Thanks for reading everyone! Review! Even if you are just repeating the section you like, review! REVEIEIEIRIEIEwwwWWW!11! Sorry, got a little excited there. PS: I was playing , and got to first today! :D

"Mr. Frodo? Oh Mr. Frodo I'm sorry for not paying attention, please forgive old Sam for losing you!"

I felt a twinge of pity for the gardener hobbit, because I knew exactly where Frodo was. He was in that mound of snow piled against the cliff-face. You could barely see where the hobbit had collapsed, the snow falling down to hide him. I was about to pretend that I had seen him lying there, because he had to be getting some serious frost-bite by now, but to my relief, Boramir was called to his part in the book. A muffled "Geroff of me! I'm sleeping!" came from the snow pile when Boramir stepped on it.

Boramir jerked back in shock, then pulled the half dead hobbit out of the snow-bank. Frodo blinked sleepily, and it was obvious he had hypothermia. We needed to get somewhere warm, and fast. I racked my brain, trying to remember what happened next. Oh right. The fire drink stuff. The flask of magical drink was passed around, and finally Gazzy handed it to me. Thank goodness, because I was freeeeeezing!

Finally we gave up, shouting reproachfully at the mountain as we wearily trudged away in defeat. The wind howled and snow still battered us from every side as we left. "Enough, enough!" Gimli cried. "We are departing as quickly as we may!" I almost snorted. Not really. We could fly out of this mess in two seconds.

Max, how could we fly in this storm? Angel reminded me. I just turned away with a sigh, and continued pushing my way back through the snow that had piled up while we were resting.

Finally, we got to the bottom of the mountain and pretty much passed out from cold and exhaustion. Oh, how good it felt to cuddle up in the bedroll with Angel, sharing our body heat. I ruffled her hair affectionately, and she smiled in her sleep. "Sweet dreams Angel," I murmured, and closed my eyes, falling asleep almost instantly.

The next morning dawned cold and clear. The sky was the palest shade of blue, with not a cloud to be seen. The air was crisp and clean, and I sighed. Nowhere on earth was this clean and fresh. This world was untainted by pollution, untouched by men. Well, technically it DID have men, but they were a whole lot less of polluting jerks. Everyone but me was up and had eaten already. I scowled. Why had nobody woken me? Of course, I had insisted on being in the front of the fellowship when we were wading through the snow, to carve a path with my strength. I guess they felt that I deserved a good long rest.

I walked over, just as Frodo announced solemnly, "Then we must go on, if there is a way."

"There is a way that we may attempt," said Gandalf, "I thought of it from the beginning, when I first considered this journey that we should try it. But it is not a pleasant way, and I have not spoken of it to the Company before. Aragorn was against it, until the pass over the mountains had at least been tried."

"If it is a worse road than the Redhorn Gate, then it must be evil indeed," said Merry weakly.

"The road that I speak of leads to the Mines of Moria" continued Gandalf darkly. Gimli looked up eagerly, his longing to get there very evident. From what I had read, I had already guessed that they were going to find lots of dead dwarves in there. Okay I'm not that good, Nudge had read a bit further than me, and had recently warned everyone about the death we were going to find in there, the army of orc, the cave troll, and the Balrog, and Gandalf falling to his death. I stared sadly at the old wizard. It was hard, knowing that someone was going to die, but you couldn't prevent it. I COULD prevent it, but it would mess up the story big time, and probably screw up middle earth for good. It had to happen. The rest of the flock sadly agreed.

The Company continued to talk about how VERY EVIL Moria was, and wanted to avoid that place at any cost, and I silently agreed. Even if I didn't know what was coming down there, I was still scared out of my mind, going into a place with no air, no escape. Every single member of the flock was highly claustrophobic. Being kept in cages your whole childhood kind of does that to a person. The long dark of Moria gave me shivers just thinking about it.

We walked a bit longer, till we reached the lake where I knew the mutant octopus thing resided. I was tempted to just slip into the water, and beat the living crap out of the thing's face before Boramir woke it up. Then I had an great idea. I could just distract Boramir, and ta-da, he wouldn't get bored, throw the rock and wake up the monster. And nobody would be suspicious of anything. PERFECT!

"There are the Walls of Moria,' said Gandalf, pointing across the water. `And there the Gate stood once upon a time, the Elven Door at the end of the road from Hollin by which we have come. But this way is blocked. None of the Company, I guess, will wish to swim in this gloomy water at the end of the day. It has an unwholesome look."

"No dip Sherlock," I muttered, staring at the ink black sludge that had mist rising from it in small wisps, carrying along with it a foul smell. I nearly gagged. I almost felt bad for the watcher. If I had to live in that stinking cesspool, I would be pretty grumpy too.

"We must find a way round the northern edge," said Gimli. "The first thing for the Company to do is to climb up by the main path and see where that will lead us. Even if there were no lake, we could not get our baggage-pony up this stair."

