Chapter 2:

Pippin stretched himself comfortably in his bed, when suddenly there was a knock at the door.

“Master Peregrin,” he heard Becky, one of the Tooks housemaids calling,” Mister Brockhouse awaits you in the study.”

“I am coming!” Pippin called back in a bad mood. “Arithmetic! Bah…”. He didn´t feel at all like sitting down in the study and wasting his time!”

Quickly he got out of bed. Because he had slept in his trousers and shirt, as he had done the past several nights, he did not have to dress, and washing his face and brushing his hair he thought was not that important.

He opened his drawer and took out a shiny penny, turning it around in his fingers, before he put it into his trouser pocket.

Then he opened the window, looked cautiously around the edges and when he deemed the air clear he vanished soundlessly.

Some minutes later there was another knock at Pippin´s door.

“PEREGRIN! You cannot let Mister Brockhouse wait!” The door was thrown open and Paladin looked inside the empty room.

Frustrated he hit with the flat of his hand against the hard wood.

“He´s run off again!” he growled.

Paladin was boiling with anger, but at the same time he also felt fear.

Fear that he had failed in the bringing up of his son. Fear that he was losing Pippin.

In the past, when Paladin had only dreamed of having a son one day, he had always dreamed of a lad who was big and strong and sensible.

Pippin was so different. He was small and slight. Dreamy and careless, impulsive and adventurous.

But he was also merry and open, full of charm and with a big heart and infectious laughter.

Paladin sighed and stepped into the chaos that filled the room of his son.

He looked around and shook his head. That was at least the Pippin he remembered. What had happened? What should he do? He felt powerless. He just wanted to have his little lad back, but he had the feeling as if he was losing him a bit more every day.

Pippin wasn´t the first one this morning who came to the meeting-point. Red was already there and was contentedly smoking his pipe.

“Hello Red, everything fine?” Pippin greeted the other Hobbit.

“Sure Pip, just had to clear off fast. My gaffer wanted me to help him in the tater field!” He grinned and held the pipe out to Pippin.

“Do you know how to smoke?”

“Of course!” Pippin replied. “Merry showed me!”

“Ah, that Brandybuck cousin of yours? That one you have to forget Pip. Ragger would not be at all happy to hear that he still ghosts around in your mind. I mean, he has no time for you anyway, has he? And you belong to us now!”

Pippin looked sadly at the ground, but didn´t said anything at this.

He missed Merry so much. But he also was very angry with him, because Merry had no time for him anymore.

Red pulled Pippin out of his cloudy thoughts. “Here, Pip, take one.” he said and held a small can out to him in which were laying the little green berries that Pippin had already got to know quite well in the last weeks.

Pippin put one of them in his mouth and soon he felt a warm and relaxed feeling growing in him. He started to joke around with Red and Merry soon was forgotten.

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Merry let his pony gallop as fast as it could on the long way to the Tooklands with just the most necessary rests. His thoughts circled around Pippin. Just what was the matter with his little cousin?

Should he, Merry, have reacted earlier?

For some weeks he had had the feeling, that something wasn´t right, but he had to study so much and therefore he had surpressed that feeling.

Normally Pippin had always written many letters, when they weren´t able to see each other. But in the last two weeks there was not one songle letter from him and even before that his letters started to arrive more rarely and they also were very brief. And somehow, Merry realised, also colder.

First Merry was happy when Pippin had written him that he had found some new friends, which whom he did a lot.

When the letters came more rarely Merry put it down to the fact that Pippin was just busy having fun in the Tooklands with his new friends.

But when the usual line of “I miss you Merry!” vanished away out of the letters an alarming feeling had started  to spread out in his stomach.

Why just had he ignored it? Who were these “new friends” Pippin was hanging around with?

Merry gave his pony a little kick with his heels again. He soon would know.

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The ´Tookland Trolls´ in the meantime were having fun pestering a young hobbit lass.

Ragger, D, Red and Perry were blocking the scared lass from walking on. Pippin held himself in the background. He knew the lass. She was two years younger than he and very nice. Her father was the baker of Tuckborough and it was Malyda´s job to deliver bread and cakes ordered by the older Hobbits on the surrounding farms.

“What do you want?” Malyda asked, shocked, when the lads stood in her way.

