A Perilous Path

Frodo brushed grass off his breeches and picked a bramble out of his foot hair, peering up at the darkening sky anxiously. "I don't like the look of those clouds, lads.  We'd best go inside before the rain starts." 

Pippin stopped his joyful shrieking long enough to shout down to his cousin, “I don’t want to go in yet, Frodo!”  The eleven-year old hobbit-child drew back his legs and delivered another mighty kick, forcing the swing even higher into the late afternoon sky.  The leaves of the great roof tree above Bag End quivered with the child’s energetic efforts.

Merry yawned and affixed his cousin with a lazy eye.  The last patch of sun was warm on his face as he lay on his back beside Frodo, knees comfortably drawn up and hands crossed over his midsection.  The branches above him sheltered his eyes from the increasing glare of sun through clouds, but those clouds rolling in were increasingly dark and ominous.  Well, it was nearly time for tea anyway.

Frodo sat watching Pippin play, his arms looped around his knees and a light breeze ruffling his hair.  Merry smiled to himself – his plan to invite their little cousin to keep Frodo occupied and too busy to mourn Bilbo’s absence was brilliant.  Even if he did say so himself.  Frodo was looking better, he observed critically, not so thin and drawn, and satisfying Pip’s constant demand for sweets had even resulted in his elder cousin gaining a few pounds.  Merry silently congratulated himself for his own cleverness and yawned again.

Frodo caught the movement from the corner of his eye, turning to nudge him and point at the roiling clouds overhead.  Just then, a fat raindrop splashed discourteously on Merry’s nose.  With a resigned sigh, Merry sat up.

“Merry, it’s going to rain.”  Frodo was already on his feet, hand shading his eyes as he watched the last patch of blue swallowed by grey.  “Would you get Pip off that swing, please?  I’ll go ahead and start tea.”  Frodo made it two steps before a hand clamped about his ankle.

“You are not leaving me to get Pippin off,” stated Merry flatly. 

“You shouldn’t have tried to catch the swing yesterday.”  Frodo tried to kick his ankle free without hurting his cousin.  Failing at that, he declared, “You are the older cousin, Merry.  Make him obey you.”

“He bit me!”

Frodo winced and sat down again.  “I suppose we have a few more minutes.  Maybe he’ll get tired.”

Merry rolled over and idly propped his chin up on bent elbows.  “Look, there’s the post hobbit. Oh, he seems to have a package.  Are you expecting anything, Frodo?”

Frodo leaned forward and glanced down the Hill, then climbed back to his feet to get a better look.  “Pippin!  Your stuffed bear is here!”

With a whoop, Pippin launched himself off the swing and down the Hill at a run, leaving his older cousins to follow more slowly.  By the time they arrived in the parlor, Pippin had torn the paper and string off the package and was hugging his very disreputable toy, cooing to it while he babbled on about his visit to Frodo’s home.  The bear sported one button eye (Pippin had eaten the other when he was a baby) and large bald patches where the rabbit fur had fallen out.  Pippin didn’t care.  He loved the ugly thing with a child’s love, unselfconscious and indiscriminate, not the least because his adored Uncle Bilbo had given it to him.

“Well, thank the stars for that,” Frodo sighed.  He pushed a pile of blocks out of a chair and sat down to distastefully investigate a cup of cold tea left on a side table.  “Now neither of us will have to sleep with him tonight.   I don’t think all of my bruises have faded yet.” 

Frodo and Merry had solved the problem of substituting for Pippin’s cherished toy by allowing the child to stay up as late as he wished.  When Pippin finally gave out and curled up in one of their laps, that one would scoop him up and carry him to bed.  Frodo was rather proud of that solution – tucking an already soundly-sleeping hobbit-child into bed resolved the “Just five more minutes, please, Cousin?” and  “May I have a drink of water?” and innumerable other delaying tactics. 

To Frodo’s bewilderment, meals seemed to be going the same way as Pippin’s proper bedtime.   Somehow his nutritious breakfasts, carefully planned for a growing hobbit-lad, had given way to sweetcakes every morning, piled high with berries and dripping with honey.  Or pie.  Or strawberry shortcake.  Frodo salvaged his conscience by telling himself the berries were fruit, and whipped cream was almost milk, and shortcake was just another sort of bread, wasn’t it?

Frodo was jolted from his guilty thoughts by Merry rooting around in the debris.  “Pippin, you have got to pick up your toys.  I thought I saw…  Here it is.  Look, Frodo, there’s a letter.  It’s from Mum.”   Merry edged carefully past the overturned divan and sought a vacant chair.  The two had been teaching Pippin to build a smial, and the parlor sofa, chairs, and every available table had been commandeered for the structure. 

