Part One: Coffee Beans and Trampolines

Tap, tap, tap, Grace tapped her shoe against the edge of the desk, sighing impatiently. What idiot in the administration office decided to put double maths as the last two periods on a Friday? She thought. Tick, tick, tick, the clock hand seemed to be moving especially slow today of all days. She wondered if the clock hated her. Seems so, she huffed. Everybody's eyes were glued to the clock, well almost everybody's. Elizabeth, Grace's sister was quite content to read her Kindle under the desk and ignore the teacher's mindless droning about indices. Catherine, Elizabeth and Grace's friend since nursery, was staring out of the window and into the snow dusted courtyard imagining that Lord of the Ring's was real and that she was doing something much more entertaining, say, chopping off an orc head in Middle Earth. The three friends were almost complete opposites of each other, some people were baffled that they even spoke to each other, but they all shared a love of Lord of the Rings.

Twenty, nineteen, eighteen Grace lobbed a scrunched up piece of paper missile at Elizabeth and another at Catherine. Fifteen, fourteen thirteen, they looked up at her and she grinned mischievously at them, motioning toward the clock with her head. Ten, nine, eight, Grace bounced in her chair thinking excitedly about the L.o.t.R fest they had planned after school. Seven, six, five, Elizabeth packed her bag, perching on the edge her chair in that awkward half-sitting, half-standing position. four, three, Catherine sighed daydreaming about all the chocolate she was about to consume. Two, the classroom was deathly quiet, which was such a rare occurrence that that the teacher looked up with a half-amused, half-annoyed expression as she saw all the children staring at the clock with rapt attention. One, nobody moved, you could have heard a pin drop. Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing there was utter silence for a second then a loud cheer erupted from all around the school, which was quickly cut off by a mini stampede towards the door. By the time that they had got in and out of the book locker room unharmed- a minor miracle itself- everyone was rushing out of the student entrance and towards freedom!

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"Make way for the popcorn!" Grace yelled as she burst into the sitting room, complete with overflowing bowl of toffee popcorn.

"Grace, I like my hearing the way it is, thanks," Catherine sighed, appearing from around the corner of the room, arms full of L.o.t.R films (extended edition), games and books.

"Aww, Cat! You're no fun." Elizabeth teased plopping onto the couch with hordes of chocolate

"Someone has to be sensible, Lizzy." Cat replied, helping herself to the popcorn and chocolate.

"Careful Cat, we don't want you to get out of shape" Lizzy laughed as she watched her friend devour a packet of minstrels.

Cat, Lizzy, or Grace were not the sort of teens who could get out shape easily. Cat had curly, medium brown hair the colour of acorn shells that brushed the tips of her shoulders, hazel eyes, average height and a slim figure that was slightly muscled from sport. Grace had straight, long, dark golden blonde hair that fell to the small of her back, big blue eyes and a slender petit figure. Lizzy had wavy, medium chestnut brown hair that grew to just below her collar bone, sparkling green eyes and a tall willowy figure, too tall in her opinion.

"On with the movie!" Grace yelled happily as threw herself into a tub chair.

"She is already hyper." Cat sighed, glancing at her friend who was bouncing excitedly in the tub chair and talking a mile a minute to herself. "Should we restrict her intake of sugar?" she asked Lizzy, who was now setting up the DVD and fiddling with the surround sound.

"Nah, she's funny to watch." Lizzy replied as she fell into the remaining tub chair. "Oi Grace! Shut up! The movie's starting!"

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The three friends watched The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and were halfway through The Return of the King when suddenly the power went out.

"Great," Cat grumbled "It was getting to the good bit."

"Grace," Lizzy murmured, holding out the popcorn bowl "Could you refill this? There is some more in the microwave."

"Why do I have to be the one to do it?" Grace whined

"Because," Cat said exasperated "We've all been up to get more and you haven't. Also-"

"-We can't be bothered." Interrupted Lizzy

"Ok ok! Refilling popcorn bowl." Grace answered, heaving herself up from the tub chair she was occupying and trudging towards the kitchen, but stopping before her brain was skewered on a spear that was being held by a rather tall and intimidating blonde man, who smelled of horses.

"Cat, would I have to refill the bowl if someone was pointing a large pointy thing on a stick at me?"

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Pandemonium erupted. Chaos ensured. Whatever you want to call it. It happened.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?" Cat screeched, brandishing a large, heavy book (the complete compilation of L.o.t.R) and waving it about suggestively, implying that she was not afraid to use it to knock them out or damage other areas of men's anatomy that would be incredibly painful for them. The man with the pointy thing slowly backed away from her then legged to the kitchen until he was far away from her.

"Argggh!" a loud (rather low) voice cried from the direction of the kitchen "I've shrunk!" The voice strangely sounded like that of Eomer from L.o.t.R

"Me too!" a slightly higher voice announced. This one sounded like Faramir.

"It appears I have as well!" a very high (for a guy) voice cried. This sounded like Legolas, Lizzy noticed and chuckled quietly, earning odd looks from the other two.

"Ok, ok people!" Lizzy said coolly "let's all calm down!" she looked around seeing shadowy figures further down the hallway "and congregate in the kitchen!"

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When everybody was there, the lights finally flickered on. This caused the men to jump and start screeching (in a manly way). When the girls finally caught a glimpse of them in good light, Cat fainted and was swiftly caught by someone who appeared to be Legolas, came to, looked at who was holding her and promptly fainted again.

"I fear for her sanity sometimes" Lizzy muttered

"Soooooooooo," Grace said "who exactly are you lot?"

"We are the Fellowship." A tall, ruggedly handsome (but somewhat grubby) man answered. He looked like Aragon, Grace realised.

Two coughs sounded behind him.

"And assorted individuals."

Cat groaned "Oh boy."

"We're doomed!" Grace agreed.

"And here I was thinking I was going to have a normal Christmas holiday!" Lizzy sighed. "Bugger!"