CHAPTER 10

“Hyacinth!” Euphorbia’s shrill voice jolted Hyacinth out of her memories. “Is that room ready yet?”

“Yes, Euphorbia.” Hyacinth wanted to say something cutting, but she didn’t dare.

“Well, if that’s the case, then I need you to go and cut some flowers for the dining room. Use the green vase on the sideboard, and cut some chrysanthemums.”

Hyacinth sighed. Another task. Was there to be no end to her humiliation?

After elevenses, Merry was allowed to stay with Pippin again, although most of the time, someone else was there as well. The sunburn was still painful to the touch, but not so sensitive now that Pippin could not stand to have the bedsheet pulled up. As a matter of fact, he was feeling much better. His fever had abated, and the listlessness was gone from his eyes. Merry was pleased to see it, even though he knew what it meant.

“No, Pip.” It was the seventh time he’d said it that morning. No. Pippin could not get out of bed for any reason other than to use the chamber pot.

Pippin scowled, and started to flounce over, before the movement was checked by pain. “It’s not *fair*!”

“I know.”

“*Please*, Merry? Really, I just want to go and look out of the window for a minute, I promise. *Please*?”

Merry hardened his heart to the big green eyes, brimming with tears and the bitten lower lip, trembling. “Peregrin Took!. I *can’t* let you. Your mum or mine or one of your sisters or aunties could come in. And if they saw I allowed you to get up, they wouldn’t let me stay with you *any more*, do you understand? I won’t risk it.”

Pippin prepared to weep and say “You’re mean, and you don’t love me,” but the look on Merry’s face told him that even that wouldn’t make his older cousin melt, and would just hurt Merry’s feelings. He subsided. “Oh, very well, I suppose.”

Merry gave him an approving smile. “That’s my Pip!” he said proudly.

And Pippin did feel proud of himself when he saw that smile. But his face fell as another thought struck home.

“What can we do, Merry? I can’t sing if I’m laying on my stomach,” he said mournfully.
Merry knew that this was one of the reasons Pippin was so very restless. Usually Merry could get him settled by asking him to sing for him.

“Well, I suppose I could tell you a story. What would you like to hear?”

“How about when you were little and Frodo lived at Brandy Hall with you?”

Merry grinned. Hmm…what could he tell?

Oh. Yes. He’d never told Pippin *that* one. And Frodo wasn’t here to quell him.

“Well, I was only three years old when this happened, and Frodo was seventeen, so I don’t really remember all of it very well myself, but I’ve heard Da and Uncle Dinodas talk about it often enough…

…It was a rainy fall day, and many of the children of Brandy Hall were bored. It was too chilly to play outdoors in the rain and have any fun while they were about it. And this particular rain had been going on for the better part of a week.

Frodo wasn’t as bored as most of the others; the various teens and a few of the tweens were trying to make the best of things in the great dining hall, but he’d found a corner, and was reading the book his Uncle Bilbo had given him on their shared Birthday. It was a tale of Westernesse, the great land of Men, that waslong-ago drowned by a giant wave. Frodo found the account both stirring and disturbing. He had never seen the Sea, and had a hard time imagining that much water.

But now it was hard to concentrate. Some of his cousins had begun chasing one another around the room, and suddenly he found himself grabbed by the shoulders.

“Frodo!” squealed his cousin Laburnum. “Hide me!” She laughed and ducked behind him, and he looked up to see another cousin, Marroc, trying to catch her. Much to his annoyance, they were ducking around him as if he were a tree or something, laughing and yelling at each other.

They shoved him a bit too hard, and his book went flying. “Hoy!” he yelled, finding himself quite angry. He would have shoved Marroc out of the way, to get to the book where it lay, and perhaps the incident would have ended in a fight, for he was rarely angry, but when his temper did get up, it could be fierce. And he truly treasured any gift from Cousin Bilbo.

But he was forestalled by Marroc’s older brother Margulas, who picked up the book, dusted it off and handed it to Frodo in a placating manner.

“I think it’s all right, Frodo,” he said.

Frodo nodded, inspecting the book, and allowed his temper to cool.

“I don’t think this is a good place to read right now,” his older cousin said.

“You may be right,” he agreed.

Margulas turned to his brother and Laburnum, who had suddenly frozen at Frodo’s initial yell and now watched him apprehensively.

At the tween’s look, Marroc said, “I’m sorry, Frodo! We didn’t mean to hurt anything--really, we were just playing.”

“Find something a little less noisy to do,” said Margulas.

The two younger children went off. Frodo took the book, and regretfully put it safely aside on a nearby table. His cousin was right--, there was just too much chaos in here for reading.

Marroc and Laburnum had joined in with a group of children who had decided to play at hide and go seek. Frodo sighed; if he couldn’t read, and as Merry was up in the nursery napping, he might as well join them. He found himself the seeker, as he was last to join the game, and so he dutifully hid his face and counted. And then he started looking.

He found everyone very quickly. Marroc was the last one to be found--he had ducked inside the hearth--but still Frodo found him quickly.

“That’s not much of a hiding place,” Frodo scoffed.

The other children shrugged. “There aren’t any *good* places in here,” complained Laburnum.