“What does it say?”

Merry broke the seal and pulled the letter out of the envelope.  “Um … say hullo to your cousins for me … your da and I are well …the pigs got into the kitchen garden again … oh.”

Something in Merry’s tone alerted his cousin.  “Oh?  Oh, what?”

Merry was rapidly scanning the rest of the letter, not meeting his cousin’s eyes.  “Um, Frodo … Mum and Dad are coming for a visit.  They want to see how the new Master of Bag End is doing.”

Frodo stretched out a foot and braced it against a wobbling sofa cushion that comprised one of the tunnel’s “walls.”  Pippin had disappeared with his bear, his progress through the smial marked by a shrill little voice busily providing the toy a tour.  “Oh, good.  When?”  Frodo looked over when his cousin did not immediately answer.  “Merry?”

“Tomorrow.”

“What?”

Merry swallowed. “Tomorrow.  Aunt Eggie and Uncle Pal asked them to check on Pippin.  They’re worried we might be having trouble with the lad.”

Their gazes met, then slowly traveled in horrified unison about the parlor.  A spider web was draped between two beams, its occupant quite evident and comfortably at home. Teacups, mugs, and a plate of what might once have been cheese and pickled onions perched precariously atop a stack of books.  From the jam smears on the hem, one of the curtains at the round window had obviously been used as a hand-towel.  The largest sofa had been turned on its side and draped with a bedspread to form the rear of Pippin’s smial.  Chairs marched out from it on both sides like wings of a building, blankets and quilts draped over all.  Absently, Merry noted that the tile floor had not been swept in quite some time.  Sometime during the construction, Sam had given the lad two small potted geraniums, and Pippin had happily placed these on each side of the “door.”  Both had since been knocked over, dirt spilling out onto the rug, and were looking quite sad.

Merry’s gaze traveled to the hallway, which was lined with an astonishing assortment of toys.  Frodo could not seem to visit the market without bringing back some new plaything for the lad.  Merry could just see the edge of the kitchen table, cluttered with the boiled bones of a dead bird, carefully cleaned and in the process of being wired together.  The table also contained a half-finished kite, an abandoned wasps’ nest, interesting rocks, pussy-willows and cattails, and the unwashed dishes of the last several meals.  Frodo had started piling those on the table when the counters and cabinets overflowed.  Paper scraps and kite string littered the floor.

“I shouldn’t worry about that,” Frodo murmured dismally.  “Pippin seems to have things well in hand.”

“Look, we mustn’t panic,” said Merry firmly, aware his own voice was quavering.

“Why not?” returned Frodo somewhat wildly, coming to his feet and staring about him.  “Merry, I love your mother … but you know how she is about housekeeping.  I swear she has the clouds trained not to rain on her windows.”

Merry frowned. “Frodo, you are exaggerating.  Mum isn’t about to descend on you like the bringer of doom.  She knows you’re on your own now.  Not that Bilbo was any better,” he added disapprovingly, surveying the papers piled in every corner and books stacked on the floor.

Frodo was picking up things and putting them down again, obviously overwhelmed by the evidence of their dissolute lifestyle.  Merry gently took a pile of scrolls from him and returned them to a map case, collecting a fair amount of dust on his hands as he did so.  “What we need is a little help,” he said thoughtfully.

“Sam,” said Frodo immediately.

“And Marigold and Hal and Ham and any other available siblings, and Mistress Gamgee and the Gaffer if they will.  Really, Frodo, I don’t know how you let the old hole get in such a mess.”

“I had help,” replied Frodo darkly, catching up an emptied port bottle that lay half under a footstool.

Merry flushed slightly.  Not yet a tweenager, he’d been quick to add his own order to Frodo’s indulgent market list.  Port wouldn’t have been allowed him at Brandy Hall.  “Ah, yes.  Well, the kitchen is clean enough at any rate.”  He reconsidered.  It had been before the sweetcake incident.  A morning spent mopping really hadn’t taken care of the batter that had flowed under the cabinets and into the cracks.  “Or not.”

* * * * *

“That’s about the lot, Mr. Frodo.”  Sam leaned against the doorjamb and sighed tiredly.  It was late, very late.  The rain had left the star-lit sky clean and the smell of night-blooming flowers created a perfume that drifted in the open windows, battling with the smell of cleaning solutions and soap.  The rest of Sam’s family had gone home hours ago, with Frodo’s thanks and a small but heavy purse of coins and a bottle of Bilbo’s treasured Old Wineyards for the Gaffer.  The old hobbit hadn’t wanted to take it, but Frodo had pressed it upon him, his thanks shining in his eyes.