"But in any case we cannot take the poor beast into the Mines," said Gandalf. "The road under the mountains is a dark road, and there are places narrow and steep which he cannot tread, even if we can."

"Poor old Bill! " said Frodo. "I had not thought of that. And poor Sam! I wonder what he will say? "

I knew exact what Sam would say: "Bill would follow Mr. Frodo into a Dragon's den if I led him!" Yeah right. Hate to break it to you, but as soon as that horse saw the dragon, it would be out of there. Luckily for us, we weren't to be encountering any dragons in here. No, far worse. A Balrog, which according to Nudge, was massive, made of fire and rock, with giant wings, and a flaming sword and whip. Oh and it was almost impossible to kill. I would take a dragon over that any day.

We finally found the doors and went through the whole, SPEAK FRIEND AND ENTER thing. Gandalf kept calling out random things in Elvish at the door. I knew the answer was the Elvish word for friend, but I didn't want to ask Gandalf what the word was, for fear that he would think I was smarter than I made out (which I was) and start hiding the fellowship's secrets more carefully. I started talking to Boramir, when to my horror, Pippin started skipping rocks across the surface of the muck.

"Oi! I've already beat Frodo's record of five skips! I just got eight! Eight whole skips! That's probably the best in all of Middle Earth! Just imagine the faces of..." he announced.

I didn't let him finish his sentence. I tackled him to the ground before he could throw another stone.

"Oof! Wot was that for?!" he cried loudly. I sighed. He couldn't have known. But what worried me most was not the watcher. Nudge said they got away just fine. What worried me was how easily the story fixed itself. Which might mean...the story might kill us off so the plot wasn't changed. I couldn't let that happen. I had to protect my Flock, even if it meant abandoning the quest.

Of course, the voice had something to say about that thought...

Maximum, Maximum, Maximum... Don't you understand? If the quest fails, you will not be able to get home... And... if the quest fails, because it WILL fail without you, your flock will be killed or enslaved by the orcs, just like the rest of Middle Earth. You are part of the fellowship Max, whether you like it or not.

Geez, a little harsh aren't you?

Maximum Ride! You need to listen to me! There are three times the number of enemies in the book and movie, all of them after the fellowship right now! You will meet unstoppable forces in the Mines of Moria, and you will face challenges beyond anything you have ever faced before!

Can you at least answer me one thing?! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me the triple thing does not apply to the Balrog?!

No, it does not. There can be only one Balrog in Moria, as there can only be one Sauron, and nine Ringwraiths. But Maximum, do not let your guard down at any time.

Yeeees Sir! I thought sarcastically, and the voice was silent. I wondered why the Watcher wasn't coming up out of the water yet. Pippin had thrown the rocks in...What was going on?

After a minute of staring intently at the water and receiving some annoyed looks from Pippin, I gave up. Maybe the Watcher had decided to take a coffee break. Who knew...

I turned back to the fellowship. Gandalf was still speaking all the pass codes he could think of. I knew the answer, but I didn't want to have to ask Gandalf for it. I knew it was friend in Elvish... But what was the word for friend again?

Gandalf:

The girl worried Gandalf very much. He had never seen a woman with as much ferocity as Eowen, that was, until he met the strange Maximum Ride character. She was a mystery, wrapped in a mystery, to say the least. Gandalf scowled, and threw down his staff. For the life of him, he could not think of any more opening words. He had tried every last trick in the book. Not that there was a book of opening words... But he had a knack for memorizing things. He was sure that he had used every possible combination. Wait... Perhaps the word was Mithril...

First he tried in the common tongue, then in Elvish. The door did not budge. What if the word was Mithril, but in Dwarvish? No, that couldn't be, because the dwarves never revealed that word to a soul, so how could anyone but a dwarf ever possibly enter the mines? Gandalf knew they could enter from the east, because that was the path he had taken.

Gandalf's keen ears then heard Maximum muttering under her breath, her voice gradually getting louder with frustration, "stra...rry...a...le...pe..ch...ummm..no..lemon..."

Had the girl gone mad?! Why in Varda was she muttering about fruit?!

"no...canteloupe...no...watermelon...watermelon...watermelon...something about watermelons...yeah...melons...melons...um...what about melons..."

Then it hit him. Of course! How could he be such a fool?! The writing on the door, "Speak friend and enter, should have said, SAY friend and enter. For the entry word was friend! And in elvish, friend was Mellon!

"Of course!" he cried in glee. The fellowship looked at him strangely, as he called out, "Mellon!"

"I knew it had something to do with melons! Watermelllooonn! Hey Nudge, remember that Vine?"

"Yeah! Watermelloonnn!" Nudge cried, a bit too loudly. Gandalf had no earthly idea what they were yelling about. He had a feeling that the 'vine' they were referring to was not the type of vine he was thinking of. He had also never heard watermelon pronounced watermellon! And he certainly hadn't heard someone get so excited about the fruit. Well... maybe the one time he had brought the exotic fruit to the hobbits. Yes, that was a scene that would forever be imprinted in the wizard's mind.