Katy and I were standing next to the black board, or the quote board as we call it since students are always writing quotes on it and more often then not I can be found writing amusing Lord of the Rings phrases on the board… Or ‘famous last words’, but we won’t get into that now.
Anyway, I had just written a nice little quote on the board, "What news from the North, Riders of Rohan?" (as everyone knows, they had come from the North, and were riding to the Mark) when the bell rang and we all had to take our seats for Physics.
‘Oh, yay!’ I thought, ‘maybe we’ll get to dissect frogs today! Oh, wait this is Physics… Think Physics, Rachel… Maybe we’ll get to throw stuff off the roof today!’ This random thought brought a smile to my face, as the teacher droned on, saying something about a test.
‘I wonder, would Aragorn fall faster or Sam?’ I thought.
"—And that’s your homework for tonight," the teacher finished, interrupting my deep, complex thoughts.
"Katy, what’s the homework?" I asked seconds later.
"Um… I was just gonna ask you that same thing," Katy admitted, "after all, you looked like you were paying attention."
"Wobble."
"What?"
"Oh, nothing. I’ll go ask Mrs. Slegh what our homework is." I said and walked to the front of the room mumbling about how nice I am over my shoulder to Katy.
The next day, I walked into the upstairs Physics room and was dismayed to find that my precious Lord of the Rings quote had been erased (or expunged as we learned in language), and I would have to start all over. I sighed and sat down. Soon the class was full (well, relatively speaking as there are only about a dozen students in our class), and Katy and I were pondering what to write on the quote board next.
"I will write a quote on this quote-board!" Katy exclaimed, and proceeded to write ‘quote’ on the blackboard. I wrote one too, ‘Elen sila lumenn omentilmo’ which in English would say, ‘A star shall shine on the hour of our meeting’. I had only recently printed out a list of elvish phrases, so I was busy learning them all… Especially the insults, and this seemed as good a time as any to practice my skills.
No sooner had I finished my quote, then I started to get dizzy. There are really strong fumes in the room as the chemistry classes are doing their ‘sludge tests’ so I figured I just needed some fresh air. I sort of stood up and made to head to the door when I blacked out and found myself lying on the ground some time later.
‘Gee, I feel like I’m lying on the ground’ was the first thing I thought. The next thing I thought was, ‘Crappers! I was in Physics and I fainted in front of everyone!?’ So I did the only logical thing I could think of: I sat up. Then I stood up. I looked around at my surroundings, perplexed. ‘Why am I in the woods?’ I wondered, ‘And perhaps more importantly, how did I get in the woods, and what woods are these?’
I noticed there was a stream near by and frowned. It isn’t really strange in itself to find a stream in a forest, but there weren’t any forested streams anywhere near my house. So naturally, I decided to follow it.
I hadn’t walked long when I noticed someone else walking towards me up the stream… That’s not to say they were actually ON the stream, they were ON the bank walking in the opposite direction the stream was flowing. ‘What, is it national get lost in a forest day and no one told me?’ I wondered.
It wasn’t long after that when I realized I knew the person wandering up the stream. "Katy!" I shouted with glee.
"Rachel!" She shouted back. I use the word ‘shouted’ here very loosely as neither of us talk very loud, so it was shouting when coming from us. "I’m glad I found you!" She told me, as if she had just accomplished a very difficult feat which had preoccupied the last several weeks of her life, "So, where are we?"
"In the woods." I answered her, being helpful as always.
"I can see that," Katy responded, rolling her eyes, "But I don’t recognize these woods, and by the look on your face, neither do you."
"Last thing I remember is I was in the Physics room writing quotes on the board when I suddenly blacked out." I told her, shrugging.
"Yeah, me too."
"So… Should we find where the stream came from, or where it was going?" I asked, "Downstream or upstream?"
"Well, I figured there was likely to be a town upstream where the water is cleaner." Katy said, explaining her logic.
"And I figured there was likely to be a town downstream where the stream is wider." I explained.
"Ok, we’ll go downstream." Katy said with a nod. So we walked downstream, only I was wrong, and there wasn’t a town. The stream did get wider though… Meaning it widened into a swamp or marsh of some sort.
"Well," I said helplessly, "at least it widened." Katy mumbled something under her breath, and I ignored her, not sure if she had meant me to over hear or not although I noted that the tone indicated it was a less than friendly comment—not at all polite. Having little choice, we continued to make our way through the muck.
"Katy do you have any food?" I asked at length, the sun was just beginning to lower in the sky.
"No, we just came from school, why would I have food?"
"Because I’m hungry." I said. If I’m hungry she should always have food. I think it’s some physical law or something. And since it was now apparently broken, I deduced that we weren’t near her house.