Merry’s entire body ached.  He’d spent days mucking out the stables that had left him less tired than this.  Frodo looked no better, his fine-boned face drawn with fatigue.  As Merry relaxed in a soft, overstuffed chair, Frodo struggled to his feet and crossed to Sam, placing a hand on the gardener’s arm.  “Sam, I owe you for this.  Anything of mine is yours.  In fact, I have two younger cousins I’d like to gift you with.”

Sam grinned, his own weariness evident.  “Thank you, sir, but I’ve enough o’ me own.  Shall I come by early and help with breakfast?”

Frodo shook his head.  “No, Sam.  Sleep in.  If you’d keep an eye on the road, though, and watch for the Brandybucks’ trap.  I expect they’ll be here between second breakfast and elevenses.”

Pippin had thought the cleaning was wonderful fun, the idea of a neat and tidy Bag End being a whole new concept.  He had watched sadly as his smial was dismantled but Frodo and Merry promised to rebuild it even bigger, so the hobbit-lad was content.  The sofa had been turned upright, the cushions fluffed and replaced, and the blankets neatly folded and returned to the presses.  Pippin had darted from housecleaner to housecleaner, thin chest puffed up with the importance of carrying messages and delivering cleaning supplies.  At long last he had finally given out in spite of himself and curled up in front of the fire.  Merry had carried him to bed and tucked him in, wrapping his arms around the ridiculous stuffed bear.

While Frodo escorted Sam to the door and bade him goodnight, Merry looked proudly around the parlor.  The old hole had never looked so good.  The tile floor gleamed.  The carpets had been beaten and aired, the sweet scent of rain-washed grass lingering in the fibers.  The books had been dusted and returned to the shelves (for the first time in years, Merry thought).  Bilbo’s cherished map of his Adventure had been carefully rehung on the wall, Merry not missing the sorrow in Frodo’s face as he adjusted it on its nail.  Merry wondered where the dear old hobbit was, and if he knew how much his leaving had hurt Frodo.

Frodo returned, rubbing his eyes.  “I need a bath.  So do you, Merry-lad.”

Merry smiled at him.  “I remember when you used to say that to me when I was younger than Pip.  It seemed you were always ducking me in the tub.”

“You always seemed to need it,” his cousin returned.  “Filthy little beggar you were – into every unwatched vegetable garden and dusty, unguarded pantry.”

Merry laughed softly, his blue eyes lit with good memories.  “I was introduced to a life of crime by a certain, unnamed older cousin.  I was a virtuous child, merely led astray by bad influences.”

Frodo grinned at him.  “Come along, off to the baths with you.  I’ll blow out the candles.”

* * * * * 

Merry’s next awareness was of voices.  Not unusual, that.  Pippin was usually the first one up, and it seemed the child either sang or talked to himself (loudly) until either he or Frodo dragged themselves up.  He had almost managed to drift back to sleep when a sharp finger plunged into his shoulder and an excited little voice yipped, “Get up, Merry!  Frodo needs you!”

Merry forced his eyes open.  A pointed little face hung inches from his, one hand holding up his nightshirt to climb onto Merry’s bed.  Wide green-gold eyes stared eagerly into his.  “There’s a squirrel in the grate!” Pippin exclaimed breathlessly.  “It fell down the chimney.  Frodo wants you to help him get it out.”

Pippin continued to chatter happily while Merry splashed water on his face and struggled into his clothes.  Following his little cousin, he came upon the soles of Frodo’s feet projecting from the mouth of the fireplace, framed by his bony backside.  Frodo was crouching on his hands and knees, peering into the parlor grate.  A tiny pair of beady black eyes peered back.

Merry sank down beside his cousin and looked in.  The squirrel chattered at them, fluffing its tail.

“Roast it,” he suggested, not in any good mood.

Frodo gave him a reproachful look.  “Merry.  The poor thing must be terrified.  At least it doesn’t seem to be hurt.”  Merry sighed.  His cousin’s compassionate heart would take him on a perilous path one of these days, he thought darkly.

Frodo inched forward, hands extended to encircle the quivering animal.  The squirrel glanced from approaching hand to approaching hand, its tiny blunt head turning rapidly and its huge, fluffy tail curled about its hindquarters.   

