“Everyone in there seats, quiet down, and no funny business.” Orophin walked through the rows of desks, zigzagging as he pleased. When he reached the podium at the front, he placed a leather case on the large table near the slate board that was affixed to the wall. A half-dozen sticks of chalk were resting on a small ledge beside a rag to clean the board. Picking up a piece of heavily used chalk, Orophin wrote something on the board, and underlined it. “Orophin is what you shall address me as, and- yes, you, with your hand up, wearing the questioning expression.”
“Excuse me, Master Orophin, but where is Master Haldir?” asked the young elleth. The class was comprised mostly of youthful elves in their early forties to mid-fifties. Most of them still had a very innocent look about them, including the twin sons of Lord Elrond, who sat beside one another in the second row.
“Bhh-tss-tss.” Orophin waved his hand and dismissed what had been said. “It is not ‘master’ anything. As for your former teacher, he had business he needed to attend to. Did he not tell you he was leaving?” Twenty-eight heads shook simultaneously, including Elladan and Elrohir, who looked a little hurt not to have known that their uncle was being replaced. “Well, he shall be back eventually. In the meantime, I will be your instructor. Now, where did you leave off in your lessons?” Orophin had moved so that he was in front of the desk, leaning against it with his hands steadying him on either side.
The same young lady from the back row raised her hand. “We were learning about circles, and how to measure them.”
“Excellent,” Orophin said, rubbing his hands together. “I always enjoy a little pi with my mathematics lecture.” Twenty-eight pairs of eyes stared up at him in bewilderment. “Right then. Circles. Around and around we go. Let us begin with the circumference. The circumference... is... the...” Orophin paused, watching the quills of the students moving synchronously as he spoke. At his pause, the quills stopped moving. “Are you... all writing down what I say?” he asked, waving a finger in the air as if he were taking notes with it.
Elladan raised his hand, and when he was called upon said, “Master Erestor requires that we write down everything that each of our instructors says. In the case we have any questions later, we can refer to our notes.”
“Right, I should have supposed he would have you do something silly like that,” mumbled Orophin to himself.
“I am sorry, could you repeat that?” asked a student by the windows as many of the others began to write Orophin’s last sentence.
“I said... the circumference of an object is equal to the weight of a horse whose length is half the distance of the trinomial.” Orophin watched in fascination as the quills moved once more, then stopped. “Rutabaga. Parsnip. Turnip.” Hiding his grin with a smirk, Orophin nodded to himself happily about his newfound powers. “Alright, tear that page out; I did that as a test to check your penmanship. Once I review your sheets, we shall begin the real lesson.” Walking down the aisles, he collected each of the pages, and was only given odd looks from his nephews. “Right, then. I would like you to review what you did last week, and we shall start in ten minutes.”
- - -
“Adar?” Elladan bit his lip as his father looked up from the reports he was reading. “Adar, I do not mean to bother you, but would you mind helping us with something?” He continued to chew his lip while Elrond stood up and walked to the dining room table, where his sons had spread out their books and notes for their classes. “Adar, this new math is really stumping me.”
“New math?” Elrond sat down between his sons and motioned that the confusing problems be handed to him, which they were.
Fiddling with his quill, Elladan explained, “Orophin has been instructing us in a new system of mathematics. It is like a code of sorts; instead of numbers you use other things to represent what you are adding and subtracting and the like. For example...” Elladan pointed to the equations he had worked out already. “When one divides a cat by a rooster, they get a pig. And multiplying a chicken by a cinnamon roll will get you an ear of corn. But I am positively puzzled on what to do with the cow and the goat.”
Elrond’s expression was not one of delight as a father might have to know his sons were being educated in a subject few in Rivendell knew anything about, but rather extreme displeasure in thinking just what sort of damage Orophin had been able to cause in only three days. Before he could demand to know just how either of his sons could possibly think for even a moment that adding and subtracting barnyard animals from each other was an ordinary thing in mathematics, Elrohir leaned over and took the sheets from him.
“Here, El, but this is the last time I am showing you. You have to carry the goat before you do anything with the cow, otherwise, you have no balance on this side of the equation.” Elrohir made a few notations and then slid the papers back to his brother.
“Oh, of course!” Elladan breathed a sigh of relief. “Carry the goat. I should have known. I am sorry, Adar, never mind. I suppose I am just nervous when it comes to learning something new.”
Elrond, finding he was speechless at the moment, stood up and left for his office with plans to cancel his morning appointments.
- - -
Orophin closed the door as the last of his pupils entered the room. “First, does anyone have any questions on last night’s homework? Yes, Calisil?”
Blushing slightly as she pushed her dark hair back behind her ears, the elleth said, “I do not really have a question, but I wanted to say, I really understand your math better than Master Haldir’s way of teaching things. It just makes so much more sense how you explain it.”
“Thank you,” Orophin said with a slight bow. “Anyone else? Right, please pass your assignment up to the front then, and-“ He looked up abruptly as the door to the room opened. “Master Elrond, to what do we owe this visit?”
“Oh, please, please, do not mind me, not at all.” Finding an empty desk, Elrond sat down and waved his hand. “Please, pretend I am not here. I just came to see this new math that is all the rage.”
Orophin held the challenging gaze of Elrond for only a few seconds before giving a shrug. “Well then, let us begin.” On the board, Orophin wrote:
If horse is not equal to donkey
And donkey is equal to ass
But horse is ½ house
Prove the following:
Donkey + ass = horse
Donkey + ass + ass = house
Orophin held up the chalk. “Do I have a volunteer?” When no one raised their hand, he said, “Ah, perhaps Lord Elrond might want to give this one a go.”
Suddenly caught off-guard, Elrond shook his head. “Oh, no, really, we should let the children figure this one out.”
“Oh, it is just a warmer,” Orophin said with a flutter of his hand. “I am sure you already know the answer to it. Here, take up and try it.”
“I would... oh, my! Is that Master Erestor calling? He sounds terribly... needing of something. Well, it was a pleasure; I shall not keep you from the lesson...” Mumbling this on his way out, Elrond swiftly closed the door and slid into the nearest classroom, this being Lindir’s music class, while Orophin smirked to himself and called upon a volunteer.
