cranked open, screeching as they went. Galadriel made a mental note to get Celeborn to oil the reels later.
She watched the auction scene without comment. It went past without any major glitches, if only because most of the people in that scene had so few lines, it was quite easy to remember them.
She breathed a sigh of relief when the chandelier rose without major incident. Admittedly one of the crystal chains seemed to have come loose, and was drooping in an unsightly manner, but that was a technical flaw that could be easily fixed, she consoled herself.
The stagehands, though, were very lax about timing during the scene change, and she made another mental note to reprimand them later.
Then came the Hannibal scene, in which all the accidents seemed to cascade at once.
The bleeding severed head, which Elizabeth, acting Carlotta, acting Queen Elissa of Carthage, was carrying to Hannibal, detached itself from its crepe-paper hair and rolled across the stage, where Haldir, carrying a ladder in the background, stepped on it, staggered for some time, and then finally tripped, dropping the ladder in the paths of Merry and Pippin just as they came onstage. Both hobbits shrieked.
A pause ensued. Everyone turned with bated breath to face Galadriel.
The Lady's expression was unreadable. She raised a white hand delicately and waved it dismissively. "Carry on."
The company as one released a long-held breath, and the scriptless run continued. However, the previous accidents had been but a precursor to the rest of the rehearsal.
The backdrop that had been supposed to crash down halfway through Elizabeth's aria collapsed too early, which led to Merry's line being cut off: "I have experienced all your greatest roles, Sig – aaaaargh!"
Arwen sang beautifully, but the magic was spoiled by the fact that halfway through her gala night performance, her tiara fell off. Backstage, Andromache – who had been responsible for that part of the costume – clapped a hand to a forehead and said a word no noblewoman of good breeding should know. Unfortunately, she said it too loudly. Across the stage, Achilles, who was pretending to be an audience member, suddenly guffawed in the viewing box. It earned him a sharp glare from Galadriel, which silenced him.
Jack had still not succeeded in memorising all his lines in their entirety. As a result, he repeatedly forgot his lines, sang out of tune, wandered around disconsolately when it wasn't his line and did not turn up on cue. Hence, both Phantom of the Opera and Music of the Night were riddled with errors and terrible to hear.
The cast carried on bravely through Prima Donna, valiantly ignoring the moment when Elizabeth climbed onto the managers' desk to deliver her closing lines and fell off with a shriek. During the Dance of the Country Nymphs, Holly, disregarding all previous admonishments, jumped sideways and executed a pirouette to the left.
The final straw was when the chandelier, despite Jack's desperate repetitions of his last line, and eventual kicking and infuriated swearing, resolutely refused to crash.
As the curtain finally fell on the Phantom cursing futilely at his chandelier, the cast and crew huddled in the wings, aware that they could very well be in for the scolding of their lives.
Galadriel rose from her chair in one fluid and magnificent motion. Celeborn automatically leapt up too. Without twitching a feature, Galadriel sent a silent call through the minds of her company, who miserably shuffled onstage, awaiting their due dressing-down.
Galadriel let her terrible gaze sweep across the bowed heads, none who dared look up to meet her eyes. When she had reduced most of them to a state of more or less mind-numbing terror, she spoke, in a calm, expressionless tone: "Perhaps today is not our day. I think we should all give it a rest for the moment."
With these words, she turned majestically on her heel in a swirl of white and light, and swept statuesquely from the room. Celeborn stayed only to give them a 'Now-see-what-you've-done' look, and then hurry after the figure of his wife.
No one said anything for a long time.
Silence roared in the emptiness of the theatre.
Then slowly Jack got to his feet. He had taken off the hat he was accustomed to wearing about onstage, and was fiddling with it uneasily. Eventually he said – or more like, croaked – "It's me fault. I'm sorry, mates – really I am."
Holding the hat in one hand, he crossed the stage with painful slowness and made to leave the theatre, head bowed.
Elizabeth raised her head wearily. "No, Jack," she said. "It's not just you."
"It was all of us," said Aragorn.
He had voiced what all of them had been repeating wretchedly in their heads. Some people nodded. Others bit their lips, or put their heads into their hands. The silence was heavier than an entire winter's accumulation of snow.
Arwen sighed. She rose, sorrow etched on her beautiful face, and addressed them all. "I know a lot of us don't want to be here. I know a lot of us don't like this production. I know we were forced into doing it – but still, we shouldn't use that as an excuse to botch everything. We might not like what Lady Galadriel wants us to do – but she's really put a lot into this production, more than any of us, and I think today we really let her down."
She bowed her head. "I'm not saying this because she's my grandmother. I'm saying this because I made some mistakes too, a lot of mistakes that as an actress I shouldn't have been making, and I'm ashamed of myself now. I think we're all ashamed of ourselves now."
No one said anything, because she was right.
Then Jack spoke up from where he was standing at the door. "Well, mates, we can't go on like this. We've got to apologise – but she's not gonna believe we're really sorry until we show it, savvy?" A shadow of his old grin wavered on the edge of his expression, but his face was still sober. "Performance is in three days' time, mates. There's a lot we got to be doin'. So let's get crackin'."
He gazed expectantly at their faces. Arwen gave him a tearful smile. Aragorn jumped up. "You heard Jack," he declared. "Come on, we're a class, we can do this. Let's – er, get cracking."
Galadriel left the kitchens.
She was perfectly calm. The Lady Galadriel was famous for her talent for perfect calm, not only on the outside, but internally, emotionally and psychologically. Nothing disturbed the surface of the flawless lake of her expression
She walked along the corridor, turned the corner, and felt a presence. Pausing, she let the tendrils of her mind drift along the corridor ahead of her, up the stairs, into the nooks and crannies of the walls, gently probing for another mind to latch onto.
