Chapter 4 - The Long night

“You two are in trouble!” yelled Pervinca as she walked alongside the wagon coming up the lane, with her cousin driving it. “Mother and Father have been looking all afternoon for you two--where have you been?” She saw their tattered clothes. “What in the Shire have you lads been up to?”

When the Wizard’s cart came to a halt behind it, Pervinca curtsied. “Good evening, Mister Gandalf,” she said ever so sweetly to the well-known wizard. Gandalf only nodded his greeting, though the fiery young girl amused him. Then Pervinca turned away, continuing to admonish her brother, “Father didn’t give you permission to leave the smial, Pippin. He told you to stay in the yard, didn’t he?”

Ignoring his sister, Pippin started to climb out of the wagon seat. His head was really starting to throb, feeling light-headed and shaky.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“He heard you, Pervinca!” Merry called to her as he stepped around to the backside of the wagon. “If he were six miles away he still could’ve heard you.”

Pervinca saw the cask. “I wouldn’t be so flippant, Merry. When father sees you and Pippin took one of his beer barrels, he will have a fit.”

“We didn’t take it on purpose,” said Merry, now on the offensive.

“Merry--help!”

Merry looked over to the passenger side of the wagon where Pippin was hanging onto the side, legs flailing in effort to gain hold somewhere. Merry ran to his cousin and helped him down. “What happened, Pip?”

“I think I slipped...or the wagon was spinning,” said Pippin, rubbing his sore wrist.

“We’d better get you inside,” Merry said, guiding Pippin by the hand. Hoping Gandalf would remain quiet about this; though he knew he still had to appease Pervinca. He turned to the wizard sitting in his cart, “Thank you, Gandalf.”

“Come here, lad,” Gandalf motioned for Merry to come closer. He noticed something was amiss with the little Took since he saw them in the road. At first he supposed it to be the result of drinking beer, but now thought otherwise. “What is the matter with Peregrin?” Merry explained to Gandalf about Pippin’s fall from the loft the day before.

Gandalf stepped from his cart, meeting the lads half way. He crouched down to get a better look at the hobbit-child as best as he could, however he found that he still had to bend lower; Pippin barely reached two-feet eight-inches. “How does your arm feel, lad?” Gandalf took Pippin’s arm, unwrapping the bandages that supported his wrist. No bruising, but it was still swollen.

“My wrist,” answered Pippin, “and it’s still sore.” He then added proudly, “I broke my other wrist at Frodo’s thirtieth birthday party.”

Gandalf smiled, “You certainly did, didn’t you.” He re-wrapped the hand and injured wrist then tilted the boy’s head back towards the light to get a better look into his eyes. “You have a nasty bump on the back of your head.” He gently pressed the lump.

Pippin yelped at the tenderness. “I have a headache and my tummy isn’t feeling well. I want to take a nap, Mr. Gandalf.

“As you should have been doing instead of playing truant in the road,” replied the wizard. He looked to Pervinca, “Where are your parents?”

“Out looking for Pippin and Merry, sir,” answered the girl. “Pearl went with them, but Pimpernel is inside the smial.”

Pippin’s eyesight would most likely recover fully in a day or two, but the wizard had a soft spot in his heart for little Tooks. Gandalf swept Pippin up into his arms, “Good, I will tend to your brother out here.” The older children followed the wizard as he sat Pippin in the back of his cart. “Not a word,” he cautioned them.

“Are you going to cast a spell on him?” asked Merry. During his visits at Bag End, Frodo had told Merry many variations of how the wizard could enchant a misbehaving child--to keep him in order. Those stories were enough to keep a naughty young Merry in line…sometimes.

“I should think not!” Gandalf gave Merry an odd look, wondering where the young teen would get such an idea.

Merry and Pervinca quietly watched as Gandalf touched Pippin’s forehead, murmuring something under his breath. The observing cousins half expected fireworks to suddenly fly off the cart, or perhaps even for Pippin to rise up and glide around the courtyard. But nothing happened. Did Gandalf truly possess magic?

“Now off to bed you go, lads!” Gandalf brought Pippin down off the cart, placing the boy’s hand inside his cousin’s. He looked directly at Merry, “You, lad, have a long night ahead of you. Farewell!” Gandalf got back into his cart, turning it around and headed back down the lane.

Merry stood silently watching him disappear down the lane. That was it? No magical healing for his younger cousin? He noticed nothing different about Pippin.

To avoid an angry Pimpernel, Merry and Pervinca helped Pippin inside the back door of the smial, leading him straight to his bedroom. Next, he helped Pippin into his nightshirt and then into bed. The injured and inebriated young Took laid his weary head upon his pillow, instantly falling asleep.

Pervinca folded her arms, sitting next to her cousin on Pippins bed. “So where have you two been all afternoon?” she whispered.

“Out.” It was the only answer Merry would give.

“Out where, Merry? If you don’t tell me, then I shall tell father, and then you will be in a lot of trouble!”

“We both know you’ll tell anyway.”

Pervinca looked injured, “What makes you say that? I don’t always tell about everything.”

Merry knew his younger cousin was like putty in his hands. She was soft clay ready for molding. He answered, “Yes, you do.”

“Do not.”

Then he folded his arms as well. “All right, if I tell you--and should anyone else find out, I shall call you a snitch for the rest of your life.”

Pervinca’s eyes got wide as she thought about what might be a scandalous secret, against reporting all she knew of her brother and cousin’s audacious behavior to her parents. This would be a test of her resolve! “All right, Merry, tell me--and I won’t give it away.”

“Promise! That’s the deal! Take it, or leave it!” Merry grinned, toying with Pervinca’s appetite for gossip, “and it’s a juicy tale!”

“All right, I promise!” Pervinca was dying to know.

Merry went into his and Pippin’s…little excursion. Of course, he had to make it sound interesting, so he did exaggerate just a bit. Pervinca made a shocked face more than once, and laughed when he told of Pippin trying to swindle Gandalf.

“Now you promised to never to tell a soul,” Merry cautioned her.

“I did,” Pervinca replied, still laughing, “and for your reward, I might even help you keep father from finding out about his stolen barrel.”

“Good.” Merry thought that perhaps Pervinca wasn’t a bad companion after all. Then he remembered the wagon and all it‘s contents was still in the yard. “Let’s go hide the evidence.”

After he and Pervinca stealthily hid the boxes of biscuits, apples, money, and the beer, Merry wearily got into his own nightshirt, turned down the bed linen, then collapsed onto the soft mattress. Like Pippin, he instantly fell asleep.

In his dreams, Merry saw himself walking not on the green grasses of the Shire, but on the cold flagstone streets of a foreign city. It looked made up completely of rock and stone. All about in the fields below lay charred bones and corpses. In an instant, he was inside his own dream-body. The world now looked hazy and grey; smoke drifting all around him. He was blind with tears while a darkness and despair swept over him, threatening to devour him. Merry’s heart pounded inside his chest until he saw Pippin’s face before him. Merry tried desperately to hold onto his dearest friend.

Then Merry awoke with a start. His room was dark; lit only by the light of the moonlight outside that shone through the window. The act of using Pippin’s blindness in a prank didn’t seem so funny now. When his trembling began to subside, he found that he could not--or would not--fall back to sleep. It would be a long night indeed.