“What do you have in that basket of yours?” Ragger asked and pointed at the large basket Malyda carried on her right arm.

“B..bread..a..and…ca..cake…” the lass stuttered.

Red grabbed Malyda´s arm. “We are hungry! Surely you have nothing against sharing, have you?” he asked in a threatening voice.

“Hey mouse,” Ragger called out to his youngest member. “Don´t stand around there as if struck by lightning. Here…” he threw a small sack at Pippin. “Put everything edible inside there!”

Hesitatively, Pippin picked the sack off the ground and walked to Malyda. She stared at him, speechless.

“Pip?”

Pippin started to take piece after piece out of the lasses basket and to put it into the sack. The whole time he held his head down. How could he look her in the eyes?

As soon as the sack was filled, Ragger grabbed it out of Pippin´s hand and the lads ran off.

Pippin stayed a short moment longer in front od Malyda, who was looking at him wide eyed.

“Pip, what do you have to do with them?”

“I am sorry,” he whispered. “Please don´t tell on me!” He pressed the penny that he still had in his pocket into her hand and folowed his friends.

When they reached the meeting-point the stolen booty was eaten and with the help of the Brandy and the berries Pippin´s depressed mood vanished away quickly and he eagerly planned new pranks with the others.

The day passed. The lads went to bathe in the little pond, caught some frogs and built little rafts for letting them float about on the water and they rolled around in playful fights on the soft grass.

After that they played more successful tricks; they let all of Farmer Chubb´s ponies out of the paddock and found it highly amusing to watch the Hobbits running behind them and trying to catch them. They also pulled a very successful raid on Farmer Burrow´s vegetable farm.

After that Pippin sat happily leaning back against a tree trunk and watched the setting sun, which seemed to be a lot more colourful than usual.

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Merry, who had reached the Tooklands late that afternoon, began after a short talk with Paladin, to search in all the places that he knew that Pippin liked. Without success.

Sighing, he returned to the Great Smials and decided to wait for Pippin in his room.

He sat himself in an armchair and started to read a book in the weak light of dusk. Merry´s gaze wandered now and then to the door and the window. Finally he stood up and looked out of the window. Here was Pippin?

He was really worried. It had become dark in the meantime and still there was no sign of him.

Merry lit a lamp and sat down again in the armchair.

After some time his head started falling to the side and he dozed off. The clock struck 11, when Merry woke up with a start. Some sound had awakened him. He looked around. A small shadow came climbing through the open window. With a hollow bang it landed on the floor and started to giggle.

“Pip?” Merry asked and turned the flame in the little lamp higher.

The giggling went silent. Two eyes looked up at Merry. “Mer?” What are you doing here?” Pippin said, before he again broke into a loud giggling.

“Did you always have that nose?”

Merry stared at his little cousin. He could find no words. He grabbed Pippin by the arm and pulled him up to his feet. The odour of alcohol filled the air.

“You are drunk!” Merry said coldly, and inside he felt rage boiling up.

“I know!” Pippin replied and again shook with giggles.

Merry felt lost. He had not reckoned on such a situation.

“Pippin!” he said and hoped his voice sounded firm. “That is not funny!”

Pippin stopped giggling and looked up at Merry. But it was hopeless. As soon as his gaze fell on Merry´s nose again the giggling started anew.

Merry sighed and led Pippin to his bed, pressed him on his shoulder down onto the mattress and sat down next to him.

“We had so much fun today Merry!” Pippin began to tell excitedly. “We took bread and such from Malyda… but I gave her a penny…and…”

“A penny that rightly belongs to your mother,” Merry threw in dryly.

Pippin blushed quickly, but then ignored Merry´s comment. “And we went bathing and caught frogs and we tried to build a fire, but it didn´t work…and then we let all the ponies run free and later we were at Burrow´s farm and we got a whole sack full of vegetables and Ragger said that ….”

“RAGGER?!” Merry spit the name out. “Pippin, don´t tell me Ragger and his band are your new friends! You got annoyed and bullies around by them often enough!”

“Not anymore Merry! I am a Tween now! I am nearly an adult! And Ragger and the others are very nice!”

“Pip, you don´t believe yourself what you are saying, do you? Firstly, you still have 13 years to go before you can call yourself an adult and secondly, Ragger is just a mean….”