“Here, lad,” Frodo crooned.  “Poor little fellow.  I’m not going to hurt you.  Just you let me pick you up now, and take you outside to all your little friends…”  Babbling idiotic nonsense, Frodo cradled his hands carefully around the soft little body and lifted it gently.

The little beast froze for a moment, then twisted and with remarkable agility, rotated in its skin and sank its sharp little teeth into Frodo’s thumb.  Frodo loosed a yowl worthy of Pippin on his best day and shook his hand frantically.  The squirrel held on, flapping like a furry muff. 

Frodo stumbled back, his initial scream of pain and astonishment drowned by the shattering of crockery as he fell against the side table.  Delicate recently-dusted ornaments crashed to the tiles.  Still shaking his hand, Frodo rocked up and came down on his knees directly on a sharp edge, its crunch lost in his howl.

Frodo surged to his feet, hopping on one leg as more knick-knacks crunched under the tough soles of his feet.  Merry stared up at him, stunned, then snatched up one sharp shard and lunged at the wild rodent.  “Merry!” Frodo yelped, “Don’t hurt it!  Don’t hurt it!”

 Merry dropped the broken crockery and stared at his cousin.  Frodo gave up on shaking his hand and started windmilling his arms, hoping the force would fling the little beast off.  One flying arm smashed into a cabinet, sending its contents flying.  Merry ducked and fell back, shielding his head from the debris.  Dimly, he registered that Pippin was shrieking in excitement even as Frodo fought to master himself to avoid frightening the wide-eyed child.

Yowling, Pippin darted forward and tried to snatch the little beast off his cousin.  That broke Merry’s dumbfounded paralysis.  “No, Pippin!  Get back!”

“It’s trying to eat Frodo!” Pippin shrieked, jumping up to pry off the squirrel, his thin arms battering his cousin.  Afraid that it might turn and attack the lad, Frodo was holding it above Pippin’s head, his arm stretched at full length and supported at the elbow by the other.

“Merry!  Get him off!”  It took Merry a moment to understand Frodo meant the child, not the squirrel.  He darted forward and caught Pippin around the waist as his little cousin tried to climb Frodo like a tree, hand outstretched.  Pippin shamelessly cow-kicked and Merry dropped him, sinking to his knees, both hands curled agonizingly between his legs.  Before Frodo’s horrified eyes, he fell over onto his side with a wheezing whimper.

Unaware of what he had just done to his beloved cousin, Pippin scooted over to the hearth and snatched up a thick stick from the goblin breastplate that Bilbo kept the firewood in.  Merry wrenched open tear-filled eyes just in time to see Pippin leap at Frodo, stick raised, shrieking incoherent battle cries at the top of his lungs.

Frodo sensibly jumped backwards.  “Pippin, no!” he shouted.  “Pippin!”  Pippin closed on him, totally intent on ridding his adored elder cousin of his furry attacker.  The squirrel watched him, black eyes gleaming, as it sank its teeth deeper into Frodo’s hand.

Frodo stumbled back against the side table, and the crystal vase filled with flowers slid to the floor and shattered.  Water splattered everywhere, but worse was the sharp glass, a danger to even tough hobbit-feet.  “Pippin, watch out!  Pippin-lad!”  Ignoring the broken glass, Pippin jumped and swung.  The squirrel leaped free, landing on the mantle.  The stick landed on Frodo’s shin with a muffled thud that resulted in a bellow of astonishing volume from their normally quiet cousin.  Frodo went down in a ball, clutching his leg to his chest, rocking frantically as he gritted his teeth against anguished exclamations unfit for a child’s ears.

Pippin, meanwhile, was in hot pursuit of the squirrel.  He took aim with the stick and let fly but it bounced harmlessly off the mantle to the floor, taking the portrait of Bilbo’s mother that hung over the fireplace with it.  No less agile than the little beast, he scrambled up to the top of the wood piled in the breastplate and pulled himself up onto the mantle.  The squirrel whirled to face him, chattering, sharp white teeth gleaming amidst its blood-stained muzzle.  Its tail plumped out alarmingly.

The lad scrambled over the mantle, sending the candlesticks, Frodo’s pipe and all his cousin’s correspondence crashing to the floor.  But the squirrel was amazingly quick.  In one prodigious leap, it launched its furry body from the mantle to the top of the nearest bookshelf.  Pippin followed.  He, however, was not small enough to perch upon the shelf.  Small hands scrabbled desperately for purchase, then he was sliding down the face of the bookshelf, pulling its contents after him.  The lad disappeared under an avalanche of books and scrolls and such.  The squirrel chattered at the pile triumphantly.