She found it.
"…let your fantasies unwind,
In this darkness which you know you cannot fight
The darkness of the music of the night!"
Jack accompanied this last line with a twirl and a spin, stopping to catch his breath but grinning nevertheless.
"Close your eyes, start a journey through this strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before
Close your eyes, let your – no, wrong – take your – no, wait, I know this – and let music set you free!"
He hit the note perfectly.
Jack threw his hat up into the air in exuberant triumph. "Yes!"
Leaning against the wall, he fingered the hat and gazed out of the windows lining the opposite walls, into the great blue, and sang in a low voice:
"Only then can you belong to me……"
Grinning, he affixed the hat atop his head and strode off down the corridor. "Aye, we're good, mate, we're good."
Galadriel opened her eyes, smiled at the window at the far end of the corridor, and walked on.
Down the spiral staircase, down another corridor, past the suit of armour. She moved silently down the levels, passing empty classrooms, till suddenly she stopped before one. Upon its wall she turned the gaze that could pierce stone and petrify wood, and looked through it.
"…okay, here comes your cue – Maestro, the ballet – now!"
To the tune of Briseis' humming and the rhythm of her foot tapping, Holly raced across the empty classroom, spun slowly, and began to execute the country dance the ballet girls were due to perform during Il Muto, accompanied by Briseis' encouraging commentary.
"…back, forth, skip-skip-skip, remember your crook, yes, wave……"
Sweat was beading on Holly's forehead with the effort. Trying to overcome the lack of grace that was her natural attribute was difficult, but nevertheless she persevered. On Briseis' direction she did one or two passable fouettes.
"…and here comes the important bit! Front, back, side-ways-jump-and turrrrn……yes!"
Holly pirouetted to the right and flopped onto the ground. Briseis ran over.
"See? I told you you it was easy."
Holly was breathing hard, but she still had enough breath to flash a tired grin. "For people who can do it, yes."
Galadriel released the wall from her stare, smiled briefly and continued on past the other empty classrooms. She reached the ground floor, and slipped out of a side door into the school gardens, her favourite place for a stroll of an evening.
She walked through the gardens. The evening, once you really thought about it, was actually quite beautiful, for an evening. She smiled. At her feet, a clump of daisy buds burst into bloom.
Galadriel walked on.
She heard singing.
It was beautiful singing, and definitely quite familiar. Galadriel stopped in the shade of one of the many mallorns planted about the garden, and let her mind flow.
"Say you love me every waking moment
Turn my head with thoughts of summertime
Say you need me with you now and always
Promise me that all you say is true
That's all I ask of you……"
The swing shifted, in the breeze. Arwen had one hand clasped delicately around one of the ropes, the other demurely in her lap. Her eyes had the sea-like dreamy look they always held when she was singing. She shut them, and then opened them again. "Aragorn, it's your cue."
Aragorn was sitting on a curved root at the base of the tree from which the swing hung, supporting his chin thoughtfully. At her reprimanding tone he started. "Sorry, I forget. Do you want to take it from the chorus?"
Arwen smiled graciously. "No, just continue. And remember the new harmony we made up, yes?"
Aragorn obliged. "Let me be your shelter, let me be your light. You're safe, no one will find you – your fears are far behind you……"
"All I want is freedom, a world with no more night – and you, always beside me, to hold me and to hide me……"
Arwen slipped off the swing, and pulled Aragorn up, and together they waltzed down the garden, singing and harmonising perfectly so they sounded like one liquid sound.
"Then say you'll share with me one love, one lifetime
Say the word and I will follow you
Share each day with me, each night, each morning…"
Aragorn spun Arwen in a deft underarm turn, as she sang, "Say you love me…" and finished in a waltz dip.
"You know I do," he said.
She straightened. Together they sang,
"Love me…that's all I ask of you."
There was a pause. The garden was silent, enchanted, steeped in magic. Arwen broke it by gasping, "Was it good? Did we get it right?"
"Yes, we did!"
Arwen gave an exclamation of delight. "We did it! I knew we could! Oh, Grandmother will be so pleased when she hears us……"
Aragorn laughed and kissed her.
Galadriel opened her eyes.
She smiled.
All along the paths of the gardens, daisies burst into bloom.
Andromache knocked briskly on the door of the boys' dormitory. It was opened by Legolas.
"I have a message," she told his frown primly.
"Oh, very well," said Legolas, and stood aside. Andromache surveyed the scene behind him. The boys' dormitory was definitely a lot more boisterous at night than the girls'. Ron and Jack were holding an exciting competition which involved exploding cards, cheered on by several of their dorm-mates, among them Harry and the hobbits, whose singed fingers betrayed the fact that they had previously been engaged in that same competition and had lost. No one was trying to do their homework, except for perhaps Artemis, who was attempting to annotate Merchant of Venice with a fiercely annoyed look on his face, but didn't seem to be succeeding.
Andromache cleared her throat.
Several of the dorm's occupants seemed to notice her, and the noise died down. "What ho, ballet mistress," called Achilles jocularly from where he was stretched out on his bed.
"I have a message," repeated Andromache. "It's important. Galadriel says please meet at four p.m. tomorrow for rehearsal. Two full runs, scriptless. Thank you."
She left. As the door shut behind her, the dormitory exploded into animated conversation. "Yes! We did it!" "She's forgiven us then." "Oh, gosh, where's my script, I need to learn Act II Scene V, it's my worst……"
Jack threw his hat into the air again. It came down on the deck of cards, which exploded, and caused much hullabaloo that took the more responsible members of the dormitory much time to diffuse, in order to gain the rest of them some opportunity to get some sleep.
End of ChapterNext chapter coming…Idioms and Insurgence