Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. I am just borrowing the characters and situations from Tolkien and New Line Cinema for my own enjoyment and for the entertainment of others.

Peek-a-boo

Frodo couldn’t believe it, but he was stuck in Bag End alone with Pippin who was staying with Bilbo and him as his parents were out of town.  Frodo had yet to be alone with the child when Bilbo had informed him that he was leaving for the market. So now he and the child sat across from each other in front of the fireplace, eyeing one another.

“Well, Pippin. What would you like to do?” Frodo tentatively asked.

His only reply was a giggle before Pippin picked up his own foot, somehow managing to get it to his own mouth and beginning to gnaw on the big toe.

Frodo watched astonished. “That was unexpected! Are you hungry Pip? Let’s go get you something to eat,” he said picking the child up.

Pippin protested the loss of his foot, but soon quieted in favor of nibbling on the tip of Frodo’s nose.

“Ooh Pip, I don’t think that is quite what you want either,” Frodo said resulting in another high pitched giggle.

Frodo, wanting to make sure that Pippin wouldn’t fall, sat the infant on the floor of the kitchen as he went to look for a snack in the pantry. However, this turned out to be a bad idea for although he had only been gone for a few minutes when he returned the babe had already disappeared.

“Great, I lose the baby the first time I’m alone with him. If Merry doesn’t kill me for losing him, Eglantine and Paladin surely will,” Frodo muttered to himself as he searched the room.

‘Now where would I go if I were Pippin,’ he thought to himself as he began to crawl. He had not gone far when he heard a familiar giggle coming from a nearby cupboard. ‘So Pippin wasn’t hungry he just wanted to play, very well,’ Frodo thought as he approached the giggling, slightly open cupboard. Upon reaching the cupboard Frodo opened the door feigning surprise at seeing Pippin which, of course, resulted in gleeful laughter and clapping from the babe.

Frodo picked up the giggling child, tickling him until they reached the parlor where he sat Pippin down and grabbed a pillow. He had played this game with his younger cousins many times and knew it greatly amused them. Frodo sat facing Pippin and hid his own face behind the pillow before suddenly brining it down and saying ‘Peek-a-boo.’ This resulted in more laughter and demands of “Mo Fro, Mo Fro” which Frodo had no choice but to follow, even after the umpteenth time.

When Bilbo got home he found a quite tired out Frodo lying on the parlor floor with a pillow over his head and Pippin sleeping peacefully on his stomach. ‘Poor Frodo. Maybe I should have come home earlier, but at least Pippin is asleep,’ he thought before swiftly exiting to smoke his pipe in peace before a certain energetic toddler woke.