“Pippin!  Pippin!”  Frodo threw himself on the mound and began to dig, flinging books in every direction.  He unearthed the dazed child and pulled him into a hug, unintentionally smearing blood on the back of the lad’s nightshirt.  “Are you all right, dear heart?”

Pippin nodded blankly, then Frodo found himself hugging empty air.  The child duckedunder his arms andwas off the floor in a flash.  He snatched up the nearest projectile – a book - and threw it at the animal.  The squirrel froze for the briefest second, then it ducked and the book (a torrid romance novel, Merry noted with the small part of his mind that was not wholly involved in his misery) bounced harmlessly off the wall.  The squirrel voiced a chitter that sounded remarkably like a sneer, then it was running for its life as Pippin snatched up book after book and threw them at the little beast.  Books smashed into lamps, into bowls, into fragile items.  One knocked off a candy dish filled with sweets that Frodo had just set out that morning, the better to safeguard it from Pippin’s rapacious sweet tooth.

“Pippin!  My books!” cried Frodo in anguish.  He lunged for the child and managed to intercept a book in mid-air.  Unfortunately, he tripped over an overturned chair and he went down with a howl, still cradling the precious book.

“I’ll save you, Frodo!” Pippin cried, misunderstanding the reason for his elder cousin’s pain.  Hobbits are renowned for their aim but little Pippin could perhaps be excused by all the excitement and stress of defending his helpless cousins.  The child snatched up another vase, pulling out the flowers and throwing them on Frodo, and dashed the water at his quarry.  The dirty water drenched the squirrel and its tail went flat in surprise.  It leaped off another bookcase and dropped to the floor.  With a whoop, Pippin was after it.

The squirrel skittered under a chair and Pippin followed, bucking the furniture off him in a scramble of pipe-stem arms and legs.  The little creature shot towards the wall then along it.  Pippin thrust out the vase and flung himself ahead of it.  Beady eyes on the lad, the squirrel ran right into the vase and Pippin clapped a book over the top, and then weighted it down with several more.

Silence reigned, marred only by three panting sets of lungs.  Then Pippin leapt to his feet and ran to his eldest cousin. “Frodo!  Frodo – are you all right?”  Frodo clamped his hand on his bleeding thumb and staggered back against the chair.

“Perfectly, yes, thank you, Pippin,” Frodo replied through clenched teeth.  “Merry, will you throw that miserable creature outside?”

Merry tried an experimental uncurl.  A twinge made him gasp, but he found he could sit up.  “Roasted squirrel –“

“Tempting, but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.  Let it go, Merry.”  Pippin wavered between them, torn between comforting his bleeding cousin and witnessing the spectacle of the creature’s return to the Wild.  His eyes wide with excitement, he dashed off outside.  Merry lurched after him, walking in a strange, hunched over fashion.

“I would have eaten you,” Merry informed the squirrel.  With Pippin supervising, he placed the vase on the ground outside of the smial, cautiously edged back from it and pulled the books away from the top.  The evil little beast didn’t move.  Pippin knelt in the mud in his nightshirt and tapped the container.  The creature shot from it as if catapulted from a sling.  It raced up the nearest tree and chattered at them insultingly from a branch.

Merry sighed and straightened, wincing.  “Well, that’s that.  Oh, Pip, you’re a mess.  Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.  Then we’ll start on the parlor.”

Pippin, however, was not listening.  The little lad was staring down the Hill, where a small pony trap had paused at the entrance to No. 3, Bagshot Row.  Its occupants were leaning over the side, talking to Samwise.  “Oh, no,” murmured Merry.

“Uncle Sara and Auntie Esmie!”  Pippin gulped a great breath to hail them, then Merry’s hand whipped around the lad’s mouth and lifted him off his feet, carrying the surprised child back into the smial.

“Frodo!” Merry roared, “Mum and Da are coming up the road!”  Merry set Pippin down and the child dashed into the parlor, where Frodo was just wrapping a bandage around his hand.  Without a hint of panic, Frodo tied off the bandage.  He straightened his collar, then dusted off his breeches as he checked the buttoning of his waistcoat.  Assured that he was properly and neatly attired, he ran a hand through his hair, slicking down the unruly curls.  Then he turned to Merry.  Merry readied himself to leap into action, knowing he could trust his elder cousin’s handling of any crisis.

“Right.  We never got their letter … remember that, lads.  Both of you - out the back door.  We’re hiding at the Gamgees until they leave.”

* TBC *