“Oh, I’ll bet *I* could find a good place--where you’d never think to look! I’ll bet I could hide so well you’d have to give up!”

“You can’t leave the room!” exclaimed Marroc.

“No,” said Frodo smugly. “I wouldn’t have to.”

“Well, I dare you to find a place in this room that I couldn’t find you.”

“Very well.”

Marroc dutifully hid his face, and with the others watching--”Don’t any of you give me away,” Frodo whispered--he walked over to the cold, swept-out hearth and ducked in.

The others looked puzzled. That was where Marroc had hidden, and he’d been found fairly quickly. But then Frodo began to wriggle--upward!

The children stifled giggles as they watched him vanish up the chimney. A few bits of soot sifted down, and all was silence. Marroc finished counting.

He opened his eyes and looked around. All the other children refused to meet his eyes, and looked steadfastly in other directions. He began to prowl the perimeter of the room, looking in all the likely places, of which there were very few. He stopped, puzzled.

“He must have left the room.”

“Oh, no he didn’t!” several of the children chorused. Some of them began to giggle.

Marroc spent a few more moments casting around the room. He looked at Margulas, who stood to one side, arms crossed and a look of amusement on his face. But Margulas just shook his head.

“Very well,” Marroc said finally. “I give up. Do you hear me, Frodo? I give up!” He called the last out very loudly.

Nothing happened.

“I give up!” he shouted.

A few bits of soot and cinders clattered down the fireplace. Marroc looked startled, as all the children laughed.

“He’s up the chimney!” giggled Laburnum.

“You can come out, Frodo!” Marroc called. “That was a really good hiding place!”

More bits of soot and cinders fell, but no Frodo emerged. Margullas walked over to the fireplace. “Frodo, it’s over! You’ve won the dare! Come on down!”

A shower of soot and cinders, accompanied by a good deal of muffled thumping, but still no Frodo.

The children began to look alarmed.

There were more thumps, some thuds, a good deal of soot and cinders, and a distant yell.

“What did you say?” called Margulas, ducking and looking up the shaft. He moved back quickly as more soot fell.

“I’m stuck! I’m stuck! Get me out of here!”

Now all the children and tweens were gathered around the fireplace, and Margulas was feeling quite alarmed. He was the oldest in the room. He knew who’d get the blame.

With an apprehensive gulp, he stepped into the hearth, and reached up for the barely discernable furry feet dangling above him. But he couldn’t quite reach.

Uh-oh.

Frodo yelled again, his voice muffled., “Please! Get me out!”

“I can’t reach you, Frodo!,” Margulas yelled up the shaft, and then ducked away from the panicked kicking that dislodged more debris.

“Marroc, go and find Cousin Saradoc!”

Marroc took off, returning a few moments later, with Esmeralda and little Merry.

“Saradoc has gone with the Master to check on how the Ferry is holding up to with all the rain,” she said. “He should be back soon.”

She shook her head, as she heard Frodo’s panicked yelling increase. She realized then that he could not hear her. She walked over to the hearth, and shouted up: "Frodo! We will get you out of there soon! Don't worry, dear!" Poor child, it wasn’t funny...but she had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle a grin. Just then she turned to see Menegilda, along with Uncle Dinodas and Uncle Dodinas, and Cousin Seredic, as well as a few other relations.

“Mother Menegilda, what shall we do?” she asked her mother-in-law.

“I suppose we shall have to pull the lad out somehow.” The Mistress of the Hall looked about her. “Dinny, Seri, you two are the thinnest. See if you can get in there and get hold of him. No, wait: Tie handkerchiefs over your faces first.”

The two hobbits did as she had said, pulling handkerchiefs out of their weskit pockets and tying them over the lower part of their faces. Then they ducked into the hearth. But only one of them could fit in the chimney with arms upraised. Dinodas went in first, and grabbed Frodo’s feet, and began to tug. There was movement--just a little, as soot rained down. He inched the child along, until he could no longer stand to hold his arms up; he ducked out, and Seredic took his place.

The two took turns, tugging on Frodo, who was for the most part silent, except for an occasional cry of pain.

The Master and Saradoc came into the room in the midst of the rescue operation, and soon learned what had happened.

Suddenly, there was a great shower of ash and cinders, and both the older hobbits moved back, as Frodo unexpectedly popped free and slid down into the fireplace.

He was a sight: black from head to toe, his clothing in shreds, and his arms, back and shoulders skinned and bloody. Merry worked his way free from his mother’s close-held grasp and his (thankfully!) restored beloved cousin…

“I got just as covered with soot as he was. I was so pleased to see him again. I had been afraid he would *never* come out, and that when we had a fire for the winter, he would get all burned up.”

Pippin was giggling. “Did he get in a lot of trouble?”

“Just the kind of trouble you are in now,” said an amused voice from the doorway.

Merry blushed to be caught by Frodo telling this story on him.

Grinning Frodo came into the room. “My back, shoulders and arms were all scratched up, and I had a dreadful cough from breathing in the soot. I was stuck in bed for days.”

“Just like me?” asked Pippin.

“Just like you,” answered Frodo.