“Pay attention of what you are saying!” Pippin interrupted him. His eyes sparkled angrily. “Nobody offends the Tookland Trolls!”

“The Tookland Trolls?” Merry repeated questioningly.

Pippin pushed up the sleeve of his right arm and showed Merry the small T that was cut into his arm.

“Yes, the Tookland Trolls! We are the best!”

“PIPPIN!” Merry cried out, both shocked and angry at the same time. “You aren´t serious, are you?”

Pippin narrowed his eyes and growles at Merry. “You do not have to look at me like that. At least my new friends still HAVE TIME FOR ME!”

He screamed the last words at Merry.

“Pip…I…” Merry began in a calmer voice, when he started to realize what Pippin´s behaviour truly was about.

“Let me alone!” Pippin hissed at him. “You are so good at that anyway!” He lay down on the bed and turned his back to his elder cousin.

Merry knew that tonight he could not achieve anything. Pippin had closed up. He laid a hand on his shoulder. “We will talk tomorrow morning. Get some sleep first.” he said, worry and sadness heavy in his voice.

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The next morning around time for secons breakfast Merry cautiously knocked at Pippin´s door, opened it quietly and stuck his head inside.

“Pippin?” he asked and looked around. But Pippin was nowhere to be seen.

Merry shook his head, sighing. What should he do now?

Suddenly he felt a hand come down on his shoulder and turned around, startled.

“FRODO!!!” he cried out. “What are you doing here?”

Frodo smiled at him. “I guess, the same as you. I set off before dawn from Bag End because I hadn´t heard anything from our little cousin for quite some time and just wanted to check if everything is all right with him.

You look troubled Merry. Come, let´s sit down. What´s the matter? Where is Pippin?”

“I wish I knew that, Frodo. Pippin is involved with the wrong Hobbits. Do you remember Ragger Took and those other three good-for-nothing lads, Perry, Driam and Maredro?

Pippin calls them his new friends and lets himself being influenced by them, Fro. He stole money from his mother and he plays truant from his lessons.

Also… when he came back last night he was drunk. And.. and...Frodo, it is all my fault. Pippin feels neglected by me.”

Frodos forehead wrinkled with worry as he listened to what Merry had to tell.

Than he pressed a kiss to his cousin´s blond curls.

“You are not responsible for Pippin´s misbehaviour, Merry. Come, let´s go and look for him. I will try to talk some reason into him.”

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“This time it will work!” Perry said to Ragger, while he built a pile out of the sticks that D, Red and Pip brought to him.

Ragger was busy sharpening five longer sticks with his pocketknife, so that they could roast the sausages stolen out of Driam´s aunt´s larder.

He grinned. “Well I hope so, Perry. My stomach is already complaining!”

Pippin had felt terrible when he woke up, but now he was running laughing behind D, waving a stick that he had collected for the fire around through the air like a sword.

He nearly felt as he had in old times shared with Merry.

Merry…

No, he did not want to think of Merry now.

Soon a small fire was burning and the lads sat around it and held the sausages, which they had poken on the sticks over the flames.

As always at their meetings, their moods soon became very boisterous and none of the lads noticed that the wind had blown some sparks into the nearby dried out stubble of the adjoining field.

Suddenly Pippin saw the growing flames and gave a small cry. In the same moment a shirriff came running up behind them and Ragger, D, Red and Perry jumped up. They let everything lay where it was and ran.

Pippin called after them. “Hey wair, we have to put out the fire!”

Because he had his back turned to the hill over which the shirriff came running Pippin had not noticed him yet.

With an iron hand he was grabbed by the collar.

“You stay here lad! Fast, help me to smother the flames with earth!”

Pippin did as he was told. Soon the fire had died down and he was standing in front of the shirriff with his head hanging.

“You have to come with me lad. Who are your parents? Don´t you know that it is not safe to make a fire on a dry summer day like today?”

The shirriff examined the child more closely and then looked around. A bottle lay tipped over on the ground and a small can with green berries stood open near the lads´ fire.

He bent down and took a berry in his hand. “Have you swallowed those, lad? Your parents will not be happy with you.”

Pippin stared at the elder Hobbit. He trembled. What would his father say, when a shirriff brought him home? He would be so terribly disappointed in him.”

Reflexively Pippin spun around and ran.

“Stop!” he heard the shirriff calling after him.