Chapter One: "Many Happy Returns"

(earlier in the day)

“I don’t want to be here, Merry,” came the low statement behind his ear, pitched to be heard beneath the sprightly tunes, as Merry approached the food table set up upon the lawn of the Smials.

“Frodo!” he said innocently, turnign to face his elder cousin while continuing to fill his plate. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You know very well,” the Baggins hissed, crossing his arms over his chest and glancing about to make sure they were not overheard. He ducked his face away from the relatives who tripped past on their way to the dancing. When they had passed, Frodo raised his head again to say,

“I am no longer in the mood for” – he glanced about again and then lowered his voice still further to hiss “birthday parties!” as he glowered at Merry.

“Hoy! Really, Frodo,” the almost-tweenager said as he handed the plate, now stacked high with all sorts of comestibles, to Frodo and began to fill another. The music being played upon the lawn, the claps of the hobbits who merely sat and watched the dancers and the shrieks of the youngsters at play echoed behind him as he continued. “It’s not my fault you forgot it was your own cousin’s birthday.”

Frodo still whispered, but popped a raspberry off the top of the plate he held and began to nibble on it as he responded. “Pearl is much closer a cousin to you than she is to me, Merry, as you ought to know,” he stated.

Frodo bent his face to intently examine the contents of his plate while Merry’s back was turned as he filled up the second platter.

“Oof! Hoy! What’s the idea—“ Merry half-turned, his plate tipping precariously, a sauce of melted cheese dripping onto the biscuits below it. “Pip!” he sighed in annoyance.

The 12-year-old shook his curls from his face and danced a step backward from his impact with Merry’s legs, a smile still on his face.

“Merry! Merry!” he chirruped, dancing from one foot to the other. “Hoy! Look’it!”

He held up a party cracker before his cousin’s face and pulled at both ends so that the papers released with a loud pop and a faint hiss and mist of smoke emerged.

“See, Merry! Isn’t it a good one?” Pippin asked with youthful exuberance.

Merry felt the plate lifted out of the hand he still held over the table behind his back and then saw, out of the corner of his eye as he bent to talk to Pippin, the older cousin stalk away, his back stiff.

“Ah, Pip,” Merry sighed, turning back to the smaller cousin and placing his hands on the little one’s thin shoulders. “You hurt Frodo’s feelings just now, you know.”

“What? Why?” Pippin’s brow wrinkled in concern, and he made as if to dash off after the Baggins, but Merry held tightly to his shoulders.

“Pip. Look at me,” he said seriously, and Pippin turned back to lock his green eyes with Merry’s hazel ones, his chin trembling slightly.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Frodo’s feelings!” he squeaked.

“I know you didn’t,” Merry said kindly, and reached one hand up to brush a curl away from Pippin’s forehead. “But, you se, that smoke from the cracker reminded him of Gandalf’s last firework at his birthday party last year. The one where Bilbo went away.”

“Oh!” Pippin said, distressed, and tried to run off after Frodo again, but Merry still held him fast. “I didn’t know that,” he said softly as he gave up trying to get free and tilted his head back for a better view of Merry. “I fell asleep during the fireworks,” he said, “so I missed that one.”

“Mmm,” Merry said distractedly. He held on still to Pippin, but his gaze had wandered toward the line of trees in the direction Frodo had gone.

Pippin followed his eyes and then looked down at his own feet, twisting his hands together. “Merry,” he whispered heavily, and the Brandybuck’s eyes swung back toward him. “Frodo misses Bilbo very much, doesn’t he?”

“Aye, Pip,” Merry sighed heavily in return and gathered his cousin close in a hug, resting his chin for a moment atop the curly head. “That he does.”